White Shark Read Online Free PDF

particular?"
    "That wreckage.   All of it was
covered by silt.   Everything had a gray
film on it... except the box.   It was
clean.   That's probably why I saw
it.   It stood out."
    The pilot shrugged.   "Does silt stick to bronze?   Beats me."
     
     

7
     
    "I don't believe this! " Webber said.   "Metallurgists,
archaeologists, chemists... who gives a shit?   All that counts is what's inside!   What are they thinking of?"
    "Yeah, well, you know
bureaucrats," the pilot said, trying to be sympathetic.   "They sit around with their thumb up
their ass all day, and now, suddenly, they got something to do, they gotta justify their existence."
    They were standing on the stern of the
ship as it steamed westward toward
Massachusetts
.   The box was secured on a cradle on the
fantail, and Webber had spent hours mounting lights on the ship's
superstructure to create a suitable atmosphere of mystery, for when the box was
opened.   He had chosen sunset,
photographers' ‘magic hour,’ when shadows were long and the light soft, rich
and dramatic.
    And then, not half an hour before he was
to begin shooting, the ship's captain had handed him a fax marked
"Urgent" from the Geographic:   he was to leave the box untouched and
unopened until the ship reached port, so that a cadre of scientists and
historians could meet the ship and examine the box and open it in the presence
of a writer, an editor and a camera team from the National Geographic Explorer television series.
    Webber was devastated.   He knew what would happen:   his lighting setup would be destroyed:   he'd be shunted aside, given a backseat to
the TV team, ordered around by the experts.   He'd have no chance to shot enough film to have ample "outs" —
pictures the Geographic wouldn't want and which he could sell to other
magazines.   The quality of his work would
suffer, and so would his pocketbook.
    Yet there was nothing he could do about
it, and worse, it was his own fault.   He
should have stifled his excitement and waited to inform the magazine about the
discovery of the box.
    Now he shouted, "Shit!" into the
evening air.
    "C'mon," the pilot said,
"forget it.   Let's go down to the
wardroom; I got a friend there named Jack Daniel's who's dyin' to meet
you."
     
    *           *           *           *           *
     
    Webber and the pilot sat in   the wardroom and
finished the Jack Daniel's.   The more the
pilot groused about bureaucrats, the more convinced Webber became that he was
being shafted.   He had discovered the
box, he had photographed it inside the submarine, he should be the one to take
the first, the best — the only — pictures of what was inside.
    At eight-forty-five, the pilot pronounced
himself stewed to the gills, and he staggered off to his bunk.
    At eight-fifty, Webber decided on a
plan.   He went to bed and set his alarm
clock for midnight.
     
    *           *           *           *           *
     
    "That's Montauk Point," the
captain said, indicating the outer circle on the radar screen, "and
there's
Block Island
.   If we had a calm ,
I'd anchor off Woods Hole and wait for daylight."   He looked at the clock mounted on the
bulkhead.   "It's one-fifteen now;
we'll be able to see pretty good in four hours.   But with this easterly blowing like a banshee, I'm gonna take her into
the shelter of Block and then go up the coast at first light.   No sense getting everybody sick and maybe
smashing up some gear."
    "Right," Webber said, nauseated
by the pool of acid coffee that sloshed in his stomach as the ship nosed into a
trough and then rose askew onto the crest of a combing wave.   Pushed by a following sea, the ship was
corkscrewing through the night.   "Guess I'll go back and try to get some sleep."
    "Put a wastebasket by your
bunk," the captain suggested.   "Nothing worse than trying to sleep in a bed of puke."
    Webber had gone to the bridge to see