Raise the Titanic! (25 page)

Dr. Ryan Prescott,
chief of the NUMA Hurricane Center in Tampa, Florida, had had every intention of getting home on time for once and spending a quiet evening with his wife playing cribbage. But at ten minutes before midnight he was still at his desk staring tiredly at the satellite photos spread before him.

“Just when we think we've learned all there is to know about storms,” he said querulously, “one pops out of nowhere and breaks the mold.”

“A hurricane in the middle of May,” his female assistant replied between yawns. “It's one for the record book all right.”

“But why? The hurricane season normally extends from July to September. What caused this one to materialize two months early?”

“Beats me,” the woman answered. “Where do you figure our pariah is headed?”

“Too early to predict with any certainty,” Prescott said. “Her birth followed the normal patterns, true enough: vast low-pressure area fed by moist air, swirling counterclockwise due to the earth's rotation. But here the difference ends. It usually takes days, sometimes weeks, for a storm four-hundred miles wide to build up. This baby pulled off the trick in less than eighteen hours.”

Prescott sighed, rose from his desk, and walked to a large wall chart. He consulted a pad covered with scribbles, noting the known position, atmospheric conditions, and speed. Then he began drawing a predicted track westerly from a point a hundred and fifty miles northeast of Bermuda, a track that gradually curved northward toward Newfoundland.

“Until she gives us a hint of her future course, that's the best I can do.” He paused as if waiting for confirmation. When none came, he asked, “Is that how you see it?”

Still receiving no reply, he turned to repeat the question but the words never came. His assistant had fallen asleep, her head cradled in her arms upon the desk. Gently he shook her shoulder until the green eyes fluttered open.

“There's nothing more we can do here,” he said softly. “Let's go home and get some sleep.” He glanced warily back at the wall chart. “Chances are it's a thousand-to-one fluke that will dissipate before morning and lapse into a minor localized storm.” He spoke with some authority, but there was no conviction in his tone.

What he did not notice was that the line on the chart representing his predicted course for the hurricane traveled precisely over 41°46' North by 50°14' West.

Commander Rudi Gunn
stood on the bridge of the
Capricorn
and watched a tiny blue speck far to the west materialize out of the diamond-clear sky. For a few minutes it seemed to hang there, neither changing shape nor growing larger, a dark blue dot suspended above the horizon, and then, almost all at once, it enlarged and took on the shape of a helicopter.

He made his way to the landing pad aft of the superstructure and stood waiting as the craft approached and hovered above the ship. Thirty seconds later the skids kissed the flight pad, the whine of the turbines died away, and the blades slowly idled to a stop.

Gunn moved in closer as the right-hand door opened and Pitt stepped out.

“Good trip?” Gunn asked.

“Interesting,” Pitt replied.

Pitt read the strain in Gunn's face. The lines around the little man's eyes were set tight and his face was grim. “You look like a kid who just had his Christmas presents stolen, Rudi. What's the problem?”

“The Uranus Oil sub, the
Deep Fathom
. She's trapped on the wreck.”

Pitt was silent for a moment. Then he asked simply, “Admiral Sandecker?”

“He set up his headquarters on the
Bomberger
. Since it was the
Deep Fathom
's tender, he thought it would be better to conduct the rescue mission from there until you returned.”

“You say
was
, as if the sub is as good as lost.”

“It doesn't look good. Come topside and I'll fill you in on the details.”

There was an air of tension and despair in the
Capricorn
's operations room. The usually gregarious Giordino simply nodded at Pitt's arrival, totally bypassing any word of greeting. Ben Drummer was on the microphone, talking to the crew of the
Deep Fathom
, encouraging them with a show of forced cheer and optimism that was betrayed by the dread in his eyes. Rick Spencer, the salvage operations equipment engineer, was gazing in mute concentration at the TV monitors. The other men in the room went about their business quietly, their faces pensive.

Gunn began explaining the situation. “Two hours before she was to ascend and change crews, the
Deep Fathom
, manned by engineers Joe Kiel, Tom Chavez, and Sam Merker—”

“Merker was with you on the Lorelei Current Expedition,” Pitt interrupted.

“So was Munk.” Gunn nodded solemnly. “It would seem we're a cursed crew.”

“Go on.”

“They were in the midst of installing a pressure bleed valve on the starboard side of the
Titanic
's forecastle deck bulkheads when their stern brushed against a forward cargo crane. The corroded mounts broke loose and the derrick section fell across the sub's buoyancy tanks, rupturing them. More than two tons of water poured through the opening and pinned her hull to the wreck.”

“How long ago did it happen?” Pitt asked.

“About three and a half hours ago.”

“Then why all the gloom? You people act as if there wasn't a prayer. The
Deep Fathom
carries enough oxygen in her reserve system to support a crew of three for over a week. Plenty of time for
Sappho I
and
II
to seal the air tanks and pump clear the water.”

“It's not all that simple,” Gunn said. “Six hours is all we've got.”

“How do you figure a six-hour margin?”

“I left the worst part for last.” Gunn stared bleakly at Pitt. “The impact from the falling crane cracked a welded seam on the
Deep Fathom
's hull. It's only a tiny pinhole, but the tremendous pressure at that depth is forcing the sea into the cabin at the rate of four gallons a minute. It's a miracle the seam hasn't burst, collapsing the hull and crushing those guys to jelly.” He tilted his head toward the clock over the computer panel. “Six hours is all they've got before the water fills the cabin and they drown…and there's not a damned thing we can do about it.”

“Why not plug the leak from the outside with Wetsteel?”

“Easier said than done. We can't get at it. The section of the hull's seam that contains the leak is jammed against the
Titanic
's forecastle bulkhead. The admiral sent down the other three submersibles in the hope that their combined power could move the
Deep Fathom
just enough to reach and repair the damage. It was no-go.”

Pitt sat down in a chair, picked up a pencil, and began making notations on a pad. “The
Sea Slug
is equipped with cutting equipment. If she could attack the derrick—”

“Negative.” Gunn shook his head in frustration. “During the tugging operation, the
Sea Slug
broke her manipulator arm. She's back on the
Modoc
's deck now and the Navy boys say it's impossible to repair the arm in time.” Gunn slammed his fist down on the chart table. “Our last hope was the winch on the
Bomberger
. If it was possible to attach a cable to the derrick, we might have pulled it free of the sub.”

“End of rescue,” Pitt said. “The
Sea Slug
is the only submersible we've got that's equipped with a heavy-duty manipulator arm, and without it, there is no way of making a hookup with the cable.”

Gunn rubbed his eyes wearily. “After thousands of man-hours poured into the planning and construction of every backup safety system conceivable, and the calculating of concise emergency procedures for every predictable contingency the unforeseen rose up and smacked us below the belt with a beyond-the-bounds-of-probability, million-to-one accident the computers didn't count on.”

“Computers are only as good as the data fed into them,” Pitt said.

He moved over to the radio and took the microphone from Drummer's hand. “
Deep Fathom
, this is Pitt. Over.”

“Nice to hear your cheery voice again,” Merker came over the speaker as calmly as if he were on the telephone lying at home in bed. “Why don't you drop down and make up a fourth for bridge?”

“Not my game,” Pitt answered matter-of-factly. “How much time left before the water reaches your batteries?”

“At the rate she's rising, approximately another fifteen to twenty minutes.”

Pitt turned to Gunn and said what needed no saying. “When their batteries go, they'll be out of communication.”

Gunn nodded. “The
Sappho II
is standing by to keep them company. That's about all we can do.”

Pitt pressed the mike button again. “Merker, how about your life-support system?”

“What life-support system? That crapped out half an hour ago. We're existing on bad breath.”

“I'll send you down a case of Certs.”

“Better make it fast. Chavez has a malignant case of halitosis.” Then a trace of doubt surfaced in Merker's tone. “If the worst happens and we don't see you guys again, at least we'll be surrounded by good company down here.”

Merker's abrupt reference to the
Titanic
's dead left every man in the operations room a shade paler; every man that is, except Pitt. He touched the transmit button. “Just see to it you leave a clean ship. We may want to use it again. Pitt out.”

It was interesting to see the reaction to Pitt's seemingly callous remark. Giordino, Gunn, Spencer, and the others just stared at him. Only Drummer displayed an expression of anger.

Pitt touched Curly, the radio operator, on the shoulder. “Patch me into the admiral on the
Bomberger
, but use a different frequency.”

Curly looked up. “You don't want those guys on the
Deep Fathom
to hear?”

“What they don't know won't hurt them,” said Pitt coldly. “Now hurry it up.”

Moments later Sandecker's voice boomed over the speaker. “
Capricorn
, this is Admiral Sandecker. Over.”

“Pitt here, Admiral.”

Sandecker wasted no time on niceties. “You're aware of what we're up against?”

“Gunn has briefed me,” Pitt replied.

“Then you know we have exhausted every avenue. No matter how you slice it, time is the enemy. If we could stall the inevitable for another ten hours, we'd have a fighting chance of saving them.”

“There's one other way,” Pitt said. “The odds are high but mathematically, it's possible.”

“I'm open to suggestions.”

Pitt hesitated. “To begin with, we forget the
Deep Fathom
for the moment and turn our energies in another direction.”

Drummer came close to him. “What are you saying, Pitt? What goes on here? ‘Forget the
Deep Fathom
,'” he shouted through twitching lips. “Are you mad?”

Pitt smiled a disarming smile. “The last desperate roll of the dice, Drummer. You people failed, and failed miserably. You may be God's gift to the world of marine salvage, but as a rescue force, you come off like a bunch of amateurs. Bad luck compounded your mistakes, and now you sit around whining that all is lost. Well, all is not lost, gentlemen. We're going to change the rules of the game and put the
Deep Fathom
on the surface before the six-hour deadline, which, if my watch serves me, is now down to five hours and forty-three minutes.”

Giordino looked at Pitt. “Do you really think it can be done?”

“I really think it can be done.”

The structural engineers
and the marine scientists huddled around in small circles, mumbling to themselves as they frantically shoved their slide rules back and forth. Every so often, one of them would break away and walk over to the computers and check the readout sheets. Admiral Sandecker, who had just arrived from the
Bomberger
, sat behind a desk gripping a mug of coffee and shaking his head.

“This will never be written into the textbooks on salvage,” he murmured. “Blowing a derelict off the bottom with explosives. God, it's insane.”

“What other choice do we have?” Pitt said. “If we can kick the
Titanic
out of the mud, the
Deep Fathom
will be carried up with her.”

“The whole idea is crazy,” Gunn muttered. “The concussion will only expand the cracked seam in the submersible's hull and cause instant implosion.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Pitt said. “But even if that occurs, it's probably best that Merker, Kiel, and Chavez die instantly from the sea's crush than suffer the prolonged agony of slow suffocation.”

“And what about the
Titanic
?” Gunn persisted. “We could blow everything we've worked for all these months all over the abyssal landscape.”

“Score that as a calculated risk,” Pitt said. “The
Titanic
's construction is of a greater strength than most ships afloat today. Her beams, girders, bulkheads, and decks are as sound as the night she sank. The old girl can take whatever we dish out. Make no mistake about it.”

“Do you honestly think it will work?” Sandecker asked.

“I do.”

“I could order you not to do this thing. You know that.”

“I know that,” Pitt replied. “I'm banking on you to keep me in the ball game until the final inning.”

Sandecker rubbed his hand across his eyes, then shook his head slowly as if to clear it. Finally he said, “Okay. Dirk, it's your baby.”

Pitt nodded and turned away.

There were just five hours and ten minutes to go.

 

Two and a half miles below, the three men in the
Deep Fathom
, cold and alone in a remote, uncharitable environment, watched the water creep up the cabin walls inch by inch until it flooded the main circuitry and shorted out the instruments, throwing the interior of the cabin into blackness. Then they began to feel the sting of the thirty-four-degree water in earnest as it swirled around their legs. Standing there shivering under the torment of certain death, they still nurtured the spark to survive.

“As soon as we get topside,” Kiel murmured, “I'm going to take a day off, and I don't care who knows it.”

“Come again?” Chavez said in the darkness.

“They can fire me if they want to, but I'm sleeping in tomorrow.”

Chavez groped for and found Kiel's arm, gripping it roughly. “What are you babbling about?”

“Take it easy,” Merker said. “With the life-support system gone, the carbon-dioxide buildup is getting to him. I'm beginning to feel a bit giddy myself.”

“Foul air on top of everything else,” Chavez grumbled. “If we don't drown, we get crushed when the hull bursts, and if we don't get mashed like eggshells, we suffocate on our own air. Our future looks none too bright.”

“You left out exposure,” Merker added sardonically. “If we don't climb above this freezing water, we won't get a chance at the other three.”

Kiel said nothing but limply allowed Chavez to shove him into the uppermost sleeping bunk. Then Chavez followed and sat on the edge, his feet dangling over the side.

Merker struggled through the crotch-deep water to the forward viewport and looked out. He could see only the haloed outline of the
Sappho II
through the blinding glare of her lights. Even though the other craft hovered only ten feet away, there was nothing she could do for the stricken
Deep Fathom
while they were both surrounded by the relentless pressure of the hostile deep. As long as she is still there, Merker thought, they haven't written us off. He took no small consolation in the fact that they were not alone. It wasn't much to lean on, but it was all they had.

 

On board the supply ship
Alhambra
, camera crews from the three major networks, swept up in the swirling tide of expectation, feverishly struggled to get their equipment into action. Along every available foot of starboard-deck railing, wire-service reporters peered through binoculars in hypnotic concentration at the
Capricorn
floating two miles away, while photographers aimed their telephoto lenses on the surface of the water between the ships. Trapped in one corner of a makeshift pressroom, Dana Seagram pulled a foul-weather jacket tightly around her shoulders and gamely stood up to the dozen news people armed with tape recorders who were pushing microphones toward her face as though they were lollipops.

“Is it true, Ms. Seagram, that attempting to raise the
Titanic
three days ahead of schedule is in reality a last-ditch attempt to save the lives of the men trapped below?”

“It is only one of several solutions,” Dana replied.

“Are we to understand that all other attempts have failed?”

“There have been complications,” Dana admitted.

Inside one of the jacket's pockets, Dana nervously twisted a handkerchief until her fingers turned sore. The long months of give-and-take with the men and women of the press were beginning to tell.

“Since the loss of communications with the
Deep Fathom
, how can you know for certain whether the crew is still alive?”

“Computer data assure us that their situation will not turn critical for another four hours and forty minutes.”

“How does NUMA intend to bring up the
Titanic
if the electrolyte chemical is not fully injected into the silt around the hull?”

“I can't answer that,” Dana said. “Mr. Pitt's last message from the
Capricorn
only stated that they were going to raise the wreck in the next few hours. He did not offer details regarding the method.”

“What if it's too late? What if Kiel, Chavez, and Merker are already dead?”

Dana's expression went rigid. “They are not dead,” she said with eyes blazing. “And, the first one of you who reports such a cruel and inhuman rumor before it's a proven fact will get their ass kicked off this ship, credentials and Nielsen ratings be damned. Do you understand?”

The reporters stood there a moment in mute surprise at Dana's sudden display of anger, and then slowly and silently they began to lower the microphones and melt toward the deck outside.

 

Rick Spencer unrolled a large piece of paper on the chart table and anchored it down with several half-empty coffee mugs. It was an overhead drawing that depicted the
Titanic
and her position in relation to the sea floor. He began pointing a pencil at various spots about the hulk that were marked with tiny crosses.

“Here's the way it shapes up,” he explained. “According to the computer data, we set eighty charges, each containing thirty pounds of explosives, at these key points in the sediment along the
Titanic
's hull.”

Sandecker leaned over the drawing, his eyes scanning the crosses. “I see that you've staggered them in three rows on each side.”

“That's right, sir,” Spencer said. “The outside rows are set sixty yards away; the middle, forty; and the inner rows are just twenty yards from the ship's plates. We'll detonate the starboard outer row first. Then eight seconds later we fire the port outer row. Another eight seconds and we repeat the procedure with the middle rows, and so on.”

“Kind of like rocking a car back and forth that's stuck in the mud,” Giordino volunteered.

Spencer nodded. “You might say that's a fair comparison.”

“Why not jolt her out of the silt with one big bang?” Giordino asked.

“It's possible a sudden shock might do it, but the geologists are in favor of separate overlapping shock waves. It's vibration we're after.”

“Have we the explosives?” Pitt asked.

“The
Bomberger
carries nearly a ton for seismic-research purposes,” Spencer replied. “The
Modoc
has four hundred pounds in her stores for underwater salvage blasting.”

“Will it do the trick?”

“Borderline,” Spencer admitted. “Another three hundred pounds would have given us a more acceptable margin for success.”

“We could have it flown from the mainland by jet and air-dropped,” Sandecker suggested.

Pitt shook his head. “By the time the explosives arrived, and were loaded in a sub and planted on the sea floor, it would be two hours too late.”

“Then we'd best get on with it,” Sandecker said brusquely. “We have a tight deadline to meet.” He turned to Gunn. “How soon can the explosives be set in place?”

“Four hours,” Gunn said unhesitatingly.

Sandecker's eyes narrowed. “That's cutting it pretty thin. That only leaves a leeway of fourteen minutes.”

“We'll make it,” Gunn said. “However, there is one condition.”

“What is it?” Sandecker snapped impatiently.

“It will take every operational submersible we've got.”

“That means pulling the
Sappho II
from its station beside the
Deep Fathom
,” Pitt said. “Those poor bastards down there will think we're deserting them.”

“There's no other way,” Gunn said helplessly. “There's simply no other way.”

 

Merker had lost all track of time. He stared at the luminous dial on his watch but his eyes couldn't focus on the glowing numbers. How long since the derrick had fallen across their buoyancy tanks, he wondered—five hours—ten—was it yesterday? His mind was sluggish and confused. He could only sit there without moving a muscle, breathing shallowly and slowly, each breath seemingly taking a lifetime. Gradually, he became aware of a movement. He reached out and touched Kiel and Chavez in the darkness, but they made no sound, no response; they had fallen into a lethargic stupor.

Then he became aware of it again, a minute but perceptible something that was not where it was supposed to be. His mind turned over as though it were immersed in syrup. But at last he had it. Except for the relentless rise of the water, there was no change, no sign of physical motion inside the flooding cabin; it was the angle of the
Sappho II
's light beam through the forward viewports that had dimmed.

He dropped off the bunk into the water—it came up to his chest now—and almost as if in a nightmare, he struggled toward the upper front ports and peered into the depths outside.

Suddenly, his numbed senses were gripped by a fear such as he had never known before. His eyes widened and glazed, his hands clenched in futility and despair.

“Oh God!” he cried aloud. “They're leaving us. They've given us up.”

 

Sandecker twisted the huge cigar he had just lit and continued to pace the deck. The radio operator raised his hand and the admiral turned in mid-step and came up behind him.

“The
Sappho I
reporting, sir,” Curly said. “She's finished positioning her charges.”

“Tell her to head topside as fast as her buoyancy tanks will take her. The higher she goes, the less pressure on her hull when the explosives detonate.” The admiral swung and faced Pitt, who was keeping a watchful eye on the four monitors, whose cameras and floodlights were mounted in strategic spots around the
Titanic
's superstructure. “How does it look?”

“So far, so good,” Pitt answered. “If the Wetsteel pressure seals hold up against the concussions, we'll stand a fighting chance.”

Sandecker stared at the color images and his brow furrowed as he perceived great streams of bubbles issuing from the liner's hulk. “She's losing a lot of air,” he said.

“Excess pressure escaping through the bleeder valves,” Pitt said tonelessly. “We switched from the electrolyte pumps back to the compressors in order to cram as much extra air as we can into the upper compartments.” He paused to fine-tune a picture and then continued. “The
Capricorn
's compressors put out ten thousand cubic feet of air an hour, so it didn't take long to raise the pressure inside the hull another ten pounds per inch, just enough to pop the bleeder valves.”

Drummer ambled over from the computers and checked off a series of notations on a clipboard. “As near as we can figure, ninety percent of the ship's compartments are unwatered,” he said. “The main problem, as I see it, is that we have more lift than the computers say is necessary. If and when the suction gives way, she'll come up like a kite.”