Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (8 page)

Saint Paul’s University, St. Paul, Maryland
Present Day

“Thanks for seeing us on such short notice, Professor.”

Professor
James Acton extended his hand, greeting Steve Wainwright, his wife and his sister.
Greg Milton, Acton’s best friend and boss, sat in his wheelchair nearby, his
back still giving him troubles, but troubles he would gladly deal with
considering the doctors had told him he would most likely never feel a thing
below his waist again.

They had
been proven wrong, and though he could now walk, he fatigued easily, and as the
hours passed, he would find himself in need of his chair, his back threatening
to give out.

Acton
always felt a twinge of guilt every time he saw his friend in his chair. Though
Milton had never blamed him, and called him a fool for doing so, he had never
been able to forgive himself for getting his friend involved in his troubles.
He had been pursued by America’s elite Delta Force operating under false intel indicating
he was the leader of a domestic terrorist cell, their orders to eliminate him
and his followers.

Too many
had died before the soldiers had discovered the truth and refused to carry out
their illegal orders.

By then
his friend had been shot and left for dead.

Ever
since those events, the men of Bravo Team, the Delta unit that had taken so
much from him, had made it their mission to help him whenever he or a loved one
got into trouble, and that seemed to happen more often than it should, though
he had no regrets. Once he had moved past those events, he had realized how
great these men were and now even considered them friends, though not
necessarily good friends, the nature of their job so secretive, it wasn’t like
they got together on vacation or went to each other’s homes for barbecues.

Though
he had a feeling if he were to show up, he’d be welcomed with open arms.

He had
met the love of his life, Professor Laura Palmer, during those initial events.
She had risked her life to help save a man she had only read about in magazines
and their love had been forged under fire, a type of love that quite often
flamed out fast, but not for them. Perhaps because they found themselves in adrenaline-fueled
firefights so often, the spark was kept alive.

Acton
looked at his watch and frowned. “My wife is supposed to—”

“Hello,
sorry I’m late!”

Acton
grinned as Laura entered the room, tossing her satchel onto a table near the
door. “This is my much better half, Professor Laura Palmer. She’s an
archeologist and anthropologist at the Smithsonian in DC,” explained Acton as
Laura shook hands. “I’ve asked her to join us as she was on one of the teams
that examined some of the artifacts brought up from the Titanic.”

Laura
gave Milton a cheek kiss and looked about, Acton recognizing the excitement in
her face. “So, where is it?”

Steve
Wainwright held up a tube, about five feet long. Acton almost cringed as he
thought of the damage that could have been done to what might actually be a
priceless work of art.

“May I?”
he asked.

Wainwright
nodded, handing it over. Acton pulled the top off as Laura snapped on gloves.
He handed her the tube then did the same. She carefully extracted the canvas
and began to unroll it on the lab table without forcing it flat, the material
demanding to return to the shape it had come to know over decades, perhaps a
century.

It would
take time to flatten it safely, though it could be done.

He
frowned, pointing at several pronounced creases before even looking at the
painting itself. “It looks like it was folded up at some point, into a square.”

“Tsk-tsk,”
clicked Laura, shaking her head. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Someone
who didn’t know any better?” suggested Milton as he rolled to the table. “So,
is it the painting?”

Acton
held the top open, Laura the bottom as one of his grad students, Mai Lien Trinh,
snapped photos. “Cursory examination suggests it is La Circassienne au Bain by Merry-Joseph
Blondel. We’ll need to do a lot more testing to confirm it, however.” He gently
let the canvas roll back up, Laura doing the same. He turned to Steve
Wainwright. “You found this in your grandfather’s basement?”

Steve
nodded.

Acton
took a seat, motioning for the others to do the same, he always feeling a
little odd looking down at Milton. He nodded toward the painting. “Let’s assume
that it’s real. If it is, it should be on the bottom of the Atlantic. That
painting was
not
one of the artifacts recovered in recent years, and
even if it were, for you to have it would be impossible. On the black market it
would go for millions, and from what I understand, your grandfather and father
were not exactly in the stolen arts business.”

Steve
chuckled. “Nooo, definitely not.” He motioned toward the painting with his
chin. “What can you tell us about it?”

“It was
painted in 1814 by Merry-Joseph Blondel,” explained Laura. “It’s a life size
oil painting, a portrait of a Circassian woman at a bathhouse. Initially it
wasn’t too popular, considered rather bland, but prints of the painting proved
popular with the public and Blondel himself began to gain stature so the
painting’s value began to increase. It eventually ended up in the hands of…”
She pulled out her cellphone, tapping a few keys. “Sorry, the name escapes
me…ah, here it is, Mauritz Hakan Bjornstrom-Steffansson. He was a passenger on
the Titanic, heading to the United States on a chemical engineering
scholarship.”

“And he
owned a painting like that?” asked Judy, her narrowed eyes suggesting
disbelief.

“His
father was quite wealthy, wood pulp apparently.”

“Oh.”

Steve
leaned forward. “So this Steffansson character, did he die with the others?”

Laura
shook her head. “No, he was one of the survivors.”

“Must be
nice to have money, allows you to claim you’re a child or don’t have a penis
when they call women and children first.”

“Steve!”
Sally slapped her husband’s shoulder.

“Sorry,”
mumbled Steve, Acton suppressing a smile.

I
wonder if we’ll be like that at their age.

He
glanced at his wife, thanking God she was still alive, her recent gunshot wound
to the stomach now healed, but her body still not fully recovered.

She
looks tired.

She was
getting better, her stamina slowly building, though she hadn’t been back to
work yet, this her first academic outing since the shooting and the subsequent
events in Paris that had almost seen them killed along with everyone else at
the American Embassy.

We’re
home. Nothing will happen to us here.

He
looked at the painting.

Yeah,
right.

“Mr.
Steffansson filed what was the largest insurance claim of the voyage, one
hundred thousand dollars,” continued a smiling Laura, she not bothering to
suppress her delight in the elderly couple’s interplay.

“Doesn’t
sound like much,” said Judy, clearly unimpressed.

“That
would be over two million dollars today,” said Milton.

“Oh.”

“And
because it was thought lost on the Titanic, and for it to have actually
survived, however that happened, it is probably worth much more now since
pretty much anything from the Titanic goes for ridiculous prices.” Acton nodded
toward the painting. “
If
it’s real, I’m sure it would go at auction for
millions.”

Sally
exchanged an excited glance with her husband. “So what you’re saying is we’re
rich?” he asked.

Acton
shook his head. “No. Since it clearly didn’t belong to your grandfather, it
would most likely be considered stolen, so would probably be returned to the
family.”

“Or the
insurance company who paid out the claim,” said Laura.

Acton
nodded. “Never thought of that. Either way, I doubt you’d be allowed to keep
it.” He leaned forward slightly. “What I want to know is how could your
grandfather have possibly got his hands on this? This painting until today was
thought to be on the bottom of the Atlantic.”

Steve
shook his head. “I have no idea. He was a US Navy captain at the time, I know
that, but I always thought the only ship in the area was civilian and it
arrived too late.”

Acton
pursed his lips, his eyebrows rising slightly. “Well, that’s not actually
entirely accurate.”

Steve
narrowed his eyes, joining the puzzled expressions in the room. “What do you
mean?”

“There
was actually at least one other ship, close enough to save everyone on board.”

North Atlantic Ocean
United States Naval Vessel—Identity Classified
April 15, 1912

It was heartbreaking.

The
panicked screams, the cries for help, the desperation of those perishing before
Captain Johnathan Wainwright’s eyes was overwhelming. He considered himself a
man, tough as nails, and had never shed a tear in his life, not even when his son
had died from smallpox.

Yet
today it was everything he could do to keep from weeping openly.

Instead
he let it turn to rage.

A rage
he had no outlet for.

The
night sky was lit up, flares launched at irregular intervals, the generators
located in the stern still providing power to most of the doomed ship, her
lights for the most part still on as she seemed to be sinking from the bow.

Which
meant he and the bridge crew had a clear view of the horrors.

Several
lifeboats were in the water, but too few. He could see they were having trouble
deploying many of them, and some successfully launched were inexplicably
half-full, if that.

What
is going on over there?

There
were few people in the water at this point, most wisely staying on the deck for
now. Those in the water wouldn’t last long, the cold of the Atlantic would be
claiming their souls far too soon.

And he
was powerless to save them.

It
wasn’t right.

He
adjusted his view, catching sight of the small boat being rowed by Commander Whitman’s
team as it sliced calmly through the water, their mission a mystery.

A flare
screeched into the sky, an errant shot sent at an angle, directly toward them.
It burst low above the water, the intense light unsteady as it burned, long
shadows cast across the deck for a full minute before it hit the water, bathing
them in darkness again.

Shouts
rolled over the waves and he peered through the binoculars, a pit forming in
his stomach.

They had
been spotted.

Saint Paul’s University, St. Paul, Maryland
Present Day

“Huh?”

Acton
delighted in stunning people with a little bit of history. It was one of the
many reasons he loved his chosen profession. History was fascinating. The
problem was it was too often presented in forms so boring to children, that by
the time they became adults, they usually hated it.

Which
was why he tried to keep his lectures as engaging as possible, his classes very
popular, especially since he had gained a little notoriety over the years.

And
they don’t know the half of it!

“The Carpathia
was the ship that responded to the CQD signal from the Titanic, but it was too
far away to save those who couldn’t get into the lifeboats.”

“CQD?”
asked Judy. “Is that like an SOS?”

“Yes,”
replied Laura. “SOS was relatively new at the time so a CQD signal was sent,
then they began to alternate between the two. Both are considered a mayday call.”

Acton
raised a finger. “Fun fact. Where did the term ‘mayday’ come from?”

Milton
stifled a grin, accustomed to Acton’s tangents.