Clive Cussler: Raise the Titanic

"Oh sure," Marie said in a dry tone. "Nothing like starting anew with a big bang."

"Is there any other way?"

"I've got the easy path, sweetie." Marie kissed Dana on to cheek lightly. "It's you I'm worried about. Just don't go too far too fast and fall off the deep end."

"The deep end is where all the fun is."

"Take my word for it. Learn to swim in the shallows."

"Too tame." Dana's eyes grew thoughtful. "I'm going to start at the very crest."

"And just how are you going to initiate that little feat?"

Dana met Marie's eyes evenly. "All it takes is one little phone call."

The President came from behind his desk in the Oval Office and greeted the Majority Leader of the Senate, John Burdick, with warmth.

"John, it's good to see you. How are Josie and the kids?"

Burdick, a tall, thin man with a bush of black hair that seldom saw a comb, shrugged good naturedly. "Josie's fine. And you know kids. As far as they're concerned, good old Dad is nothing but a money machine."

After they were seated, the talk kicked off with their differences on budget programs. Although the two men were opposing party leaders and sniped at each other at every opportunity in the open, behind closed doors they were warm, intimate friends.

"Congress is beginning to think you've gone mad, Mr. President. During the past six months, you've vetoed every spending bill sent to the White House from the Hill."

"And I'm going to go right on vetoing until the day I walk through that door for the last time." The President paused to light a thin cigar. "Let's face the cold, hard truth, John. The government of the United States is broke, and it's been broke since the end of World War Two, but nobody will admit it. We go merrily on our way running up a national debt that defies comprehension, figuring that somewhere down the line the poor bastard that defeats us in the next election will pay the piper for the spending spree of the last fifty years."

"What do you expect Congress to do? Declare bankruptcy?"

"Sooner or later it may have to."

"The consequences are unthinkable. The national debt is carried by half the insurance companies, savings and loans, and banks in the nation. They'd all be wiped out overnight."

"So what else is new?"

Burdick shook his head. "I refuse to accept it."

"Damn it, John, you can't sweep it under the carpet. Do you realize that every taxpayer under the age of fifty will never see a Social Security check. In another twelve years it will be absolutely impossible to pay even a third of the people who are eligible for benefits. That's another reason I'm going to sound the warning. A small voice in the wilderness, I regretfully admit. But still, in the few months remaining of my term in office, I'm going to shout doom every chance I get"

"The American people don't like to hear sad tidings. You won't be very popular."

"I don't give a damn. I don't care one thin dime for what anybody thinks. Popularity contests are for egoists. A few months from now I'm going to be on my ketch, sailing peacefully somewhere south of Fiji, and the government can go straight to hell."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. President. You're a good man. Even your worst enemies will concede that."

But the President was not to be stopped. "We had a great republic going for a while, John, but you and I and all the other attorneys screwed it up. Government is a big business and attorneys shouldn't be allowed to take office. It's the accountants and the marketing people who should be congressmen and President."

"It takes attorneys to run a legislature."

The President shrugged wearily. "What's the use? Whatever course I take won't change a thing." Then he straightened in his chair and smiled. "My apologies, John, you didn't come here to hear me make a speech. What's on your mind?"

"The underprivileged children's medical bill." Burdick stared intently at the President. "Are you going to veto that one too?"

The President leaned back in his chair and studied his cigar. "Yes," he said simply.

"That's my bill," Burdick said quietly. "I nursed it through both the House and the Senate."

"I know."

"How can you veto a bill for children whose families can't afford to give them proper medical attention?"

"For the same reason I've vetoed added benefits for citizens over eighty, federal scholarship programs for the minorities, and a dozen other welfare bills. Somebody has to pay for them. And the working class who support this country has been pushed to the wall with a five-hundred. per-cent tax increase over the last ten years."

"For the love of humanity, Mr. President."

"For the love of a balanced budget, Senator. Where do you expect the funds to support your program to come from?"

"You might begin by cutting back the budget of Meta Section."

So there it was. Congressional snoops had finally breached the walls of Meta Section. It had to come sooner or later. At least it was later.

He decided to play it noncommittal. "Meta Section?"

"A super-classified think-tank you've supported for years. Surely, I don't have to describe its operation to you."

"No," the President said evenly. "You don't."

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Finally Burdick forged ahead "It took months of checking by my investigators-you covered the financial tracks very cleverly-but they finally managed to backtrail the source of the funds used to raise the Titanic to a supersecret organization, operating under the name of Meta Section, and then ultimately to you. My God, Mr. President, you authorized nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to salvage that worthless old wreck and then lied by saying that it costs less than half that amount. And here I am only asking for fifty million to get the children's medical bill off the ground. If I may say so, sir, your odd sense of priorities is a bloody crime."

"What do you intend to do, John? Blackmail me into signing your bill?"

"To be perfectly candid, yes."

"I see."

Before the conversation could go on, the President's secretary entered the room.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. President, but you asked to check over your appointment schedule for this afternoon."

The President made an apologetic gesture to Burdick. "Excuse me, John, this will only take a moment."

The President scanned the schedule. He stopped at a name penciled in for 415. He looked up at his secretary, his eyebrows raised. "Mrs. Seagram?"

"Yes, sir. She called and said she had traced down the history of that model ship in the bedroom. I thought perhaps you might be interested in what she discovered, so I squeezed her in for a few minutes."

The President held his hands over his face and closed his eyes. "Call Mrs. Seagram and cancel the four-fifteen appointment. Ask her to join me for dinner on board the Presidential yacht at seven-thirty."

The secretary made the notation and left the room.

The President turned back to Burdick. "Now, John, if I still refuse to sign your bill, what then?"

Burdick held up. his hands. "Then you leave me no choice but to blow the whistle on your clandestine uses of government funds. In that event, I fear you can expect a scandal that will make the old Watergate mess look like an Easter egg hunt."

"You'd do that?"

"I would."

An icy calm seemed to settle ever the President. "Before you dash out the door and waste more of the taxpayers' dollars on a congressional hearing over my fiscal maneuverings, I suggest you hear from the horse's own mouth what Meta Section is all about and what they've produced in the defense of the country that keeps us both gainfully employed."

"I'm listening, Mr. President." Good.

One hour later, a thoroughly subdued Senator John Burdick sat in his office and carefully dropped his secret file on Meta Section into a shredding machine.