Butera stood frozen beside the great electric winch, refusing to believe his eyes. "How?" he shouted in Ensign Kelly's ear. "How could it part? It was built to take worse stress than this."

    "Can't figure it," Kelly yelled back above the storm. "There was no extreme stress on her when she went."

    "Bring her up, Ensign. Let's take a look."

    The ensign nodded and gave the orders. The brake was released and the reel began turning, pulling the wire up from the sea. A solid sheet of spray dashed against the cablehouse. The dead weight of the wire acted as an anchor, dragging down the stern of the Wallace, and each time a column of water approached, it rose high over the wheelhouse and came thundering down upon it with a shock that jarred the entire tug.

    At last the end of the tow cable appeared over the stern and snaked up onto the reel. As soon as the brake was applied, Butera and Kelly moved in and began examining the frayed strands.

    Butera stared at it, his face twisted in stunned incomprehension. He touched the burned wire ends and looked dumbly at the ensign.

    The ensign did not share Butera's muteness. "Jesus Christ in heaven," he shouted hoarsely. "It's been cut through with an acetylene torch."

    Pitt was down on his hands and knees on the cargo floor of the helicopter, sweeping his flashlight under the folded passenger seats when the Titanic's tow cable dropped into the sea.

    Outside the wind howled with demonic power. Pitt couldn't have known it, but without the tug's steadying influence, the Titanic's bow was being forced by the raging sea to leeward, exposing her entire flank to the unleashed furies. She was beginning to broach to.

    It had taken him only two minutes to find Dana's make-up kit where it had solidly jammed behind one of the folded front seats immediately behind the control-cabin bulkhead. He could easily see why she had had difficulty retrieving the blue nylon case from its prison. Very few women are blessed with mechanical inclinations, and Dana was definitely not one of them. It hadn't occurred to her to simply unclasp the restraining straps and unfold the seat. Pitt did so and the kit fell free into his hand.

    He didn't bother opening it; he wasn't interested. What he was interested in was the recessed compartment in the forward bulkhead, where a twenty-man life raft sat, or where it was supposed to sit. The yellow, rubberized cover was there all right, but the raft was gone.

    Pitt had no time to appreciate the implication of his discovery. Even as he pulled the empty cover out of its compartment, a monstrous sea crashed against the flank of the helpless Titanic, heeling her great mass over on her starboard side as though she never meant to stop. Pitt made a desperate grab for one of the seat supports, but his fingers closed on air and he was spilled like a sack of potatoes down across the sloping floor, crashing against the partially opened cargo door with such force that he ripped a four-inch gash in his scalp.

    Mercifully, the next few hours were lost to Pitt. He was aware of a cold gale sweeping into the fuselage, but not much else. His mind was a vague mass of gray wool and he felt remotely detached from his surroundings. He could not know or even sense when the helicopter shed its triplelashed moorings and was hurled sideways, dropping off the first-class lounge roof onto the Boat Deck, crumpling its tail section, tearing off its rotor blades, before grinding over the railing and falling toward the tormented sea.

62

    The Russians came aboard the Titanic during the storm's lull. Deep down in the bowels of the engine and boiler rooms, Spencer and his pumping crew had no chance, not the least opportunity for any resistance. Their total surprise acknowledged Prevlov's dedication to exact planning and detailed execution.

    The fight that occurred topside-massacre would have been closer to the truth-was over almost before it began. Five Russian marines, half the boarding force, their faces all but hidden by seaman caps pulled low on top and with huge mufflers wrapped below, were in the gymnasium with automatic machine pistols ready and aimed before anyone could comprehend what was happening.

    Woodson was the first to react. He swung from the radio, his eyes widened in a look of recognition, and an expression of pure anger swept over his normally passive face. "You bastard!" he blurted, and then hurled himself at the nearest intruder.

    But a knife materialized in the man's hand and he deftly rammed it into Woodson's chest, tearing the photographer's heart nearly in two. Woodson clutched at his killer, then slowly slid downward to the booted feet, shock in his eyes, then disbelief, then pain, and finally the emptiness of death.

    Dana sat up on her cot and screamed and screamed. It was that stimulus that finally stung the other members of the salvage crew into action. Drummer caught Woodson's murderer on the cheek with his fist and received the barrel of a machine pistol across his face for his effort. Sturgis launched his body in a flying tackle but his timing was late. A gun butt caught him just above the temple at the same instant he crashed into his intended victim and they both fell to the deck in a heap, the assailant quickly regaining his feet while Sturgis lay there as if dead.

    Giordino was in the act of bringing a wrench down on another Russian's skull when there was an ear-splitting crack. A bullet passed through his upraised hand and sent the wrench clattering across the deck. The shot seemed to freeze all movement. Sandecker, Gunn, and Chief Bascom and his men halted in mid action as they abruptly realized that their unarmed defense of the ship was hopeless in the face of guns held by highly trained killers.

    At that precise moment a man strode into the room, his intense gray eyes taking in every detail of the scene. He wasted no more than three seconds-three seconds and no more was all Andre Prevlov needed to survey any given situation. He stared down at the still-screaming Dana and smiled graciously. "Do you mind, my dear lady," he said in fluent, idiomatic English. "I think female panic inflicts quite an unnecessary strain on the vocal chords."

    Her round eyes were stricken. Her mouth closed and she sat huddled in a ball on the cot, staring at the spreading pool of blood under Omar Woodson and shuddering uncontrollably.

    "There now, that's much better." Prevlov followed her eyes to Woodson, then to Drummer, who was sitting on the deck in the process of spitting out a tooth, and then to Giordino, who glared back holding his bleeding hand.

    "Your resistance was foolish," Previov said. " One dead and three injured, and for nothing."

    "Who are you?" Sandecker demanded. "By what right do you board this ship and murder my crew?"

    "Ah! A pity we must meet under such remote and unpleasant circumstances," Prevlov apologized. "You are, of course, Admiral James Sandecker, are you not?"

    "My questions still stand," Sandecker spat angrily.

    "My name is of no consequence," Prevlov replied. "The answer to your other question is obvious. I am taking over this ship in the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

    "My government will never stand idly by and let you get away with it."

    "Correction," Prevlov murmured. "Your government will stand idly by."

    "You underestimate us."

    Prevlov shook his head. "Not I, Admiral. I am fully aware of what your countrymen are capable of. I also know they will not start a war over the legitimate boarding of a derelict ship."