Raise the Titanic! (37 page)

“It's from the
Dragonfish
,” Admiral Kemper said, reading the latest in a long line of communications. “Her captain has sent a work party aboard the
Titanic
to assist Pitt and his salvage crew. He states that the derelict should remain afloat, even with numerous leaks, during the tow—providing, of course, she's not struck by another hurricane.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Marshall Collins exhaled between yawns.

“He also reports,” Kemper went on, “that Mrs. Seagram is on board the
Titanic
and is in rare stage form, whatever that means.”

Mel Donner moved out of the bathroom, a towel still draped over his arm. “Would you repeat that, Admiral?”

“The captain of the
Dragonfish
says that Mrs. Dana Seagram is alive and well.”

Donner rushed over and shook Seagram, who was sleeping fitfully on the couch. “Gene! Wake up! They've found Dana! She's all right!”

Seagram's eyes blinked open and for long seconds he looked up at Donner, astonishment slowly spreading across his face. “Dana…Dana is alive?”

“Yes, she must have been on the
Titanic
during the storm.”

“But how did she get there?”

“We don't know all the details yet. We'll just have to wait it out. But the important thing is that Dana is safe and the
Titanic
is still afloat.”

Seagram hung his head in his hands and sat there huddled and shrunken. He began sobbing quietly.

Admiral Kemper was thankful for the distraction when a very tired Commander Keith entered and handed him another signal. “This one's from Admiral Sandecker,” Kemper said. “I think you'll be interested in what he has to say, Mr. Nicholson.”

Warren Nicholson and Marshall Collins both eased away from Seagram and gathered around Kemper's desk.

“Sandecker says, ‘Visiting relatives have been entertained and furnished with guest bedroom. Got something in my eye during the party last night but enjoyed belting out good old song favorites like “Silver Threads among the Gold.” Say hello to Cousin Warren and tell him I have a present to give him. Having wonderful time. Wish you were all here. Signed Sandecker.'”

“It seems the admiral has a strange way with words,” said the President. “Just what in hell is it he's trying to get across?”

Kemper stared at him sheepishly. “The Russians apparently boarded during the eye of the hurricane.”

“Apparently,”
the President said icily.

“‘Silver Threads among the Gold,'” Nicholson said excitedly. “Silver and Gold. They've caught the two espionage agents.”

“And your present, Cousin Warren,” Collins said, grinning with every tooth, “must be none other than Captain André Prevlov.”

“It's imperative that I get on board the derelict as soon as possible,” Nicholson said to Kemper. “How soon can you arrange transportation for me, Admiral?”

Kemper's hand was already reaching for the phone. “Inside thirty minutes I can have you on a Navy jet that will land you on the
Beecher's Island
. From there you can take a helicopter to the
Titanic
.”

The President stepped over to a large window and gazed out at the rising sun as it crept above the eastern horizon and fingered its rays across the lazy waters of the Potomac. He yawned a long, comfortable yawn.

Dana leaned over
the forward railing of the
Titanic
's bridge and closed her eyes. The ocean breeze whipped her honey hair and tingled the skin on her upturned face. She felt soothed and free and completely relaxed. It was as though she were flying.

She knew now that she could never go back and slip into the painted puppet that had been the Dana Seagram of two days ago. She had made up her mind: she would divorce Gene. Nothing between them mattered any more, at least to her. The girl he had loved was dead, never to return. She reveled in the knowledge. It was her rebirth. To begin again, start fresh with no holds barred.

“A dollar for your thoughts.”

She opened her eyes and was greeted by the grinning and freshly shaven face of Dirk Pitt.

“A dollar? I thought it used to be a penny.”

“Inflation strikes everything, sooner or later.”

They stood for a while without saying anything and watched the
Wallace
and the
Morse
as they strained at the great leash that led to the
Titanic
's bow. Chief Bascom and his men were checking the tow cable and dabbing grease to the fair-lead to ease the chafing. The chief looked up and waved to them.

“I wish this voyage would never end,” Dana murmured as they both waved back. “It's so strange and yet so wonderful.” She turned suddenly and laid her hand on his. “Promise me we'll never see New York. Promise me that we'll sail on forever, like the
Flying Dutchman
.”

“We'll sail on forever.”

She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. “Dirk, Dirk!” she whispered urgently. “Nothing makes any sense any more. I want you. I want you now, and I don't really know why.”

“It's because of where you are,” Pitt said quietly.

He took her by the hand and led her down the grand staircase and into one of the two parlour suite bedrooms on B Deck. “There you are, madame. The finest suite of rooms on the entire ship. Cost for a one-way voyage came to better than four thousand dollars. Those were, of course, 1912 prices. However, in honor of the light in your eyes, I'll provide you with a handsome discount.” He swept her up and carried her to the bed. It had been cleaned of the slime and rot and was covered with several blankets.

Dana looked at the bed with wise eyes. “You prepared this?”

“Let's just say that like the little old ant who moved the rubber tree plant, I had high hopes.”

“You know what you are?”

“A bastard, a lecher, a satyr—I could think of a dozen apt descriptions.”

She looked at him with a secret, womanly smile. “No, you're none of those. Even a satyr would not have been so thoughtful.”

He pulled her lips to his and kissed her so hard she moaned.

Her performance in bed fooled him. He expected a body that would merely give response. Instead, he found himself merged with thrashing, undulating waves of flesh, piercing screams that he muffled with his hands, nails that dug oozing red trenches in his back, and finally soft, wet sobbings into his neck. He couldn't help wondering if all wives blossom with such abandon when they make love for the first time with someone other than their husbands. The storm lasted for nearly an hour, and the humid perfume of sweating skin began to soak the air of that old rotted, ghostly bedroom.

Finally she pushed him away and sat up. She raised her knees and hunched herself over them, feet crossed. “How was I?”

“Like a spastic tiger,” Pitt said.

“I didn't know it could be like this.”

“I wish I had a dime for every girl who said those very same words every time she turned on.”

“You don't know what it's like to have your guts churning in both agony and delight at the same time.”

“I dare say I don't. A woman's release burns from the inside. A man's erotic senses are mostly exterior. Anyway you look at it, sex is a female's game.”

“What do you know about the President?” she suddenly asked in a soft nostalgic tone.

Pitt looked at her in amused surprise. “The President? What made you think of him at a time like this?”

“I hear he's a real man.”

“I couldn't say. I've never slept with him.”

She ignored his remark. “If we had a woman President and she wanted to make love to you, what would you do?”

“My country right or wrong,” Pitt said. “Where is all this talk leading?”

“Just answer the question. Would you go to bed with her?”

“Depends?”

“On what?”

“President or not, I couldn't make my gun stand at attention if she was seventy, fat, and had skin like a prune. That's why men never make good prostitutes.”

Dana smiled slowly and closed her eyes. “Make love to me again.”

“Why? So you can let your imagination run wild and fancy that you're being laid by our Commander-in-Chief?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Does that bother you?”

“Two can play the same game. I'll just pretend that you're Ashley Fleming.”

Prevlov looked up
from his huddled position on the floor of stateroom C-95 as the SEAL guarding the passageway outside turned the newly oiled lock and swung the door open. The SEAL, his M-24 held at the ready, visually checked Prevlov, and then stepped aside to allow another man to enter.

He was carrying an attaché case and wore a business suit that begged to be pressed. A faint smile crossed his lips as Prevlov studied him with a speculative gaze of surprised recognition.

“Captain Prevlov, I am Warren Nicholson.”

“I know,” Prevlov said as he uncoiled to his feet and gave a very correct half-bow. “I was not prepared to entertain the Chief Director of the Central Intelligence Agency himself. At least not under these rather awkward circumstances.”

“I've come personally to escort you to the United States.”

“I am flattered.”

“It is we who are flattered, Captain Prevlov. You are considered a very big catch indeed.”

“Then it is to be an internationally publicized trial, complete with grave accusations against my government for attempted piracy on the high seas.”

Nicholson smiled again. “No, except for a few high-ranking members of your government and mine, I'm afraid your defection will remain a well-kept secret.”

Prevlov squinted. “Defection?” This was clearly not what he had expected.

Nicholson nodded without answering.

“There is no method by which you can make me willingly defect,” Prevlov said grimly. “I shall deny it at every opportunity.”

“A noble gesture.” Nicholson shrugged. “However, since there will be no trial and no interrogation, a request for political asylum becomes your only escape clause.”

“You said, ‘no interrogation.' I must accuse you of lying Mr. Nicholson. No good intelligence service would ever pass up the chance of prying out the knowledge a man of my position could provide them.”

“What knowledge?” Nicholson said. “You can't tell us anything that we don't already know.”

Prevlov's mind was off-balance. Perspective, he thought. He must gain a perspective. There was only one way the Americans could have gained possession of the mass of Soviet intelligence secrets that were locked away in the files in his office in Moscow. The middle of the puzzle was incomplete, but the borders were neatly locked into place. He met Nicholson's steady gaze and spoke quietly. “Lieutenant Marganin is one of your people.” It was more statement than question.

“Yes.” Nicholson nodded. “His name is Harry Koskoski, and he was born in Newark, New Jersey.”

“Not possible,” Prevlov said. “I personally checked every phase of Pavel Marganin's life. He was born and raised in Komsomolsk-na-Amure. His family were tailors.”

“True, the real Marganin was a native Russian.”

“Then your man is a double, a plant?”

“We arranged it four years ago when one of your
Kashin
-class missile destroyers exploded and sank in the Indian Ocean. Marganin was one of the few survivors. He was discovered in the water by an Exxon oil tanker, but died shortly before the ship docked in Honolulu. It was a rare opportunity, and we had to work fast. Of all our Russian-speaking agents, Koskoski came the closest to Marganin's physical features. We surgically altered his face to make it look as though it had been disfigured in the explosion and then airlifted him to a small, out-of-the-way island two hundred miles from where your ship sank. When our bogus Soviet seaman was finally discovered by native fishermen and returned to Russia, he was delirious and suffering from an acute attack of amnesia.”

“I know the rest,” Prevlov said solemnly. “We not only repaired his face through plastic surgery to that of the genuine Marganin, but we reeducated him to his own personal history as well.”

“That's pretty much the story.”

“A brilliant coup, Mr. Nicholson.”

“Coming from one of the most respected men in Soviet intelligence, I consider that a rare compliment indeed.”

“Then this whole scheme to place me on the
Titanic
was hatched by the CIA and carried through by Marganin.”

“Koskoski, alias Marganin, was certain you would accept the plan, and you did.”

Prevlov gazed at the deck. He might have known, he might have guessed, should have been suspicious from the beginning that Marganin was slowly and intricately positioning his neck on the headman's block. He should never have fallen for it, never; but his vanity had been his downfall, and he accepted it.

“Where does this all lead?” Prevlov asked bleakly.

“By now Marganin has produced solid proof of your—if you'll pardon the expression—traitorous activities and has also proven, aided by planted evidence, that you intended for the
Titanic
mission to fail from the start. You see, Captain, the trail leading to your defection has been carefully mapped for nearly two years. You yourself helped matters considerably with your fondness for expensive refinements. Your superiors can draw but one conclusion from your actions: you sold out for a very high price.”

“And if I deny it?”

“Who would believe you? I venture to say that your name is already on the Soviet liquidation list.”

“Then what's to become of me now?”

“You have two choices. One, we can set you free after a proper period of time.”

“I wouldn't last a week. I am well aware of the KGB assassin network.”

“Your second choice is to cooperate with us.” Nicholson paused, hesitated, then looked directly at Prevlov. “You're a brilliant man, Captain, the best in your field. We don't like to let good brains go to waste. I don't have to paint you a picture of your value to the Western intelligence community. That's why it's my intention to set you up in charge of a new task force. A line of work you should find right up your alley.”

“I suppose I should be grateful for that,” Prevlov said dryly.

“Your facial appearance will be altered, of course. You'll get a cram course in English and American idioms along with our history, sports, music, and entertainment. In the end, there won't be the slightest trace of your former shell for the KGB to home in on.”

Interest began to form in Prevlov's eyes.

“Your salary will be forty thousand a year, plus expenses and a car.”

“Forty thousand dollars?” Prevlov asked, trying to sound casual.

“That will buy quite a bit of Bombay Gin.” Nicholson grinned like a wolf sitting down to dinner with a wary rabbit. “I think that if you really try, Captain Prevlov, you might come to enjoy the pleasures of our Western-style decadence. Don't you agree?”

Prevlov said nothing for several moments. But the choice was obvious: constant fear versus a long and pleasurable life. “You win, Nicholson.”

Nicholson shook hands and was mildly surprised to see tears welling in Prevlov's eyes.