Raise the Titanic! (24 page)

“Let me see
if I understand you,” Sandecker said, glaring across his desk. “One of the members of my salvage crew has been brutally murdered and you're asking me to sit idle and do nothing about it while the killer is allowed to roam loose?”

Warren Nicholson shifted uneasily in his chair and avoided Sandecker's blazing eyes. “I realize that it's difficult to accept.”

“That's putting it mildly,” Sandecker snorted. “Suppose he takes it in his head to kill again?”

“That's a calculated risk we have considered.”

“‘We have considered'?” Sandecker echoed. “It's simple for you to sit up there at CIA headquarters and say that. You're not down there, Nicholson, trapped in a submersible thousands of feet below the sea, wondering whether the man standing next to you is going to bash your brains out.”

“I am certain it won't happen again,” Nicholson said impassively.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because professional Russian agents do not commit murder unless it is absolutely necessary.”

“Russian agents—” Sandecker stared at Nicholson in startled and total disbelief. “What in God's name are you talking about?”

“Just that. Henry Munk was killed by an operative working for the Soviet Naval Intelligence Department.”

“You can't be positive. There is no proof….”

“Not one hundred percent, no. It might have been someone else with a grudge against Munk. But the facts point to a Soviet-paid operative.”

“But why Munk?” Sandecker asked. “He was an instrument specialist. What possible threat could he have been to a spy?”

“I suspect that Munk saw something he shouldn't have and had to be silenced,” Nicholson said. “And that's only the half of it, in a manner of speaking. You see, Admiral, there happen to be not one, but two Russian agents who have infiltrated your salvage operation.”

“I don't buy that.”

“We're in the business of espionage, Admiral. We find out these things.”

“Who are they?” Sandecker demanded.

Nicholson shrugged helplessly. “I'm sorry, that's all I can give you. Our sources reveal that they go under the code names of Silver and Gold. But as to their true identities, we have no idea.”

Sandecker's eyes were grim. “And if my people discover who they are?”

“I hope you will cooperate, at least for the time being, and order them to remain silent and take no action.”

“Those two could sabotage the entire salvage operation.”

“We're banking heavily on the assumption that their orders do not include destruction.”

“It's madness, pure madness,” Sandecker murmured. “Do you have any idea of what you're asking of me?”

“The President put the same question to me some months ago, and my answer is still the same. No, I don't. I'm aware that your efforts go beyond mere salvage, but the President has not seen fit to make me privy to the real reason behind your show.”

Sandecker's teeth were clenched. “And, if I should go along with you? What then?”

“I will keep you posted as to any new developments. And when the time comes, I will give you the green light to take the Soviet agents into custody.”

The admiral sat silently for a few moments and, when he finally spoke, Nicholson noted his deadly serious tone.

“Okay, Nicholson, I'll string along. But God help you if there is a tragic accident or another murder down there. The consequences will be more terrible than you can possibly imagine.”

Mel Donner came
through Marie Sheldon's front door, his suit splattered from a spring rain.

“I guess this will teach me to carry an umbrella in the car,” he said, taking out a handkerchief and brushing away the dampness.

Marie closed the front door and stared up at him curiously. “Any port in a storm. Is that it, handsome?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“From the look of you,” Marie said, her voice soft and slurry, “you needed a roof until the rain let up, and the fates kindly led you to mine.”

Donner's eyes narrowed for a moment, but only a moment. Then he smiled. “I'm sorry, my name is Mel Donner. I'm an old friend of Dana's. Is she at home?”

“I knew a strange man begging on my doorstep was too good to be true.” She smiled. “I'm Marie Sheldon. Sit down and make yourself comfortable while I call Dana and get you a cup of coffee.”

“Thank you. The coffee sounds like a winner.”

Donner appraised Marie's backside as she swiveled toward the kitchen. She wore a short white tennis skirt, a sleeveless knit top, and her feet were bare. The taut swing of her hips flipped the skirt to and fro in a pert, seductive sort of way.

She returned with a cup of coffee. “Dana is lazy on weekends. She seldom rolls out of the sack before ten. I'll go upstairs and speed things up.”

While he waited, Donner studied the books on the shelves beside the fireplace. It was a game he often practiced. Book titles seldom failed to unlock the door to their owner's personality and tastes.

The selections ran the usual gamut for the single female: there were several books of poetry,
The Prophet
,
The New York Times Cookbook
, and the usual sprinkling of gothics and bestsellers. But it was the arrangement that interested Donner. Interwoven among
Physics of Intercontinental Laval Flows
and
Geology of Underwater Canyons
, he found
Explanation of Sexual Fantasies of the Female
and
The Story of O
. He was just reaching for the latter when he heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs. He turned as Dana entered the room.

She came forward and embraced him. “Mel, how wonderful to see you.”

“You look great,” he said. The months of strain and anguish had been erased. She seemed more at ease and she smiled without tenseness.

“How's the swinging bachelor?” she asked. “Which line are you using on poor innocent girls this week, the brain surgeon or the astronaut?”

He patted his paunch. “I've retired the astronaut story until I can shed a few pounds. Actually, because of the publicity you people are getting on the
Titanic
, I can do no wrong by telling the little lovelies crowded around the Washington singles' bars that I'm a deep-sea diver.”

“Why don't you simply tell the truth. After all, as one of the country's leading physicists, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know, but somehow playing the real me takes the fun out of it. Besides, women love a lover who's phony.”

She nodded at his cup. “Can I get you more coffee?”

“No thanks.” He smiled, and then his expression became serious. “You know why I'm here.”

“I guessed.”

“I'm worried about Gene.”

“So am I.”

“You could go back to him…”

Dana met Mel's eyes evenly. “You don't understand. When we are together, it only makes things worse.”

“He's lost without you.”

She shook her head. “His job is his mistress. I was only a whipping post for his frustrations. Like most wives, I'm not geared to take the anguish that goes hand in hand with a husband's insensibility when he's over-burdened with on-the-job stress. Don't you see, Mel? I had to leave Gene before we destroyed each other.” Dana turned and held her face in her hands, then quickly composed herself. “If only he could quit and go back to teaching, then things would be different.”

“I shouldn't be telling you this,” Donner said, “but the project will be completed in another month if all goes according to plan. Then Gene will have nothing to keep him in Washington. He'll be free to return to the university.”

“But what about your contacts with the government?”

“Finished. We enlisted for a specific project, and when it's finished, so are we. Then all of us take a bow and head back to whatever campus we originally came from.”

“He may not even want me.”

“I know Gene,” Donner said. “He's a one-woman man. He'll be waiting…unless, of course, you're involved with another man.”

She looked up surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“I happened to be in Webster's Restaurant last Wednesday night.”

Oh God! Dana thought. One of her few dates since leaving Gene had come back to haunt her already. It had been a foursome with Marie and two biologists from the NUMA marine sciences laboratory, a friendly, comfortable evening. That was all, nothing had happened.

She stood up and glared down at Donner. “You, Marie, and yes, even the President, all expect me to go crawling back to Gene like some damned old security blanket he can't sleep without. But not one of you has even bothered to ask how
I
feel. What emotions and frustrations do I face? Well, to hell with all of you. I am my own woman, to do with my life as I please. I'll go back to Gene if and when I damn-well feel like it. And, if I feel in the mood to go out with other men and get laid, so be it.”

She spun and left Donner sitting there stunned and embarrassed. Up the stairs and into the bedroom where she threw herself on the bed. She had mouthed nothing but mere words. There would never be another man in her life but Gene Seagram, and some day, soon, she was sure she would return to him. But now the tears came until there were none left.

 

Imbedded in one of the mirrored walls, a phonograph record, watched over by a female disc jockey, thundered through four huge quad speakers. The postage-stamp dance floor was jammed, and a thick haze of cigarette smoke filtered the brightly colored lights that exploded on the ceiling of the discothèque. Donner sat at the table alone, idly watching the couples gyrate to the blaring music.

A petite blonde wandered up to him and suddenly stopped. “The rainmaker?”

Donner looked up. He laughed and got to his feet. “Miss Sheldon.”

“Marie,” she said pleasantly.

“Are you alone?”

“No, I'm the third wheel with a married couple.”

Donner's eyes followed her gesture, but it was impossible to tell who she meant amid the jumbled bodies on the dance floor. He pulled back a chair for her. “Consider yourself escorted.”

A cocktail waitress happened by and Donner shouted an order above the din. He turned to find Marie Sheldon studying him approvingly. “You know, Mr. Donner, for a physicist, you're not a bad-looking man.”

“Damn! I had hoped to be a CIA agent tonight.”

She grinned. “Dana told me about a few of your escapades. Leading poor innocent girls astray. For shame.”

“Don't believe all you hear. Actually, I'm shy and introverted when it comes to women.”

“Oh, really?”

“Scout's honor.” He lit her cigarette. “Where's Dana tonight?”

“Very sly of you. You tried to zing one over on me.”

“Not really. I just—”

“It's none of your prying business, of course, but Dana is on a ship somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean about now.”

“A vacation will do her good.”

“You do have a way of milking a poor girl for information,” Marie said. “Just for the record, so you can inform your pal Gene Seagram, she's not on holiday, but playing den mother to a regiment of news correspondents who demanded to be on the scene when the
Titanic
is raised next week.”

“I guess I asked for that.”

“Good. I'm always impressed by a man who admits the folly of his ways.” She tilted her eyes at him in a kind of mocking amusement. “Now that that's settled, why don't you propose to me?”

Donner's brows knitted. “Isn't the coy maiden the one who's supposed to say, ‘But sir, I hardly know you'?”

She took his hand and stood up. “Come on then.”

“May I ask where?”

“To your place,” she said with a mischievous grin.

“My place?” Events were clearly moving too fast for Donner.

“Sure. We have to make love, don't we? How else can two people who are engaged to be married get to know each other?”

Pitt slouched in
his train seat and idly watched the Devon countryside glide past the window. The tracks curved along the coastline at Dawlish. In the Channel he could see a small fleet of fishing trawlers heading out for the morning's catch. Soon a misting rain streaked the glass and blurred his view, so he turned once more to the magazine on his lap and thumbed the pages without really seeing them.

If they had told him two days ago that he'd take a temporary leave from the salvage operation, he'd have thought them stupid. And, if they'd suggested that he'd travel to Teignmouth, Devonshire, population 12,260, a small picturesque resort town on the southeast coast of England, to interview a dying old man, he'd have thought them downright insane.

He had Admiral James Sandecker to thank for this pilgrimage, and that is exactly what the admiral had called it when he had ordered Pitt back to NUMA headquarters in Washington. A pilgrimage to the last surviving crew member of the
Titanic
.

 

“There's no use in arguing the matter any further,” Sandecker said unequivocally. “You're going to Teignmouth.”

“None of this adds up.” Pitt was pacing the floor nervously, his equilibrium struggling to forget the months of endless pitching and rolling of the
Capricorn
. “You order me ashore during a crucial moment of the salvage and tell me I have two Russian agents, identities unknown, who have carte blanche to go about murdering my crew under the personal protection of the CIA, and then in the same breath, you calmly order me to England to take down the deathbed testimony of some ancient limey.”

“That ‘ancient limey' happens to be the only member of the
Titanic
's crew who hasn't been buried.”

“But what of the salvage operation?” Pitt persisted. “The computers indicate the
Titanic
's hull might break loose from the bottom any time after the next seventy-two hours.”

“Relax, Dirk. You should be back on the decks of the
Capricorn
by tomorrow evening. Plenty of time before the main event. Meanwhile, Rudi Gunn can handle any problems that come up during your absence.”

“You don't offer me much choice.” Pitt gestured in defeat.

Sandecker smiled benevolently. “I know what you're thinking…that you're indispensable. Well, I've got news for you. That's the best salvage crew in the world out there. I feel confident that somehow they'll struggle through the next thirty-six hours without you.”

Pitt smiled, but there was no humor in his face. “When do I leave?”

“There is a Lear jet waiting at the NUMA hangar at Dulles. It will take you to Exeter. You can catch a train from there for Teignmouth.”

“Afterward, shall I report to you back here in Washington?”

“No, you can report to me aboard the
Capricorn
.”

Pitt looked up. “The
Capricorn
?”

“Certainly. Just because you're relaxing in the English countryside, you don't expect me to miss out on seeing the
Titanic
's regenesis in case she decides to come up ahead of schedule, do you?”

Sandecker grinned satanically. He could afford that, as it was all he could do to keep from laughing at the aggrieved and crestfallen expression on Pitt's face.

 

Pitt climbed into a cab at the railroad station and rode along a narrow road beside the river estuary to a small cottage overlooking the sea. He paid the cab driver, went through a vine-covered gate, and up a walk bordered by rose bushes. His knock was answered by a girl with absorbing violet eyes framed by neatly brushed red hair and a soft voice that was touched by a Scot's accent.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” he said with a slight nod. “My name is Dirk Pitt, and—”

“Oh yes, Admiral Sandecker's cable said you were coming. Please come in. The commodore is expecting you.”

She was dressed in a neatly pressed white blouse and a green wool sweater and matching skirt. He followed her into the living room of the cottage. It was cozy and comfortable; a fire was burning brightly in the fireplace, and if Pitt had not known that the owner was a retired mariner, he could have easily guessed it by the décor. Ships' models filled every available shelf, while framed prints of famous sailing vessels graced all four walls. A great brass telescope was mounted in front of the window facing the Channel, and a ship's wheel, its wood gleaming from hours of hand-waxed care, stood in one corner of the room as if awaiting a momentary turn from some long-forgotten helmsman.

“You look like you've had a very uncomfortable night,” the girl said. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“Courtesy urges me to decline, but my stomach rumbles for me to accept.”

“Americans are famous for hearty appetites. I would have been disappointed if you had shattered the myth.”

“Then I'll do my best to uphold Yankee tradition, Miss…”

“Please forgive me. I'm Sandra Ross, the commodore's great-granddaughter.”

“You look after him, I take it.”

“When I can. I'm a flight attendant with Bristol Airlines. A village lady sees to him when I have a flight.” She motioned him down a hallway. “While you're waiting for a bit to eat, you'd best talk to Grandfather. He's very, very old, but he's dying to hear—He's anxious to hear all about your efforts to raise the
Titanic
.”

She knocked lightly on a door and opened it a crack. “Commodore, Mr. Pitt is here to see you.”

“Well, get him in here,” a voice rasped back, “before I founder on the reef.”

She stood aside and Pitt entered the bedroom.

Commodore Sir John L. Bigalow, K.B.E., R.D., R.N.R. (Retired) sat propped up in a bunklike bed and studied Pitt through deep blue eyes, eyes that had the dreamlike quality of another age. The few strands of hair on his head were pure white, as was his beard, and his face showed the ruddy, weathered look of a seafaring man. He wore a tattered turtleneck sweater over what looked to be a Dickens'-style nightshirt. He held out a leathery hand that was as steady as a rock.

Pitt took it and marveled at the firm grip. “This is indeed an honor, Commodore. I have often read of your heroic escape from the
Titanic
.”

“So much rot,” he grumbled. “I was torpedoed and cast adrift in both World Wars, and all anybody ever asks me about is the night of the
Titanic
.” He motioned to a chair. “Don't stand there like a beardless lad on his first trip to sea. Sit down. Sit down.”

Pitt did as he was told.

“Now tell me about the ship. What does she look like after all these years? I was a young man when I served on her, but I still remember her every deck.”

Pitt reached into the breast pocket of his coat and handed Bigalow an envelope of photographs. “Perhaps these can give you some idea of her present condition. They were taken by one of our submersibles just a few weeks ago.”

Commodore Bigalow slipped on a pair of reading glasses and studied the pictures. Several minutes ticked off a ship's clock beside the bed while the old mariner became lost in the memories of another time. Then he looked up wistfully. “She was in a class all by herself, she was. I know. I sailed them all: the
Olympic…Aquitania…Queen Mary
. Sure they were elaborate and modern for their time, but they couldn't touch the care and craftsmanship that went into the
Titanic
's furnishings: her wonderful paneling and her marvelous staterooms. Aye, she still casts a heavy spell, she does.”

“She grows ever more bewitching with the years,” Pitt agreed.

“Here, here,” Bigalow said as he pointed excitedly to a photo, “by the port ventilator on the roof over the officers' quarters. This is where I was standing when she sank beneath my feet and I was washed into the sea.” The long decades seemed to melt away from his face. “Oh, but the sea was cold that night. Four degrees below freezing it was.”

For the next ten minutes he talked of swimming in the icy water; miraculously finding a rope that led to an overturned lifeboat; the awful mass of struggling people; the pitiful cries that pierced the night air and then slowly died out; the long hours spent clutching the keel of the boat, huddled against the cold with thirty other men; the excitement when the Cunard liner
Carpathia
hove into view and made the rescue. Finally, he sighed and peered over the tops of his glasses at Pitt. “Am I boring you, Mr. Pitt?”

“Not in the least,” Pitt answered. “Listening to someone who actually lived the event seems almost like living it myself.”

“Then I'm going to give you another story to try on for size,” Bigalow said. “Until now I never told a soul about my last minutes before the ship went down. I never mentioned a word in any of my interrogations about the sinking; not to the United States Senate inquiry nor to the British Court of Inquiry. Nor did I ever breathe a syllable to the newspaper reporters or writers who were forever researching books on the tragedy. You, sir, are the first and will be the last to hear it from my lips.”

 

Three hours later, Pitt was on the train back to Exeter, neither tired nor worn. He did feel a kind of excitement. The
Titanic
, along with the strange enigma locked within the vault of cargo hold No. 1, G Deck, beckoned to him now more than ever. Southby, he wondered? How did Southby fit in the picture? For perhaps the fiftieth time he looked down at the package that Commodore Bigalow had given him. And he was not sorry that he had come to Teignmouth.