ISA, of course, was perfectly well aware of these undercurrents, and did its best to exploit them. Franz Zwicker was particularly adept at plugging his own projects — and getting other people to pay for them. Bradley was glad to cooperate, especially where J.J. was concerned, and was equally adept at giving little pep talks and handing out glossy brochures on Operation NEPTUNE.
‘. . . Once the software’s been perfected,’ Bradley told Emerson, ‘so that he can avoid obstacles and deal with emergency situations, we’ll let him loose. He’ll be able to map the seabed in greater detail than anyone’s ever done before. When the job’s finished, he’ll surface and we’ll pick him up, recharge his batteries, and download his data. Then off he’ll go again.’
‘Suppose he meets the great white shark?’
‘We’ve even looked into that. Sharks seldom attack anything unfamiliar, and J.J. certainly doesn’t look very appetizing. And his sonar and electromagnetic emissions will scare away most predators.’
‘Where do you plan to test him — and when?’
‘Starting next month, on some well-mapped local sites. Then out to the Continental Shelf. And then — up to the Grand Banks.’
‘I don’t think you’ll find much new around Titanic. Both sections have been photographed down to the square millimeter.’
‘That’s true; we’re not really interested in them. But J.J. can probe at least twenty meters below the seabed — and no one’s ever done that for the debris field. God knows what’s still buried there. Even if we don’t find anything exciting, it will show J.J.’s capabilities — and give a big boost to the project. I’m going up to Explorer next week to make arrangements. It’s ages since I was aboard her — and Parky — Rupert — says he has something to show me.’
‘He has indeed,’ said Emerson with a grin. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this — but we’ve found the real treasure of the Titanic. Exactly where it was supposed to be.’
26 THE MEDICI GOBLET
I wonder if you realize,’ Bradley shouted, to make himself heard above the roar and rattle of machinery, ‘what a bargain you’ve got. She cost almost a quarter billion to build — and that was back when a billion dollars was real money.’
Rupert Parkinson was wearing an immaculate yachtsman’s outfit which, especially when crowned by a hard hat, seemed a little out of place down here beside Glomar Explorer’s moon pool. The oily rectangle of water — larger than a tennis court — was surrounded by heavy salvage and handling equipment, much of it showing its age. Everywhere there were signs of hasty repairs, dabs of anticorrosion paint, and ominous notices saying OUT OF ORDER. Yet enough seemed to be working; Parkinson claimed they were actually ahead of schedule.
It’s hard to believe, Bradley told himself, that it’s almost thirty-five years since I stood here, looking down into this same black rectangle of water. I don’t feel thirty-five years older . . . but I don’t remember much about the callow youngster who’d just signed up for his first big job. Certainly he could never have dreamed of the one I’m holding down now.
It had turned out better than he had expected. After decades of battling with U.N. lawyers and a whole alphabet stew of government departments and environmental authorities, Bradley was learning that they were a necessary evil.
The Wild West days of the sea were over. There had been a brief time when there was very little law below a hundred fathoms; now he was sheriff, and, rather to his surprise, he was beginning to enjoy it.
One sign of his new status — some of his old colleagues called it ‘conversion’ — was the framed certificate from Bluepeace he now had hanging on the office wall. It was right beside the photo presented to him years ago by the famous extinguisher of oil-rig fires, ‘Red’ Adair. That bore the inscription: ‘Jason — isn’t it great not to be bothered by life-insurance salesmen? Best wishes — Red.’
The Bluepeace citation was somewhat more dignified:
TO JASON BRADLEY — IN RECOGNITION OF YOUR HUMANE
TREATMENT OF A UNIQUE CREATURE, OCTOPUS GIGANTEUS VERRILL
At least once a month Bradley would leave his office and fly to Newfoundland — a province that was once more living up to its name. Since operations had started, more and more of world attention had been turned toward the drama being played out on the Grand Banks. The countdown to 2012 had begun, and bets were already being placed on the winner of ‘The Race for the Titanic.’
And there was another focus of interest, this time a morbid one. . . .
‘What annoys me,’ said Parkinson, as they left the noisy and clamorous chaos of the moon pool, ‘are the ghouls who keep asking: ‘Have you found any bodies yet?’ ‘
‘I’m always getting the same question. One day I’ll answer: ‘Yes — you’re the first.’ ‘
Parkinson laughed.
‘Must try that myself. But here’s the answer I give. You know that we’re still finding boots and shoes lying on the seabed — in pairs, a few centimeters apart? Usually they’re cheap and well worn, but last month we came across a beautiful example of the best English leatherwork. Looks as if they’re straight from the cobbler — you can still read the label that says ‘By Appointment to His Majesty.’ Obviously one of the first-class passengers. . . .
‘I’ve put them in a glass case in my office, and when I’m asked about bodies I point to them and say: ‘Look — not even a scrap of bone left inside. It’s a hungry world down there. The leather would have gone too, if it wasn’t for the tannic acid.’ That shuts them up very quickly.’
Glomar Explorer had not been designed for gracious living, but Rupert Parkinson had managed to transform one of the aft staterooms, just below the helipad, into a fair imitation of a luxury hotel suite. It reminded Bradley of their first meeting, back in Piccadilly — ages ago, it now seemed. The room contained one item, however, which was more than a little out of place in such surroundings.
It was a wooden chest, about a meter high, and it appeared almost new. But as he approached, Bradley recognized a familiar and unmistakable odor — the metallic tang of iodine, proof of long immersion in the sea. Some diver — was it Cousteau? — had once used the phrase ‘The scent of treasure.’ Here it was, hanging in the air — and setting the blood pounding in his veins.
‘Congratulations, Rupert. So you’ve got into Great Grandfather’s suite.’
‘Yes. Two of the Deep ROVs entered a week ago and did a preliminary survey. This is the first item they brought out.’
The chest still displayed, in stenciled lettering unfaded after a century in the abyss, a somewhat baffling inscription:
BROKEN ORANGE PEKOE
UPPER GLENCAIRN ESTATE
MATAKELLE
Parkinson raised the lid, almost reverently, and then drew aside the sheet of metal foil beneath it.
‘Standard eighty-pound Ceylon tea chest,’ he said. ‘It happened to be the right size, so they simply repacked it. And I’d no idea they used aluminum foil, back in 1912! Of course, the B.O.P. wouldn’t fetch a very good price at Colombo auction now — but it did its job. Admirably.’
With a piece of stiff cardboard, Parkinson delicately cleared away the top layer of the soggy black mess; he looked, Bradley thought, exactly like an underwater archaeologist extracting a fragment of pottery from the seabed. This, however, was not twenty-five-century-old Greek amphora, but something far more sophisticated.
‘The Medici Goblet,’ Parkinson whispered almost reverently. ‘No one has seen it for a hundred years; no one ever expected to see it again.’
He exposed only the upper few inches, but that was enough to show a circle of glass inside which multicolored threads were embedded in a complex design.
‘We won’t remove it until we’re on land,’ said Parkinson, ‘but this is what it looks like.’
He opened a typical coffee-table art book, bearing the title Glories of Venetian Glass. The full-page photo showed what at first sight looked like a glittering fountain, frozen in midair.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Bradley, after a few seconds of wide-eyed astonishment. ‘How could anyone actually drink from it? More to the point, how could anyone make it?’
‘Good questions. First of all, it’s purely ornamental — intended to be looked at, not used. A perfect example of Wilde’s dictum: ‘All art is quite useless.’
‘And I wish I could answer your second question. We just don’t know. Oh, of course we can guess at some of the techniques used — but how did the glassblower make those curlicues intertwine? And look at the way those little spheres are nested one inside the other! If I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes, I’d have sworn that some of these pieces could only have been assembled in zero gravity.’