Raise the Titanic! (32 page)

“Leave it to
Dirk Pitt to pick up a dame in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane,” Sandecker said. “What's your secret?”

“The Pitt curse,” Pitt answered, as he tenderly bandaged the swelling on Dana's head. “Women are forever attracted to me under impossible circumstances when I'm in no mood to respond.”

Dana began to moan softly.

“She's coming around,” Gunn said. He was on his knees next to a cot they had wedged between the gymnasium's old exercise equipment to steady it from the ship's rolling and pitching.

Pitt covered her with a blanket. “She suffered a nasty tap, but her mass of hair probably saved her from anything worse than a concussion.”

“How did she come to be on Sturgis's helicopter?” Woodson asked. “I thought she was babysitting the news people on board the
Alhambra
.”

“She was,” Admiral Sandecker said. “Several television network correspondents requested permission to cover the
Titanic
's haul to New York from aboard the
Capricorn
. I gave authorization on the condition that Dana accompany them.”

“I ferried them over,” Sturgis said. “And I saw Mrs. Seagram disembark when I landed on the
Capricorn
. It's a mystery to me how she reentered the helicopter without being noticed.”

“Yeah, a mystery,” Woodson repeated caustically. “Don't you bother checking your cargo compartment between flights?”

“I'm not running a commercial airline,” Sturgis snapped back. He looked as though he were about to hit Woodson. He glanced at Pitt and was met with a disapproving stare. Then, with a visible effort, he reined in his emotions and spoke slowly and firmly: “I'd been flying that bird out there steady for twenty hours straight. I was tired. I easily convinced myself that there was no need to bother with a cargo-compartment check because I was certain it was empty. How was I to know Dana Seagram would sneak on board?”

Gunn shook his head. “Why did she do it? Why would she…?”

“I don't know why…how the hell should I?” Sturgis said. “Suppose you tell me why she threw a hammer through my rotor blades, wrapped herself up in a tarpaulin, and then clouted herself on the head? Not necessarily in that order.”

“Why don't you ask her?” Pitt said. He nodded down at the cot.

Dana was staring up at the men, her eyes devoid of understanding. She looked as though she had just been dragged up from the sanctuary of exhausted sleep.

“Forgive me…for asking such a hackneyed question,” she murmured. “But where am I?”

“My dear girl,” Sandecker said, kneeling at her side, “you're on the
Titanic
.”

She looked dazedly at the admiral, disbelief written across her face. “That can't be?”

“Oh, I assure you it is,” Sandecker said. “Pitt, there's a bit of scotch left. Bring me a glass.”

Pitt obediently did as he was told and handed Sandecker the glass. Dana took a swallow of the Cutty Sark, choked on it, and coughed, holding her head as if to contain the pain that had suddenly exploded in her skull.

“There, there, my dear.” It was plain to see Sandecker was somewhat at a loss as to how to treat a woman in agony. “Rest easy. You've suffered a nasty blow on the head.”

Dana felt the bandage circling her hair and then clutched the admiral's hand, knocking the glass on the deck.

Pitt winced as the scotch spilled. Women just don't appreciate good booze.

“No, no, I'm all right.” She struggled to a sitting position on the cot and stared in wonder at the strange mechanical contrivances. “The
Titanic
,” she said the name reverently. “I'm actually on the
Titanic
?”

“Yes.” Pitt's voice was edged with sharpness. “And we'd like to know how you got here.”

She looked at him, half-uncertainly, half-confused, and said, “I don't know. I honestly don't know. The last thing I recall I was on the
Capricorn
.”

“We found you in the helicopter,” Pitt said.

“The helicopter…I lost my makeup kit…must have dropped it on the flight from the
Alhambra
.” She forced a wan smile. “Yes, that's it. I returned to the helicopter to search for my makeup kit. I found it jammed between the fold-up seats. I tried pulling it free when…well, I guess I fainted and hit my head when I fell.”

“Fainted? You're sure you—” Pitt broke off his question and asked another instead. “What was the very last thing you remember seeing before you blacked out?”

She thought a moment, staring as if at some distant vision in time. Those coffee-brown eyes seemed unnaturally large against her pale and strained face.

Sandecker patted her hand paternally. “Just take your time.”

Finally her lips formed a word. “Boots.”

“Say again,” Pitt ordered.

“A pair of boots,” she answered as if seeing a revelation. “Yes, I remember now, a pair of sharp-toed cowboy boots.”

“Cowboy boots?” Gunn asked, his expression blank.

Dana nodded. “You see, I was down on my hands and knees trying to extricate my makeup kit, and then…I don't know…they just seemed to be there…” She paused.

“What color were they?” Pitt prodded her.

“Kind of a yellow, cream color.”

“Did you see the man's face?”

She started to shake her head and caught herself at the first stab of pain. “No, everything went dark then…that's all there is….” Her voice trailed off.

Pitt could see that there was nothing to be gained by further interrogation. He looked down at Dana and smiled. She looked up and smiled back with an anxious-to-please smile.

“We dirty old men had best leave you alone to rest for a while,” he said. “If you need anything, one of us will always be close by.”

Sandecker followed Pitt over to the entrance to the grand staircase. “What do you make of it?” Sandecker asked. “Why would anyone want to harm Dana?”

“For the same reason they killed Henry Munk.”

“You think she got wise to one of the Soviet agents?”

“More likely, in her case, it was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“The last thing we need on our hands now is an injured woman.” Sandecker sighed. “There'll be hell to pay when Gene Seagram gets my radio message about what happened to his wife.”

“With all due respect, sir, I told Gunn not to send your message. We can't risk a change in plans at the last minute. Men make cautious decisions where women are concerned. We won't hesitate to risk the lives of a dozen members of our own sex, but we'll balk every time when it comes to endangering one of the female species. What Seagram, the President, Admiral Kemper, and the others in Washington don't know won't hurt them, at least for the next twelve hours.”

“It would appear my authority means nothing around here,” Sandecker said acidly. “Anything else you neglected to tell me, Pitt? Like who those outlandish cowboy boots belong to?”

“The boots belong to Ben Drummer.”

“I've never seen him wear them. How would…how could you know that?”

“I discovered them when I searched his quarters on the
Capricorn
.”

“Now you've added burglarizing to your other talents,” Sandecker said.

“Drummer wasn't alone. Giordino and I have searched every one of the salvage crews' belongings over the past month.”

“Find anything of interest?”

“Nothing incriminating.”

“Who do you think injured Dana?”

“It wasn't Drummer. That much is certain. He's got at least a dozen witnesses including you and me, Admiral, who will testify that he's been on board the
Titanic
since yesterday. It would have been impossible for him to attack Dana Seagram on a ship that was fifty miles away.”

At that moment, Woodson came up and caught Pitt's arm. “Sorry for the interruption, boss, but we just received an urgent call from the
Juneau
. I'm afraid it's bad news.”

“Let's have it,” Sandecker said wearily. “The outlook can't possibly be painted any blacker than it is now.”

“Oh, but it can,” Woodson said. “The message is from the missile cruiser's captain and reads: ‘Have received distress call from eastbound freighter
Laguna Star
, bearing zero five degrees, a hundred and ten miles north of your position. Must respond. Repeat, must respond. Sorry to leave you. Good luck to the
Titanic
!'”

“‘Good luck to the
Titanic
,'” Sandecker echoed. His voice was flat and empty of life. “We might as well raise a flashing sign on the hull that says, ‘Welcome thieves and pirates. Come one, come all.'”

So now it begins, Pitt thought to himself.

But the only sensation that coursed through his body was a sudden, overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom.

The air in
Admiral Joseph Kemper's Pentagon office reeked of stale cigarette smoke and half-eaten sandwiches, and it almost seemed to crackle under the invisible cloud of tension.

Kemper and Gene Seagram were huddled over the admiral's desk in quiet conversation while Mel Donner and Warren Nicholson, the CIA director, sat together on the sofa, their feet propped on a coffee table, and dozed. But they jerked upright in full wakefulness when the strange buzz that was specially tuned into Kemper's red telephone broke the hushed quiet. Kemper grunted into the receiver and laid it back in its cradle.

“It was the security desk. The President is on his way up.”

Donner and Nicholson glanced at each other and heaved themselves off the sofa. They had no sooner cleared the coffee table of the evening's debris, straightened their ties, and donned their coats when the door opened and the President strode in followed by his Kremlin security adviser, Marshall Collins.

Kemper came from behind his desk and shook the President's hand. “Nice to see you, Mr. President. Please make yourself at home. May I get you something?”

The President scanned his watch and then grinned. “Three hours yet before the bars close. How about a Bloody Mary?”

Kemper grinned back and nodded to his aide. “Commander Keith, will you do the honors?”

Keith nodded. “One Bloody Mary coming up, sir.”

“I hope you gentlemen won't mind me standing watch with you,” the President said, “but I have a heavy stake in this too!”

“Not at all, sir,” Nicholson answered. “We're happy to have you.”

“What is the situation at the moment?”

Admiral Kemper gave a full briefing to the President, describing the unexpected ferocity of the hurricane, showing the positions of the ships on a projected wall map, and explaining the
Titanic
's towing operation.

“Was it absolutely necessary that the
Juneau
be ordered off station?” the President asked.

“A distress call is a distress call,” Kemper replied solemnly, “and must be answered by every ship in the area, regardless of the circumstances.”

“We have to play according to the other team's rules until half time,” Nicholson said. “After that, it's our game.”

“Do you think, Admiral Kemper, that the
Titanic
can stand up to the battering of a hurricane?”

“As long as the tugs can keep her bow into the wind and sea, she's an odds-on favorite to come through with flying colors.”

“And if for some reason the tugs cannot keep her from swinging broadside to the waves?”

Kemper avoided the President's gaze and shrugged. “Then it's in God's hands.”

“Nothing could be done?”

“No, sir. There is simply no way to protect any one vessel caught in the clutches of a hurricane. It becomes a case of every ship for herself.”

“I see.”

A knock at the door, and another officer entered, laid two slips of paper on Kemper's desk, and retreated.

Kemper read the notes and looked up, his face set in a grim expression. “A message from the
Capricorn
,” he said. “Your wife, Mr. Seagram…your wife is reported missing. A search party aboard ship was unable to locate her. They fear she was lost overboard. I'm sorry.”

Seagram sagged into Collins's arms, his eyes widened in stunned horror. “Oh my God!” he cried. “It can't be true. Oh God! What am I going to do? Dana…Dana…”

Donner rushed to his side. “Steady, Gene. Steady.” He and Collins steered Seagram over to the sofa and gently lowered him to the cushions.

Kemper gestured to the President for his attention. “There's another message, sir. From the
Samuel R. Wallace
, one of the tugs towing the
Titanic
. The towing cable,” Kemper said. “It snapped. The
Titanic
is adrift in the center of the hurricane.”

 

The cable hung like a dead snake over the stern of the
Wallace
, its severed end swaying in the black depths a quarter of a mile below.

Butera stood frozen beside the great electric winch, refusing to believe his eyes. “How?” he shouted in Ensign Kelly's ear. “How could it part? It was built to take worse stress than this.”

“Can't figure it,” Kelly yelled back above the storm. “There was no extreme stress on her when she went.”

“Bring her up, Ensign. Let's take a look.”

The ensign nodded and gave the orders. The brake was released and the reel began turning, pulling the wire up from the sea. A solid sheet of spray dashed against the cablehouse. The dead weight of the wire acted as an anchor, dragging down the stern of the
Wallace
, and each time a column of water approached, it rose high over the wheelhouse and came thundering down upon it with a shock that jarred the entire tug.

At last the end of the tow cable appeared over the stern and snaked up onto the reel. As soon as the brake was applied, Butera and Kelly moved in and began examining the frayed strands.

Butera stared at it, his face twisted in stunned incomprehension. He touched the burned wire ends and looked dumbly at the ensign.

The ensign did not share Butera's muteness. “Jesus Christ in heaven,” he shouted hoarsely. “It's been cut through with an acetylene torch.”

 

Pitt was down on his hands and knees on the cargo floor of the helicopter, sweeping his flashlight under the folded passenger seats when the
Titanic
's tow cable dropped into the sea.

Outside the wind howled with demonic power. Pitt couldn't have known it, but without the tug's steadying influence, the
Titanic
's bow was being forced by the raging sea to leeward, exposing her entire flank to the unleashed furies. She was beginning to broach to.

It had taken him only two minutes to find Dana's makeup kit where it had solidly jammed behind one of the folded front seats immediately behind the control-cabin bulkhead. He could easily see why she had had difficulty retrieving the blue nylon case from its prison. Very few women are blessed with mechanical inclinations, and Dana was definitely not one of them. It hadn't occurred to her to simply unclasp the restraining straps and unfold the seat. Pitt did so and the kit fell free into his hand.

He didn't bother opening it; he wasn't interested. What he was interested in was the recessed compartment in the forward bulkhead, where a twenty-man life raft sat, or where it was supposed to sit. The yellow, rubberized cover was there all right, but the raft was gone.

Pitt had no time to appreciate the implication of his discovery. Even as he pulled the empty cover out of its compartment, a monstrous sea crashed against the flank of the helpless
Titanic
, heeling her great mass over on her starboard side as though she never meant to stop. Pitt made a desperate grab for one of the seat supports, but his fingers closed on air and he was spilled like a sack of potatoes down across the sloping floor, crashing against the partially opened cargo door with such force that he ripped a four-inch gash in his scalp.

Mercifully, the next few hours were lost to Pitt. He was aware of a cold gale sweeping into the fuselage, but not much else. His mind was a vague mass of gray wool, and he felt remotely detached from his surroundings. He could not know or even sense when the helicopter shed its triple-lashed moorings and was hurled sideways, dropping off the first-class lounge roof onto the Boat Deck, crumpling its tail section, tearing off its rotor blades, before grinding over the railing and falling toward the tormented sea.