Raise the Titanic! (39 page)

Pensive and dreamy-eyed,
Dana stood in front of a full-length mirror and scrutinized herself. The bruise on her head was neatly covered by a new hairstyle and, except for several fading black-and-blue marks, her body looked as lithe and perfect as ever. It definitely passed inspection. Then she stared at the eyes that stared back. There were no additional crow's feet, no new puffiness around the edges. The mythical hardened look of a fallen woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, they seemed to gleam with a vibrant expectancy that hadn't been there before. Her rebirth as an unfettered woman of the world had been a complete success.

“Care for any breakfast?” Marie Sheldon's voice carried up the stairs.

Dana donned a soft lace dressing gown. “Just coffee, thanks,” she said. “What time is it?”

“A few minutes after nine.”

A minute later Marie poured the coffee as Dana stepped into the kitchen. “What's on the agenda for today?” she asked.

“Something typically feminine—I think I'll go shopping. Have lunch by myself at an intimate tearoom and then go over to the NUMA clubhouse and scare up a partner for an hour or so of tennis.”

“Sounds charming,” Marie said dryly; “but I suggest you stop playing Mrs. Rich Bitch, which you aren't, and start acting like a broad with responsibilities, which you are.”

“What's the sense in it?”

Marie threw up her hands in exasperation. “‘What's the sense in it?' For one thing, sweetie, you're the girl of the hour. In case you haven't noticed, the phone has been ringing off the hook for the past three days. Every woman's magazine in the country wants your exclusive story, and I've taken at least eight requests for you to appear on nationally televised talk shows. Like it or not, you're big news. Don't you think it's about time you came back down to earth and met the onslaught head-on?”

“What's there to say? So I was the only woman on board an old drifting derelict with twenty men. Big deal.”

“You almost died out there in the ocean and you treat the whole episode as though it were just another cruise down the Nile on Cleopatra's barge. Having all those men catering to your every whim must have gone to your head.”

If only Marie knew the whole truth. But Dana and everyone on board had been sworn to secrecy by Warren Nicholson. The attempted assault by the Russians was to be buried and forgotten by everyone. But she took a perverse sort of satisfaction in knowing that her performance on the
Titanic
that cold stormy night would linger in the minds of the men who were present for the rest of their lives.

“Too much happened out there.” Dana sighed. “I'm not the same person any more.”

“So what does that mean?”

“To begin with, I'm taking out papers to divorce Gene.”

“It's come to that?”

“It's come to that,” Dana repeated firmly. “Also, I'm going to take a leave of absence from NUMA and have a fling at life. As long as I'm the exalted female of the year, I'm going to make it pay. The personal stories, the TV appearances—they're going to enable me to do what every girl yearns to do all her life.”

“Which is?”

“Spend money, and have a high old time doing it.”

Marie shook her head sadly. “I'm beginning to feel like I've helped create a monster.”

Dana took her gently by the hand. “Not you, dear friend. It took a brush with death for me to learn that I had condemned myself to an existence that led nowhere.

“It began, I suppose, with my childhood—” Dana's voice trailed off as the terrible memories came flickering back. “My childhood was a nightmare, and I've carried its effects with me all my adult life. I even infected my marriage with its sickness. Gene recognized the symptoms and married me more out of pity than deep love. Unwittingly, he treated me more as a father than as a lover.

“I can't force myself to go back now. The emotional responses that it takes to build and maintain a lasting relationship just aren't in me. I'm a loner, Marie; I know that now. I'm too selfish with my affections toward others; it's the albatross around my neck. From here on in, I'm going it alone. That way I can never hurt anyone ever again.”

Marie looked up, tears in her eyes. “Well then, I guess between us we'll even up the sides. You're folding your marriage and going back to the single ways while I'm shucking the odd-woman-out syndrome and joining the great ranks of the matronly housewives.”

Dana's lips parted in a wide smile. “You and Mel?”

“Me and Mel.”

“When?”

“It had better be soon or I'm going to have to order my trousseau from the Blessed Event Maternity Shop.”

“You're pregnant?”

“That ain't Betty Crocker that's rising in my oven.”

Dana came around the table and hugged Marie. “You with a baby, I can't believe it.”

“You better believe it. They tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and massive doses of adrenaline, but it was no go. The frog still died.”

“You mean rabbit.”

“Where've you been? They gave up rabbits years ago.”

“Oh, Marie, I'm so happy for you. The two of us beginning whole new life patterns. Aren't you excited?”

“Oh sure,” Marie said in a dry tone. “Nothing like starting anew with a big bang.”

“Is there any other way?”

“I've got the easy path, sweetie.” Marie kissed Dana on the cheek lightly. “It's you I'm worried about. Just don't go too far too fast and fall off the deep end.”

“The deep end is where all the fun is.”

“Take my word for it. Learn to swim in the shallows.”

“Too tame.” Dana's eyes grew thoughtful. “I'm going to start at the very crest.”

“And just how are you going to initiate that little feat?”

Dana met Marie's eyes evenly. “All it takes is one little phone call.”

 

The President came from behind his desk in the Oval Office and greeted the Majority Leader of the Senate, John Burdick, with warmth.

“John, it's good to see you. How are Josie and the kids?”

Burdick, a tall, thin man with a bush of black hair that seldom saw a comb, shrugged good naturedly. “Josie's fine. And you know kids. As far as they're concerned, good old Dad is nothing but a money machine.”

After they were seated, the talk kicked off with their differences on budget programs. Although the two men were opposing party leaders and sniped at each other at every opportunity in the open, behind closed doors they were warm, intimate friends.

“Congress is beginning to think you've gone mad, Mr. President. During the past six months, you've vetoed every spending bill sent to the White House from the Hill.”

“And I'm going to go right on vetoing until the day I walk through that door for the last time.” The President paused to light a thin cigar. “Let's face the cold, hard truth, John. The government of the United States is broke, and it's been broke since the end of World War Two, but nobody will admit it. We go merrily on our way running up a national debt that defies comprehension, figuring that somewhere down the line the poor bastard that defeats us in the next election will pay the piper for the spending spree of the last fifty years.”

“What do you expect Congress to do? Declare bankruptcy?”

“Sooner or later it may have to.”

“The consequences are unthinkable. The national debt is carried by half the insurance companies, savings and loans, and banks in the nation. They'd all be wiped out overnight.”

“So what else is new?”

Burdick shook his head. “I refuse to accept it.”

“Damn it, John, you can't sweep it under the carpet. Do you realize that every taxpayer under the age of fifty will never see a Social Security check? In another twelve years it will be absolutely impossible to pay even a third of the people who are eligible for benefits. That's another reason I'm going to sound the warning. A small voice in the wilderness, I regretfully admit. But still, in the few months remaining of my term in office, I'm going to shout doom every chance I get.”

“The American people don't like to hear sad tidings. You won't be very popular.”

“I don't give a damn. I don't care one thin dime for what anybody thinks. Popularity contests are for egoists. A few months from now I'm going to be on my ketch, sailing peacefully somewhere south of Fiji, and the government can go straight to hell.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. President. You're a good man. Even your worst enemies will concede that.”

But the President was not to be stopped. “We had a great republic going for a while, John, but you and I and all the other attorneys screwed it up. Government is a big business and attorneys shouldn't be allowed to take office. It's the accountants and the marketing people who should be congressmen and President.”

“It takes attorneys to run a legislature.”

The President shrugged wearily. “What's the use? Whatever course I take won't change a thing.” Then he straightened in his chair and smiled. “My apologies, John, you didn't come here to hear me make a speech. What's on your mind?”

“The underprivileged children's medical bill.” Burdick stared intently at the President. “Are you going to veto that one too?”

The President leaned back in his chair and studied his cigar. “Yes,” he said simply.

“That's my bill,” Burdick said quietly. “I nursed it through both the House and the Senate.”

“I know.”

“How can you veto a bill for children whose families can't afford to give them proper medical attention?”

“For the same reason I've vetoed added benefits for citizens over eighty, federal scholarship programs for the minorities, and a dozen other welfare bills. Somebody has to pay for them. And the working class who support this country has been pushed to the wall with a five-hundred-percent tax increase over the last ten years.”

“For the love of humanity, Mr. President.”

“For the love of a balanced budget, Senator. Where do you expect the funds to support your program to come from?”

“You might begin by cutting back the budget of Meta Section.”

So there it was. Congressional snoops had finally breached the walls of Meta Section. It had to come sooner or later. At least it was later.

He decided to play it noncommittal. “Meta Section?”

“A superclassified think tank you've supported for years. Surely, I don't have to describe its operation to you.”

“No,” the President said evenly. “You don't.”

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Finally Burdick forged ahead: “It took months of checking by my investigators—you covered the financial tracks very cleverly—but they finally managed to back-trail the source of the funds used to raise the
Titanic
to a supersecret organization, operating under the name of Meta Section, and then ultimately to you. My God, Mr. President, you authorized nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to salvage that worthless old wreck and then lied by saying that it cost less than half that amount. And here I am only asking for fifty million to get the children's medical bill off the ground. If I may say so, sir, your odd sense of priorities is a bloody crime.”

“What do you intend to do, John? Blackmail me into signing your bill?”

“To be perfectly candid, yes.”

“I see.”

Before the conversation could go on, the President's secretary entered the room.

“Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. President, but you asked to check over your appointment schedule for this afternoon.”

The President made an apologetic gesture to Burdick. “Excuse me, John, this will only take a moment.”

The President scanned the schedule. He stopped at a name penciled in for 4:15. He looked up at his secretary, his eyebrows raised. “Mrs. Seagram?”

“Yes, sir. She called and said she had traced down the history of that model ship in the bedroom. I thought perhaps you might be interested in what she discovered, so I squeezed her in for a few minutes.”

The President held his hands over his face and closed his eyes. “Call Mrs. Seagram and cancel the four-fifteen appointment. Ask her to join me for dinner on board the Presidential yacht at seven-thirty.”

The secretary made the notation and left the room.

The President turned back to Burdick. “Now, John, if I still refuse to sign your bill, what then?”

Burdick held up his hands. “Then you leave me no choice but to blow the whistle on your clandestine uses of government funds. In that event, I fear you can expect a scandal that will make the old Watergate mess look like an Easter egg hunt.”