Clive Cussler - Raise the Titanic

"Brilliance," Spencer said, "sheer brilliance."

"If we can't get to a service station," Pitt said grinning, "then the service station must come to us."

Giordino looked lost. "Fatigue has queered your minds," he said. "Where are you going to find a pay phone? What will you use for a radio? The Russians smashed ours, the one in the helicopter is soaked through, and Prevlov's transmitter caught two bullets during the brawl." He shook his head "And you can forget those flyboys upstairs. Without a brush and bucket of paint, there's no way to get a message across to their eager little minds."

"That's your problem," Spencer said loftily. "You always go around looking up when you should be looking down."

Pitt leaned over and picked up a sledgehammer that was lying among a pile of tools. "This should do the trick," he said casually, swinging the sledge against one of the Titanic's hull plates, sending a cacophony of echoes throughout the boiler room.

Spencer dropped wearily onto a raised boiler grating. "They ain't going to believe this."

"Oh I don't know," Pitt managed between swings. "Jungle telegraph. It always used to work in the Congo."

"Giordino was probably right. Fatigue has queered our minds."

Pitt ignored Spencer and kept hammering away. After a few minutes, he paused a moment to get a new grip on the sledge handle. "Let us hope and pray that one of the natives has his ear to the ground," he said between pants. And then he went on hammering.

Of the two sonar operators who were on watch aboard the submarine Dragonfish, the one tuned into the passive listening system was leaning forward toward his panel, his head cocked to one side, his mind intent on analyzing the strange beat that emitted through the earphones. Then he gave a slight shake of his head and held up the earphones for the officer who was standing at his shoulder.

"At first I thought it was a hammerhead shark," the sonarman said. "They make a funny pounding noise. But this has a definite metallic ring to it."

The officer pressed the headset against one ear. Then his eyes took on a puzzled look. "It sounds like an SOS."

"That's how I read it, sir. Someone is knocking out a distress call against their hull."

"Where is it coming from?"

The sonarman turned a miniature steering wheel that activated the sensors in the bow of the sub and eyed the panel in front of him. "The contact is three-zero-seven degrees, two thousand yards north of west. It has to be the Titanic, sir. With the departure of the Mikhail Kurkov, she's the only surface craft left in the area."

The officer handed back the earphones, turned from the sonar compartment, and made his way up a wide curving stairway into the conning tower, the nerve center of the Dragonfish. He approached a medium-height, round-faced man with a graying mustache, who wore the oak leaves of a commander on his collar.

"It's the Titanic all right, sir. She's hammering out an SOS."

"There's no mistake?"

"No, sir. The contact is firm." The officer paused and then asked, "Are we going to respond?"

The commander looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Our orders were to deliver the SEAL and fend off the Mikhail Kurkov. We were also to remain obscure in case the Russians decide to make an end run with one of their own submarines. We'd be in poor position to protect the derelict if we were to surface and move off station."

"During our last sighting, she looked to be in pretty rough shape. Maybe she's going down."

"If that was the case, her crew would be screaming for help over every frequency on their radio-" The commander hesitated, his eyes narrowing. He stepped over to the radio room and leaned in.

"What time was the last communication sent from the Titanic?"

One of the radio operators scanned a sheet in a log book. "A few minutes shy of eighteen hundred hours yesterday, Commander. They requested an up-to-the-minute report of the hurricane's speed and direction."

The commander nodded and turned back to the officer. "They haven't transmitted for over twelve hours. Could be their radio is out."

"It's quite possible."

"We'd better have a look," the commander said. "Up periscope."

The periscope tubing hummed slowly into the raised position. The commander gripped the handles and stared through the eyepiece.

"Looks quiet enough," he said. "She's got a heavy list to starboard and she's down by the bow, but not bad enough to be considered dangerous yet. No distress flags flying. No one in sight on her decks-wait a moment, I take that back. There's a man atop the bridgehouse roof." The commander increased the magnification. "Good lord!" he muttered. "It's a woman."

The officer stared at him with a disbelieving expression. "You did say a woman, sir?"

"See for yourself."

The officer saw for himself. There was indeed a young blond woman above the Titanic's bridgehouse. She seemed to be waving a brassiere.

Ten minutes later, the Dragonfish had surfaced and was lying under the shadow of the Titanic.

Thirty minutes later, reserve fuel from the sub's auxiliary diesel engine was coursing through a pipe that arched across the still thrashing swells and passed neatly into a hastily cut hole in the Titanic's hull.

71

"It's from the Dragonfish, " Admiral Kemper said, reading the latest in a long line of communications. "Her captain has sent a work party aboard the Titanic to assist Pitt and his salvage crew. He states that the derelict should remain afloat, even with numerous leaks, during the tow providing, of course, she's not struck by another hurricane."

"Thank God for small favors," Marshall Collins exhaled between yawns.

"He also reports," Kemper went on, "that Mrs. Seagram is on board the Titanic and is in rare stage form, whatever that means."

Mel Donner moved out of the bathroom, a towel still draped over his arm. "Would you repeat that, Admiral?"

"The captain of the Dragonfish says that Mrs. Dana Seagram is alive and well."

Donner rushed over and shook Seagram, who was sleeping fitfully on the couch. "Gene! Wake up! They've found Dana! She's all right!"

Seagram's eyes blinked open and for long seconds he looked up at Donner, astonishment slowly spreading across his face. "Dana . . . Dana is alive?"

"Yes, she must have been on the Titanic during the storm."

"But how did she get there?"

"We don't know all the details yet. We'll just have to wait it out. But the important thing is that Dana is safe and the Titanic is still afloat."

Seagram hung his head in his hands and sat there huddled and shrunken. He began sobbing quietly.

Admiral Kemper was thankful for the distraction when a very tired Commander Keith entered and handed him another signal. "This one's from Admiral Sandecker," Kemper said. "I think you'll be interested in what he has to say, Mr. Nicholson."

Warren Nicholson and Marshall Collins both eased away from Seagram and gathered around Kemper's desk.

"Sandecker says, 'Visiting relatives have been entertained and furnished with guest bedroom. Got something in my eye during the party last night but enjoyed belting out good old song favorites like "Silver Threads among the Gold." Say hello to Cousin Warren and tell him I have a present to give him. Having wonderful time. Wish you were all here. Signed Sandecker'."

"It seems the admiral has a strange way with words," said the President. "Just what in hell is it he's trying to get across?"

Kemper stared at him sheepishly. "The Russians apparently boarded during the eye of the hurricane."

"Apparently, " the President said icily.

"'Silver Threads among the Gold'," Nicholson said excitedly. "Silver and Gold. They've caught the two espionage agents."

"And your present, Cousin Warren," Collins said, grinning with every tooth, "must be none other than Captain Andre Prevlov."