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?"
44
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 decor. 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 lifebo
at; 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 or 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.
45
Dr. Ryan Prescott; chief of the NUMA Hurricane Center in Tampa, Florida, had had every intention of getting home on time for once and spending a quiet evening with his wife playing cribbage. But at ten minutes before midnight he was still at his desk staring tiredly at the satellite photos spread before him.
"Just when we think we've learned all there is to know about storms," he said querulously, "one pops out of nowhere and breaks the mold."
"A hurricane in the middle of May," his female assistant replied between yawns. "It's one for the record book all right."
"But why? The hurricane season normally extends from July to September. What caused this one to materialize two months early?"
"Beats me," the woman answered. "Where do you figure our pariah is headed?"
"Too early to predict with any certainty," Prescott said. "Her birth followed the normal patterns, true enough vast low-pressure area fed by moist air, swirling counterclockwise due to the earth's rotation. But here the difference ends. It usually takes days, sometimes weeks, for a storm four-hundred miles wide to build up. This baby pulled off the trick in less than eighteen hours."
Prescott sighed, rose from his desk, and walked to a large wall chart. He consulted a pad covered with scribbles, noting the known position, atmospheric conditions and speed. Then he began drawing a predicted track westerly from a point a hundred and fifty miles northeast of Bermuda, a track that gradually curved northward toward Newfoundland.
"Until she gives us a hint of her future course, that's the best I can do." He paused as if waiting for confirmation. When none came, he asked, "Is that how you see it?"
Still receiving no reply, he turned to repeat the question but the words never came. His assistant had fallen asleep, her head cradled in her arms upon the desk. Gently he shook her shoulder until the green eyes fluttered open.
"There's nothing more we can do here," he said softly. "Let's go home and get some sleep." He glanced warily back at the wall chart. "Chances are it's a thousand-to-one fluke that will dissipate before morning and lapse into a minor localized storm." He spoke with some authority, but there was no conviction in his tone.
What he did not notice was that the line on the chart representing his predicted course for the hurricane traveled precisely over 41°46` North by 50°14' West.
46
Commander Rudi Gunn stood on the bridge of the Capricorn and watched a tiny blue speck far to the west materialize out of the diamond-clear sky. For a few minutes it seemed to hang there, neither changing shape nor growing larger, a dark blue dot suspended above the horizon, and then, almost all at once, it enlarged and took on the shape of a helicopter.
He made his way to the landing pad aft of the superstructure and stood waiting as the craft approached and hovered above the ship. Thirty seconds later the skids kissed the flight pad, the whine of the turbines died away, and the blades slowly idled to a stop.
Gunn moved in closer as the right-hand door opened and Pitt stepped out.
"Good trip?" Gunn asked.
"Interesting," Pitt replied.
Pitt read the strain in Gunn's face. The lines around the little man's eyes were set tight and his face was grim. "You look like a kid who just had his Christmas presents stolen, Rudi. What's the problem?"
"The Uranus Oil sub, the Deep Fathom. She's trapped on the wreck."
Pitt was silent for a moment. Then he asked simply, "Admiral Sandecker?"
"He set up his headquarters on the Bomberger. Since it was the Deep Fathom's tender, he thought it would be better to conduct the rescue mission from there until you returned."
"You say was, as if the sub is as good as lost."
"It doesn't look good. Come topside and I'll fill you in on the details."
There was an air of tension and despair in the Capricorn's operations room. The usually gregarious Giordino simply nodded at Pitt's arrival, totally bypassing any word of greeting. Ben Drummer was on the microphone, talking to the crew of the Deep Fathom, encouraging them with a show of forced cheer and optimism that was betrayed by the dread in his eyes. Rick Spencer, the salvage operations equipment engineer, was gazing in mute concentration at the TV monitors. The other men in the room went about their business quietly, their faces pensive.
Gunn began explaining the situation. "Two hours before she was to ascend and change crews, the Deep Fathom, manned by engineers Joe Kiel, Tom Chavez, and Sam Merker--"
"Merker was with you on the Lorelei Current Expedition," Pitt interrupted.
"So was Munk." Gunn nodded solemnly. "It would seem we're a cursed crew."
"Go on."
"They were in the midst of installing a pressure bleed valve on the starboard side of the Titanic's forecastle deck bulkheads when their stern brushed against a forward cargo crane. The corroded mounts broke loose and the derrick section fell across the sub's buoyancy tanks, rupturing them.
More than two tons of water poured through the opening and pinned her hull to the wreck."
"How long ago did it happen?" Pitt asked.
"About three and a half hours ago."
"Then why all the gloom? You people act as if there wasn't a prayer. The Deep Fathom carries enough oxygen in her reserve system to support a crew of three for over a week. Plenty of time for Sappho I and II to seal the air tanks and pump clear the water."
"It's not all that simple," Gunn said. "Six hours is all we've got."
"How do you figure a six-hour margin?"
"I left the worst part for last." Gunn stared bleakly at Pitt. "The impact from the falling crane cracked a welded scam on the Deep Fathom's hull. It's only a tiny pinhole, but the tremendous pressure at that depth is forcing the sea into the cabin at the rate of four gallons a minute. It's a miracle the seam hasn't burst, collapsing the hull and crushing those guys to jelly." He tilted his head toward the clock over the computer panel. "Six hours is all they've got before the water fills the cabin and they drown . . . and there's not a damned thing we can do about it."
"Why not plug the leak from the outside with Wetsteel?"
"Easier said than done. We can't get at it. The section of the hull's seam that contains the leak is jammed against the Titanic's forecastle bulkhead. The admiral sent down the other three submersibles in the hope that their combined power could move the Deep Fathom just enough to reach and repair the damage. It was no-go."
Pitt sat down in a chair, picked up a pencil, and began making notations on a pad. "The Sea Slug is equipped with cutting equipment. If she could attack the derrick-"
"Negative." Gunn shook his head in frustration. "During the tugging operation, th
e Sea Slug broke her manipulator arm. She's back on the Modoc's deck now and the Navy boys say it's impossible to repair the arm in time." Gunn slammed his fist down on the chart table. "Our last hope was the winch on the Bomberger. If it was possible to attach a cable to the derrick, we might have pulled it free of the sub."
"End of rescue," Pitt said. "The Sea Slug is the only submersible we've got that's equipped with a heavy-duty manipulator arm, and without it, there is no way of making a hookup with the cable."
Gunn rubbed his eyes wearily. "After thousands of manhours poured into the planning and construction of every back-up safety system conceivable, and the calculating of concise emergency procedures for every predictable contingency, the unforeseen rose up and smacked us below the belt with a beyond-the-bounds-of-probability, million-to-one accident the computers didn't count on."
"Computers are only as good as the data fed into them," Pitt said.
He moved over to the radio and took the microphone from Drummer's hand. "Deep Fathom, this is Pitt. Over."
"Nice to hear your cheery voice again," Merker came over the speaker as calmly as if he were on the telephone lying at home in bed. "Why don't you drop down and make up a fourth for bridge?"
"Not my game," Pitt answered matter-of-factly. "How much time left before the water reaches your batteries?"
"At the rate she's rising, approximately another fifteen to twenty minutes."
Pitt turned to Gunn and said what needed no saying. "When their batteries go, they'll be out of communication."
Gunn nodded. "The Sappho II is standing by to keep them company. That's about all we can do."
Pitt pressed the mike button again. "Merker, how about your life-support system?"
"What life-support system? That crapped out half an hour ago. We're existing on bad breath."
"I'll send you down a case of Certs."
"Better make it fast. Chavez has a malignant case of halitosis." Then a trace of doubt surfaced in Merker's tone. "If the worst happens and we don't see you guys again, at least we'll be surrounded by good company down here."
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