Clive Cussler - Raise the Titanic

"You don't understand. I love her."

"God, you sound like a letter to Ann Landers." Pitt reached for the bottle on the tiled floor and freshened his drink. "Look, Seagram, you're a pretty decent guy underneath your pompous, bullshit facade. And who knows, you may go down in history as the great merciful scientist who saved mankind from a nuclear holocaust. You've still got enough looks to attract a woman, and I'm willing to bet that when you clean off your desk in Washington and bid a fond farewell to government service you'll be a rich man. So don't expect tears and violins from me over a lost love. You've got it made."

"What good is it without the woman I love?"

"I see I'm not getting through to you." Pitt was one third into the bottle and a warm glow had begun to course through his body. "Why throw yourself down the sewer over a broad who suddenly thinks she's found the fountain of youth. If she's gone, she's gone. Men come crawling back, not women. They persevere. There isn't a man alive a woman can't persevere into the grave. Forget Dana, Seagram. There are millions of other fish in the stream. If you need the phony security of a pair of tits making your bed and fixing your supper, go hire a maid; they're cheaper and a hell of a lot less trouble in the long run."

"So now you think you're Sigmund Freud," Seagram said, rising from the john. "Women are nothing to you. A beautiful relationship with you is a love affair with a bottle. You're out of touch with the world."

"Am I?" Pitt stood up in the tub and yanked open the door to the medicine cabinet so that Seagram was staring at his refection in the mirror. "Take a good look. There's the face of a man who's out of touch with the world. Behind those eyes there's a man who's driven by a thousand demons of his own making. You're sick, Seagram. Mentally sick over problems you've magnified out of all proportion. Dana's desertion is only a crutch to enhance your black depression. You don't love her as much as you think you do. She's only a symbol, a prop you lean on. Look at the glaze over the eyes; look at the slack skin around the mouth. Get yourself to a psychiatrist, and damned soon. Think about Gene Seagram for once. Forget about saving the world. It's time you saved yourself."

Seagram's face was violently flushed. He clenched his fists and trembled. Then the mirror before his eyes began to mist, not on the outside but from within, and another face slowly emerged. A strange face with the same haunted eyes.

Pitt stood mute and watched as Seagram's expression turned from anger to sheer terror.

"God, no . . . it's him!"

"Him?"

"Him!" he cried, "Joshua Hays Brewster!" Then Seagram struck the mirror with both fists, shattering the glass, and fled the room.

76

Pensive and dreamy-eyed, Dana stood in front of a full length mirror and scrutinized herself. The bruise on her head was neatly covered by a new hair style and, except for several fading black-and-blue marks, her body looked as lithe and perfect as ever. It definitely passed inspection. Then she stared at the eyes that stared back. There were no additional crow's feet, no new puffiness around the edges. The mythical hardened look of a fallen woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, they seemed to gleam with a vibrant expectancy that hadn't been there before. Her rebirth as an unfettered woman of the world had been a complete success.

"Care for any breakfast?" Marie Sheldon's voice carried up the stairs.

Dana donned a soft lace dressing gown. "Just coffee, thanks," she said. "What time is it?"

"A few minutes after nine."

A minute later Marie poured the coffee as Dana stepped into the kitchen. "What's on the agenda for today?" she asked.

"Something typically feminine-I think I'll go shopping. Have lunch by myself at an intimate tearoom and then go over to the NUMA clubhouse and scare up a partner for an hour or so of tennis."

"Sounds charming," Marie said dryly; "but I suggest you stop playing Mrs. Rich Bitch, which you aren't, and start acting like a broad with responsibilities, which you are."

"What's the sense in it?"

Marie threw up her hands in exasperation. " `What's the sense in it?' For one thing, sweetie, you're the girl of the hour. In case you haven't noticed, the phone has been ringing off the hook for the past three days. Every woman's magazine in the country wants your exclusive story, and I've taken at least eight requests for you to appear on nationally televised talk shows. Like it or not, you're big news. Don't you think it's about time you came back down to earth and met the onslaught head-on?"

"What's there to say? So I was the only woman on board an old drifting derelict with twenty men. Big deal."

"You almost died out there in the ocean and you treat the whole episode as though it were just another cruise down the Nile on Cleopatra's barge. Having all those men catering to your every whim must have gone to your head."

If only Marie knew the whole truth. But Dana and everyone on board had been sworn to secrecy by Warren Nicholson. The attempted assault by the Russians was to be buried and forgotten by everyone. But she took a perverse sort of satisfaction in knowing that her performance on the Titanic that cold stormy night would linger in the minds of the men who were present for the rest of their lives.

"Too much happened out there." Dana sighed. "I'm not the same person any more."

"So what does that mean?"

"To begin with, I'm taking out papers to divorce Gene."

"It's come to that?"

"It's come to that," Dana repeated firmly. "Also, I'm going to take a leave of absence from NUMA and have a fling at life. As long as I'm the exalted female of the year, I'm going to make it pay. The personal stories, the TV appearances-they're going to enable me to do what every girl yearns to do all her life."

"Which is?"

"Spend money, and have a high old time doing it."

Marie shook her head sadly. "I'm beginning to feel like I've helped create a monster."

Dana took her gently by the hand. "Not you, dear friend. It took a brush with death for me to learn that I had condemned myself to an existence that led nowhere.

"It began, I suppose, with my childhood-" Dana's voice trailed off as the terrible memories came flickering back. "My childhood was a nightmare, and I've carried its effects with me all my adult life. I even infected my marriage with its sickness. Gene recognized the symptoms and married me more out of pity than deep love. Unwittingly, he treated me more as a father than as a lover.

"I can't force myself to go back now. The emotional responses that it takes to build and maintain a lasting relationship just aren't in me. I'm a loner, Marie; I know that now. I'm too selfish with my affections toward others; it's the albatross around my neck. From here on in, I'm going it alone. That way I can never hurt anyone ever again."

Marie looked up, tears in her eyes. "Well then, I guess between us we'll even up the sides. You're folding your marriage and going back to the single ways while I'm shucking the odd-woman-out syndrome and joining the great ranks of the matronly housewives."

Dana's lips parted in a wide smile. "You and Mel?"

"Me and Mel."

"When?"

"It had better be soon or I'm going to have to order my trousseau from the Blessed Event Maternity Shop."

"You're pregnant?"

"That ain't Betty Crocker that's rising in my oven."

Dana came around the table and hugged Marie. "You with a baby, I can't believe it."

"You better believe it. They tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and massive doses of adrenaline, but it was no go. The frog still died."

"You mean rabbit."

"Where've you been? They gave up rabbits years ago."

"Oh, Marie, I'm so happy for you. The two of us beginning whole new life patterns. Aren't you excited?"