“Can’t they get it through their collective academic heads that people and untold numbers of sea life have already died from it?”
“Apparently not.”
Sandecker sagged in his chair and expelled a long breath. “Stabbed in the back by Wilbur Hutton and the President’s National Science Board.”
“I’m sorry, Jim, but word has gone out in Washington circles that you’re some kind of fanatical kook. It may well be that the President wants to force you to resign from NUMA so he can put a political crony in your place.”
Sandecker felt as if the executioner’s axe was rising. “So what? My career is unimportant. Can’t I get through to anyone? Can’t I get it across to you, Admiral, that you and every man under your command on the island of Oahu will be dead in three days?”
Overmeyer looked at Sandecker with great sadness in his eyes. It is a difficult thing for a man to believe another is breaking down, especially if that man is his friend. “Jim, to be honest, you terrify me. I want to trust your judgment, but there are too many intelligent people who think your acoustic plague has as much chance of actually occurring as the end of the world.”
“Unless you give me the Roosevelt,” said Sandecker evenly, “your world will cease to exist on Saturday at eight o’clock in the morning.”
Overmeyer shook his head grimly. “I’m sorry, Jim, my hands are tied. Whether I believe your prediction of doom or not, you know damned well I can’t disobey orders that come down from my Commander-in-Chief.”
“If I can’t convince you, then I guess I’d better be on my way.” Sandecker came to his feet, started for the door and turned. “Do you have family here at Pearl?”
“My wife and two visiting granddaughters.”
“I hope to God I’m wrong, but if I were you, my friend, I’d get them off the island while you still can.”
The giant dish was only half dismantled by midnight. The interior of the volcano was illuminated by incandescent brilliance and echoed with the sounds of generators, the clank of metal against metal and the curses of the dismantling crew. The pace remained frantic from start to finish. The NUMA men and women sweated and fought bolted connections that were rusted together from lack of upkeep and repair. Sleep was never considered, nor were meals. Only coffee as black as the surrounding sea was passed around.
As soon as a small section of the steel-reinforced fiberglass dish was removed from the main frame, the crane picked it up and set it on the flatbed of a waiting truck. After five sections were stacked one on top of the other and tied down, the truck exited the interior of the volcano and drove toward the port of Kaumalapau on the west coast, where the antenna parts were loaded on board a small ship for transport to Pearl Harbor.
Rudi Gunn was standing shirtless, sweating from the humidity of a steamy night, directing a team of men laboring strenuously to disconnect the main hub of the antenna from its base. He was constantly consulting a set of plans for the same type of antenna used in other space tracking facilities. The plans came from Hiram Yaeger, who had obtained them by breaking into the corporate computer system of the company that had originally designed and constructed the huge dishes.
Molly, who had changed into a more comfortable khaki blouse and shorts, sat nearby in a small tent, manning the communications and fielding any problems that arose during the dismantling operation and transportation of parts to the loading dock. She stepped out of the tent and handed Gunn a cold bottle of beer.
“You look like you could use a little something to wet your tonsils,” she said.
Gunn nodded thankfully and rolled the bottle across his forehead. “I must have consumed twenty liters of liquid since we got here.”
“I wish Pitt and Giordino were here,” she said sadly. “I miss them.”
Gunn stared absently at the ground. “We all miss them. I know the admiral’s heart is torn out.”
Molly changed the subject. “How’s it look?”
He tilted his head toward the half-dismantled antenna. “She’s fighting us every step of the way. Things are going a little faster now that we know how to attack her.”
“A shame,” she decided after a thoughtful survey of the thirty men and four women who struggled so long and hard to tear apart and move the antenna, their dedication and tireless efforts now seemingly wasted in a magnificent attempt to save so many lives, “that all this may very well come to nothing.”
“Don’t give up on Jim Sandecker,” said Gunn. “He may have been blocked by the White House in securing the Roosevelt, but I’ll bet you a dinner with soft lights and music that he’ll come up with a replacement.”
“You’re on,” she said, smiling thinly. “That’s a bed I’ll gladly lose.”
He looked up curiously. “I beg your pardon?”
“A Freudian slip.” She laughed tiredly. “I meant ‘bet.’”
At four in the morning, Molly received a call from Sandecker. His voice showed no trace of fatigue.
“When do you expect to wrap up?”
“Rudi thinks we’ll have the final section loaded on board the Lanikai—”
“The what?” Sandecker interrupted.
“The Lanikai, a small interisland freighter I chartered to haul the antenna to Pearl Harbor.”
“Forget Pearl Harbor. How soon before you’ll be out of there?”
“Another five hours.” replied Molly.
“We’re running tight. Remind Rudi we have less than sixty hours left.”
“If not Pearl Harbor, where do we go?”
“Set a course for Halawa Bay, on the island of Molokai.” answered Sandecker. “I found another platform for deploying the reflector.”
“Another aircraft carrier?”
“Something even better.”
“Halawa Bay is less than a hundred kilometers across the channel. How did you manage that?”
“They who await no gifts from chance, conquer fate.”
“You’re being cryptic, Admiral,” Molly said, intrigued.
“Just tell Rudi to pack up and get to Molokai no later than ten o’clock this morning.”
She had just switched off the portable phone when Gunn entered the tent. “We’re breaking down the final section,” he said wearily. “And then we’re out of here.”
“The admiral called,” she informed Gunn. “He’s ordered us to take the antenna to Halawa Bay.”
“On Molokai?” Gunn asked, his eyes narrowed questioningly.
“That was the message,” she said flatly.
“What kind of ship do you suppose he’s pulled out of his hat?”
“A fair question. I have no idea.”
“It’d better be a winner,” Gunn muttered, “or we’ll have to close the show.”
There was no moon, but the sea flamed with spectral blue-green phosphorescence under the glint of the stars that filled the sky from horizon to horizon like unending city lights. The wind had veered and swept in from the south, driving the Marvelous Maeve hard to the northwest. The green-and-yellow beech-leaf sail filled out like a woman’s tattooed breast, while the boat leaped over the waves like a mule running with thoroughbreds. Pitt had never imagined that the ungainly looking craft could sail so well. She would never win a trophy, but he could have closed his eyes and envisioned himself on a first class yacht, skimming over the sea without a care in the world.
The swells no longer had the same hostile look nor did the clouds look as threatening. The nightly chill also diminished as they traveled north into warmer waters. The sea had tested them with cruelty and harshness, and they had passed with flying colors. Now the weather was cooperating by remaining constant and charitable.
Some people tire of looking at the sea from a tropical beach or the deck of a cruise ship, but Pitt was not among them. His restless soul and the capricious water were one, inseparable in their shifting moods.
Maeve and Giordino no longer felt as though they were struggling to stay alive. Their few moments of warmth and pleasure, nearly drowned by adversity, were becoming more frequent. Pitt’s unshakable optimism, his
