Raise the Titanic!

  Ten thousand feet and forty minutes later, Pitt reported to the Modoc, giving the depth and the water temperature thirty-five degrees. The three men watched fascinated as a small angler fish, ugly in its stubby appearance, slowly swept past the viewpoints; the tiny luminous bulb that protruded from the top of its head glowed like a lonely beacon.

  At 12,375 feet the sea floor came into view, moving up to meet the Sea Slug as though she were standing still. Pitt turned on the propulsion motors and adjusted the altitude angle, gently stopping the Sea Slug's descent and turning her on a level course across the bleak red clay that carpeted the ocean floor.

  Gradually, the ominous silence was broken by the rhythmic hum that came from the Sea Slug's electric motors. At first, Pitt had difficulty distinguishing rises and gradual drops on the bottom; there was nothing to indicate a three-dimensional scale. His eyes saw only a flatness that stretched beyond the reach of the lights.

  There was no life to be seen. And yet, evidence proved otherwise. Scattering tracks from the depth's habitants meandered and zig-zagged in every direction through the sediment. One might have guessed that they were made only recently, but the sea can be misleading. The footprints from deep-dwelling sea spiders, sea cucumbers, or starfish might have been made several minutes ago or hundreds of years past, because the microscopic animal and plant remains that comprise the deep-ocean ooze filters down from above at the rate of only one or two centimeters every thousand years.

  "There's a lovely creature," Giordino said pointing.

  Pitt's eye followed Giordino's finger and picked out a strange blue-black animal that seemed a cross between a squid and an octopus. It had eight tentacles linked together like the webbed foot of a duck, and it stared back at the Sea Slug through two large globular eyes that formed nearly a third of its body.

  "A vampire squid," Gunn informed them.

  "Ask her if she's got relatives in Transylvania?" Giordino grinned.

  "You know," Pitt said, "that thing out there sort of reminds me of your girl friend."

  Gunn jumped in. "You mean the one with no boobs?"

  "You've seen her?"

  "Rave on, envious rabble," Giordino grumbled. "She's mad about me and her father keeps me floating in quality booze."

  "Some quality," Pitt snorted. "Old Cesspool Bourbon, Attila the Hun Gin, Tijuana Vodka. Who the hell ever heard of those labels?"

  Throughout the next few hours, the wit and the sarcasm bounced off the walls of the Sea Slug. Actually, it was put on; a defense mechanism to relieve the gnawing pangs of monotony. Unlike romanticized fiction, wreck-hunting in the depths can be a grueling and tedious job. Add to that the aggravated discomfort of the cramped quarters, the high humidity and chilling temperatures inside the submersible, and you have the ingredients for provoking an accident through human error that could prove both costly and fatal.

  Pitt's hands stayed rock-steady as they handled the controls, guiding the Sea Slug a scant four feet above the bottom. Giordino's concentration was nailed to the life support systems, while Gunn kept his eyes skinned on the sonar and magnetometer. The long hours of planning were over. It was now a case of patience and persistence, mixed with that peculiar blend of eternal optimism and love of the unknown shared by all treasure seekers.

  "Looks like a pile of rocks up ahead," Pitt said.

  Giordino stared up through the viewports. "They're just sitting there in the ooze. I wonder where they came from."

  "Perhaps ballast thrown overboard from an old windjammer."

  "More likely came from icebergs," Gunn said. "Many rocks and bits of debris are carried over the sea and then dropped to the floor when the icebergs melt-" Gunn broke off in the middle of his lecture. "Hold on . . . I'm getting a strong response on the sonar. Now the magnetometer is picking it up, too."

  "Where away?" Pitt asked.

  "On a heading of one-three-seven."

  "One-three-seven it is," Pitt repeated. He swept the Sea Slug into a graceful bank, as though she was an airplane, and headed on the new course. Giordino peered intently over Gunn's shoulder at the green circles of light on the sonarscope. ''A small dot of pulsating brightness indicated a solid object three hundred yards beyond their range of vision.

  "Don't get your hopes up," Gunn said quietly. "The target reads too small for a ship."

  "What do you make of it?"

  "Hard to say. No more than twenty or twenty-five feet in length, about two stories high. Might be anything . . . ."

  "Or it might be one of the Titanic's boilers," Pitt cut in. "The sea floor should be littered with them."

  "You move to the head of the class," Gunn said, excitement creeping into his tone. "I have an identical reading, bearing one-one-five. And here comes another at one-six-zero. The last has an indicated length of approximately seventy feet."

  "Sounds like one of her smokestacks," Pitt said.

  "Lord!" Gunn murmured hoarsely. "It's beginning to read like a junkyard down here."

  Suddenly, in the gloom at the outer edge of the blackness, a rounded object became visible, haloed in the eerie light like an immense tombstone. Soon the three pairs of eyes inside the submersible could distinguish the furnace gratings of the great boiler, and then the row upon row of rivets along the iron seams and the torn, jagged tentacles of what was left of its steam tubing.

  "How would you like to have been a stoker in those days and fed that baby?" Giordino muttered.

  "I've picked up another one," Gunn said. "No, wait . . . the pulse is getting stronger. Here comes the length. One hundred feet . . . two. . ."

  "Keep coming, sweetheart," Pitt prayed.

  "Five hundred . . . seven . . . eight hundred feet. We got her! We've got her!"

  "What course?" Pitt's mouth was as dry as sand.

  "Bearing zero-nine-seven," Gunn replied in a whisper.

  They spoke no more for the next few minutes as the Sea Slug closed the distance. Their faces were pale and strained with anticipation. Pitt's heart was pounding painfully in his chest, and his stomach felt as if it had a great iron weight in it and a huge hand crushing it from the outside. He became aware that he was allowing the submersible to creep too close to the ooze. He pulled back the controls and kept his eyes trained -through the viewport. What would they find? A rusty old hulk far beyond hope of salvaging? A shattered, broken hull buried to its superstructure in the muck? And then his straining eyes caught sight of a massive shadow looming up ominously in the darkness.

  "Christ almighty!" Giordino mumbled in awe. "We've struck her fair on the bow."

  As the range narrowed to fifty feet, Pitt slowed the motors and turned the Sea Slug on a parallel course with the ill-fated liner's waterline. The mere size of the wreck when viewed from alongside her steel plates was a staggering sight. Even after nearly eighty years, the sunken ship proved to be surprisingly free of corrosion; the gold band that encompassed the 882-foot black hull glistened under the high-intensity lights. Pitt eased the submersible upward past the eight-ton portside anchor until they could all clearly make out the three-foot-high golden letters that still proudly proclaimed her as the Titanic.

  Spellbound, Pitt picked up the microphone from its cradle and pressed the transmit button. Modoc, Modoc. This is Sea Slug . . . do you read?"

  The radio operator on the Modoc answered almost immediately. "This is Modoc, Sea Slug. We read you. Over."

  Pitt adjusted the volume to minimize the background crackle. "Modoc, notify NUMA headquarters that we have found the Big T. Repeat, we have found the Big T. Depth twelve thousand three hundred and forty feet. Time, eleven-forty-two hours."

  "Eleven-forty-two?" Giordino echoed. "You cocky bastard. You only missed by two minutes."

  REGENESIS

  The Titanic lay cloaked by the eerie stillness of the black deep and bore the grim scars of her tragedy. The jagged wound from her collision with the iceberg stretched from the starboard forepeak to the No. 5 boiler room nearly three hundred feet down her hull, while the
gaping holes in her bow below the waterline betrayed the shattering impact made by her boilers when they tore from her bowels and smashed their way through bulkhead after bulkhead until they plunged free into the sea.

  She sat heavily in the ooze with a slight list to port, her forecastle set on a southerly course, as if she were still pathetically struggling to reach out and touch the waters of a port she had never known. The lights from the submersible danced over her ghostlike superstructure, casting long spectral shadows across her long teak decks. Her portholes, some open, some closed, marched in orderly rows along the broad expanse of her sides. She presented an almost modern, streamlined appearance now that her funnels were gone; the forward three were nonexistent, two probably having been carried away by her dive to the bottom, while number four lay fallen across the After Boat Deck. And, except for the scattered strands of rusty, disconnected funnel rigging that snaked over the railings, her Boat Deck showed only a few hulking air vents standing silent guard above the vacant Welin davits that had once held the great liner's lifeboats.

  There was a morbid beauty about her. The men inside the submersible could almost see her dining saloons and staterooms flooded with lights and crowded with hundreds of light-hearted and laughing passengers. They could visualize her libraries stacked with books, her smoking rooms filled with the blue haze of gentlemen's cigars, and hear the music of her band playing turn-of-the-century ragtime. The passengers walked her decks, the wealthy, the famous, men in immaculate evening dress, women in colorful ankle-length gowns, nannies with children clutching favorite toys, the Astons, the Guggenheims, and the Strauses in first class; the middle-class, the school teachers, the clergymen, the students, and the writers in second; the immigrants, the Irish farmers and their families, the carpenters, the bakers, the dressmakers, and the miners from remote villages of Sweden, Russia, and Greece in steerage. Then there were the almost nine hundred crew members, from the ship's officers to the caterers, the stewards, the lift boys, and the engineroom men.

  Great opulence lay in the darkness beyond the doors and portholes. What would the swimming pool, the squash court, and the Turkish baths look like? Was there a rotten remnant of the great tapestry still hanging in the reception room? What of the bronze clock on the grand staircase, or the crystal chandeliers in the elegant Cafe Parisien, or the delicately ornate ceiling above the first-class dining saloon? Would, perhaps, the bones of Captain Edward J. Smith remain somewhere within the shadows of the bridge? What mysteries were there to be discovered within this once colossal floating palace if and when she ever greeted the sun again?

  The strobe light on the submersible's cameras seemed to flash endlessly as the tiny intruder circled the immense hulk. A large two-foot, rat-tailed fish with huge eyes and a heavy armored head skittered over the slanting decks, showing total unconcern for the exploding beams of light.

  After what seemed like hours, the submersible, the faces of its crew still glued to the viewports, rose over the first-class lounge roof, hovered for a few moments, then deposited a small electronic-signal capsule. Its low frequency impulses would now provide a traceable guideline for future dives to the wreck. Then the submersible made a gliding turn upward, her lights blinked out, and she melted back into the darkness from whence she had come.

  Except for the few sparks of marine life that had somehow managed to adapt to survival in the black, bitter-cold environment, the Titanic was alone once more. But soon other submersibles would come and she would feel the tools of man working on her steel skin again, as she had so many years ago at the great slipways of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm in Belfast.

  Then, just perhaps, she would make her first port after all.

  THE TITANIC

  May 1988

  37

  In a measured and precise manner, the Soviet General Secretary, Georgi Antonov lit his pipe and surveyed the other men seated around the long mahogany conference table.

  To his right sat Admiral Boris Sloyuk, director of Soviet Naval Intelligence, and his aide, Captain Prevlov. Opposite them were Vladimir Polevoi, Chief of the Foreign Secrets Department of the KGB, and Vasily Tilevitch, Marshal of the Soviet Union and chief director of Soviet Security.

  Antonov came straight to the point "Well now, it seems the Americans are determined to raise the Titanic to the surface." He studied the papers sitting before him a few moments before continuing. "An extensive effort by the look of it. Two supply ships, three tenders, four deep-sea submersibles." He looked up at Admiral Sloyuk and Prevlov. "Do we have an observer in the area?"

  Prevlov nodded. "The oceanographic research vessel Mikhail Kurkov, under the command of Captain Ivan Parotkin, is cruising the salvage perimeter."

  "I know Parotkin personally," Sloyuk added. "He is a good seaman."

  "If the Americans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to salvage a seventy-six-year-old piece of scrap," Antonov said, "there must be a logical motivation."

  "There is a motivation," Admiral Sloyuk said gravely. "A motivation that threatens our very security." He nodded to Prevlov, who began passing out a red folder marked "Sicilian Project" to Antonov and the men across the table. "That is why I requested this meeting. My people have discovered outline plans for a new secret American defense system. I think you will find it a shocking, if not terrifying, study."

  Antonov and the others opened the folders and began reading. For perhaps five minutes, the Soviet General Secretary read, occasionally glancing in Sloyuk's direction. Antonov's face went through a wide range of expressions, beginning with professional interest to frank bewilderment, to astonishment, and, finally, stunned realization.

  "This, is incredible, Admiral Sloyuk, absolutely incredible."

  "Is such a defense system possible?" Marshal Tilevitch asked.

  "I have put the same question to five of our most respected scientists. They all agreed, theoretically, that such a system is feasible, provided a strong enough power source is available."

  "And you assume this source lies in the cargo holds of the Titanic?" Tilevitch put to him.

  "We are certain of it, Comrade Marshal. As I mentioned in the report, the vital ingredient needed for the completion of the Sicilian Project is a little-known element called byzanium. We now know the Americans stole the world's only supply from Russian soil seventy-six years ago. Fortunately for us, they had the ill luck to transport it on a doomed ship."

  Antonov shook his head in utter incomprehension. "If what you say in your report is true, then the Americans have the potential to knock down our intercontinental missiles as effortlessly as a goatherd swats flies.''

  Sloyuk nodded solemnly. "I am afraid that is the fearful truth."

  Polevoi leaned across the table, his face a mask of suspicious consternation. "You state here that your contact is a high-level aide in the United States Department of Defense."

  "That is correct." Prevlov nodded respectfully. "He became disillusioned with the American government during the Watergate affair and has since sent me whatever material he deems important."

  Antonov stared piercingly into Prevlov's eyes. "Do you think they can do it, Captain Prevlov?"

  "Raise the Titanic?"

  Antonov nodded.

  Prevlov stared back. "If you will recall the Central Intelligence Agency's successful recovery of one of our Soviet nuclear submarines in seventeen thousand feet of water off Hawaii in 1974-I believe the CIA referred to it as Project Jennifer-there is little doubt that the Americans have the technical capability to put the Titanic in New York harbor. Yes, Comrade Antonov, I firmly believe they will do it.

  "I do not share your opinion," said Polevoi. "A vessel the size of the Titanic is a far cry from a submarine."

  "I have to throw in my lot with Captain Prevlov," Sloyuk argued. "The Americans have an annoying habit of accomplishing what they set out to do."

  "And what of this Sicilian Project?" Polevoi persisted. "The KGB has received no detailed data concerning its
existence except the code name. How do we know the Americans have not created a mythical project to play a bluffing hand at the negotiations to limit strategic nuclear delivery systems?"

  Antonov rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. "The Americans do not bluff. Comrade Khrushchev found that out twenty-five years ago during the Cuban missile crisis. We cannot ignore any possibility, however remote, that they are on the verge of making this defense system operational as soon as they salvage the byzanium from the hull of the Titanic. "He paused to suck on his pipe stem. "I suggest that our next thoughts be directed toward a course of action."

  "Quite obviously we must see to it that the byzanium never reaches the United States," Marshal Tilevitch said.

  Polevoi drummed his fingers on the Sicilian Project file. "Sabotage. We must sabotage the salvage operation. There is no other way."