Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

"My position with the administration is such that I can't afford to look like a hippie of the sixties."

"Lord, lord." She shook her head wearily. "Why couldn't I have married a plumber or a tree surgeon? Why did I have to fall in love with a physicist from the farm belt?"

"It's comforting to know you loved me onc

e."

"I still love you, Gene," she said, her eyes turning soft. "This chasm between us has only opened in the last two years. We can't even have lunch together without trying to hurt each other. Why don't we say to hell with it and spend the rest of the afternoon making love in a motel. I'm in the mood to feel deliciously sexy."

"Would it make any difference in the long run?"

"It's a start."

"I can't."

"Your damned dedication to duty again," she said, turning away. "Don't you see? Our jobs have torn us apart. We can save ourselves, Gene. We can both resign and go back to teaching. With your Ph.D. in physics and my Ph.D. in archaeology, along with our experience and credentials, we could write our own ticket with any university in the country. We were on the same faculty when we met, remember? Those were our happiest years together."

"Please, Dana, I can't quit. Not now."

"Why?"

"I'm on an important project-"

"Every project for the last five years has been important. Please, Gene, I'm begging you to save our marriage. Only you can make the first move. I'll go along with whatever you decide if we can get out of Washington. This town will kill any hope of salvaging our life together if we wait much longer."

"I need another year."

"Even another month will be too late."

"I am committed to a course that makes no conditions for abandonment."

"When will these ridiculous secret projects ever end? You're nothing but a tool of the White House."

"I don't need that bleeding-heart, liberal crap from you."

"Gene, for God's sake, give it up!"

"It's not for God's sake, Dana, it's for my country's sake. I'm sorry if I can't make you understand."

"Give it up," she repeated, tears forming in her eyes. "No one is indispensable. Let Mel Donner take your place."

He shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "I created this project from nothing. My gray matter was its sperm. I must see it through to completion."

The waiter reappeared and asked if they were ready to order.

Dana shook her head. "I'm not hungry." She rose from the table and looked down at him. "Will you be home for dinner?"

"I'll be working late at the office."

There was no stopping her tears now.

"I hope whatever it is you're doing is worth it," she murmured. "Because it's going to cost you a terrible price."

4

Unlike the Russian intelligence officer so often stereotyped in American motion pictures, Captain Andre Prevlov had neither bull-shoulders nor shaven head. He was a well proportioned handsome man who sported a layered hairstyle and a modishly trimmed mustache. His image, built around an orange Italian sports car and a plushly furnished apartment overlooking the Moscow River, didn't sit too well with his superiors in the Soviet Navy's Department of Foreign Intelligence. Yet, despite Prevlov's irritating leanings, there was little possibility of his being purged from his high position in the department. The reputation he had carefully constructed as the Navy's most brilliant intelligence specialist, and the fact that his father was number twelve man in the Party, combined to make Captain Prevlov untouchable.

With a practiced, casual movement, he lit a Winston and poured himself a shot glass of Bombay gin. Then he sat back and read through the stack of files that his aide, Lieutenant Pavel Marganin had laid on his desk.