The Titanic Enigma (8 page)

Asquith nodded. ‘Indeed, professor. My government has decided that we should put all possible resources into the development of a weapon based on your work. We have also
concluded that we do not have a second to waste.’

‘But my work is still at a very early stage,’ Rutherford protested.

‘That may be so,’ Asquith replied, but the theoretical grounding is there and you have achieved, I think I’m right in saying, quite remarkable practical
results.’ He held the scientist’s eyes, challenging him to deny his own accomplishments.

‘That is true,’ Rutherford acknowledged, ‘but . . .’ For a second he looked a little out of his depth.

Fortescue filled the breach. ‘Mr Prime Minister,’ he said with an authority that surprised them all. ‘One aspect of the work you may not be aware of is that it is
extremely hazardous.’

Asquith considered the scientist. He nodded slowly. ‘Explain.’

‘As Professor Rutherford described, the power unleashed by ibnium provides a form of energy in excess of ten thousand times the equivalent release from TNT. However, in order
to produce an effective weapon, researchers would need to handle much larger quantities of the material than we have done. They would need to find a source of ibnium, purify it and then manage to
handle it safely.’

‘The young man is probably quite correct,’ Thomas Edison interrupted. ‘The potential of such a device works both ways. The damage it may inflict on an enemy could
also destroy those creating it!’

‘We have considered this,’ Asquith replied and looked around the table. ‘Not withstanding the potential dangers, we plan to construct a fully functioning,
adequately funded top secret research facility at the earliest possible date.’

And, I assume,’ Ambassador Whitelaw Reid said, ‘you would want my government to help with the financing of the project?’

Asquith nodded to Churchill, who spoke with his cigar clamped to the side of his mouth. Actually Whitelaw, we wanted a little more than that.’

The room was incredibly still. From outside, the sounds of the main road barely filtered through the windows. A carriage drawn by a single horse passed along Downing Street, hooves
clip-clopping on the cobbles.

Churchill leaned forward and eviscerated the remains of his cigar in an ashtray in front of him on the oak conference table. ‘You’re not going to like it, Mr Ambassador,
but we request that the United States government agrees to host the site for the development of the weapon.’

‘What! Are you quite . . .?’

Churchill had a hand up. He did not even glance at his superior, the prime minister. ‘I did say you wouldn’t like it, old chap.’

‘Too damn right, I don’t, and you honestly think the boss will go for it?’

‘I rather imagine that when he is furnished with all the facts and all the consequences, President Taft will understand and offer his support.’

‘So, let’s get this straight,’ said Reid. ‘The British government wants to build a bomb-making plant in America. And it is not just any old bomb-making plant
but a research centre to create a device with unimaginable power that could explode as it is being made, causing – presumably – massive devastation.’

Churchill afforded Asquith a glance, then said. ‘Well, yes, Whitelaw, that just about sums it up.’

‘You’re out of your mind, man!’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ Asquith interceded. ‘We need only look at a map to see the logic behind the suggestion. Which other country is such a close friend of ours
and able to offer wide open spaces far from any habitation, great technical knowledge and the richness of resources we will need from a partner?’

Reid held the prime minister’s gaze, unblinking ‘And you with your vast empire!’ He shook his head.

Asquith gave the ambassador a wan smile, then turned to Rutherford and Fortescue. ‘Gentlemen, what, in your opinion, would be needed in terms of infrastructure and
resources?’

Rutherford was taken aback. ‘Well, I can only offer an answer based upon what we were invited here today to discuss,’ he replied pointedly. ‘However, I was working
on the assumption of a team of perhaps twenty researchers, a capital investment of around 100,000 pounds, and a five- to ten-year plan to develop a fully functioning industrial energy base that
would transform manufacture.’

‘Sounds about right to me,’ Edison offered.

‘But, of course, I had no idea you were thinking in the way you have described,’ Rutherford went on. ‘I assumed this research would be conducted here in England
where we have scientists, electricity, laboratory equipment and other resources.’

‘We will need to move far quicker than this and with a team and a budget at least ten times the size you suggest. America can provide all we need – power, isolation,
expertise, materials,’ Asquith asserted. ‘Where does one obtain raw ibnium?’

‘It is extracted in minute amounts with tin and dumped as waste by a small British concern . . . Imperial Mines in the Congo. It is extremely rare.’

‘Very well. So it can be shipped across the Atlantic.’

‘Now hold on!’ Reid exclaimed, barely able to contain himself. ‘I really cannot believe you are serious!’

‘Have you not considered anything but the negatives?’ Churchill said, turning in his chair to face the American.

‘You ’ve not been terribly effusive over the positives, Winston!’

Churchill grinned and waved a hand towards the prime minister.

Asquith ran a hand through his hair then interlinked his fingers on the table in front of him. ‘Mr Ambassador, the knowledge this achievement will provide will be used to
transform industry. Now, Whitelaw, are you telling me that the United States government would not like a piece of that?’

Perhaps for the first time in his life Whitelaw Reid was lost for words. He turned to his adviser, Thomas Edison, who had grasped the concept immediately and visualized the enormity
of the potential profits involved.

‘You want my personal opinion, Mr Ambassador?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Well, then, I think,’ the inventor said slowly, deliberately, ‘that we should grab this marvellous opportunity to become partners with our British friends with
both hands.’

‘Well said, sir,’ Churchill commented.

Reid looked pale, but as the concept began to filter through his mind, the gradual realization of what was being proposed was almost visible in his lined face. ‘I will speak to
the president, ’ he said.

Institute of Marine Studies, Hampton, Virginia. Present day.

Kate and Lou’s lab in Virginia had been closed up for three months while they were in Bermuda, but a team of technicians had cleaned it and checked it over while the
pair were on USS
Armstrong
.

Walking into the lab that morning felt odd. The place was much as they had left it but this facility was so different from the lab they had used while studying artefacts brought up from the
wreck of the
Lavender
.

The isotope from the
Titanic
had gone straight to Norfolk Naval Base a few miles from the institute, but they had been given exclusive access to the other container Lou had
retrieved.

Freezing rain beat in a steady rhythm against the lab window.

‘Almost makes me wish we were still in the insect-ridden lab on Bermuda,’ Lou commented as he turned from the rain-streaked window and looked over to where Kate was operating the
controls of a pair of automated arms on the other side of a glass partition. ‘At least the rain was warm there.’

She said nothing, lost in concentration.

Inside the radiation-proof chamber the atmosphere was almost pure nitrogen, inert and kept at a low pressure to ensure the preservation of whatever may lie inside the metal box. She had opened
it to reveal a partially rotted leather briefcase.

The chamber was a standard piece of equipment for handling delicate fragments of ancient materials. The bag under the scope was relatively modern – a little over one hundred years old
– but it came from the most famous wreck in history and it might just hold the secret to what the mysterious ‘EF’ was doing with a deadly radioactive isotope on the long-lost ship
in the first place.

Guiding the robot arms and using the pincers to open the case and extract the contents was a slow and tricky business, but Kate was a veteran. Lou watched as she unclasped the latch, pulled up
the flap and dipped the pincers inside.

The first thing to emerge was a sheaf of papers covered with dust. She placed it on the flat surface inside the chamber, then tilted the briefcase. There was only one other object inside. A
single sheet of folded paper covered with illegible words and symbols.

She picked it up and placed it next to the pile of papers. Then, removing her hands from the controls of the robot arms, she tapped at a panel to her left. On the other side of the chamber Lou
was seated at a control module. He ran his hands over a keyboard and a rectangular plastic box about a foot in diameter scooted across the inside of the chamber’s roof. It moved down to a
position a few inches above the papers.

As Kate set up the pages, Lou adjusted the controls and with a click of a mouse he took a photograph of each one. After they had gone through the total of twenty-two sheets, Kate slid the single
separate piece of paper carrying the encoded line of text under the camera’s crosshairs and Lou ran off another shot. Ten minutes later, they had finished and were seated at a table on the
other side of the lab with hard copies of all the pages laid out before them.

Lou picked up a few and stared at the writing. ‘What do you make of it?’ He handed them to Kate and plucked the single sheet of notepaper with the line of code from near the bottom
of the pile.

‘Formulae. Maths was never my strong suit.’

‘Nor mine.’

Lou held up a photocopy of the sheet that had been in the bottom of the briefcase. It contained a single line of numbers and letters quite different from the writing in the main sheaf.

‘Looks like a coded message.’

‘It’s not mathematical, nor is it English.’ He put it to one side. ‘Pages of formulae kinda make sense. The owner, EF, must have been a scientist. Why else would he be on
the
Titanic
with a radioactive substance?’

Kate was staring at the pages of symbols and equations, trying in vain to work it out. To find anything even vaguely comprehensible.

Lou’s computer buzzed – a Skype video call. He swivelled in his chair and scooted it across the floor, stopping at his terminal and tapping his keyboard. ‘Jerry . . .
What’s happenin’?’ he said.

‘Anything interesting?’ Derham asked.

‘Impossible to tell yet,’ Lou replied. ‘We were just looking at some papers from the briefcase inside the box we found – a collection of pages of formulae and a single
sheet of fragile notepaper. We copied them in the inert gas chamber. The math in the formulae is indecipherable.’

‘And the single sheet?’ Derham leaned back in his chair and ran a big hand over his crew cut.

‘Some sort of brief encrypted message or statement by the look of it. Hard to tell and impossible to translate without careful analysis from an expert.’

‘OK, look, you’d better get over here. I have some people who can get on to it. Coffees are on me.’ Derham clicked off.

*

They met up in the captain’s office at the naval base ten miles north of the lab. They had been given security clearance and passes as soon as they had returned from the
Exclusion Zone the day before. Derham stared at the collection of papers as Kate and Lou pulled chairs up to the far side of his desk. He had a surprisingly small office – racks of shelves
along one wall; a large painting of the USS
Minerva,
an aircraft carrier he had served on, dominating a wall at a right angle to the shelves. Behind him, a window opened out to a view of
the naval yard, cranes and gunmetal hulls in the distance.

He punched a button on his phone. It rang and a man answered. They heard him over the speaker. The guy sounded very young.

‘Kevin. Got a job for you,’ Derham said. ‘Can you drop by?’

‘Sure.’

The office door opened and the captain’s secretary came in with two mugs of coffee.

‘I did promise,’ Derham said without looking up from the papers. ‘Kevin Grant’s one of our boffins. Works a few doors down.’ He nodded towards the corridor.
‘Encryption specialist. Away with the fairies most of the time, but a genius when it comes to encryption.’

There was a tap at the door and a young man appeared around the edge. He had cropped hair, big brown eyes, a large nose and acne. He looked like he was barely out of his teens.

Lou took a gulp of coffee, stood and offered the kid his chair.

‘It’s cool,’ Kevin Grant said.

‘Kevin. What do you make of this?’ Derham handed him the single sheet from EF’s box. ‘By the way, this is Dr Kate Wetherall and Dr Lou Bates.’

Grant gave them a brief nod, barely lifting his eyes from the paper. Kate and Lou watched as he scanned the encoded message.

‘Clever shit,’ he muttered.

‘Sure you don’t want to sit down?’ Lou asked.