04 Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

40

Since early morning the wind had blown steadily out of the northeast. By later afternoon it had increased to a gale of thirty-five knots, which in turn threw up mountainous seas that pitched the salvage ships about like paper cups in a dishwasher. The tempest carried with it a numbing cold borne of the barren wastes above the Arctic Circle. The men dared not venture out onto the icy decks. It was no secret that the greatest barrier against keeping warm was the wind. A man could feel much colder and more miserable at twenty degrees above zero Fahrenheit with a thirty-five-knot wind than at twenty degrees below zero with no wind. The wind steals the body heat as quickly as it can be manufactured—a nasty situation known as chill factor.

Joel Farquar, the Capricorn’s weatherman, on loan from the Federal Meteorological Services Administration, seemed unconcerned with the storm snapping outside the operations room as he studied the instrumentation that tied into the National Weather Satellites and provided four space pictures of the North Atlantic every twenty-four hours.

“What does your prognosticating little mind see for our future?” Pitt asked, bracing his body against the roll.

“She’ll start easing in another hour,” Farquar replied. “By sunrise tomorrow the wind should be down to ten knots.”

Farquar didn’t look up when he spoke. He was a studious, little red-faced man with utterly no sense of humor and no trace of friendly warmth. Yet he was respected by every man on the salvage operation because of his total dedication to the job and the fact that his predictions were uncannily accurate.

“‘The best laid plans…’” Pitt murmured idly to himself. “Another day lost. That’s four times in one week we’ve had to cast off and buoy the air line.”

“Only God can make a storm,” Farquar said indifferently. He nodded toward the two banks of television monitors that covered the forward bulkhead of the Capricorn’s operations room. “At least they’re not bothered by it all.”

Pitt looked at the screens, which showed the submersibles calmly working on the wreck twelve thousand feet below the relentless sea. Their independence from the surface was the saving grace of the project. With the exception of the Sea Slug, which only had a downtime of eighteen hours and was now securely tied on the Modoc’s deck, the other three submersibles could be scheduled to stay down on the Titanic for five days at a stretch before they returned to the surface to change crews. He turned to Al Giordino, who was bent over a large chart table.

“What’s the disposition of the surface ships?”

Giordino pointed at the tiny two-inch models scattered about the chart. “The Capricorn is holding her usual position in the center. The Modoc is dead ahead, and the Bomberger is trailing three miles astern.”

Pitt stared at the model of the Bomberger. She was a new vessel, constructed especially for deep-water salvage. “Tell her captain to close up to within one mile.”

Giordino nodded toward the bald radio operator, who was moored securely to the slanting deck in front of his equipment.

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