Treasure Of Khan Part 15

Shortly after lunch, Listvyanka's police chief boarded the Vereshchagin, accompanied by two detectives from Irkutsk. The police authorities climbed up to the ship's bridge, where they greeted Captain Kharitonov in a formal manner. The Listvyanka chief, a slovenly man in an ill-fitting uniform, dismissed with a glance the three Americans who sat reconfiguring their computer equipment on the opposite side of the bridge. A self-important bureaucrat impressed with his own power, the chief enjoyed the perquisites, if not the actual work, required of the job. As Kharitonov relayed the missing crewmen and the discovery of the dead fisherman in the flooded cabin below, a flash of anger crossed the chief's face. The missing persons and attempted sinking of the Vereshchagin might be explained away as an accident, but a dead body complicated matters. A potential murder would mean extra paperwork and state officials looking over his shoulder. In Listvyanka, the occasional stolen bicycle or barroom brawl was the extent of his normal criminal dealings, and that was the way he preferred it.

"Nonsense," he retorted in a gravelly voice. "I knew Belikov well. He was a drunken old fisherman. Drank too much vodka and pa.s.sed out like an old goat. An unfortunate accident," he casually explained away.

"Then what about the disappearance of the two crewmen and the survey team that was rescued with the fisherman, as well as the attempted sinking of my ship?" Captain Kharitonov added with rising anger.

"Ah yes," the police chief replied, "the crew members who opened the sea c.o.c.ks by mistake. Ashamed of their mechanical error, they have probably fled in embarra.s.sment. They will turn up eventually at one of our fine drinking houses," he said knowingly. Realizing that the two Irkutsk men did not appear to be buying his rationale, he continued. "It will, of course, be necessary to interview the crew and pa.s.sengers for an official accounting of the incident."

Pitt turned from the egotistical police chief and studied the two lawmen at his side. The detectives from the Irkutsk City Police Criminal Investigation Division were clearly not cut from the same cloth. They were hardened men who wore suits rather than uniforms and carried concealed weapons. No ordinary beat cops, they had an air of quiet confidence that suggested experience and training derived from someplace other than the local police academy. When the three men began a quick round of inquiries aboard ship, Pitt curiously noted that the Irkutsk men seemed more interested in Sarghov's absence than the missing survey team or the dead fisherman.

"Who says Boris Badenov isn't alive and well?" Giordino muttered under his breath after a brief interrogation.

When the interviews were completed, the lawmen returned to the bridge, where the police chief gave Captain Kharitonov a last stern admonition, for effect. The Vereshchagin's captain glumly announced that at the direction of the Listvyanka police, all crew members would be required to return to the ship at once, where they were to remain in confinement until the completion of the investigation.

"They could have at least let us make a beer run first," Giordino moaned.

"I knew I should have stayed in Washington," Gunn grumbled. "Now we're exiled to Siberia."

"Washington is a miserable swamp in the summertime anyway," Pitt countered, admiring the panoramic lake view from the bridge window.

A mile and a half away, he noticed the black freighter that he and Al had flown over the night before. The ship had moved ash.o.r.e and was docked at an undamaged pier at the far end of town, its stern cargo hold being picked at by a large wharf-side crane.

A pair of binoculars dangled from a hook near the bridge window and Pitt unconsciously pulled them to his eyes while studying the ship. Through the magnified lenses, he saw two large flatbed trucks and a smaller enclosed truck parked on the dock adjacent to the ship. The crane was off-loading items onto the trucks, a little unusual in that Listvyanka was primarily an outgoing port that provided goods to the rest of the lakefront communities. Focusing on one of the flatbed trucks, he could see that it held a strange vertically shaped item on a wooden pallet that was wrapped in a canvas tarp.

"Captain?" he asked of Kharitonov while pointing out the window. "That black freighter. What do you know about her?"

Captain Kharitonov stepped over and squinted in the direction of the ship. "The Primoski. A longtime scullion on Lake Baikal. For years, she made a regular run from Listvyanka to Baikalskoye in the north, carrying steel and lumber for a rail spur being built up there. When the work was completed last year, she sat dead at her moorings for several months. Last I heard she was under short-term lease to an oil company. They brought in their own men to sail her, which upset her old crew. I do not know what they're using her for, probably to transport pipeline equipment."

"An oil company," Pitt repeated. "Wouldn't by chance be the Avarga Oil Consortium, would it?"

Kharitonov looked up in thought for a moment. "Yes, now that I think about it, I believe it was. Forgive a tired man for not recalling that earlier. Perhaps they know something of our missing oil survey team. And the whereabouts of Alexander and Anatoly," he added with a cross tone.

The Russian captain reached for the radio and issued a call to the freighter whose name, Primoski, was taken from a mountain range on Lake Baikal's western sh.o.r.e. A grunt voice answered almost immediately and replied in short, clipped responses to the captain's questions. As they conversed, Pitt played the binoculars over the old freighter, focusing a long gaze on the freighter's bare stern deck.

"Al, take a look at this."

Giordino ambled over and grabbed the binoculars, studying the freighter carefully. Noting the covered cargo being unloaded, he said, "Being rather secretive with their cargo, wouldn't you say? Though I'm sure if we asked, they'd say it's nothing more than used tractor parts."

"Take a look at the stern deck," Pitt prompted.

"There was a derrick on that deck last night," Giordino observed. "It has disappeared, like our friends."

"Granted it was dark when we flew over the ship, but that derrick looked to be no Tinkertoy piece."

"No, it wasn't something that could be disa.s.sembled in short order without an army of mechanical engineers," Giordino said.

"From what I've seen through the gla.s.ses, it's a skeleton crew working that ship."

The hearty voice of the captain interrupted as he hung up the radio microphone.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen. The captain of the Primoski reports that he has taken on no pa.s.sengers, has not seen or heard from any oil survey team or, in fact, was even aware of their activities on the lake."

"And I bet he doesn't know who's buried in Grant's tomb, either," Giordino said.

"Did he happen to reveal his ship's manifest?" Pitt asked.

"Why, yes," Kharitonov replied. "They are transporting agricultural equipment and tractor components from Irkutsk to Baikalskoye."

-8-

THE ROOKIE POLICEMAN tasked with ensuring that no one left the ship quickly grew bored with his a.s.signment. Pacing the sh.o.r.e tirelessly a few yards from where the Vereshchagin's bow had ground into the lake bed, he had alertly monitored the vessel as the sun went down. But as the evening hour waned without event, his attention began to wander. Loud thumping noises from a bar up the street gradually seized his senses and it wasn't long before he had swiveled around to face the bar's entrance, hoping to catch sight of an attractive tourist or college coed visiting from Irkutsk.

Sufficiently distracted, he had almost no chance of spotting two men dressed in black who quietly slid a small Zodiac over the Vereshchagin's stern rail, then silently dropped themselves into the rubber boat.

Pitt and Giordino eased the Zodiac away from the Vereshchagin, careful to keep the research ship between them and the sh.o.r.e guard.

"A couple of nice friendly drinking establishments are just a short paddle away, and you want to take us on a fishing expedition," Giordino whispered.

"Overpriced tourist traps that hawk warm beer and stale pretzels," Pitt countered.

"Alas, a warm beer is still better than no beer," he replied poetically.

Though they quickly melted into the dark night, Pitt had them row almost a mile from sh.o.r.e before pulling on the starter rope to the boat's 25-horsepower outboard motor. The small engine quickly coughed to life, and Pitt turned the boat parallel to sh.o.r.e as they putted forward at slow speed. Once the boat was moving, Giordino lifted a three-foot-long sonar towfish from the floorboard and slipped it over the side, feeding it out to nearly the full length of its hundred-meter electronic tow cable. Securing the line to the gunwale, he flipped open a laptop computer and initiated the side-scan sonar's operating software. Within minutes, a yellow-tinted image of the lake bed began scrolling down the screen.

"The picture show has started," Giordino announced, "featuring an undulating sandy bottom one hundred seventy feet deep."

Pitt continued running the boat parallel to sh.o.r.e until he was even with the black freighter. He held his course for another quarter mile before turning the Zodiac around and running back in the opposite direction, a few dozen meters farther into the lake.

"The Primorski looked to be parked in this neighborhood when we flew over her last night," Pitt said, waving an arm toward the southeast. His eyes turned and studied the landmarks on sh.o.r.e to the north, which he tried to recall sighting from the helicopter.

Giordino nodded. "I agree, we should be in the ballpark."

Pitt pulled a compa.s.s from his pocket and took a heading, then set it on the bench in front of him. Tracking the bearing with the occasional flash of a penlight, he held a steady course until he pa.s.sed a half mile in the other direction, then turned and backtracked again farther to the south. For the next hour, they continued the search, moving farther offsh.o.r.e as Giordino monitored the bottom contours on the laptop computer.

Pitt turned his eyes to sh.o.r.e, preparing to turn at the end of an imaginary lane when Giordino said, "Got something."

Pitt held his course, leaning forward to examine the image on the laptop. A dark linear object began scrolling down the screen, followed by another thin line that angled toward it. The image slowly evolved into a large A shape that had grown a few additional cross-members.

"Length is about forty feet," Giordino said. "Sure looks like the structure we saw sitting on the p.o.o.p deck of the Primorski last night. Shame on them for littering the lake."

"Shame on them, indeed," Pitt replied, staring off toward the black freighter. "The question is, my dear Watson, why?"

When Pitt leaned over and shut off the outboard motor, Giordino knew they were going to seek the answer. Something had bothered Pitt about the black freighter the first time he saw it. Finding out it was leased by the Avarga Oil Consortium had just sealed the deal. He had little doubt that there must be some connection to the ship and the disappearance of Sarghov and the oil survey team. As he studied the ship from afar, Giordino quickly pulled in the sonar fish and closed the laptop computer, then retrieved the oars for the rowing ahead of them.