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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 dur
ing the day."
"No dogs?"
