"This is the bridge," answered Gunn.
"Ready to patch in the helicopter."
"Go ahead."
There was a pause and then a strange voice cracked onto the bridge. "Capricorn, this is Lieutenant Sturgis."
"This is Commander Gunn, Lieutenant; I have you loud and clear. Over."
"Dr. Bailey has entered the Deep Fathom. Please stand by."
The brief respite gave everyone a chance to study the Titanic. She looked uncompromisingly utilitarian and downright naked without her towering funnels and masts. The steel plates of her sides were blotched and stained with rust, but the black and white paint of her hull and superstructure still shone through. She looked a mess, like a hideous old prostitute who dwelt in dreams of better days and long-lost beauty. The portholes and windows were covered with the unsightly gray of the Wetsteel, and her once-immaculate teak decks were rotted and cluttered with miles of corroded cable. The empty lifeboat davits seemed to reach out in wraithlike pleading for a return of their long-lost contents. The overall effect of the ocean liner's presence came across the water like an eerie subject in a surrealistic painting. And yet, there was an inexplicable serenity about her that could not be described.
"Capricorn, this is Sturgis. Over."
"Gunn here. Come in."
"Mr. Giordino has just given me three fingers and a thumbs-up sign. Merker, Kiel, and Chavez are still alive."
A strange quiet followed. Then Pitt walked over to the emergency equipment panel and pressed the siren button. The ear-splitting sound whooped across the water.
Then the Modoc's whistle blared in reply, and Pitt saw the normally reserved Sandecker laugh and throw his cap in the air. The Monterey Park joined in, and the Alhambra and finally the Bomberger, until the sea around the Titanic was one huge cacophony of sirens and whistles. Not to be outdone, the Juneau moved up and punctuated the mad din with a thunderous salute from her eight-inch gun mount.
It was a moment that none of those present would ever live again. For the first time in all the years he could remember, Pitt felt the trickle of warm tears on his cheeks.
49
The late-afternoon sun was just touching the tops of the trees as Gene Seagram sat slouched on a bench in East Potomac Park and contemplated the Colt revolver in his lap. Serial number 204,783, he thought, you're about to serve the purpose you were manufactured for. Almost lovingly, he ran his fingers over the barrel, the cylinder, and the grips. Suicide it seemed the ideal solution to end his flight into black depression. He marveled that he hadn't thought of it before. No more uncontrollable crying in the middle of the night. No more sensations of worthlessness or the gnawing inside his guts that his life had been a transparent sham.
His mind envisioned the past few months as reflected in the cracked and distorted mirror of acute despair. The two things he had cherished most were his wife and the Sicilian Project. Now Dana was gone, his marriage a shambles. And the President of the United States had taken what seemed to Seagram to be a needless risk in leaking his precious project to the sworn enemy of democracy.
Sandecker had revealed to him the presence of the two Soviet agents on the Titanic's salvage fleet. And the fact that the CIA had warned the admiral not to interfere with their espionage activities only served to drive, what seemed to Seagram, another nail into the coffin of the Sicilian Project. Already one of NUMA's engineers had been murdered, and just this morning, the daily report from Sandecker's staff to Meta Section told of the trapped submersible and the apparent hopelessness of rescuing its crew. It had to be sabotage. There could be no doubt of it. The mismatched pieces of the puzzle were forced into unfitting slots by Seagram's confused brain. The Sicilian Project was dead, and he now made up his mind to die with it. He was in the act of releasing the gun's safety catch when a shadow fell across him and a voice spoke in a friendly tone.
"It's much too nice a day to rip off your life, don't you think?"
Officer Peter Jones had been walking his beat along the path beside Ohio Drive when he noticed the man on the park bench. At first glance, Jones thought Seagram was simply a wine-sodden derelict soaking up the sun. He considered running him in, but dismissed it as a waste of time; a booked bum would be back on the streets inside twenty-four hours. Jones figured it was hardly worth the effort of filling out the endless reports. But then something about the man didn't fit the stereotyped lost soul. Jones moved casually, inconspicuously around a large leafing elm tree and doubled back slightly to the side of the bench. On closer inspection his suspicions were confirmed. True, the reddened unseeing eyes and the vacant look of the alcoholic were there, as was the listless uncaring droop of the shoulders, but so were small bits and pieces that didn't belong. The shoes were shined, the suit expensive and pressed, the face neatly shaven, and the fingernails trimmed. And then there was the gun.
Seagram slowly looked up into the face of a black police officer. Instead of meeting a determined look of wariness, he found himself gazing into an expression of genuine compassion.
"Aren't you jumping to conclusions?" Seagram said.
"Man, if I ever saw a classic case of suicidal depression, you're it." Jones made a sitting gesture. "May I share your bench?"
"It's city property," Seagram said indifferently.
Jones carefully sat down an arm's length from Seagram and languidly stretched out his legs and leaned against the backrest, keeping his hands in plain sight and away from his holstered service revolver.
"Now me, l'd pick November," he said softly. "April is when the flowers pop and the trees go green, but November, that's when the weather turns nasty, the winds chill you to the bone, and the skies are always cloudy and dreary. Yeah, that's the month I'd pick all right to do away with myself."
Seagram clutched the Colt tighter, eyeing Jones in apprehension, waiting for him to make his move.
"I take it you consider yourself something of an expert on suicide?"
"Not really," Jones said. "In fact, you're the first one I ever got to watch in the act. Most of the time I come on the scene long after the main event. Now take drownings; they're the worst. Bodies all bloated up and black, eyeballs mush in their sockets after the fish have nibbled at them. Then there's the jumpers. I saw a fella one time who had leaped off a thirty-story building. Lit on his feet. His shin bones came out his shoulders . . ."
"I don't need this," Seagram snarled. "I don't need a nigger cop feeding me horror stories."
Anger flickered in Jones's eyes for an instant, and then quickly passed.
"Sticks and stones. . ." he said. He took out a handkerchief and leisurely wiped the sweatband of his cap. "Tell me, Mister ah . . ."
"Seagram. You might as well know. It won't make any difference later."
"Tell me, Mr. Seagram, how do you intend on doing it. A bullet in the temple, the forehead, or in the mouth?"
"What does it matter, the results are the same."
"Not necessarily," Jones said conversationally. "I don't recommend the temple or forehead, at least not with a small-caliber gun. Let's see, what have you got there? Yeah, looks like a thirty-eight. It might do a messy job okay, but I doubt if it would kill you proper. I knew one guy who fired a forty-five into his temple. Scrambled his brains and shoved out his left eye, but he didn't die. Lived for years like a turnip. Can't you picture him lying there, his bowels running all over the sheets, and him begging to be put out of his misery. Yeah, if I was you, I'd stick the barrel in my mouth and blow off the back of the head. That's the safest bet."