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on Earth—or rather below the seas—including the bottom of the North Atlantic exactly two and a half miles
below the surface.
Ingles, carrying his gear, now ran a strong hand along the huge steel derrick. With her electronically
controlled pulleys, Scorpio could hoist anything imaginable, even a Titanic-sized bulkhead if need be. If the
Titanic were in one piece and not the ripped apart, pancaked-in-on-itself ship that it’d become, David had no
doubt that the mighty little Scorpio could “Raise the Titanic.” She was that strong.
However, their mission was not to raise Titanic so much as to raid and plunder her. Some news accounts
used the term ‘rape’ her, but Ingles didn’t see it that way. Not in the least. It was well documented in the
literature that Titanic took down many treasures with her—far more than dishware—and the belief held that
even the sealed hold that carried a treasure-trove of vintage automobiles would be perfectly preserved at the
depths where Titanic resided. Even a sandwich at such depths would be perfectly preserved and edible unless
found in a Stover’s lunchbox—which would be permeated then with corrosive salts and more toxic than sea
water. So what of the stash of mailbags crossing the Atlantic in 1912? They resided in a sealed section of the
ship. A wealth of letters, documents, and bank notes alone. So what of all the jewelry stowed in the safes aboard
yet to be discovered? Not to mention brass and gold fixtures and shipboard items within the ship? The treasures
that had survived all these years—museum pieces for world showcases, and each item itself worth a fortune!
It was just a matter of using modern means to salvage the treasures awaiting them from what remained inside
the various safes aboard, the staterooms, the varied first, second, and third-class dishes and silverware, the
mailbags, the secret cargo in the holds—like the rumored crates of Vickers automatic machine guns destined for
the US Army, and a stash of now quite antique automobiles. Not to mention an Egyptian mummy on its way to
New York.
Yes it was all extremely controversial, and Ingles’d had to walk through a sizeable crowd of protestors noisier
than the seagulls to get aboard, but history would eventually prove the mission the right thing to do—of this he
was certain. Otherwise the enormous sacrifice of all those 1600 souls aboard the night Titanic went to its watery
grave would have been in vain. At least that was the sound byte put out for the media and the public.
The other side argued that Titanic was a cemetery, sacred ground; they championed Dr. Robert Ballard, who
had consecrated that solemn peace of the death ship at the bottom of the Atlantic. Ingles recalled Robert Ballard
in a Red Sox ball cap when the discoverer of the Titanic in its grave had last left Titanic’s ruins decades ago. He
had certainly put his stamp on the discovery and had every good intention to proclaim it a last resting place, a
sanctified ground, a place not to be disturbed, a place nothing should be removed from.
Author Rod Serling’s brother Robert’s worst novel—Ghosts of the Titanic—prevailed in the minds of many,
but for Ingles and other scientists such concerns amounted to superstitious claptrap—Twilight Zone nonsense.
“Make no mistake about it,” said a white-bearded stout fellow confronting Ingles, jabbing at the derrick with
his pipe. “This monster can hoist up an entire Sherman tank from below if you give the order, Dr. Ingles. If need
be, we can bring up that blasted ship piece by piece, compartment by compartment.”
“Capable of a quarter million pounds of lift,” David replied, smiling. “May sound like science fiction but
there you have it. Please, call me David.”
“Indeed, young man…indeed.” They shook hands.
“Your voice sounds somewhat familiar. You’re Dr. Dimitri Alandale, aren’t you, sir? We’ve spoken. You
called my iPhone.”
“Aye—first mate, science officer, and you look like your photo, yes? Sometimes a good thing!”
“You’ve got me!” Ingles joked, and they both looked out to sea.
“Ahhh, yes! I called you from my Droid—lot of interference. Cell phones don’t always work out at sea. Well,
son, our captain’ll see you soon ’nough. Busy with that bloody press conference.” He pointed to the pier with his
pipe.
“Good to meet you, sir.”
“Sorry there’s no one to welcome you aboard other than me.” A tall, gaunt man perhaps in his early to midsixties,
Dr. Dimitri Alandale was half Greek, half Scotsman. He looked the picture of a graying oceanographer
and seaman, and Ingles took an instant liking to the man whose laugh came so easily.