Clive Cussler - Crescent Dawn

“I say surprise is a good thing. Let’s move.”

Pitt took a course bearing, then submerged the Bullet and crept toward the dockyard. Giordino activated the sonar system, helping guide them to within a few yards of the yacht. Easing gently to the surface again, they arose in its shadow just off its port beam. Pitt started to pull alongside the yacht when he noticed a commotion on the stern deck.

A trio of armed men came bursting from the interior and turned toward the dock. A second later, a fourth man came into view, being pushed across the deck by the others.

“It’s Zeibig,” Pitt remarked, catching a brief glimpse of the scientist’s face.

From their low position in the water, they could just barely see Zeibig, who had his hands tied behind his back. Two of the gunmen roughly hoisted him up onto the dock, then prodded him toward shore. Pitt noticed one of the gunmen return to the boat and take up a casual position on the stern.

“Scratch one yacht,” Pitt said quietly. “I think it’s time to go invisible.”

Giordino had already opened the ballast chambers, and the Bullet quickly vanished into the inky depths. They reconnoitered the cove once more, then crept in and surfaced just behind the stern of the freighter, tucking in right against its transom. It was an optimally concealed spot, obscured from shore by the freighter while mostly hidden from the pier by an adjacent stack of fuel drums. Giordino quietly climbed out and attached a mooring line to the pier, Pitt shutting down the power systems and joining him.

“Won’t be a pretty scene if that big boy fires up his engines,” Giordino said, eyeing the submersible floating just above the freighter’s propellers.

“At least we’ve got his license plate number,” Pitt replied, looking up at the ship’s stern. In broad white letters was painted the ship’s name, Osmanli Yildiz , which meant “Ottoman Star.”

The two men crept along the pier until they reached the shadow of a large generator sitting across from the freighter’s forward hold. Ahead of them was a handful of dockworkers occupied with loading large wooden crates into the freighter with the high crane. The blue yacht, with its armed gunman still pacing the deck, was moored just a few feet in front of it. Giordino gazed ruefully up at the bright overhead lights that illuminated the path ahead.

“I’m not so sure it’s going to be easy to pass Go and collect our two hundred dollars from here,” he said.

Pitt nodded, peering around the generator to survey the dockyard. He could see a small two-story stone building onshore flanked by a pair of prefabricated warehouses. The interior of the right-hand warehouse was brightly illuminated, highlighting a pair of forklifts that hauled crates out of an open bay door for the crane to transfer. In contrast, the left-hand warehouse appeared dark, with no visible activity around it.

Pitt turned his attention to the stone building in the center. A bright porch light illuminated its front façade, clearly revealing a gunman standing guard outside the front door.

“The stone building in the middle,” he whispered to Giordino. “That’s where Zeibig has to be.”

He peered again, spotting the headlights of a car that was approaching from the surrounding hillside. The vehicle bounded down a steep gravel road, then turned onto the dock and pulled up in front of the stone building. Pitt was surprised to recognize the car as a late-model Jaguar sedan. A well-dressed man and woman climbed out of the car and entered the building.

“I think we need to make our play pretty quickly,” Pitt whispered.

“Any thoughts on how to get off this pier?” Giordino asked, sitting perched on the side of a ladder tilted against the generator.

Pitt looked around, then gazed at Giordino for a moment, a small grin spreading across his face.

“Al,” he said, “I think you’re sitting on it.”

Nobody paid any attention to the two men dressed in faded turquoise jumpsuits walking down the pier with their heads hanging down and carrying an aluminum ladder. They were obviously a pair of crewmen from the freighter returning the borrowed equipment to shore. Only they were members of the crew that nobody had ever seen before.

The men working on the dock were busy securing a crate marked “Textiles” to the crane and paid no heed as Pitt and Giordino passed by. Pitt had noticed the guard on the yacht glance at them momentarily before turning away.

“Which way do we go, boss?” Giordino asked as he stepped off the pier, holding the front end of the ladder.

The illuminated warehouse was nearly in front of them, its open bay door, just a few yards to their right.

“I say we avoid the crowds and go left,” Pitt replied. “Let’s shoot for the other warehouse.”

They turned and walked along the waterfront, passing the narrow stone building. Pitt guessed it had originally been built as a fisherman’s house but now served as an administrative office for the dock facility. Unlike the gunman on the yacht, the man guarding the front door eyed them suspiciously as they passed by the courtyard in front of the house. Giordino attempted to trivialize their presence by casually whistling “Yankee Doodle Dandy” as they passed, figuring the Turkish gunman would be unfamiliar with the tune.

They soon reached the second warehouse, a darkened building with its large waterfront drop-down door sealed shut. Giordino tried the handle on a small entry door alongside and found it unlocked. Without hesitating, he led Pitt inside, where they deposited the ladder against a work desk illuminated by a flickering overhead light. The rest of the building’s interior was empty, save for some dusty crates in the corner and a large sealed container near the rear loading dock.

“That was easy enough,” Pitt said, “but I don’t think waltzing in the front door of the building next door looks as promising.”

“No, that guard watched us like a hawk. Maybe there’s a back door?”

Pitt nodded. “Let’s go see.”

Picking up a wooden mallet he noticed lying on the desk, he walked across the warehouse with Giordino. Adjacent to the loading dock was a small entry door, which they slipped through. They quietly made their way to the back side of the stone building only to find it had no rear or side doors. Pitt approached one of the lower-level windows and tried to peek in, but the blinds had been tightly drawn. He stepped away and studied the second-floor windows, then tiptoed back to the warehouse to confer with Giordino.

“Looks like we’re back to the front door,” Giordino said.

“Actually, I was thinking of trying an upstairs entry,” Pitt replied.

“Upstairs?”

Pitt motioned toward the ladder. “Might as well put that thing to use. The windows were dark upstairs, but they didn’t appear to have the blinds drawn. If you can create a distraction, I could climb up and enter through one of the windows. We can try to surprise them from above.”

“Like I said, surprise is a good thing. I’ll go get the ladder while you work on that distraction.”

As Giordino padded across the warehouse, Pitt stuck his head out the back door and searched for a means to create a diversion. An option appeared in the form of a flatbed truck parked behind the opposite warehouse. He ducked back inside as Giordino approached with the ladder, but then he suddenly looked past him curiously.

“What’s up?” Giordino asked.

“Look at this,” Pitt said, stepping closer to the steel shipping container sitting nearby.

It was painted in a desert-khaki-camouflage scheme, but it was some black-stenciled lettering that had caught Pitt’s attention. Several points around the container were marked, in English, “Danger — High Explosives.” Beneath the warning was stenciled “Department of the U.S. Army.”