Shock Wave (Dirk Pitt 13)

"The caps on the port shaft have been torn down and the bearings removed. Replacement should go fairly smoothly. The port shaft, however, can only be repaired at a shipyard."

Gunn addressed himself to Captain Quick. "I don't understand why your company didn't have the Explorer refitted at a local shipyard after she came out of mothballs in San Francisco."

"Blame it on the bean-counters." Quick shrugged. "Chief Toft and I strongly recommended a refit before departing for Hawaii, but management wouldn't hear of it. The only time spent at the shipyard was for removal of much of the early lifting equipment and the installation of the dredging system. As for standard maintenance, they insisted it was a waste of money and that any mechanical failures could be repaired at sea or after we reached Honolulu, which obviously we failed to do. And on top of that, we're way undermanned. The original crew was 172 men, I have 60 men and women on board, mostly maritime crewmen, crane and equipment operators and mechanics to maintain the machinery. Twelve of that number are geologists, marine engineers and electronics experts. Unlike your NUMA projects, Commander Gunn, ours is a bare-bones operation."

"My apologies, Captain," said Gunn. "I sympathize with your predicament."

How soon can you get us under way?" Sandecker asked Toft, trying to keep the fatigue of the past few weeks from showing.

"Thirty-six hours, maybe more."

The room went silent as every eye was trained on Sandecker. He fixed the chief engineer with a pair of eyes that went as cold as a serial killer's. "I'll explain it to you one more time," he offered sharply, "as candidly as I can put it. If we are not on station at the convergence site with our antenna positioned in the water thirty-five hours from now, more people will die than inhabit most small countries. This is not a harebrained fantasy or the script for a Hollywood science-fiction movie. It's real life, and I for one do not want to stand there looking at a sea of dead bodies and say Ìf only I'd made the extra effort, I might have prevented it.' Whatever magic it takes, Chief, we must have the antenna in the water and positioned before 800 A.M. the day after tomorrow."

"I'll not promise the impossible," Toft came back sternly. "But if we can't make your schedule, it won't be for the lack of my engine-room people working themselves to death." He drained his glass and walked from she room, closing the door heavily behind him.

"I'm afraid you upset my chief engineer," Quick said to Sandecker. "A bit harsh, weren't you, laying the blame on him if we fail?"

Sandecker stared at the closed door thoughtfully. "The stakes are too high, Captain. I didn't plan it this way, certainly not for the burden to sit on Chief Toft's shoulders. But like it or not, that man holds the fate of every human being on the island of Oahu in his hands."

At 3:30 P.M. the following afternoon, a haggard and grimy Toft stepped into the wheelhouse and announced to Sandecker, Gunn and Captain Quick, "The bearings in the port shaft have been replaced. I can get us under way, but the best speed I can give you is five knots with a little edge to spare."

Sandecker pumped Toft's hand. "Bless you, Chief, bless you."

"What is the distance to the convergence site?" asked Quick.

"Eighty nautical miles," Gunn answered without hesitation, having worked the course out in his mind over a dozen times.

"A razor-edge margin," Quick said uneasily. "Moving at five knots, eighty nautical miles will take sixteen hours, which will put us on your site a few minutes before oh-eight hundred hours."

"Oh-eight hundred hours," Gunn repeated in a tone slightly above a whisper. "The precise time Yaeger predicted the convergence."

"A razor-thin margin," Sandecker echoed, "but Chief Toft has given us a fighting chance."

Gunn's face became drawn. "You realize, I hope, Admiral, that if we reach the area and are hit by the convergence, we all stand a good chance of dying."

Sandecker looked at the other three men without a change of expression. "Yes," he said quietly. "A very good chance."

Shortly after midnight, Pitt took his final sighting of the stars and marked his chart under the light of a half-moon. If his calculations were in the ballpark, they should be sighting Gladiator Island within the next few hours. He instructed Maeve and Giordino to keep a lookout ahead while he allowed himself the luxury of an hour's sleep. It seemed to him that he had barely drifted off when Maeve gently shook him awake.

"Your navigation was right on the button," she said, excitement in her tone. "The island is in sight."

"A beautiful job .of navigating, old buddy," Giordino congratulated him. "You beat your estimated time of arrival."

"Just under the wire too," Maeve said, laughing. "Dead leaves are beginning to fall off the sails."

Pitt stared into the night but only saw the splash of stars and moon on the sea. He opened his mouth to say he couldn't see anything when a shaft of light swung across the western horizon, followed by a bright red glow. "Your island has a beacon?" he asked Maeve.

"A small lighthouse on the rim of the southern volcano."

"At least your family did something to aid marine navigation."

Maeve laughed. "Thoughts of lost sailors never entered my great-grandfather's mind when he built it.

The purpose has always been to warn ships to steer clear of the island and not to come ashore."

"Have many vessels come to grief on the island's coast?"

She looked down at her hands and clasped them. "When I was little, Daddy often talked about ships that were cast on the rocks."