She released the bottle, which descended in an arc and smashed against the prow.
The executive officer gave an order, and everyone on the bridge saluted.
The timing was perfect, and a moment later the Neptune was afloat. No longer a mass of metals and machinery, a container for equipment and gear and supplies, she became an entity in her own right, a living inheritor of the traditions and customs men had observed since they had first gone to sea.
The group on the platform stood at attention, too. Then Marie hugged her husband, and Porter could see that she was weeping.
‘Stand alert, helmsman,’ Captain Humphries said. ‘Position neutral.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Again the master picked up the red telephone. ‘Reverse,’ he said. ‘You may proceed at low speed eleven-dash five.’
The Neptune crawled out of her berth, backing gently into the harbour. The great adventure on which so much planning and effort, so much time and money had been lavished, was at last under way.
Nine
The planning and execution of the Neptune’s construction had been so precise that, after a week of limited trials, it was determined that only minor adjustments needed to be made. Her departure on her mission was scheduled for two weeks later, by which time the changes would be made, and additional supplies and gear would be taken on board.
Immediately prior to Franklin Richards’ pre-sailing trip to Washington he conferred at length with Porter behind closed doors in the Corporation command post, and the next day Porter paid a visit to the engineering and naval architecture divisions of the shipyard. His business there completed, he went to Adrienne’s office.
Her subordinates continued to keep watch on the Neptune ashore and at sea, but the major part of her immediate task was finished, and her mood was ebullient. ‘I’m going to soak up the sun in a deck chair every day, courtesy of the Corporation,’ she said. ‘We’re on the last lap ashore.’
‘You are,’ Porter said.
Adrienne’s broad smile faded. ‘On second thoughts, if a typhoon hits us I’ll probably get seasick.’
‘Just suppose, and I’m cursed with a vivid imagination, that the KGB is lying in wait for us. We raise the Zoloto and start home with our prize. Oh, the US Navy and Air Force are protecting us, but the Russians send a powerful squadron to intercept us and reclaim their property. Will we send them packing – and risk World War Three? Or will we surrender their submarine, its secrets and their dead to them? Without a murmur and without publicity, of course, which would make it far easier to keep face.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of a more terrible dilemma. It would have to be settled by the President and the National Security Council.’
‘The problem has kept me awake nights,’ Porter said. ‘And so has the possibility that the Russians might try to sink the Neptune while she’s sailing to the South China Sea. I haven’t been troubled by insomnia for years, so I’m doing something to get rid of it. I’m overdue for a pension, so I’m resigning from the Corporation.’
Adrienne was horrified. ‘Now? When Project Neptune is reaching the make-or-break stage?’
‘I’ve dealt with one crisis after another for more years than I care to remember,’ Porter said. ‘I’m sick of the business and God knows that’s the truth. I’m also a lovesick lunatic who wants to go off somewhere with his girl. Preferably a private island for two, provided I can raise the money to buy the place.’
‘I see.’ She stared at him for a long time. ‘No, Porter. You’re the best in the business, but this is too much. The KGB won’t buy it.’
‘Even Andropov has read Pushkin,’ he said. ‘Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Not to mention the forbidden moderns like Boris Pasternak. Weltschmerz and love are an irresistibly powerful combination. Every good Russian knows that.’
‘No, Porter!’ There was panic in Adrienne’s voice. ‘You’re pushing your luck too far.’
‘You’re just jealous,’ he said, ‘because I’m taking somebody else to that private island.’
‘It so happens I am jealous, but that’s beside the point. You’re assuming that Andropov and his staff are cretins.’
‘All bureaucrats are cretins. Don’t take my word for it. Just spend a full day with Brian Davidson.’
‘You’ve lost your sense of humour along with your intelligence,’ Adrienne said.
‘You’re very short-sighted. People who develop a taste for red herring lose their appetites for ordinary food. So I’m thinking of opening a posh restaurant on that private island.’
She was crestfallen. ‘Nothing I might say will dissuade you?’
‘If I’d wanted a lingering death,’ he said, ‘I’d have applied, long ago, for a desk job at Corporation headquarters. Atrophy would have set in immediately.’
‘When do you take off for your brave new world?’
‘Today. Blackman will attend to routines, under your supervision. I’m formally handing over the command to you, as of right now.’
‘I refused to weep for Charlie – or for myself – in that East Berlin prison,’ Adrienne said. ‘So I won’t shed tears over you now.’
Porter tried to maintain a light tone. ‘I was hoping you’d rejoice for me because I’ve found my one true love.’
Her sense of humour deserted her. ‘Stop it!’
He swallowed hard, then took her hand. ‘Sorry. If I can stay alive long enough, I’ll try to make it up to you.’
She recovered something of her equilibrium. ‘I’ve heard of men running away from love, but some people carry a good thing too far.’
Porter tried in vain to grin at her. ‘I’m unique. I’m probably the only man in history who has confirmed his love for one woman by living with another.’
‘If we survive this caper, both of us, we’re getting out,’ Adrienne said.
‘You have my promise.’ For an instant his voice shook, but he quickly overcame the momentary weakness. ‘I can’t allow myself to think about you,’ he said. ‘We stay healthy only when we feel nothing.’
‘Put me out of your mind.’
‘How?’
‘Remember me as cold and callous. The last time I wept for a male I was fourteen. He had acne and wore braces on his teeth.’
‘It was his omniscience and razor wit that enslaved you, I presume?’
‘It was his stupidity, actually. He was congenitally incapable of realizing he might be defeated.’
‘But he had charm?’
‘In my naive, girlish way I found him overwhelming,’ Adrienne said, and embraced him.
Porter kissed her, and as they clung to each other he told himself to put her out of his mind. A man in his position could not afford attachments that might weaken his resolve.
She broke away from him and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Look what you’ve made me do,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re satisfied.’
‘I’ll do my best to conform. Before we meet again I’ll visit an orthodontist and a dermatologist.’ Porter turned away quickly and left the room.
The names of the night clubs changed frequently on Rush Street, adjacent to the Chicago Gold Coast, but the atmosphere remained the same. The lighting was dim, the prices outrageous, the sophistication synthetic and the aura as sleazy as it was shabby. The overweight blonde singer in the tight-fitting black sequin dress had gone off to her dressing-room, the trio who played jazz of the 1920s were refuelling at the bar, and the customers from Indianapolis, Fort Worth, and Des Moines out-shouted one another as they ordered fresh rounds of drinks from the tired waitresses in tiny miniskirts. Their boisterousness was almost as forced as the attempts of the proprietors to give the place a patina of elegance.