Shock Wave(151)

The sound expert and his student staff in Arizona intermingled with Sandecker's NUMA people in Washington as if they were sitting at the same table in the same room.

The reverse was also true. Sandecker's experts appeared to be sitting amid the student staff in Ames'

work quarters. Through the technology of video holography, their voices and images were transmitted across the country by photonics, the transference of sound and light by fiber optics. By combining photonics with computer wizardry, time and space limitations disappeared.

"A valid deduction," Sandecker agreed. "Unless we can utilize an existing reflector."

Ames removed his blue-tinted bifocals and held them up to the light as he inspected the lenses for specks, Satisfied they were clean, he remounted them on his nose. "According to my calculations, we're going to require a parabolic reflector the size of a baseball diamond or larger, with an air gap between the surfaces to reflect the sound energy. I can't imagine who you can find to manufacture one in the short time before the time window closes."

Sandecker looked across the table at a tired Rudi Gunn, who stared back through the thick lenses of his glasses, which magnified eyes reddened from lack of sleep. "Any ideas, Rudi?"

"I've run through every logical possibility," Gunn answered. "Dr. Ames is right, it is out of the question to consider fabricating a reflector in time. Our only prospect is to find an existing one and transport it to Hawaii."

"You'll have to break it down, ship it in pieces and then put it back together," said Hiram Yaeger, turning from a laptop computer that was linked to his data library on the tenth floor. "No known aircraft can carry some thing of such a large surface area through the air in one piece."

"If one is shipped from somewhere within the United States, supposing it is found," insisted Ames, "it would have to go by boat."

"But what kind of ship is large enough to hold a thing that size?" asked Gunn of no one in particular.



"An oil supertanker or an aircraft carrier," said Sandecker quietly, as if to himself.

Gunn picked up on the statement immediately. "An aircraft carrier's flight deck is more than large enough to carry and deploy a reflector shield the size Doc Ames has proposed."

"The speed of our latest nuclear carriers is still classified, but Pentagon leaks indicate they can cut the water at fifty knots. Ample time to make the crossing between San Francisco and Honolulu before the deadline."

"Seventy-two hours," said Gunn, "from departure to deployment at the site."

Sandecker stared at a desk calendar with the previous dates crossed out. "That leaves exactly five days to find a reflector, get it to San Francisco and deploy it at the convergence zone."

"A tight schedule, even if you had a reflector in hand," said Ames steadily.

"How deep does it have to be rigged?" Yaeger asked Ames' image.

Almost as if she were cued, a pretty woman in her mid-twenties handed Ames a pocket calculator. He punched a few numbers, rechecked his answer and then looked up. "Allowing for the overlapping convergence zones to meet and surface, you should place the center of the reflector at a depth of 170

meters."

"Current is our number one problem," said Gunn. "It'll prove a nightmare trying to keep the reflector in place long enough to bounce the sound waves."

"Put our best engineers on the problem," ordered Sandecker. "They'll have to design some kind of rigging system to keep the reflector stable."

"How can we be sure that by refocusing the converging sound waves we can return them on a direct channel back to the source on Gladiator Island?" Yaeger asked Ames.

Ames impassively twisted the ends of the mustache that extended beyond his beard. "If the factors that propagated the original sound wave, such as salinity, water temperature and the sound speed, remain constant, the reflected energy should return to the source along its original path."

Sandecker turned to Yaeger. "How many people are on Gladiator Island?"

Yaeger consulted his computer. "The intelligence reports from satellite photos suggest a population of around 650 people, mostly miners."

"Slave labor imported from China," muttered Gunn.

"If not kill, won't we injure every living thing on the island?" Sandecker asked Ames.

Another of Ames' students unhesitantly passed a sheet of paper into the acoustics expert's hands. He scanned it for a moment before looking up. "If our analysis is close to the mark, the overlapping convergence zones from the four separated mining operations scattered throughout the Pacific will drop to an energy factor of twenty-eight percent when they strike Gladiator Island, not enough to maim or cause harm to human or animal."