Kemper held out the next photo at arm's length. "What in hell is this thing?"
"That was taken at the moment of discovery by the Sappho I daring the Lorelei Current Expedition. What at first looked like an ordinary kitchen flannel turned out to be a horn." He showed Kemper a shot of the instrument taken after Vogel's restoration.
That's a cornet," Kemper corrected him. "You say the Sappho I brought this up?"
'Yes, from twelve thousand feet. It had been lying on the bottom since 1912."
Kemper's eyebrows raised. "Are you going to tell me it came from the Titanic?"
"I can show you documented evidence."
Kemper sighed and handed the pictures back to Sandecker. His shoulders sagged, the weary, fatigued droop of a man no longer young, a man who had been carrying a heavy burden for too long a time. He pulled a beer from the fish net and popped the tab. "What does any of this prove?"
Sandecker's mouth tightened into a slight grin. "It was right in front of us for two years-that's how long ago the aircraft was discovered-but we completely overlooked the possibilities. Oh sure, there were remarks about the plane's excellent condition, yet none of my oceanographers really grasped the significance. It wasn't until the Sappho I brought up the horn that the true implications came home."
"I'm not following you," Kemper said tonelessly.
"First of all," Sandecker continued, "ninety per cent of that F4F is made out of aluminum, and as you know, salt water eats the hell out of aluminum. Yet that plane, after sitting down there in the sea for over forty years, looks like the day it came out of the factory. Same with the horn. It's been underwater crowding eighty years, and it shined up like a newborn baby's ass."
"Have you any explanation?" Kemper asked.
"Two of NUMA's ablest oceanographers are now running data through our computers. The general theory at the moment is that it's a combination of factors the lack of damaging sea life at great depths, the low salinity or salt content of bottom water, the freezing temperatures of the deep, and a lower oxygen content that would slow down oxidation of metal. It could be any one or all of these factors that delays deterioration of deep-bottom wrecks. We'll know better if and when we get a look at the Titanic. "
Kemper thought for a moment. "What do you want from me?"
"Protection," Seagram answered. "If the Soviets get wind of what we're up to, they'll try everything short of war to stop us and grab the byzanium for themselves."
"Put your mind at rest on that score," Kemper said, his voice suddenly hard. "The Russians will think twice before they bloody their noses on our side of the Atlantic. Your salvage operations on the Titanic will be protected, Mr. Seagram. You have my iron-clad guarantee on that."
A faint grin touched Sandecker's face. "While you're in a generous mood, Joe, what're the chances of borrowing the Modoc?"
"The Modoc?" Kemper repeated. "She's the finest deepwater salvage vessel the Navy's got."
"We could also use the crew that comes with her," Sandecker pushed on.
Kemper rolled the beer can's cool surface across his sweating forehead. "Okay, you've got yourselves the Modoc and her crew, plus whatever extra men and equipment you need.
Seagram sighed. "Thank you, Admiral. I'm grateful."
"You're straddling an interesting concept," Kemper said. "But one fraught with problems."
"Nothing comes easy," Seagram replied.
"What's your next step?"
Sandecker answered that one. "We send down television cameras to locate the hull and survey the damage."
"God only knows what you'll find-" Kemper stopped abruptly and pointed at Sandecker's jerking bobber. "By God, Jim, I believe you've caught a fish."
Sandecker leaned lazily over the side of the boat. "So I have," he said smiling. "Let's hope the Titanic is just as cooperative."
"I am afraid that that hope may prove to be an expensive incentive," Kemper said, and there was no answering smile on his lips.
Pitt closed Joshua Hays Brewster's journal and looked across the conference table at Mel Donner. "That's it then."
"The whole truth and nothing but the truth," Donner said.
"But wouldn't this byzanium, or whatever you call it, lose its properties after being immersed in the sea all these years?"
Donner shook his head. "Who's to say? No one has ever had a sufficient quantity in their hands to know for sure how it reacts under any conditions."
"Then it may be worthless."
"Not if it's locked securely in the Titanic's vault. Our research indicates that the strong room is watertight."
Pitt leaned back and stared at the journal. "It's a hell of a gamble."
"We're aware of that."
"It's like asking a gang of kids to lift a Patton tank out of Lake Erie with a few ropes and a raft."
"We're aware of that," Donner repeated.
"The cost alone of raising the Titanic is beyond comprehension," Pitt said.
"Name a figure."
"Back in 1974 the CIA paid out over three hundred million dollars just to raise the bow of a Russian submarine. I couldn't begin to fathom what it would run to salvage a passenger liner that grosses forty-six thousand tons from twelve thousand feet of water."
"Take a guess then."
"Who bankrolls the operation?"
"Meta Section will handle the finances," Donner said. "Just look upon me as your friendly neighborhood banker. Let me know what you think it will take to get the salvage operation off the ground, and I'll see to it the funds are secretly transferred into NUMA's annual operating budget.
"Two hundred and fifty million ought to start the ball rolling."
"That's somewhat less than our estimates," Donner said casually. "I suggest that you not limit yourself. Just to be on the safe side, I'll arrange for you to receive an extra five."
"Five million?"
"No." Donner smiled. "Five hundred million."
After the guard passed him out through the gate, Pitt pulled up at the side of the road and gazed back through the chain-link fence at the Smith Van and Storage Company. "I don't believe it," he said to no one. "I don't believe any of it." Then slowly, with much difficulty, as if he were fighting the commands of a hypnotist, Pitt dropped the shift lever into "Drive" and made his way back to the city.
29
It had been a particularly grueling day for the President. There were seemingly endless meetings with opposition party congressmen; meetings in which he had struggled, vainly in most cases, to persuade them to support his new bill for the modification of income-tax regulations. Then there had been a speech at the convention of near hostile state governors, followed later in the afternoon by a heated session with his aggressive, overbearing secretary of state.
Now, just past ten o'clock, with one more unpleasant involvement to reckon with, he sat in an overstuffed chair holding a drink in his right hand while his left scratched the long ears of his sad-eyed basset hound.
Warren Nicholson, the director of the CIA, and Marshall Collies, his chief Kremlin security adviser, sat opposite him on a large sectional sofa.
The President took a sip from the glass and then stared grimly at the two men. "Do either of you have the vaguest notion of what you're asking of me?"
Collies shrugged nervously. "Quite frankly, sir, we don't. But this is clearly a case of the end justifying the means. I personally think Nicholson here has one hell of a scheme going. The payoff in terms of secret information could be nothing less than astonishing."