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"She's in," announced Giordino.
Pitt spoke, inhaling one word, exhaling the next. "Okay . . . start pumping."
Again, the two men inside the rescue vehicle complied without challenging the request. McKirdy gave the order to Turner on the surface, and within two minutes a surge of air began bursting out of the hose into the engine room.
"What are we doing?" asked Giordino, mystified and grief stricken as he listened to what he thought were his friend's final words.
Pitt rasped out the answer in a voice barely above a whisper. "A ship sinks when water under pressure floods inside the hull's airspace. But at this depth, the air from your hose is blasting out at twice the pressure of the water, forcing it back out into the sea."
The explanation drained what little fortitude he had left and he slumped to the deck beside the body of O'Malley, who had already slipped into unconsciousness.
Giordino's hopes were suddenly renewed as he saw the water gush out of the engine room, driven back into the sea by the overwhelming pressure from the air pump 550 feet away on the surface. "It's working!" he shouted. "The air is forming a bubble inside."
"Yes, but none of the air is escaping inside the other parts of the boat," said McKirdy.
But Giordino saw the method to Pitt's madness. "He's not trying to purify the air inside. He's trying to raise the boat to the surface."
McKirdy looked down and saw the hull of the boat embedded in the silt, and had grave doubts that it could break the suction and rise. After a pause, McKirdy said quietly, "Your friend isn't answering."
"Dirk!" Giordino roared into the phone. "Talk to me."
But there was no answer.
On board the Navy support ship Alfred Aultman, Captain Turner paced the bridge as he listened to the drama being played out far below. He also saw the brilliance behind Pitt's stratagem. In his mind it was too incredibly simple to work. Murphy's law seldom took a backseat to Occam's razor.
There were eight men on the bridge of the support ship. Fear and defeat hung like a wet blanket. They each thought the end had arrived and the Golden Marlin was in the midst of becoming a titanium cemetery. They found it almost impossible to believe that 617 people were taking their final breaths less than a quarter of a mile below their feet. They gathered around the speaker, conversing as softly as if they were in a church, waiting for word from the Mercury.
"Will they recover the bodies?" mused one of Turner's officers.
Turner shrugged bleakly. "It would cost millions for a salvage job to go that deep to retrieve them. They'll probably be left where they lie."
A young ensign abruptly pounded his fist against a counter. "Why don't they report? Why doesn't McKirdy tell us what's happening down there?"
"Easy, son. They have enough to worry about without us hassling them."
"She's coming up. She's coming up." Six words from the side-scan sonar operator who had never taken his eyes off the recorder.
Turner leaned over the sonar operator's shoulder and stared open-mouthed at the recorder. The image of the Golden Marlin had moved. "She's coming up, all right," he confirmed.
A great groaning sound came over the speaker, a sure indication that metal was being stressed and expanded as the boat rose from the bottom. Then McKirdy's voice roared out. "She's broken loose, by God! She's on her way to the surface. Pumping air into the engine ro6m did the trick. She gained enough buoyancy to break suction and pop out of the silt-"
"We're trying to stay with her," Giordino cut in, "so we can keep the hose pumping air inside her or she'll sink again."
"We'll be ready!" snapped Turner.
He began issuing orders to his engineering crew to climb aboard the cruise boat the minute she hit the surface, and cut a hole in the top of her hull to pump air inside to revive the passengers and crew. Then he put out a call to every boat within twenty miles to come quickly with any piece of resuscitating equipment and oxygen respirator they had on board. He also requested every doctor to stand by to board the Golden Marlin as soon as his crew gained entry. Time was priceless. They had to get inside quickly if they were to revive those passengers and crew who had passed out from lack of oxygen.
The atmosphere among the fleet of ships over the Golden Marlin transformed from one of subdued gloom to wild jubilation within minutes of the word being passed that she was on her way up. A thousand eyes were straining at the open water circled by the ships and boats, when a cauldron of bubbles rose above the surface and burst in a display of rainbow colors under the morning sun. Then came the Golden Marlin. She erupted from the water on ah even keel, like an immense cork, before settling back in a great splash that sent a surge toward the surrounding vessels, rocking the smaller yachts as if they were leaves swept from a tree in a fall windstorm.
"She's up!" shouted Turner ecstatically, almost afraid that he was seeing a mirage. "Rescue boats!" he shouted through a bullhorn from the bridge wing at the launches already in the water. "Get over there fast."
Cheers shattered the nearly windless air. People shouted themselves hoarse, many whistled, every horn and siren sounded. Like Turner, none could believe what they were seeing. The resurrection came so suddenly, so abruptly, many had not fully expected it. Media cameramen on the boats and in planes and helicopters quickly ignored the threats and orders from Turner and the captain of the Coast Guard cutter to stay out of the area, and swarmed in anyway, a few determined to get on board the cruise boat.
The Golden Marlin no sooner settled in the water like a hen on a roost than the armada of rescuers rushed toward her. Boats from the Alfred Aultman arrived first and tied alongside. Turner canceled the order for cutting equipment and ordered his rescue crew to simply gain entry through the boarding and cargo hatches, which could be broached from the outside now that there was no danger of water pouring inside.
The Mercury surfaced beside the big boat, McKirdy maneuvering the submersible to keep the hose securely lodged in the engine room, pumping in the air that expelled the flooded water. Giordino threw open the hatch, and before McKirdy could stop him, dove from the submersible into the water and swam toward a boat with the rescue crew who was unlatching the starboard boarding hatch. Fortunately, one of the navy rescue crew recognized Giordino or they would have ordered him off. Giordino was hauled into the boat, and he put his muscles to work helping pull open the hatch that was coated and nearly bonded shut with bottom silt.
They heaved it open half an inch. Then heaved again. This time it swung open on its hinges and was pushed back against the hull. For a moment they simply stood mute and peered inside as a stale smell flowed into their nostrils. It was air that they knew was unbreathable. Though the generators were still turning, it struck them as odd to see the interior of the boat brightly lit.
