She looked at him, half-uncertainly, half-confused, and said, "I don't know. I honestly don't know. The last thing I recall I was on the Capricorn."
"We found you in the helicopter," Pitt said.
"The helicopter . . . I lost my make-up kit . . . must have dropped it on the flight from the Alhambra." She forced a wan smile. "Yes, that's it. I returned to the helicopter to search for my make-up kit. I found it jammed between the fold-up seats. I tried pulling it free when . . . well, I guess I fainted and hit my head when I fell."
"Fainted? You're sure you-" Pitt broke off his question and asked another instead. "What was the very last thing you remember seeing before you blacked out?"
She thought a moment, staring as if at some distant vision in time. Those coffee-brown eyes seemed unnaturally large against her pale and strained face.
Sandecker patted her hand paternally. "Just take your time."
Finally her lips formed a word. "Boots."
"Say again," Pitt ordered.
"A pair of boots," she answered as if seeing a revelation. "Yes, I remember now, a pair of sharp-toed cowboy boots."
"Cowboy boots?" Gunn asked, his expression blank.
Dana nodded. "You see, I was down on my hands and knees trying to extricate my make-up kit, and then . . . I don't know . . . they just seemed to be there . . ." She paused.
"What color were they?" Pitt prodded her.
"Kind of a yellow, cream color."
"Did you see the man's face?"
She started to shake her head and caught herself at the first stab of pain. "No, everything went dark then . . . that's all there is . . . ." Her voice trailed off.
Pitt could see that there was nothing to be gained by further interrogation. He looked down at Dana and smiled. She looked up and smiled back with an anxious-to-please smile.
"We dirty old men had best leave you alone to rest for a while," he said. "If you need anything, one of us will always be close by."
Sandecker followed Pitt over to the entrance to the grand staircase. "What do you make of it?" Sandecker asked. "Why would anyone want to harm Dana?"
"For the same reason they killed Henry Munk."
"You think she got wise to one of the Soviet agents?"
"More likely, in her case, it was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The last thing we need on our hands now is an injured woman." Sandecker sighed. "There'll be hell to pay when Gene Seagram gets my radio message about what happened to his wife."
"With all due respect, sir, I told Gunn not to send your message. We can't risk a change in plans at the last minute. Men make cautious decisions where women are concerned. We won't hesitate to risk the lives of a dozen members of our own sex, but we'll balk every time when it comes to endangering one of the female species. What Seagram, the President, Admiral Kemper, and the others in Washington don't know won't hurt them, at least for the next twelve hours."
"It would appear my authority means nothing around here," Sandecker said acidly. "Anything else you neglected to tell me, Pitt? Like who those outlandish cowboy boots belong to?"
"The boots belong to Ben Drummer."
"I've never seen him wear them. How would . . . how could you know that?"
"I discovered them when I searched his quarters on the Capricorn."
"Now you've added burglarizing to your other talents," Sandecker said.
"Drummer wasn't alone. Giordino and I have searched every one of the salvage crews' belongings over the past month."
"Find anything of interest?"
"Nothing incriminating."
"Who do you think injured Dana?"
It wasn't Drummer. That much is certain. He's got at least a dozen witnesses including you and me, Admiral, who will testify that he's been on board the Titanic since yesterday. It would have been impossible for him to attack Dana Seagram on a ship that was fifty miles away."
At that moment, Woodson came up and caught Pitt's arm. "Sorry for the interruption, boss, but we just received an urgent call from the Juneau. I'm afraid it's bad news."
"Let's have it," Sandecker said wearily. "The outlook can't possibly be painted any blacker than it is now."
"Oh, but it can," Woodson said. "The message is from the missile cruiser's captain and reads 'Have received distress call from eastbound freighter Laguna Star, bearing zero five degrees, a hundred and ten miles north of your position. Must respond. Repeat, must respond. Sorry to leave you. Good luck to the Titanic!'"
"'Good luck to the Titanic'," Sandecker echoed. His voice was flat and empty of life. "We might as well raise a flashing sign on the hull that says, 'Welcome thieves and pirates. Come one, come all'."
So now it begins, Pitt thought to himself.
But the only sensation that coursed through his body was a sudden, overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom.
61
The air in Admiral Joseph Kemper's Pentagon office reeked of stale cigarette smoke and half-eaten sandwiches, and it almost seemed to crackle under the invisible cloud of tension.
Kemper and Gene Seagram were huddled over the admiral's desk in quiet conversation while Mel Donner and Warren Nicholson, the CIA director, sat together on the sofa, their feet propped on a coffee table, and dozed. But they jerked upright in full wakefulness when the strange buzz that was specially tuned into Kemper's red telephone broke the hushed quiet. Kemper grunted into the receiver and laid it back in its cradle.
"It was the security desk. The President is on his way up."
Donner and Nicholson glanced at each other and heaved themselves off the sofa. They had no sooner cleared the coffee table of the evening's debris, straightened their ties and donned their coats when the door opened and the President strode in followed by his Kremlin security adviser, Marshall Collies.
Kemper came from behind his desk and shook the President's hand. "Nice to see you, Mr. President. Please make yourself at home. May I get you something?"
The President scanned his watch and then grinned. "Three hours yet before the bars close. How about a Bloody Mary?"
Kemper grinned back and nodded to his aide. "Commander Keith, will you do the honors?"
Keith nodded. "One Bloody Mary coming up, sir."
"I hope you gentlemen won't mind me standing watch with you," the President said, "but I have a heavy stake in this too!"
"Not at all, sir," Nicholson answered. "We're happy to have you."
"What is the situation at the moment?"
Admiral Kemper gave a full briefing to the President, describing the unexpected ferocity of the hurricane, showing the positions of the ships on a projected wall map, and explaining the Titanic's towing operation.
"Was it absolutely necessary that the Juneau be ordered off station?" the President asked.
"A distress call is a distress call," Kemper replied solemnly, "and must be answered by every ship in the area, regardless of the circumstances."
"We have to play according to the other team's rules until half time," Nicholson said. "After that, it's our game."
"Do you think, Admiral Kemper, that the Titanic can stand up to the battering of a hurricane?"
"As long as the tugs can keep her bow into the wind and sea, she's an odds-on favorite to come through with flying colors."
"And if for some reason the tugs cannot keep her from swinging broadside to the waves?"
Kemper avoided the President's gaze and shrugged.
"Then it's in God's hands."
"Nothing could be done?"
"No, sir. There is simply no way to protect any one vessel caught in the clutches of a hurricane. It becomes a case of every ship for herself."
"I see."
A knock at the door, and another officer entered, laid two slips of paper on Kemper's desk, and retreated.
Kemper read the notes and poked up, his face set in a grim expression. "A message from the Capricorn," he said. "Your wife, Mr. Seagram . . . your wife is reported missing. A search party ab
oard ship was unable to locate her. They fear she was lost overboard. I'm sorry."
Seagram sagged into Collins' arms, his eyes widened in stunned horror. "Oh my God!" he cried. "It can't be true. Oh God! What am I going to do. Dana . . . Dana. . ."
Donner rushed to his side. "Steady, Gene. Steady." He and Collins steered Seagram over to the sofa and gently lowered him to the cushions.
Kemper gestured to the President for his attention. "There's another message, sir. From the Samuel R. Wallace, one of the tugs towing the Titanic. The towing cable," Kemper said. "It snapped. The Titanic is adrift in the center of the hurricane."
The cable hung like a dead snake over the stern of the Wallace, its severed end swaying in the black depths a quarter of a mile below.
Butera stood frozen beside the great electric winch, refusing to believe his eyes. "How?" he shouted in Ensign Kelly's ear. "How could it part? It was built to take worse stress than this."
"Can't figure it," Kelly yelled back above the storm. "There was no extreme stress on her when she went."
"Bring her up, Ensign. Let's take a look."
The ensign nodded and gave the orders. The brake was released and the reel began turning, pulling the wire up from the sea. A solid sheet of spray dashed against the cablehouse. The dead weight of the wire acted as an anchor, dragging down the stern of the Wallace, and each time a column of water approached, it rose high over the wheelhouse and came thundering down upon it with a shock that jarred the entire tug.
At last the end of the tow cable appeared over the stern and snaked up onto the reel. As soon as the brake was applied, Butera and Kelly moved in and began examining the frayed strands.
Butera stared at it, his face twisted in stunned incomprehension. He touched the burned wire ends and looked dumbly at the ensign.
The ensign did not share Butera's muteness. "Jesus Christ in heaven," he shouted hoarsely. "It's been cut through with an acetylene torch."
Pitt was down on his hands and knees on the cargo floor of the helicopter, sweeping his flashlight under the folded passenger seats when the Titanic's tow cable dropped into the sea.
Outside the wind howled with demonic power. Pitt couldn't have known it, but without the tug's steadying influence, the Titanic's bow was being forced by the raging sea to leeward, exposing her entire flank to the unleashed furies. She was beginning to broach to.
It had taken him only two minutes to find Dana's make-up kit where it had solidly jammed behind one of the folded front seats immediately behind the control-cabin bulkhead. He could easily see why she had had difficulty retrieving the blue nylon case from its prison. Very few women are blessed with mechanical inclinations, and Dana was definitely not one of them. It hadn't occurred to her to simply unclasp the restraining straps and unfold the seat. Pitt did so and the kit fell free into his hand.
He didn't bother opening it; he wasn't interested. What he was interested in was the recessed compartment in the forward bulkhead, where a twenty-man life raft sat, or where it was supposed to sit. The yellow, rubberized cover was there all right, but the raft was gone.
Pitt had no time to appreciate the implication of his discovery. Even as he pulled the empty cover out of its compartment, a monstrous sea crashed against the flank of the helpless Titanic, heeling her great mass over on her starboard side as though she never meant to stop. Pitt made a desperate grab for one of the seat supports, but his fingers closed on air and he was spilled like a sack of potatoes down across the sloping floor, crashing against the partially opened cargo door with such force that he ripped a four-inch gash in his scalp.
Mercifully, the next few hours were lost to Pitt. He was aware of a cold gale sweeping into the fuselage, but not much else. His mind was a vague mass of gray wool and he felt remotely detached from his surroundings. He could not know or even sense when the helicopter shed its triplelashed moorings and was hurled sideways, dropping off the first-class lounge roof onto the Boat Deck, crumpling its tail section, tearing off its rotor blades, before grinding over the railing and falling toward the tormented sea.
62
The Russians came aboard the Titanic during the storm's lull. Deep down in the bowels of the engine and boiler rooms, Spencer and his pumping crew had no chance, not the least opportunity for any resistance. Their total surprise acknowledged Prevlov's dedication to exact planning and detailed execution.
The fight that occurred topside-massacre would have been closer to the truth-was over almost before it began. Five Russian marines, half the boarding force, their faces all but hidden by seaman caps pulled low on top and with huge mufflers wrapped below, were in the gymnasium with automatic machine pistols ready and aimed before anyone could comprehend what was happening.
Woodson was the first to react. He swung from the radio, his eyes widened in a look of recognition, and an expression of pure anger swept over his normally passive face. "You bastard!" he blurted, and then hurled himself at the nearest intruder.
But a knife materialized in the man's hand and he deftly rammed it into Woodson's chest, tearing the photographer's heart nearly in two. Woodson clutched at his killer, then slowly slid downward to the booted feet, shock in his eyes, then disbelief, then pain, and finally the emptiness of death.
Dana sat up on her cot and screamed and screamed. It was that stimulus that finally stung the other members of the salvage crew into action. Drummer caught Woodson's murderer on the cheek with his fist and received the barrel of a machine pistol across his face for his effort. Sturgis launched his body in a flying tackle but his timing was late. A gun butt caught him just above the temple at the same instant he crashed into his intended victim and they both fell to the deck in a heap, the assailant quickly regaining his feet while Sturgis lay there as if dead.
Giordino was in the act of bringing a wrench down on another Russian's skull when there was an ear-splitting crack. A bullet passed through his upraised hand and sent the wrench clattering across the deck. The shot seemed to freeze all movement. Sandecker, Gunn, and Chief Bascom and his men halted in mid action as they abruptly realized that their unarmed defense of the ship was hopeless in the face of guns held by highly trained killers.
At that precise moment a man strode into the room, his intense gray eyes taking in every detail of the scene. He wasted no more than three seconds-three seconds and no more was all Andre Prevlov needed to survey any given situation. He stared down at the still-screaming Dana and smiled graciously. "Do you mind, my dear lady," he said in fluent, idiomatic English. "I think female panic inflicts quite an unnecessary strain on the vocal chords."
Her round eyes were stricken. Her mouth closed and she sat huddled in a ball on the cot, staring at the spreading pool of blood under Omar Woodson and shuddering uncontrollably.
"There now, that's much better." Prevlov followed her eyes to Woodson, then to Drummer, who was sitting on the deck in the process of spitting out a tooth, and then to Giordino, who glared back holding his bleeding hand.
"Your resistance was foolish," Previov said. " One dead and three injured, and for nothing."
"Who are you?" Sandecker demanded. "By what right do you board this ship and murder my crew?"
"Ah! A pity we must meet under such remote and unpleasant circumstances," Prevlov apologized. "You are, of course, Admiral James Sandecker, are you not?"
"My questions still stand," Sandecker spat angrily.
"My name is of no consequence," Prevlov replied. "The answer to your other question is obvious. I am taking over this ship in the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
"My government will never stand idly by and let you get away with it."
"Correction," Prevlov murmured. "Your government will stand idly by."
"You underestimate us."
Prevlov shook his head. "Not I, Admiral. I am fully aware of what your countrymen are capable of. I also know they will not start a war over the legitimate boarding of a derelict ship."
"Legitimate boarding?" San
decker echoed. "The Civil Salvage Service laws define a derelict vessel as one whose crew has abandoned at sea without intent of returning or attempt at recovery. Since this ship still retains its crew, your presence, sir, constitutes a blatant act of high-seas piracy."
"Spare me your interpretation of maritime legalities." Prevlov held up a protesting hand. "You are quite right, of course, for the moment."
The implication was clear. "You wouldn't dare cast us adrift in the middle of a hurricane."
"Nothing so mundane, Admiral. Besides, I am well aware that the Titanic is taking on water. I need your salvage engineer, Spencer, I believe his name is, and his crew to keep the pumps operating until the storm abates. After that, you and your people will be provided with a life raft. Your departure will then guarantee our right to salvage."
"We cannot be allowed to live to testify," Sandecker said. "Your government would never permit that. You know it, and I know it."
Prevlov looked at him, calm, unaffected. Then he turned casually, almost callously, dismissing Sandecker. He spoke in Russian to one of the marines. The man nodded and, tipped over the radio, and pounded it with the stock of his machine pistol into mangled pieces of metal, glass, and wiring.
"There is no further use for your operations room." Prevlov motioned around the gymnasium. "I have installed my communication facilities in the main dining room on D Deck. If you and the others will be so kind as to follow me, I will see to your comfort until the weather clears."
"One more question," Sandecker said without moving, "You owe me that."
"Of course, Admiral, of course."
"Where is Dirk Pitt?"
"I regret to inform you," Prevlov said with ironic sympathy, that Mr. Pitt was in your helicopter when it was swept over the side into the sea. His death must have come quickly."
63
Admiral Kemper sat opposite a grim-faced President and casually poured four teaspoons of sugar into his coffee cup.
"The aircraft carrier Beecher's Island is nearing the search area. Her planes will begin searching at first light." Kemper forced a thin smile. "Don't worry, Mr. President. We'll have the Titanic back in tow by mid-afternoon. You have my word on it."
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