Raise the Titanic! (30 page)

The U.S. Navy
salvage tugs
Thomas J. Morse
and
Samuel R. Wallace
arrived just before 1500 hours and slowly began circling the
Titanic
. The vast size and the strange deathlike aura of the derelict filled the tugs' crews with the same feeling of awe that had been experienced by the NUMA salvage people the day before.

After half an hour of visual inspection, the tugs pulled parallel to the great rusty hull and lay to in the heavy swells, their engines on “stop.” Then, as if in unison, their cutters were lowered and the captains came across and began climbing a hastily thrown boarding ladder to the
Titanic
's shelter deck.

Lieutenant George Uphill of the
Morse
was a short, plump, ruddy-faced man who sported an immense Bismarck mustache, while Lieutenant Commander Scotty Butera of the
Wallace
nearly scraped the ceiling at six feet six and buried his chin in a magnificent black beard. No spick-and-span fleet officers these two. They looked and acted every bit the part of tough, no-nonsense salvage men.

“You don't know how happy we are to see you, gentlemen,” Gunn said, shaking their hands. “Admiral Sandecker and Mr. Dirk Pitt, our special projects director, are awaiting you in, if you'll pardon the expression, our operations room.”

The tug captains tailed after Gunn up the stairways and across the Boat Deck, staring in trancelike rapture at the remains of the once-beautiful ship. They reached the gymnasium and Gunn made the introductions.

“It's positively incredible,” Uphill murmured. “I never thought in my wildest imagination that I would ever live to walk the decks of the
Titanic
.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Butera added.

“I wish we could give you a guided tour,” Pitt said, “but each minute adds to the risk of losing her to the sea again.”

Admiral Sandecker motioned them to a long table laden with weather maps, diagrams, and charts, and they all settled in with steaming mugs of coffee. “Our chief concern at the moment is weather,” he said. “Our weatherman on board the
Capricorn
has suddenly taken to imagining himself as the prophet of doom.”

Pitt unrolled a large weather map and flattened it on the table. “There's no ducking the bad news. Our weather is deteriorating rapidly. The barometer has fallen half an inch in the last twenty-four hours. Wind force four, blowing north northeast and building. We're in for it, gentlemen, make no mistake. Unless a miracle occurs and Hurricane Amanda decides to cut a quick left turn to the west, we should be well into her front quadrant by this time tomorrow.”

“Hurricane Amanda,” Butera repeated the name. “How nasty is she?”

“Joel Farquar, our weatherman, assures me they don't come any meaner than this baby,” Pitt replied. “She's already reported winds of force fifteen on the Beaufort scale.”

“Force fifteen?” Gunn repeated in astonishment. “My God, force twelve is considered a maximum hurricane.”

“This, I'm afraid,” said Sandecker, “is every salvage man's nightmare come true—raise a derelict only to have it snatched away by a whim of the weather.” He looked grimly at Uphill and Butera. “It looks as though you two made the trip for nothing. You'd better get back to your ships and make a run for it.”

“Make a run for it, hell!” Uphill boomed. “We just got here.”

“I couldn't have said it better.” Butera grinned and looked up at Sandecker. “The
Morse
and the
Wallace
can tow an aircraft carrier through a swamp in a tornado if they have to. They're designed to slug it out with anything Mother Nature can dish out. If we can get a cable on board the
Titanic
and get her under tow, she'll stand a fighting chance of riding out the storm intact.”

“Pulling a forty-five-thousand-ton ship through the jaws of a hurricane,” Sandecker murmured. “That's a pretty heady boast.”

“No boast.” Butera came back dead-serious. “By fastening a cable from the stern of the
Morse
to the bow of the
Wallace
, our combined power can tow the
Titanic
in the same manner as a pair of railroad engines in tandem can pull a freight train.”

“And, we can do it in thirty-foot seas at a speed of five to six knots,” Uphill added.

Sandecker looked at the two tug captains and let them go on.

Butera charged ahead. “Those aren't run-of-the-mill harbor tugs floating out there, Admiral. They're deep-sea, ocean-rescue tugs, two hundred and fifty feet in length with five-thousand-horse diesel power plants, each boat capable of hauling twenty thousand tons of dead weight at ten knots for two thousand miles without running out of fuel. If any two tugs in the world can pull the
Titanic
through a hurricane, these can.”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Sandecker said, “but, I won't be responsible for the lives of you and your crews on what has to be an impossible gamble. The
Titanic
will have to drift out the storm as best she can. I'm ordering you both to shove off and head into a safe area.”

Uphill looked at Butera. “Tell me, Commander, when was the last time you defied a direct command from an admiral?”

Butera feigned mock thoughtfulness. “Come to think of it, not since breakfast.”

“Speaking for myself and the salvage crew,” Pitt said, “we'd welcome your company.”

“There you have it, sir,” Butera said, grinning. “Besides, my orders from Admiral Kemper were either to bring the
Titanic
into port or take out papers for an early retirement. Me, I opt for the
Titanic
.”

“That's mutiny,” Sandecker said flatly; but there was no hiding the trace of satisfaction in his tone, and it took no great stroke of perception to recognize that the argument had gone exactly as he had planned it. He gave everyone a very shrewd look and said, “Okay, gentlemen, it's your funeral. Now that that's settled, I suggest that instead of sitting around here, you get about the business of saving the
Titanic
.”

 

Captain Ivan Parotkin stood on the port wing bridge of the
Mikhail Kurkov
and searched the sky with a pair of binoculars.

He was a slender man of medium height with a distinguished face that almost never smiled. He was in his late fifties, but his receding hair showed no sign of gray. A thick turtleneck sweater covered his chest while his hips and legs were encased in heavy woolen pants and knee-boots.

Parotkin's first officer touched him on the arm and pointed skyward above the
Mikhail Kurkov
's huge radar dome. A four-engine patrol bomber appeared out of the northeast and magnified until Parotkin could make out its Russian markings. The aircraft seemed to be crawling scant miles per hour above its stalling speed as it swept overhead. Then suddenly a tiny object ejected from the underbelly, and seconds later a parachute blossomed open and began drifting over the ship's forward mastpeak, its occupant finally dropping into the water about two hundred yards off the starboard bow.

As the
Mikhail Kurkov
's small boat put away and dipped over the mountainous, wide-spaced waves, Parotkin turned to his first officer. “As soon as he is safely on board, conduct Captain Prevlov to my quarters.” Then he laid the binoculars on the bridge counter and disappeared down a companionway.

Twenty minutes later, the first officer knocked at the highly polished mahogany door, opened it, and then stood aside to allow a man to pass through. He was thoroughly soaked and dripping salt water in puddles about the deck.

“Captain Parotkin.”

“Captain Prevlov.”

They stood there in silence a few moments, both highly trained professionals, and sized each other up. Prevlov had the advantage; he'd studied Parotkin's service history in depth. Parotkin, on the other hand, had only repute and first appearances to form a judgment. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Prevlov came off too handsome, too foxlike for Parotkin to grasp a favorable sense of warmth or trust.

“We are short on time,” Prevlov said. “If we could get right down to the purpose of my visit—”

Parotkin held up his hand. “First things first. Some hot tea and a change of clothing. Dr. Rogovski, our chief scientist, is about your height and weight.”

The first officer nodded and closed the door.

“Now then,” Parotkin said, “I am certain a man of your rank and importance didn't risk his life parachuting into a running sea merely to observe the atmospheric phenomenon of a hurricane.”

“Hardly. Personal danger is not my cup of tea. And, speaking of tea, I don't suppose you have anything stronger on board?”

Parotkin shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. I insist on a dry ship. Not exactly to the crew's liking, I admit, but it does save occasional grief.”

“Admiral Sloyuk said you were a paragon of efficiency.”

“I do not believe in tempting the fates.”

Prevlov unzipped his sodden jumpsuit and let it fall on the floor. “I am afraid you are about to make an exception to that rule, Captain. We, you and I, are about to tempt the fates as they have never been tempted before.”

Pitt could not
escape the feeling he was being deserted on a lonely island as he stood on the foredeck of the
Titanic
and watched the salvage fleet get under way and begin moving toward the western horizon and safer waters.

The
Alhambra
was the last in line to slip past, her captain flashing a “good luck” with his addis lamp, the newspeople quietly, solemnly filming what might be the last visual record of the
Titanic
. Pitt searched for Dana Seagram among the crowd gathered at the railings, but his eyes failed to pick her out. He watched the ships until they became small dark specks on a leaden sea. Only the missile cruiser
Juneau
and the
Capricorn
remained behind, but the salvage tender would soon depart and follow the others once the tug captains signaled they had the derelict in tow.

“Mr. Pitt?”

Pitt turned to see a man who had the face of a canvas-weary prizefighter and the body of a beer keg.

“Chief Bascom, sir, of the
Wallace
. I brought a two-man crew aboard to make fast the towing cable.”

Pitt smiled a friendly smile. “I bet they call you Bad Bascom.”

“Only behind my back. It's a name that's followed me ever since I tore up a bar in San Diego.” Bascom shrugged. Then his eyes narrowed. “How did you guess?”

“Commander Butera described you in glowing terms…behind your back, that is.”

“A good man, the commander.”

“How long will it take for the hookup?”

“With luck and the loan of your helicopter, about an hour.”

“No problem over the helicopter; it belongs to the Navy anyway.” Pitt turned and gazed down at the
Wallace
as Butera very carefully backed the tug toward the
Titanic
's old straight up-and-down bow until he was less than a hundred feet away. “I take it the helicopter is to lift the tow cable on board?”

“Yes sir,” Bascom answered. “Our cable measures ten inches in diameter and weighs in at one ton per seventy feet. No lightweight that one. On most tow jobs, we'd cast a small line over the derelict's bow, which in turn would be attached to a series of heavier lines with increasing diameters that finally tied into the main cable, but that type of operation calls for the services of an electric winch, and since the
Titanic
is a dead ship and human muscles are way undermatched for the job, we take the easy way out. No sense in filling up sick bay with a crew of hernia patients.”

Even with the help of the helicopter, it was all Bascom and his men could do to secure the great cable into position. Sturgis came through like an old pro. Tenderly manipulating the helicopter's controls, he laid the end of the
Wallace
's tow cable on the
Titanic
's forecastle deck as neatly as though he'd practiced the trick for years. It took only fifty minutes, from the time Sturgis released the cable and flew back to the
Capricorn
, until Chief Bascom stood on the forepeak and waved his arms over his head, signaling the tugs that the connection was made.

Butera on the
Wallace
acknowledged the signal with a blast on the tug's whistle and rang the engine room for “dead ahead slow” as Uphill on the
Morse
went through the same motions. Slowly the two tugs gathered way, the
Wallace
trailing the
Morse
on three hundred yards of wire leash, paying out the main cable until the
Titanic
rose and dropped in the steadily increasing swells nearly a quarter of a mile astern. Then Butera held up his hand and the men on the
Wallace
's afterdeck gently eased on the brake of the tug's immense towing winch and the cable took up the strain.

From atop the
Titanic
's vast height, the tugs looked like tiny toy boats tossing over the enormous crests of the waves one moment before disappearing to their mastlights in the cavernous troughs the next. It seemed impossible that such puny objects could budge more than forty-five thousand tons of dead weight, and yet slowly, imperceptibly at first, their combined forces of ten-thousand horsepower began to tell and soon a minute dog's bone of foam could be discerned curling around the
Titanic
's faded Plimsoll's mark.

She was barely making way—New York was still twelve hundred miles to the west—but she had at last picked up where she'd left off that cold night back in 1912 and was once again making for port.

The ominous-looking black clouds rose and spilled over the southern horizon. It was a hurricane bar. Even as Pitt watched, it seemed to expand and strengthen, turning the sea to a dark shade of dirty gray. Oddly, the wind became light, aimlessly changing direction every few seconds. He noticed that the seagulls that had once swarmed about the salvage fleet were not in view. Only the sight of the
Juneau
, moving steadily five hundred yards abeam the
Titanic
, provided any sense of security.

Pitt glanced at his watch and then took another look over the port railing before he slowly, almost casually, approached the entrance to the gymnasium.

“Is the gang all here?”

“They're getting restless as hell,” Giordino said. He was standing huddled against a ventilator in a seemingly vain attempt to hide from the icy wind. “If it wasn't for the admiral's restraining influence, you'd have had a first-class riot on your hands.”

“Everyone is accounted for?”

“To a man.”

“You're positive?”

“Take the word of Warden Giordino. None of the inmates have left the room, not even to go potty.”

“Then I guess it's my turn to enter stage right.”

“Any complaints from our guests?” Giordino asked.

“The usual. Never satisfied with their accommodations, not enough heat or too much air-conditioning, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You'd better go aft and see about making their wait enjoyable.”

“For God's sake, how?”

“Tell them jokes.”

Giordino gave Pitt a sour look and mumbled dryly to himself as he turned and walked off into the evening's dimming light.

Pitt checked his watch once more and entered the gymnasium. Three hours had passed since the tow had begun and the final act of the salvage had settled down to a routine. Sandecker and Gunn were bent over the radio pestering Farquar on the
Capricorn
, now fifty miles to the west, for the latest news on Hurricane Amanda, while the rest of the crew was grouped in a tight semicircle around a small and thoroughly inadequate oil-burning stove.

As Pitt entered, they had all looked up expectantly. When at last he spoke, his voice was unnaturally soft in the unnatural quiet that was broken only by the hum of the portable generators. “My apologies, gentlemen, for keeping you waiting, but I thought the short coffee break would reconstitute your sagging sinews.”

“Cut the satire,” Spencer snapped, his voice taut with irritation. “You call us all up here and then make us sit around for half an hour when there is work to do. What's the story?”

“The story is simple,” Pitt said evenly. “In a few minutes, Lieutenant Sturgis will drop his helicopter on board one last time before the storm strikes. With the exception of Giordino and myself, I would like all of you, and that includes you, Admiral, to return with him to the
Capricorn
.”

“Aren't you out of your depth, Pitt?” Sandecker said in an unemphatic tone.

“To some degree, yes, sir, but I firmly believe I'm doing the right thing.”

“Explain yourself.” Sandecker glowed like a piranha about to gulp a goldfish. He was playing his role to the hilt. It was an epic job of typecasting.

“I have every reason to believe the
Titanic
hasn't the structural strength left to weather a hurricane.”

“This old tub has taken more punishment than any man-made object since the pyramids,” Spencer said. “And now the great seer of the future, Dirk Pitt, predicts the old girl will throw in the sponge and sink at the first blow from a lousy storm.”

“There's no guarantee she can't or won't founder under a heavy sea,” Pitt hedged. “Either way, it's stupid to risk any more lives than we have to.”

“Let me see if I get this straight.” Drummer leaned forward, his hawklike features intent and angry. “Except for you and Giordino, the rest of us are supposed to haul ass and ditch everything we've busted our balls to achieve over the last nine months just so's we can hide on the
Capricorn
till the storm blows over? Is that the idea?”

“You go to the head of the class, Drummer.”

“Man, you're out of your gourd.”

“Impossible,” Spencer said. “It takes four men just to oversee the pumps.”

“And the hull below the waterline has to be sounded around the clock for new leaks,” Gunn added.

“You heroes are all alike,” Drummer drawled. “Always making noble sacrifices to save others. Let's face it; ain't no way two men can ride herd on this old tub. I vote we all stay.”

Spencer turned and read the faces of his six-man crew. They all stared back at him out of eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep and nodded in chorus. Then Spencer faced Pitt again. “Sorry, great leader, but Spencer and his merry band of pump-pushers have decided to hang in there.”

“I'm with you,” Woodson said solemnly.

“Count me in,” said Gunn.

Chief Bascom touched Pitt on the arm. “Beggin' your pardon, sir, but me and my boys are for sticking around, too. That cable out there has to be checked every hour during the storm for signs of chafing, and heavy grease applied to the fair-lead to prevent a break.”

“Sorry, Pitt, my boy,” Sandecker said with a marked degree of satisfaction. “You lose.”

The sound of Sturgis's helicopter was heard hovering for a landing over the lounge roof. Pitt shrugged resignedly and said, “Well, that settles it then. We all sink or swim together.” Then he cracked a tired smile. “You'd all better get some rest and some food in your stomachs. It may be your last chance. A few hours from now we'll be up to our eyeballs in the front quadrant of the hurricane. And I don't have to draw a picture of what we can expect.”

He swung on his heels and walked out the door to the helicopter pad. Not a bad performance, he thought to himself. Not a bad performance at all. He'd never be nominated for an Academy Award, but what the hell, his captive audience had thought it convincing, and that's all that really mattered.

 

Jack Sturgis was a short, thin man with sad, drooping eyes, the kind women considered bedroom eyes. He gripped a long cigarette holder between his teeth and jutted his chin forward in a show reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt. He had just climbed down from the cockpit of the helicopter and seemed to be groping for something under the landing gear when Pitt stepped onto the pad.

Sturgis looked up. “Any passengers?” he asked.

“Not this trip.”

Sturgis nonchalantly flicked an ash from his cigarette holder. “I knew I should have stayed cuddled in my warm, cozy cabin on the
Capricorn
.” He sighed. “Flying in the face of hurricanes will be the death of me yet.”

“You'd better get going,” Pitt said. “The wind will be on us any time now.”

“Makes no difference.” Sturgis shrugged indifferently. “I'm not going anywhere.”

Pitt looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I've been had, that's what I mean.” He gestured up at the rotor blades. The two-foot tip of one was hanging down like a limp wrist. “Somebody around here resents whirlybirds.”

“Did you strike a bulkhead on landing?”

Sturgis put on a hurt expression. “I do not, repeat, do not strike objects upon landing.” He found what he was searching for and straightened up. “Here, see for yourself; some son of a bitch tossed a hammer into my rotor blades.”

Pitt took the hammer and examined it. The rubber hand-grip showed a deep gash where it had come in contact with the blade.

“And, after all I've done for you people,” Sturgis said, “this is how you show your appreciation.”

“Sorry, Sturgis, but I suggest you forget any aspirations of ever becoming a television detective. You sadly lack an analytical mind, and you're prone to leap to false conclusions.”

“Get off it, Pitt. Hammers don't fly through the air without a means of propulsion. One of your people must have tossed it when I was landing.”

“Wrong. I can vouch for the whereabouts of every soul on board this ship, and no one was anywhere near the helicopter pad in the last ten minutes. Whoever your little destructive friend is, I'm afraid you brought him with you.”