Beyond the Poseidon Adventure Read Online Free PDF

this.”
    Rogo chanced a quick glimpse out of the window. The helicopter, he saw, was making a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. They were doing as he had instructed. With his free arm he wiped the sweat from off his brow.
    He motioned his victim to sit down. He backed onto the edge of his own seat, the gun never wavering. The machine had been clattering along for some ten minutes in an oppressive silence when the face of one of the pilots appeared again. “Ça va?” he inquired.
    Rogo said, “Everything’s fine down here. Get me back there and it’ll stay that way.”
    He vanished. The warrant officer eyed Rogo warily and said, “You have made your point with the gun, lieutenant. Do you have to point it at me like that?”
    “You’ll get an apology from the Police Commissioner about this. I’ll see to that. But right now I have no choice. Right?”
    Silence again. Then Manny Rosen, who had watched it all with bewilderment, spoke, and Rogo did not try to interrupt him. “Mr. Rogo, I don’t understand. You lost your wife, I lost my wife. I know how you feel. I should be back there too. But do you have to threaten people with . . . that thing?”
    Rogo looked quickly at the old man and said, “Mrs. Rosen was worth any two of us, Manny. My Linda, goddamn it, you know I’d do anything to get her back. But that’s not why I’m going down again. This is no sentimental journey.”
    There was some sudden chatter in French from the two pilots and immediately Rogo jumped to his feet and put the gun to the officer’s head. “What gives?” he growled.
    The officer said, “The Poseidon is in sight.” The helicopter dipped slightly and they could see the ship below. They could also see the small coaster getting closer, the cream yacht appeared to be anchored a mile or so away, and what had been a smudge of smoke on the horizon was now, about five miles distant, a sturdy vessel sprouting whole bouquets of cranes fore and aft.
    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