“Any blowback for Petrovski’s widow?” Stone asked. “It’s clear someone was sanitizing his discovery, and she would be another loose end.”

“When I got back to Muynak,” Juan said, “I told Arkin Kamsin what had happened. He promised to get her and her kids out of the country as quickly as he could. As soon as they were gone he was taking some time to visit friends in Astana, the capital. It’s the best we can do.”

He went on. “Bring me up to speed on your research.”

Mark Murphy wore a pair of fingerless gloves with wires jacked into his laptop, which itself was linked to the ship’s mainframe Cray supercomputer. He moved his hands through the air, and on the big flat screen his moves shuffled aside data windows in a way similar to a science-fiction movie. It was the latest generation slide-screen technology that he was beta-testing for a friend’s start-up company.

“Here we go,” he announced as an aerial photograph of an industrial site alongside a body of water came up on the display. “This is a shot of the C. Kraft and Sons shipbuilding facility taken in 1917, only three years before it was destroyed by fire. The company was founded in 1863 by Charles Kraft to build iron casements for the Union’s ironclad fleet. After the Civil War, they started constructing iron ships for the Great Lakes, mostly coastal ore carriers. At its peak in 1899, it was the prominent shipbuilder on the lakes.

“After Charles Kraft’s death, his two sons, Alec and Benjamin, squabbled over control. Alec, the elder son, eventually bought out his brother’s shares, but the debt he incurred eventually doomed the company. Rather than expand, it grew smaller and smaller as Alec was forced to sell off assets to cover his expenses. It didn’t help matters that he had a severe drinking problem.

“The fire that destroyed the yard was deemed suspicious, although the insurance company couldn’t prove arson. Alec Kraft died in 1926 from chronic liver disease. Benjamin Kraft hadn’t stayed in Erie after his buyout but moved to Pittsburgh with his family. He lived a quiet life off the proceeds of the sale. Neither man has any children alive today, but there are four grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, mostly in Pennsylvania or Upstate New York.”

“Any record of the company ever selling a ship to anyone in Russia?” Juan asked the question that had been burning in his mind since discovering Karl Petrovski’s eerie boat, in fact, had been a boat built in Erie.

“No direct overseas sales at all,” Mark said. He flicked his hands, and up came a list of the ships they had built. “I found this on a database of the Great Lakes Maritime Museum.”

He then highlighted several on the long list and explained as he went. “Going on your description, I’ve narrowed down the vessels that could be the one you found.”