Raise the Titanic

    "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. per-cent 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 super-classified 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 backtrail 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 costs 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 415. 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."

    "You'd do that?"

    "I would."

    An icy calm seemed to settle ever the President. "Before you dash out the door and waste more of the taxpayers' dollars on a congressional hearing over my fiscal maneuverings, I suggest you hear from the horse's own mouth what Meta Section is all about and what they've produced in the defense of the country that keeps us both gainfully employed."

    "I'm listening, Mr. President." Good.

    One hour later, a thoroughly subdued Senator John Burdick sat in his office and carefully dropped his secret file on Meta Section into a shredding machine.

77

    It was a staggering sight to see the Titanic propped high and dry in the huge canyon of a dry dock.

    Already the noise had started. Welders were attacking the clogged passageways. Riveters were hammering against the scarred hull, beefing up the temporary repairs made at sea to the jagged wounds below the waterline. Overhead, two sky-reaching cranes dipped their jaws down into the darkened cargo holds only to have them reappear minutes later with mangled bits and pieces of debris clutched in their iron teeth.

    Pitt took what he knew would be his last look about the gymnasium and Upper Deck. Like bidding a New Year's Eve good-by to a passing piece of his life, he stood there and soaked up the memories. The sweat of the salvage, the blood and sacrifice of his crew, the fragility of their hope that had in the end carried them through. It would all be left behind. Finally, he cast aside his reverie and walked down the main staircase and eventually found his way to the forward cargo hold on G Deck.

    They were all present and accounted for and looking strangely unfamiliar under the silver hard hats. Gene Seagram, gaunt and trembling, paced back and forth. Mel Donner, wiping trickles of sweat from his neck and chin, and nervously keeping a concerned eye on Seagram. Herb Lusky, a Meta Section mineralogist, standing by with his analysis equipment. Admirals Sandecker and Kemper, huddled in one corner of the darkened hold and conversing in low tones.

    Pitt carefully stepped around the twisted bulkhead supports and over the rippled deck of warped steel until he was standing behind a shipyard worker who was intently aiming his cutting torch at a massive hinge on the vault door. The cult, Pitt thought darkly, it was only a matter of minutes now before the secret hidden inside its gut was laid bare, suddenly, he became aware of an icy chill, everything around him seemed to turn cold, and he began to dread the opening of the vault.

    As if sharing his uneasiness, the other men in the dank hold became quiet and gathered beside Pitt in restless apprehension.

    At last, the worker turned off the fiery blue jet of his torch and raised his face shield.

    "How's it look?" Pitt asked.

    "They sure built them good in the old days," the worker replied. "I've torched out the lock mechanism and knocked off the hinges, but she's still frozen solid."