Grumman Albatross idled its engines a quarter-mile away. A Navy seaman stood in the open waist door, and when they drew alongside, helped them aboard.
Brande and Dokey settled into the canvas sling seats provided in the utilitarian aircraft, and moments later, the twin radial engines were roaring, and the plane was skipping along the wave tops.
The banging in the fuselage hull quit abruptly as the airplane lifted off. Brande watched the Gemini get smaller. Someone on the foredeck of the Justica , probably Curtis Aaron, was waving his arms wildly. Brande could not tell who he was waving at, so he waved back at the man.
“I don’t think that was a cheerful farewell, Dane,” Dokey said. “I think he was casting a spell on you.”
“On us.”
“Sure, spread the blame.”
“You brought the ingot up, Okey. You know Aaron doesn’t like that”
“What good is all that gold doing anyone, buried on the bottom? Tell me that.”
“You know I tend to agree with you,” Brande said.
“You agree with Aaron, too.”
Brande was pretty schizophrenic on the matter of deep sea recoveries. He admitted that to himself. Where the historical significance of artifacts was involved, he did not often go as far as, say, Robert Ballard, who had located the Titanic and photographed and mapped the shipwreck. Ballard’s philosophy saw the Titanic’s grave as historically important, but not archaeologically important. Salvaging the wreck would not have a scientific purpose. The subsequent 1987 French expedition — with American help — caused physical damage to the Titanic’s structure and appendages when they sought out and raised almost a thousand artifacts to the surface.
Brande had watched the telecast in which Telly Savalas supervised the unveiling of many of those artifacts, including the opening on live TV of the second-class purser’s safe. Ballard’s earlier expedition had learned that the back of that particular safe was missing, due to rust, and it was empty. The contents pulled from it for the benefit of the television audience had come from elsewhere. It was staged for dramatic effect, no doubt, but was still fraudulent, as far as Brande was concerned.
In twenty years of diving on wrecks, Brande had let some go by photographed but untouched, graves for those who had died. In many cases, he had brought goblets, china, buttons, belt buckles, and helmets to the surface and turned them over to the authorities with jurisdiction. He preferred to have artifacts of that nature placed in museums, where many people could view and marvel over them. Frequently, expeditions shared the spoils among museums, universities, and salvagers. And state and federal tax collectors, of course. The governmental accountants were always one step behind them. Incan gold on its way to Spain gave up a percentage to Uncle Sam.
He and his crews had worked Department of Defense contracts, locating sunken ships and aircraft, and raising top secret components such as radios, encoding machines, radars, and armament. Brande thought it was better if Marine Visions Unlimited did it, rather than have Russian or Chinese divers combing the wreckage of gunboats and M-14 Tomcats.
He detested the scavengers who, in effect, looted shipwrecks in clandestine dives. They avoided the tax man and the authorities, when the wreck was within state or national waters, and sold the artifacts to private collectors who hid them in their basements.
That was as great a sin as Curtis Aaron’s zealous preaching for the opposite viewpoint. Aaron and his Oceans Free cult had started out as environmentalists, but had turned their crusade into a near religion that banned any disturbance of nature. That included the sea floor and its bounty of minerals, energy, and food sources.
Brande had his own fears for the earth and her environs, but he also thought that there were compromise procedures available. The oceans were invaluable resources, and would become even more so, as the
Brande and Dokey settled into the canvas sling seats provided in the utilitarian aircraft, and moments later, the twin radial engines were roaring, and the plane was skipping along the wave tops.
The banging in the fuselage hull quit abruptly as the airplane lifted off. Brande watched the Gemini get smaller. Someone on the foredeck of the Justica , probably Curtis Aaron, was waving his arms wildly. Brande could not tell who he was waving at, so he waved back at the man.
“I don’t think that was a cheerful farewell, Dane,” Dokey said. “I think he was casting a spell on you.”
“On us.”
“Sure, spread the blame.”
“You brought the ingot up, Okey. You know Aaron doesn’t like that”
“What good is all that gold doing anyone, buried on the bottom? Tell me that.”
“You know I tend to agree with you,” Brande said.
“You agree with Aaron, too.”
Brande was pretty schizophrenic on the matter of deep sea recoveries. He admitted that to himself. Where the historical significance of artifacts was involved, he did not often go as far as, say, Robert Ballard, who had located the Titanic and photographed and mapped the shipwreck. Ballard’s philosophy saw the Titanic’s grave as historically important, but not archaeologically important. Salvaging the wreck would not have a scientific purpose. The subsequent 1987 French expedition — with American help — caused physical damage to the Titanic’s structure and appendages when they sought out and raised almost a thousand artifacts to the surface.
Brande had watched the telecast in which Telly Savalas supervised the unveiling of many of those artifacts, including the opening on live TV of the second-class purser’s safe. Ballard’s earlier expedition had learned that the back of that particular safe was missing, due to rust, and it was empty. The contents pulled from it for the benefit of the television audience had come from elsewhere. It was staged for dramatic effect, no doubt, but was still fraudulent, as far as Brande was concerned.
In twenty years of diving on wrecks, Brande had let some go by photographed but untouched, graves for those who had died. In many cases, he had brought goblets, china, buttons, belt buckles, and helmets to the surface and turned them over to the authorities with jurisdiction. He preferred to have artifacts of that nature placed in museums, where many people could view and marvel over them. Frequently, expeditions shared the spoils among museums, universities, and salvagers. And state and federal tax collectors, of course. The governmental accountants were always one step behind them. Incan gold on its way to Spain gave up a percentage to Uncle Sam.
He and his crews had worked Department of Defense contracts, locating sunken ships and aircraft, and raising top secret components such as radios, encoding machines, radars, and armament. Brande thought it was better if Marine Visions Unlimited did it, rather than have Russian or Chinese divers combing the wreckage of gunboats and M-14 Tomcats.
He detested the scavengers who, in effect, looted shipwrecks in clandestine dives. They avoided the tax man and the authorities, when the wreck was within state or national waters, and sold the artifacts to private collectors who hid them in their basements.
That was as great a sin as Curtis Aaron’s zealous preaching for the opposite viewpoint. Aaron and his Oceans Free cult had started out as environmentalists, but had turned their crusade into a near religion that banned any disturbance of nature. That included the sea floor and its bounty of minerals, energy, and food sources.
Brande had his own fears for the earth and her environs, but he also thought that there were compromise procedures available. The oceans were invaluable resources, and would become even more so, as the
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