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Merker's abrupt reference to the Titanic's dead left every man in the operations room a shade paler; every man that is, except Pitt. He touched the transmit button. "Just see to it you leave a clean ship. We may want to use it again. Pitt out."
It was interesting to see the reaction to Pitt's seemingly callous remark. Giordino, Gunn, Spencer, and the others just stared at him. Only Drummer displayed an expression of anger.
Pitt touched Curly, the radio operator, on the shoulder. "Patch me into the admiral on the Bomberger, but use a different frequency."
Curly looked up. "You don't want those guys on the Deep Fathom to hear?"
"What they don't know won't hurt them," said Pitt coldly. "Now hurry it up."
Moments later Sandecker's voice boomed over the speaker. "Capricorn, this is Admiral Sandecker. Over."
"Pitt here, Admiral."
Sandecker wasted no time on niceties. "You're aware of what we're up against?"
"'Gunn has briefed me," Pitt replied.
"Then you know we have exhausted every avenue. No matter how you slice it, time is the enemy. If we could stall the inevitable for another ten hours, we'd have a fighting chance of saving them." '
"There's one other way," Pitt said. "The odds are high but mathematically, it's possible."
"I'm open to suggestions."
Pitt hesitated. "To begin with, we forget the Deep Fathom for the moment and turn our energies in another direction."
Drummer came close to him. "What are you saying, Pitt? What goes on here? 'Forget the Deep Fathom'," he shouted through twitching lips. "Are you mad?"
Pitt smiled a disarming smile. "The last desperate roll of the dice, Drummer. You people failed, and failed miserably. You may be God's gift to the world of marine salvage, but as a rescue force, you come off like a bunch of amateurs. Bad luck compounded your mistakes, and now you sit around whining that all is lost. Well all is not lost, gentlemen. We're going to change the rules of the game and put the Deep Fathom on the surface before the six-hour deadline, which, if my watch serves me, is now down to five hours and forty-three minutes."
Giordino looked at Pitt. "Do you really think it can be done?"
"I really think it can be done."
47
The structural engineers and the marine scientists huddled around in small circles, mumbling to themselves as they frantically shoved their slide rules back and forth. Every so often, one of them would break away and walk over to the computers and check the readout sheets. Admiral Sandecker, who had just arrived from the Bo
mberger, sat behind a desk gripping a mug of coffee and shaking his head.
"This will never be written into the textbooks on salvage," he murmured. "Blowing a derelict off the bottom with explosives. God, it's insane."
"What other choice do we have?" Pitt said. "If we can kick the Titanic out of the mud, the Deep Fathom will be carried up with her."
"The whole idea is crazy," Gunn muttered. "The concussion will only expand the cracked seam in the submersible's hull and cause instant implosion."
"Maybe. Maybe not," Pitt said. "But even if that occurs, it's probably best that Merker, Kiel, and Chavez die instantly from the sea's crush than suffer the prolonged agony of slow suffocation."
"And what about the Titanic?" Gunn persisted "We could blow everything we've worked for all these months all over the abyssal landscape."
"Score that as a calculated risk," Pitt said. "The Titanic's construction is of a greater strength than most ships afloat today. Her beams, girders, bulkheads, and decks are as sound as the night she sank. The old girl can take whatever we dish out. Make no mistake about it."
"Do you honestly think it will work?" Sandecker asked.
"I do."
"I could order you not to do this thing. You know that."
"I know that," Pitt replied. "I'm banking on you to keep me in the ball game until the final inning."
