Above on Scorpio, Captain Juris Forbes indeed monitored the vital signs of all the divers, and pictures from the MHD’s mounted cameras were being sent in real time to the screens in the control room. The scientific team, officers, crew, and camera crew from CNN had all crowded round the various monitors, and together they had cheered when Titanic came into view.
“Think of it, people,” Forbes told the others. “Aquanauts will walk on Titanic’s decks, skim along the promenade, and enter her compartments.” He then spoke to Lou’s divers. “You aquanauts will become a part of Titanic history—a part of ‘her’ very habitat and to completely and wholly sense her; indeed to become one with her. I so envy you people.”
“Enough with the waxing and waning,” replied Swigart to topside.
“No, no, never enough, Lou,” Forbes shot back. “Think of it! Men and women will do the exploration not machines—not robot but human hands will take hold of her secrets. And we are privileged to see and hear it all in real time.”
Another cheer from the appreciative surface team went up for Captain Forbes’ cheerful speech.
From Max so far below came Lou’s reply to this. “Well said, Juris.”
“Still…” began Forbes anew, “armchair exploration from up here… seeing this,” he indicated the wreck image flashing on the screen in the CIS room; another screen displayed the submersible called Max in real time circling, hovering into position. “It just makes me want to dive… to go down there and be a part of it all, people! A part of history, gentlemen.”
Lou got everyone’s attention back to the job at hand. “Now short of one of you keeling over,” he said to his divers, “we go in-step with the topside team and Captain Forbes who has us on camera. Test your cams for Forbes; he wants eyes on everything.”
Each diver had a small camera hooked over a section of their helmet—the helmet itself necessary for full suit coverage and liquid atmosphere to buffer divers against the cold and pressure. The helmet secured about the head for protection against implosion, of course, but also to hold microphone and camera. Built into their suits via electrodes, their vital signs, too, were monitored.
The helmet held the camcorders about the size of a large computer thumb-drive. They sent real-time images up to the surface. “What you divers see, those above will see,” Swigart reminded them.
“Everyone ready? All recording devices on?”
Aside from the camcorders, Dr. Entebbe and others above had monitored each diver’s vital signs as they underwent the small death, and thereafter how they were doing in terms of blood pressure, breathing, heart rate, brainwave activity, down to skin prickles. Swigart was in constant communication with Forbes and Entebbe regarding his divers’ internal ‘attitude’ as it was referred to—and he was concerned with Swigart’s vital signs.
“Setting the camera aboard Max for automatic, Juris, to get some shots of us all arriving and venturing out onto the deck now. Coming around to landing… closer… closer…”
All aboard struggled to get a sight of Titanic from the large bubble over the top front of the sub—having to take turns to do so. The sight amazed the divers. Kelly grabbed David’s hand and squeezed hard, unaware just how hard. He nodded to her, a signal he was here to watch her back. She squeezed harder before letting go.
Swigart had positioned the sub to hover over the over the ‘safe’ deck which sent up a cloud of debris and particles, but he announced, “The deck here will hold us. I’m putting Max on auto hover while we are away. We’ll get an exterior shot of Max hovering over Titanic as well, eh? We’re OK. Don’t let the slime and rust frighten you.”
“It’s so surreal,” said Kelly, speaking for them all. “Like it’s someone else’s dream, and we’re just intruders.”
“Don’t want to hear it, Irvin,” ordered Swigart.
“We’re not here to wax poetic,” Mendenhall backed Swigart. “Leave that crapola for Bob Ballard’s generation.”
“Yeah!” said Lena. “We’re in it strictly for the money and the adrenaline rush! Right, Will?”
“We’re here to plunder.” Bowman sent up a fist overhead, creating a wave throughout Max’s interior.
“Best remember that,” muttered Mendenhall.
“Get the hatchway door, Fiske?” commanded Swigart. “Best remember we don’t want this compartment flooded with salt water!”
It was the only reason the sub had a hatchway for the divers where they must take turns entering and leaving as only two divers fit into the space between the two hatchway doors. Once the hatchway was clear of saltwater, they exited and another pair entered. For safety precautions, this hatchway opened manually from the outside as well with a mere push of a button that opened the hydraulic portal.
Now, two by two, they ventured out and away from the hovering submersible that looked for all the world like a hovering Chinook helicopter with no blades. From Max, they went directly for the target area and were almost immediately assembled onto the deck of Titanic, including Swigart, leaving the sub to hover in such a manner as to be facing the length of Titanic’s crushed, ruined deck where all the divers assembled for the group photo being careful to remain atop the metal roof they’d found.
The interior temperature gauge aboard Max on their leaving her had read 43 degrees Fahrenheit. One lesson learned early: Max couldn’t generate enough heat to combat the onslaught of cold down here—not for long. Their thermal suits helped, but fear ran high that outside their safe shell the temperatures would be even harder on the team.
The plan was to place one dive team at the stern aft section here, the second team would re-board Max to travel to the more intact forward bow section, approximately a mile away. But first a group photo atop the deck at the stern section was the plan, thanks to Kelly’s suggestion and Swigart’s uncharacteristic change in orders and plans.
It was almost as if he’d become intoxicated, so intent had he become on this single idea. It did seem a sudden fixation to be sure.
From the point of view of the scientists and Forbes on Scorpion, no one thought it a good idea for all the divers to vacate the submersible for the deck. Mendenhall, whose expertise was underwater photography, carried the camera equipment. By the same token, Swigart, being dive commander had set the recording camera mounted on the sub as well to get photos from this separate view.
Everyone was acutely aware that at the moment—as they jostled for position in the bully photo— that time was fast ticking away, that their four hours on the breathing packs was already down to three and a quarter hours. They had literally turned over their lives to the technology they carried on their backs; they all knew how fast and efficiently the ocean would kill them should any malfunction or accident occur.
“Let’s make this fast,” said Bowman. “I wanna go exploring! Imagine being inside her hull!”
Once positioned and with Mendenhall giving them the international sign for success, a thumb’s up, he set the timer, and with a cacophony of voices coming over the com-links, everyone shouted for Mendenhall to hurry in order to get himself in the frame, but he hadn’t counted on a current that jostled him and left him fighting time. The camera began clicking off several shots with Mendenhall’s back to the camera before he finally got into position. David suspected that perhaps one frame alone caught the man’s full frontal features.
David wondered if Mendenhall, a meticulous fellow in everything he did, had not planned it that way. Was Mendenhall the thing… the ‘it’ of Declan Irvin’s journal and nightmare, the disease-spreading murderer aboard Scorpio? And now here! His finned feet touching the spongy deck of Titanic. Here not for the first time, but rather for a second time?
David had been confused at the last moment by changed orders from Lou; orders that paired Ingles not with Bowman as in training sessions up till now but with Mendenhall. He struggled to make sense of the switch in orders, the last minute change up, but Lou had offered no explanations only orders, and one was that Swigart himself would dive with Kelly Irvin. That Swigart would dive into Titanic himself was in itself a shocker to them all, but when he announced the pairings David and Kelly exchanged a concerned look. David with Mendenhall at his back did not sit well, and Kelly without David nearby worried them both as well.
Once again Captain Forbes via communications above advised against this sudden new idea of Lou’s about joining the dive. Forbes cited his age, cited some early brush with some nebulous condition that could cause problems at this depth despite the technology keeping them all safe. Lou wouldn’t hear any of it; he was enraptured with the idea of entering Titanic—a lifelong dream and perhaps his plan all along, and at these depths with him in charge, who was there to argue otherwise?
At the surface, Captain Forbes and his crew were not idle as they had sent down one of the huge platforms that would act as an elevator for cargo and discoveries plundered from within this section of Titanic. From Scorpio a secondary pull-away ship, considerably smaller but in actuality a floating crane for all intents and purposes, too would be moving to hover over the second section of Titanic a mile off, where it would be deploying an underwater platform at the second location.
Even with this state of the art equipment, time remained the enemy. A secondary ship for this purpose had been sought, but nothing built other than Scorpio could possibly lift the sizeable platforms if and when full, so the search for a second ship had long ago been called off and the design for Scorpio put into play, a design that had a ship within a ship, so to speak.
Half the team were waved off now to go and explore the torn apart aft section—Lena, Bowman, Fiske, and Jens while Swigart ordered Kelly, Mendenhall, and David back aboard the waiting sub.
The last minute arrangements seemed odd, like another decision on Swigart’s part as he had now rather off-handedly and spur-of-the-moment re-shuffled the dive partners. The end result was that David, originally partnered with Bowman, was now partnered with Jacob Mendenhall, while Kelly, originally partnered with Jens was partnering with Lou.
David wondered if Kelly had at some point talked Swigart into this shuffle of the cards, or if it was just Swigart keeping them all on their toes? Or given the fact two people aboard Scorpio were now dead, perhaps Swigart had a game plan in his head no one else was supposed to know about.
Strange though that all previous philosophical operational plans of earlier were figuratively out the window yet still intact as no one really knew his or her partners under these circumstances. However, during training it was a mantra that any diver be capable of taking over for any other member of the team at any time.
Whatever the case, David knew not to question orders while involved in an operation already underway. He wasn’t about to ‘mutiny’ at these depths and under these conditions. Human emotions of that caliber unleashed down here could prove catastrophic.
With such anxious thoughts swirling about his mind, David imagined what his vital signs must be saying to Dr. Entebbe via the monitors topside. He was now following Kelly into the airlock to steal a moment with her before Mendenhall with his equipment and Lou would be coming through. Using sign language he indicated they could not be overheard while in the airtight, saltwater flushing bay. All the same, they each cut on a feature on their com-links that allowed them to speak privately.
“I hate this, what’s going down,” he told her of his concerns.
“It’s to separate us but keep an eye on us at the same time, and I think Mendenhall’s behind it—talked Lou into it behind our backs.”
“You think so? I’m not sure I trust Jacob at all, but Lou’s acting strange!”
“We should take no chances,” she said, “and I think we’re both spot on.”
“You mean with Mendenhall’s manipulating Lou?”
“Yes, and this thing—the creature—has taken up residence in Mendenhall. I’m sure of it.”
“But Kelly, what precisely is it that makes you so sure?”
“He’s damn creepy or haven’t you noticed? And big enough to have overpowered Alandale and Ford—so you’ve got to keep him away from the freezer compartments, and whatever the hell you do, don’t allow him at your back or to so much as touch you, David. I believe it transfers through touch—a kind of weird osmosis.”
“I’ll tell Lou that we should explore Titanic’s interior together—the four of us keeping watch on one another—for safety’s sake.”
“I’ve already told him as much, before we left from the surface. Maybe if we all can overpower Mendenhall when he makes his move, we’ll be OK.”
“But we can’t touch him. You just said—”
“Overpower with weapons, I meant. I’ve brought a spear gun for protection.” She held the weapon up. “Swigart approved it, for protection against any ‘natural’ creatures we might encounter down here, but honestly, I brought it to kill that thing inside Mendenhall.”
“You’d better be damn sure before you put one of those in him.”
“Did you see how he tried to avoid the group shot?”
“I noticed, yes, but all the same—and what about Lou and me? We have no weapons.”
“Pick one up—along the way. There’re pipes and all manner of tools inside the wreck—has to be.”
The lock flushed out all the seawater and filled again with liquid air, allowing them to open the inner door to the airlock.
“We could lock them both out,” she suggested once they were inside.
“You mean lock them all out—sacrifice everyone?”
“They sacrificed over 1500 on the Titanic, David.”
“We can’t do that, no. We go after Mendenhall when the time is right.”
She nodded, sighed, and put a finger to her lips to indicate they were back online and that any and all could now hear them.
Mendenhall and Swigart were already in the airlock. Any thought of sacrificing the entire dive team had passed with the opportunity.
Once all four divers were back inside and manning their respective stations, David caught Kelly’s eye, and they exchanged a knowing look as the others searched the debris field below them and watched for the other end of Titanic to greet them. Swigart searched for a place to ‘park’ the submersible, while the others searched for the best and safest entries to Titanic’s interior.
By now the first team away was already penetrating Titanic’s aft sections.
“How lucky are we?” said Kelly. “We get to see the ballroom.”
“You mean what’s left of it?” replied David.
From their vantage point with Max pulling away, they watched the quickly fading light around the aft section of Titanic. Moments before they entered total darkness ahead of them, David saw that Jens had found what appeared a likely entryway, and he and Kelly had watched Steve Jens wave Bowman, Lena, and Fiske to enter the wreck ahead of him.
“What is it?” Kelly asked David, seeing the concern in his eyes.
“Nothing… just felt my stomach churning like a clothes dryer. What if one of those four is the creature? Just biding its time for a second dive, a dive to the bow section where the freezer units are?”
“What’re you two yammering about?” asked Lou. “All I hear is static.”
“Talking about the other away team, Lou,” replied Kelly.
David quickly added, “They’re being smart and cautious, Lou—the four of them sticking close to one another. I suggest our away team do the same.” Even as he said this, David realized how very little they knew about Steve Jens who’d been put in charge of the first away team. He certainly seemed overly polite under the circumstances as if wanting the others in front of him instead of at his back; then David realized just how horrible his suspicions had become—that it’d become a force of its own, leaking into every synapse of the brain. A force out of his control.
The sub moved off at high rate of speed now, making short work of locating the other destroyed half of Titanic. In fact, with guidance from above at Scorpio control, the sub made the trip near instantaneously, handily locating the enormous bow section of the shipwreck. Here again the sub came face to face with the wall that was Titanic. They would have to maneuver Max up and over the deck in search of a landing site—the well known one that Ballard had used—the riveted metal rooftop of the officer’s quarters.
At the moment, little to nothing save the hull of the ship could be seen in the distance outside the bubble and on the periphery of their lights. For an odd, strange moment, the wall looked like a blue-black iceberg lurking here to destroy them. Commenting on how like an iceberg in the night it looked, David muttered “Irony of ironies, eh?”
“No doubt about it, kiddies,” Swigart said now. “I’m going in with you three, and Forbes’ fears be damned.”
“But who’s going to be in contact with the surface?” asked Kelly.
“You can stay back, Dr. Irvin; in fact, let’s make it an order if you like. As for the surface, they can see what’s going on, and they can monitor us from there—all of us. Mendenhall, let’s have at it, shall we?”
Mendenhall who had not smiled for the photo and had maintained an eerily stoic demeanor throughout replied, “Ready… I’ve been ready all my life for this.”
“Good… good! What about you Ingles?”
David was busy contemplating the full meaning of what Mendenhall had said. “Ready sir; following your lead.”
“Irvin? Make up your mind.”
Kelly hesitated a moment before saying into her com-link, “I’m with you, sir. Just worried if a rogue current were to come along… what with no one at the controls…”
“It’s not that strong; monitors say normal. Listen, all of you,” began Swigart, “we all know the score here. We are two and a half freakin’ miles below the surface. At these depths, no matter our grand technology, a slip up means death. We also know that despite all our training that in the end during such operations it can come down to every man for himself. So take all due precautions, people, but let’s have at Titanic’s insides, shall we?”
This didn’t sound like the Lou Swigart of the boardroom, the Lou who had meticulously trained them on the interior lanes and passageways within the monster ship now before them. David guessed the murders of Alandale and Ford had affected Lou more than he had dared let on.
Each of them—armed with the Titanic’s manifest—knew what was in Titanic’s holds and stores. Each had also committed architectural diagrams of the ship’s interiors to memory. In point of fact, every diver knew his section of the wreck as well as anyone might. Now each diver must deal with the weight of this moment, the historic significance of it all. No one had ‘walked’ here before—not a living soul—not since Titanic went down a hundred years before.
“Look there, Kelly,” Mendenhall said, pointing out the large cross portal at the nose of the sub.
David swiveled to put up a hand to silently warn her to keep her distance from Mendenhall, but she got in close enough to see what he was pointing at. A sturgeon fish at these depths was a surprise. Max’s camera caught it as it swam past Titanic’s still-in-place anchor.
“Good Ol’ Bob Ballard was right about one thing,” said Lou, distracting David.
“What’s that?”
“Titanic’s way too far slammed into the ooze to ever ‘raise’ her.”
David stared out at the knife’s edge of the bow that’d plowed into the mud and silt. “Looks to be about sixty feet under.”
Swigart expertly brought the submersible up and around the nose. “Port and starboard anchors on either side of the bow in place.”
“Will ya look at that?” asked David, “A single link in the anchor chain’s gotta be the size of a cathedral door.”
Kelly could see the second anchor out her own portal now. “That port anchor is maybe six feet above the seabed, while starboard anchor’s level with the sea floor.”
“It means we’ll be working at a helluva an angle,” added Lou, “but we knew that.”
“One thing on paper… another to see it,” said David, unable to take his eyes off what their running lights were picking up. David and the others watched a pair of mating crabs making their way along what was once the brass placard over top of the Officer’s quarters. He imagined Lightoller, Murdoch, and others off duty inside teasing a younger officer, or speaking of the latest news of the day, possibly writing a letter home, or preparing a wireless message to go out to a loved one.
David studied the sad remains of a boat davit, the mighty little warrior of a winch still on duty, still in place, looking for all the world like R2-D2 of Star Wars film fame. Then a shining, bronze-topped capstan used to tie off the enormous ropes when docked; the glowing capstan was enormous in its size and shape, the manufacturer’s marks covered by one of two plaques placed on Titanic by Ballard so many years before declaring the ship a cemetery, hallowed ground, a place not to be disturbed. The other one was at the base of the stern section where Bowman and the other aquanauts now roamed.
Again rivers of rust covered the railings and trailed along her sides… more rust-red pools of it moving out on the seabed, looking like blood. David tried to ignore these sights and Bob Ballard’s now eerie warnings—prophetic in a sense given their circumstances. Huge rusticles hanging everywhere made A Deck look even more ghostly than the other areas of the ship. The rusticles partially obscured intact windows and copper edgings, which Max’s lights reflected off of to send back what felt like so many spirits.
David had seen a photograph tucked into Declan Irvin’s journal, no doubt by Thomas Coogan who’d held on to it for a time—a photo of a gathering of 1500 men in London, an overhead shot for the Times to illustrate the enormity of the loss of life that Titanic represented. This place was teeming with 1500 plus souls lost to a sudden traumatic death. He imagined it the ultimate ‘Ghost Hunters’ wet dream—literally so.
Through the sub’s front portal, David could imagine people walking the promenade deck, peering out the windows where the deck was covered, windows he now realized either shattered or cranked down so people might watch the life boats being lowered. He could see through the open windows frozen in time like props from a Twilight Zone set. He stared hard at this section of the promenade; he imagined lovers on honeymoon or holiday, married couples, strollers, children playing with hoops and tops, imagined that long-ago dog named Varmint, Inspector Ransom—another scoundrel—and Dr. Declan Irvin among those spirits at rest here.
David chose to ignore the ghosts, the rust, and the plaque to remain focused when the wheel housing came into view—empty of its wheel, yet otherwise intact.
“There, just beyond,” Lou said, breaking David’s reverie. “Precisely where Ballard landed Alvin; we set down there, and we can enter through the Grand Staircase; we know from film taken by Alvin’s robotic camera called Jason that the stairwell is in surprisingly good shape.”
“What? You don’t want to take the elevator?” asked Mendenhall in a rare bit of humor.
“They called it a lift,” Kelly replied, now leaning in over David’s shoulder to get a better view. Due to conditions within the submersible, and their being suited up, he could not smell her, but his memory of how she smelled seemed heightened all the same, and he was excited by her still—hoping against hope that no matter what happened down here that they might have a future together.
David said, “But Jason only penetrated as far as B-Deck; we don’t know anything beyond that.”
“So we go where no man has gone before, David,” replied Kelly. “After all, it’s why we’re here.”
“One step beyond,” added Lou, his voice teeming with an excitement none of them had seen or heard before—at least not on the surface.
In passing, David saw a large opening which appeared safe enough for a diver to enter and exit in a gangway below a set of stairs at a bulwark railing—the door completely torn away. He made no noise about it, knowing that Lou knew every inch of the ship from his years of study; still, he wondered if Lou or the other two inside Max with him had taken note of this spot. However, as Lou was both in charge and the expert on Titanic’s remains, he let it go by without calling attention to it.
Lou had made Titanic a decades-upon-decades study much as had Juris Forbes. And while it was a common fascination, few had turned their lives entirely over to her. All the same, given the excitement of actually being here, neither Lou nor Mendenhall had actually seen the opening, so far as David could tell. Just the same, David reserved the information in the event he and Kelly might require it as a quick exit if needed. They had passed by the area far too quickly. They should have slowed to take more photos, but Lou seemed hell-bent as he headed Max straight for a position over top of the officers’ saloon—their mess hall—to hover right beside the collapsed officers’ cabins. This was on the port side Boat Deck, and along the way, they’d gaped to look into the windows of the Grand Staircase until the sub was beside the huge center expansion joint just aft of the number one funnel opening and the officers’ quarters.
Here they could see that the superstructure of the ship had actually cracked wide open all along the expansion joint like a quake fault line, and David could see all the way through and out the starboard side! There was an array of tantalizing glimpses of various interiors as Max’s lights played over the huge rent. Inside one cabin, David and the others made out a broken sink, scattered brushes, a torn away space heater, and a broken apart but trapped bed.
“Quite the accommodations,” muttered Lou, staring at it all. But they must push on. They moved slowly, carefully forward as to not allow the sub to catch on any overhanging davits or other obstructions when out of the darkness came a familiar sight. They passed the davit for lifeboat number two, where Lou intended to land, right beside 1st Officer William Murdoch’s cabin. It was the only davit still standing on the port side. David could see the davit now and the horrible wreckage just to the right, where the wall of the officers’ quarters had collapsed outward.
“Check out that sign over the one door—you can still read it,” said Kelly.
“What’s it say?”
“For use of crew only.”
Another brass sign but completely askew reflected the light; once perched over the top of an entryway, it read: 1st Class Entrance. “It’s an entryway to the Grand Staircase.”
“Landing anywhere here’s gonna be tricky, Lou,” cautioned David. “Perhaps you ought to remain here, keep her hovering above all this.”
“Just aft of the davit… other side of those metal stanchions, and we’re home free,” replied Lou, a smile creasing his ruddy features. Lou brought the sub in perfectly for a smooth touchdown—so smooth in fact, it was eerie in itself as David felt an odd pang in his gut—a feeling as if Titanic was luring them to their deaths.
Swigart and Mendenhall exited the sub, David knew that Kelly was not about to linger behind inside the sub. He held out a hand to her. “I’ve got your back.”
She didn’t hesitate entering the airlock chamber with David, but just before doing so, David noticed that she had clicked something on the dashboard. “I hit the camera on, which for some reason Lou switched off,” she said once inside the privacy of the airlock. She added, “Keep your eye on Swigart and Mendenhall. I have no idea who among us is here for those eggs, David, but I fear it is one of them.”
“And the freezer compartment, the one where those things were locked away is below us somewhere here, according to the journal.”
“And suddenly Lou is interested in diving with our team?”
“And he changed the teams’ arrangements last minute as well.”
“Totally out of character,” she agreed.
David agreed but added. “Money changes everything. It could just be he has dollar signs in his head.”
They rushed to catch up to the other two divers, and soon they were watching Swigart split them into two pairs—Kelly with Swigart which left David with Mendenhall. Lou had discovered one possible way to get to the interior depths, Mendenhall another. David felt trumped as if a chess move two steps ahead of him had been made. A move he had not contemplated, yet one he should have foreseen.
Swigart is it, he thought now. It absolutely felt that way on the one hand, but Jacob Mendenhall remained suspect as well.