Titanic (Scriptment) Page #5

BUELL:

They want to know how it's going?

LOVETT:

How it's going? It's going like a first date in prison, whattaya think!!

Lovett grabs the phone from Buell and goes instantly smooth.

LOVETT:

Hi, Dave? Barry? Look, we've had a little false alarm here... no, it wasn't there... just some papers... well there are still lots of possiblities for where it could be... ha, ha, yeah right, it's a big ship...

He sees the lab techs placing the papers from the safe in a tray of water to separate them safely. Some letters are lying over a much larger sheet of heavy paper. A tech coaxes the letters to one side with a tong... revealing a pencil (conte crayon) drawing of a woman.

LOVETT:

Hang on a second.

He looks closely at the drawing, which is in excellent shape, at least in the center, though its edges have partially disintegrated. The woman is beautiful, and beautifully rendered. In fact the drawing is quite remarkable, having a feeling of life and light. The woman seems to be in her late teens or early twenties, and she is nude, though poses with a kind of casual modesty, one arm covering her breasts. She is on what appears to be an Empire divan, in a pool of light that seems to radiate outward from her eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner is the date: April 14 1912. And the cryptic initials JD.

The girl is not entirely nude. At her throat is a diamond necklace with one large stone hanging in the center along her breastbone.

Lovett grabs a reference photo from the clutter on the lab table. It is a period black-and-white photo of a diamond necklace on a black velvet jeweler's display stand. He holds it next to the drawing in the water tray. Though the artist's lines are open to interpretation, it is clearly the same piece... a complex setting with a massive central stone, darker than the others, and cut like an inverted teardrop with a flattened top... almost heart-shaped.

LOVETT:

I'll be damned.

CUT TO A CNN NEWS STORY: It is a report on Lovett's find, including footage from the Keldysh of the safe being brought up from the depths. Apparently Lovett's salvage operation is at the center of a storm of controversy, with historical groups protesting the "pillaging of a gravesite" and legal battles raging in courts in several countries over salvage rights.

Grandstanding for the camera, we see Lovett defending his position, saying the wreck is in international waters and is fair game. He goes on to say that with worldwide interest in this greatest of all shipwrecks, the artifacts that he brings up will be of enormous educational value. They will be preserved in museums and traveling collections, not corrodiing into nothingness two and half miles down in the Atlantic.

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