Crescent Dawn

“We haven’t cleared this building yet,” the Israeli whispered in a hard tone.

“It’s empty like the others,” Pitt said, flinging open the door and stepping inside.

Lazlo saw that Pitt’s words were true as he flicked on the interior lights, revealing a cavernous building that was empty save for a large metal container on the far side.

“Your explosives?” the commando asked.

Pitt nodded. “Let’s hope it’s still full.”

They stepped across the warehouse to the container, where Pitt slid the dead bolt free. Pulling on the handle, he was suddenly confronted by a lunging figure from inside who swung a piece of broken crate. Pitt managed to sidestep the blow, then turned to throw a punch. But before he could strike, the toe of Lazlo’s boot appeared out of nowhere, burying itself in the attacker’s stomach. The startled assailant gasped as he was lifted off his feet and slammed into the side of the container. He meekly dropped his makeshift weapon as the muzzle of Lazlo’s assault rifle was prodded into his cheek.

“Who are you?” Lazlo barked.

“My name is Levi Green. I am a seaman from the tanker Dayan . Please don’t shoot,” he pleaded.

“Fool,” Lazlo muttered, pulling away his rifle. “We are here to rescue you.”

“I… I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Pitt. “I thought you were a dockworker.”

“What are you doing in this container?” Pitt asked.

“We were forced to load its contents, boxes of explosives, on the Dayan . I hid in here in hopes of escaping, but they locked the door, and I was trapped.”

“Where are the other crewmen?” Lazlo asked.

“I don’t know. Back on the ship, I suppose.”

“The tanker is no longer here.”

“They modified the ship,” Green said, his eyes still wide with fear. “Cut open the forward tanks and filled them with bags of fuel oil. We were forced to place the boxed explosives inside.”

“What do you mean ‘bags’ of fuel oil?” Pitt asked.

“There were crates and crates of the stuff in fifty-pound bags. They were marked as some sort of fuel oil mixture. Ammonium something or other.”

“Ammonium nitrate?” Pitt asked.

“Yes, that was the stuff.”

Pitt turned to Lazlo. “Ammonium nitrate fuel oil, or ANFO. It’s a cheap but highly effective blasting agent,” he said, recalling the devastating effect a truckload of similar material had on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in 1995.

“How long have you been in the container?” Lazlo asked the seaman.

Green looked at his watch. “Just over eight hours.”

“Which means they may have a hundred-mile head start,” Pitt computed quickly.

Lazlo reached down and grabbed Green’s collar, then yanked him to his feet.

“You’re coming with us. Let’s move.”

Two miles to sea, the Tekumah ’s captain was relieved to see the Bat Men approach the rendezvous point less than an hour after they had departed. But his sentiment turned when Lazlo and Pitt reported the disappearance of the Dayan . The submarine’s radar records were hastily reviewed, and the Dayan ’s Automatic Identification System signal was accessed, but neither provided any indication as to the tanker’s whereabouts. The three men sat down and studied a map of the eastern Mediterranean.

“I will alert naval command,” the captain said. “They might already be within hours of Haifa or Tel Aviv.”

“I believe that’s a wrong assumption,” Pitt said. “If history repeats, they’re looking to detonate that ship at a Muslim site, to make it look like an attack by Israel.”

“If they were to strictly target a major population center, Athens appears closest,” Lazlo noted.

“No, Istanbul is somewhat closer,” Pitt said, eyeing the map. “And it’s a Muslim city.”

“But they wouldn’t attack their own people,” the captain said derisively.

“Celik has shown no shortage of ruthlessness to date,” Pitt countered. “If he’s already bombed mosques in his country and throughout the region, there’s no reason to doubt he wouldn’t kill thousands more of his own countrymen.”

“The tanker is that dangerous?” the captain asked.

“In 1917, a French cargo ship carrying wartime explosives caught fire and blew up in Halifax Harbor. Over two thousand nearby residents were killed in the blast. The Dayan may be carrying ten times the explosive power of that French freighter. And if she’s headed to Istanbul, she’ll be sailing into a city center of over twelve million people.”

Pitt pointed to the marine approach to Istanbul on the map. “At a speed of twelve knots, she would still be two or three hours from the city.”

“Too far out of range for us or our boats to catch her,” the captain said, “not that I would sail through the Dardanelles anyway. I’m afraid the best that we can do is alert the Greek and Turkish authorities while we remove ourselves from their territorial waters. In the meantime, we can leave it to the intelligence satellites to figure out exactly where she’s headed.”

“What about the crewmen?” Lazlo said.

“Lieutenant, I’m afraid there’s nothing more we can do,” the captain replied.

“Three hours,” Pitt muttered quietly while studying the route to Istanbul. “Captain, if I’m going to have a chance at catching her, I need to get back to my ship at once.”

“Catch her?” Lazlo asked. “How? I didn’t see a helicopter aboard your ship.”

“Not a helicopter,” Pitt replied with a determined voice. “But something that’s nearly as fast as a speeding bullet.”

61

The Bullet tore across the water like a high-speed hydroplane. Steering with a firm grip on the yoke as the turbo diesels whined loudly under full power behind him, Pitt shot Giordino a quick glance from the pilot’s seat.

“You were wrong about her top speed,” he said, nearly yelling to be heard.

Giordino craned his head toward the navigation screen, where a small readout indicated that they were traveling at forty-three knots.

“Always better to under-promise and over-deliver,” he replied with a thin smile.

Seated in the passenger seat behind them, Lieutenant Lazlo found no such mirth. The brawny commando felt like he was inside a blender, as the Bullet pitched and rolled over the waves. Struggling repeatedly to stay in his seat, he finally discovered the straps to a seat belt and buckled himself tightly in, hoping he could forgo a bout of seasickness.

Pitt had caught a break when the Tekumah returned him to the Aegean Explorer . The Bullet had already been fully fueled and prepped for launching. Rousing Giordino, they hurriedly deployed the submersible. When Lazlo realized that Pitt had a real chance of chasing down the tanker, he quickly insisted on joining them.

They soon found themselves screaming through the busy Dardanelles Strait in the dead of night, dodging ships, in a desperate race toward Istanbul. It took all of Pitt’s focus and energy to keep the Bullet on an even keel while slipping between the tankers and merchant ships traveling in both directions. A bright set of xenon headlights helped improve visibility while Giordino provided a second set of eyes to detect smaller vessels or debris in the water.

It wasn’t the way Pitt would have preferred to travel through the historic waterway. With a love of history, he knew that both Xerxes and Alexander the Great had led their armies in opposite directions across the strait formerly known as the Hellespont. Not far from Çanakkale, on the southwest shore, stood Troy, site of the Trojan War. And farther north, on the opposite shore, were the landing beaches where the failed Allied campaign of Gallipoli originated in World War I. The beaches and barren hillsides were simply a blur to Pitt, whose eyes darted between the navigation screen and the black waves ahead that quickly vanished beneath the speeding bow.