Raise the Titanic! (26 page)

“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. But there was to be no psychokinetic phenomenon this day. The
Titanic
stayed stubbornly clutched to the seafloor.

“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.

“What now?” Giordino asked, staring vacantly at the deck.

“What we came here to do,” answered Pitt tiredly. “We go on with the salvage operation. Tomorrow we'll begin again to…”

“She's moved!”

No one reacted immediately.

“She moved,” the sonar operator repeated. His voice had a quiver to it.

“Are you sure?” Sandecker whispered.

“Stake my life on it.”

Spencer was too stunned to speak. He could only stare at the sonarscope with an expression of abject incredulity. Then his lips began working. “The aftershocks!” he said. “The aftershocks caused a delayed reaction.”

“Rising,” the sonar operator shouted, banging his fist on the arm of his chair. “That gorgeous old bucket of bolts has broken free. She's coming up.”

At first everybody
was too dumbstruck to move. The moment they had prayed for, had spent eight tortuous months struggling for, had sneaked up behind them and somehow they couldn't accept it as actually happening. Then the electrifying news began to sink in and they all began shouting at the same time, like a crowd of mission-control space engineers during a rocket liftoff.

“Go baby, go!” Sandecker shouted as joyfully as a schoolboy.

“Move, you mother!” Giordino yelled. “Move, move!”

“Keep coming, you big beautiful rusty old floating palace, you,” Spencer murmured.

Suddenly, Pitt rushed across to the radio and clutched Curly's shoulder in a viselike grip.

“Quick, contact Woodson on the
Sappho II
. Tell him the
Titanic
is on her way up and to get the hell out of the way before he's run over.”

“Still on a surface course,” the sonar operator said. “Speed of ascent accelerating.”

“We haven't weathered the storm yet,” Pitt said. “A hundred and one things can still go wrong before she breaks surface. If only—”

“Yeah,” Giordino cut in, “like, if only the Wetsteel maintains its bond, or if only the bleeder valves can keep up with the sudden drop in water pressure, or if the hull doesn't take it in its mind to go snap, crackle, and pop. ‘If '…it's a mighty big word.”

“Still coming and coming fast,” the sonar operator said, staring at his scope. “Six hundred feet in the last minute.”

Pitt swung to Giordino. “Al, find Doc Bailey and the pilot of the helicopter, and get in the air like a mad bull was on your ass. Then, as soon as the
Titanic
stabilizes herself, drop down on her forecastle deck. I don't care how you do it—rope ladder, winch, and bucket chair—crash-land the copter if you have to, but you and the good doctor drop down fast and pop the
Deep Fathom
's hatch cover and lift those men out of that hellhole!”

“We're halfway there.” Giordino grinned. He was already out the door before Pitt could issue his next order to Spencer.

“Rick, stand by to hoist the portable diesel pumps on board the derelict. The sooner we can get ahead of any leaks, the better.”

“We'll need cutting torches to get inside her,” Spencer said, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Then see to it.”

Pitt turned back to the sonar panel.

“Rate of ascent?”

“Eight hundred and fifty feet a minute,” the sonar operator called back.

“Too fast,” Pitt said.

“It's what we didn't want,” Sandecker muttered through his cigar. “Her interior compartments are overfilled with air and she's soaring to the surface out of control.”

“And, if we've miscalculated the amount of ballast water left in her lower holds, she could rocket two-thirds her length out of the water and capsize,” Pitt added.

Sandecker looked him in the eye. “And that would spell finish to the
Deep Fathom
's crew.” Then without another word, the admiral turned and led the exodus from the operations room to the deck outside, where everyone began scanning the restless swells in heart-pounding anticipation.

Only Pitt hung back. “What depth is she?” This to the sonar operator.

“Passing the eight-thousand-foot mark.”

“Woodson reporting in,” Curly intoned. “He says the Big T just went by the
Sappho II
like a greased pig.”

“Acknowledge and tell him to surface. Relay the same message to the
Sea Slug
and
Sappho I
.” There was nothing left to do here, so he stepped out the door and up the ladder to the port bridge wing, where he joined Gunn and Sandecker.

Gunn picked up the bridge phone. “Sonar, this is the bridge.”

“Sonar.”

“Can you give me an approximate fix on where she'll appear?”

“She should break water about six hundred yards off the port quarter.”

“Time?”

There was a pause.

“Time?” Gunn repeated.

“Is
now
soon enough for you, Commander?”

At that very moment, a huge wave of bubbles spread across the sea and the fantail of the
Titanic
burst up into the afternoon sun like a gigantic whale. For a few seconds it seemed as though there was no stopping her soaring flight from the depths—her stern kept crowding into the sky until she came free of the water up to the boiler casing, where her No. 2 funnel had once stood. It was a staggering sight; the inside air bleeding down sent great torrents of spray shooting through the pressure-relief valves, shrouding the great ship in billowing rainbowed clouds of vapor. She hung poised for several moments, clawing at the crystal blue heavens, and then, slowly at first, began to settle until her keel smacked the sea with a tremendous splash that sent a ten-foot wave surging toward the surrounding fleet of ships. She heeled down as if she had no intention of recovering. A thousand onlookers held their breath as she careened ever farther onto her starboard beam ends, thirty, forty, forty-five, fifty degrees, and there she hung for what seemed like a dreadful eternity; everyone was half-expecting her to continue the roll over onto her superstructure. But then, with agonizing sluggishness, the
Titanic
slowly began the struggle to right herself. Gradually, foot by foot, until her hull reached a starboard list of twelve degrees…and there she stayed.

Nobody could speak. They all just stood there, too stunned, too mesmerized by what they had just seen to do anything but breathe. Sandecker's weathered face looked ghostly pale even in the bright sun.

Pitt was the first to find his voice. “She's up,” he managed in a barely audible whisper.

“She's up,” Gunn acknowledged softly.

Then the spell was broken by the pulsing blades of the
Capricorn
's helicopter as it headed into the wind and angled over the debris-laden forecastle of the resurrected ship. The pilot held the craft on a level position a few feet above the deck and almost instantly two tiny specks could be seen dropping out of a side door.

 

Giordino scrambled up the access ladder and found himself staring at the hatch cover of the
Deep Fathom
. Thank God for small miracles: the hull was still sound. Cautiously, he maneuvered his body on top of the rounded, slippery deck and tried the handwheel. The spokes felt like ice, but he gripped firm and gave a heavy twist. The handwheel refused to cooperate.

“Stop dawdling and open the damned thing,” Dr. Bailey boomed behind him. “Every second counts.”

Giordino took a deep breath and heaved with every ounce the muscles of his oxlike body could give. It moved an inch. He tried again, and this time forced half a turn, and then, finally, it began spinning easily as the air inside the sub hissed out and the pressure against the seal relaxed. When the handwheel halted at the end of its threads, Giordino swung the hatch open and peered into the darkness below. A stale, rancid smell rose up and attacked his nostrils. His heart sank when, after his eyes became accustomed to the darkness inside, he saw the water sloshing only eighteen inches from the upper bulkhead.

Dr. Bailey pushed past and lowered his immense hulk through the hatch and down the interior ladder. The icy water stung his skin. He pushed off the rungs and dog-paddled toward the after part of the submersible until his hand touched something soft in the dim light. It was a leg. Following it over the knee, he felt his way toward the torso. His hand came out of the water at shoulder level and he touched a face.

Bailey moved closer until his nose was a bare inch from the face in the darkness. He tried to feel for a pulse, but his fingers were too numb from the cold water, and he detected nothing that indicated life or death. Then, suddenly, the eyes fluttered open, the lips trembled, and a voice whispered, “Go away…I told you…I'm not working today.”

 

“Bridge?” Curly's voice scratched through the speaker.

“This is the bridge,” answered Gunn.

“Ready to patch in the helicopter.”

“Go ahead.”

There was a pause and then a strange voice cracked onto the bridge. “
Capricorn
, this is Lieutenant Sturgis.”

“This is Commander Gunn, Lieutenant; I have you loud and clear. Over.”

“Dr. Bailey has entered the
Deep Fathom
. Please stand by.”

The brief respite gave everyone a chance to study the
Titanic
. She looked uncompromisingly utilitarian and downright naked without her towering funnels and masts. The steel plates of her sides were blotched and stained with rust, but the black and white paint of her hull and superstructure still shone through. She looked a mess, like a hideous old prostitute who dwelt in dreams of better days and long-lost beauty. The portholes and windows were covered with the unsightly gray of the Wetsteel, and her once-immaculate teak decks were rotted and cluttered with miles of corroded cable. The empty lifeboat davits seemed to reach out in wraithlike pleading for a return of their long-lost contents. The overall effect of the ocean liner's presence came across the water like an eerie subject in a surrealistic painting. And yet, there was an inexplicable serenity about her that could not be described.

“
Capricorn
, this is Sturgis. Over.”

“Gunn here. Come in.”

“Mr. Giordino has just given me three fingers and a thumbs-up sign. Merker, Kiel, and Chavez are still alive.”

A strange quiet followed. Then Pitt walked over to the emergency equipment panel and pressed the siren button. The ear-splitting sound whooped across the water.

Then the
Modoc
's whistle blared in reply, and Pitt saw the normally reserved Sandecker laugh and throw his cap in the air. The
Monterey Park
joined in, and the
Alhambra
and finally the
Bomberger
, until the sea around the
Titanic
was one huge cacophony of sirens and whistles. Not to be outdone, the
Juneau
moved up and punctuated the mad din with a thunderous salute from her eight-inch gun mount.

It was a moment that none of those present would ever live again. And, for the first time in all the years he could remember, Pitt felt the trickle of warm tears on his cheeks.