Shock Wave(171)

Within two hours, the transfer was completed and the antenna sections tied down on board the Explorer. The little cargo ship pulled up her anchors, gave a farewell blast of her air horn and began moving out of the harbor, her part of the project finished. Gunn and Molly waved as the Lanikai slowly pushed aside the green waters of the bay and headed out into the open sea.

The NUMA team members were assigned quarters and enjoyed a well-deserved meal from the Explorer's expansive galley before bedding down in staterooms that had gone unused since the ship wrestled the Soviet sub from the deep waters of the Pacific. Molly had taken over the role of housemother and circulated among the team to make sure none had come down sick or had injured themselves during the antenna breakdown.

Gunn returned to the former VIP quarters once reserved for the eccentric Howard Hughes.

Sandecker, Captain Quick and another man, who was introduced as Jason Toft, the ship's chief engineer, were seated around a small game table.

"Care for a brandy?" asked Quick.

"Yes, thank you."

Sandecker sat wreathed in cigar smoke and idly sipped the golden liquid in his glass. He did not look like a happy camper. "Mr. Toft has just informed me that he can't get the ship under way until critical parts are delivered from the mainland."

Gunn knew the admiral was churning inside, but he looked as cool as a bucket of ice on the exterior.

He looked at Toft. "When do you expect the parts, Chief?"

"They're in flight from Los Angeles now," answered Toft, a man with a huge stomach and short legs.

"Due to land in four hours. Our ship's helicopter is waiting on the ground at the Hilo airport on the big island of Hawaii to terry the parts directly to the Explorer."

"What exactly is the problem?" asked Gunn.

"The propeller shaft bearings," Toft explained. "For some strange reason, because the CIA rushed construction, I guess, the propeller shafts were not balanced properly. During the voyage from San Francisco the vibration cracked the lubricating tubes, cutting off the flow of oil to the shaft bearings.

Friction, metal fatigue, overstress, whatever you want to call it, the port shaft froze solid about a hundred miles off Molokai. The starboard shaft was barely able to carry us here before her bearings burned out."

"As I told you earlier, we're working under a critical deadline."



I fully understand the scope of your dilemma, Admiral. My engine-room crew will work like madmen to get the ship under way again, but they're only human. I must warn you, the shaft bearings are only part of the problem. The engines may not have many hours on them, having only taken the ship from the East Coast to the middle of the Pacific and then back to California, back in the 1970s, but without proper attention for the last twenty years, they are in a terrible state of neglect. Even if we should get one shaft to turn, there is no guarantee we'll get past the mouth of the harbor before breaking down again."

"Do you have the necessary tools to do the job?" Sandecker pressed Toft.

"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."