Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (5 page)

Steadying himself on the back of the seat, Rogo said, “Tell them to set down nice and soft as near as they can to that hole we came out of. No tricks.”

The instructions were relayed in French.

Manny and Martin listened to the exchanges in silence, each confused by swirling eddies of mixed emotions. The fight for survival and the sweet relief of salvation had given way to more complex feelings, and the policeman’s superficially crazy wish to return pulled each man’s hazy thoughts into sharp focus.

Looking down on the lifeless hulk below, Manny was consumed entirely by what seemed his own betrayal. He had left Belle. No matter that she was dead and this had been his one chance of escape: he had left her. She was down there, marooned among the hideous carnage of the wreck, while he was enjoying the warm security of the helicopter, and the return to normality. It was, quite plainly, an act of betrayal. A lifetime together could not be ended like that. It was too inconclusive. No mourning, no flowers, no elaborate ceremony to signal the passing of a life: no neat severing of the ties of all those shared years. He should have brought her body out with him to give her the dignity of a funeral. His silent sobbing earlier had not been the sign of grief that it appeared. He had been crying for shame, for the wounds of his loss were stinging with the salt of self-disgust.

With Rogo’s determination to return, the realization slowly dawned upon Manny that this was his chance to salvage his own sense of honor. He too would return, and bring his beloved Belle out of that hellish wreck.

The little haberdasher also noted with some surprise his own unpredicted reactions. His excited jabbering to the French officer had subsided into a glum silence. It was all over. For a few hours on board the
Poseidon,
James Martin had been a man. A lifetime of being derided, teased, patronized, pitied, and ignored had been suspended for that time. He had faced up to the dangers alongside the more obvious leaders like Scott and Rogo. Despite Rogo’s sneering, he had acquitted himself as well as any of them. The many slights that marked his life had been erased. They ran through his mind again now. When the other boys were out in their gangs fishing and climbing trees, James had to stay home and play with the girls. So it had always been for the near invisible man behind a counter in Anaheim: Yes ma’am, and thank you sir, and gee, we’re right out of winter scarves. They heard his words and handed him the money, but barely saw the pink-faced salesman. Now the struggles of the past hours had shown him that he had every man’s desire to face danger and succeed.

Rogo was going back, Martin did not understand why. But if the adventure was not over, then Martin felt he must play his part in it, as he had done before. For the first time in his life, the man from Anaheim was one of the gang. If Rogo returned, he would too. He rocked forward on his seat and gazed down on the ship. He felt the quickening inside himself. He was excited. The girls and the little boy were sleeping soundly at the back of the helicopter, and he made himself one promise: this time they were not going to leave him with the girls.

Rogo glowered at the three ships within sight of the
Poseidon
, as though he could torpedo them with a look. Still, he thought, they were only like the passersby who tried to muscle in on police action in the streets. He’d move them on when he got down there, and anyway the American authorities were sure to send him help soon.

The warrant officer interrupted his thoughts. “What is it you want us to do exactly?”

“I already told you,” Rogo answered steadily. “Land near the hole. I’ll jump off. Then get outta here as fast as you can and take these people to safety.”

He paused and then added: “Hey, look, I know you guys think I’m crazy but would you do me a favor? Have our embassy guys pass the word back to New York what’s happening here? They know what it’s all about. Tell them to get the navy here, and fast. Okay?”

The Frenchman saw the open concern on Rogo’s face. He gave a curt nod. “They will know soon enough, you may rest assured.”

Minutes later, the big machine settled with only the slightest of jerks on the keel. Rogo opened the door and swung out. As his feet touched the wreck, Manny Rosen stood up and said, “I’m going too.” He was out of the door before the astonished policeman could speak.

Rogo grabbed him by the shoulder. He tried one-handed to push Manny back up into the helicopter, but Manny half-wrestled with him and sobbed, “No, Mr. Rogo, please no. My Belle. I can’t leave her there. I didn’t even say a kaddish.”

It was impossible. Rogo could not force him back without hurting him, and he could not bring himself to hit the old man. His face was red with frustration and fury. He let go of him suddenly and scrambled down into the hole in the propeller shaft. As he vanished he shouted to the French crew, “Do what the hell you want with him. He ain’t with me.”

Manny, puffed from the exertion, looked up in time to see Martin, eyes shining, leap through the door and land beside him. “Hold on, fellas,” he cried. “I’m coming too.”

The warrant officer looked out on the ludicrous scene. It was beyond all rational explanation. Three rescued men were returning to their highly probable deaths. He tried addressing them calmly. “Listen to me, please, gentlemen. I have not the slightest idea why you are doing this madness. I will help you in any way I can. But if you refuse to come back there is nothing I can do. I am not prepared to be shot trying to save you. I beg you to come now, or we must leave without you. There are the other passengers to consider.”

Rogo’s face appeared at the hole. It was a gargoyle of rage. “You stupid little jerk! Beat it or I’ll put your ass in a sling. You too, Manny. Get out. This has nothing to do with you two!”

Manny did not seem to hear. Martin looked pleadingly at Rogo. “Don’t be that way, Mr. Rogo. We were together before. You might need me now.”

The crew were talking quickly in French. The warrant officer called for the last time, “We are taking off. Are you coming? Very well.” He shook his head, and the door closed. The pilot threw his big blades into gear and the machine lifted and curved off into the distance.

Manny and Martin stood like two schoolboys up before their headmaster. Rogo ran through every obscenity in his considerable vocabulary until at last even his flaming anger burned down. They were here. There was nothing else to be done.

“Okay,” he said, stuffing the gun in his pocket and beckoning them on. “You gotta be outta your minds, the two of you, but if that’s the way you want, okay. Let’s go.”

He dropped down again inside the hold, and the others hastened after him.

Other times, other customs. Crime has to be the most modern of industries, and there is no one who takes quicker advantage of the progress of technology than the criminal. So the highwayman has given way to the man with a hand grenade in an airplane, the bank robber has pocketed his gun for the most sophisticated of cutting equipment, and the once furtive cat burglar can now walk in through the front door with his own cut keys.

So the pirate vessel which lay a mile off the wreck of the
Poseidon
that bright morning flew no skull and crossbones, and its crew were far more likely to celebrate a triumph with dry martinis than with rum. The
Naiad,
based at Port Gallice between Cannes and Antibes, was one of the most magnificent private yachts on the Mediterranean. She flew the French flag at her taffrail. She was the property of a handsome playboy by the name of Roland Pascal, in the sense that she was certainly registered in his name. But he, like each of the five young men now so earnestly preparing their scuba-diving equipment on the deck, was helplessly under the sweetly sexual thrall of one silver-haired girl. Heloise, or Hely, as they knew her, was in every sense the captain of that vessel.

Whether a court would have judged them pirates, it would have been hard to know. They harmed no living thing. But in those waters, where fire, explosion, or a mistral was not uncommon, they had no need to trouble the living. They were simply grave robbers, despoilers of the dead. With depth-sounding equipment, underwater metal detectors, the finest diving gear, a decompression chamber, and the most advanced radio equipment, they could follow up any Mayday call or news of disaster at sea.

If this troubled some of the young men, it never worried Hely. Morals, ethics, and scruples did not touch her. They were principles she had jettisoned early in life. Indeed, if she had been born in a state of innocence, it was a condition she had shed almost before leaving the cradle. The smile with which she illuminated some of the smartest parties on the Riviera was the one she had assiduously practiced as a child begging on the streets of Paris, and it earned her an audience now as surely as it had won tourists’ pennies twenty years before. The air of innocence had been acquired early too, only now it concealed a past that would make a sailor shudder. As a child she had swiftly digested the cruel lesson that only she could lift herself from the slums to the broad sweet avenues, and that blue eyes and blond hair, properly employed, were potent weapons in that war. By the time she was fifteen she had the skills of the paramour, to which she added the simple but vital insight that has lifted many women to power, that the prince is as easily deceived as his chauffeur, and that all men are equal before a beautiful woman. Via more bedrooms than she could count, Hely had graduated to a luxury yacht on the warm, soft waters of the Mediterranean, and it was here that she held her crew of tough young men so inescapably under her spell that she hardly bothered to conceal the contempt with which she viewed them or, for that matter, any man she had ever met. Hely had come a long way, but she still had a long way to go.

“I wish you wouldn’t wear that, Hely.” Roland’s hesitant request had the faint whine that she had heard so often; sprawled face down on the deck, she did not trouble to turn her head to reply. Instead, she continued to admire the ring on her finger with the diamond the size of an almond. She splayed her fingers and bent her wrist so that the sun caught each shining facet in turn.

“And where do you suggest I should wear it, my love? Outside the headquarters of the Sûreté perhaps? In Cartier’s? This is the only place I can wear it.”

Roland dropped to his haunches beside her. It was his yacht, she was his girl, but still he could not strike the pleading tone from his voice. “I can still see them, those poor people in that boat.” He shuddered. “Doesn’t it bother you at all, the thought of that foolish-looking woman floating in front of her dressing-table mirror and the husband still at the wheel?”

Hely lowered her sparkling hand and looked at him. “Was it my fault they were dead? The yacht was listed as missing. We were just lucky to run across it, that’s all.”

Roland went on, “Her other jewels, the ones we sent to Marseilles, could have finished us. That inquiry came much too close.”

Hely ignored him. “I love it!” she cried, raising the diamond to her lips. “I love it, I love it!” A smile sliced across her fine-boned face. “But my poor little Roland? Is he frightened of being a naughty boy then? Is he frightened of being caught playing with the big girls?”

She ceased the mocking irony of the nursery. “Or perhaps it’s simply that you no longer find me exciting. Tell me, my lord and master, is that it?” She stirred gently, like a waking cat, and her half-amused eyes saw Roland watching. He would see the ash-blond drape of her hair across the deck, the clean planes of her face, the easy curve of her coppered limbs, and he would crawl. They always did.

“Well, is that it, Roland? Have you found someone else, someone who doesn’t make you be a naughty boy?”

No more than two yards away, the five young men busily sorting out scuba equipment had followed every word, and they mutely acknowledged the nuances of the conversation with winks and grimaces. Roland, acutely aware of their chiding presence, looked anxious as he tried to whisper his reply, “You know better than that, Hely. But please listen to me this time. This one is too dangerous. Half the world will be watching soon. We can sail now, and I’ll buy you the finest dinner in Athens.”

Hely jackknifed to her feet. “There was a time when a good meal could have bought me, but that was long before you, my love. The price is higher now. Today, that’s it over there.”

She pointed to the dark, lifeless shape of the
Poseidon
clearly defined against the sunlight about a mile distant. Businesslike, she brushed past Roland and addressed herself to the young men scattered around the deck. Each one was in some stage of heaving on diving gear.

“Ready, boys?”

Johnny, the most experienced diver, said, “Yep,” cheerfully accepting her authority. He was, he reckoned, running Roland close second in Hely’s estimation. She was getting sick of Roland. Soon he would go, and Johnny was all too ready to move in. If that cost him his job, there were plenty more seas for a good scuba man. He shot her his winner’s grin.

“Ready for anything with you, Hely.” He was gratified to see that his impudent ambiguity was recognized with a slight smile. Any day now, Johnny, he told himself. His confidence and Roland’s unease registered with each of the men, and to each it carried the same message: everyone is in with a chance. For Hely, it was a game she had played many times, encouraging, discouraging, a pat here, a slap down there.

She thought,
God, but aren’t they like little puppies, each one pushing to the front to be the favorite.

She addressed them again. “Okay, check your equipment.” Two other men, Pierre Duval, the archaeologist, and the captain, Yves, came up from the cabin to watch the final preparations, and Hely gave them their instructions. “Pierre, we won’t be needing you. There’ll be no pretty statues this time. This one will be for jewelry, and on that wreck there should be enough to . . .”

Johnny picked up her unfinished sentence. “To sink a ship.”

Hely’s clear, clean laugh would have charmed a country club. “That’s right, Johnny, that’s right. This is the big one. What extraordinary luck. Think of it. A few minutes after midnight on New Year’s Eve. They would all be together in the main dining room, wearing their silly hats, rattling noisemakers, and throwing streamers and confetti at each other, joining arms and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ ” Her voice drifted off and arms again wandered to the distant hulk. “Gala night. Black ties, long dresses. And fat old bags wearing their once-a-year finest, rings, necklaces, bracelets, all the prizes their dull little husbands paid for in ulcers. All we have to do is go and collect.”