"Maybe. Maybe not," Pitt said. "But even if that occurs, it's probably best that Merker, Kiel, and Chavez die instantly from the sea's crush than suffer the prolonged agony of slow suffocation."
"And what about the Titanic?" Gunn persisted "We could blow everything we've worked for all these months all over the abyssal landscape."
"Score that as a calculated risk," Pitt said. "The Titanic's construction is of a greater strength than most ships afloat today. Her beams, girders, bulkheads, and decks are as sound as the night she sank. The old girl can take whatever we dish out. Make no mistake about it."
"Do you honestly think it will work?" Sandecker asked.
"I do."
"I could order you not to do this thing. You know that."
"I know that," Pitt replied. "I'm banking on you to keep me in the ball game until the final inning."
Sandecker rubbed his hand across his eyes, then shook his head slowly as if to clear it. Finally he said, "Okay. Dirk, it's your baby."
Pitt nodded and turned away.
There were just five hours and ten minutes to go.
Two and a half miles below, the three men in the Deep Fathom, cold and alone in a remote, uncharitable environment, watched the water creep up the cabin walls inch by inch until it flooded the main circuitry and shorted out the instruments, throwing the interior of the cabin into blackness. Then they began to feel the sting of the thirty-four-degree water in earnest as it swirled around their legs. Standing there shivering under the torment of certain death, they still nurtured the spark to survive.
"As soon as we get topside," Kiel murmured, "I'm going to take a day off, and I don't care who knows it."
"Come again?" Chavez said in the darkness.
"They can fire me if they want to, but I'm sleeping in tomorrow."
Chavez groped for and found Kiel's arm, gripping it roughly. "What are you babbling about?"
"Take it easy," Merker said. "With the life-support system gone, the carbon-dioxide buildup is getting to him. I'm beginning to feel a bit giddy myself."
"Foul air on top of everything else," Chavez grumbled. "If we don't drown, we get crushed when the hull bursts, and if we don't get mashed like eggshells, we suffocate on our own air. Our future looks none too bright."
"You left out exposure," Merker added sardonically. "If we don't climb above this freezing water, we won't get a chance at the other three."
Kiel said nothing but limply allowed Chavez to shove him into the uppermost sleeping bunk. Then Chavez followed and sat on the edge, his feet dangling over the side.
Merker struggled through the crotch-deep water to the forward viewport and looked out. He could see only the haloed outline of the Sappho II through the blinding glare of her lights. Even though the other craft hovered only ten feet away, there was nothing she could do for the stricken Deep Fathom while they were both surrounded by the relentless pressure of the hostile deep. As long as she is still there, Merker thought, they haven't written us off. He took no small consolation in the fact that they were not alone. It wasn't much to lean on, but it was all they had.
On board the supply ship Alhambra, camera crews from the three major networks, swept up in the swirling tide of expectation, feverishly struggled to get their equipment into action. Along every available foot of starboard-deck railing, wire-service reporters peered through binoculars in hypnotic concentration at the Capricorn floating two miles away, while photographers aimed their telephoto lenses on the surface of the water between the ships. Trapped in one corner of a makeshift pressroom, Dana Seagram pulled a foul-weather jacket tightly around her shoulders and gamely stood up to the dozen news people armed with tape recorders who were pushing microphones toward her face as though they were lollipops.
"Is it true, Ms. Seagram, that attempting to raise the Titanic three days ahead of schedule is in reality a last-ditch attempt to save the lives of the men trapped below?"
"It is only one of several solutions," Dana replied.
"Are we to understand that all other attempts have failed?"
"There have been complications," Dana admitted.
Inside one of the jacket's pockets, Dana nervously twisted a handkerchief until her fingers turned sore. The long months of give-and-take with the men and women of the press were beginning to tell.
"Since the loss of communications with the Deep Fathom, how can you know for certain whether the crew is still alive?"
"Computer data assure us that their situation will not turn critical for another four hours and forty minutes."
"How does NUMA intend to bring up the Titanic if the electrolyte chemical is not fully injected into the silt around the hull?"
"I can't answer that," Dana said. "Mr. Pitt's last message prom the Capricorn only stated that they were going to raise the wreck in the next few hours. He did not offer details regarding the method."
"What if it's too late? What if Kiel, Chavez, and Merker are already dead?"
Dana's expression went rigid. "They are not dead," she said with eyes blazing. "And, the first one of you who reports such a cruel and inhuman rumor before it's a proven fact will get their ass kicked off this ship, credentials and Nielsen ratings be damned. Do you understand?"
The reporters stood there a moment in mute surprise at Dana's sudden display of anger, and then slowly and silently they began to lower the microphones and melt toward the deck outside.
Rick Spencer unrolled a large piece of paper on the chart table and anchored it down with several half-empty coffee mugs. It was an overhead drawing that depicted the Titanic and her position in relation to the sea floor. He began pointing a pencil at various spots about the hulk that were marked with tiny crosses.
"Here's the way it shapes up," he explained. "According to the computer data, we set eighty charges, each containing thirty pounds of explosives, at these key points in the sediment along the Titanic's hull."
Sandecker leaned over the drawing, his eyes scanning the crosses. "I see that you've staggered them in three rows on each side."
"That's right, sir," Spencer said. "The outside rows are set sixty yards away; the middle, forty; and the inner rows are just twenty yards from the ship's plates. We'll detonate the starboard outer row first. Then eight seconds later we fire the port outer row. Another eight seconds and we repeat the procedure with the middle rows, and so on."
"Kind of like rocking a car back and forth that's stuck in the mud," Giordino volunteered.
Spencer nodded. "You might say that's a fair comparison."
"Why not jolt her out of the silt with one big bang?" Giordino asked.
"It's possible a sudden shock might do it, but the geologists are in favor of separate overlapping shock waves. It's vibration we're after."
"Have we the explosives?" Pitt asked.
"The Bomberger carries nearly a ton for seismic research purposes," Spencer replied. "The Modoc has four hundred pounds in her stores for underwater salvage blasting."
"Will it do the trick?"
"Border line," Spencer admitted. "Another three hundred pounds would have given us a more acceptable margin for success."
"We could have it flown from the mainland by jet and air-dropped," Sandecker suggested.
Pitt shook his head. "By the time the explosives arrived, and were loaded in a sub and planted on the sea floor, it would be two hours too late."
"Then we'd best get on with it," Sandecker said brusquely. "We have a tight deadline to meet." He turned to Gunn. "How soon can the explosives be set in place?"
"Four hours," Gunn said unhesitatingly.
Sandecker's eyes narrowed. "That's cutting it pretty thin. That only leaves a leeway of fourteen minutes."
"We'll make it," Gunn said. "However, there is one condition."
"What is it?" Sandecker snapped impatiently.
"It will take every operational submersible we've got."
"That means pulling the Sappho II from its station beside the Deep Fathom," Pitt said. "Those
poor bastards down there will think we're deserting them."
"There's no other way," Gunn said helplessly. "There's simply no other way."
Merker had lost all track of time. He stared at the luminous dial on his watch but his eyes couldn't focus on the glowing numbers. How long since the derrick had fallen across their buoyancy tanks, he wondered, five hours, ten, was it yesterday? His mind was sluggish and confused. He could only sit there without moving a muscle, breathing shallowly and slowly, each breath seemingly taking a lifetime. Gradually, he became aware of a movement. He reached out and touched Kiel and Chavez in the darkness, but they made no sound, no response; they had fallen into a lethargic stupor.
Then he became aware of it again, a minute but perceptible something that was not where it was supposed to be. His mind turned over as though it were immersed in syrup. But at last he had it. Except for the relentless rise of the water, there was no change, no sign of physical motion inside the flooding cabin; it was the angle of the Sappho II's light beam through the forward viewports that had dimmed.
He dropped off the bunk into the water-it came up to his chest now-and almost as if in a nightmare, he struggled toward the upper front ports and peered into the depths outside.
Suddenly, his numbed senses were gripped by a fear such as he had never known before. His eyes widened and glazed, his hands clenched in futility and despair.
"Oh Godl" he cried aloud. "They're leaving us. They've given us up."
Sandecker twisted the huge cigar he had just lit and continued to pace the deck. The radio operator raised his hand and the admiral turned in mid-step and came up behind him.
"The Sappho I reporting, sir," Curly said. "She's finished positioning her charges."
"Tell her to head topside as fast as her buoyancy tanks will take her. The higher she goes, the less pressure on her hull when the explosives detonate." The admiral swung and faced Pitt, who was keeping a watchful eye on the four monitors, whose cameras and floodlights were mounted in strategic spots around the Titanic's superstructure. "How does it look?"
"So far, so good," Pitt answered. "If the Wetsteel pressure seals hold up against the concussions, we'll stand a fighting chance."
Sandecker stared at the color images and his brow furrowed as he perceived great streams of bubbles issuing from the liner's hulk. "She's losing a lot of air," he said.
"Excess pressure escaping through the bleeder valves," Pitt said tonelessly. "We switched from the electrolyte pumps back to the compressors in order to cram as much extra air as we can into the upper compartments." He paused to fine-tune a picture and then continued. "The Capricorn's compressors put out ten thousand cubic feet of air an hour, so it didn't take long to raise the pressure inside the hull another ten pounds per inch, just enough to pop the bleeder valves."
Drummer ambled over from the computers and checked off a series of notations on a clipboard. "As near as we can figure, ninety per cent of the ship's compartments are unwatered," he said. "The main problem, as I see it, is that we have more lift than the computers say is necessary. If and when the suction gives way, she'll come up like a kite."
"The Sea Slug just dropped her last charge," Curly reported.
"Ask her to make a swing by the Deep Fathom before she starts for the surface," Pitt said, "and see if she can make visual contact with Merker and his crew."
"Eleven minutes to go," Giordino announced.
"What in hell is keeping the Sappho II?" Sandecker asked no one in particular.
Pitt looked across the room to Spencer. "Are the charges ready to fire?"
Spencer nodded. "Each row is tuned to a different transmitter frequency. All we have to do is turn a dial and they'll go off in their proper sequence."
"What do you bet we see first, the bow or the stern?"
"There's no contest. The bow is buried twenty feet deeper in the sediment than the rudder. I'm counting on the stern breaking free and then using its buoyant leverage to pull up the rest of the keel. She should rise on very nearly the same angle she sank-providing she's agreeable and rises at all."
"Last charge secured," droned Curly. "Sappho II is making her getaway."
"Anything from the Sea Slug?"
"She reports no visual contact with Deep Fathom's crew."
"Okay, tell her to hightail it toward the surface," Pitt said. "We fire the first row of charges in nine minutes."
"They're dead," . Drummer suddenly cried, his voice breaking "We're too late, they're all dead."
Pitt took two steps and gripped Drummer by the shoulders. "Cut the hysterics. The last thing we need is a premature eulogy."
Drummer dropped his shoulders, his face ashen and frozen in a stonelike expression of dread. Then he silently nodded and walked unsteadily back to the computer console.
"The water must only be a couple of feet from the sub's cabin ceiling by now," Giordino said. It came out about half an octave higher than his normal tone.
"If pessimism sold by the pound, you guys would all be millionaires," Pitt said dryly.
"The Sappho I has reached the safety zone at six thousand feet." This from the sonar operator.
"One down, two to go," murmured Sandecker.
There was nothing left to do now but wait for the other submersibles to rise above the danger level of the approaching concussion waves. Eight minutes passed, eight interminable minutes that saw the sweat begin to ooze on two dozen foreheads.
"Sappho II and Sea Slug now approaching safety zone."
"Sea and weather?" Pitt demanded.
"Four-foot swells, clear skies, wind out of the northeast at five knots," answered Farquar, the weatherman. "You couldn't ask for better conditions."
For several moments no one spoke. Then Pitt said, "Well, gentlemen, the time has come." His voice was level and relaxed, and no trace of apprehension showed in his tone or manner. "Okay, Spencer, count it down."
Spencer began repeating the announcements with clocklike regularity. "Thirty seconds . . . fifteen seconds . . . five seconds . . . signal transmitting . . . mark." Then he unhesitatingly went right into the next firing order. "Eight seconds . . . four seconds . . . signal transmitting . . . mark."
Everyone clustered around the TV monitors and the sonar operator, their only contacts now with the bottom. The first explosion barely caused a tremor through the decks of the Capricorn, and the volume of sound came to their ears like that of faraway thunder. The cloud of anxiety could be slashed with a sword. Every single eye was trained straight ahead on the monitors, on the quivering lines that distorted the images when the charges went off. Tense, strained, numb with the expectant look of men who feared the worst but hoped for the best, they stood there immobile as Spencer droned on with his countdowns.
The shudders from the deck became more pronounced as shock wave followed shock wave and broke on the surface of the ocean. Then, abruptly, the monitors all flickered in a kaleidoscope of fused light and went black.
"Damn!" Sandecker muttered. "We've lost picture contact."
"The concussions must have jolted loose the main relay connector," Gunn surmised.
Their attention quickly turned to the sonar scope, but few of them could see it; the operator had drawn himself up so close to the glass that his head obscured it. Finally, Spencer straightened up. He sighed deeply to himself, pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and rubbed his face and neck. "That's all she wrote," he said hoarsely. "There isn't any more."
"Still stationary," said the sonar operator. "The Big T is still stationary."
"Go baby!" Giordino pleaded. "Get your big ass up!"
"Oh God, dear God," Drummer mumbled. "The suction is still holding her to the bottom."
"Come on, damn you," Sandecker joined in. "Lift . . . lift."
If it was humanly possible for the mind to will 46,328 tons of steel to release its hold on the grave it had occupied for seventy-six long years and return to the sunlight, the men crowded around the sonarscope would have surely made it so. B
ut there was to be no psychokinetic phenomenon this day. The Titanic stayed stubbornly clutched to the sea floor.
"A dirty, rotten break," Farquar said.
Drummer held his hands over his face, turned away, and stumbled from the room.
"Woodson on the Sappho II requests permission to descend for a look-see," said Curly.
Pitt shrugged. "Permission granted."
Slowly, wearily, Admiral Sandecker sank into a chair. "What price failure?" he said.
The bitter taste of hopelessness flooded the room, swept by the grim tide of total defeat.