The Titanic Enigma (2 page)

He still got a thrill from this purest of vistas. He still loved the smell of this makeshift lab, the feel of his chair tucked under the workbench in the section of the lab where he spent most
of his time, and, above all, he loved, absolutely loved, the job itself – every damn moment of it.

Admittedly, it had all been a bit rocky to start with. It had nothing to do with the work, he had been fine with that. With a degree in archaeology and a PhD in marine science, he was more than
qualified for the post. Indeed, he had spent his entire life fascinated by marine archaeology, the romance of the shipwreck, the mystery of doomed voyages. What could be learned from these relics
told the researcher so much about bygone centuries, about the ordinary, everyday lives of ordinary, everyday people.

No, none of this had been a problem for him; the problem had been Kate, Kate Wetherall, Kate and him. They had fallen for each other almost instantly. It had been a really freaky thing. He had
never experienced anything like it before. He had walked into his interview a week before starting the job, and that was it. The two other interviewers behind the table had faded to insignificance;
all he could focus on was the woman in the middle of the three, the Head of Research. He’d been headhunted from Massers Marine Research Facility in California. The post was to work with her,
to be her number two.

Later, post-coitally, Kate had told him that she had tried her damnedest to have her way in vetoing the choice of the other two interviewers – both board members who controlled the purse
strings of the institute. She knew he was the best qualified for the job, but she also knew he would be trouble, because she had reacted to him in exactly the way he had to her. The sparks had been
almost visible. He had never met anyone like her.

Kate had only lived in the United States for three years. She was a Brit, from an academic family, very stoic, tough, straight down the line. Her mother, Geraldine, had been a biochemist who
died of breast cancer at fifty-one. Kate’s father, Nicholas Wetherall, had a been a world-class evolutionary biologist, an Oxford don and later Emeritus Professor at Princeton. He had also
died young, from a brain tumour when Kate was fourteen.

Kate, Lou knew, was a damn fine marine archaeologist. At the same time, she was overmodest and self-deprecating, and possessed a sense of humour he could not fathom half the time. She was so
utterly different from him. It wasn’t until they had been together for a month that Lou had wheedled out of Kate that her grandfather had been a super-wealthy industrialist and she had been
educated at Benenden – Princess Anne’s alma mater.

But that was all now in the past. They had shared a beautiful, if overheated, relationship that had lasted six months. It had almost destroyed their ability to work together, disrupted the team
and had driven him into depression. He had pulled himself back from the brink at the last moment and salvaged his career. With Kate’s help, he had brought their relationship to a
new,healthier place.

*

Lou burst through the doors to the lab and was surprised to see that Kate had got there before him. She was seated at one of the computer monitors so absorbed it took her a few
seconds to acknowledge Lou’s boisterous arrival. She had a large lab beaker filled with cereal in one hand, a plastic spoon in the other.

He strode over to where she was sitting. ‘And good morning to you!’ he said.

She kept watching the screen, flicked a strand of her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ear and lifted the spoon to her mouth without moving her head. ‘Have you seen this?’

‘What?’

‘This film shot by the fishermen on that Canadian trawler.’

‘Oh, God, this is so tedious!’

She turned from the screen. ‘Why are you being so negative?’

‘It’s obvious the navy has screwed up. There’s been some sort of accident with a nuclear sub, or a cargo vessel has dumped something they shouldn’t have.’

‘Directly above the
Titanic?
Bit of a coincidence, Lou.’

‘Yes, it is. But, honey,’ and he smiled sweetly, ‘what was that famous song by Elvis Costello, “Accidents will Happen”?’

Kate stood up. She was five-ten in trainers, just an inch shorter than Lou; her lab coat swished around her slender, toned body as she turned. She had a runner’s physique and maintained a
regime of at least forty miles a week, usually before 6 a.m. each day. If she missed exercise for more than a day, she could be very hard to talk to.

Lou watched her and could not stop a memory. A summer night in Virginia, his apartment. Kate nestled into his shoulder, a sheet barely covering their naked entwined legs. Nowadays he could no
longer say it aloud, but he missed her.

‘Say what you like about this,’ and Kate tapped the screen, ‘I think there’s something very odd going on.’

‘Yes, and you’re not the only one. All the crazies have come out of the woodwork over this, Kate. You’re in very good company!’

She sighed and gave up. ‘So, do you want to know what I’ve just discovered?’

‘Of course!’ Lou pulled a stool up to her monitor.

During the three months the pair had been on Bermuda they had been trying, day by day, to unravel the mystery of why a ship, the
Lavender,
carrying ninety-six pilgrims from Plymouth had
run aground on a calm evening in July 1615 a few hundred yards from where they now stood. Kate and Lou had been down to the wreck some two dozen times. They had retrieved an array of artefacts,
photographed and filmed the wreck from every conceivable angle and catalogued everything. In their island lab they had studied tiny fragments of porcelain and metal under the microscope, conducted
infrared spectroscopic analyses and run a multitude of chemical tests on items ranging from metal casks to the remnants of four-hundred-year-old Bibles partially protected inside rusty chests. But
they were still no nearer to knowing the cause of the accident. Now they had begun to consider the idea that the voyage had been doomed because of a clash of personalities aboard the
Lavender
.

Kate tapped her keyboard and the image of a fragment of paper appeared on the screen. It contained some text, but it was almost completely illegible. At the top, above the edge of the piece of
ancient paper, a label read:
Sample # BZ081
.

‘This is the best of the Bible fragments we found in the captain’s chest.’

‘Yes, I recognize it.’

‘I ran it through an enhancement program.’ She moved the mouse and clicked an icon. ‘At maximum resolution, I got this.’ The new image was a much clearer copy of the
original fragment.

‘You can almost read it,’ Lou said.

‘You can read it – a few words anyway.’

‘Yes, I see . . . there . . . what does it say?’

‘A snatch of Latin:
Magna
. Then a gap:
vitas . . . praevalet
.’

‘
Magna est veritas et praevalet
,’ Lou muttered and glanced at Kate.

‘How on earth did you . . .?’

‘Kate, baby . . .’ He held his hands out wide apart, palms up.

She laughed. ‘So you get the relevance of it?’

‘Er . . . No.’

‘Hah! Well, smart ass, in English
Magna est Veritas et praevalet
means—’

‘I know what it means! “Great is truth and mighty above all things”.’

‘But more importantly,’ Kate said, ‘it’s from
I. Estras,
a book of the Apocrypha from the Old Testament. The pilgrims aboard the
Lavender
would have
only read the King James Bible, and that definitely does not contain the Apocrypha. They would have abhorred such a thing.’

‘So you reckon the captain was a Catholic? Oops!’

Kate was about to reply when they both heard a strange sound from outside. They looked at each other and headed towards the doors leading to the corridor and outside. A dark-blue Harrier was
settling onto the tarmac of the car park.

*

By the time Kate and Lou reached the plane, its engines had begun to quieten. The passenger canopy rose and a tall, well-built man in naval uniform and clutching an aluminum
attaché case began to clamber down a fuselage ladder. Reaching the ground, he made his way over. In his mid-thirties, the man had cropped hair, a hint of grey at the temples, black eyes and
a strong jaw.

‘Lou Bates and Kate Wetherall?’ he said. His voice was deep with just a trace of a southern drawl to it.

‘Guilty,’ Kate said.

He took a step towards them. ‘Captain Jerry Derham, United States Navy.’

Lou snapped his heels and did a mock salute.

Kate gave him a dirty look.

Jerry smiled and stuck out his hand. ‘I’m sorry to turn up unannounced. I hope I haven’t interrupted your work. Can you spare me ten minutes of your time?’

Lou made them coffee using what he and Kate referred to as the ‘sacred coffee machine’ – a Miele espresso maker that had been shipped over from Virginia and was their lifeline
on slow days.

Captain Derham removed his cap and took a sip. ‘Good coffee,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I guess you’re wondering why I’m here?’ He took another sip.
‘I’m Section Commander at the Norfolk Naval Base, Virginia. It’s about ten miles from your facility at the Marine Research Institute.’ He nodded westward. ‘We’re
heading up the investigation into Marine Phenomenon REZ375.’

‘I’ve just been watching the film of the trawler,’ Kate replied. ‘It’s quite something.’

‘It is.’

‘Although,’ Kate went on, ‘my colleague –’ and she nodded towards Lou ‘– thinks it’s the navy’s fault.’

‘I didn’t say that exactly . . .’ Lou began.

‘Believe what you like,’ Derham replied. ‘I’m not the Inquisition. But I have something I’d like to show you.’ He plucked an iPad from his case, switched it
on and handed it to them.

‘That,’ he said as the film started, ‘was taken by a deep-sea probe we sent down to the
Titanic
two days ago. You’ve probably seen similar footage from the
remote submersibles that visited the wreck back in the mid-1980s. But note the digital display in the corner.’

‘Yeah, I was wondering what that was,’ Lou said.

‘It’s a readout from a Geiger counter.’

‘It’s reading . . . what? Two times ten to the power of twenty curies? That’s ridiculous!’

‘Almost off the scale.’

‘So Greenpeace and the others have been reporting the truth – there is a radiation source down there,’ Kate said without taking her eyes from the screen. The digital display
kept climbing. ‘What happened to the crew of the trawler?’

‘Radiation sickness, but they’ll all survive – they got out of the area pretty damn quick.’

‘What sort of radiation are we talking about here?’ Lou asked.

‘Alpha and beta particles, gamma rays – pretty conventional, but our probes show that the combination of the three types of radiation is unusual. It’s possible we’re
dealing with a type of source we’ve not seen before. There’s certainly nothing in nature that produces this radiation profile, even if we ignore the intensity.’

‘But if it isn’t a natural source, it has to be military hardware, surely?’

‘It’s not ours,’ Derham said.

Lou looked sceptical.

‘As far as we know, it isn’t,’ the captain added.

‘Russian, Chinese?’ Kate offered.

‘We simply don’t know.’

‘So, what now?’ Lou said, handing back the iPad.

‘We’ve isolated the source to somewhere in the bow section of the wreck. But we have no precise coordinates yet. It’s a big ship. We’re working on it, though, and hope to
have it down to a few square yards in a day or two.’

‘Then?’

‘Well, that’s why I’m here. We need your expert help. The story has broken across the Internet and the world is watching. You two come highly recommended; experienced marine
archaeologists – a rare commodity.’

‘But we’re in the middle of our own project,’ Kate said.

‘I understand that. We wouldn’t be bothering you if we knew anybody better qualified; and time is of the essence.’

‘I’m listening,’ Lou said. ‘But we’re –’ he glanced at Kate ‘– close to a breakthrough here. What exactly do you want us to do?’

‘We’re zeroing in on the precise location of the radioactive source.’

‘But then what?’

‘We have to get people into the ship to find out for ourselves what it is.’

Kate and Lou both burst out laughing and turned to the naval officer in unison. ‘Get people into the wreck! The
Titanic
is on the ocean floor . . . What, 13,000 feet beneath the
surface of the Atlantic?’

‘12,600 feet to be precise,’ Derham replied calmly. ‘That won’t present a problem.’

‘Let’s just say for the moment,’ Derham said, ‘that we do have the technology.’

Lou turned to face Kate. ‘You’ll catch flies.’

She closed her mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That, I did not expect! For a start, how can you overcome the pressure at a depth of 12,600 feet?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t talk about it right now. If you decide to join us, you’ll each need to sign a Defense Department non-disclosure agreement. He nodded towards his
briefcase. ‘I have them here. We’ve already done security checks on you . . .’

‘Hang on,’ Kate interrupted. ‘Aren’t you jumping the gun a bit? She looked over to Lou who was studying the captain’s face.

Derham had his hands up. ‘Apologies. Of course you need some time to think about it.’

‘I don’t,’ Lou said avoiding Kate’s eyes. ‘How long would we have to delay our work here?’

‘Two days. Three, max.’

Lou gave Kate a questioning look.

She shook her head slowly and sighed. ‘Three days?’

‘Absolute tops.’

‘OK, well I guess you can count us both in.’

*

The VTOL aircraft ascended into the clear blue morning sky, roared over the group of white buildings with their tin roofs, swung round and headed out over the ocean.

From a pair of seats behind Derham and the pilot, Kate and Lou had an amazing view. When they were in level flight, Derham unbuckled and came back to the two researchers. He gave them each a
folder containing everything NATO had ascertained about the radiation leak, along with facts, figures, schematics and maps relevant to the wreck of the
Titanic.