Raise the Titanic - Cussler Clive (электронная книга .TXT) 📗

    "Order full speed ahead, damn it, or I'll run you down."

    Butera dropped the phone and fought his way outside onto the bridge wing again. The hurricane was beating the sea into a froth so savage, so angry, that it was nearly impossible to separate air from water. It was all he could do to maintain a hold on the railing.

    Then he saw it, the immense bow of the Titanic looming up through the curtain of the thrashing deluge, hardly more than a hundred feet off the starboard quarter. There was nothing he could do now except watch in frozen horror as the menacing mass moved inexorably closer to the Wallace.

    "No!" he cried above the wind. "You dirty old corpse; you leave my ship alone."

    It was too late. It seemed impossible that the Titanic could ever swing clear of the Wallace's stern. And yet the impossible happened. The great sixty-foot bow rose up on a mountainous wave and hung there suspended just long enough for the tug's screws to take bite and pull her clear. Then the Titanic dropped in the trough, missing the stern of the Wallace by no more than three feet, throwing up a surge that engulfed the entire smaller vessel, carrying away both its lifeboats and one of the ventilators.

    The wave tore Butera's grip from the railing and swept him across the bridge, jamming his body against the wheelhouse bulkhead. He lay there totally submerged under the billow, his throat choking, his lungs gasping for air, his brain sluggishly taking strength from the strong pulsing beat of the Wallace's engines that transmitted through the deck. When the water finally drained away, he struggled to his feet and retched his stomach empty.

    He clawed his way back into the safety of the wheelhouse. Butera, his senses stunned by the miracle of the Wallace's deliverance, watched the great black apparition that was the Titanic slide by astern until she disappeared again in the shroud of wind-whipped rain.

60

    "Leave it to Dirk Pitt to pick up a dame in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane," Sandecker said. "What's your secret?"

    "The Pitt curse," Pitt answered, as he tenderly bandaged the swelling on Dana's head. "Women are forever attracted to me under impossible circumstances when I'm in no mood to respond."

    Dana began to moan softly.

    "She's coming around," Gunn said. He was on his knees next to a cot they had wedged between the gymnasium's old exercise equipment to steady it from the ship's rolling and pitching.

    Pitt covered her with a blanket. "She suffered a nasty tap, but her mass of hair probably saved her from anything worse than a concussion."

    "How did she come to be on Sturgis's helicopter?" Woodson asked. "I thought she was babysitting the news people on board the Alhambra. "

    "She was," Admiral Sandecker said. "Several television network correspondents requested permission to cover the Titanic's haul to New York from aboard the Capricorn. I gave authorization on the condition that Dana accompany them."

    "I ferried them over," Sturgis said. "And, I saw Mrs. Seagram disembark when I landed on the Capricorn. It's a mystery to me how she re-entered the helicopter without being noticed."

    "Yeah, a mystery," Woodson repeated caustically. "Don't you bother checking your cargo compartment between flights?"

    "I'm not running a commercial airline," Sturgis snapped back. He looked as though he was about to hit Woodson. He glanced at Pitt and was met with a disapproving stare. Then, with a visible effort, he reined in his emotions and spoke slowly and firmly "I'd been flying that bird out there steady for twenty hours straight. I was tired. I easily convinced myself that there was no need to bother with a cargo-compartment check because I was certain it was empty. How was I to know Dana Seagram would sneak on board?"

    Gunn shook his head. "Why did she do it? Why would she?..."

    "I don't know why . . . how the hell should I?" Sturgis said. "Suppose you tell me why she threw a hammer through my rotor blades, wrapped herself up in a tarpaulin, and then clouted herself on the head? Not necessarily in that order."

    "Why don't you ask her?" Pitt said. He nodded down at the cot.

    Dana was staring up at the men, her eyes devoid of understanding. She looked as though she had just been dragged up from the sanctuary of exhausted sleep.

    "Forgive me . . . for asking such a hackneyed question," she murmured. "But, where am I?"

    "My dear girl," Sandecker said, kneeling at her side, "you're on the Titanic."

    She looked dazedly at the admiral, disbelief written across her face. "That can't be?"

    "Oh, I assure you it is," Sandecker said. "Pitt, there's a bit of scotch left. Bring me a glass."

    Pitt obediently did as he was told and handed Sandecker the glass. Dana took a swallow of the Cutty Sark, choked on it and coughed, holding her head as if to contain the pain that had suddenly exploded in her skull.

    "There, there, my dear." It was plain to see Sandecker was somewhat at a loss as to how to treat a woman in agony. "Rest easy. You've suffered a nasty blow on the head."

    Dana felt the bandage circling her hair and then clutched the admiral's hand knocking the glass on the deck.

    Pitt winced as the scotch spilled. Women just don't appreciate good booze.

    "No, no, I'm all right." She struggled to a sitting position on the cot and stared in wonder at the strange mechanical contrivances. "The Titanic," she said the name reverently. "I'm actually on the Titanic?"

    "Yes." Pitt's voice was edged with sharpness. "And, we'd like to know how you got here."

    She looked at him, half-uncertainly, half-confused, and said, "I don't know. I honestly don't know. The last thing I recall I was on the Capricorn."

    "We found you in the helicopter," Pitt said.

    "The helicopter . . . I lost my make-up kit . . . must have dropped it on the flight from the Alhambra." She forced a wan smile. "Yes, that's it. I returned to the helicopter to search for my make-up kit. I found it jammed between the fold-up seats. I tried pulling it free when . . . well, I guess I fainted and hit my head when I fell."

    "Fainted? You're sure you-" Pitt broke off his question and asked another instead. "What was the very last thing you remember seeing before you blacked out?"

    She thought a moment, staring as if at some distant vision in time. Those coffee-brown eyes seemed unnaturally large against her pale and strained face.

    Sandecker patted her hand paternally. "Just take your time."

    Finally her lips formed a word. "Boots."

    "Say again," Pitt ordered.

    "A pair of boots," she answered as if seeing a revelation. "Yes, I remember now, a pair of sharp-toed cowboy boots."

    "Cowboy boots?" Gunn asked, his expression blank.

    Dana nodded. "You see, I was down on my hands and knees trying to extricate my make-up kit, and then . . . I don't know . . . they just seemed to be there . . ." She paused.

    "What color were they?" Pitt prodded her.

    "Kind of a yellow, cream color."

    "Did you see the man's face?"

    She started to shake her head and caught herself at the first stab of pain. "No, everything went dark then . . . that's all there is . . . ." Her voice trailed off.