Dirk Pitt - 23 - Havana Storm by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 0399172920
Published: 2014-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

35

Have you found your way to the bottom of the pile yet?”

St. Julien Perlmutter looked up from his table in the central research room of the National Archives to see the smiling face of the facility’s chief military records archivist.

“Very nearly, Martha, very nearly. I apologize for the heavy workout. The files on the Maine are more extensive than I anticipated.”

“Lord knows, I can use the exercise.” Martha rested a hand on one of her ample hips. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can pull for you.”

“Martha, my dear, you are pure ambrosia,” Perlmutter said with a smile.

It was his third day in the research room, poring through century-old documents. Although already familiar with the Maine’s sinking, he was fascinated at reading the official inquiry into the disaster and its supporting documentation, including vivid accounts by survivors and reports of the ship’s damage from Navy hard-hat divers. Possible causes for the explosion, ranging from a smoldering coal bunker to a bursting boiler, were all dismissed by the inquiry board in favor of a suspected external mine.

At first, Perlmutter found no mention of the archeologist Ellsworth Boyd, so he jumped ahead to records of the salvage and refloating of the warship in 1912. Detailed engineering reports, rich with black-and-white photographs, documented the construction of the cofferdam around the wreck, the removal of human remains, and the refloating of the ship and her second sinking.

Throughout the reports, Perlmutter found no mention of Boyd’s artifact.

He perused a remaining file of naval communiqués related to responses in Havana immediately after the explosion. He was nearing the end of the folder when he found a letter from the chief forensics officer at Brooklyn Naval Hospital addressed to General Fitzhugh Lee, the Consul General of Cuba. The narrative was brief:

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