Treasure of Khan

"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 Gu

"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 cockpit, they observed the full outline of the ship illuminated more from the shore lights than the emergency deck lights, and Pitt silently hoped his words would hold true. The research ship was clearly going down at the stern and sinking fast. The waterline had already crept over the lower deck and would shortly begin washing 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 fishing vessels of the kind that the oil survey team had leased. Several were capsized or washed ashore 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 ship. As the chopper zoomed closer, Pitt could see that the ship was a cargo ship of roughly two hundred feet.

The hull was painted black creased with brown patches of rust that dripped to the waterline. A faded blue fu

"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 mass of brightly colored lights bobbing in the distance.

***

Aboard the Vereshchagin, an orderly evacuation was already under way. Two lifeboats had been loaded with half the crew and were in the process of being lowered to the water. Gu

Gu

He closed the door and quickly moved aft to the next cabin, grimacing as the cold water sloshed around his thighs. Again he shouted and knocked on the door before forcing it open against the resistance of the water. Roy and Wofford were sharing this cabin, he recalled as he stepped in. Under a dim emergency light he could see that the cabin was empty like the first, though both beds looked as if they had been slept in.

As the frigid water stung his legs with the pain of a thousand needles, Gu

***

Ivan Popovich was asleep, buried in his bunk, lost in a dream that he was fly-fishing on the Lena River when a deep thumping noise jolted him awake. The ruddy-faced pilot of the Listvyanka hydrofoil ferry Voskhod slithered into a heavy fur coat, then staggered half asleep out his tiny cabin and climbed up onto the ferry's stern deck.

He immediately came face-to-face with a pair of bright floodlights that seared his eyes, while a loud thumping from the blinding force sent a blast of cold air swirling about his body. The lights rose slowly off the deck, hovered for a moment, then turned and vanished. As the echo of the helicopter's rotors quickly receded into the night air, Popovich rubbed his eyes to vanquish the parade of spots dancing before his retinas. Reopening his eyes, he was surprised to see a man standing before him. He was tall and dark-haired, with white teeth that were exposed in a friendly smile. In a calm voice, the stranger said,

"Good evening. Mind if I borrow your boat?"

***

The high-speed ferry screamed across the bay, riding up on its twin forward hydrofoil blades for the brief journey to the Vereshchagin. Popovich charged the ferry directly toward the bow of the sinking ship, then deftly spun about as he killed the throttle, idling just a few feet off the research vessel's prow.

Pitt stood at the stern rail of the ferry, looking up at the foundering gray ship. The vessel was grotesquely tilted back on its stern, her bow pointing toward the sky at a twenty-degree angle. The flooded ship was in a precarious state, liable to slip under the surface or turn turtle at any moment.

A metallic clanking suddenly erupted from overhead as the ship's anchor chain was played out through the hawsehole. A thirty-foot length of the heavy chain rattled across the deck and over the side, followed by a rope line and float to mark where the anchor line had been cut. As the last link dropped beneath the surface, Pitt could detect the ship's bow rise up several feet from the reduced tension and weight of the released anchor line.

"Towline away," came a shout from above.

Looking up, Pitt saw the reassuring sight of Giordino and Gu

Popovich was on it instantly. The veteran ferry pilot promptly backed his boat toward the dangling line until Pitt could manhandle the looped end aboard. Quickly securing the line around a capstan, Pitt jumped to his feet and gave Popovich the thumbs-up sign.