Odessa Sea

by Clive Cussler

  From his vantage by the window, Dirk kept a lookout to sea, eventually spotting a blue-green dot sliding across the horizon. The turquoise-colored Iberia, an intermediate-sized NUMA oceanographic ship studying subsurface currents in the southern Mediterranean, slowly sailed into the harbor and docked at Cagliari’s inner port facility. An energetic captain by the name of Myers welcomed them aboard a short time later.

  “Thanks for swinging by and grabbing us here,” Dirk said.

  “No trouble at all,” Myers said. “We were running low on fuel and water and needed to make a port run anyway.” The captain swayed on his feet, feeling the leftover effect of some bumpy seas. “The crew is quite excited to be participating in a shipwreck search.” His eyes were bright. “Everybody is wondering what it is. A Phoenician trader? Maybe a Roman galley?”

  “Nothing that exotic,” Dirk said. “Just a rusty World War I cruiser named the Sentinel.”

  As the Iberia finished refueling, a black sedan sped onto the port facility, then slowed as it neared the NUMA ship. A passenger snapped photos of the research ship with an electronic tablet, which went undetected through the tinted windows. The car motored to the end of the dock and parked near some containers, facing the port’s exit to the sea.

  Dirk made his way to the bow and watched the deck crew retrieve the mooring lines. Summer joined him as the Iberia got under way. They stood at the prow as the Iberia eased out of the harbor, watching the historic city slip away behind them.

  “Do you think he might have followed us here?” Summer asked.

  “Your blond friend? I doubt it. We have insurance this time even if he does show. But he probably took the blue binder and ran back to Moscow. I bet he’s two thousand miles from here.”

  “I hope so,” Summer said.

  But intuition told her that wasn’t the case.

  • • •

  MANSFIELD WASN’T two thousand miles away but instead nine hundred. The Russian stood on the bridge of a dilapidated salvage ship he’d boarded six hours earlier in Athens. But the vessel’s shabby appearance was only a disguise, concealing its true purpose as a spy ship. Diverted from tracking NATO ship maneuvers in the Adriatic, the ship sped east across the Aegean, crossing above the Cyclades chain of Greek islands.

  Mansfield stared at the expanse of blue water off the bow, then turned to a grim-faced man near the helm. “Captain, how much longer until we reach northern Chios?”

  “About three hours.”

  A GRU intelligence officer like Mansfield, the captain resented being pulled off his assignment in the Adriatic to chase a shipwreck. “How accurate is your target position?”

  “I can’t say. They’re German coordinates from the vessel that sank her. It’s all we have to go on.” Mansfield ignored the captain’s frown. “What do you have on board in the way of survey equipment?”

  “We have an older towed array side-scan system, but the hull-mounted sonar is far superior. I’ll lay in a survey grid around your coordinates.” He stepped to a computer terminal at the rear of the bridge, leaving Mansfield standing there.

  The agent stared at the horizon, making out the faint shape of land in the distance, then retired to his cabin two decks below.

  The blue binder lay on his bunk. He picked it up and reread it for the tenth time. The data suggested the Pelikan sank with the gold, yet something about the timing of the events bothered him. The scheduled rendezvous and the submarine’s sinking had occurred very close together. Still, it was all the information he had. He felt like he was assembling a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

  He dozed off while studying Hunt’s letters only to be awakened by a sharp rap on the door. He shook off the sleep and opened the cabin door, surprised to find the captain.

  “We have arrived at the coordinates,” he said.

  “Thank you for alerting me. Are you prepared to initiate the survey?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “And why is that?”

  The captain gave a sly smile. “It appears that someone else has already beaten you to the wreck.”

  63

  Mansfield followed the captain to the bridge and looked out the windscreen. A half mile off the bow lay a blue-colored salvage ship. “Who is she?” he asked.

  “A Croatian-flagged ship named Nevena,” the captain said.

  “Is the hull-mounted sonar activated?”

  “It can be momentarily.”

  “Activate the system and take a tight pass across their stern.”

  Mansfield moved behind a computer station where a crewman activated the multibeam sonar system. A colored image of the seafloor appeared, scrolling as the ship moved. The captain followed Mansfield’s directions, taking the vessel within fifty meters of the Nevena.

  As they drew near, the Nevena radioed the Russian ship. “We are engaged in underwater operations, please do not approach.”

  “Affirmative, passing clear.” The Russian captain nodded at the helm to hold course.

  A pair of tough-looking crewmen scowled from the Nevena’s stern deck as the spy ship glided past.

  Mansfield studied the sonar monitor as a dark line appeared and expanded into the cigar-shaped image of a submarine.

  The captain ordered the helmsman to proceed another mile and stop engines, then stepped to the sonar station. He glanced at the wreck’s image captured on the screen. “Looks like your submarine.”

  “Can’t be anything else.”

  “What do you intend to do now?”

  “Only one thing we can do,” Mansfield said. “Take it from them.”

  64

  Mankedo stood on the bridge of the Nevena, studying the Russian vessel through binoculars as it took up a holding position in the distance.

  “Any trouble?” Dimitov asked.

  Mankedo lowered the glasses and gave a faint nod. “Possibly. I’ve never seen a salvage ship configured with so many communication antennas.”

  “Are they with the Greek government?”

  “They would have let us know. The Greek flag they’re flying is probably as legitimate as our Croatian flag.”

  “Perhaps we should pull off the site?” Dimitov said.

  “No!” Mankedo said. “We’re on the Pelikan—and we’ll finish what we started.”

  He instructed the helmsman to keep a sharp watch on the other vessel, then climbed down to the stern deck with Dimitov. At the edge of the moon pool, he found two crewmen working over a small yellow ROV. “Are we ready to deploy?”

  The nearest crewman said yes.

  “Then lower away.”

  Mankedo stepped into a bay that housed the ROV’s control station. He took a seat and activated the camera, which briefly displayed a crewman’s feet before the device was lowered into the moon pool. Mankedo powered on the unit’s lights and waited as it descended. At a depth of sixty meters, the seabed came into view and he engaged the ROV’s thrusters.

  A healthy current had pulled the ROV off its intended drop position, and Mankedo pivoted the device to obtain a view of the surroundings. The dark shape of the Pelikan was just visible to the north, and he steered the ROV in that direction.

  The Russian submarine lay upright but partially buried in the sediment. After a hundred years underwater, a thick layer of concretion coated its surface. The ROV approached from the stern and cruised along the sub’s starboard hull, revealing several large rectangular openings in the side cut by Mankedo and his divers to gain access to the interior.

  The ROV skimmed over the cut steel slabs that lay on the seafloor, fresh torch burns visible around their perimeters. The ROV continued forward, past the conning tower and a deck gun, to a final cutout close to the bow. Next to the hole lay a large mesh tray filled with gas tanks and cutting equipment the divers had used to slice into the hull.

  Mankedo sat
forward in his chair. With a light touch on the toggle controls, he guided the ROV into the forward opening. The vehicle immediately bumped into a rack of silt-covered torpedoes. Mankedo pivoted the ROV right, displaying the sub’s two forward torpedo tubes. Maneuvering in the opposite direction, he guided the ROV across the torpedo room and through an open aft hatch.

  Dimitov edged close to the monitor. “A fortunate break that the hatch is open. The crew quarters should be just beyond, which represents an additional storage area.”

  Mankedo maneuvered the ROV past some damaged pipes and overhead valves, then guided it into the next compartment. There was little to see in the small room to suggest it was once the living quarters for thirty enlisted men. Metal frames from the bunks that lined one side of the bulkhead were the most significant feature.

  Mankedo scoured the bay with the ROV, peering into rusty lockers and poking through strands of debris. Satisfied there was no gold, he guided the ROV back to the torpedo room and out the opening. Below the torpedo room was an additional compartment in which the ROV barely fit. Mankedo piloted the vehicle over an open bilge and arrived at a mass of large, metal-encased batteries. “That would seem to do it for the forward compartment.”

  Dimitov nodded. “Yes, I believe we have covered the available cargo areas.”

  Mankedo threaded the ROV back through the compartment. As it exited the submarine, a bright flash of light whisked past its lens.

  “What was that?” Dimitov asked.

  Mankedo turned the ROV to follow, but the object was traveling much faster. The glow from its light dimmed near the stern, then began to grow brighter.

  “It’s turning back and coming up the port flank,” Dimitov said.

  Mankedo elevated the ROV just above the sub’s deck level, then killed its lights. Guiding the probe by compass, he thrust it forward and across the Pelikan’s deck and halted it in the darkness somewhere above the port bow.

  The lights approached slowly from the stern. Mankedo waited until the object was just below, then flicked on the ROV’s lights.

  A vehicle resembling a Jet Ski appeared, ridden by two men in scuba gear. The pilot, a blond-haired man, gave the ROV a nonchalant glance while the passenger aimed a video camera at the sub. The manned vehicle continued on its way around the nose of the Pelikan and vanished into the darkness.

  A pained smile crossed Mankedo’s lips. “I don’t know who you are, my friend, but you are a little late to the party.”

  65

  They came in two silent boats, a few hours after nightfall but ahead of a rising moon. Mansfield led three armed men in the first boat, approaching the Nevena from her port beam, while the second boat targeted the stern. But what was expected to be a quiet and bloodless seizure erupted in a fury of gunfire before any of the Russians had even set foot aboard.

  One of Mankedo’s armed crewmen, on watch and patrolling the deck, had spotted two men in black scaling the stern rail. He opened fire, killing one of the intruders and wounding the other. The two other Russians in the boat returned fire, pinning the crewman behind a winch.

  Mansfield quickly climbed aboard the port deck. Sending two of his team to take the bridge, he moved aft with the third man. They reached the open moon pool, across which the crewman was firing toward the stern. Mansfield raised an automatic pistol at arm’s length and dropped the crewman with one shot.

  He spoke into a radio headset. “Team two status?”

  “Two down,” a grim voice said.

  “Cover the starboard deck,” Mansfield ordered. He sent the man next to him, a young agent named Sergei, to cover the port deck.

  He couldn’t believe their bad luck. It wasn’t a great surprise that a salvage ship working a treasure wreck would have an armed crewman standing watch. But for his team of boarders, all highly trained GRU Spetsnaz special forces members, this assault should have been child’s play. They were to capture the ship, transfer the gold, and be on their merry way. Not only was the element of surprise now lost, but they were already down two men.

  The brief firefight had awoken the ship. Crewmen appeared everywhere. To Mansfield’s dismay, most were armed. Yet that wasn’t to prove his biggest disappointment.

  As the stern team met further resistance on the starboard deck, Mansfield ducked into a prefabricated bay next to the moon pool. It was a combination laboratory and repair shop for the underwater equipment. An overweight man with a black mustache cowered behind a table strewn with books and charts. Mansfield stepped closer and raised his pistol as he evaluated the man. He was too old, too flabby, and too well dressed to be a working crewman. Much better than Mansfield had even hoped.

  “Stand up,” he ordered.

  Georgi Dimitov rose to his feet and raised his hands in the air.

  “Where’s the gold?” Mansfield asked.

  “What gold?” Dimitov said.

  Mansfield lowered the barrel of his pistol and fired a shot at the archeologist’s left foot. It purposely grazed the outer edge. Dimitov stared, dumbfounded, as a trickle of blood oozed out of the hole on the side of his shoe, then grunted in pain.

  “There is no gold,” he pleaded rapidly.

  Mansfield took aim at his right foot.

  “I swear it. There is no gold. The submarine was empty.”

  “Did somebody beat you to it?”

  “No, the vessel appeared undisturbed.” Dimitov collapsed into his chair, weakened by the sight of his own blood.

  “You’ve examined the entire vessel?”

  “Yes. Every potential cargo area was accessed. We found nothing.”

  Mansfield stared at the archeologist. Shaking his head in disgust, he left the bay to reassemble the remnants of his assault team.

  In a cabin behind the bridge, Mankedo had been studying a chart of the Aegean when the first gunshots sounded. He dropped the chart and pulled a case from beneath his bunk that contained an AK-47 and several ammunition clips. He jammed in a loaded clip, released the safety, and stepped to the cabin door.

  He heard the shouts of the two assault team members as they stormed onto the bridge and threatened the lone crewman standing watch. Mankedo stepped back from the door, raised his weapon, and waited.

  It took less than thirty seconds for one of the Russians to spot the wooden door at the rear of the bridge and fling it open. Mankedo fired a single shot into the man’s forehead and stepped through the door before the man hit the deck. The other assailant stood across the bridge with his weapon trained on the crewman but turned at the sound of the gunshot. He was a second late, and Mankedo pumped three shots into him. The Russian fired a wild burst into the ceiling as he collapsed against the bulkhead and slid to the deck.

  “Grab his weapon and guard the bridge,” Mankedo ordered the crewman, then raced out the bridge wing door.

  Had he exited the port wing, he might have spotted Mansfield retiring to the inflatable tied amidships. But he exited the starboard door, toward the sound of gunfire.

  With most of its deck lights shot out, the Nevena was now as black as the sea. Only the underwater lights of the moon pool burned brightly, casting a warbly green glow about the stern deck. Dropping down a companionway to the main deck, Mankedo found two of his crewmen huddled behind a steel storage bin, firing aft. “How many are there?”

  “Two or three on the stern,” a crewman said. “I think they’re pulling back.”

  As if in retort, a short muzzle flash appeared on the aft deck, and a corresponding spray of bullets peppered the underside of the bridge wing above Mankedo’s head.

  “Cover fire and advance,” Mankedo yelled.

  His two crewmen popped up and fired toward the muzzle flash. As they did, Mankedo hugged the bulkhead and ran aft, advancing nearly to the moon pool. He stopped and initiated covering fire, shooting at some shadows near the stern rail, as his two crewmen advanced to his side. Th
is time, there was no return fire. As they caught their breath, Mankedo gave instructions for a final charge at the transom.

  On the opposite side of the ship, Mansfield had dropped into the inflatable and radioed both assault teams to evacuate. He had lost contact with the men sent to the bridge and assumed the worst. The heavy resistance they had encountered began to weigh against the archeologist’s testimony. Perhaps the gold had been recovered and stowed somewhere on the ship. There was only one way to find out.

  He reached beneath one of the bench seats for a heavy duffel bag and withdrew an electronic timer attached to a detonator and twenty pounds of plastic explosives. He set the timer for ten minutes and heaved the bag onto the deck.

  The sound of someone approaching at a run sent him reaching for his gun and he looked up to see Sergei approach the inflatable.

  “Quick,” Mansfield said, “toss that bag into the engine room.”

  Sergei grabbed the bag and ran to an open hatch a few yards away. He heaved the bag inside and sprinted back to the inflatable as Mansfield started the electric motor and cast off. Mansfield gunned the motor and darted away from the side of the ship, sailing in a wide arc around the Nevena’s stern. He was just in time to watch the final firefight.

  The two remaining Russians were climbing into the other inflatable when Mankedo and his men stormed across the deck, their guns blazing. One Russian tried to return fire but was cut down. The other managed to get the boat under way as bullets whizzed over his head.

  From the other inflatable, Sergei knelt and swept the deck with a long burst of covering fire. Mankedo caught a grazing wound to his elbow, but that didn’t slow him. He ran to the rail and emptied his clip into the two black boats, which quickly melded into the darkness.

  One of the crewmen approached Mankedo at the rail. “You’re wounded, sir.”