Clive Cussler - Raise the Titanic

77

It was a staggering sight to see the Titanic propped high and dry in the huge canyon of a dry dock.

Already the noise had started. Welders were attacking the clogged passageways. Riveters were hammering against the scarred hull, beefing up the temporary repairs made at sea to the jagged wounds below the waterline. Overhead, two sky-reaching cranes dipped their jaws down into the darkened cargo holds only to have them reappear minutes later with mangled bits and pieces of debris clutched in their iron teeth.

Pitt took what he knew would be his last look about the gymnasium and Upper Deck. Like bidding a New Year's Eve good-by to a passing piece of his life, he stood there and soaked up the memories. The sweat of the salvage, the blood and sacrifice of his crew, the fragility of their hope that had in the end carried them through. It would all be left behind. Finally, he cast aside his reverie and walked down the main staircase and eventually found his way to the forward cargo hold on G Deck.

They were all present and accounted for and looking strangely unfamiliar under the silver hard hats. Gene Seagram, gaunt and trembling, paced back and forth. Mel Donner, wiping trickles of sweat from his neck and chin, and nervously keeping a concerned eye on Seagram. Herb Lusky, a Meta Section mineralogist, standing by with his analysis equipment. Admirals Sandecker and Kemper, huddled in one corner of the darkened hold and conversing in low tones.

Pitt carefully stepped around the twisted bulkhead supports and over the rippled deck of warped steel until he was standing behind a shipyard worker who was intently aiming his cutting torch at a massive hinge on the vault door. The cult, Pitt thought darkly, it was only a matter of minutes now before the secret hidden inside its gut was laid bare, suddenly, he became aware of an icy chill, everything around him seemed to turn cold, and he began to dread the opening of the vault.

As if sharing his uneasiness, the other men in the dank hold became quiet and gathered beside Pitt in restless apprehension.

At last, the worker turned off the fiery blue jet of his torch and raised his face shield.

"How's it look?" Pitt asked.

"They sure built them good in the old days," the worker replied. "I've torched out the lock mechanism and knocked off the hinges, but she's still frozen solid."

"What now?"

"We run a cable from the Doppleman crane above, attach it to the vault door and hope for the best."

It took the better part of an hour for a crew of men to wrestle a two-inch-thick cable into the hold and fasten it onto the vault. Then, when all was ready, a signal was relayed to the crane operator via a portable radio transmitter, and the cable began slowly to straighten out its curves and tighten. No one had to be told to move back out of the way. They all knew that if the wire took it in its head to snap, it would whiplash through the hold with more than enough force to split a man in two.

In the distance they could hear the engine of the crane straining. For long seconds nothing happened; the cable stretched and quivered, its strands groaning under the tremendous load. Pitt threw caution aside and edged closer. Still nothing happened. The vault's stubborn resolve seemed as firm as the steel of its walls.

The cable slackened as the crane operator eased off the strain to work up his engine's rpm's. Then he revved up and engaged the clutch once more, and the cable suddenly went taut with an audible twang. To the silent men who looked anxiously on, it seemed inconceivable that the old rusted vault could stand up to such a powerful assault, and yet the inconceivable was apparently happening. But then a tiny hairline crack made its appearance along the upper edge of the vault door. It was followed by two vertical cracks along the sides and, finally, a fourth, running across the bottom. Abruptly, with an agonizing screech of protest, the door reluctantly relinquished its grip and tore off the great steel cube.

No water came out of the yawning blackness. The vault had remained airtight during its long sojourn in the deep abyss.

Nobody made a move. They stood rooted, frozen, mesmerized by that uninviting black square hole. A musty stench rolled out from within.

Lusky was the first to find his voice. "My God, what is it? What in hell is that smell?"

"Get me a light," Pitt ordered one of the workmen.

Someone produced a fluorescent hand light. Pitt switched it on and danced its bluish-white beam on the interior of the vault.

They could see ten wooden boxes, tightly secured by stout leather straps. They could also see something else, something that turned every face ghostly pale. It was the mummified remains of a man.

78

He was lying in one corner of the vault, eyes closed and sunken in, skin as blackened as old tar paper on a warehouse roof. The muscle tissue was shrunken over the bony skeleton and a bacterial growth covered him from head to toe. He looked like a moldy piece of bread. Only the white hair of his head and beard were perfectly preserved. A pool of viscous fluid extended around the remains and moistened the atmosphere, as if a bucket of water had been thrown on the walls of the vault.

"Whoever it is is still wet," Kemper murmured, his faces mask of horror. "How can that be after so long?"

"Water accounts for over half the weight of the body," Pitt answered quietly. "There simply wasn't enough air trapped inside the vault to evaporate all of the fluids."

Donner turned away, repulsed by the macabre scene. "Who was he?" he managed, fighting the urge to vomit.

Pitt looked at the mummy impassively. "I think we will find that his name was Joshua Hays Brewster."

"Brewster?" Seagram whispered, his frightened eyes wild with fear.

"Why not?" Pitt said. "Who else knew the contents of the vault?"

Admiral Kemper shook his head in stunned wonderment. "Can you imagine," he said reverently, "what it must have been like dying in that black hole while the ship was sinking into the depths of the sea?"

"I don't care to dwell on it," Donner said. "I'll probably have nightmares every night for the next month as it is."

"It's positively ghastly," Sandecker said with difficulty, He studied the saddened, knowing expression on Pitt's face. `You knew about this?"

Pitt nodded. "I was forewarned by Commodore Bigalow."

Sandecker fixed him with a speculative look, but he let it drop at that and turned to one of the shipyard workers. "Call the coroner's office and tell them to come and get that thing out of there. Then clear the area and keep it cleared until I give you an order to the contrary."

The shipyard people needed no further urging. They disappeared from the cargo hold as if by magic.

Seagram grabbed Lusky's arm with an intensity that made he mineralogist start. "Okay, Herb, it's your show now."

Hesitantly, Lusky entered the cavity, stepped over the mummy and pried open one of the ore boxes. Then he set up his equipment and began analyzing the contents. After what seemed forever to the men pacing the deck outside the vault. he looked up, his eyes reflecting a dazed disbelief.

"This stuff is worthless."

Seagram moved in closer. "Say again."

"It's worthless. There isn't even a minute trace of byzanium."

"Try another box," Seagram gasped feverishly.

Lusky nodded and went to work. But it was the same story on the next ore box, and the next, until the contents of all ten were strewn everywhere.

Lusky looked as though he was suffering a seizure. "Junk . . . pure junk.. ." he stammered. "Nothing but common gravel, the kind you'd find under any roadbed."

The hushed note of bewilderment in Lusky's voice faded away and the quiet in the Titanic's cargo hold became heavy and deep. Pitt stared downward, stared dumbly. Every eye was held by the rubble and the broken boxes while numbed minds fought to grasp the appalling reality, the horrible, undeniable truth that everything-the salvage, the exhausting labor, the astronomical drain of money, the deaths of Munk and Woodson had all been for nothing. The byzanium was not on the Titanic, nor had it ever been. They were the victims of a monstrously cruel joke that had been played out seventy-six years before.