Clive Cussler - Treasure of Khan

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 passed 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 cocks by mistake. Ashamed of their mechanical error, they have probably fled in embarrassment. 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 passengers 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 ashore 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 offloading 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 shore. 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 disassembled in short order without an army of mechanical engineers," Giordino said.

"From what I've seen through the glasses, 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 passengers, 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."

The rookie policeman tasked with ensuring that no one left the ship quickly grew bored with his assignment. Pacing the shore 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 shore 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 shore 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 shore 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.