Shock Wave(183)

"I know what you're thinking," Ames replied, agilely descending two steps at a time. "The anxiety of wondering if we made a tiny miscalculation that put us in the wrong place at the wrong time. The frustration of not knowing whether we succeeded if we don't live through the convergence. The unknown factors are mind boggling."

They reached the engine room storage compartment, which had been selected to ride out the convergence because of its watertight door and its total lack of air ducts. They were checked in by two ship's officers who were counting heads and handing out sound-deadening headgear that fit over the ears.

"Admiral Sandecker, Dr. Ames, please place these over your ears and try not to move around."

Sandecker and Ames found the NUMA team members settled in one corner of the compartment and joined them, moving beside Rudi Gunn and Molly Faraday, who had preceded them. They immediately gathered around monitoring systems that were integrated with the warning modems and other underwater sensors. Only the admiral, Ames and Gunn held off using the sound deadeners so they could confer right up to the final few seconds.

The compartment quickly filled amid a strange silence. Unable to hear, no one spoke. Captain Quick stood on a small box so he could be observed by all in the room. He held up two fingers as a two-minute warning. The derrick operator, who had the farthest to travel, was the last man to enter. Satisfied that every person on the ship had been accounted for, the captain ordered that the door be sealed. Several mattresses were also pressed against the exit to muffle any sound that seeped into the confined compartment. Quick held up one finger, and the tension began to build until it lay like a mantle over the people packed closely together. All stood. There wasn't enough room to sit or recline.

Gunn had calculated that the ninety-six men and women had less than fifteen minutes in the tight quarters before their breathable air stagnated and they were overwhelmed by the effects of asphyxiation.

Already the atmosphere was beginning to grow stale. The only other immediate danger was claustrophobia rearing its ugly head. The last thing they needed was unbridled hysteria. He gave Molly an encouraging wink and began monitoring the time while almost everyone else watched the ship's captain as if he were a symphony orchestra conductor with poised baton.

Quick raised both hands and curled them into fists. The moment of truth had arrived. Everything now hinged on the data analyzed by Hiram Yaeger's computer network. The ship was on station exactly as directed, the shield was in the precise position calculated by Yaeger and crosschecked by Dr. Ames and his staff. The entire operation down to the slightest detail was acted upon. Nothing less than a sudden and unusual change in sea temperature or an unforeseen seismic occurrence that significantly altered the ocean's current could spell disaster. The enormous consequences of failure were blanked from the minds of the NUMA team.

Five seconds passed, then ten. Sandecker began to feel the prickle of disaster in the nape of his neck.

Then suddenly, ominously, the acoustic sensors, thirty kilometers distant, began registering the incoming sound waves along their predicted paths.

"Good Lord!" muttered Ames. "The sensors have gone off the scale. The intensity is greater than I estimated."

"Twenty seconds and counting!" snapped Sandecker. "Get your ear mufflers on."

The first indication of the convergence was a small resonance that rapidly grew in magnitude. The dampened bulkheads vibrated in conjunction with a hum that penetrated the sound-deadening ear protectors. The crowded people in the confined room sensed a mild form of disorientation and vertigo.

But no one was struck by nausea and none panicked. The discomfort was borne stoically. Sandecker and Ames stared at each other, fulfillment swamping them in great trembling waves.

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.