Treasure of Khan

'Alexander? No, he was not with us. I haven't seen him since we turned in after dinner.'

'He was not aboard any of the lifeboats,' Kharitonov replied.

A subdued-looking Giordino and Gunn approached Pitt with their heads hung down.

'That's not all who's missing,' Giordino said, overhearing the conversation. 'The entire oil survey team that we rescued has vanished. Not a one made it into any of the lifeboats, and they were not in their cabins.'

'I was able to check all of their cabins but the fisherman's,' Gunn added with a nod.

'No one saw them leave the ship?' Pitt asked.

'No,' Giordino said, shaking his head in disbelief. 'Gone without a trace. It's as if they never existed.'

-6-

When the sun crawled up the southeast horizon several hours later, the precarious state of the Vereshchagin became clearly apparent in the dawn's light. The engine room, stern hold, and lower-berth cabins were completely submerged, while water sloshed over nearly a third of the main deck. Just how many more minutes the ship would have stayed afloat had she not been towed ashore was a game of pure conjecture, but the answer was obvious to all: Not very long.

Standing near the remains of a tourist kiosk that was leveled by the seiche wave, Pitt and Captain Kharitonov surveyed the grounded research ship. Off her stern, Pitt watched as a pair of shiny black nerpa popped to the surface and swam over the stern rail. Small doe-eyed seals that inhabit the lake, they floated lazily about the flooded stern deck before vanishing under the water in search of food. As Pitt waited for the nerpa to resurface, he gazed at the ship's waterline, noting a small smudge of red paint amidships that had rubbed off a dock or small boat.

'A salvage repair crew from Irkutsk will not arrive until tomorrow,' Kharitonov said with a grim expression. 'I will have the crew activate the portable pumps, though I suppose there is little purpose until we can determine the exact cause of the damage.'

'More pressing is the disappearance of Alexander and the oil survey team,' Pitt replied. 'Since they have not been found ashore, we must assume they didn't make it out alive. The flooded portion of the ship must be searched for their remains.'

The captain nodded with reluctant acceptance. 'Yes, we must locate my friend Alexander. I am afraid we will have to wait for a police dive team to give us the answer.'

'I don't think you'll have to wait that long, Captain,' Pitt said, nodding toward an approaching figure.

Fifty yards away, Al Giordino marched along the waterfront toward the two men, toting a red-handled pair of bolt cutters over his shoulder.

'Found these at a garage sale in town,' Giordino said, hoisting the bolt cutters off his shoulder. The long handles stretched half his height from the ground to his waist.

'Should allow us access to the verboten portions of the ship,' Pitt said.

'You? You will investigate the damage?' Kharitonov asked, surprised at the Americans' initiative.

'We need to find out if Alexander and the others are still aboard,' Giordino said with a stern look.

'Whoever tried to sink your vessel may have had an interest in halting our research project,' Pitt added.

'If so, I'd like to find out why. Our dive gear is stowed in the forward hold, so we have access to all of our equipment.'

'It may not be safe,' Kharitonov cautioned.

'The only difficult part will be to convince Al to dive before breakfast,' Pitt said, trying to lighten the morbid task at hand.

'I have it on good authority that the local IHOP is having an all-you-can-eat special on sturgeon pancakes,' Giordino replied with a raised brow.

'We'll just have to hope they don't run out.'

Gunn joined Pitt and Giordino as they motored up to the grounded ship in a borrowed Zodiac. Climbing the sloped deck to the forward hold, Gunn lent a hand as the two men pulled on black dry suits and weight belts, then hooked up the lightweight rebreather systems. Before they pulled on their faceplates, Gunn pointed a finger up toward the deckhead.

'I'm going to check the computers up in the bridge and get an update on regional seismic activity. Don't run off with any mermaids without me,' he said.

'They'd be too blue to swim in this frigid water anyway,' Giordino grunted.

Foregoing fins, the two men trudged down the deck in the rubber-soled feet of their dry suits and waded into the water. When the water level reached his shoulders, Pitt reached up and flicked on a small light strapped to his head, then ducked underwater. A starboard side stairwell was just a few feet ahead and Pitt walked toward it like Frankenstein's monster, plodding slowly against the water's resistance. A bouncing beam of light to his rear told him Giordino was following just a few feet behind.

Dropping down the stairs in a series of hops, Pitt passed the lower cabin level and continued down to the poop deck and engine room. Distancing himself from the surface daylight, a cloud of darkness quickly enshrouded him. The water itself was as clear as a swimming pool, though, and Pitt's small headlight cut a bright white path through the gloom. With negative buoyancy, it was easier to walk than swim and he moon-hopped his way to the starboard engine-room hatchway. As the chief engineer had reported, the heavy steel door was sealed closed. An old, rusty chain was wrapped around the latch and fastened to the bulkhead, locking the hatch shut. Pitt noted that a gold-colored padlock, which secured the chain, appeared to be new.

Pitt watched the glow from Giordino's light illuminate the hatch, then the snips from the bolt cutter slipped in front of him and grasped a link of chain near the padlock. Pitt turned and watched as Giordino cut the link as if cracking a walnut, the Italian's thick arms easily brandishing the cutter. As it sliced through the second half of the link, Pitt unwound the chain and pulled open the hatch, then stepped inside.

Though the Vereshchagin was more than thirty years old, the engine room was neat and spotless, the hallmark of a meticulous chief engineer. The ship's large diesel generator occupied most of the room, centered in the middle of the bay. Pitt slowly circled the bay, searching for obvious signs of damage to the deck and bulkheads, as well as the engine itself, but none was evident. Only a large steel-grated footplate was out of place, pulled up from the rear deck and left leaning against a tool bin. Peering inside, Pitt recognized it as an opening to the bilge. A four-foot drop led to a crawl space that ran under the enclosed deck. At its base was the curved steel plate of the ship's hull.

Lowering himself into the hole, Pitt dropped to the hull plate and knelt down, examining the compartment toward the stern. As far as his light would shine, the hull plates appeared smooth and intact. Spinning slowly around, he backed into a metal object as Giordino's light-dispensing head poked into the compartment. Under the beam of Giordino's spotlight, Pitt noticed a thick pipe running forward from the object at his back. Turning to examine the protrusion, he noted Giordino was nodding his head up and down in affirmation.

The object was a squat valve that rose a foot above the trailing pipe. Adjacent to it was a small red placard that proclaimed in bold white letters PREDOSTEREZHENIYE!, which Pitt could only assume meant 'Caution!' Pitt placed his gloved hands on the valve and twisted it counterclockwise. The valve wouldn't budge. He then reversed pressure and tried turning it clockwise. The valve turned freely under a light touch until Pitt pushed it to its stops. He glanced at Giordino, who nodded back with a knowing look. It was as simple as that. The valve opened the ship's sea cock, which would flood the bilge—and, ultimately, the entire ship—when opened at sea. Somebody had entered the engine room, opened the sea cock, disabled the bilge pumps, and then sealed off access to the bay. A quick and easy way to sink a ship in the middle of the night.

Pitt swam out of the bilge compartment and crossed the engine room. On the opposite side, he found an identical grated floor plate, this one properly positioned in the deck. Yanking the grate off, he climbed down and inspected the portside sea cock, finding it too had been turned to the open position. Closing the valve, he reached for the open hand of Giordino, who helped yank him out of the compartment and onto the engine-room deck.

Half of their objective was complete. They had accessed the engine room and determined the cause of the flooding. But there was still the question of Sarghov, Anatoly, and the missing oil survey team.

Glancing at his watch, Pitt noted that they had been submerged for nearly thirty minutes. Though they had