Raise the Titanic! (23 page)

Since early morning
the wind had blown steadily out of the northeast. By later afternoon it had increased to a gale of thirty-five knots, which in turn threw up mountainous seas that pitched the salvage ships about like paper cups in a dishwasher. The tempest carried with it a numbing cold borne of the barren wastes above the Arctic Circle. The men dared not venture out onto the icy decks. It was no secret that the greatest barrier against keeping warm was the wind. A man could feel much colder and more miserable at twenty degrees above zero Fahrenheit with a thirty-five-knot wind than at twenty degrees below zero with no wind. The wind steals the body heat as quickly as it can be manufactured—a nasty situation known as
chill factor
.

Joel Farquar, the
Capricorn
's weatherman, on loan from the Federal Meteorological Services Administration, seemed unconcerned with the storm snapping outside the operations room as he studied the instrumentation that tied into the National Weather Satellites and provided four space pictures of the North Atlantic every twenty-four hours.

“What does your prognosticating little mind see for our future?” Pitt asked, bracing his body against the roll.

“She'll start easing in another hour,” Farquar replied. “By sunrise tomorrow the wind should be down to ten knots.”

Farquar didn't look up when he spoke. He was a studious, little red-faced man with utterly no sense of humor and no trace of friendly warmth. Yet he was respected by every man on the salvage operation because of his total dedication to the job and the fact that his predictions were uncannily accurate.

“‘The best laid plans…'” Pitt murmured idly to himself. “Another day lost. That's four times in one week we've had to cast off and buoy the air line.”

“Only God can make a storm,” Farquar said indifferently. He nodded toward the two banks of television monitors that covered the forward bulkhead of the
Capricorn
's operations room. “At least they're not bothered by it all.”

Pitt looked at the screens, which showed the submersibles calmly working on the wreck twelve thousand feet below the relentless sea. Their independence from the surface was the saving grace of the project. With the exception of the
Sea Slug
, which only had a downtime of eighteen hours and was now securely tied on the
Modoc
's deck, the other three submersibles could be scheduled to stay down on the
Titanic
for five days at a stretch before they returned to the surface to change crews. He turned to Al Giordino, who was bent over a large chart table.

“What's the disposition of the surface ships?”

Giordino pointed at the tiny two-inch models scattered about the chart. “The
Capricorn
is holding her usual position in the center. The
Modoc
is dead ahead, and the
Bomberger
is trailing three miles astern.”

Pitt stared at the model of the
Bomberger
. She was a new vessel, constructed especially for deep-water salvage. “Tell her captain to close up to within one mile.”

Giordino nodded toward the bald radio operator, who was moored securely to the slanting deck in front of his equipment. “You heard the man, Curly. Tell the
Bomberger
to come up to one mile astern.”

“How about the supply ships?” Pitt asked.

“No problem there. This weather is duck soup to big ten-tonners the likes of these two. The
Alhambra
is in position to port, and the
Monterey Park
is right where she's supposed to be to starboard.”

Pitt nodded at a small red model. “I see our Russian friends are still with us.”

“The
Mikhail Kurkov
?” Giordino said. He picked up a blue replica of a warship and placed it next to the red model. “Yeah, but she can't be enjoying the game. The
Juneau
, that Navy guided-missile cruiser, hangs on like glue.”

“And the wreck buoy's signal unit?”

“Serenely beeping away eighty feet beneath the uproar,” Giordino announced. “Only twelve hundred yards, give or take a hair, bearing zero-five-nine, southwest that is.”

“Thank God we haven't been blown off the homestead,” Pitt sighed.

“Relax.” Giordino grinned reassuringly. “You act like a mother with a daughter out on a date after midnight every time there's a little breeze.”

“The mother-hen complex becomes worse the closer we get,” Pitt admitted. “Ten more days, Al. If we can get ten calm days, we can wrap it up.”

“That's up to the weather oracle.” Giordino turned to Farquar. “What about it, O Great Seer of Meteorological Wisdom?”

“Twelve hours' advance notice is all you'll get out of me,” Farquar grunted, without looking up. “This is the North Atlantic. She's the most unpredictable of any ocean in the world. Hardly one day is ever the same. Now, if your precious
Titanic
had gone down in the Indian Ocean, I could give you your ten-day prediction with an eighty-percent chance of accuracy.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Giordino replied. “I bet when you make love to a woman, you tell her going in that there's a forty-percent chance she'll enjoy it.”

“Forty percent is better than nothing,” Farquar said casually.

Pitt caught a gesture by the sonar operator and moved over to him. “What have you got?”

“A strange pinging noise over the amplifier,” the sonar man replied. He was a pale-faced man, about the size and shape of a gorilla. “I've picked it up off and on during the last two months. Strange sort of sound, kind of like somebody was sending messages.”

“Make anything of it?”

“No, sir. I had Curly listen to it, but he said it was pure gibberish.”

“Most likely a loose object on the wreck that's being rattled about by the current.”

“Or maybe it's a ghost,” the sonar man said.

“You don't believe in them, but you're afraid of them, is that it?”

“Fifteen hundred souls went down with the
Titanic
,” the sonar man said. “It's not unlikely that at least one came back to haunt the ship.”

“The only spirits I'm interested in,” Giordino said from the chart table, “are the kind you drink….”

“The interior cabin camera of
Sappho II
just blacked out.” This from the sandy-haired man seated at the TV monitors.

Pitt was immediately behind him, staring at the blackened monitor. “Is the problem at this end?”

“No, sir. All circuits here and on the buoy's relay panel are operable. The problem must be on the
Sappho II
. It just seemed like somebody hung a cloth over the camera lens.”

Pitt swung to face the radio operator. “Curly, contact
Sappho II
and ask them to check their cabin TV camera.”

Giordino picked up a clipboard and checked the crew schedule. “Omar Woodson is in command of the
Sappho II
this shift.”

Curly pressed the transmit switch. “
Sappho II
, hello
Sappho II
, this is
Capricorn
. Please reply.” Then he leaned forward, pressing his headset tighter to his ears. “The contact is weak, sir. Lots of interference. The words are very broken. I can't make them out.”

“Turn on the speaker,” Pitt ordered.

A voice rattled into the operations room, muffled behind a wave of static.

“Something is jamming the transmission,” said Curly. “The relay unit on the air-line buoy should be picking them up loud and clear.”

“Give your volume everything it's got. Maybe we can make some sense out of Woodson's reply.”

“
Sappho II
, could you repeat please. We cannot read you. Over.”

As soon as Curly turned up the speaker, the explosion of ear-splitting crackle made everyone jump.

“——corn. We————ou—lear.—ver.”

Pitt grabbed the microphone. “Omar, this is Pitt. Your cabin TV camera is out. Can you repair? We will await your reply. Over.”

Every eye in the operations room locked on the speaker as though it were alive. Five interminable minutes dragged by while they patiently waited for Woodson's report. Then Woodson's fragmented voice hammered through the loud-speaker again.

“Hen——Munk—————est per——on——sur——.”

Giordino twisted his face, puzzled. “Something about Henry Munk. The rest is too garbled to comprehend.”

“They're back on monitor.” Not every eye had been aimed at the speaker. The young man at the TV monitors had never taken his off
Sappho II
's screen. “The crew looks like they're grouped around someone lying on the deck.”

Like spectators at a tennis match, every head turned in unison to the TV monitor. Figures were moving to and fro in front of the camera, while in the background three men could be seen bent over a body stretched grotesquely on the submersible's narrow cabin deck.

“Omar, listen to me,” Pitt snapped into the microphone. “We do not understand your transmissions. You are back on TV monitor. I repeat, you are back on TV monitor. Write your message and hold it up to the camera. Over.”

They watched one of the figures detach itself from the rest and lean over a table for a few moments writing and then approach the TV camera. It was Woodson. He held up a scrap of paper whose rough printing read, “Henry Munk dead. Request permission to surface.”

“Good God!” Giordino's expression was one of pure astonishment. “Henry Munk dead? It can't be true.”

“Omar Woodson isn't noted for playing games,” Pitt said grimly. He began to transmit again. “Negative, Omar. You cannot surface. There is a thirty-five-knot gale up here. The sea is turbulent. I repeat, you cannot surface.”

Woodson nodded that he understood. Then he wrote something else, looking over his shoulder furtively every so often. The note said: “I suspect Munk murdered!”

Even Farquar's usually inscrutable face had gone pale. “You'll have to let them surface now,” he whispered.

“I will do what I have to do.” Pitt shook his head decisively. “My feelings will have to look elsewhere. There are five men still alive and breathing inside
Sappho II
. I won't risk bringing them up only to lose them all under a thirty-foot wave. No, gentlemen, we will just have to sit it out until sunrise to see what there is to see inside the
Sappho II
.”

Pitt had the
Capricorn
home in on the signal-relay buoy as soon as the wind dropped to twenty knots. Once again they connected the air line running from the ship's compressor to the
Titanic
and then waited for the
Sappho II
's emergence from the deep. The eastern sky was beginning to brighten when final preparations were made to receive the submersible. Divers made ready to drop in position around the
Sappho II
and secure safety lines to prevent her from capsizing in the heavy seas; the winches and cables were set to haul her from the water and into the open stern of the
Capricorn
; down in the galley the cook began making an urn of coffee and a hearty breakfast to greet the crew of the submersible when they arrived. When all was in readiness, the scientists and engineers stood quietly shivering in the early morning cold, wondering about Henry Munk's death.

It was 0610 when the submersible popped into the marching swells one hundred yards off the port stern of the
Capricorn
. A line was run out by boat, and within twenty minutes the
Sappho II
was winched on to the stern ramp of her tender. As soon as she was blocked and secured into place, the hatch was opened and Woodson pulled himself out, followed by the four surviving members of his crew.

Woodson climbed to the top deck, where Pitt was waiting for him. His eyes were red with sleeplessness and his face stubble-bearded and gray, but he managed a thin smile as Pitt shoved a steaming mug of coffee into his hand. “I don't know which I'm happier to see, you or the coffee,” he said.

“Your message mentioned murder,” Pitt said, ignoring any word of greeting.

Woodson sipped at the coffee for a moment and looked back at the men who were gently lifting Munk's body through the submersible's hatch. “Not here,” he said quietly.

Pitt motioned toward his quarters. Once the door was closed, he wasted no time. “Okay, let's have it.”

Woodson dropped heavily onto Pitt's bunk and rubbed his eyes. “Not much to tell. We were hovering about sixty feet above the seafloor sealing off the starboard ports on C Deck when I got your message about the TV camera. I went aft to check it out and found Munk lying on the deck with his left temple caved in.”

“Any sign of what caused the blow?”

“As plain as the nose on Pinocchio's face,” Woodson answered. “Bits of skin, blood, and hair were stuck on the corner of the alternator housing cover.”

“I'm not that familiar with the
Sappho II
's equipment. How is it mounted?”

“On the starboard side, about ten feet from the stern. The housing cover is raised about six inches off the deck so the alternator below is easily accessible for maintenance.”

“Then it might have been an accident. Munk could have stumbled and fallen, striking his head on the edge.”

“He could have, except his feet were facing the wrong way.”

“What do his feet have to do with it?”

“They were pointed toward the stern.”

“So?”

“Don't you get it?” Woodson said impatiently. “Munk must have been walking toward the bow when he fell.”

The fuzzy picture in Pitt's mind began to clear. And he saw the piece of the puzzle that didn't belong. “The alternator housing is on the starboard side so it should have been Munk's right temple that was smashed, not his left.”

“You got it.”

“What caused the TV camera to malfunction?”

“No malfunction. Somebody hung a towel over the lens.”

“And the crew? Where was each member positioned?”

“I was working the nozzle while Sam Merker acted as pilot. Munk had left the instrument panel to go to the head, which is located in the stern. We were the second watch. The first watch included Jack Donovan—”

“A young blond fellow; the structural engineer from Oceanic Tech?”

“Right. And, Lieutenant Leon Lucas, the salvage technician on assignment from the Navy, and Ben Drummer. All three men were asleep in their bunks.”

“It doesn't necessarily follow that any one of them killed Munk,” Pitt said. “What was the reasoning? You don't just kill someone in an unescapable situation twelve thousand feet under the sea without one hell of a motive.”

Woodson shrugged. “You'll have to call in Sherlock Holmes. I only know what I saw.”

Pitt continued to probe: “Munk could have twisted as he fell.”

“Not unless he had a rubber neck that could turn a hundred and eighty degrees backward.”

“Let's try another puzzler. How do you kill a two-hundred-pound man by knocking his head against a metal corner that's only six inches off the floor? Swing him by the heels like a sledgehammer?”

Woodson threw out his hands in a helpless gesture. “Okay, so maybe I got carried away and began seeing homicidal maniacs where none exist. God knows, that wreck down there gets to you after a while. It's weird. There are times I could have sworn I even saw people walking the decks, leaning over the rails, and staring at us.” He yawned and it was evident that he was fighting to keep his eyes open.

Pitt made for the door and then turned. “You better get some sleep. We'll go over this later.”

Woodson needed no further urging. He was peacefully gone to the world before Pitt was halfway to the sick bay.

 

Dr. Cornelius Bailey was an elephant of a man, broad-shouldered, and had a thrusting, square-jawed face. His sandy hair was down to his collar and the beard on the great jaw was cut in an elegant Van Dyke. He was popular among the salvage crews and could outdrink any five of them when he felt in the mood to prove it. His hamlike hands turned Henry Munk's body over on the examining table as effortlessly as if it were a stick doll, which indeed it very nearly was, considering the advanced stage of rigor mortis.

“Poor Henry,” he said. “Thank God, he wasn't a family man. Healthy specimen. All I could do for him on his last examination was clean out a little wax from his ears.”

“What can you tell me about the cause of death?” Pitt asked.

“That's obvious,” Bailey said. “First, it was due to massive damage of the temporal lobe—”

“What do you mean by first?”

“Just that, my dear Pitt. This man was more or less killed twice. Look at this.” He pulled back Munk's shirt, exposing the nape of the neck. There was a large purplish bruise at the base of the skull. “The spinal cord just below the medulla oblongata has been crushed. Most likely by a blunt instrument of some kind.”

“Then Woodson was right; Munk
was
murdered.”

“Murdered, you say? Oh yes, of course, no doubt of it,” Bailey said calmly, as though homicide were an everyday shipboard occurrence.

“Then it would seem the killer struck Munk from behind and then rammed his head against the alternator housing to make it look like an accident.”

“That's a fair assumption.”

Pitt laid a hand on Bailey's shoulder. “I'd appreciate it if you kept your discovery quiet for a while, Doc.”

“Mum's the word; my lips are sealed and all that crap. Don't waste another thought on it. My report and testimony will be here when you need it.”

Pitt smiled at the doctor and left the sick bay. He made his way aft to where the
Sappho II
sat dripping salt water on the stern ramp, climbed up the hatch ladder, and dropped down inside. An instrument technician was checking the TV camera.

“How does it look?” Pitt asked.

“Nothing wrong with this baby,” the technician replied. “As soon as the structural crew checks out the hull, you can send her back down.”

“The sooner, the better,” Pitt said. He moved past the technician to the after end of the submersible. The gore from Munk's injuries had already been cleaned from the deck and the corner of the alternator housing.

Pitt's mind was whirling. Only one thought broke away and uncoiled. Not a thought really, rather an unreasoning certainty that something would point an accusing finger toward Munk's murderer. He figured it would take him an hour or more, but the fates were kind. He found what he knew he must find within the first ten minutes.