'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.
29
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?'
Collies 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.'
30
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.'
