Treasure Of Khan Part 5

"Ready with the forward guns," Negis.h.i.+ ordered as the unarmed plane grew larger in the gunsights.

But the trimotor was not going to pose like a sitting duck. Randy Schodt had seen the bomber first and tracked it as it curled around on to his tail. His hopes that the j.a.panese plane was just making a harmless flyby vanished when the Mitsubis.h.i.+ took up position squarely behind him and hung on his tail, rather than fly alongside. Unable to outrun the faster military aircraft, he did the next best thing.

The j.a.panese plane's turret gunner just squeezed the first round from his 7.7mm machine gun when the trimotor banked sharply left and seemed to stall in the air. The gunner's bullets sprayed harmlessly into the sky as the bomber quickly overshot the Fokker.

Negis.h.i.+ was caught completely off guard by the sudden maneuver and cursed as he tried to muscle the bomber back toward the smaller plane. The rattle of machine-gun fire echoed through the fuselage as a side gunner tracked the sudden juke by the Fokker and sprayed a long burst in its direction.

Inside the Fokker, Hunt swore louder at the pilots as crates of artifacts began tumbling around the interior of the plane. A loud crash told him that a crate of porcelain bowls was suddenly smashed by the plane's violent turns. It wasn't until the Fokker banked sharply right and Hunt caught a glimpse out the side window at the j.a.panese bomber that he realized what was happening.

In the c.o.c.kpit, Schodt tried every trick in the book to shake the Mitsubis.h.i.+, hoping that the bomber would abandon the pursuit. But the j.a.panese pilot was angered by the earlier rebuff and pursued the Fokker relentlessly. Time and again, Schodt would stunt and stall his aircraft to throw the bomber off his tail, causing the j.a.panese plane to circle around and reacquire the trimotor in its gunsights. The hunter would not give up the chase, and Schodt would soon find the Mitsubis.h.i.+ back on his tail again, until finally one of the gunners found his mark.

The Fokker's rear stabilizer was the first to go, shredded in a hail of lead. Negis.h.i.+ licked his chops, knowing the plane could no longer turn left or right without the control from the stabilizer. Grinning like a wolf, he brought the bomber in close for the kill. As the gunner fired again, he was shocked to see the Fokker once again juke to the right, then pull up in a stall.

Schodt wasn't through yet. With Dave jockeying the throttles on the two wing-mounted engines, Randy was still able to duck and weave away from the Mitsubis.h.i.+. Once again, the gunfire burst harmlessly into the fuselage, Hunt grimacing as another crate of artifacts was decimated.

Wise to his opponent's tactics, Negis.h.i.+ finally swung the bomber around in a wide arc and approached the Fokker from the side. This time, there was no escaping the gunfire and the Fokker's right wing engine disintegrated under a fury of bullets. A plume of smoke burst from the engine as Schodt shut down the fuel line before the motor caught fire. Jockeying the remaining two engines, he continued to fight with all his skills to keep the Fokker airborne and out of harm's way, but his hourgla.s.s finally ran out. A well-placed shot by the Mitsubis.h.i.+'s topside gunner severed the Fokker's elevator controls and effectively ended the flight of the Blessed Betty.

Without the ability to control alt.i.tude, the wounded trimotor began a flat descent toward the ground. Schodt watched helplessly as the Fokker plunged toward the dusty ground with its wings ajar. Amazingly, the airplane held its balance, gliding downward, with its nose bent just a fraction forward. Shutting down the remaining engines just before impact, he felt the left wingtip clip the ground first, throwing the plane into a clumsy cartwheel.

The crew of the j.a.panese plane watched with minor disappointment as the Fokker rolled across the ground, failing to explode or burst into flames. Instead, the silver trimotor simply flipped twice, then slid inverted into a sandy ravine.

Despite the difficulty in downing the civilian plane, a cheer rang out aboard the Mitsubis.h.i.+.

"Well done, men, but next time we must do better," Negis.h.i.+ lauded then banked the bomber back toward its base in Manchuria.

On board the Fokker, Schodt and his brother were killed instantly when the c.o.c.kpit was crushed on the first roll of the aircraft. Hunt survived the crash, but his back was broken and his left leg nearly severed. He painfully clung to life for nearly two days before peris.h.i.+ng in the jumbled wreckage of the fuselage. With his last gasp of energy, he pulled the lacquered box close to his chest and cursed his sudden turn of luck. As his last breath left him, he had no idea that still clutched within his arms, he held the clue to the most magnificent treasure the world would ever see.

Part One:

Seiche

-1-

Lake Baikal, Siberia

June 2, 2007

THE STILL WATERS of the world's deepest lake radiate the deep translucent blue of a polished sapphire. Fed by cold ancient streams that are free of silt and sediments, Lake Baikal possesses remarkably crystalline clear waters. A tiny crustacean, Baikal epishura, aids the cause by devouring algae and plankton growths that degrade most freshwater lakes. The combination produces such a stunning clarity to the water that on a calm day, a silver coin can be seen from the surface at a one-hundred-foot depth.

Surrounded by craggy snowcapped peaks to the north and dense taiga forests of birch, larch, and pine to the south, the "Blue Pearl of Siberia" stretches as a beacon of beauty across an otherwise hostile landscape. Situated in the dead center of lower Siberia, the four-hundred-mile-long crescent-shaped lake curves south to north just above the border with Mongolia. A ma.s.sive body of water, Lake Baikal is nearly a mile deep in some spots and holds one-fifth of all the fresh water on the planet, more than all of North America's Great Lakes combined. Just a few small fis.h.i.+ng villages dot the lake's sh.o.r.e, leaving the enormous lake a nearly vacant sea of tranquility. Only at its southern end does the lake sprawl toward any significant population centers. Irkutsk, a modestly hip city to a half million Siberian residents, sits forty-five miles west, while the ancient city of Ulan-Ude lies a short distance from its eastern sh.o.r.eline.

Theresa Hollema glanced up from a laptop computer and briefly admired the purple mountains at the edge of the lake, crowned by cotton-ball clouds that grazed their peaks. The Dutch geophysicist delighted in the clear blue skies that so seldom graced her home outside of Amsterdam. Drawing a deep breath of the crisp air, she subconsciously tried to absorb the scenery through all her senses.

"It is an agreeable day on the lake, no?" asked Tatiana Borjin. She spoke with a deep voice in the emotionless manner endemic to Russians speaking English. Yet the gruff tone and a businesslike personality didn't match her appearance. Although she resembled the local ethnic Buryats, she was, in fact, Mongolian. With long black hair, bronze skin, and almond-shaped eyes, she possessed a natural and robust beauty. But there was a deep intensity behind her dark eyes that seemed to take everything in life with harsh seriousness.

"I had no idea that Siberia was so beautiful," Theresa replied. "The lake is breathtaking. So calm and peaceful."

"She is a calm jewel at the moment but can turn wicked in an instant. The Sarma, sudden winds from the northwest, can burst onto the lake with the force of a hurricane. The local graveyards are filled with fishermen who failed to respect the forces of Baikal."

A slight chill ran up Theresa's spine. The locals seemed to constantly speak of the spirit of the lake. Baikal's pristine waters were a proud cultural resource to the Siberians, and protecting the lake from industrial pollutants had fostered an environmental movement that had grown globally. Even the Russian government was surprised at the widespread outcry when it had first decided to build a wood-cellulose-processing plant on its southern sh.o.r.es fifty years earlier. Theresa just hoped that a Greenpeace rubber boat armada would not appear to a.s.sail their presence on the lake.

At least her involvement was relatively harmless, she convinced herself. Her employer, Royal Dutch Sh.e.l.l, had been contracted to survey a section of the lake for reported oil seeps. n.o.body said anything about drilling or exploratory wells, and she was confident that would never happen on the lake anyway. The company was just trying to cozy up to the owners of some exploratory Siberian oil fields in hope of landing more significant business.

Theresa had never heard of the Avarga Oil Consortium before traveling to Siberia but knew there were a variety of oil companies clamoring in the Russian marketplace. A few of the government-sponsored companies, like Yukos and Gazprom, grabbed all the headlines, but, like anywhere in the world, there were always some little wildcatters owning a smaller piece of the pie. From the looks of what she'd seen so far, the Avarga Oil Consortium didn't even have a piece of the crust.

"They're obviously not pumping their revenues into R & D," she joked to the two Sh.e.l.l technicians that accompanied her as they climbed aboard the leased survey boat.

"Clever how they designed her to resemble a decrepit fis.h.i.+ng boat," cracked Jim Wofford, a tall, friendly geophysicist from Arkansas who wore a thick mustache and a ready smile.

The high-prowed black fis.h.i.+ng boat looked like it should have been scuttled years earlier. The exterior paint was peeling everywhere and the whole vessel reeked of wood rot and dead fish. It had been decades since the brightwork had been polished, and only the occasional rainstorm accounted for any was.h.i.+ng of the decks. Theresa noted with unease that the bilge pump ran continuously.

"We do not possess our own sea vessels," Tatiana said without apology. As the representative from Avarga Oil, she had been the sole interface with the Sh.e.l.l survey team.

"That's all right, for what it lacks in s.p.a.ce it makes up for in discomfort." Wofford smiled.

"True, but I bet there's some caviar hiding aboard someplace," replied Wofford's partner, Dave Roy, a fellow seismic engineer who spoke in a soft Boston accent. As Roy knew, Lake Baikal was the home to enormous sturgeon that could carry up to twenty pounds of caviar.

Theresa helped lend a hand as Roy and Wofford lugged aboard their seismic monitors, cable, and towfish, organizing the equipment on the cramped stern deck of the twenty-eight-foot fis.h.i.+ng boat.

"Caviar? With your beer tastes?" Theresa chided.

"As a matter of fact, the two make an excellent combination," Roy replied with mock seriousness. "The sodium content of caviar produces a hydration craving that is perfectly fulfilled by a malt-based beverage."

"In other words, it's a good excuse to drink more beer."

"Who needs an excuse to drink beer?" Wofford asked indignantly.

"I give up." Theresa laughed. "Far be it for me to argue with an alcoholic. Or two."

Tatiana looked on without amus.e.m.e.nt, then nodded toward the boat's captain when all the equipment had been stowed aboard. A dour-faced man who wore a jacquard tweed hat, the captain's most notable feature was a wide bulbous nose tinted red from a steady consumption of vodka. Ducking into the small wheelhouse, he fired up the boat's smoky diesel engine, then released the dock lines. In calm waters, they chugged away from their berth at the small fis.h.i.+ng and tourist village of Listvyanka, located on the lake's southwest sh.o.r.eline.

Tatiana unrolled a map of the lake and pointed to an area forty miles north of the town.

"We shall survey here, at Peschanaya Bay," she told the geologists. "There have been numerous surface oil slicks reported by the fishermen in this area, which would seem to indicate a hydrocarbon seepage."

"You're not going to take us sniffing around in deep water, are you, Tatiana?" Wofford asked.

"I understand the limitations of the equipment available to us. Though we have a number of potential seeps in the center of the lake, I realize the depths are too great for us to survey in those regions. Our research objective is focused on four locations in the south of Lake Baikal that are all near the sh.o.r.eline, presumably in shallow water."

"We'll find out easy enough," Roy replied as he plugged a waterproof data cable into a three-foot-long yellow towfish. In addition to providing an acoustically derived image of the lake bed, the side-scan sonar sensor would also indicate the relative bottom depth when towed.

"Are the sites all located on the western sh.o.r.eline?" Theresa asked.