Raise the Titanic

    "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 sca

    "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 di

    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 Do

    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."

    "What now?"

    "We run a cable from the Doppleman crane above, attach it to the vault door and hope for the best."

    It took the better part of an hour for a crew of men to wrestle a two-inch-thick cable into the hold and fasten it onto the vault. Then, when all was ready, a signal was relayed to the crane operator via a portable radio transmitter, and the cable began slowly to straighten out its curves and tighten. No one had to be told to move back out of the way. They all knew that if the wire took it in its head to snap, it would whiplash through the hold with more than enough force to split a man in two.

    In the distance they could hear the engine of the crane straining. For long seconds nothing happened; the cable stretched and quivered, its strands groaning under the tremendous load. Pitt threw caution aside and edged closer. Still nothing happened. The vault's stubborn resolve seemed as firm as the steel of its walls.

    The cable slackened as the crane operator eased off the strain to work up his engine's rpm's. Then he revved up and engaged the clutch once more, and the cable suddenly went taut with an audible twang. To the silent men who looked anxiously on, it seemed inconceivable that the old rusted vault could stand up to such a powerful assault, and yet the inconceivable was apparently happening. But then a tiny hairline crack made its appearance along the upper edge of the vault door. It was followed by two vertical cracks along the sides and, finally, a fourth, ru

    No water came out of the yawning blackness. The vault had remained airtight during its long sojourn in the deep abyss.

    Nobody made a move. They stood rooted, frozen, mesmerized by that uninviting black square hole. A musty stench rolled out from within.

    Lusky was the first to find his voice. "My God, what is it? What in hell is that smell?"