Pitt checked a compass on his dive console and swam to the east, with Giordino following close by. A small school of sturgeon cruised past, then the dirty silver outline of an airplane materialized.
After returning to the site of the Ottoman frigate Fethiye, Pitt and the crew of the Macedonia had needed only a few hours to locate the plane with sonar. So far, Pitt’s growing list of hunches had been borne out. The body of the Russian airman had indeed come from a sunken aircraft, which he had predicted after the Bulgarian archeologist Dimitov suddenly disappeared. The cargo door at the salvage yard, if from the same plane, revealed a link to Mankedo.
The polished aluminum skin had tarnished, collecting a thin layer of silt. But under the glow of their flashlights, the aircraft was still impressive. It was huge, the fuselage extending nearly a hundred feet, while its lone remaining wing stretched another sixty feet.
The two divers approached the port wing, floating above its twin eighteen-cylinder radial engines. The outer engine’s propeller was absent, while the interior’s was bent from impact. The divers reached the fuselage and swam aft until reaching the large tail assembly that still rose skyward. Pitt brushed the silt off the vertical stabilizer, revealing a large red star. Beneath the star, in black paint, was the number 223002, which Pitt committed to memory.
He and Giordino swam to the other side of the plane and found a completely different scene. As Pitt knew from the sonar survey, the right wing had been sheared off and lay a hundred yards to the east. Astern of the missing wing’s mounting was a gaping hole in the side of the fuselage. The breach, Pitt saw, hadn’t come from the plane’s crash.
The two men examined its clear rectangular cut and the telltale torching along the borders. Aiming his flashlight at the seabed, Pitt spotted the removed aluminum section a few yards away. Missing from its center was a cargo hatch of the size Pitt had seen at Mankedo’s salvage yard.
The two men entered the bomb bay, which was empty of ordnance. Pitt examined a single large support rack on the floor of the bay. Like the rest of the interior, it was well preserved in the oxygen-deprived water. Giordino spread his arms across the rack, showing it carried a weapon about five feet wide.
They moved forward inside the plane, scaring away a small eel, before they were halted by a wall of charred debris and twisted metal that blocked the passage. Judging by the ruins and a soot-coated ceiling, Pitt could see that a fire had brought down the plane. Given the amount of destruction, he was surprised that the aircraft had been able to ditch at sea relatively intact.
He checked his watch and saw that they had expended their bottom time. He motioned to the surface and Giordino nodded. They returned to the opening and exited the plane, swimming back to the opposite side. They followed their shot line to the surface, where an inflatable boat was moored a short distance from the Macedonia.
As they climbed into the boat and removed their gear, Giordino was the first to speak. “I thought she was a B-29 until I saw the red star. Looks like somebody took a can opener to her pretty recently.”
“Yep,” Pitt said. “And that was no ordinary bomb bay inside.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Pitt gave a firm nod. “It would seem our buddies from Thracia Salvage have a sixty-five-year-old atomic bomb on their hands.”
67
The abandoned farmhouse looked like any other in the rolling hills south of Kiev. Its white stucco walls had discolored to a dirty brown and were flaking in large chunks. The narrow windows had been boarded up, and the metal roof was streaked with rust. Its lone distinguishing characteristic, a crooked weather vane—the silhouette of a duck—swung loosely above the porch in the light breeze.
Vasko spotted the weather vane and turned his rental car into the weed-infested drive. He exited the car, stood, and listened. The faint sound of some cows in a nearby pasture wafted in the wind. He listened for other vehicles on the lonely farm road, but there were none.
He walked around the dilapidated house to the rear porch, which appeared to be an ongoing buffet line for a horde of termites. Vasko turned away from the house and paced in the direction of an adjacent potato field until he reached a small cellar door embedded in the ground. The door opened easily, and he stepped into the cramped room to find a large workman’s toolbox. He carried the box into the daylight and opened it.
Inside were freshly pressed green camouflage fatigues and a matching ball cap. Vasko held them up. They were adorned with patches from the Ukrainian Air Force’s 40th Tactical Brigade. He set aside the fatigues and pulled out a holstered Russian GSh-18 automatic pistol with a silencer and a pair of short-handled wire cutters. At the bottom of the box was a heavy rectangular packet wrapped in brown paper, along with an electronic detonator and a battery-operated timer.
Vasko carefully repackaged everything but the gun and carried the toolbox to the trunk of the car. He slipped the pistol under the seat and backed out of the farmhouse drive. Sticking to lightly traveled back roads, he drove west to the outskirts of Vasylkiv, a central Ukrainian city some thirty kilometers from Kiev. Finding a vacant field, he parked behind a high embankment and checked his watch. He had an hour until nightfall. With time to spare, he pulled out his phone and dialed Mankedo. The line was busy, as it had been the last few times he’d cal
led. He tried a satellite number for the Nevena and got the same result. Finally, he dialed Hendriks, who was still in Bermuda.
“I prefer you don’t call unless absolutely necessary,” the Dutchman said.
“My boss has gone silent. I fear a problem.”
“It shouldn’t affect you. I can make some inquiries if you give me his whereabouts.”
“I’ll do so when I see you again. Did you make the transfer for our recovery?”
“Yes. Wired to the account in Cyprus.”
“Have you received confirmation of its transfer?”
“Not from him, but I can assure you the funds were moved.”
Vasko fell silent, wondering what had become of his partner of twenty years.
“Are you on schedule?” Hendriks asked.
“Yes. I found the materials and am arranging delivery.”