THE BLACK ABYSS

September 1987

The forbidding beauty of pure, absolute black pressed against the viewport and blotted out all touch with earthly reality. The total absence of light, Albert Giordino judged, took only a few minutes to shift the human mind into a state of confused disorder. He had the impression of falling from a vast height with his eyes closed on a moonless night; falling through an immense black void without the tiniest fragment of sensation.

Finally, a bead of sweat trickled over his brow and dropped into his left eye, stinging it. He shook off the spell, wiped a sleeve across his face, and gently eased a hand over the control panel immediately in front of him, touching the various and familiar protrusions until his probing fingers reached their goal. Then he flicked the switch upward.

The lights attached to the hull of the deep-sea submersible flashed on and cut a brilliant swath through the eternal night. Although the narrow sides of the beam abruptly turned a blackish-blue, the tiny organisms floating past the direct glare reflected the light for several feet above and below the area around the viewport. Turning his face so as not to fog the thick Plexiglas, Giordino expelled a heavy sigh and then leaned back against the soft padding of the pilot's chair. It was nearly a full minute before he bent over the control console and began bringing the silent craft to life again. He studied the rows of dials until the wavering needles were calibrated to his satisfaction, and he scanned the circuit lights, making certain they all blinked out their green message of safe operation before he re-engaged the electrical systems of the Sappho I.

He swung the chair and gazed idly down the center passageway toward the stern. It might have been the newest and largest research submersible in the world to the National Underwater and Marine Agency, but, to Al Giordino, the first time he set eyes on it, the general design looked like a giant cigar on an ice skate.

The Sappho I wasn't built to compete with military submarines. She was functional. Scientific survey of the ocean bottom was her game, and her every square inch was utilized to accommodate a seven-man crew and two tons of oceanographic research instruments and equipment. The Sappho I would never fire a missile or cut through the sea at seventy knots, but then she could operate where no other submarine had ever dared to go 24,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Yet Giordino was never totally at ease. He checked the depth gauge, wincing at the reading of almost 12,500 feet. The pressure of the sea increases at the rate of fifteen pounds per square inch for every thirty feet. He winced again when his mental gymnastics gave him an approximate answer of nearly 6200

pounds per square inch, the pressure which at that moment was pushing against the red paint on the Sappho I's thick titanium skin.

"How about a cup of fresh sediment?"

Giordino looked up into the unsmiling face of Omar Woodson, the photographer on the mission. Woodson was carrying a steaming mug of coffee.

"The chief valve-and switch-pusher should have had his brew exactly five minutes ago," said Giordino.

"Sorry. Some idiot turned out the lights." Woodson handed him the mug.

"Everything check out?"

"Okay across the board," Giordino answered. "I gave the aft battery section a rest. We'll juice off the center section for the next eighteen hours."

"Lucky we didn't drift into a rock outcropping when we shut down."

"Surely you jest." Giordino slid down in his seat, squinted his eyes and yawned with effortless finesse. "Sonar hasn't picked out anything larger than a baseballsize rock in the last six hours. The bottom here is as flat as my girl friend's stomach."

"You mean chest," Woodson said. "I've seen her picture." Woodson was smiling, which was rare for him.

"Nobody's perfect," Giordino conceded. "However, considering the fact her father is a wealthy liquor distributor, I can overlook her bad points-" He broke off as Rudi Gunn, the commander of the mission, leaned into the pilot's compartment. He was short and thin, and his wide eyes, magnified by a pair of hornrimmed glasses, peered intently over a large Roman nose, giving him the look of an undernourished owl about to strike. Yet his appearance was deceiving. Rudi Gunn was warm and kind. Every man who ever served under his command respected him enormously.

"You two at it again?" Gunn smiled tolerantly.

Woodson looked solemn. "The same old problem. He's getting horny for his girl again."

"After fifty-one days on this drifting closet, even his grandmother would forgive the gleam in his eye." Gunn leaned over Giordino and gazed through the viewport. For a few seconds only a dim blue filled his eyes, then gradually, just below the Sappho I, he could make out the reddish ooze of the top layer of bottom sediment. For a brief moment a bright red shrimp, barely over an inch long, floated across the beam of the light before it vanished into the darkness.

"Damned shame we can't get out and walk around," Gunn said as he stepped back. "No telling what we might find out there."

"Same thing you'd find in the middle of the Mojave Desert," Giordino grunted.

"Absolutely zilch." He reached up and tapped a gauge. "Colder temperature though. I read a rousing thirty-four-point-eight degrees Fahrenheit."

"A great place to visit," Woodson said, "but you wouldn't want to spend your golden years there."

"Anything show on sonar?" Gunn asked.

Giordino nodded at a large green screen in the middle of the panel. The reflected pattern of the terrain was flat. "Nothing ahead or to the sides. The profile hasn't wavered for several hours."

Gunn wearily removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, gentlemen, our mission is as good as ended. We'll give it another ten hours, then we surface." Almost as a reflex action, he looked up at the overhead panel. "Is Mother still with us?"

Giordino nodded. "Mother is hanging in there."

He needed only to glance at the fluctuating needle on the transducer instrument to know that the mother ship, a surface support tender, was continuously tracking the Sappho I on sonar.

"Make contact," Gunn said, "and signal Mother that we'll begin our ascent at oh-nine hundred hours. That should leave them plenty of time to load us aboard and take the Sappho I in tow before sunset."

"I've almost forgotten what a sunset looks like," Woodson murmured. "It's off to the beach to recapture a suntan and ogle all those gorgeous bikini-clad honeys for Papa Woodson. No more of these deep-sea funny farms for me."

"Thank God, the end is in sight," Giordino said. "Another week cooped up in this overgrown wiener and I'll start talking to the potted plants." Woodson looked at him. "We don't have any potted plants."

"You get the picture."

Gunn smiled. "Everybody deserves a good rest. You men have put on a fine show. The data we've compiled should keep the lab boys busy for a long time." Giordino turned to Gunn, gave him a long look, and spoke slowly "This has been one hell of a weird mission, Rudi."

"I don't get your meaning," Gunn said.

"A poorly cast drama is what I mean. Take a good look at your crew." He gestured to the four men working in the aft section of the submersible-Ben Drummer, a lanky Southerner with a deep Alabama drawl; Rick Spencer, a short, blond-haired Californian who whistled constantly through clenched teeth; Sam Merker, as cosmopolitan and citified as a Wall Street broker; and Henry Munk, a quiet, droopy-eyed wit who clearly wished he were anywhere but on the Sappho I

"Those clowns aft, you, Woodson, and myself; we're all engineers, nuts-and-bolts mechanics. There isn't a Ph.D. in the lot."

"The first men on the moon weren't intellectuals, either," Gunn countered. "It takes the nuts-and-bolts mechanics to perfect the equipment. You guys have proven the Sappho I; you've demonstrated her capabilities. Let the next ride go to the oceanographers. As for us, this mission will go down in the books as a great scientific achievement."

"I am not," Giordino declared pontifically, "cut out to be a hero."

"Neither am I, pal," Woodson added. "But you've got to admit it beats hell out of selling life insurance."

"The drama of it all escapes him," Gunn said. "Think of the stories you can tell your girl friends. Think of the enraptured looks on their pretty faces when you tell them how you unerringly piloted the greatest undersea probe of the century."

"Unerringly?" Giordino said. "Then suppose you tell me why I'm running this scientific marvel around in circles five hundred miles off our scheduled course?" Gunn shrugged. "Orders."

Giordino stared at him. "We're supposed to be under the Labrador Sea. Instead, Admiral Sandecker changes our course at the last minute and makes us chase all over the abyssal plains below the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It doesn't make sense."

Gunn smiled a sphinxlike smile. For several moments none of the men spoke, but Gunn didn't require a concentrated dose of ESP to know the questions that were running through their minds. They were, he was certain, thinking what he was thinking. Like himself, they were three months back in time and two thousand miles in distance at the headquarters of the National Underwater and Marine Agency in Washington, D.C., where Admiral James Sandecker, chief director of the agency, was describing the most incredible undersea operation of the decade.

"God damn," Admiral Sandecker had thundered. "1'd give up a year's salary if I could join you men."

A figure of speech, Giordino reflected. Next to Sandecker, Ebenezer Scrooge spent money like a drunken sailor. Giordino relaxed in a deep leather sofa and tuned into the admiral's briefing, while idly blowing smoke rings between puffs on a giant cigar, lifted from a box on Sandecker's immense desk when everyone's attention was focused on a wall map of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Well, there she is." Sandecker rapped the pointer loudly on the map for the second time. "The Lorelei Current. She's born off the western tip of Africa, follows the mid-Atlantic ridge north, then curves easterly between Baffin Island and Greenland, and then dies in the Labrador Sea."

Giordino said "I don't hold a degree in oceanography, Admiral, but it would seem that the Lorelei converges with the Gulf Stream."

"Not hardly. The Gulf Stream is surface water. The Lorelei is the coldest, heaviest water in the world's oceans, averaging fourteen thousand feet in depth."

"Then the Lorelei crosses under the Gulf Stream," Spencer said softly. It was the first time in the briefing he had spoken.

"That seems reasonable." Sandecker paused, smiled benevolently, then continued "The ocean is basically made up of two layers-a surface or upper layer, heated by the sun and thoroughly churned by winds, and a cold, very dense layer consisting of intermediate, deep and bottom water. And the two never mix."

"Sounds very dull and forbidding," Munk said. "The mere fact that some character with a black sense of humor named the current after a Rhine nymph who lured sailors onto the rocks makes it the last place I'd want to visit." A grim smile crawled slowly over Sandecker's griffin face. "Get used to the name, gentlemen, because deep in the Lorelei's gut is where we're going to spend fifty days. Where you're going to spend fifty days."

"Doing what?" Woodson asked defiantly.

"The Lorelei Current Drift Expedition is exactly what it sounds like. You men will descend in a deepwater submersible five hundred miles northwest of the coast of Dakar and begin a submerged cruise in the current. Your main job will be to monitor and test the sub and its equipment. If there are no malfunctions that would necessitate cutting short the mission, you should surface around the middle of September in the approximate center of the Labrador Sea." Merker cleared his throat softly. "No submersible has stayed that long that deep."

"You want to back out, Sam?"

"Well . . . no."

"This is a volunteer expedition. Nobody is twisting your arm to go."

"Why us, Admiral?" Ben Drummer uncoiled his lean frame from the floor where he had been comfortably stretched. "Ah'm a marine engineer. Spencer here is an equipment engineer. And Merker is a systems expert. Ah can't see where we fit in."

"You're all professionals in your respective capacities. Woodson is also a photographer. The Sappho I will be carrying a number of photographic systems. Munk is the best instrument-component man in the agency. And, you'll all be under the command of Rudi Gunn, who has captained, at one time or another, every research ship in NUMA."

"That leaves me," Giordino said.

Sandecker glared at the cigar jutting from Giordino's mouth, recognized it as one from his private brand, and gave him a withering look that was completely ignored. "As assistant projects director for the agency, you'll be in overall charge of the mission. You can also make yourself useful by piloting the craft." Giordino smiled devilishly and stared back. "My pilot's license authorizes me to fly airplanes not submarines."

The admiral stiffened ever so slightly. "You'll just have to trust my judgment, won't you?" Sandecker said coldly. "Besides, what matters most is that you're the best crew I've got on hand at the moment. You all worked together on the Beaufort Sea Expedition. You are men with heavy experience and records of ability and ingenuity. You can operate every instrument, every piece of oceanographic equipment yet invented-we'll let the scientists analyze the data you bring back-and, as I mentioned, naturally you're all volunteers."

"Naturally," Giordino echoed, his face deadpan.

Sandecker went back behind his desk. "You will assemble and begin procedure training at our Key West port facility the day after tomorrow. The Pelholme Aircraft Company has already run extensive diving tests on the submersible, so you need only concern yourselves with familiarization of the equipment and instruction on the experiments you'll conduct during the expedition."

Spencer whistled through his teeth. "An aircraft company? Holy God, what do they know about designing a deep-sea submersible?"

"For your peace of mind," Sandecker said patiently, "Pelholme turned its aerospace technology toward the sea ten years ago. Since then, they've constructed four underwater environmental laboratories and two extremely successful submersibles for the Navy."

"They'd best have built this one good," Merker said. "I'd be most distressed to find that it leaked at fourteen thousand feet."

"Scared shitless, you mean," Giordino mumbled.

Murk rubbed his eyes, then stared at the floor, as though he saw the bottom of the sea in the carpet. When he spoke, his words came very slowly "Is this trip really necessary, Admiral?"

Sandecker nodded solemnly. "It is. Oceanographers need a picture of the structure of the Lorelei's flow pattern to improve their knowledge of deep-ocean circulation. Believe me, this mission is as important as the first manned orbit around the earth. Besides testing the world's most advanced submersible, you'll be visually recording and mapping an area never before seen by man. Forget your doubts. The Sappho I has every safety feature built into her hull that science can devise. You have my personal guarantee of a safe and comfortable voyage." That's easy for him to say, Giordino thought idly. He won't be there. Henry Munk shifted his muscular frame to a different position on a long vinyl pad, stifled a yawn, and continued to stare out the Sappho I's aft viewport. The flat, unending sediment was about as interesting as a book without printed pages, but Munk took delight in the knowledge that every tiny mound, every rock or occasional denizen of the deep that passed beneath the thick Plexiglas had never before been seen by man. It was a small but satisfying reward for the long, boring hours he'd spent scanning an array of detection instruments mounted on both sides above the pad.

Reluctantly, he forced his eyes from the viewport and focused them on the instruments: the S-T-SV-D sensor had been operating constantly during the mission, measuring the outside salinity, temperature, sound velocity, and depth pressure on a magnetic tape; the sub-bottom profiler that acoustically determined the depth of the top sediments and provided indications of the underlying structure of the sea floor's surface; the gravimeter that ticked off the gravity readings every quarter mile; the current sensor that kept its sensitive eye on the speed of the Lorelei Current and direction; and the magnetometer, a sensor for measuring and recording the bottom's magnetic field, including any deviations caused by localized metal deposits.

Munk almost missed it. The movement of the stylus on the magnetometer's graph was so slight, barely a tiny millimeter of a squibble, that he would have missed it completely if his eyes hadn't locked on the recording mark at exactly the right moment. Quickly, he threw his face against the viewport and peered at the sea floor. Then he turned and yelled at Giordino, who sat at the pilot's console only ten feet away. "All stop!"

Giordino spun around and stared aft. All he could see were Munk's legs; the rest of him was buried among the instruments. "What do you read?"

"We just passed over something that's metallic. Back her up for a closer look."

"Easing her back," Giordino said loudly so Munk could hear. He engaged the two motors mounted on each side of the hull amidships, and set them at half-speed in reverse. For ten seconds, the Sappho I caught in the two-knot force of the current hung suspended, reluctant to move on her own. Then she began to forge backward very slowly against the relentless flow. Gunn and the others crowded around Munk's instrument tunnel.

"Make out anything?" Gunn asked.

"Not sure," Munk answered. "There's something sticking up from the sediment about twenty yards astern. I can only see a vague shape under the stern lights." Everyone waited.

It seemed an eternity before Munk spoke again "Okay, I've got it." Gunn turned to Woodson. "Activate the two stereo bottom cameras and strobes. We should have this on film."

Woodson nodded and moved off toward his equipment.

"Can you describe it?" Spencer asked.

"It looks like a funnel sticking upright in the ooze." Munk's voice came through the instrument tunnel disembodied, but even the reverberated tone could not disguise the excitement behind it.

Gunn's expression went skeptical. "Funnel?"

Drummer leaned over Gunn's shoulder. "What kind of funnel?"

"A funnel with a hollow cone tapering to a point that you pour stuff through, you dumb rebel," Munk replied irritably. "It's passing under the starboard hull now. Tell Giordino to hold the boat stationary the second it appears under the bow viewports."

Gunn stepped over to Giordino. "Can you hold our position?"

"I'll give it a go, but if the current starts swinging us broadside, I won't be able to keep precise control and we'll lose visual contact with whatever that thing is out there."

Gunn moved to the bow and lay down on the rubber-sheathed floor. He stared out of one of the four forward viewports together with Merker and Spencer. They all saw the object almost immediately. It was as Munk had described it simply an inverted bell-shaped funnel about five inches in diameter, its tip protruding from the bottom sediment. Surprisingly, its condition was good. The exterior surface of the metal was tarnished, to be sure, but it appeared to be sound and solid, with no indication of flaking or heavy rust layers.

"Holding steady," Giordino said, "but I can't guarantee for how long." Without turning from the viewport, Gunn motioned to Woodson, who was bent over a pair of cameras, zooming their lenses toward the object on the sea floor.

"Omar?"

"Focused and shooting."

Merker twisted around and looked at Gunn. "Let's make a grab for it." Gunn remained silent, his nose almost touching the port. He seemed lost in concentration.

Merker's eyes narrowed questioningly. "What about it, Rudi? I say let's grab it." The words finally penetrated Gunn's thoughts. "Yes, yes, by all means," he mumbled vaguely.

Merker unhooked a metal box that was attached to the forward bulkhead by a five-foot cable and positioned himself at the center viewport. The box contained a series of toggle switches that surrounded a small circular knob. It was the control unit for the manipulator, a four-hundred-pound mechanical arm that hung grotesquely from the lower bow of the Sappho I.

Merker pushed a switch that activated the arm. Then he deftly moved his fingers over the controls as the mechanism hummed and the arm extended to its full seven-foot reach. It was eight inches shy of the funnel in the sediment outside.

"I need another foot," Merker said.

"Get ready," Giordino replied. "The forward movement may break my position." The funnel seemed to pass with agonizing slowness under the manipulator's stainless-steel claw. Merker gently eased the pincers over the lip of the funnel, and then he pressed another switch and they closed, but his timing was off; the current clutched the submersible and began swinging it broadside. The claw missed by no more than an inch and its pincers came together empty.

"She's breaking to port," Giordino yelled, "I can't hold her." Quickly, Merker's fingers danced over the control box. He would have to try for a second grab on the fly. If he missed again, it would be next to impossible to relocate the funnel under the limited visibility. Sweat began erupting on his brow, and his hands grew tense.

He bent the arm against its stop and turned the claw six degrees to starboard, compensating for the opposite swing of the Sappho. He flipped the switch again and the claw dropped, and the pincers closed in almost the same motion. The lip of the funnel rested between them.

Merker had it.

Now he eased the arm upward, gradually easing the funnel from its resting place in the sediment. The sweat was rolling into his eyes now, but he kept them open. There could be no hesitating one mistake and the object would be lost on the sea floor forever. Then the slimy ooze relinquished its hold and the funnel came free and rose up toward the viewports.

"My God!" Woodson whispered. "That's no funnel."

"It looks like a horn," Merker said.

Gunn shook his head. "It's a cornet."

"How can you be sure?" Giordino had left the pilot's console and was peering over Gunn's shoulder through the port.

"I played one in my high-school band."

The others recognized it now, too. They could readily make out the flaring mouth of the bell and behind it, the curved tubes leading to the valves and mouthpiece.

"Judging from the look of it," Merker said, "I'd say it was brass."

"That's why Munk's magnetometer barely picked it up on the graph," Giordino added. "The mouthpiece and the valve pistons are the only parts that contain iron."

"Ah wonder how long it's been down here?" Drummer asked no one in particular.

"It'd be more intriguing to know where it came from," said Merker.

"Obviously thrown overboard from a passing ship," Giordino said carelessly.

"Probably by some kid who hated music lessons."

"Maybe its owner is somewhere down here, too." Merker spoke without looking up.

Spencer shivered. "There's a chilling thought for you." The interior of the Sappho I fell silent.

The antique Ford trimotor aircraft, famed in aviation history as the Tin Goose, looked too awkward to fly, and yet she banked as gracefully and majestically as an albatross when she lined up for her final approach to the runway of the Washington National Airport.

Pitt eased back the three throttles and the old bird touched down with all the delicacy of an autumn leaf kissing high grass. He taxied over to one of the NUMA hangars at the north end of the airport, where his waiting maintenance crew chocked the wheels and made the routine throat cutting sign. Flipping off the ignition switches, he watched the silver-bladed propellers gradually slow their revolutions and come to rest, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Then he removed the headphones, draped them on the control column, undid the latch on his side window and pushed it open.

A bewildered frown slowly creased Pitt's forehead and hung there in the tanned, leathery skin. A man was standing on the asphalt below, frantically waving his hands.

"May I come aboard?" Gene Seagram shouted.

"I'll come down," Pitt yelled back.

"No, please stay where you are."

Pitt shrugged and leaned back in his seat. It took Seagram only a few seconds to climb aboard the trimotor and push open the cockpit door. He wore a stylish tan suit with vest, but his well-tailored appearance was diluted by a sea of wrinkles that creased the material, making it obvious that he hadn't seen a bed for at least twenty-four hours.

"Where did you ever find such a gorgeous old machine?" Seagram asked.

"I ran across it at Keflavik, Iceland," Pitt replied. "Managed to buy it at a fair price and have it shipped back to the States."

"She's a beauty."

Pitt motioned Seagram to the empty copilot's seat. "You sure you want to talk in here? In a few minutes the sun will make this cabin feel like the inside of an incinerator."

"What I have to say won't take long." Seagram eased into the seat and let out a long sigh.

Pitt studied him. He looked like a man who was unwilling and trapped . . . a proud man who had placed himself in an uncompromising position. Seagram did not face Pitt when he spoke, but stared nervously through the windshield. "I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing here," he said.

"The thought crossed my mind."

"I need your help."

That was it. No mention of the harsh words from the past. No preliminaries; only a straight-to-the-gut request.

Pitt's eyes narrowed. "For some strange reason I had the feeling that my company was about as welcome to you as a dose of syphilis."

"Your feelings, my feelings, they don't matter. What does matter is that your talents are in desperate demand by our government."

"Talents . . . desperate demand . . ." Pitt did not disguise his surprise "You're putting me on, Seagram."

"Believe me, I wish I was, but Admiral Sandecker assures me that you're the only man who stands a remote chance of pulling off a ticklish job."

"What Job?"

"Salvaging the Titanic. "

"Of course! Nothing like a salvage operation to break the monotony of-" Pitt broke off in mid-sentence; his deep green eyes widened and the blood rose to his face. "What ship did you say?" His voice came in a hoarse murmur this time. Seagram looked at him with an amused expression. "The Titanic. Surely you've heard of it?"

Perhaps ten seconds ticked by in utter silence while Pitt sat there stunned. Then he said, "Do you know what you're proposing?"

"Absolutely."

"It can't be done!" Pitt's expression was incredulous, his voice still the same hoarse murmur. "Even if it were technically possible, and it isn't, it would take hundreds of millions of dollars . . . and then there's the unending legal entanglement with the original owners and the insurance companies over salvage rights."

"There are over two hundred engineers and scientists working on the technical problems at this moment," Seagram explained. "Financing will be arranged through secret government funding. And as far as legal rights go, forget it. Under international law, once a vessel is lost with no hope of recovery, it becomes fair game for anybody who wishes to spend the money and effort on a salvage operation." He turned and stared out the windshield again. "You can't know, Pitt, how important this undertaking is. The Titanic represents much more than treasure or historic value. There is something deep within its cargo holds that is vital to the security of our nation."

"You'll forgive me if I say that sounds a bit farfetched."

"Perhaps, but underneath the flag-waving, the facts hold true." Pitt shook his head. "You're talking sheer fantasy. The Titanic lies in nearly two and a half miles of water. The pressure at those depths runs several thousand pounds to the square inch, Mr. Seagram; not square foot or square yard, but square inch. The difficulties and barriers are staggering. No one has ever seriously attempted to raise the Andrea Doria or the Lusitania from the bottom . .

. and they both lie only three hundred feet from the surface."

"If we can put men on the moon, we can bring the Titanic up to the sunlight again," Seagram argued.

"There's no comparison. It took a decade to set a four-ton capsule on lunar soil. Lifting forty-five thousand tons of steel is a different proposition. It may take months just to find her."

"The search is already under way."

"I heard nothing-"

"About a search effort?" Seagram finished. "Not likely that you should. Until the operation becomes unwieldy in terms of security, it will remain secret. Even your assistant special projects director, Albert Giordano-"

"Giordino."

"Yes, Giordino, thank you. He is at this very moment piloting a search probe across the Atlantic sea floor in total ignorance of his true mission."

"But the Lorelei Current Expedition . . . the Sappho I's original mission was to trace a deep ocean current."

"A timely coincidence. Admiral Sandecker was able to order the submersible into the area of the Titanic's last known position barely hours before the sub was scheduled to surface."

Pitt turned and stared at a jet airliner that was lifting from the airport's main runway. "Why me? What have I done to deserve an invitation to what has to be the biggest harebrained scheme of the century?"

"You are not simply to be a guest, my dear Pitt. You are to command the overall salvage operation."

Pitt regarded Seagram grimly. "The question still stands. Why me?"

"Not a selection that excites me, I assure you," Seagram said. "However, since the-National Underwater and Marine Agency is the nation's largest acknowledged authority on oceanographic science, and since the leading experts on deep-water salvage are members of their staff, and since you are the agency's Special Projects Director, you were elected."

"The fog begins to lift. It's a simple case of my being in the wrong occupation at the wrong time."

"Read it as you will," Seagram said wearily. "I must admit, I found your past record of bringing incredibly difficult projects to successful conclusions most impressive." He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. "Another factor that weighed heavily in your favor, I might add, is that you are considered somewhat of an expert on the Titanic. "

"Collecting and studying Titanic memorabilia is a hobby with me, nothing more. It hardly qualifies me to oversee her salvage."

"Nonetheless, Mr. Pitt, Admiral Sandecker tells me you are, to use his words, a genius at handling men and coordinating logistics." He gazed over at Pitt, his eyes uncertain. "Will you take the job?"

"You don't think I can pull it off, do you, Seagram?"

"Frankly, no. But when one dangles over the cliff by a thread, one has little say about who comes to the rescue."

A faint smile edged Pitt's lips. "Your faith in me is touching."

"Well?"

Pitt sat lost in thought for several moments. Finally, he gave an almost imperceptible nod and looked squarely into Seagram's eyes. "Okay, my friend, I'm your boy. But don't count your chickens until that rusty old hulk is moored to a New York dock. There isn't a betmaker in Las Vegas who'd waste a second computing odds on this crazy escapade. When we find the Titanic, if we find the Titanic, her hull nay be too far gone to raise. But then nothing is absolutely impossible, and though I can't begin to guess what it is that's so valuable to the government that warrants the effort, I'll try, Seagram. Beyond that, I promise nothing."

Pitt broke into a wide grin and climbed from the pilot's seat. "End of speech. Now then, let's get out of this hot box and find a nice cool air-conditioned cocktail lounge where you can buy me a drink. It's the least you can do after pulling off the con job of the year."

Seagram just sat there, too drained to do anything except shrug in helpless acquiescence.

At first John Vogel treated the cornet as simply another restoration job. There was no rarity suggested by its design. There was nothing exceptional about its construction that would excite a collector. At the moment it could excite nobody. The valves were corroded and frozen closed; the brass was discolored by an odd sort of accumulated grime; and a foul, fishlike odor emanated from the mud that clogged the interior of its tubes.

Vogel decided the cornet was beneath him; he would turn it over to one of his assistants for the restoration. The exotics, those were the instruments that Vogel loved to bring back to their original newness the ancient Chinese and Roman trumpets, with the long, straight tubes and the ear-piercing tones; the battered old horns of the early jazz greats; the instruments with a piece of history attached--these, Vogel would repair with the patience of a watchmaker, toiling with exacting craftsmanship until the piece gleamed like new and played brilliantly clear tones.

He wrapped the cornet in an old pillowcase and set it against the far wall of his office.

The Executone on his desk uttered a soft bong. "Yes, Mary, what is it?"

"Admiral James Sandecker of the National Underwater and Marine Agency is on the phone." His secretary's voice scratched over the intercom like fingernails over a blackboard. "He says it's urgent."

"Okay, put him on." Vogel lifted the telephone. "John Vogel here."

"Mr. Vogel, this is James Sandecker."

The fact that Sandecker had dialed his own call and didn't bluster behind his title impressed Vogel.

"Yes, Admiral, what can I do for you?"

"Have you received it yet?"

"Have I received what?"

"An old bugle."

"Ah, the cornet," Vogel said. "I found it on my desk this morning with no explanation. I assumed it was a donation to the museum."

"My apologies, Mr. Vogel. I should have forewarned you, but I was tied up." A straightforward excuse.

"How can I help you, Admiral?"

"I'd be grateful if you could study the thing and tell me what you know about it. Date of manufacture and so on."

"I'm flattered, sir. Why me?"

"As chief curator for the Washington Museum's Hall of Music, you seemed the logical choice. Also, a mutual friend said that the world lost another Harry James when you decided to become a scholar."

My God, Vogel thought, the President. Score another point for Sandecker. He knew the right people.

"That's debatable," Vogel said. "When would you like my report?"

"As soon as it's convenient for you."

Vogel smiled to himself. A polite request deserved extra effort. "The dipping process to remove the corrosion is what takes time. With luck, I should have something for you by tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Mr. Vogel," Sandecker said briskly. "I'm grateful."

"Is there any information concerning how or where you found the cornet that might help me?"

"I'd rather not say. My people would like your opinions entirely without prompting or direction on our part."

"You want to compare my findings with yours, is that it?" Sandecker's voice carried sharply through the earpiece. "We want you to confirm our hopes and expectations, Mr. Vogel, nothing more."

"I shall do my best, Admiral. Good-by."

"Good luck."

Vogel sat for several minutes staring at the pillowcase in the corner, his hand resting on the telephone. Then he pressed the Executone. "Mary, hold all calls for the rest of the day, and send out for a medium pizza with Canadian bacon and a half gallon of Gallo burgundy."

"You going to lock yourself in that musty old workshop again?" Mary's voice scratched back. ,

"Yes," Vogel sighed. "It's going to be a long day." First, Vogel took several photos of the cornet from different angles. Then he noted the dimensions, general condition of the visible parts, and the degree of tarnish and foreign matter that coated the surfaces, recording each observation in a large notebook. He regarded the cornet with an increased level of professional interest. It was a quality instrument; the brass was of good commercial grade, and the small bores of the bell and the valves told him that it was manufactured before 1930. He discovered that what he had thought to be corrosion was only a hard crust of mud that flaked away under light pressure from a rubber spoon.

Next, he soaked the instrument in diluted Calgon water softener, gently agitating the liquid and changing the tank every so often to drain away the dirt. By midnight, he had the cornet completely disassembled. Then he started the tedious job of swabbing the metal surfaces with a mild solution of chromic acid to bring out the shine of the brass. Slowly, after several rinsings, an intricate scroll pattern and several ornately scripted letters began to appear on the bell.

"By God!" Vogel blurted aloud. "A presentation model." He picked up a magnifying glass and studied the writing. When he set the glass down and reached for a telephone, his hands were trembling. At precisely eight o'clock, John Vogel was ushered into Sandecker's office on the top floor of the ten-story solarglassed building that housed the national headquarters of NUMA. His eyes were bloodshot and he made no effort to conceal a yawn.

Sandecker came out from behind his desk and shook Vogel's hand. The short, banty admiral had to lean backward and look up to meet the eyes of his visitor. Vogel was six foot five, a kindly faced man with puffs of unbrushed white hair edging a bald head. He gazed through brown Santa Claus eyes, and flashed a warm smile. His coat was neatly pressed, but his pants were rumpled and stained with a myriad of blotches below the knees. He smelled like a wino.

"Well," Sandecker greeted him. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine, Admiral." Vogel set a black trumpet case on the carpet.

"I'm sorry I appear so slovenly."

"I was going to say," Sandecker answered, "it seems you've had a difficult night."

"When one loves one's work, time and inconvenience have little meaning."

"True." Sandecker turned and nodded to a little gnomelike man who was standing in one corner of the office. "Mr. John Vogel, may I present Commander Rudi Gunn."

"Of course, Commander Gunn," Vogel said, smiling. "I was one of the many millions who followed your Lorelei Current Expedition every day in the newspapers. You're to be congratulated, Commander. It was a great achievement."

"Thank you," Gunn said.

Sandecker gestured to another man sitting on the couch. "And my Special Projects Director, Dirk Pitt."

Vogel nodded at the swarthy face that crinkled into a smile. "Mr. Pitt." Pitt rose and nodded back. "Mr. Vogel."

Vogel sat down and pulled out a battered old pipe. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Not at all." Sandecker lifted one of his Churchill cigars out of a humidor and held it up. "I'll join you."

Vogel puffed the bowl into life and then sat back and said, "Tell me, Admiral, was the cornet discovered on the bottom of the North Atlantic?"

"Yes, just south of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland." He stared at Vogel speculatively. "How did you guess that?"

"Elementary deduction."

"What can you tell us about it?"

"A considerable amount, actually. To begin with, it is a high-quality instrument, crafted for a professional musician."

"Then it's not likely it was owned by an amateur player?" Gunn said, remembering Giordino's words on the Sappho I.

"No," Vogel said flatly. "Not likely."

"Could you determine the time and place of manufacture?" Pitt asked.

"The approximate month was either October or November. The exact year was 1911. And it was manufactured by a very reputable and very fine old British firm by the name of Boosey-Hawkes."

There was respect written in Sandecker's eyes. "You've done a remarkable job, Mr. Vogel. Quite frankly, we doubted whether we would ever know the country of origin, much less the actual manufacturer."

"No investigative brilliance on my part, I assure you," Vogel said. "You see, the cornet was a presentation model"

"A presentation model?"

"Yes. Any metal product that takes a high degree of craftsmanship to construct, and is highly prized as a possession, is often engraved to commemorate an unusual event or outstanding service."

"A common practice among gunmakers," Pitt commented.

"And also creators of fine musical instruments. In this instance, it was presented to an employee by his company in recognition of his service. The presentation date, the manufacturer, the employee, and his company are all beautifully engraved on the cornet's bell."

"You can actually tell who owned it?" Gunn asked. "The engraving is readable?"

"Oh my, yes." Vogel bent down and opened the case. "Here, you can read it for yourself."

He set the cornet on Sandecker's desk. The three men stared at it silently for a long time-a gleaming instrument whose golden surface reflected the morning sun that was streaming in the window. The cornet looked brand-new. Every inch was buffed to a high shine and the intricate engraving of sea waves that curled around the tube and bell were as clear as the day they were etched. Sandecker gazed over the cornet at Vogel, his brows lifted in doubt.

"Mr. Vogel, I think you fail to see the seriousness of the situation. I don't care for jokes."

"I admit," Vogel snapped back, "that I fail to see the seriousness of the situation. What I do see is a moment of tremendous excitement. And believe me, Admiral, this is no joke. I have spent the best part of the last twenty-four hours restoring your discovery." He threw a bulky folder on the desk. "Here is my report, complete with photographs and my step-by-step observations during the restoration procedure. There are also envelopes containing the different types of residue and mud that I removed, and also the parts that I replaced. I overlooked nothing."

"I apologize," Sandecker said. "Yet it seems inconceivable that the instrument we sent you yesterday, and the instrument on the desk are one and the same." Sandecker paused and exchanged glances with Pitt. "You see, we . . ."

". . . thought the cornet had rested on the sea bottom for a long time," Vogel finished the sentence. "I'm fully aware of what you're driving at, Admiral. And I confess I'm at a loss as to the instrument's remarkable condition, too. I've worked on any number of musical instruments which have been immersed in salt water for only three to five years that were in far worse shape than this one. I'm not an oceanographer so the solution to the puzzle eludes me. However, I can tell you to the day how long that cornet has been beneath the sea and how it came to be there."

Vogel reached over and picked up the horn. Then he slipped on a pair of rimless glasses and began reading aloud. " `Presented to Graham Farley in sincere appreciation for distinguished performance in the entertainment of our passengers by the grateful management of the White Star Line."' Vogel removed his glasses and smiled benignly at Sandecker. "When I discovered the words White Star Line, I got a friend out of bed early this morning to do a bit of research at the Naval Archives. He called only a half hour before I left for your office." Vogel paused to remove a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. "It seems Graham Farley was a very popular fellow throughout the White Star Line. He was solo cornetist for three years on one of their vessels . . . I believe it was called the Oceanic. When the company's newest luxury liner was about to set sail on her maiden voyage, the management selected the outstanding musicians from their other passenger ships and formed what was considered at the time the finest orchestra on the seas. Graham, of course, was one of the first musicians chosen. Yes, gentlemen, this cornet has rested under the Atlantic Ocean for a very long time . . . because Graham Farley was playing it on the morning of April 15, 1912, when the waves closed over him and the Titanic. " The reactions to Vogel's sudden revelation were mixed. Sandecker's face turned half-somber, half-speculative; Gunn's went rigid; while Pitt's expression was one of casual interest. The silence in the room became intense as Vogel stuffed his glasses back in a breast pocket.

" 'Titanic. "' Sandecker repeated the word slowly, like a man savoring a beautiful woman's name. He gazed penetratingly at Vogel, wonder mingled with doubt still mirrored in his eyes. "It's incredible."

"A fact nonetheless," Vogel said casually. "I take it, Commander Gunn, that the cornet was discovered by the Sappho I?"

"Yes, near the end of the voyage."

"It would appear that your undersea expedition stumbled on a bonus. A pity you didn't run onto the ship herself."

"Yes, a pity," Gunn said, avoiding Vogel's eyes.

"I'm still at a loss as to the instrument's condition," Sandecker said. "I hardly expected a relic sunk in the sea for seventy-five years to come up looking little the worse for wear."

"The lack of corrosion does pose an interesting question," Vogel replied. "The brass most certainly would weather well, but, strangely, the parts containing ferrous metals survived in a remarkable virgin state. The original mouthpiece, as you can see, is near-perfect."

Gunn was staring at the cornet as if it was the Holy Grail. "Will it still play?"

"Yes," Vogel answered. "Quite beautifully, I should think."

"You haven't tried it?"

"No . . . I have not." Vogel ran his fingers reverently over the cornet's valves.

"Up to now, I have always tested every brass instrument my assistants and I have restored for its brilliance of tone. This time I cannot."

"I don't understand," Sandecker said.

"This instrument is a reminder of a small, but courageous act performed during the worst sea tragedy in man's history," Vogel replied. "It takes very little imagination to envision Graham Farley and his fellow musicians while they soothed the frightened ship's passengers with music, sacrificing all thought of their own safety, as the Titanic settled into the cold sea. The cornet's last melody came from the lips of a very brave man. I feel it would border on the sacrilegious for anyone else ever to play it again."

Sandecker stared at Vogel, examining every feature of the old man's face as if he were seeing it for the first time.

" Àutumn,"' Vogel was murmuring, almost rambling to himself. " Àutumn,' an old hymn. That was the last melody Graham Farley played on his cornet."

"Not `Nearer My God to Thee'?'' Gunn spoke slowly.

"A myth," said Pitt. " Àutumn' was the final tune that was heard from the Titanic's band just before the end."

"You seem to have made a study of the Titanic," Vogel said.

"The ship and her tragic fate is like a contagious disease," Pitt replied. "Once you become interested, the fever is tough to break."

"The ship itself holds little attraction for me. But as a historian of musicians and their instruments, the saga of the Titanic's band has always gripped my imagination." Vogel set the cornet in the case, closed the lid, and passed it across the desk to Sandecker. "Unless you have more questions, Admiral, I'd like to grab a fattening breakfast and fall into bed. It was a difficult night." Sandecker stood. "We're in your debt, Mr. Vogel."

"I was hoping you might say that," the Santa Claus eyes twinkled slyly. "There is a way you can repay me."

"Which is?"

"Donate the cornet to the Washington Museum. It would be the prize exhibit of our Hall of Music."

"As soon as our lab people have studied the instrument and your report, I'll send it over to you."

"On behalf of the museum's directors, I thank you."

"Not as a gift donation, however."

Vogel stared uncertainly at the Admiral.

"I don't follow."

Sandecker smiled. "Let's call it a permanent loan. That will save hassle in case we ever have to borrow it back temporarily."

"Agreed."

"One more thing," Sandecker said. "Nothing has been mentioned to the press about the discovery. I'd appreciate it if you went along with us for the time being."

"I don't understand your motives, but of course I'll comply." The towering curator bid his farewells and departed.

"Damn!" Gunn blurted out a second after the door closed. "We must have passed within spitting distance of the Titanic's hulk."

"You were certainly in the ball park," Pitt agreed. "The Sappho's sonar probed a radius of two hundred yards. The Titanic must have rested just outside the fringe of your range."

"If only we'd had more time. If only we'd known what in hell we were looking for."

"You forget," Sandecker said, "that testing the Sappho I and conducting experiments on the Lorelei Current were your primary objectives, and on that you and your crew did one hell of a job. Oceanographers will be sifting the data you brought back on deepwater currents for the next two years. My only regret is that we couldn't let you in on what we were up to, but Gene Seagram and his security people insist that we keep a tight lid on any information regarding the Titanic until we're far along on the salvage operation."

"We won't be able to keep it quiet for long," Pitt said. "All the news media in the world will soon smell a story on the greatest historical find since the opening of King Tut's tomb."

Sandecker rose from behind his desk and walked over to the window. When he spoke, his words came very softly, sounding almost as if they were carried over a great distance by the wind. "Graham Farley's cornet."

"Sir?"

"Graham Farley's cornet," Sandecker repeated wistfully. "If that old horn is any indication, the Titanic may be sitting down there in the black abyss as pretty and preserved as the night she sank."

To a chance observer standing on the shore or to anyone out for a leisurely cruise up the Rappahannock River, the three men slouched in a dilapidated old rowboat looked like a trio of ordinary weekend fishermen. They were dressed in faded shirts and dungarees, and sported hats festooned with the usual variety of hooks and flies. It was a typical scene, down to the sixpack of beer trapped in a fishnet dangling in the water beside the boat.

The shortest of the three, a red-haired, pinched-faced man, lay against the stern and seemed to be dozing, his hands loosely gripped around a fishing pole that was attached to a red and white cork bobbing a bare two feet from the boat's waterline. The second man simply slouched over an open magazine, while the third fisherman sat upright and mechanically went through the motions of casting a silver lure. He was large; with a well-fed stomach that blossomed through his open shirt, and he gazed through lazy blue eyes set in a jovial round face. He was the perfect image of everyone's kindly old grandfather.

Admiral Joseph Kemper could afford to look kindly. When you wielded the almost incredible authority that he did, you didn't have to squint through hypnotic eyes or belch fire like a dragon. He looked down and offered a benevolent expression to the man who was dozing.

"It strikes me, Jim, that you're not deeply into the spirit of fishing."

"This has to be the most useless endeavor ever devised by man," Sandecker replied.

"And you, Mr. Seagram? You haven't dropped a hook since we anchored." Seagram peered at Kemper over the magazine. "If a fish could survive the pollution down there, Admiral, he'd have to look like a mutant out of a low-budget horror movie, and taste twice as bad."

"Since it was you gentlemen who invited me here," Kemper said, "I'm beginning to suspect a devious motive."

Sandecker neither agreed nor disagreed. "Just relax and enjoy the great outdoors, Joe. Forget for a few hours that you're the Navy's Chief of Staff."

"That's easy when you're around. You're the only one I know who talks down to me."

Sandecker grinned. "You can't go through life with the whole world kissing your ass. Simply look upon me as good therapy."

Kemper sighed. "I had hoped I'd gotten rid of you once and for all when you retired from the service. Now it seems you've come back to haunt me as a goddamned feather merchant."

"I understand they were dancing in the corridors of the Pentagon when I left."

"Let's just say there were no tears shed at your departure." Kemper slowly reeled his lure in. "Okay, Jim, I've known you too many years not to smell a squeeze play. What do you and Mr. Seagram have on your minds?"

"We're going after the Titanic, " Sandecker replied casually. Kemper went on reeling. "Indeed?"

"Indeed."

Kemper cast again. "What for? To take a few photographs for publicity's sake?"

"No, to raise her to the surface."

Kemper stopped reeling. He turned and stared at Sandecker. "You did say the Titanic?"

"I did."

"Jim, my boy, you've really slipped your moorings this time. If you expect me to believe-"

"This isn't a fairy, tale," Seagram interrupted. "The authority for the salvage operation comes straight from the White House."

Kemper's eyes studied Seagram's face. "Then am I to assume that you represent the President?"

"Yes, sir. That is correct."

Kemper said, "I must say you have a rather strange way of doing business, Mr. Seagram. If you will give me the courtesy of an explanation . . ."

"That's why we're here, Admiral, to explain."

Kemper turned to Sandecker. "Are you in the game too, Jim?" Sandecker nodded. "Let's just say that Mr. Seagram speaks softly and carries one hell of a big stick."

"Okay, Seagram, the podium is yours. Why the subterfuge and why the urgency to raise an old derelict?"

"First things first, Admiral. To begin with, I am head of a highly secret department of the government called Meta Section."

"Never heard of it," Kemper said.

"We are not listed in any journal on federal offices. Not even the CIA, the FBI, nor the NSA has any records of our operation."

"An undercover think-tank," Sandecker said curtly.

"We go beyond the ordinary think-tank," Seagram said. "Our people devise futuristic concepts and then attempt to construct them into successful functioning systems."

"That would cost millions of dollars," Kemper said.

"Modesty forbids me to mention the exact amount of our budget, Admiral, but ego compels me to admit that I have slightly over ten figures to play with."

"My Lord!" Kemper muttered under his breath. "Over a billion dollars to play with, you say. An organization of scientists that nobody knows exists. You stir my interest, Mr. Seagram."

"Mine too," Sandecker said acidly. "Up until now, you've sought NUMA's assistance through White House channels by passing yourself off as a Presidential aide. Why the Machiavellian Routine?"

"Because the President ordered strict security, Admiral, in the event of a leak to Capitol Hill. The last thing his administration needed was a congressional witch hunt into Meta Section's finances."

Kemper and Sandecker looked at each other and nodded. They looked at Seagram, waiting for the rest of it.

"Now then," he continued, "Meta Section has developed a defense system with the code name of the Sicilian Project . . ."

"The Sicilian Project?"

"We named it after a chess strategy known as the Sicilian Defense. The project is devised around a variant of the maser principle. For example, if we push a sound wave of a certain frequency through a medium containing excited atoms, we can then stimulate the sound to an extremely high state of emission."

"Similar to a laser beam," Kemper commented.

"To some degree," Seagram answered. "Except a laser emits a narrow beam of light energy, while our device emits a broad, fanlike field of sound waves."

"Besides breaking a bevy of eardrums," Sandecker said, "what purpose does it serve?"

"As you recall from your elementary-school studies, Admiral, sound waves spread in circular waves much like ripples in a pond after a pebble is dropped in it. In the instance of the Sicilian Project, we can multiply the sound waves a million times over. Then, when this tremendous energy is released, it spreads out into the atmosphere, pushing air particles ahead of its unleashed force, condensing them until they combine to form a solid, impenetrable wall hundreds of square miles in diameter." Seagram paused to scratch his nose. "I won't bore you with equations and technical details concerning the actual instrumentation. The particulars are too complicated to discuss here, but you can easily see the potential. Any enemy missile launched against America coming into contact with this invisible protective barrier would smash itself into oblivion long before it entered the target area."

"Is . . . is this system for real?" Kemper asked hesitantly.

"Yes, Admiral. I assure you it can work. Even now, the required number of installations to stop an all-out missile attack are under construction."

"Jesus!" Sandecker burst out. "The ultimate weapon."

"The Sicilian Project is not a weapon. It is purely a scientific method of protecting our country."

"It's hard to visualize," Kemper said.

"Just imagine a sonic boom from a jet aircraft amplified ten million times." Kemper seemed lost by it all. "But the sound-wouldn't it destroy everything on the ground?"

"No, the energy force is aimed into space and builds during its journey. To someone standing at sea level it would merely have the same harmless impact of distant thunder."

"What does all this have to do with the Titanic?"

"The element required to stimulate the optimum level of sound emission is byzanium, and therein lies the grabber, gentlemen, because the world's only known quantity of byzanium ore was shipped to the United States back in 1912

on board the Titanic. "

"I see." Kemper nodded. "Then salvaging the ship is your last-ditch attempt at making your defense system operational?"

"Byzanium's atomic structure is the only one that will work. By programming its known properties into our computers, we were able to project a thirty-thousandto-one ratio in favor of success."

"But why raise the entire ship?" Kemper asked. "Why not just tear out its bulkheads and bring up the byzanium."

"We'd have to blast our way into the cargo hold with explosives. The danger of destroying the ore forever is too great. The President and I agree that the added expense of raising the hull far outweighs the risk of losing it." Kemper tossed out his lure again. "You're a positive thinker, Seagram. I grant you that. But what makes you think the Titanic is in any condition to be brought up in one piece. After seventy-five years on the bottom, she may be nothing but an immense pile of rusty junk."

"My people have a theory on that," said Sandecker. He put his fishing pole aside, opened his tackle box and pulled out an envelope. "Take a look at these." He handed Kemper several four-by-five photographs.

"Looks like so much underwater trash," Kemper commented.

"Exactly," Sandecker answered. "Every so often the cameras on our submersibles stumble on debris tossed overboard from passing ships." He pointed to the top photo. "This is a galley stove found at four thousand feet off Bermuda. Next is an automobile engine block photographed at sixty-five hundred feet off the Aleutians. No way to date either of these. Now, here is a Grumman F4F World War II aircraft discovered at ten thousand feet, near Iceland. We dug up a record on this one. The plane was ditched in the sea without injury by a Lieutenant Strauss when he ran out of fuel on March 17, 1946." Kemper held out the next photo at arm's length. "What in hell is this thing?"

"That was taken at the moment of discovery by the Sappho I daring the Lorelei Current Expedition. What at first looked like an ordinary kitchen flannel turned out to be a horn." He showed Kemper a shot of the instrument taken after Vogel's restoration.

That's a cornet," Kemper corrected him. "You say the Sappho I brought this up?"

'Yes, from twelve thousand feet. It had been lying on the bottom since 1912." Kemper's eyebrows raised. "Are you going to tell me it came from the Titanic?"

"I can show you documented evidence."

Kemper sighed and handed the pictures back to Sandecker. His shoulders sagged, the weary, fatigued droop of a man no longer young, a man who had been carrying a heavy burden for too long a time. He pulled a beer from the fish net and popped the tab. "What does any of this prove?" Sandecker's mouth tightened into a slight grin. "It was right in front of us for two years-that's how long ago the aircraft was discovered-but we completely overlooked the possibilities. Oh sure, there were remarks about the plane's excellent condition, yet none of my oceanographers really grasped the significance. It wasn't until the Sappho I brought up the horn that the true implications came home."

"I'm not following you," Kemper said tonelessly.

"First of all," Sandecker continued, "ninety per cent of that F4F is made out of aluminum, and as you know, salt water eats the hell out of aluminum. Yet that plane, after sitting down there in the sea for over forty years, looks like the day it came out of the factory. Same with the horn. It's been underwater crowding eighty years, and it shined up like a newborn baby's ass."

"Have you any explanation?" Kemper asked.

"Two of NUMA's ablest oceanographers are now running data through our computers. The general theory at the moment is that it's a combination of factors the lack of damaging sea life at great depths, the low salinity or salt content of bottom water, the freezing temperatures of the deep, and a lower oxygen content that would slow down oxidation of metal. It could be any one or all of these factors that delays deterioration of deep-bottom wrecks. We'll know better if and when we get a look at the Titanic. "

Kemper thought for a moment. "What do you want from me?"

"Protection," Seagram answered. "If the Soviets get wind of what we're up to, they'll try everything short of war to stop us and grab the byzanium for themselves."

"Put your mind at rest on that score," Kemper said, his voice suddenly hard.

"The Russians will think twice before they bloody their noses on our side of the Atlantic. Your salvage operations on the Titanic will be protected, Mr. Seagram. You have my iron-clad guarantee on that."

A faint grin touched Sandecker's face. "While you're in a generous mood, Joe, what're the chances of borrowing the Modoc?"

"The Modoc?" Kemper repeated. "She's the finest deepwater salvage vessel the Navy's got."

"We could also use the crew that comes with her," Sandecker pushed on. Kemper rolled the beer can's cool surface across his sweating forehead.

"Okay, you've got yourselves the Modoc and her crew, plus whatever extra men and equipment you need.

Seagram sighed. "Thank you, Admiral. I'm grateful."

"You're straddling an interesting concept," Kemper said. "But one fraught with problems."

"Nothing comes easy," Seagram replied.

"What's your next step?"

Sandecker answered that one. "We send down television cameras to locate the hull and survey the damage."

"God only knows what you'll find-" Kemper stopped abruptly and pointed at Sandecker's jerking bobber. "By God, Jim, I believe you've caught a fish." Sandecker leaned lazily over the side of the boat. "So I have," he said smiling.

"Let's hope the Titanic is just as cooperative."

"I am afraid that that hope may prove to be an expensive incentive," Kemper said, and there was no answering smile on his lips.

Pitt closed Joshua Hays Brewster's journal and looked across the conference table at Mel Donner. "That's it then."

"The whole truth and nothing but the truth," Donner said.

"But wouldn't this byzanium, or whatever you call it, lose its properties after being immersed in the sea all these yew?"

Donner shook his head. "Who's to say? No one has ever had a sufficient quantity in their hands to know for sure how it reacts under any conditions."

"Then it may be worthless."

"Not if it's locked securely in the Titanic's vault. Our research indicates that the strong room is watertight."

Pitt leaned back and stared at the journal. "It's a hell of a gamble."

"We're aware of that."

"It's like asking a gang of kids to lift a Patton tank out of Lake Erie with a few ropes and a raft."

"We're aware of that," Donner repeated.

"The cost alone of raising the Titanic is beyond comprehension," Pitt said.

"Name a figure."

"Back in 1974 the CIA paid out over three hundred million dollars just to raise the bow of a Russian submarine. I couldn't begin to fathom what it would run to salvage a passenger liner that grosses forty-six thousand tons from twelve thousand feet of water."

"Take a guess then."

"Who bankrolls the operation?"

"Meta Section will handle the finances," Donner said. "Just look upon me as your friendly neighborhood banker. Let me know what you think it will take to get the salvage operation off the ground, and I'll see to it the funds are secretly transferred into NUMA's annual operating budget.

"Two hundred and fifty million ought to start the ball rolling."

"That's somewhat less than our estimates," Donner said casually. "I suggest that you not limit yourself. Just to be on the safe side, I'll arrange for you to receive an extra five."

"Five million?"

"No." Donner smiled. "Five hundred million." After the guard passed him out through the gate, Pitt pulled up at the side of the road and gazed back through the chain-link fence at the Smith Van and Storage Company. "I don't believe it," he said to no one. "I don't believe any of it." Then slowly, with much difficulty, as if he were fighting the commands of a hypnotist, Pitt dropped the shift lever into "Drive" and made his way back to the city.

It had been a particularly grueling day for the President. There were seemingly endless meetings with opposition party congressmen; meetings in which he had struggled, vainly in most cases, to persuade them to support his new bill for the modification of income-tax regulations. Then there had been a speech at the convention of near hostile state governors, followed later in the afternoon by a heated session with his aggressive, overbearing secretary of state. Now, just past ten o'clock, with one more unpleasant involvement to reckon with, he sat in an overstuffed chair holding a drink in his right hand while his left scratched the long ears of his sad-eyed basset hound.

Warren Nicholson, the director of the CIA, and Marshall Collies, his chief Kremlin security adviser, sat opposite him on a large sectional sofa. The President took a sip from the glass and then stared grimly at the two men.

"Do either of you have the vaguest notion of what you're asking of me?" Collins shrugged nervously. "Quite frankly, sir, we don't. But this is clearly a case of the end justifying the means. I personally think Nicholson here has one hell of a scheme going. The payoff in terms of secret information could be nothing less than astonishing."

"It will cost a heavy price," the President said.

Nicholson leaned forward. "Believe me, sir, the cost is worth it."

"That's easy for you to say," the President said. "Neither of you has the slightest hint as to what the Sicilian Project is all about." Collies nodded. "No argument there, Mr. President. Its secret is well kept. That's why it came as a shock when we discovered its existence through the KGB instead of our own security forces."

"How much do you think the Russians know?"

"We can't be absolutely certain at this point," Nicholson answered, "but the few facts we have in hand indicate the KGB possesses only the code name."

"Damn!" the President muttered angrily. "How could it have possibly leaked out?"

"I'd venture to guess that it was an accidental leak," Collies said. "My people in Moscow would smell something if Soviet intelligence analysts thought they were onto an ultrasecret American defense project."

The President looked at Collies. "What makes you sure it has to do with defense?"

"If security surrounding the Sicilian Project is as tight as you suggest, then a new military weapon emerges as the obvious theory. And there is no doubt in my mind that the Russians will soon come up with the same conclusion."

"I would have to go along with Collies' line of thinking," Nicholson concurred.

"All of which plays right into our hands."

"Go on."

"We feed Soviet Naval Intelligence data on the Sicilian Project in small doses. If they take the bait . . ." Nicholson's hands gestured like the closing of a trap, ". .

. then we literally own one of the Soviets' top intelligence-gathering services." Bored by the human talk, the President's basset hound stretched out and peacefully dozed off The President looked thoughtfully at the animal for several moments, weighing the odds. The decision was a painful one. He felt as though he was stabbing all his friends from Meta Section in the back.

"I'll have the man who is heading the project draw up an initial report," he said finally. "You, Nicholson, will tell me where and how you want it delivered so the Russians do not suspect the deception. You will go through me, and only me, for any further information concerning the Sicilian Project. Is that clear?" Nicholson nodded. "I will arrange the channels myself." The President seemed to wither and shrink into the chair. "I don't have to impress upon you gentlemen," he said wearily, "the sorry fact that if we're found out, we'll all be branded as traitors."

Sandecker leaned over a large, contoured map of the North Atlantic Ocean floor, his hand toying with a small pointer. He looked at Gunn, then at Pitt standing on the other side of the miniaturized seascape. "I can't understand it," he said after a moment's silence. "If that horn is any indication, the Titanic doesn't lie where she's supposed to."

Gunn took a felt-tipped pen and made a tiny mark on the map. "Her last reported position just before she sank was here, at 41°46'N-50°14'W."

"And you found the horn where?"

Gunn made another mark. "The exact position of the Sappho I's mother ship on the surface at the time we discovered Farley's cornet put us here, about six miles to the southeast."

"A six-mile discrepancy. How is that possible?"

"There was a conflict of evidence concerning the position of the Titanic when she went down," Pitt said. "The skipper of one of the rescue ships, the Mount Temple, put the liner much farther to the east, and his reading was based on a sun-sighting, far more accurate than the dead-reckoning position figured by the Titanic's fourth officer right after she struck the iceberg."

"But the ship that picked up the survivors, the Carpathia, I believe it was," Sandecker said, "steamed on a course toward the position given by the Titanic's wireless operator and came in direct contact with the lifeboats within four hours."

"There is some doubt that the Carpathia actually traveled as far as her captain assumed," Pitt replied. "If so, the sighting of the wreckage and the lifeboats could have occurred several miles southeast of the Titanic's wirelessed position." Sandecker idly tapped the pointer against the map railing. "This puts us between the devil and the deep blue sea, so to speak, gentlemen. Shall we conduct our search efforts in the exact area of 41°64'N-50°14'W? Or do we bet our money on Graham Farley's horn six miles to the southeast? If we lose, God only knows how many acres of Atlantic Ocean real estate we'll have to drag underwater television cameras over before we stumble on the wreck. What do you say, Rudi?"

Gunn did not hesitate. "Since our search pattern with the Sappho I failed in and around the Titanic's advertised position, I say we drop the TV cameras in the vicinity where we picked up Farley's cornet."

"And you, Dirk?"

Pitt was silent a few moments. Then he spoke, "My vote goes for a delay of forty-eight hours."

Sandecker stared across the map speculatively. "We can't afford one hour, much less forty-eight."

Pitt stared back at him. "I suggest that we skip the TV cameras and leapfrog to the next step."

"Which is?"

"We send down a manned submersible."

Sandecker shook his head. "No good. A TV camera sled towed by a surface vessel can cover five times the area in half the time it would take a slow-moving submersible."

"Not if we pinpoint the gravesite in advance."

Sandecker's expression darkened. "And how do you propose to pull off that minor miracle?"

"We gather every shred of knowledge concerning the Titanic's final hoursglean all records for speed, conflicting position reports, water currents, the angle she slid beneath the waves, throw in the cornet's resting place--everything, and program it through NUMA's computers. With luck, the readout data should point directly to the Titanic's front yard."

"It's the logical approach," Gunn admitted.

"In the meantime," Sandecker said, "we lose two days."

"We lose nothing, sir. We gain," Pitt said earnestly. "Admiral Kemper has loaned us the Modoc. She's docked at Norfolk right now, fitted out and ready to sail."

"Of course!" Gunn blurted. "The Sea Slug. "

"Precisely," Pitt replied. "The Sea Slug is the Navy's latest-model submersible, designed and constructed especially for deep-water salvage and rescue, and she's sitting on the Modoc's afterdeck. In two days, Rudi and I can have both vessels over the general area of the wreck, ready to begin the search operation." Sandecker rubbed the pointer across his chin. "And then, if the computers do their job, I feed you the corrected position of the wreck site. Is that the picture?"

"Yes, sir, that's the picture."

Sandecker moved away from the map and eased into a chair. Then he looked up into the determined faces of Pitt and Gunn. "Okay, gentlemen, it's your ball game."

Mel Donner leaned on the doorbell of Seagram's house in Chevy Chase and stifled a yawn.

Seagram opened the door and stepped out onto the front porch. They nodded silently without the usual early morning pleasantries and walked to the curb and Donner's car.

Seagram sat and gazed dully out the side window, his eyes ringed with dark circles. Donner slipped the car into gear.

"You look like Frankenstein's monster before he came alive," Donner said.

"How late did you work last night?"

"Actually came home early," Seagram replied. "Bad mistake; should have worked late. Simply gave Dana and me more time to fight. She's been so damned condescending lately, it drives me up the wall. I finally got pissed and locked myself in the study. Fell asleep at my desk. I ache in places I didn't know existed."

"Thank you," Donner said, smiling.

Seagram turned, puzzled. "Thank you for what?"

"For adding another brick under my determination to remain single." They were both silent while Dormer eased through Washington's rush-hour traffic.

"Gene," Dormer said at last, "I know this is a touchy subject; put me on your shit list if you will, but you're beginning to come across like a self-tortured cynic." There was no reaction from Seagram, so Dormer forged ahead. "Why don't you take a week or two off and take Dana to a quiet, sunny beach somewhere. Get away from Washington for a while. The defense-installation construction is going off without a hitch, and there's nothing we can do about the byzanium except sit back and pray that Sandecker's boys at NUMA salvage it from the Titanic."

"I'm needed now, more than ever," Seagram said flatly.

"You're only kidding yourself into an ego trip. At the moment, everything is out of our hands."

A grim smile touched Seagram's lips. "You're closer to the truth than you can imagine."

Donner glanced at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's out of our hands," Seagram repeated vacantly. "The President ordered me to leak the Sicilian Project to the Russians."

Dormer pulled over to the curb and looked at Seagram dumbfounded.

"My God, why?"

"Warren Nicholson over at CIA has convinced the President that by feeding bits of hard data on the project to the Russians, he can get control of one of their top intelligence networks."

"I don't believe a word of it," Donner said.

"It makes no difference what you believe," Seagram said brusquely.

"If what you say is true, what good will the Russians get out of bits and scraps? Without the necessary detailed equations and calculations, it would take them at least two years to put a workable theory on paper. And without byzanium, the whole concept is worthless."

"They could build a working system within thirty months if they get their hands on the byzanium first."

"Impossible. Admiral Kemper would never permit it. He'd send the Russians packing in a hurry if they tried to pirate the Titanic. "

"Suppose," Seagram murmured softly, "just suppose Kemper was ordered to lay back and do nothing."

Donner leaned over the wheel and rubbed his forehead in disbelief. "Are you asking me to believe the President of the United States is working with the Communists?"

Seagram shrugged wearily and said, "How can I ask you to believe anything when I don't know what to believe myself?"

Pavel Marganin, tall and authoritative in his white naval uniform, took a deep breath of the evening air and turned into the ornate lobby of the Borodino Restaurant. He gave his name to the maitre d' and followed him to Prevlov's customary table. The captain sat there reading a thick sheath of papers bound in a file folder. His eyes came up briefly and acknowledged Marganin with a bored glance before they flicked back to the contents of the file.

"May I sit down, Captain?"

"Unless you wish to place a towel over your arm and clear away the dishes," Prevlov said, still engrossed in his reading. "By all means." Marganin ordered a vodka and waited for Prevlov to initiate the conversation. After nearly three full minutes, the captain finally laid the file aside and lit a cigarette.

"Tell me, Lieutenant, have you followed the Lorelei Current Drift Expedition?"

"Not in detail. I merely scanned the report before passing it along to your attention."

"A pity," Prevlov said loftily. "Think of it, Lieutenant, a submersible capable of moving fifteen hundred miles along the ocean floor without surfacing once in almost two months. Soviet scientists would do well to be half as imaginative."

"Frankly, sir, I found the report rather dull reading."

"Dull reading, indeed! If you had studied it during one of your rare fits of conscientious dedication, you would have discerned a strange course deviation during the expedition's final days."

"I fail to see a hidden meaning in a simple course change."

"A good intelligence man looks for the hidden meaning in everything, Marganin."

Properly rebuked, Marganin nervously checked his watch and stared in the direction of the men's room.

"I think we should investigate whatever it is the Americans find so interesting off the Newfoundland Grand Banks," Prevlov continued. "Since that Novaya Zemlya business, I want a close look into every operation undertaken by the National Underwater and Marine Agency, beginning six months ago. My intuition tells me the Americans are up to something that spells trouble for Mother Russia." Prevlov motioned to a passing waiter and pointed at his empty glass. He leaned back and sighed. "Things are never what they seem, are they? We are in a strange and baffling business when you consider that every comma, every period on a scrap of paper can possess a vital blueprint to an extraordinary secret. It is the least obvious direction that holds the answers." The waiter came with Prevlov's cognac and he emptied the glass, swishing the liquor around in his mouth before downing it in one swallow.

"Will you excuse me a moment, sir?"

Prevlov looked up and Marganin nodded in the direction of the men's room.

"Of course."

Marganin stepped into the high-ceilinged, tiled bathroom and stood in front of the urinal. He was not alone. A pair of feet with the trousers draped about the ankles showed under a toilet stall. He stood there, taking his time, until he heard the toilet flush. Then he moved over to the washbasin and rinsed his hands slowly, watching in the mirror as the same fat man from the park bench hitched up his belt and approached him.

"Pardon me, sailor," the fat man said. "You dropped this on the floor." He handed Marganin a small envelope.

Marganin took it without hesitation and slipped it into his tunic. "Oh, how careless of me. Thank you."

The fat man then leaned over the basin as Marganin turned away for a towel.

"You have explosive information in that envelope," said the fat man softly. "Do not treat it lightly."

"It will be handled delicately."

The letter was resting neatly centered on Seagram's desk in the study. He turned on the lamp, sagged into the chair, and began reading.

Dear Gene,

I love you. It must seem like a banal way to begin, but is true. I still love you with all my heart.

I have tried desperately to understand and comfort you during these months of stress. How I have suffered waiting for you to accept my love and attention, hoping for nothing in return except a small sign of your affection. I am strong in many respects, Gene, but I do not have the strength and patience to fight indifferent neglect. No woman does.

I long for our early days, the gentle days when our concern for one another far outweighed the demands of our professional lives. It was simpler then. We taught our classes at the university, we laughed and made love as though each time were our last. Perhaps I drove the wedge between us for not wanting children. Perhaps a son or a daughter might have bound us tighter together. I don't know. I can only regret the things I did not do

I only know that it will be best for both of us if I set time and space between us for a while, for at present our living under the same roof seems to bring out a meanness and selfishness neither of us knew we possessed.

I have moved in with Marie Sheldon, a marine geologist with NUMA. She has been kind enough to loan me a spare room in her Georgetown house until I can untangle my mental cobwebs. Please do not try to contact me. It would only result in more ugly words. Give me time to work things out, Gene. I implore you. They say time heals all wounds. Let us pray this is so. I do not mean to desert you, Gene, when you feel you need me most. I believe it will relieve one more burden from the heavy pressures of your position.

Forgive my, feminine frailty, but from the other side of the coin, my side, it is as though you drove me away. Let us hope the future will allow our love to endure. Again, I love you.

Dana

Seagram reread the letter four times, his eyes refusing to turn from the neatly scripted pages. Finally, he clicked off the light and sat there in the darkness. Dana Seagram stood in front of her closet going through the feminine ritual of deciding what to wear when a knock sounded on the bedroom door.

"Dana? You almost ready?"

"Come on in, Marie."

Marie Sheldon opened the door and leaned into the bedroom. "Good lord, sweetie, you're not even dressed yet.

Marie's voice came from deep within her throat. She was a small, thin, vital woman with vivid blue eyes, a pert bobbed nose, and a mass of bleached blond hair shaped in a shag style. She might have been very provocative except for her square-cut chin.

"I go through this every morning," Dana said irritably. "If only I could get organized and lay things out the night before, but I always wait until the last moment."

Marie moved beside Dana. "How about the blue skirt?" Dana slipped the skirt off the hanger and then threw it down on the carpet.

"Damn! I sent the matching blouse to the cleaners."

"If you're not careful, you'll start foaming at the mouth."

"I can't help it," Dana said. "Nothing seems to go right lately."

"Since you walked out on your husband, you mean."

"The last thing I need now is a sermon."

"Settle down, sweetie. If you want to take out your wrath on somebody, then stand in front of a mirror."

Dana stood, tense as a toy doll whose spring has been wound too tightly. Marie could see an emotional crying jag coming on and beat a strategic retreat.

"Relax. Take your time. I'll go down and warm up the car. Dana waited until Marie's footsteps died before she went into the bathroom and downed two Librium capsules. As soon as the tranquilizer began to take effect, she calmly slipped on a turquoise linen dress, straightened her hair, pulled on a pair of flat-heeled shoes, and headed downstairs.

On the way to NUMA headquarters, Dana sat bright and perky while tapping her foot to the music from the car radio.

"One pill or two?" Marie said casually.

"Umm?"

"I said, one pill or two. It's a safe bet that when you instantly transform from a bitch into a Miss Goody Two-Shoes, you've been popping pills."

"I meant it about the sermon."

"Okay, but a warning, old roommate. If I find you flaked out on the floor some dark night from an overdose, I'm going to quietly fold my tent and silently steal off into the night. I can't stand traumatic death scenes."

"You're exaggerating."

Marie looked at her. "Am I? You've been hitting that stuff like a health nut gobbles vitamins."

"I'm all right," Dana said defiantly.

"Like hell you are. You're a classic case of an emotionally depressed and frustrated female. The worst kind, I might add."

"It takes time for the ragged edges to dull."

"Ragged edges, my ass. You mean it dulls your guilt."

"I won't delude myself into believing I did the best thing by leaving Gene. But I'm convinced I did the right thing."

"Don't you think he needs you?"

"I used to hope he would reach out to me, yet every time we're together, we fight like alley cats. He's closed me out, Marie. It's the same old tired story. When a man like Gene becomes a slave to the demands of his work, he throws up a wall that can't be breached. And the stupid reason, the incredibly stupid reason, is because he imagines that sharing his problems automatically throws me on the firing line, too. A man accepts the thankless burden of responsibility. We women do not. To us, life is a game we play one day at a time. We never plan ahead like men." Her face became sad and drawn. "I can only wait and come back after Gene falls wounded in his private battle. Then, and only then, am I certain he'll welcome a return of my company."

"It may be too late," Marie said. "From your description of him, Gene sounds like a prime candidate for a mental breakdown or a massive coronary. If you had an ounce of guts, you'd stick it out with him."

Dana shook her head. "I can't cope with rejection. Until we can get together peacefully again, I'm going to make another life."

"Does that include other men?"

"Platonic love only." Dana forced a smile. "I'm not about to play the liberated female and jump onto every penis that wanders across my path." Marie grinned slyly. "It's one thing to be picky and pay lip service to high standards, sweetie, but quite another matter in actual practice. You forget, this is Washington, D.C. We outnumber the men eight to one. They're the lucky ones who can, afford to be choosy."

"If something happens, then something happens. I'm not going out arid look for an affair. Besides, I'm out of practice. I've forgotten how to flirt.''

"Seducing a man is like riding a bicycle," Marie said, laughing. "Once learned, never forgotten."

She parked in the vast open lot of the NUMA headquarters building. They walked up the steps into the lobby, where they joined the stream of other staff members who were hurrying down the halls and up the elevators to their offices.

"How about meeting me for lunch?" Marie said.

"Fine."

"I'll bring a couple of male friends for you to exercise your latent charms on." Before Dana could protest, Marie had melted into the crowd. As she stood in the elevator, Dana noted with a curious sense of detached pleasure that her heart was thumping.

Sandecker pulled his car into the parking lot of the Alexandria College of Oceanography, climbed out from under the wheel, and walked over to a man standing beside an electric golf cart.

"Admiral Sandecker?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Murray Silverstein." The round, balding little man stuck out his hand. "Glad you could come, Admiral. I think we've got something that will prove helpful." Sandecker settled into the cart. "We're grateful for every scrap of useful data you can give us."

Silverstein took the tiller and guided them down an asphalt lane. "We've run an extensive series of tests since last night. I can't promise anything mathematically exact, mind you, but the results are interesting, to say the least."

"Any problems?"

"A few. The main snag that throws our projections from the precise side of the scale to the approximate is a lack of solid facts. For instance, the direction of the Titanic's bow when she went down was never established. This unknown factor alone could add four square miles to the search area."

"I don't understand. Wouldn't a forty-five-thousand-ton steel ship sink in a straight line?"

"Not necessarily. The Titanic corkscrewed and slid under the water at a depressed angle of roughly seventy-eight degrees, and, as she sank, the weight of the sea filling her forward compartments pulled her into a headway of between four and five knots. Next, we have to consider the momentum caused by her tremendous mass and the fact that she had to travel two and a half miles before she struck bottom. No, I'm afraid she landed on a horizontal line a fair distance from her original starting point on the surface."

Sandecker stared at the oceanographer. "How could you possibly know the precise angle of descent when the Titanic sank? The survivors' descriptions were on the whole unreliable."

Silverstein pointed to a huge concrete tower off to his right. "The answers are in there, Admiral." He stopped the cart at the front entrance of the building.

"Come along and I'll give you a practical demonstration of what I'm talking about." Sandecker followed him through a short hallway and into a room with a large acrylic plastic window at one end. Silverstein motioned for the admiral to move closer. A diver wearing scuba equipment waved from the other side of the window. Sandecker waved back.

"A deep-water tank," Silverstein said matter-of-factly. "The interior walls are made of steel and rise two hundred feet high with a diameter of thirty feet. There is a main pressure chamber for entering and exiting the bottom level and five air locks stationed at intervals along the side to enable us to observe our experiments at different depths."

"I see," Sandecker said slowly. "You've been able to simulate the Titanic's fall to the sea floor."

"Yes, let me show you." Silverstein lifted a telephone from a shelf under the observation window. "Oven, make a drop in thirty seconds."

"You have a scale model of the Titanic?"

"Not exactly a prize exhibit for a maritime museum, of course," Silverstein said,

"but, for a scaled-down version of the ship's general configuration, weight, and displacement, it's a near-perfect, balanced replica. The potter did a damned fine job."

"The potter?"

"Ceramics," Silverstein said waving his hand in a vague gesture. "We can mold and fire twenty models in the time it would take us to fabricate a metal one." He laid a hand on Sandecker's arm and pulled him toward the window. "Here she comes."

Sandecker looked up and saw an oblong shape about four feet in length falling slowly through the water, preceded by what looked to be a shower of marbles. He could see that there had been no attempt to authenticate detail. The model looked like a smooth lump of unglazed clay rounded at one end, narrowed at the other, and topped by three tubes, representing the Titanic's smokestacks. He heard a distinct clink through the observation window as the model's bow struck the bottom of the tank.

"Wouldn't your calculations be thrown off by a flaw in the model's configuration?" Sandecker asked.

"Yes, a mistake could make a difference." Silverstein looked at him. "But I assure you, Admiral, we missed nothing!

Sandecker pointed at the model. "The real Titanic had four funnels; yours has only three."

"Just before the Titanic's final plunge," Silverstein said, "her stern rose until she was completely perpendicular. The strain was too much for the guy wires supporting the number one funnel. They snapped and it toppled over the starboard side."

Sandecker nodded. "My compliments, Doctor. I should have known better than to question the thoroughness of your experiment."

"It's nothing, really. It gives me a chance to show off my expertise." He turned and motioned a thumbs-up sign through the window. The diver tied the model onto a line that traveled toward the top of the tank. "I'll run the test again and explain how we arrived at our conclusions."

"You might begin by explaining the marbles."

"They act the role of the boilers," Silverstein said.

"The boilers?"

"Perfect simulation, too. You see, while the Titanic's stern was pointing at the sky, her boilers broke loose from their cradle mounts and hurtled through the bulkheads toward the bow. Massive things they were-twenty-nine, all told; some of them were nearly sixteen feet in diameter and twenty feet long."

"But your marbles fell outside the model."

"'Yes, our calculations indicate that at least nineteen of the boilers smashed their way through the bow and dropped to the bottom separately from the hull."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because if their fall had been contained, the tremendous shift in ballast caused by their journey from amidships to the forward section of the ship would have pulled the Titanic on a ninety-degree course straight downward. However, the reports of the survivors watching from the lifeboats-for once, most all tend to agree-state that soon after the earsplitting rumble from the boilers' crazy stampede had died away, the ship settled back a bit at the stern before sliding under. This fact indicates to me, at any rate, that the Titanic vomited her boilers and once free of this superincumbency, righted herself slightly to attain the seventy-eight-degree slant I mentioned previously."

"And the marbles bear out this theory?"

"To the letter." Silverstein picked up the telephone again. "Ready whenever you are, Owen." He replaced the receiver on its cradle. "Owen Dugan, my assistant above. About now he'll be setting the model in the water directly over that plumb line you see in the water off to one side of the tank. As the water begins coming in through holes drilled strategically in the bow of the model, she'll begin to go down by the head. At a certain angle the marbles will roll to the bow and a springloaded door will allow them to fall free."

As if on cue, the marbles began falling to the floor of the tank, followed closely by the model. It struck about twelve feet from the plumb line. The diver made a tiny mark on the bottom of the tank and held up his thumb and index finger, indicating one inch.

"There you have it, Admiral, a hundred and ten drops and she's never touched down outside a four-inch radius."

Sandecker stared into the tank for a long moment, then turned to Silverstein.

"So where do we search?"

"After a few dazzling computations by our physics department," said Silverstein, "their best guess is thirteen hundred yards south of east from the point the Sappho I discovered the cornet, but at that, it's still a guess."

"How can you be certain the horn didn't fall on an angle, too?" Silverstein feigned a hurt look. "You underestimate my genius for perfection, Admiral. Our evaluations here would be worthless without a clear-cut picture of the cornet's path to the sea floor. Included in my expense vouchers you will find a receipt from Moe's Pawnshop for two cornets. After a series of tests in the tank, we took them two hundred miles off Cape Hatteras and dropped them in twelve thousand feet of water. I can show you the charts from our sonar. They each landed within fifty yards of their vertical departure line."

"No offense," Sandecker said equably. "I have a sinking feeling, if you'll pardon the pun, that my lack of faith is going to cost me a case of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay 1984 "

"1981," Silverstein said, grinning.

"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a schmuck with good taste."

"Think how common the world would be without us."

Sandecker made no reply. He moved up to the window and stared inside the tank at the ceramic model of the Titanic. Silverstein moved up behind him. "She's a fascinating subject, no doubt of it."

"Strange thing about the Titanic, " Sandecker said softly. "Once her spell strikes, you can think of nothing else."

"But why? What is there about her that grips the imagination and won't let go?"

"Because She's the wreck that puts all the others to shame," Sandecker said.

"She's modern history's most legendary yet elusive treasure. A simple photograph of her is enough to pump the adrenaline. Knowing her story, the crew who sailed her, the people who walked her decks in the few short days she lived, that's what fires the imagination, Silverstein. The Titanic is a vast archive of an era we'll never see again. God only knows if it is within our power to bring the grand old dame into daylight again. But, by heaven, we're going to try." The submersible Sea Slug looked aerodynamically clean and smooth from her outside, but to Pitt, as he contorted his six-foot-two frame into the pilot's chair, the interior seemed a claustrophobic nightmare of hydraulic plumbing and electrical circuitry. The craft was twenty feet long and tubular in shape, with rounded ends like its lethargic namesake. It was painted bright yellow and had four large portholes set in pairs on its bow, while mounted along the top, like small radar domes, were two powerful high intensity lights.

Pitt completed the checklist and turned to Giordino, who sat in the seat to his right.

"Shall we make a dive?"

Giordino flashed a toothy smile. "Yes, let's."

"How about it, Rudi?"

Gunn looked up from his prone position behind the lower viewports and nodded. "Ready when you are."

Pitt spoke into a microphone and watched the small television screen above the control panel as it showed the Modoc's derrick lift the Sea Slug from her deck cradle and gently swing her over the side and into the water. As soon as a diver had disconnected the lift cable, Pitt cracked the ballast valve and the submersible began to sink slowly under the rolling, deep-troughed waves.

"Life-support timer on," Giordino announced. "An hour to the bottom, ten hours for the search, two hours for surfacing, leaving us a reserve of five hours just in case.

"We'll use the reserve time for the search," Pitt said. Giordino knew well the facts of the situation. If the unthinkable happened, an accident at twelve thousand feet, there would be no hope of rescue. A quick death would be the only prayer against the appalling suffering of slow asphyxiation. He found himself actually amused at wishing he was back on board the Sappho I, enjoying the uncramped comfort of open space and the security of her eight-week life-support system. He sat back and watched the water darken as the Sea Slug buried her hull in the depths, his thoughts drifting to the enigmatic man who was piloting the craft.

Giordino went back with Pitt to their high-school days, when they had built and raced hot rods together down the lonely farm roads behind Newport Beach, California. He knew Pitt better than any man alive; any woman, for that matter. Pitt possessed, in a sense, two separate inner identities, neither directly related to the other. There was the congenial Dirk Pitt, who rarely deviated from the middle of the road, and was humorous, unpretentious, and radiated an easygoing friendliness with everyone he met. Then there was the other Dirk Pitt, the coldly efficient machine who seldom made a mistake and who often withdrew into himself, remote and aloof. If there was a key that would unlock the door between the two, Giordino had yet to discover it.

Giordino turned his attention back to the depth gauge. Its needle indicated twelve hundred feet. Soon they passed the two-thousand-foot mark and entered a world of perpetual night. From this point downward, as far as the human eye was concerned, there was only pure blackness. Giordino pushed a switch and, the outside lights burst on and sliced a reassuring path through the darkness.

"What do you think our chances are of finding her on the first try?" he asked.

"If the computer data Admiral Sandecker sent us holds true, the Titanic should lie somewhere within a hundred-and-ten-degree arc, thirteen hundred yards southeast of the spot where you reclaimed the cornet."

"Oh, great," Giordino mumbled sarcastically. "That narrows it down from looking for a toenail in the sands of Coney Island to searching for an albino boll weevil in a cotton field."

"There he goes again," Gunn said, "offering his negative thought for the day."

"Maybe if we ignore him," Pitt laughed, "he'll go away." Giordino grimaced and motioned into the watery void.

"Oh sure, just drop me off at the next corner"

"We'll find the old girl," Pitt said resolutely. He pointed - illuminated clock on the control panel. "Let's see, it's oh-six-forty now. I predict we'll be over the Titanic's decks before lunch, say about eleven-forty."

Giordino gave Pitt a sideways look. "The great soothsayer has spoken."

"A little optimism never hurts," Gunn said. He adjusted the exterior camera housings and triggered the strobe. It flashed blindingly for an instant like a shaft of lightning, reflecting millions of planktonic creatures that hung in the water. Ten thousand feet and forty minutes later, Pitt reported to the Modoc, giving the depth and the water temperature thirty-five degrees. The three men watched fascinated as a small angler fish, ugly in its stubby appearance, slowly swept past the viewpoints; the tiny luminous bulb that protruded from the top of its head glowed like a lonely beacon.

At 12,375 feet the sea floor came into view, moving up to meet the Sea Slug as though she were standing still. Pitt turned on the propulsion motors and adjusted the altitude angle, gently stopping the Sea Slug's descent and turning her on a level course across the bleak red clay that carpeted the ocean floor. Gradually, the ominous silence was broken by the rhythmic hum that came from the Sea Slug's electric motors. At first, Pitt had difficulty distinguishing rises and gradual drops on the bottom; there was nothing to indicate a threedimensional scale. His eyes saw only a flatness that stretched beyond the reach of the lights.

There was no life to be seen. And yet, evidence proved otherwise. Scattering tracks from the depth's habitants meandered and zigzagged in every direction through the sediment. One might have guessed that they were made only recently, but the sea can be misleading. The footprints from deep-dwelling sea spiders, sea cucumbers, or starfish might have been made several minutes ago or hundreds of years past, because the microscopic animal and plant remains that comprise the deep-ocean ooze filters down from above at the rate of only one or two centimeters every thousand years.

"There's a lovely creature," Giordino said pointing. Pitt's eye followed Giordino's finger and picked out a strange blue-black animal that seemed a cross between a squid and an octopus. It had eight tentacles linked together like the webbed foot of a duck, and it stared back at the Sea Slug through two large globular eyes that formed nearly a third of its body.

"A vampire squid," Gunn informed them.

"Ask her if she's got relatives in Transylvania?" Giordino grinned.

"You know," Pitt said, "that thing out there sort of reminds me of your girl friend."

Gunn jumped in. "You mean the one with no boobs?"

"You've seen her?"

"Rave on, envious rabble," Giordino grumbled. "She's mad about me and her father keeps me floating in quality booze."

"Some quality," Pitt snorted. "Old Cesspool Bourbon, Attila the Hun Gin, Tijuana Vodka. Who the hell ever heard of those labels?"

Throughout the next few hours, the wit and the sarcasm bounced off the walls of the Sea Slug. Actually, it was put on; a defense mechanism to relieve the gnawing pangs of monotony. Unlike romanticized fiction, wreck-hunting in the depths can be a grueling and tedious job. Add to that the aggravated discomfort of the cramped quarters, the high humidity and chilling temperatures inside the submersible, and you have the ingredients for provoking an accident through human error that could prove both costly and fatal.

Pitt's hands stayed rock-steady as they handled the controls, guiding the Sea Slug a scant four feet above the bottom. Giordino's concentration was nailed to the life support systems, while Gunn kept his eyes skinned on the sonar and magnetometer. The long hours of planning were over. It was now a case of patience and persistence, mixed with that peculiar blend of eternal optimism and love of the unknown shared by all treasure seekers.

"Looks like a pile of rocks up ahead," Pitt said.

Giordino stared up through the viewports. "They're just sitting there in the ooze. I wonder where they came from."

"Perhaps ballast thrown overboard from an old windjammer."

"More likely came from icebergs," Gunn said. "Many rocks and bits of debris are carried over the sea and then dropped to the floor when the icebergs melt-" Gunn broke off in the middle of his lecture. "Hold on . . . I'm getting a strong response on the sonar. Now the magnetometer is picking it up, too."

"Where away?" Pitt asked.

"On a heading of one-three-seven."

"One-three-seven it is," Pitt repeated. He swept the Sea Slug into a graceful bank, as though she was an airplane, and headed on the new course. Giordino peered intently over Gunn's shoulder at the green circles of light on the sonarscope. A small dot of pulsating brightness indicated a solid object three hundred yards beyond their range of vision.

"Don't get your hopes up," Gunn said quietly. "The target reads too small for a ship."

"What do you make of it?"

"Hard to say. No more than twenty or twenty-five feet in length, about two stories high. Might be anything . . ."

"Or it might be one of the Titanic's boilers," Pitt cut in. "The sea floor should be littered with them."

"You move to the head of the class," Gunn said, excitement creeping into his tone. "I have an identical reading, bearing one-one-five. And here comes another at one-six-zero. The last has an indicated length of approximately seventy feet."

"Sounds like one of her smokestacks," Pitt said.

"Lord!" Gunn murmured hoarsely. "It's beginning to read like a junkyard down here."

Suddenly, in the gloom at the outer edge of the blackness, a rounded object became visible, haloed in the eerie light like an immense tombstone. Soon the three pairs of eyes inside the submersible could distinguish the furnace gratings of the great boiler, and then the row upon row of rivets along the iron seams and the torn, jagged tentacles of what was left of its steam tubing.

"How would you like to have been a stoker in those days and fed that baby?" Giordino muttered.

"I've picked up another one," Gunn said. "No, wait . . . the pulse is getting stronger. Here comes the length. One hundred feet . . . two. . ."

"Keep coming, sweetheart," Pitt prayed.

"Five hundred . . . seven . . . eight hundred feet. We got her! We've got her!"

"What course?" Pitt's mouth was as dry as sand.

"Bearing zero-nine-seven," Gunn replied in a whisper. They spoke no more for the next few minutes as the Sea Slug closed the distance. Their faces were pale and strained with anticipation. Pitt's heart was pounding painfully in his chest, and his stomach felt as if it had a great iron weight in it and a huge hand crushing it from the outside. He became aware that he was allowing the submersible to creep too close to the ooze. He pulled back the controls and kept his eyes trained -through the viewport. What would they find? A rusty old hulk far beyond hope of salvaging? A shattered, broken hull buried to its superstructure in the muck? And then his straining eyes caught sight of a massive shadow looming up ominously in the darkness.

"Christ almighty!" Giordino mumbled in awe. "We've struck her fair on the bow."

As the range narrowed to fifty feet, Pitt slowed the motors and turned the Sea Slug on a parallel course with the ill-fated liner's waterline. The mere size of the wreck when viewed from alongside her steel plates was a staggering sight. Even after nearly eighty years, the sunken ship proved to be surprisingly free of corrosion; the gold band that encompassed the 882-foot black hull glistened under the high-intensity lights. Pitt eased the submersible upward past the eightton portside anchor until they could all clearly make out the three-foot-high golden letters that still proudly proclaimed her as the Titanic. Spellbound, Pitt picked up the microphone from its cradle and pressed the transmit button. Modoc, Modoc. This is Sea Slug . . . do you read?" The radio operator on the Modoc answered almost immediately. "This is Modoc, Sea Slug. We read you. Over."

Pitt adjusted the volume to minimize the background crackle. "Modoc, notify NUMA headquarters that we have found the Big T. Repeat, we have found the Big T. Depth twelve thousand three hundred and forty feet. Time, eleven-fortytwo hours."

"Eleven-forty-two?" Giordino echoed. "You cocky bastard. You only missed by two minutes."