Into the Black (41 page)

Kismet did not attempt to make a stand against the Russian.  Instead, he retreated along the bow, climbing onto the tilted bowsprit.  Anatoly was literally at his heels, grasping at his boots in an effort to trip him as he attempted to climb up to the spar protruding from the bow.

Below him, Harcourt had succeeded in cutting the mooring lines that had tightly secured the trawler to the ancient sailing vessel.  The fishing boat popped upright with a suddenness that surprised the archaeologist, causing him to topple over.  The trawler then bobbed away from the galley, taking with it Kismet's best plan for escape.

Anatoly's fingers snared the cuff of Kismet's right trouser leg.  He was yanked back, stretched between the Russian's grip on his leg and his own desperate hold on the ladder to the bowsprit.  He slipped his left foot off of the rung and drove it repeatedly toward Anatoly's face.

At first, the Russian seemed impervious to the blows, but the insistent pounding of Kismet's boot savaged his face, tearing skin and smashing cartilage and bone.  Kismet felt the grip on his leg weakening and yanked himself away, scrambling to the top of the spar.

Normally, the bowsprit would have been the highest point on the galley, save for its mast when the ship was whole.  But now the deck leaned over drunkenly, borne down by the weight of the water that was inundating the galley.  Kismet crawled out onto the exterior of the bowsprit, along the port side edge that now faced skyward, clinging to the foremast.  Anatoly's bloodied face rose alongside him.

Kismet took a swing at the Russian, hoping to knock his foe into the sea, but the impact of the blow rebounded, causing him to lose his own grip.  He slid along the smooth surface of the hull, his feet flopping out into empty space.  He managed to grasp the foremast, his fingers finding a purchase in the intricate whorls of the design. The carved hair of the image, layered with gold, was the only thing that prevented him from tumbling into the storm tossed waves.  It was as if Medea had once more intervened to rescue her champion.

Anatoly now pulled himself erect and loomed over Kismet like an executioner.  He stood with his feet apart, bracing himself against the inexorable roll of the galley.  Blood streamed from his shattered nose and dripped down onto the shining gold, where the rain and spray washed it away.  "We die together, Nikolai Kristanovich Kismet." The trauma to his face distorted his words even more than his accent, but Kismet understood all too well.  "You will not steal this treasure from my people."

"What about Irene?"

His remark had the desired effect of causing Anatoly to hesitate, but the pause benefited him little.  He was stuck, dangling from the bowsprit, unable to pull himself up or to get a foothold.  The big Russian looked away, staring down at the place where Irene now struggled to get above the rising water.  "Forgive me, Petr Ilyich," he whispered apologetically then returned his attention to Kismet.  "I cannot save those who join with the enemies of the
Rodina
."

Kismet started to reply, but was overcome by an unusual sensation.  A preternatural stillness enshrouded the bow of the galley, a faint hum and tingle pervading the void in the fury of the storm.  Later, he would swear that everything began to glow with blue light in the moment before he let go.  Heeding the premonition, he surrendered himself to gravity.  He opened his hands, released the foremast, and dropped two stories into the frothing Black Sea.  When he hit the water, he stabbed nearly as deep into it, before his own buoyancy arrested his plunge.  He did not bob back to the surface however, but was bogged down by his sodden clothing and boots.

Suddenly, the world above was filled with light.  Though it lasted for only a heartbeat, Kismet knew what it was—his prescient moment had saved him from a deadly bolt of lightning.

Rather than struggling to swim impeded by the weight of his boots, he doubled over and began unlacing his footwear.  The knots were swollen with water and resisted for a moment, but in his desperation he succeeded in breaking the heavy strings.  He kicked the boots off, and stroked toward the surface.

Medea was gone.  The lightning blast had sheared off the top of the bowsprit, sending the carved image of the sorceress into the depths.  Black scorch marks obscured the glowing metal along the point of severance.  There was no sign of Anatoly.

Kismet swam toward the nearly vertical deck and sighed in relief when he spied Irene clinging to the distended columns around the hold.  She was sobbing when he reached her, but he did not press for an explanation.  She had just witnessed her oldest friend burned to a cinder by lightning.  Whether it was Anatoly's death, or his treachery, she had good reason to be upset.  He silently enfolded her in his embrace and waited for the end.

* * *

Grimes stood on the deck of the captured gunboat, calmly watching the demise of the golden ship.  To lose such a great prize was tragic, but that failure was mitigated by the primary success of the entire endeavor.  They had recovered the Golden Fleece.  From his vantage, he could see his hired archaeologist likewise watching Kismet's final journey with the mythic sheepskin still adorning his shoulder.

Grimes cared not for the legendary—purportedly supernatural—origins attributed to the Fleece.  A nominal Christian, he was quite certain that the gods and heroes of Greek mythology had never really walked the Earth, so there could only be a mundane explanation for the astonishing properties of the ubergold, and that was for the scientists to unravel.

Despite Kismet's casual accusations, the decision to alienate himself from the country of his birth had not come easily.  In his heart, he remained a patriot, sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States from enemies both foreign and domestic.  The problem was that America's true enemies had risen from inside her very leadership.  After years of trying to right those wrongs from the within, he had come to realize that the mechanism of American government could not be adjusted incrementally; something more dynamic would be needed to put not only America, but all the nations aligned under the North Atlantic Treaty back on the track to global military and economic supremacy. The weapon proposed by his new acquaintances at Alb-Werk had the potential to do just that.

It was a terrible device, to be sure.  It had to be.  No one feared or respected a threat that did not promise extremes of destruction.  Its very existence would send a message to the insurgents and extremists buried in the civilian populations of developing countries around the world: resist and you will be obliterated.  Not merely blown apart or burned beyond recognition, but atomized; not even ashes would remain to inspire the next generation of terrorists. 

The menace of such a device would no doubt have been adequate to force the hand of the Iraqi dictator without necessitating the war that had fractured years of diplomatic progress in Europe and inflamed the Arab world.  Alb-Werk's scientists had promised a working prototype within two years and Grimes had lobbied the President to exercise patience, but his arguments had been in vain.  The timetable was unrealistic and the Commander in Chief did not like the idea of waiting on a former enemy nation—Germany—to develop and ultimately exercise control over a strategic weapon.  An ultimatum had followed and Grimes had made a hard choice, but not one that he had cause to regret.  When Germany added the EMP weapon to NATO's arsenal, subjugating the last of the free world's enemies, the wisdom of his decision would become manifest.

The ubergold in the Fleece alone was adequate to supply a dozen warheads, but Grimes had full confidence in the ability of Alb-Werk's scientists to crack the atomic code of the strange metal in order to synthesize an endless supply.  The loss of the golden vessel was merely inconvenient.

He turned to the leader of the small commando unit.  The German Special Forces officer had been champing at the bit to return to the Georgian coast in order to link up with his superior and the bulk of the contingent.  Since their hasty departure the night before, they had been unable to establish radio communications with the main force that had remained behind to sterilize the mountain camp.  The squad leader was justifiably concerned, and with success so near at hand, eager to get his men back home with the prize.

"Bring us around to the Russian's boat," Grimes ordered.  "We'll pick up Sir Andrew and then proceed to the rendezvous."

Before the officer could turn to execute the command, a shrieking whistle cut through the dull roar of the wind, causing both men to freeze where they stood.  The sound grew louder and lower in pitch, then abruptly fell silent.

Grimes knew the sound: the unique whistle caused by the fins of an artillery round as it descended toward its target. It was a noise every soldier knew and dreaded.  But the screech had not reached its lowest note—the precursor to impact and detonation.  There could be but one explanation for the sudden quiet.  As he looked up and around, he heard the German colonel cry in alarm; a harsh sounding German phrase which he both understood and echoed.

Like the eye of a hurricane, the one place where the shriek of an incoming round could not be heard was at ground zero.  Somewhere high overhead, the projectile—fired from God only knew where—had completed its parabolic arc and was descending directly onto the target.

"
Scheisse
, indeed," Halverson Grimes muttered, repeating the commando's oath.

Then he vanished in a spray of smoke and tissue.

* * *

In the distance, beyond the exploding gunboat, Kismet could make out the broadside silhouette of the
Boyevoy
, materializing wraith-like from the veil of storm clouds on the horizon, arriving too late to rescue the agent that had summoned her, but not so tardily as to let the rest of her prey escape.  Her guns were lobbing anti-ship mortars with startling accuracy toward the renegade patrol craft.

The first shell—the one that had blown Grimes out of existence—landed amidships to port, knocking a sizeable chunk out of the hull.  That shot alone was fatal to the gunboat, but Severin's artillery men did not relent.  The patrol vessel never got a chance to sink; shells from the destroyer blasted its flaming wreckage across the water.

The commandos that survived the initial blast quickly abandoned the doomed vessel, hurling themselves into the storm-tossed water.  Random discharges of lightning illuminated them as they struggled in the driving rain amidst oil slicks and debris.  Some were trying to reach the galley, though that seemed akin to leaving the safety of the frying pan for the fire; the golden ship would likely sink before any of them could get there.

The
Boyevoy
came around, plowing through the tempest toward the wreckage.  Although her big guns had fallen silent, the destroyer continued to visit death upon her enemies. Sniper fire was picking off the derelict survivors.  Kismet wondered idly if Severin would bother to take him and Irene prisoner, or just machine-gun them and leave them to sink with the golden ship.

All of a sudden, the galley lurched forward.  At first, he thought it was a final shift, angling toward the bottom, but then he realized that the golden ship was starting to move.  "What the hell?"  He loosened his hold on Irene.  "Wait here."

Grasping the port gunwale, he traversed the length of the deck like a rock climber, hand over hand, with his stocking feet braced against the sloping deck.  As he moved forward, he saw that his first assumption was partially correct; the bow was indeed shifting downward, and would precede the rest of the vessel in the journey to the bottom.  But the movement was caused by something altogether different.

"Harcourt!" he shouted.  "You bloody fool!"

He could not see the British archaeologist aboard the trawler, but it was evident that Harcourt had succeeded in engaging the idling motor.  The trawler had started forward, but moved only a short distance before hitting the end of the tow cable.  In his ignorance, Harcourt had failed to disconnect the line when cutting the mooring ropes.  The trawler's small engine was still capable of tugging the ancient vessel, but when the galley went under, the fishing boat would sink with it.

The Englishman now appeared on the deck.  Harcourt apparently realized his peril, and was investigating the umbilical attachment.  Kismet noted that his rival still had the Golden Fleece draped over one shoulder.  Its weight caused him to stagger as he crossed to the stern and inspected the winch assembly.  He fumbled with it for a moment and managed to release the ratchet, allowing the cable to unspool.  The trawler immediately shot forward leaving the golden ship behind, but his efforts only temporarily forestalled disaster.  The winch continued turning until the line was played out.  After only a few seconds, the tow cable snapped taut, rising out of the water with a thrumming vibration, and the fishing vessel stopped dead.

Harcourt stumbled and fell onto his back, but managed to crawl over to the winch.  Though he was now almost a hundred yards away, Kismet could see the archaeologist beating out his frustration on the capstan housing, like a child throwing a tantrum.  There was no way for him to release the cable.  Heavy bolts secured the last loop in the winch; the towline could only be cast off from the galley.

Kismet lost interest in Harcourt's struggle as the sea rushed up to meet him.  The bow of the galley was plunging downward rapidly.  Before he could even begin moving, the water was up to his waist.

"Irene! Get to the hold—"

His words were cut off as the sea washed over his head.  The stern of the galley suddenly rose out of the water, and then the entire vessel, like a golden needle, pierced the darkness below and vanished.

Once the galley, overlaid in one of the heaviest elements known to man, committed to its downward plunge, it sank rapidly.  Kismet could feel the rush of water passing him by.  At the same time, his inner ear throbbed painfully with the rapid changes in pressure.  He tried to compensate by working his jaw to pop his ears, but could not equalize fast enough.  Howling the last air from his lungs, he released his hold on the ship and clamped his hands ineffectually against the sides of his head.