Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler

disaster.”
    â€œHow does this lead to a hoax?”
    â€œInsanity aside, my uncle was still a mining engineer. Sometimes he could tell within minutes whether a mine would pay or not. The Little Angel was a bust, he knew that. He never had any intention of finding a high-grade lode. I don’t have the vaguest idea of what his game was, Mr. Donner, but one thing I’m certain of, whoever pumps the water from the lower levels of that old shaft will find no bones.”
    Donner finished off his Manhattan and looked quizzically at Young. “So you think the nine men who went into the mine escaped?”
    Young smiled. “Nobody actually saw them enter, Mr. Donner. It was assumed, and reasonably so, that they died down there in the black waters because they were never heard from again.”
    â€œNot enough evidence,” Donner said.
    â€œOh, I have more, lots more,” Young replied enthusiastically.
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œItem One: The Little Angel’s lowest working chamber was a good hundred feet above the mean water level. At worst, the walls leaked only moderately from surface accumulations. The lower shaft levels were already flooded because the water had gradually built up during the years the mine was originally shut down. Therefore, there was no way a dynamite blast could have unleashed a tidal wave of water over my uncle and his crew.
    â€œItem Two: The equipment supposedly found in the mine after the accident was old, used junk. Those men were professionals, Mr. Donner. They’d never have gone below the surface with second-rate machinery.
    â€œItem Three: Though he made it known to everyone that he was reopening the mine, my uncle never once consulted or discussed the project with Ernest Bloeser, the man who owned the Little Angel. In short, my uncle was claim-jumping. An unthinkable act to a man of his moral reputation.
    â€œItem Four: The first warning of possible disaster didn’t come until the next afternoon, when the foreman of the Satan Mine, one Bill Mahoney, found a note under his cabin door that said, ‘Help! Little Angel Mine. Come Quick!’ A most strange method to sound an alarm, don’t you think? Naturally, the note was unsigned.
    â€œItem Five: The sheriff in Central City stated that my uncle had given him a list of the crew’s names with the request that he give it to the newspapers in case of a fatal accident. An odd premonition, to say the least. It was as if Uncle Joshua wanted to be certain there was no mistaking the victims’ identities.”
    Donner pushed back his plate and drank a glass of water. “I find your theory intriguing, but not fully convincing.”
    â€œAh, but finally, perhaps above all, Mr. Donner, I have saved the pièce de résistance until last.
    â€œItem Six: Several months after the tragedy, my mother and father, who were on a tour through Europe, saw my uncle standing on the boat-train platform in Southampton, England. My mother often related how she went up to him and said, ‘God in heaven, Joshua, is it really you?’ The face that stared back at her was bearded and deathly white, the eyes glassy. ‘Forget me,’ he whispered and then turned and ran. My father chased him down the platform but soon lost him in the crowd.”
    â€œThe logical answer is a simple case of mistaken identity.”
    â€œA sister who doesn’t know her own brother?” Young said sarcastically. “Come now, Mr. Donner, surely you could pick your brother out of a crowd?”
    â€œâ€™Fraid not. I was an only child.”
    â€œA shame. You missed one of life’s great joys.”
    â€œAt least I didn’t have to share my toys.” The check arrived and Donner threw a credit card on the tray. “So what you’re saying is that the Little Angel disaster was a cover-up.”
    â€œThat’s my theory.” Young patted his mouth with his napkin. “No