Shock Wave (Dirk Pitt 13)

"The buildings and parabolic reflector are inside the extinct Palawai volcano. Neither the natives, who always wondered what was going on in there, nor the tourists could ever get close enough to check it out."

"Besides tuning in on passing satellites," asked Ames, "what was its purpose?"

"Passing Soviet satellites," Molly corrected him. "Fortunately, the former Soviet military chiefs had a fetish for guiding their spy satellites over the military bases on the Hawaiian Islands after they orbited the U.S. mainland. Our job was to penetrate their transponders with powerful microwave signals and foul up their intelligence photos. From what the CIA was able to gather, the Russians never did figure out why their satellite reconnaissance photos always came back blurred and out of focus. About the time the Communist government disintegrated, newer space communications facilities made the Palawai facility redundant. Because of its immense size, the antenna was later utilized to transmit and receive signals from deep-space probes. Now I understand that its dated technology has made the facility's equipment obsolete, and the site, though still guarded, is pretty much abandoned."

Yaeger jumped right to the heart of the matter. "How large is the parabolic reflector?"

Molly buried her head in her hands a moment before looking up. "I seem to recall that it was eighty meters in diameter."

"More than the surface area we require," said Ames. "Do you think the NSA will let us borrow it?"

asked Sandecker.

"They'd probably pay you to carry it away."

"You'll have to dismantle it and airlift the pieces to' Pearl Harbor," said Ames, "providing you can borrow the carrier Roosevelt to reassemble and lower it on the convergence area."

Sandecker looked squarely at Molly. "I'll use my powers of persuasion with the Navy Department if you'd work on the National Security Agency end."

"I'll get on it immediately," Molly assured him.

A balding man with rimless glasses, sitting near the end of the table, raised a hand.

Sandecker nodded at him and smiled. "You've been pretty quiet, Charlie. Something must be stirring around in your brain."

Dr. Charlie Bakewell, NUMA's chief undersea geologist, removed a wad of gum from his mouth and neatly wrapped it in paper before dropping it in a wastebasket. He nodded at the image of Dr. Ames in the holograph. "As I understand this thing, Dr. Ames, the sound energy alone can't destroy human tissue, but enhanced by the resonance coming from the rock chamber which is under assault by the acoustic mining equipment, its frequency is reduced so that it can propagate over vast distances. When it overlaps in a single ocean region, the sound is intense enough to damage human tissue."

"You're essentially correct," admitted Ames.

"So if you reflect the overlapping convergence zones back through the ocean, won't some energy reflect from Gladiator Island?"

Ames nodded. "Quite true. As long as the energy force strikes the submerged level of the island without surfacing and is scattered in diverse directions, any prospect of carnage is dramatically decreased."

"It's the moment of impact against the island that concerns me," said Bakewell conversationally. "I've reviewed the geological surveys on Gladiator Island by geologists hired by Dorsett Consolidated Mining nearly fifty years ago. The volcanoes on the opposite ends of the island are not extinct but dormant. They have been dormant for less than seven hundred years. No human was present during the last eruption, but scientific analysis of the lava rock dates it some time in the middle of the twelfth century. The ensuing years have been followed by alternating periods of passivity and minor seismic disturbances."

"What is your point, Charlie?" asked Sandecker.

"My point, Admiral, is that if a catastrophic force of acoustical energy slams into the base of Gladiator Island it just might set off a seismic disaster."

"An eruption?" asked Gunn.

Bakewell merely nodded.

"What in your estimation are the odds of this happening?" inquired Sandecker.

"There is no way of absolutely predicting any level of seismic or volcanic activity, but I know a qualified vulcanologist who will give you a bet of one in five."

"One chance of eruption out of five," Ames said, his holographic image gazing at Sandecker. "I am afraid, Admiral, that Dr. Bakewell's theory puts our project into the category of unacceptable risk."

Sandecker did not hesitate a second with his reply. "Sorry, Dr. Ames, but the lives of a million or more residents of Honolulu, along with tens of thousands of tourists and military personnel stationed at bases around Oahu, take priority over 650 miners."

"Can't we warn Dorsett Consolidated management to evacuate the island?" said Yaeger.

"We have to try," Sandecker said firmly. "But knowing Arthur Dorsett, he'll simply shrug off any warning off as a hollow threat."

"Suppose the acoustic energy is deflected elsewhere?" suggested Bakewell.

Ames looked doubtful. "Once the intensity deviates from its original path, you run the risk of it retaining its full energy and striking Yokohama, Shanghai, Manila, Sydney or Auckland, or some other heavily populated coastal city."