Kemper sighed. "I had hoped I'd gotten rid of you once and for all when you retired from the service. Now it seems you've come back to haunt me as a goddamned feather merchant."
"I understand they were dancing in the corridors of the Pentagon when I left."
"Let's just say there were no tears shed at your departure." Kemper slowly reeled his lure in. "Okay, Jim, I've known you too many years not to smell a squeeze play. What do you and Mr. Seagram have on your minds?"
"We're going after the Titanic, " Sandecker replied casually.
Kemper went on reeling. "Indeed?"
"Indeed."
Kemper cast again. "What for? To take a few photographs for publicity's sake?"
"No, to raise her to the surface."
Kemper stopped reeling. He turned and stared at Sandecker. "You did say the Titanic?"
"I did."
"Jim, my boy, you've really slipped your moorings this time. If you expect me to believe-"
"This isn't a fairy tale," Seagram interrupted. "The authority for the salvage operation comes straight from the White House."
Kemper's eyes studied Seagram's face. "Then am I to assume that you represent the President?"
"Yes, sir. That is correct."
Kemper said, "I must say you have a rather strange way of doing business, Mr. Seagram. If you will give me the courtesy of an explanation . . ."
"That's why we're here, Admiral, to explain."
Kemper turned to Sandecker. "Are you in the game too, Jim?"
Sandecker nodded. "Let's just say that Mr. Seagram speaks softly and carries one hell of a big stick."
"Okay, Seagram, the podium is yours. Why the subterfuge and why the urgency to raise an old derelict?"
"First things first, Admiral. To begin with, I am head of a highly secret department of the government called Meta Section."
"Never heard of it," Kemper said.
"We are not listed in any journal on federal offices. Not even the CIA, the FBI, nor the NSA has any records of our operation."
"An undercover think-tank," Sandecker said curtly.
"We go beyond the ordinary think-tank," Seagram said. "Our people devise futuristic concepts and then attempt to construct them into successful functioning systems."
"That would cost millions of dollars," Kemper said.
"Modesty forbids me to mention the exact amount of our budget, Admiral, but ego compels me to admit that I have slightly over ten figures to play with."
"My Lord!" Kemper muttered under his breath. "Over a billion dollars to play with, you say. An organization of scientists that nobody knows exists. You stir my interest, Mr. Seagram."
"Mine too," Sandecker said acidly. "Up until now, you've sought NUMA's assistance through White House channels by passing yourself off as a Presidential aide. Why the Machiavellian Routine?"
"Because the President ordered strict security, Admiral, in the event of a leak to Capitol Hill. The last thing his administration needed was a congressional witch hunt into Meta Section's finances."
Kemper and Sandecker looked at each other and nodded. They looked at Seagram, waiting for the rest of it.
"Now then," he continued, "Meta Section has developed a defense system with the code name of the Sicilian Project . . . ."
"The Sicilian Project?"
"We named it after a chess strategy known as the Sicilian Defense. The project is devised around a variant of the maser principle. For example, if we push a sound wave of a certain frequency through a medium containing excited atoms, we can then stimulate the sound to an extremely high state of emission."
"Similar to a laser beam," Kemper commented.
"To some degree," Seagram answered. "Except a laser emits a narrow beam of light energy, while our device emits a broad, fanlike field of sound waves."
"Besides breaking a bevy of eardrums," Sandecker said, "what purpose does it serve?"
"As you recall from your elementary-school studies, Admiral, sound waves spread in circular waves much like ripples in a pond after a pebble is dropped in it. In the instance of the Sicilian Project, we can multiply the sound waves a million times over. Then, when this tremendous energy is released, it spreads out into the atmosphere, pushing air particles ahead of its unleashed force, condensing them until they combine to form a solid, impenetrable wall hundreds of square miles in diameter." Seagram paused to scratch his nose. "I won't bore you with equations and technical details concerning the actual instrumentation. The particulars are too complicated to discuss here, but you can easily see the potential. Any enemy missile launched against America coming into contact with this invisible protective barrier would smash itself into oblivion long before it entered the target area."
"Is . . . is this system for real?" Kemper asked hesitantly.
"Yes, Admiral. I assure you it can work. Even now, the required number of installations to stop an all-out missile attack are under construction."
"Jesus!" Sandecker burst out. "The ultimate weapon."
"The Sicilian Project is not a weapon. It is purely a scientific method of protecting our country."
"It's hard to visualize," Kemper said.
"Just imagine a sonic boom from a jet aircraft amplified ten million times."
Kemper seemed lost by it all. "But the sound-wouldn't it destroy everything on the ground?"
"No, the energy force is aimed into space and builds during its journey. To someone standing at sea level it would merely have the same harmless impact of distant thunder."
"What does all this have to do with the Titanic?"
"The element required to stimulate the optimum level of sound emission is byzanium, and therein lies the grabber, gentlemen, because the world's only known quantity of byzanium ore was shipped to the United States back in 1912 on board the Titanic."
"I see." Kemper nodded. "Then salvaging the ship is your last-ditch attempt at making your defense system operational?"
"Byzanium's atomic structure is the only one that will work. By programming its known properties into our computers, we were able to project a thirty-thousand-to-one ratio in favor of success."
"But why raise the entire ship?" Kemper asked. "Why not just tear out its bulkheads and bring up the byzanium."
"We'd have to blast our way into the cargo hold with explosives. The danger of destroying the ore forever is too great. The President and I agree that the added expense of raising the hull far outweighs the risk of losing it."
Kemper tossed out his lure again. "You're a positive thinker, Seagram. I grant you that. But what makes you think the Titanic is in any condition to be brought up in one piece. After seventy-five years on the bottom, she may be nothing but an immense pile of rusty junk."
"My people have a theory on that," said Sandecker. He put his fishing pole aside, opened his tackle box and pulled out an envelope. "Take a look at these." He handed Kemper several four-by-five photographs.
"Looks like so much underwater trash," Kemper commented.
"Exactly," Sandecker answered. "Every so often the cameras on our submersibles stumble on debris tossed overboard from passing ships." He pointed to the top photo. "This is a galley stove found at four thousand feet off Bermuda. Next is an automobile engine block photographed at sixty-five hundred feet off the Aleutians. No way to date either of these. Now, here is a Grumman F4F World War II aircraft discovered at ten thousand feet, near Iceland. We dug up a record on this one. The plane was ditched in the sea without injury by a Lieutenant Strauss when he ran out of fuel on March 17, 1946. "