Treasure Of Khan Part 12

"These sensor pods, can they reveal where the earthquake originated?" Tatiana asked.

"If it occurred under the lake," Pitt replied.

"Rudi said he would ma.s.sage the computers tomorrow and see if he can pinpoint an exact location from the sensors. The seismologists he talked to placed the epicenter somewhere near the northwest corner of the lake," Giordino said. Scanning the galley and finding no sign of Gunn, he added, "He's probably up in the bridge conversing with his computers as we speak."

Tatiana downed the last of her samogon, then glanced at her watch. "It has been a trying day. I'm afraid I must turn in for the evening."

"I'm with you," Pitt said, suppressing a yawn. "May I escort you to your cabin?" he asked innocently.

"That would be satisfactory," she replied.

Sarghov joined them as they rose to their feet and declared good night to all.

"I trust you two are waiting for the baked alaska to be served?" Pitt smiled at Theresa and Giordino.

"Tales of the Netherlands await my hungry ears," Giordino grinned at Theresa.

"And anecdotes of the deep await in return?" she laughed back.

"There certainly is something deep around here," Pitt laughed as he bid good night.

Pitt politely escorted Tatiana to her cabin near the stern, then retired to his own stateroom amids.h.i.+ps. The day's physical demands had consumed his body and he was glad to ease his aching limbs into his bunk. Though physically exhausted, he fell asleep with difficulty. His mind stubbornly replayed the day's events over and over until a black veil of sleep thankfully washed over him.

-5-

PITT HAD BEEN ASLEEP for four hours when suddenly he sprang awake, bolting upright in his bunk. Though all was quiet, his senses told him something was wrong. Flicking on a reading light, he swung his feet to the floor and stood up but nearly fell over in the process. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he realized that the s.h.i.+p was listing at the stern, at an angle of almost ten degrees.

Dressing quickly, he climbed a stairwell to the main deck, then moved along its exterior pa.s.sageway. The pa.s.sageway and open deck before it were completely deserted, the whole s.h.i.+p strangely quiet as he walked uphill toward the bow. The silence finally registered. The s.h.i.+p's engines were shut down and only the muted hum of the auxiliary generator in the engine room throbbed through the late night air.

Climbing another set of stairs to the bridge, he walked in the doorway and gazed around the compartment. To his chagrin, the bridge was entirely deserted. Wondering if he was the only man aboard the s.h.i.+p, he scanned the bridge console before finding a red toggle switch marked TREVOGA. Flicking the toggle, the entire s.h.i.+p suddenly erupted in a clamor of warning bells that shattered the night silence. Seconds later, the Vereshchagin's sinewy captain charged onto the bridge like an angry bull from his cabin below.

"What is going on here?" the captain stammered, fighting to recollect his English in the middle of the night. "Where is the watch, Anatoly?"

"The s.h.i.+p is sinking," Pitt said calmly. "There was no watch aboard the bridge when I entered just a minute ago."

A wide-eyed grimace appeared on the captain's face as he noticed the s.h.i.+p's list for the first time.

"We need power!" he cried, reaching for a phone to the engine room. But as his hand gripped the receiver, the bridge suddenly fell black. Mast lights, cabin lights, console displays everything went dark throughout the s.h.i.+p as the electrical power vanished in an instant. Even the alarm bells began dying with a wounded bellow.

Cursing in the dark, the captain fumbled with his hands along the bridge console until finding the emergency battery switch, which bathed the bridge in low-level lighting. As the lights flickered on, the Vereshchagin's chief engineer burst onto the bridge, gasping for air. A heavyset man with a neatly trimmed beard, he gazed through sky-blue eyes that were tinged with panic.

"Captain, the hatches to the engine room have been chained shut. There's no way to gain entry. I fear she may well be half flooded already."

"Someone has locked the hatches? What has happened ... Why are we sinking while moored at anchor?" the captain asked, shaking away the cobwebs in search of an answer.

"It appears that the bilges have flooded and the lower deck is taking on water quickly at the stern," the engineer reported, his breath finally slowing.

"You better prepare to abandon s.h.i.+p," Pitt advised in a logical tone.

The words still cut the captain to the bone. For a s.h.i.+p's captain, the order to abandon s.h.i.+p is like volunteering to give away one's own child. There is no order more searing on the soul. The pain of answering to the s.h.i.+powners, the insurance companies, and the maritime inquiry boards after the fact would be difficult enough to face. But harder still was seeing the crew scramble off in fear, then watching as that inanimate ma.s.s of wood and steel actually vanishes before one's eyes. Like a favorite family car, most s.h.i.+ps take on a persona of their own for the captain and crew, with nuances, quirks, and personality traits unique to that vessel. Many a captain has been accused of having a love affair with the vessel he commanded, and so it was with Captain Kharitonov.

The tired captain knew the truth but still couldn't utter the words. With a grim look, he simply nodded at the chief engineer to pa.s.s the order.

Pitt was already out the door, his mind churning over solutions to keep the s.h.i.+p afloat. Retrieving his dive gear and accessing the engine room was his first temptation, but he would have to defeat the chained hatch first and then what? If the flooding was from a gash to the hull beneath the engine room, there would be little he could do to stem the tide anyway.

The answer struck him when he ran into Giordino and Gunn on the suddenly bustling middeck.

"Looks like we're about to get wet," Giordino said without alarm.

"The engine room is locked and flooding. She's not going to stay afloat a whole lot longer," Pitt replied, then gazed down the sloping aft deck. "How quickly can you get that whirlybird warmed up?"

"Consider it done," Giordino replied, then sprinted aft, not waiting for Pitt's reply.

"Rudi, see that the survey team we picked up is safely on deck and near a lifeboat. Then see if you can convince the captain to release the anchor line," Pitt said while Gunn stood s.h.i.+vering in a light jacket.

"What's up your sleeve?"

"An ace, I hope," Pitt mused, then disappeared aft.

The Kamov bounded into the night sky, hovering momentarily above the stricken research vessel.

"Aren't we forgetting 'Women and children first'?" Giordino asked from the pilot's seat.

"I sent Rudi to round up the oil survey team," Pitt replied, reading Giordino's real concern about Theresa. "Besides, we'll be back before anyone gets their feet wet."

Gazing out the c.o.c.kpit, they observed the full outline of the s.h.i.+p illuminated more from the sh.o.r.e lights than the emergency deck lights, and Pitt silently hoped his words would hold true. The research s.h.i.+p was clearly going down at the stern and sinking fast. The waterline had already crept over the lower deck and would shortly begin was.h.i.+ng over the open stern deck. Giordino instinctively flew toward Listvyanka, while Pitt turned his gaze from the foundering Vereshchagin to the scattered fleet of vessels moored off the village.

"Looking for anything in particular?" Giordino asked.

"A high-powered tug, preferably," Pitt replied, knowing no such vessel existed on the lake. The boats whisking by beneath them were almost exclusively small fis.h.i.+ng vessels of the kind that the oil survey team had leased. Several were capsized or washed ash.o.r.e from the force of the seiche wave.

"How about that big boy?" Giordino asked, nodding toward a concentration of lights in the bay two miles away.

"She wasn't around when we came in last night, maybe she's on her way in. Let's go take a look."

Giordino banked the helicopter toward the lights, which quickly materialized into the outline of a s.h.i.+p. As the chopper zoomed closer, Pitt could see that the s.h.i.+p was a cargo s.h.i.+p of roughly two hundred feet. The hull was painted black creased with brown patches of rust that dripped to the waterline. A faded blue funnel rose amids.h.i.+ps, garnished with the logo of a gold sword. The old s.h.i.+p had obviously plied the lake for decades, transporting coal and lumber from Listvyanka to remote villages on the northern sh.o.r.es of Baikal. As Giordino swung down the s.h.i.+p's starboard side, Pitt noted a large black derrick mounted on the stern deck. His eyes returned to the funnel, then he shook his head.

"No good. She's moored here, and I see no smoke from her stacks, so her engines are probably cold. Take too long to get her in play." Pitt tilted his head back toward the village. "Guess we'll have to go for speed over power."

"Speed?" Giordino asked as he followed Pitt's nod and aimed the helicopter back toward the village.

"Speed," Pitt confirmed, pointing to a ma.s.s of brightly colored lights bobbing in the distance.