The Ghost from the Grand Banks
by Arthur C. Clarke
For my old friend Bill MacQuitty—who, as a boy, witnessed the launch of R.M.S. Titanic, and, forty-five years later, sank her for the second time.
INTRODUCTION
Much has happened in the more than a decade since I wrote this book. There has been a dive to the wreck almost every year—one with paying passengers! And of course James Cameron’s magnificent movie has been seen all around the world. (Alas, the television series Michael Deakin and I wrote on my lunar version of a similar disaster, A Fall of Moondust, was turned down at the last moment.)
As everyone knows, the world survived the “Century Syndrome” (Chapter 4). Now we have plenty of time to prepare for Y3K.
Finally, I am indebted to Charlie Pellegrino for his latest book, Ghosts of the Titanic (William Morrow, 2000). This exhaustive coverage of the last hours of the ship, and the stories of its survivors, is packed with heartrending and often astonishing incidents. As Jim Cameron remarks on the jacket, Pellegrino brings the Titanic back to life.
Colombo, Sri Lanka
PRELUDE
1. SUMMER OF ’74
There must be better ways, Jason Bradley kept telling himself, of celebrating one’s twenty-first birthday than attending a mass funeral; but at least he had no emotional involvement. He wondered if Operation JENNIFER’s director, or his CIA sidekicks, even knew the names of the sixty-three Russian sailors they were now consigning to the deep.
The whole ceremony seemed utterly unreal, and the presence of the camera crew added yet another dimension of fantasy.