“Shouldn’t we tell Dr. Lepoint about this?” said Elliott anxiously.
“Not yet. We don’t want the good doctor to come down with the fantods.”
“But he should know what–”
“We’ll tell him tomorrow; One swallow doesn’t a bummer make, you know. Unless we have solid evidence, he’ll laugh at us. We have to have data Lepoint can’t explain away.”
“But–”
“Tomorrow.”
The next day Elliott had his crew waiting in their small fleet of two-man craft when de la Chance tied up at the seismograph shack. Elliott held out the clipboard for his boss to sign the explosives requisition.
“Twelve hundred pounds?” asked de la Chance. “Do we need all that?”
“Cold turkey. Let’s find out once and for all if this vibration pattern is an aberration or the real thing. We’ll double the number of shot sites and nail it down. Okay?”
“You’re the expert,” de la Chance sighed.
At noon the results were in.
The point on the plot was 4.75.
“Now we talk to Lepoint,” said de la Chance. He flicked on the intercom and asked the operator to ascertain Dr. Lepoint’s whereabouts.
“He’s in the auditorium, Monsieur de la Chance.”
“Not another press conference?”
“No, sir. It’s an awards ceremony. In fact, you’re supposed to be there. I’ve been trying to locate you for the last–”
“I’m on my way.”
Five minutes later he was striding down the aisle of the screening room, followed by Elliott clutching a file folder. On the podium, Dr. Lepoint was handing a check and a scroll to the captain of the William Hellman. There was a polite scattering of applause from the two dozen men who were awaiting their turn.
“Ah, there you are, Guy. And just in time to receive your citation and cash award from Raynes Oceanic Resources for your part in bringing the Salvation successfully across the southern hemisphere.”
“Thank you, Professor Lepoint, but right now I’m thinking of the northern hemisphere.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Lepoint.
“I mean, I think the Salvation doesn’t have a hope of ever reaching the northern hemisphere.”
“And why not, may one ask?”
“Because vibration–vibration caused by the propellers of the extra tugs, the prop wash of twelve tugs piling up against the Salvation’s leading edge, and the iceberg’s pounding against the adverse California current–will shake it apart.”
Dr. Valery Daniel Lepoint relaxed. For a moment he had thought he was facing a serious problem.
“And so now, Guy, you are not only an excellent project operations manager but a skilled seismographer as well. You are a man of unexpected, hidden resources.” He smiled at his sally.
“Well, I have the good sense to call in an expert like Elliott to look into the problem, anyway. Tell him, Elliott.”
Elliott nodded. “I’m afraid he’s right, Dr. Lepoint.” He produced the graph from the file and spread it on the lectern. “You’ll note that the change in the pattern began, ever so fractionally, just after we hit the interface between the Peru Current and the California Current. We were caught in sort of a whipsaw, and a third component was added by the pull of the six tugs. But it really became noticeable only after we added the other tugs. The way
I see it, the inability of the tugs to maintain an absolutely even strain on the towlines, due to wave action, inevitably causes a jerking motion. That jerking motion by twelve tugs instead of six is not a simple arithmetical function. It’s a geometric function. And this–”
Dr. Lepoint held up his hand in good-natured protest. “My boy, while I was still back in my laboratory at the Sorbonne I envisioned this problem and had a graduate student work out the solution. It’s a matter of restabilization, a matter of contending forces achieving a new equilibrium. You don’t suppose, do you, that–”
“When?” interrupted de la Chance.
“When what?”
“When does the new equilibrium become established?”
“By my computations–I checked my student’s figures, of course–it should be within eight days of the initial perturbations. That is to say, within five days.”
“In five days we’ll all be in the drink,” warned Elliott.
“I’m afraid I must agree,” said de la Chance. “The curve is ascending toward the vertical. When it intersects the red line–perhaps within seventy-two hours–I don’t want to be aboard.”
“Mon dieu, Monsieur de la Chance.” said Lepoint in exasperation. “Ca c’est tresfort–that’s putting it a little strong.”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Are you suggesting that we abandon ship, leaving behind the machinery, the supplies, installations worth millions of dollars?” said Lepoint contemptuously. “Abandon an iceberg without visible flaw, turn our backs on the plight of the United States which only we can alleviate, throw away our jobs and the high honors and rich rewards which await us?”
Elliott did not reply.
“That’s right,” replied de la Chance shortly. “Throw it all away, and save the crew.”
Lepoint canvassed the faces of the two score men in the screening room. He was a shrewd judge of men. He had plainly scored with his thrust about jobs and high honors and, especially, rich rewards. These were men who, if they left now, would return to America without jobs, to wives without pride, to communities that would think them cowards and fools.
“I am in your hands, my friends and coworkers. Let us put it to a vote. All in favor of renouncing our sacred duty, betraying the hopes of our fellow countrymen, forsaking our very handsome salaries and benefits, raise your hands.”
There was a pause.
Elliott raised his hand, but when he looked around and saw that he was alone, he quickly lowered it again.
Dr. Valery Daniel Lepoint smiled smugly at Guy de la Chance.
“Good-bye, Guy.”
de la Chance shook his head sadly. He shrugged. “Good-bye, Dr. Lepoint.” He looked at the men. They looked back at him, some with hostility, others with embarrassment or wistfulness. They were a good crew, and he would miss them. “Happy landings, mes amis” he said. “And keep your life jackets handy.”
He walked up the aisle and out of their lives. That afternoon he was aboard the courier plane bound for Panama City.
Six days later, Elliott, who had been plotting the vibration curve with mounting anxiety at six-hour intervals, entered the latest figures. With this entry, the curve breached the red danger line at 13.77. The latest average vibration coefficient was 14.20 and still rising. And yet the Salvation remained solid. Maybe Dr. Lepoint was right, after all. Elliott breathed more easily.
But he didn’t breathe long, for that afternoon he ceased to breathe altogether. The Salvation suddenly fractured into five major pieces, hurling men, machinery, and buildings into the water, crushing them as huge shards of ice broke off and toppled in upon them. Not all the men were crushed or drowned. Dr. Valery Daniel Lepoint, at that moment aboard his flagship, the William Hellman, survived to tell the world how the villainous Ripley Forte had somehow sabotaged his and the nation’s Salvation and sent it tragically into the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
15. SHOPPING LIST
7 JUNE 2006
“I COULD HAVE YOU SHOT, YOU KNOW,” SAID PRESIDENT Horatio Francis Turnbull.
“On what charge?” said Ripley Forte.
“Oh, piracy on the high seas, high treason–after all, you are a dual citizen of the United States and Texas– accessory before the fact to murder, genocide–any number of things. That’s principally why presidents have attorneys general: to answer questions like yours.”
“Then why don’t you, Mr. President?”
“You know the answer to that. You wouldn’t have come here if you thought I had a chance in hell of getting a conviction before you dragged the entire administration down with you. A man like you doesn’t come to play poker without having a marked deck up his sleeve. What kind of hand do you have, young man?”
“Pretty good, sir. Maybe unbeatable. And speaking of poker, your secretary of water resources must have thought he had a pat hand when he awarded the prime contract to Raynes Oceanic Resources. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Apache princess made some powerful medicine to change his mind about giving the prime contract to Forte Ocean Engineering. What it was, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Presidents do a lot of guessing, Mr. Forte, but in this case I don’t have to: Mrs. Red Cloud convinced him she wants to be Mrs. President and promised to back Castle to the hilt in his presidential campaign whether the berg came in or not, in return for the prime contract. They make bugs pretty cute these days. I suppose you thought if you could get an investigation launched, the truth would come out about Castle and Mrs. Red Cloud and everybody would forget about Ripley Forte in the ensuing scandal.”
“Right on the money, Mr. President.”
The President chuckled, went to the cabinet bar, and filled two glasses from the assortment of bottles on the glass shelves. He handed one to Forte, who sipped it and decided that President Turnbull wasn’t quite the simple-minded good ol’ boy he sometimes pretended to be. The whiskey was bourbon, straight, and his brand. The President was obviously well briefed.