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"Later," replied Pitt "Let's push ahead and follow the muck on the conveyor belt"

Giordino was stunned at the power of the golf cart He got it up to fiftyother vehicles on the concrete road

"Better slon," cautioned Pitt "We don't want to arouse suspicion"

"You think they got traffic cops down here?"

"No, but big brother is watching," Pitt countered, discreetly nodding at a ca system

Giordino reluctantly slowed and settled behind a bus traveling in the sa the bus schedule and quickly calculated that the buses ran twenty minutes apart and stopped at work sites when and wherever lanced at the hands on his watch It was only a question of time before the technicians on the replacement shift entered the ventilator control room and found their coworkers duct-taped to the floor So far, no alaruards cruising up and down the tunnel as if searching for someone

"We're co," Giordino alerted Pitt

A thuer as they iant pu station The rock that had been crushed to sand was sent from the conveyor belt into a monstrous bin Fro thrust it into huge pipes As Pitt had concluded, the contaminated muck was then propelled into the sea where Poco Bonito had run aground on the accuiant steel doors

"The enightfully "Those pu ten times the excavated muck They must serve another purpose"

"They'll probably dismantle them when the tunnel is finished"

"I don't think so They look permanent"

"I wonder what's on the other side of those doors," said Giordino

"The Caribbean," answered Pitt "We must be miles from shore and deep beneath the surface of the sea"

Giordino's eyes never left the doors "How in the world did they dig this thing?"

"They began with an open excavation onshore by digging a portal First, a starter tunnel was launched with a different type of machine called a roadheader excavator When it reached a calculated depth, the big boring ht in and assembled in the excavated tunnel It worked east under the sea, then it in excavating in the opposite direction toward the west"