As the guard spoke briefly into the transmitter, his eyes remained locked on Pitt. Pitt stood perfectly still, contemplating the penalty for trespassing in Russia and dryly noting that an exile to Siberia wouldn't require any traveling. He then thought of the dead fisherman aboard the Vereshchagin and wondered if a Siberian gulag wasn't too rosy an assumption.
He subtly bent his knees while waiting for the radio to squawk back, which would create a slight distraction to the guard. When a deep voice blared back through the handset, Pitt inched his left hand to the side rail and tightened his legs for a springing vault over the side. But that's as far as he got.
The muzzle flash flared with a simultaneous bark from the Yarygin as the gun bucked slightly in the guard's hand. Pitt froze as a baseball-sized chunk of teak splintered off the wood rail inches from his hand and splashed into the water below a moment later.
Pitt made no further movements as a series of shouts erupted on the dock, inspired more from the gunshot than the radio call. Two men stormed up the gangway, each brandishing the same type Yarygin pistol carried by the Russian military that had nearly blown away Pitt's left hand. Pitt immediately recognized the second man as the missing helmsman from the Vereshchagin, a humorless icicle named Anatoly. A third man soon emerged from the bridge companionway and approached with an authoritative air. He had long ebony hair and surveyed the scene through a pair of callous brown eyes.
Under the dock lights, Pitt could see a long scar running down his left cheek, the tattoo from a youthful knife fight.
"I found this intruder hiding behind the tender," the guard reported.
The man eyed Pitt briefly, then turned to the other two crewmen. "Search the area for accomplices. And no more gunfire. We do not need to attract attention."
The two men from the dock jumped at his words and quickly fanned through the forward deck, searching the shadows. Pitt was led to the center of the deck, where an overhead light illuminated the scene.
"Where is Alexander?" Pitt asked calmly. "He told me to meet him here."
Pitt didn't expect the bluff to work but studied the man in charge for a reaction. A slight arch of the brow was all he offered.
"English?" he finally said without interest. "You would be from the Vereshchagin. A pity you have lost your way."
"But I have found those responsible for trying to sink her," Pitt responded.
Under the dim lights, Pitt could see the man's face flush. He checked his anger as Anatoly and the other crewman approached, shaking their heads.
"No companions? Then put him with the other and quietly deposit them over the side where no one will find them," the man hissed.
The guard stepped forward and thrust the barrel of his pistol into Pitt's ribs and nodded toward the portside passageway. Pitt grudgingly walked toward the shadows where he had left Giordino and turned down the passageway, followed by the guard and two crewmen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the scar-faced boss return to the bridge via a side stairwell.
Marching past the crossways, he half expected to see Giordino lunge out of the shadows at his assailants, but his partner was nowhere to be seen. Reaching the stern deck, he was prodded toward one of the rusty cargo containers lining the rail. Acting calm and non-resistant, he waited until one of the crewmen fumbled with a padlock on the container before taking the offensive. The guard still poked him in the ribs with a pistol, standing off balance in the process. In a lightning-quick move, Pitt bumped the muzzle away from his body with a flick of his left elbow. Before the guard realized what was happening, Pitt had swung at him, carrying the full weight of his right fist with the momentum. The roundhouse hammered the guard's chin, coming within a hair of knocking him unconscious. Instead, he staggered backward into the arms of Anatoly as the gun clanked to the deck.
The other crewman was still occupied holding the padlock in his hands, so Pitt gambled and dove for the loose gun. As he hit the deck, his outstretched right hand just snared the Yarygin's polymer grip when a one-hundred-seventy-pound mass landed on his back. With calm callousness, Anatoly had wisely pushed the punch-drunk guard back at Pitt, the dazed man landing in a heap on Pitt's back. As Pitt tried to roll the guard off, he felt the cold steel muzzle of an automatic pistol suddenly pressed into the side of his neck. Pitt knew the order not to shoot would only go so far and dropped his gun to the deck.
Pitt was held at gunpoint on his knees until the padlock was freed and the double doors of the twenty-foot-long container were flung open. Shoved roughly in the back, Pitt staggered into the container, falling against a soft object. Under the dim light he realized that he had fallen against a human form, lying crumpled on the container floor. The body moved, the torso pulling up on an elbow as its hidden face turned to Pitt.
"Dirk ... it's good of you to drop in," rasped the weary voice of Alexander Sarghov.
***
When Pitt was apprehended on the bow, Giordino silently cursed from the shadows. Without a weapon at hand, his options were limited. He considered charging the gunman from afar, but there was just too much open deck to cross in plain view. Watching the guard fire a warning shot at Pitt dispelled the thought of conspicuous heroics altogether. Then hearing the men from the dock running aboard, he decided to backtrack and skirt through the cross-passageway to the starboard side. Perhaps he could fall in place behind the men boarding the gangplank and make a move on the guard with the approach of the other men.
Moving silently along the bulkhead, he quickstepped down the port deck and turned into the cross-passageway. Just as he turned the corner, a black-clad figure running from the opposite direction collided head-on with him. In a scene out of a Keystone Kops silent movie, both men bounced off each other like rubber balls and fell flat on their backs. Agile as a cat and quickly shaking off the blow, Giordino sprang to his feet first and lunged at the other man as he scrambled to stand up. Grabbing him by the torso, Giordino slammed the other man headfirst into the bulkhead. A soft clang echoed as the man's skull met the steel wall and his body instantly fell limp in Giordino's arms.
No sooner was the man out cold than the sound of footsteps resonated down the port deck. A glance to the lighted forward deck revealed Pitt being escorted aft. Quickly dragging the unconscious man down the cross-passageway, Giordino ducked back into the conference room. Hoisting the limp body onto the conference table, he noticed that the crewman was his same height and dressed in the same black overalls that the deck guard wore. A quick search turned up no weapons on the man, who was actually the ship's radio operator. Giordino stripped off the overalls and slipped them over his own pants, then pulled on a dark wool fishing cap that the man had been wearing. Satisfied he could in the dark pass as a crewman, he stepped back into the corridor and moved aft, completely unsure of his next move.
***
Sarghov's clothes were rumpled, his hair askew, and his left brow glistened a midnight blue. Though his face was weary, his eyes sparkled with life as he recognized Pitt.
"Alexander, how bad are you hurt?" Pitt asked, helping Sarghov to a sitting position.
"I'm all right," he replied in a stronger voice. "They just roughed me up a little after I laid one of their men down." A slight smile of satisfaction creased his lips.
Behind them, the double doors of the container slammed shut, casting the interior into complete darkness. The hum of a diesel generator kicked to life as one of the crewmen took the controls of a nearby shipboard crane. The operator swung the boom across the deck, jerking it to a stop above the container as its dangling steel hook swung wildly about. Releasing the cable, he let the hook drop until it landed on the container with a metallic clang, then killed the controls.