The Memory of Eva Ryker (19 page)

No one spoke. There didn't seem to be adequate words. The bow of the ship crept past thirty feet below the port. A tangle of twisted steel from the crow's nest had smashed into the bridge, where Captain Smith had stood fifty years ago, watching his ship founder.

A teacup drifted by, stirred by our passing. Our floodlights poured down on the Boat Deck, revealing the lifeboat rigs. The four funnels had been torn away, but I saw two of them on the rocks, attached to their supporting cables.

Lovers once walked the surface of the Boat Deck—now all I saw were two lobsterlike prawns lazily skimming about, searching for prey.

The light in the distance grew stronger. The
Neptune
was cruising over the
Titanic
's, stern. I could imagine Burke frantically running through his bulk film magazine.

The
Marianas
moved over the exposed portside flanks of the ship. Porthole after porthole. A few with glass still in them. I remembered that the iceberg struck the ship on the starboard side; thus the three-hundred-foot gash in the hull remained hidden by the sand and rocks.

We inched our way over the Promenade Deck. I noticed the first evidence of Ryker's salvage operation. Long acetylene torch scars had cut into B Deck, burning away sea life and rust to expose bright shiny metal.

“Isn't this where you found the blank movie film?”

“That's right,” Toffler volunteered.

Moving toward the forepeak of the ship, I saw further torch marks around the bow, where freight had been stored.

“You're interested in the cargo hold, I suppose.”

Ryker didn't look away. “Many priceless items were lost aboard the
Titanic
. The passengers carted some very expensive trinkets. Many have decomposed by now. But other things remain for the taking. Automobiles lying down there in the hold, for example.” His canny eyes wrinkled around the edges. “How much would you pay for a restored Silver Ghost rescued from the
Titanic
after fifty years?”

“It sounds a little ghoulish to me.”

“Fortunately, others will not agree. I know human nature.”

The
Neptune
passed our starboard side. We skirted around her, resting over the
Titanic's
poop deck and elegant stern. A length of chain waved languidly in our wake.

For the first time in my life I suddenly knew why primitive people established taboo grounds. The
Titanic
smelled of death. I'd seen dozens of people killed before my eyes in the war, but I'd never felt such remorse as I did staring at this broken metal dinosaur lying gutted on the ocean bottom.

Ryker stared out the port with wide unblinking eyes. Ever since our meeting I felt that he was a possessed man—now I knew the cause. The dead ship provided a dreadful, obsessive image, and I could almost see it enter through his eyes to fester in his brain, stirring old memories and filling his waking and sleeping hours.

We swept past the
Titanic
's huge triple propellers, then turned to begin another pass of the ship. And another. And another.

Toffler finally brought the
Marianas
to a halt. “Our batteries are running low. I'm going to head for the surface.”

He adjusted the ballast controls and the
Titanic
slowly faded away in the darkness.

“Soon,” Toffler said, “we'll begin a thorough interior exploration of the ship. Sometimes I think of the keepsakes and mementos lying in the darkness all these years. Mail openers and loose change. The pillboxes of the old woman and the doll of the young girl. Things that meant so much and now mean nothing.”

I smiled at Toffler's unexpected poetic urge, but Ryker paid no mind.

“There's something else down in that ship.” He kept staring down even as the
Titanic
vanished. “My wife.”

I leaned comfortably back in the rear seat of the Bell chopper and watched the
Savonarola
dwindle beneath me.

“Mr. MacKendrick,” I asked, “did you have any trouble refueling?”

“Not at all. A very cooperative crew.”

“Anything unusual to report?”

“Not really.” He absently ran his fingers through his hair. “I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Hall, but the whole operation looked aboveboard to me.”

“What do you think?” I asked Burke.

“About the
Savonarola?
” He shrugged. “Except for our tail on board ship, I didn't see anything suspicious. But what can I say? If Ryker had something to hide, he'd be damn sure you wouldn't stumble across it.”

“Not intentionally, anyway.” I rubbed my chin, realizing I needed a shave. “But one thing Ryker couldn't cover up. That ship on the ocean floor. The
Marianas
and
Neptune
have been tearing the
Titanic
apart and they're going about it in a very strange manner. No one has ever given a plausible reason why they started exploration on B Deck portside.”

“Isn't that where the roll of film was recovered?” Burke asked.

“That's right.” I gazed out the window for a last glimpse of the
Titanic
's burial ground. “And it's also where Albert and Martha Klein spent their honeymoon.”

Five hours later the helicopter passed over the outskirts of Dartmouth.

“Almost home, gentlemen,” MacKendrick grinned. “And don't think it hasn't been a pleasure.”

He swung the copter in a wide arc across Halifax harbor, taking us over the path of the departing RCMP ship
Alberta
. The captain hooted three times in greeting.

“Everyone get his gear together. We'll be landing in a couple of minutes.”

I peered over MacKendrick's shoulder, trying to spot the helipad amid the jumble of waterfront buildings, but was distracted as he tapped the tachometer in irritation.

“Hell of a time for the thing to go haywire.”

My nose stung with an acrid odor.

Burke smelled it, too. “What in God's name …”

Smoke drifted from under the instrument panel. MacKendrick swore, tugging at his seat belt.

“Quick!” He pointed at the fire extinguisher. “Over here!”

Gripping the extinguisher in both hands, I passed it to MacKendrick. The image of my fingers clamped around the metal cannister was stamped on my retina as blue sparks strobe-flashed from the instruments.

The roar of a million igniting gas burners. Black clouds filled the cockpit.

Hands and arms scrambling around me. High screams through smoke.

Blistering faces. Flaming hair. A stench of burned plastic and roast meat.

Thrashing rotor blades. Hitting the roof, the floor, the roof. Fire licking my face.

A life preserver in my hands. A door handle burning my palm. Falling—metal hunks following me. A rush of blue. Freezing water down my lungs.

Then nothing. Nothing at all.

16

February 22, 1962

White. My eyes opened upon an infinite expanse of white.

Oh, God. I'm blind. My gaze moved down.

Still more white—the white of a sheet-covered bundle. My body stretched out before me on a bed.

Thick bandages covered both arms. Under the bedsheet my legs had a curiously bulky look, as if in a cast. I tried wiggling my toes but the sheet draping my feet didn't move.

“Nurse!” I heard myself shouting. “Nurse!”

A startled female face appeared at the white-painted door, vanished, then reappeared a few moments later with a man in tow.

“Mr. Hall, I'm Dr. Malle. I'm very glad to see you've regained consciousness. At least your vocal cords sound healthy.”

The doctor watched my eyes rove dazedly around the room. “I imagine you're curious to know where you are. This is the Burn Unit of Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.” He walked to the window. “You've been here nine days.”

I blinked densely at him.

“You're very lucky to be alive.” Dr. Malle ran his fingertips over the windowsill. “In fact, some of my colleagues are still debating the fact. By their reckoning, you shouldn't be. Second-degree burns on your legs, arms, shoulders, and chest. Half-drowned and exposed to near-freezing seawater. If it wasn't for a very competent medic aboard the Mountie ship that picked you up, you would be the concern of the mortuary down the street, not me.”

“My wife,” I asked quietly. “You've notified her?”

“She's waiting outside,” said the nurse.

Malle and the nurse checked the catheter bag by my bed and spirited away. Low voices muttered on the other side of the door, which then swung open as Jan entered the room.

Her hands were strangling the straps of her handbag and her eyes and nose were red. She looked wonderful.

“How do you feel?”

“Numb. How about yourself?”

She smiled feebly, dabbing at her eyes with a knotted handkerchief. “Damn it, I promised myself not to cry.”

Canting my head toward the end table, I said, “There's some Kleenex. Blow your nose.”

Jan grabbed a handful of tissues from the dispenser. “You must think I'm a silly ass. I've been very square-chinned until now.”

“I'll tell you what I think of you when I'm able to feel it.”

She dropped the tissues in the wastebasket and kissed me on the cheek. “You always were a horny bastard.”

I scowled at the heaped bouquets in the corner. “Who sent all these damn flowers?”

“Oh, you'd be surprised. Your folks. Your son. Your ex.”

Nodding dully, I pointed at a huge bunch of lilies planted in a silver tankard. “Not from you, I hope.”

“No. I know you can't stand them.” She read the accompanying card.

“Well?”

“‘Best wishes for your speedy recovery,'” she said softly. “It's from Ryker.”

My answering laugh was brittle. It brought back an unpleasant subject to mind.

“Jan, what happened to MacKendrick and Burke?”

She sat on the bed. “MacKendrick is dead, Norman.”

I swallowed hard. “And Burke?”

“He's in Intensive Care. Burke's been burned very badly.” She fumbled for the words. “They've had to … cut … I mean both his legs are gone. And his right arm.”

Her teeth chattered in a strange little titter. “Doctors can do wonders these days. Burke can be fed through tubes, with the latest machines to suck the waste away. Why, he could live for years.”

Slowly I let air hiss through my teeth. “I want to see him.”

“Later, Norman. When you're stronger.”

I painfully pulled the sheet snug under my chin. “Did the police recover any remains of the copter?”

“That's what I understand. A Captain Lincoln cornered me here this morning. He wants you to appear at the inquest on the crash as soon as possible.”

Police inquest. I felt a tightening in my throat. Of course, I wouldn't be on trial this time, not in any sense, but the very words hit me like an ancient curse.

Jan read my mind. “Captain Lincoln promised me everything would be kept low-key.”

“A pious hope, my dear. Unfortunately, the whole story has the making of a press circus.”

Silence. Her hand kept stroking my hair.

“Something's on your mind, Janice. Are you going to come out with it, or do I have to play guessing games?”

“Oh, Norman, don't …”

“Right now you're planning strategy once I leave this place. If you had your druthers, I would hand my resignation to Geoffrey and retire to a cottage by the seashore, writing Harlequin Romances until age ninety-five.”

Jan laughed grudgingly. “You're making the last part up. Romance was never your strong suit.”

“We'd collaborate.”

“No, Norman.” She patted my shoulder. “We'll have to thrash this out, but not here and not now. At the proper time and place I'm prepared to pull my hair, scream, and throw dishes. You will set your jaw and gird your loins and nothing will change.” A lingering kiss before she stood. “In the meantime, get some sleep.”

OTTAWA
(
UPI
) After an exhaustive investigation spanning two weeks, the inquiry into the loss of the Halifax Air Charter Company's Bell helicopter, which killed one man and injured two, adjourned today, no closer to a verdict than when the inquest began.

“We were faced with conflicting evidence,” explained Chief Investigation Officer Glenn Lincoln, “which seemed, and still seems, very inconclusive. The Board of Inquiry simply didn't have enough material on which to base a satisfactory verdict.”

The helicopter was returning to Halifax after visiting William Ryker's research ship, Savonarola, on what was described as a “journalistic mission” by Geoffrey Proctor, Chairman of the Board of Proctor-World Publishing. Mr. Proctor was the employer of both Norman Hall and Burke Sheffield, who were injured in the crash.

The board heard today from Hall, who related how a fire broke out on board the copter, engulfing the cockpit in seconds.

“The details are all very jumbled,” he stated, “but the fire was definitely sudden, almost explosive.”

Hall went on to testify that the position of pilot Ralph MacKendrick may have cost him his life.

“Both MacKendrick and Mr. Sheffield were sitting in the front seats, directly behind the controls. Since the fire seems to have started under the instruments, they had very little time to escape.”

Only scattered pieces of the helicopter have been found by recovery teams. No evidence was found as to the cause of the explosion.

Simon Harriman, representative of the Bell Corporation, testified before the board that no design fault in the copter could conceivably cause an explosion such as Hall described.

“Things such as fuel lines and electrical circuits are protected by insulators. I don't see any way for this particular explosion to be considered an accident.”

However, police investigation can find no direct indication of sabotage.