“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.
The narrow passage of the Dardanelles soon opened into the broad waters of the Sea of Marmara. Pitt relaxed slightly, now that he had more room to maneuver about the scattered string of ships, and was thankful that the open water remained calm. Passing by the northern tip of the island named Marmara, he was diverted by the sound of Rudi Gunn’s calm voice calling over the radio.
“Aegean Explorer calling Bullet ,” Gunn said.
“This is Bullet . What do you have for me, Rudi?” Pitt replied over a radio headset.
“I can give you a tentative confirmation. Hiram located an updated sat image that appears to show the vessel in question entering the Dardanelles.”
“Do you know what time that was?”
“Looks to be about twenty-three hundred hours local time,” Gunn replied.
“You might want to give Sandecker a call back.”
“I already have. He said he’ll wake some people up over here.”
“He better. There may not be much time. Thanks, Rudi.”
“Be careful and stay afloat. Explorer out.”
“Let’s just hope Celik doesn’t own the Turkish Navy and the Coast Guard, too,” Giordino muttered.
Pitt wondered how far Celik’s corrupt reach actually extended, but there was little he could do about it now. He glanced at the nav screen, noting that they were now traveling at forty-seven knots, the Bullet finding more speed as her fuel load was burned down.
“Can we catch them if we have to?” Lazlo asked.
Pitt looked at his watch. It was four a.m. A quick mental calculation told him that at their respective top speeds, both vessels would approach Istanbul in about an hour.
“Yes,” he replied.
But he knew it would be close. Very close.
62
There would be no repeat of Jerusalem this time, Maria thought to herself. Working under the glow of the tanker’s deck lights, she carefully inserted a dozen individual blasting caps into separate blocks of the HMX plastic explosive. She then wired each blasting cap to individual electronic timer fuzes. Glancing at her watch, she stood and gazed past the ship’s bow. Ahead on the horizon was a blanket of twinkling white dots layered beneath a hazy black sky. The lights of Istanbul were now less than ten miles ahead. Kneeling down to the deck, she set each timer for a two-hour delay, then activated the fuzes.
Placing the charges into a small box, she climbed down into the opened section of the forward port water tank. The floor of the tank was packed tight with crates of ammonium nitrate fuel oil, and she had to snake her way past a maze of pallets to reach the center. In a cramped nook, she found a wide stack of wooden bins that held three thousand pounds of HMX. She proceeded to bury one of the charges deep into the middle bin, then stuffed four more of the charges in nearby crates of the ANFO. Making her way to the starboard-side tank, she repeated the process with the remaining charges, ensuring that they were all safely concealed.