CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
10:01 p.m. Crimean Daylight Time (3:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Tuzla Island
Strait of Kerch
Crimea, Ukraine
“This place is kind of a disgrace, isn’t it?” Zimmerman said.
The men moved quickly along the wet sand of the beach, staying low. It was a dark night, and they wore night vision goggles. The goggles cast everything in an eerie green light.
“Shut up,” Gruen said. This wasn’t a time for talking. But he could see Zimmerman’s point. The currents had turned the beach into a garbage dump.
All along the water’s edge, there was the detritus of a throwaway seafaring culture—empty bottles, rusty beer cans, ripped plastic bags, broken plastic bait buckets, copper wiring and rubber tubing of all kinds, a steel-belted radial tire, various pieces of clothing and sho
