the time while almost everyone else watched the ship’s captain as if he were a symphony orchestra conductor with poised baton.
Quick raised both hands and curled them into fists. The moment of truth had arrived. Everything now hinged on the data analyzed by Hiram Yaeger’s computer network. The ship was on station exactly as directed, the shield was in the precise position calculated by Yaeger and crosschecked by Dr. Ames and his staff. The entire operation down to the slightest detail was acted upon. Nothing less than a sudden and unusual change in sea temperature or an unforeseen seismic occurrence that significantly altered the ocean’s current could spell disaster. The enormous consequences of failure were blanked from the minds of the NUMA team.
Five seconds passed, then ten. Sandecker began to feel the prickle of disaster in the nape of his neck. Then suddenly, ominously, the acoustic sensors, thirty kilometers distant, began registering the incoming sound waves along their predicted paths.
“Good Lord!” muttered Ames. “The sensors have gone off the scale. The intensity is greater than I estimated.”
“Twenty seconds and counting!” snapped Sandecker. “Get your ear mufflers on.”
The first indication of the convergence was a small resonance that rapidly grew in magnitude. The dampened bulkheads vibrated in conjunction with a hum that penetrated the sound-deadening ear protectors. The crowded people in the confined room sensed a mild form of disorientation and vertigo. But no one was struck by nausea and none panicked. The discomfort was borne stoically. Sandecker and Ames stared at each other, fulfillment swamping them in great trembling waves.
Five long minutes later it was all over. The resonance had faded away, leaving an almost supernatural silence behind it.
Gunn was the first to react. He tore off his sound deadeners, waved his arms and shouted at Captain Quick, “The door. Open the door and let some air in here.”
Quick got the message. The mattresses were cast aside and the door undogged and thrown open. The air that filtered into the room reeked with oil from the ship’s engine room but was welcomed by all as they slowly removed the sound deadeners from their heads. Vastly relieved the threat was over, they shouted and laughed like fans celebrating a win of their favorite football team. Then slowly, in an orderly manner, they filed from the storage room, up the companionways and into the fresh air.
Sandecker’s reaction time was almost inhuman. He ran up the companionways to the wheelhouse in a time that would have broken any existing record, if there had been one. He snatched up a pair of binoculars and rushed out onto the bridge wing. Anxiously, he focused the lenses on the island, only fifteen kilometers distant.
Cars were traveling routinely on the streets, and busy crowds of sunseekers moved freely about the beaches. Only then did he expel a long sigh and sag in relief over the railing, totally drained of emotion.
“An utter triumph, Admiral,” Ames said, pumping Sandecker’s hand. “You proved the best scientific minds in the country wrong.”
“I was blessed with your expertise and support, Doc,” Sandecker said as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I’d have accomplished nothing but for you and your staff of bright young scientists.”
Overcome with exhilaration, Gunn and Molly both hugged Sandecker, an act considered unthinkable on any other occasion. “You did it!” said Gunn. “Nearly two million lives saved, thanks to your stubbornness.”
“We did it,” Sandecker corrected him. “From beginning to end it was a team effort.”
Gunn’s expression suddenly turned sober. “A great pity Dirk wasn’t here to see it.”
Sandecker nodded solemnly. “His concept was the spark that ignited the project.”
Ames studied the array of instruments he had set up during the voyage from Molokai.
“The reflector positioning was perfect,” he said happily. “The acoustic energy was reversed exactly as intended.”
“Where is it now?” asked Molly.
“Combined with the energy from the other three island mining operations, the sound waves are traveling back to Gladiator Island faster than any jet plane. Their combined force should strike the submerged base in roughly ninety-seven minutes.”
“I’d love to see his face.”
“Whose face?” asked Ames innocently.
“Arthur Dorsett’s,” answered Molly, “when his private island starts to rock and roll.”
The two men and the woman crouched in a clump of bushes off to one side of the great archway that broke the middle of a high, lava-rock wall enclosing the entire Dorsett estate. Beyond the archway, a brick driveway circled around a large, well-trimmed lawn through a grand port cochere, a tall structure extending from the front of the house to shelter people getting in and out of cars. The entire driveway and house were illuminated by bright lamps strategically spaced about the landscaped grounds. Entry was barred by a thick iron gate that looked like it came from a castle out of the Middle Ages. Nearly five meters thick, the archway itself housed a small office for the security guards.
“Is there another way in?” Pitt asked Maeve softly.
“The arched gate is the only way in or out,” she whispered back.
“No drainage pipe or small ravine conveniently running beneath the wall?”
“Believe me, when I think of all the times I wanted to run away from my father when I was a young girl, I’d have found a passage leading from the grounds.”
“Security detectors?”
“Laser beams along the top of the wall with infrared body-heat sensors installed at different intervals about the grounds. Anything larger than a cat will cause an alarm to sound in the security office. Television cameras automatically come on and aim their lenses at the intruder.”
“How many guards?”
“Two at night, four during the day.”
“No dogs?”
She shook her head in the darkness. “Father hates animals. I never forgave him for stomping on a small bird with a broken wing I was trying to nurse back to health.”
“Old Art certainly creates an image of barbarity and viciousness,” said Giordino. “Does he do cannibalism, too?”
“He’s capable of anything, as you very well found out,” said Maeve.
Pitt stared at the gate thoughtfully, carefully gauging visible activity by the guards. They seemed content to stay inside and monitor the security systems. Finally, he rose to his feet, rumpled his uniform and turned to Giordino.
“I’m going to bluff my way inside. Hang loose until I open the gate.”
He slung the assault rifle over his shoulder and pulled his Swiss army knife from a pocket. Extending a small blade he made a small cut in one thumb, squeezed out the blood and smeared it over his face. When he reached the gate, Pitt dropped to his knees and gripped the bars in both hands. Then he began to shout in a low moaning tone, as if in pain.
“Help me. I need help!”
A face appeared around the door, then disappeared. Seconds later, both guards ran out of the security office and opened the gate. Pitt fell forward into their waiting arms.
“What happened?” demanded a guard. “Who did this to you?”
“A gang of Chinese tunneled out of the camp. I was coming up the road from the dock when they jumped me from behind. I think I killed two of them before I got away.”
“We’d better alert the main security compound,” blurted one of the guards.
“Help me inside first,” Pitt groaned. “I think they fractured my skull.”
The guards lifted Pitt to his feet and slung his arms over their shoulders. They half carried, half dragged him into the security office. Slowly, Pitt moved his arms inward until the guards’ necks were in the crooks of his elbows. As they pressed together to pass through the doorway, he took a convulsive step backwards, hooked the guards’ necks in a tight grip and exerted every bit of strength in his biceps and shoulder muscles. The sound of their bared heads colliding was an audible thud. They both crashed to the floor, unconscious for at least the next two hours.
