Raise the Titanic! (17 page)

Sandecker rose from behind his desk and walked over to the window. When he spoke, his words came very softly, sounding almost as if they were carried over a great distance by the wind. “Graham Farley's cornet.”

“Sir?”

“Graham Farley's cornet,” Sandecker repeated wistfully. “If that old horn is any indication, the
Titanic
may be sitting down there in the black abyss as pretty and preserved as the night she sank.”

To a chance
observer standing on the shore or to anyone out for a leisurely cruise up the Rappahannock River, the three men slouched in a dilapidated old rowboat looked like a trio of ordinary weekend fishermen. They were dressed in faded shirts and dungarees, and sported hats festooned with the usual variety of hooks and flies. It was a typical scene, down to the six-pack of beer trapped in a fishnet dangling in the water beside the boat.

The shortest of the three, a red-haired, pinched-faced man, lay against the stern and seemed to be dozing, his hands loosely gripped around a fishing pole that was attached to a red and white cork bobbing a bare two feet from the boat's waterline. The second man simply slouched over an open magazine, while the third fisherman sat upright and mechanically went through the motions of casting a silver lure. He was large, with a well-fed stomach that blossomed through his open shirt, and he gazed through lazy blue eyes set in a jovial round face. He was the perfect image of everyone's kindly old grandfather.

Admiral Joseph Kemper could afford to look kindly. When you wielded the almost incredible authority that he did, you didn't have to squint through hypnotic eyes or belch fire like a dragon. He looked down and offered a benevolent expression to the man who was dozing.

“It strikes me, Jim, that you're not deeply into the spirit of fishing.”

“This has to be the most useless endeavor ever devised by man,” Sandecker replied.

“And you, Mr. Seagram? You haven't dropped a hook since we anchored.”

Seagram peered at Kemper over the magazine. “If a fish could survive the pollution down there, Admiral, he'd have to look like a mutant out of a low-budget horror movie, and taste twice as bad.”

“Since it was you gentlemen who invited me here,” Kemper said, “I'm beginning to suspect a devious motive.”

Sandecker neither agreed nor disagreed. “Just relax and enjoy the great outdoors, Joe. Forget for a few hours that you're the Navy's Chief of Staff.”

“That's easy when you're around. You're the only one I know who talks down to me.”

Sandecker grinned. “You can't go through life with the whole world kissing your ass. Simply look upon me as good therapy.”

Kemper sighed. “I had hoped I'd gotten rid of you once and for all when you retired from the service. Now it seems you've come back to haunt me as a goddamned feather merchant.”

“I understand they were dancing in the corridors of the Pentagon when I left.”

“Let's just say there were no tears shed at your departure.” Kemper slowly reeled his lure in. “Okay, Jim, I've known you too many years not to smell a squeeze play. What do you and Mr. Seagram have on your minds?”

“We're going after the
Titanic
,” Sandecker replied casually.

Kemper went on reeling. “Indeed?”

“Indeed.”

Kemper cast again. “What for? To take a few photographs for publicity's sake?”

“No, to raise her to the surface.”

Kemper stopped reeling. He turned and stared at Sandecker. “You did say the
Titanic
?”

“I did.”

“Jim, my boy, you've really slipped your moorings this time. If you expect me to believe—”

“This isn't a fairy tale,” Seagram interrupted. “The authority for the salvage operation comes straight from the White House.”

Kemper's eyes studied Seagram's face. “Then am I to assume that you represent the President?”

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

Kemper said, “I must say you have a rather strange way of doing business, Mr. Seagram. If you will give me the courtesy of an explanation…”

“That's why we're here, Admiral, to explain.”

Kemper turned to Sandecker. “Are you in the game too, Jim?”

Sandecker nodded. “Let's just say that Mr. Seagram speaks softly and carries one hell of a big stick.”

“Okay, Seagram, the podium is yours. Why the subterfuge and why the urgency to raise an old derelict?”

“First things first, Admiral. To begin with, I am head of a highly secret department of the government called Meta Section.”

“Never heard of it,” Kemper said.

“We are not listed in any journal on federal offices. Not even the CIA, the FBI, nor the NSA has any records of our operation.”

“An undercover think tank,” Sandecker said curtly.

“We go beyond the ordinary think tank,” Seagram said. “Our people devise futuristic concepts and then attempt to construct them into successful functioning systems.”

“That would cost millions of dollars,” Kemper said.

“Modesty forbids me to mention the exact amount of our budget, Admiral, but ego compels me to admit that I have slightly over ten figures to play with.”

“My Lord!” Kemper muttered under his breath. “Over a billion dollars to play with, you say. An organization of scientists that nobody knows exists. You stir my interest, Mr. Seagram.”

“Mine too,” Sandecker said acidly. “Up until now, you've sought NUMA's assistance through White House channels by passing yourself off as a presidential aide. Why the Machiavellian routine?”

“Because the President ordered strict security, Admiral, in the event of a leak to Capitol Hill. The last thing his administration needed was a congressional witch-hunt into Meta Section's finances.”

Kemper and Sandecker looked at each other and nodded. They looked at Seagram, waiting for the rest of it.

“Now then,” he continued, “Meta Section has developed a defense system with the code name of the Sicilian Project….”

“The Sicilian Project?”

“We named it after a chess strategy known as the Sicilian Defense. The project is devised around a variant of the maser principle. For example, if we push a sound wave of a certain frequency through a medium containing excited atoms, we can then stimulate the sound to an extremely high state of emission.”

“Similar to a laser beam,” Kemper commented.

“To some degree,” Seagram answered. “Except a laser emits a narrow beam of light energy, while our device emits a broad, fanlike field of sound waves.”

“Besides breaking a bevy of eardrums,” Sandecker said, “what purpose does it serve?”

“As you recall from your elementary-school studies, Admiral, sound waves spread in circular waves much like ripples in a pond after a pebble is dropped in it. In the instance of the Sicilian Project, we can multiply the sound waves a million times over. Then, when this tremendous energy is released, it spreads out into the atmosphere, pushing air particles ahead of its unleashed force, condensing them until they combine to form a solid, impenetrable wall hundreds of square miles in diameter.” Seagram paused to scratch his nose. “I won't bore you with equations and technical details concerning the actual instrumentation. The particulars are too complicated to discuss here, but you can easily see the potential. Any enemy missile launched against America coming into contact with this invisible protective barrier would smash itself into oblivion long before it entered the target area.”

“Is…is this system for real?” Kemper asked hesitantly.

“Yes, Admiral. I assure you it can work. Even now, the required number of installations to stop an all-out missile attack are under construction.”

“Jesus!” Sandecker burst out. “The ultimate weapon.”

“The Sicilian Project is not a weapon. It is purely a scientific method of protecting our country.”

“It's hard to visualize,” Kemper said.

“Just imagine a sonic boom from a jet aircraft amplified ten million times.”

Kemper seemed lost by it all. “But the sound—wouldn't it destroy everything on the ground?”

“No, the energy force is aimed into space and builds during its journey. To someone standing at sea level it would merely have the same harmless impact of distant thunder.”

“What does all this have to do with the
Titanic
?”

“The element required to stimulate the optimum level of sound emission is byzanium, and therein lies the grabber, gentlemen, because the world's only known quantity of byzanium ore was shipped to the United States back in 1912 on board the
Titanic
.”

“I see.” Kemper nodded. “Then salvaging the ship is your last-ditch attempt at making your defense system operational?”

“Byzanium's atomic structure is the only one that will work. By programming its known properties into our computers, we were able to project a thirty-thousand-to-one ratio in favor of success.”

“But why raise the entire ship?” Kemper asked. “Why not just tear out its bulkheads and bring up the byzanium?”

“We'd have to blast our way into the cargo hold with explosives. The danger of destroying the ore forever is too great. The President and I agree that the added expense of raising the hull far outweighs the risk of losing it.”

Kemper tossed out his lure again. “You're a positive thinker, Seagram. I grant you that. But what makes you think the
Titanic
is in any condition to be brought up in one piece. After seventy-five years on the bottom, she may be nothing but an immense pile of rusty junk.”

“My people have a theory on that,” said Sandecker. He put his fishing pole aside, opened his tackle box and pulled out an envelope. “Take a look at these.” He handed Kemper several four-by-five photographs.

“Looks like so much underwater trash,” Kemper commented.

“Exactly,” Sandecker answered. “Every so often the cameras on our submersibles stumble on debris tossed overboard from passing ships.” He pointed to the top photo. “This is a galley stove found at four thousand feet off Bermuda. Next is an automobile engine block photographed at sixty-five hundred feet off the Aleutians. No way to date either of these. Now, here is a Grumman F4F World War II aircraft discovered at ten thousand feet, near Iceland. We dug up a record on this one. The plane was ditched in the sea without injury by a Lieutenant Strauss when he ran out of fuel on March 17, 1946.”

Kemper held out the next photo at arm's length. “What in hell is this thing?”

“That was taken at the moment of discovery by the
Sappho I
during the Lorelei Current Expedition. What at first looked like an ordinary kitchen funnel turned out to be a horn.” He showed Kemper a shot of the instrument taken after Vogel's restoration.

“That's a cornet,” Kemper corrected him. “You say the
Sappho I
brought this up?”

“Yes, from twelve thousand feet. It had been lying on the bottom since 1912.”

Kemper's eyebrows raised. “Are you going to tell me it came from the
Titanic
?”

“I can show you documented evidence.”

Kemper sighed and handed the pictures back to Sandecker. His shoulders sagged, the weary, fatigued droop of a man no longer young, a man who had been carrying a heavy burden for too long a time. He pulled a beer from the fishnet and popped the tab. “What does any of this prove?”

Sandecker's mouth tightened into a slight grin. “It was right in front of us for two years—that's how long ago the aircraft was discovered—but we completely overlooked the possibilities. Oh sure, there were remarks about the plane's excellent condition, yet none of my oceanographers really grasped the significance. It wasn't until the
Sappho I
brought up the horn that the true implications came home.”

“I'm not following you,” Kemper said tonelessly.

“First of all,” Sandecker continued, “ninety percent of that F4F is made out of aluminum, and as you know, salt water eats the hell out of aluminum. Yet that plane, after sitting down there in the sea for over forty years, looks like the day it came out of the factory. Same with the horn. It's been underwater crowding eighty years, and it shined up like a newborn baby's ass.”

“Have you any explanation?” Kemper asked.

“Two of NUMA's ablest oceanographers are now running data through our computers. The general theory at the moment is that it's a combination of factors: the lack of damaging sea life at great depths, the low salinity or salt content of bottom water, the freezing temperatures of the deep, and a lower oxygen content that would slow down oxidation of metal. It could be any one or all of these factors that delays deterioration of deep-bottom wrecks. We'll know better if and when we get a look at the
Titanic
.”

Kemper thought for a moment. “What do you want from me?”

“Protection,” Seagram answered. “If the Soviets get wind of what we're up to, they'll try everything short of war to stop us and grab the byzanium for themselves.”

“Put your mind at rest on that score,” Kemper said, his voice suddenly hard. “The Russians will think twice before they bloody their noses on our side of the Atlantic. Your salvage operations on the
Titanic
will be protected, Mr. Seagram. You have my ironclad guarantee on that.”