Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

It wasn't Drummer. That much is certain. He's got at least a dozen witnesses including you and me, Admiral, who will testify that he's been on board the Titanic since yesterday. It would have been impossible for him to attack Dana Seagram on a ship that was fifty miles away."

At that moment, Woodson came up and caught Pitt's arm. "Sorry for the interruption, boss, but we just received an urgent call from the Juneau. I'm afraid it's bad news."

"Let's have it," Sandecker said wearily. "The outlook can't possibly be painted any blacker than it is now."

"Oh, but it can," Woodson said. "The message is from the missile cruiser's captain and reads 'Have received distress call from eastbound freighter Laguna Star, bearing zero five degrees, a hundred and ten miles north of your position. Must respond. Repeat, must respond. Sorry to leave you. Good luck to the Titanic!'"

"'Good luck to the Titanic'," Sandecker echoed. His voice was flat and empty of life. "We might as well raise a flashing sign on the hull that says, 'Welcome thieves and pirates. Come one, come all'."

So now it begins, Pitt thought to himself.

But the only sensation that coursed through his body was a sudden, overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom.

61

The air in Admiral Joseph Kemper's Pentagon office reeked of stale cigarette smoke and half-eaten sandwiches, and it almost seemed to crackle under the invisible cloud of tension.

Kemper and Gene Seagram were huddled over the admiral's desk in quiet conversation while Mel Donner and Warren Nicholson, the CIA director, sat together on the sofa, their feet propped on a coffee table, and dozed. But they jerked upright in full wakefulness when the strange buzz that was specially tuned into Kemper's red telephone broke the hushed quiet. Kemper grunted into the receiver and laid it back in its cradle.

"It was the security desk. The President is on his way up."

Donner and Nicholson glanced at each other and heaved themselves off the sofa. They had no sooner cleared the coffee table of the evening's debris, straightened their ties and donned their coats when the door opened and the President strode in followed by his Kremlin security adviser, Marshall Collies.

Kemper came from behind his desk and shook the President's hand. "Nice to see you, Mr. President. Please make yourself at home. May I get you something?"

The President scanned his watch and then grinned. "Three hours yet before the bars close. How about a Bloody Mary?"

Kemper grinned back and nodded to his aide. "Commander Keith, will you do the honors?"

Keith nodded. "One Bloody Mary coming up, sir."

"I hope you gentlemen won't mind me standing watch with you," the President said, "but I have a heavy stake in this too!"

"Not at all, sir," Nicholson answered. "We're happy to have you."

"What is the situation at the moment?"

Admiral Kemper gave a full briefing to the President, describing the unexpected ferocity of the hurricane, showing the positions of the ships on a projected wall map, and explaining the Titanic's towing operation.

"Was it absolutely necessary that the Juneau be ordered off station?" the President asked.

"A distress call is a distress call," Kemper replied solemnly, "and must be answered by every ship in the area, regardless of the circumstances."

"We have to play according to the other team's rules until half time," Nicholson said. "After that, it's our game."

"Do you think, Admiral Kemper, that the Titanic can stand up to the battering of a hurricane?"

"As long as the tugs can keep her bow into the wind and sea, she's an odds-on favorite to come through with flying colors."

"And if for some reason the tugs cannot keep her from swinging broadside to the waves?"

Kemper avoided the President's gaze and shrugged.

"Then it's in God's hands."

"Nothing could be done?"

"No, sir. There is simply no way to protect any one vessel caught in the clutches of a hurricane. It becomes a case of every ship for herself."