Shock Wave dp-13

by Clive Cussler

  “Only three of us, ma’am, one for each eight-hour shift.”

  “What do you do when you’re not on guard duty?”

  “Lay on the beach mostly, or try and pick up single girls at the hotels.”

  She laughed. “How often are you able to leave the island?”

  “Every thirty days. Then five days leave in Honolulu, before returning to Lanai.”

  “When was the last time an outsider visited the facility?”

  If the sergeant realized he was being interrogated, he didn’t show it. “Some guy with National Security Agency credentials came and poked around about four months ago. Hung around less than twenty minutes. You’re the first to visit since him.”

  “We should have the antenna down and out of here sometime late tonight,” said Gunn.

  “May I inquire, sir, where it’s going to be reassembled?”

  “What if I told you it was going to be scrapped?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” said the sergeant. “With no repair or maintenance in the last few years, the old dish is beginning to look like it’s been worked over by the elements.”

  Gunn was amused at seeing the marine stalling while enjoying the opportunity to talk to a stranger. “May we pass through and get to work, Sergeant?”

  The sergeant snapped a salute and quickly pressed a button that electronically swung open the gate. After the staff car passed out of sight into the tunnel, he watched and waved to the drivers of the trucks and crane. When the last vehicle disappeared inside the volcano, he closed the gate, entered the guard compound and changed back into his shorts and aloha shirt before releasing the pause button on his VCR. He adjusted his virtual-reality headset and reversed the cassette tape until he rejoined John Wayne in blasting away at the Indians.

  “So far so good,” Gunn said to Molly.

  “Shame on you for telling that nice young boy you were junking the antenna,” she chided him.

  “I merely said, ‘what if?’”

  “We get caught forging official documents, painting a used car to look like an official Navy vehicle and stealing government property ...” Molly paused and shook her head in wonder. “They’ll hang us from the Washington Monument.”

  “I’ll gladly pay the price if we save nearly two million people from a horrible death,” said Gunn without regret.

  “What happens after we deflect the acoustic wave?” she asked. “Do we return the antenna and reassemble it?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He stared at her, as if surprised she asked the question, before smiling devilishly. “Unless, of course, there’s an accident and we drop it on the bottom of the sea.”

  Sandecker’s end of the project was not going one-tenth as well. Despite relying heavily on the Navy’s old admiral buddy system, he could not convince anyone with command authority to temporarily loan him the aircraft carrier Roosevelt and her crew. Somewhere along the chain of command between the President and the Admiral in Command of Pacific Fleet Operations someone had spiked his request.

  The admiral was pacing the office of Admiral John Overmeyer at Pearl Harbor with the ferocity of a bear who’d lost its cub to a zoo. “Damn it, John!” snapped Sandecker. “When I left Admiral Baxter of the Joint Chiefs, he assured me that approval to use the Roosevelt for the deployment of an acoustic reflector was a done deal. Now you sit there and tell me I can’t have her.”

  Overmeyer, looking as sturdy and vigorous as an Indiana farmer, threw up his hands in exasperation. “Don’t blame me, Jim. I can show you the orders.”

  “Who signed them?”

  “Admiral George Cassidy, Commanding Officer of the San Francisco Naval District.”

  “What in hell does some desk jockey who operates ferryboats have to do with anything?”

  “Cassidy does not operate ferryboats,” Overmeyer said wearily. “He’s in command of the entire Pacific Logistics Command.”

  “He’s not over you,” stated Sandecker sharply.

  “Not directly, but if he decided to get nasty, every transport carrying supplies for all my ships between here and Singapore might be inexplicably delayed.”

  “Don’t stroke me, John. Cassidy wouldn’t dare drag his feet, and you damn well know it. His career would go down the drain if he allowed petulance to stand in the way of supplying your fleet.”

  “Have it your way,” said Overmeyer. “But it doesn’t alter the situation. I cannot let you have the Roosevelt.”

  “Not even for a lousy seventy-two hours?”

  “Not even for seventy-two seconds.”

  Sandecker suddenly halted his pacing, sat down in a chair and stared Overmeyer in the eye. “Level with me, John. Who put the handcuffs on me?”

  Obviously flustered, Overmeyer could not hold the stare and looked away. “That’s not for me to say.”

  “The fog begins to clear,” said Sandecker. “Does George Cassidy know he’s being cast as a villain?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Overmeyer answered honestly.

  “Then who in the Pentagon is stonewalling my operation?”

  “You didn’t hear this from me.”

  “We served together on the Iowa. You’ve never known me to expose a friend’s secrets.”

  “I’d be the last man to doubt your word,” Overmeyer said without hesitation. This time he returned Sandecker’s stare. “I don’t have absolute evidence, mind you, but a friend at the Naval Weapons Testing Center hinted that it was the President himself who dropped the curtain on you, after some unnamed snitch at the Pentagon let your request for an aircraft carrier slip to the White House. My friend also suggested that scientists close to the President thought your acoustic plague theory was off the wall.”

  “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 me
als. 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 contagious laughter, his unrelenting grasp of hope, his strength of character sustained and helped them face the worst that nature could throw at them. Never did they perceive a bare hint of depression in his perspective, whatever the situation. No matter how strained he appeared as he sighted his sextant on the stars or warily watched for a sudden change of the wind, he was always smiling.

  When she realized she was falling deeply in love with him, Maeve’s independent spirit fought against it. But when she finally accepted the inevitable, she gave in to her feelings completely. She continually found herself studying his every move, his every expression as he jotted down their position on Rodney York’s chart of the southern sea.

  She touched him on the arm. “Where are we?” she asked softly.

  “At first light I’ll mark our course and figure the distance separating us from Gladiator Island.”

  “Why don’t you give it a rest? You haven’t slept more than two hours since we left the Miseries.”

  “I promise I’ll take a nice long siesta when we’re on the last leg of the voyage,” he said, peering through gloom at the compass.

  “Al never sleeps ‘either,” she said, pointing at Giordino, who never ceased examining the condition of the outriggers and the rigging holding the boat together.

  “If the following wind holds and my navigating is anywhere near the mark, we should sight your island sometime early morning on the day after tomorrow.”

  She looked up at the great field of stars. “The heavens are lovely tonight.”

  “Like a woman I know,” he said, eyes going from compass to the sails to Maeve. “A radiant creature with guileless blue eyes and hair like a shower of golden coins. She’s innocent and intelligent and was made for love and life.”

  “She sounds quite appealing.”

  “That’s only for starters. Her father happens to be one of the richest men in the solar system.”

  She arched her back and snuggled against his body, feeling its hardness. She brushed her lips against the mirth lines around his eyes and his strong chin. “You must be very smitten with her.”

  “Smitten, and why not?” he said slowly. “She is the only girl in this part of the
Pacific Ocean who makes me mad with passionate desire.”

  “But. I’m the only girl in this part of the Pacific Ocean.”

  He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Then it’s your solemn duty to fulfill my most intimate fantasies.”

  “I’d take you up on that if we were alone,” she said in a sultry voice. “But for now, you’ll just have to suffer.”

  “I could tell Al to take a hike,” he said with a grin.

  She pulled back and laughed. “He wouldn’t get far.” Maeve secretly sensed a flow of happiness at knowing no flesh-and-blood woman stood between them. “You’re a special kind of man,” she whispered. “The kind every woman longs to meet.”

  He laughed easily. “Not so. I’ve seldom swept the fair sex off their feet.”

  “Maybe it’s because they see that you’re unreachable.”

  “I can be had if they play their cards right,” he said jokingly.

  “Not what I mean,” she said seriously. “The sea is your mistress. I could read it in your face through the storm. It was not as if you were fighting the sea as much as you were seducing it. No woman can compete with a love so vast.”

  “You have a deep affection for the sea too,” he said tenderly, “and the life that lives in it.”

  Maeve breathed in the night. “Yes, I can’t deny devoting my life to it.”

  Giordino broke the moment by emerging from the deckhouse and announcing that one of the buoyancy tubes was losing air. “Pass the pump,” he ordered. “If I can find the leak, I’ll try and patch it.”

  “How is Marvelous Maeve holding up?” Pitt asked.

  “Like a lady in a dance contest,” Giordino replied. “Limber and lithe, with all her body joints working in rhythm.”

  “She hangs together until we reach the island and I’ll donate her to the Smithsonian to be displayed as the boat most unlikely to succeed.”

  “We strike another storm,” said Giordino warily, “and all bets are off.” He paused and casually glanced around the black horizon where the stars melted into the sea. Suddenly, he stiffened. “I see a light off to port.”

  Pitt and Maeve stood and stared in the direction Giordino indicated with his hand. They could see a green light, indicating a ship’s starboard side, and white range masthead lights. It looked to be passing far in their wake toward the northeast.