Crescent Dawn

The shot rang out before he felt it, a single clap from a nearby pistol. A trickle of blood ran warm down his leg before a burning ache pulsated in his upper thigh. The leg quickly turned wobbly, and he fell to his other knee as a figure emerged from the bulkhead shadows.

Maria walked calmly over, keeping her pistol leveled at Hammet’s chest as she drew closer.

“A bit late to be out for a stroll, Captain,” she said coldly. “Perhaps you best join your comrades.”

Hammet stared at her with disappointment in his eyes.

“Why do this?” he cried.

She ignored the query as a pair of Janissaries ran up, alerted by the gunshot. At her orders, they grabbed Hammet and dragged him across the deck, depositing him in the ship’s mess. There, he found his forlorn crew, seated on the floor with long faces, a guard pacing back and forth with his rifle at the ready.

The Janissaries roughly dumped the captain on the floor, then took up positions on either side of the door. The Dayan ’s executive officer rushed over to help Hammet to a seated position while a crew medic attended to the leg wound.

“I was hoping not to find you here,” Hammet said, wincing.

“Sorry, Captain. Those men at the stern stopped shooting just as we tossed our lines over the side. We were spotted before we even had a chance to deploy the inflatable.”

Though the bleeding from his leg wound had been halted, Hammet could sense his body going into shock. He took several deep breaths, trying to relax.

“Any luck at your end?” the exec asked.

The captain looked down at his wounded leg, then forced a pained nod.

“I suppose you could say so,” he replied, his eyes turning glassy as his voice wavered. “One way or another, I believe our voyage is about near its end.”

65

Three miles to the north, the Turkish coast guard patrol boat repeatedly hailed both the Dayan and the police craft, but to no avail. When the sight of distant muzzle flashes was reported to the bridge, the patrol boat’s captain ordered an immediate intercept of the tanker.

As the Coast Guard boat sped toward the big ship, its bow-mounted 30mm turreted gun was manned while a small boarding crew was readied. The boat made a quick sweep around the tanker, then drew up on the tanker’s starboard flank when no police boat was spotted. The captain then hailed the Dayan over the loudspeaker.

“This is Coast Guard vessel SG-301. You are hereby ordered to heave to and prepare for boarding,” he shouted.

As the Coast Guard captain waited to see if the Dayan would slow, his second officer called out to him.

“Sir, there’s another vessel approaching from our starboard.”

The captain looked over to see a dark-colored luxury yacht pull up abreast of the Coast Guard boat, then drop back behind it.

“Tell him to back off, if he doesn’t want to get blasted out of the water,” the captain ordered testily. His attention was quickly diverted back to the tanker, where a figure suddenly appeared above them at the rail.

The captain was surprised to see it was a woman, who stood waving at the boat while attempting to shout something. The captain stepped to the bridge wing, then called back to his helmsman.

“Bring us in tight, I can’t hear her.”

Maria smiled to herself as the Coast Guard boat eased to within a few feet of the tanker’s hull. Standing at the rail, she towered over the smaller vessel yet was easily able to look right at the bridge.

“I need your help,” she shouted at the pair of officers, who both now stood on the wing.

Not waiting for a reply, she reached down to a small duffel bag at her feet and quickly tossed it over the rail. Her throw was nearly perfect, the bag arcing toward one of the officers, who easily plucked it out of the air. She waited a second to watch the officer open the bag, then she dropped to the deck and covered her head.

The ensuing explosion lit up the night sky with a bright flash followed by a thunderous roar. Maria waited for the flying debris to land before peeking over the side rail. The Coast Guard boat’s bridge was a scene of annihilation. The blast had gutted the entire superstructure, vaporizing all of the men who stood there. Smoke billowed to the sky from a dozen small fires that were consuming the boat’s electronic components. Around the rest of the boat, stunned and burned sailors were picking themselves up after having been knocked flat by the concussion.

Maria crept down the passageway on her own vessel, then yelled through an open doorway.

“Now!” she screamed.

Her small team of armed gunmen burst out of the door and sprinted to the rail, immediately spraying their weapons on the dazed sailors below. The firefight was short-lived, as the 30mm gun crew was quickly eradicated, followed by the boarding crew. A few of the sailors recovered quickly and returned fire. But they were forced to shoot at an awkward angle, which deprived them of cover. Within minutes they were overwhelmed, and the patrol boat’s deck was a mass of dead and wounded men.

Maria called for her shooters to cease, then spoke into a handheld radio. Seconds later, the blue yacht came racing up alongside the patrol boat, then slowed and gingerly began nudging against the Coast Guard vessel’s bow. It took just a few bumps before the patrol boat was scraping and banging against the side of the tanker. Without power, the patrol boat began losing momentum and slid back alongside the tanker’s flank.

The yacht slowed as well, gradually slipping abreast of the patrol boat while keeping it pressed against the Dayan until the Dayan ’s stern loomed up. Holding steady, the yacht waited until the tip of the boat’s bow crossed the transom, then gave it a hard nudge with full bow thrusters. The boat pivoted left and surged across the flattened waters off the tanker’s stern. A muffled bang arose from beneath the surface as the tanker’s giant bronze propeller dug into the hull of the boat.

With its decks bloodied by the dead and wounded and its wheelhouse spewing smoke, the Coast Guard boat suddenly lurched and listed heavily to starboard. Only a scattering of screams pierced the night air as its bow nosed into the air, and then the entire ship rocked back onto its stern, disappearing beneath the waves as if she’d never been.

66

Both physical and mental fatigue were beginning to weigh on Pitt after two hours of running at high speed at night. They had traveled past the center of the Sea of Marmara, where they encountered larger swells that sent the Bullet airborne every few seconds. In the rear seat, Lazlo had finally calmed his stomach but had grown sore from the ceaseless pounding on the submersible’s hull.

Their hopes were lifted when they picked up the radio traffic from the Coast Guard patrol boat on the international distress channel.

“I think I heard them call the Dayan ,” Giordino said, dialing up the volume on the VHF radio to hear over the roar of the Bullet ’s engines.

They listened closely over the next few minutes as the repeated calls to the Dayan went unanswered. Then the radio fell silent altogether. A few minutes later, Giordino spotted a small white flash on the horizon.

“Did you see that?” he asked Pitt.

“I caught glimpse of a flash dead ahead.”

“It looked like a fireball to me.”

“An explosion?” Lazlo asked, craning his neck forward. “Is it the tanker?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Pitt replied. “It didn’t appear that large. But we’re too far away to know for