TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Twenty-Five
As the big hydraulic jib swung one of the Mir
subs out over the water, Lovett walked as he talked with Bobby Buell, the
partners’ rep. They wove among deck cranes, launch crew, sub maintenance guys.
"The partners are pissed."
"Bobby, buy me time. I need time."
"We’re running thirty thousand a day,
and we’re six days over. I’m telling you what they’re telling me. The hand is
on the plug. It’s starting to pull."
"Well, you tell the hand I need another
two days! Bobby, Bobby, Bobby...we’re close! I smell it. I smell ice. She had
the diamond on...now we just have to find out where it wound up. I just gotta
work her a bit more. Okay?"
Brock turned and saw Lizzy standing behind
him. She had overheard the last part of his dialogue with Buell. He went to her
and hustled her away from Buell, toward a quiet spot on the deck.
"Hey, Lizzy. I need to talk to you for a
second."
"Don’t you mean work me?"
"Look, I’m running out of time. I need
your help."
"I’m not going to help you browbeat my
hundred and one year old grandmother. I came down here to tell you to back
off."
Brock spoke to her with undisguised
desperation. "Lizzy...you gotta understand something. I’ve bet it all to
find the Heart of the Ocean. I’ve got all my dough tied up in this thing. My
wife even divorced me over this hunt. I need what’s locked inside your
grandma’s memory." He held out his hand. "You see this? Right
here?"
She looked at his hand, palm up. Empty. Cupped,
as if around an imaginary shape.
"What?"
"That’s the shape my hand’s gonna be
when I hold that thing. You understand? I’m not leaving here without it."
"Look, Brock, she’s going to do this her
way, in her own time. Don’t forget, she contacted you. She’s out here for her
own reasons, God knows what they are."
"Maybe she wants to make peace with the
past."
"What past? She has never once, not
once, ever said a word about being on the Titanic until two days ago."
"Then we’re all meeting your grandmother
for the first time."
Lizzy looked at him hard. "You think she
was really there?"
"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m a believer. She was
there."