“Enough? I’ve just begun,” she countered. “You’re an expert on marine biology as well as—”
“Enough for now; we’ve weeks at sea together. I must pace myself… I’m an old man.”
“Oh, not at all, sir.”
“Calling me sir further ages me.”
“Oh, no! I-I’m so sorry.”
Alandale waved it off, and she changed the subject with ease, asking, “Just exactly where’re the private quarters for the dive team? So’s to stow my gear?”
“Now you sound like one of us,” offered David, garnering a smile from her. “There’re central changing rooms belowdecks center, but aft you’ll find private quarters for your personal effects.”
Alandale pointed to the nearest stairwell door that would take Kelly into the ship. She gushed once more at Alandale, gave David a micro-smile, and she then took Alandale by the arm to guide her off. Alandale’s body language told David that the older gentleman wanted to part company with her at the stairwell entryway, while her body language insisted that Alandale escort her belowdecks.
David laughed when the pair disappeared with Alandale still on her arm and in fact helping her out with her belongings. It appeared obvious that men found it hard to say no to this woman. Pushy, he thought.
Then again, perhaps he was wrong in his assumptions about her, as first impressions could not always be counted on. Still, she came off as rather cold and somewhat manipulative even if she was genuinely fascinated by Alandale’s history and accomplishments. He wondered what she’d be like for the rest of the trip, especially toward the ‘hired help’—which she obviously thought David happened to be. Then again a person whose life is given over to marine life, plankton, krill, and the like was probably not the most socially graceful of individuals. David decided he’d withhold judgment. See what comes of it, he told himself and returned his attention to the circus on the wharf, a full-blown news conference about the latest Titanic expedition, one that had cause a great stir or controversy even before it had begun.
THREE
Before David Ingles could find and stow his own gear aboard Scorpio, a call for divers to find the briefing room and report to Commander of Divers Lou Swigart came over the PA system. Ingles rushed to join the other divers to report to the tough-minded, former naval captain, now head of the away team on Scorpio. It’d been Swigart who had hand-picked David from hundreds of applicants for this mission. Although David felt that Swigart, some fifteen years his senior, respected him, even liked him, Lou had told David early on that there would be no ‘headline-grabbing crap’ as he put it. He didn’t mind repeating it for the group now where they sat in a cramped operations room.
“Nothing in the way of news or reports is going out to the press about this mission to Titanic; that means nothing about you either—no interviews, no phone calls—nothing. Consider it top secret. Got it”
Lou, a big man, filled the space where he stood beside a lectern. “Nothing said that isn’t cleared by the Woods Hole Institute PR machine. I put it to you now… simple and direct—and I repeat: there’ll be no freaking headline-grabbing cowboys here. Not on my dive team!” He’d warmed to it, pacing now, adding, “It’s a purely scientific expedition on the face of it—for the media and the public, but we all know it is a salvage operation this… this expedition, ladies, gents… and so to all who’ve signed on go the spoils—whatever’s dredged out of the belly of that wreck down there, we all have a share in. But make no bones about it, the entire structure is unstable, and what we’re proposing… well it could easily—easily turn into a suicide mission.”
He let this sink in but David knew divers; he knew it wasn’t sinking far.
“You need to know that going in, and if anyone decides here and now that it’s this back-out time, your replacement is waiting in the wings. Mr. Fiske, stand up so that all the others know your face.”
Fiske leapt to his feet, a muscular, square-jawed young man filled with energy and a keen eye as he took in the others, saying, “I want this as much as any of you; should anyone fall ill or have an accident, I’m here to fill in.”
“That’s comforting,” muttered Will Bowman, getting a snicker out of the others.
Lou silenced them with an upraised hand. “So it’s a lot cheaper for the expedition if you decide now, else you’ll be flown out by chopper once we’re at sea and Mr. Kane and company will be up my ass about it, understood?”
“I do… completely, sir,” David replied, feeling certain that Lou was talking about him the entire time thanks to the press that he and National Geographic had gotten on the botched salvage operation in the Sea of Japan. Despite David’s plea that National Geo not air the program, the producers had overruled him and other divers who felt as David did that it should not air, given the dire turn it had taken, costing Wilcox—who figured heavily in the program—his life.
“You don’t go into this thinking you have something to prove, people,” continued Swigart, ignoring David Ingles. “This is now, and it’s hardly the Sea of Japan. Trust me, this is great depths we’ll be working at, beyond anything anyone has ever withstood before—and the real reason I suspect you’re all here, willingly…” He let this sink in while taking up a position along the side of the podium where he now leaned in a casual manner. “And this series of dives will prove the new technology right or wrong.”
“In other words,” said Will Bowman, grinning, “live or die.”
The room erupted in a quiet chorus of murmurs.
“I need the bread, Lou,” David assured his boss. “No one’s here to prove anything.”
“Not even you—David Ingles?” came a female voice at the rear, making David look back. It was the second female diver, Lena Gambio, a weight-lifting Italian with an overlarge nose for her petite face.
“I signed on for the hundred thou.” Ingles’ blunt reply caused a wave of muttering about the small meeting room.
“The going rate for a suicide dive.” Swigart didn’t miss a beat.
“The money has been put up by a private donor working through the institute, working through Luther K—”
“Hold on!” said Kelly Irvin, suddenly standing. “I thought Kane was footing the bill.”
“Luther Warren Kane is a rich man because he doesn’t gamble his own money on risky ventures, and nothing gets more risky than undersea salvage.”
“Kane is just fronting?” Kelly persisted.
“What’s it matter?” asked Jacob Mendenhall, the closest diver to her. “Who cares where the money comes from so long as we get paid?”
Swigart waved them all down. “Said donor has managed to ignore decades of objections from those who support the belief that Titanic should not be disturbed any more than it already has been.”
“The poor dear, she’s looted from the outside by various nations around the world,” added Lena. “But we get a shot at her insides!”
“No one’s had the technology we have,” countered David.
“Or the corporate and government backing that Scorpio is now equipped with,” began Kelly, palms raised. “We have the Navy involvement, our training, and some of the largest corporations in the US behind us.”
“Far cry from just having National Geographic support,” said Bowman with a smirk.
Mendenhall laughed and added, “I saw the spread NG did on you, Ingles.”
“We all saw it!” countered Bowman. “So what, Jake.”
“Please, it’s Jacob or Mendenhall if you like, Bowman. “I am just saying that I’d worry less about where the money is coming from and more about with whom we are diving alongside—I mean at these depths!”