A Dutch entrepreneur, Mark Hendricks, hires the crew of the Crimean salvage ship Besso to steal a load of uranium from a black market dealer. They accomplish this by detonating a charge underwater ahead of the target ship, releasing a cloud of poison gas that suffocates the crew of the ship carrying the uranium. He aims to try and sell it to the Iranians in returnfor 12 missiles, which he will give to the Ukrainian government to use to fight the Russians. He hates the Russians because his wife was killed when the Russians shot down a commercial airliner in the skies of Ukraine. Dirk Pitt responds to a mayday call from the ship. When he arrives, the ship is blown up by the thugs. With the help of Europol agent Ana, the uranium is recovered safely. Hendricks then hires the same people as before to set off 20 tons of explosives in waters near the Russian naval base in Sevastopol. They hijack the NUMA ship Macedonia to make the attempt look like it had been attempted by the Americans, so as to start a war between the two powers. The attempt fails when Dirk Pitt stops the ship. Next, the crew of the Besso finds an old Russian Bomber wreck in the Black Sea, a Tupolev Tu-4. A carrying an RDS-5 atomic bomb. Inside, they find the bomb intact. In the meantime, Dirk and his friend Giordino find the wreck of the Ottoman frigate Fethiye with the preserved body of an airman snagged on the wreck by his parachute. They find evidence that the bomber's payload has recently been removed. This, along with a raid on the Besso's base that finds a cargo door matching the downed bomber, puts them on the trail of Hendricks' plot. Hendricks once again hires the crew of the Besso after upgrading the bomb, this time instructing them to launch an attack on America, making it look like the Russians had done it, to start a war between Russia and America. Dirk and Giordino find the barge carrying the bomb in the Chesapeake bay, having realized that Hendricks wants to sink the bomb in the bay, and then detonate it, releasing a cloud of poison gas over Baltimore. Their helicopter is shot down, but they are rescued by the USS Constellation, a preserved Civil War era sloop-of-war. The volunteers on the ship use shells from the display cases on the ship to fire on the barge with a 20-pounder Parrott rifle on the stern rail at point-blank range. The Constellation is almost destroyed by multiple grenades fired from an RPG. Pitt and Giordino board the barge with swords and defeat the surviving terrorists. After his attack failed, Hendricks tries one last ploy to harm Russia. Hendricks made his fortune by creating military drones. During a demonstration for the Russian President, he fires a missile at the President, pretending that it is part of the demonstration. His last words before he and the president are blown to pieces are “Mr. President, I am about to kill you in the same manner you killed my family in the skies over Ukraine.”
