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Sandecker smiled slyly "After I explained the seriousness of the situation, he was most cooperative"

"Much hell will erupt," Yaeger prophesied, "once the local brotherhood of fishermen and the dead crew's family members discover that the bodies were found and autopsies performed a week before they were notified"

"Especially," Gunn added, "when they learn we shipped the bodies to Washington for the postmortem"

"We were too early in the hunt for the news media to play havoc ild stories about how an entire crew and their pet parrot were found dead on a ship under mysterious circumstances At the time, we didn't need another unexplained-pheno in the dark ourselves"

Gunn shrugged "The proverbial cat's out of the bag now There's no hiding the Polar Queen disaster

After tonight it will be the lead news story on every TV news program around the world"

Sandecker nodded at Yaeger "Hiram, you delve into your library and extract every piece of data dealing with underwater acoustics Search out any experiy sound waves through water, their cause and effects on humans and underwater mammals"

"I'll start on it ier assured him

Gunn and Yaeger rose from their chairs and left the conference roo on his cigar His eyesfor severalto the next Then he closed his eyes tightly as he collected his thoughts

It was the uncertainty of the dilemma that clouded his mind After a while, he opened his eyes and stared at the coenerated chart of the Pacific Ocean "Where will it strike next?" he spoke aloud to the empty room "Who will it kill?"

Colonel Leigh Hunt sat at his desk in his basement office-he disliked the more formal administration offices on the upper floors of Walter Reed-and contemplated a bottle of Cutty Sark Out the , darkness had settled over the District of Coluhts had co to dwindle The postmortems on the five fishermen fished from the cold waters of the Northere completed, and he was about to head home to his cat The decision hether to take a drink orHe decided to do both at the same time

He punched the numbers on his telephone with one hand while he poured the scotch into a coffee cup

After two rings, a gruff voice answered

"Colonel Hunt, I hope that's you"

"It is," replied Hunt "How'd you know?"