“Which means, sir, I am about to award you a fairly disagreeable task…the central satellite we have to silence is called Helios. It’s French and someone has to deal with ’em. And you know how cooperative they’re likely to be if they get a call from Washington asking them to switch off their very own GPS…
“Sacré bleu, and all that Gallic bullshit,” added Arnold. “And there is one other irritation that might actually turn out to be of major significance—when the Europeans began work on Galileo six years ago, they rowed in China for a 10 percent share. Cost Beijing $400 million. Gave ’em not only the China-Europe Global Navigation Satellite System, they all agreed the Technical Training and Co-Operation Center would be based in Beijing. We now see China as our geostrategic rival of the future.”
“China, always damn China,” said the President. “And you mean I have to tackle all of that? Because you know darned well the French will immediately say they have to ask Beijing.”
“Well, we’ll ask Master Control Station at Falcon Air Base to send a request direct to Paris first,” said Arnold. “Then we’ll try frightening the French to death by telling ’em the tsunami will also flood their Brittany coastline, which it will. Then we’ll have to go President-to-President.”
Arnold Morgan paused, somewhat theatrically, then continued.
“And if none of that works, Mr. President, we shall be obliged, on behalf of this great nation, both morally and ethically, under the laws of Almighty God and Man, to shoot the fucker clean out of the stratosphere.”
10
MEANWHILE, the evacuation of the East Coast had begun. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had split the mammoth task into five main categories: the general public; State and Federal Government; Culture and Heritage; Commerce and Industry; and Public and Emergency Services.
President Bedford had already put a state of National Emergency in place, and immediately authorized the FEMA to oversee evacuation operations. They had handed over power to the Eastern Seaboard State Governments to mobilize local National Guard troops in all areas under threat. A principal part of the Guard’s duties was to patrol urban areas and “maintain control on the ground.”
Plainly, as soon as the gravity of the situation had sunk into the mind of the public, a widespread panic would be inevitable, which the criminal element would most likely be swift to exploit. The President warned that in any cases of looting, particularly of federal property, the National Guard was fully empowered to open fire.
A strategic review of the situation, and an assessment of the overall threat, had been under way since earlier that day. Contingency plans were being finalized, and battalions of U.S. Army forces were already rumbling down the highways towards Washington, D.C., and the other three major cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
The President’s next speech, currently being drafted feverishly by Henry Wolfson, would warn of the specific effects of a 150-foot wall of water racing through the coastal shallows and thundering into the streets. It would be similar, he wrote, to the murderous destruction caused by the exploding island of Krakatoa: unstoppable, devastating, and certain death for anyone who remained in its way.
The chaos would be wholesale, the water would level almost anything that stood in its way. Huge waves would continue to pound the coastline after the initial shock. Great tracts of land maybe 15 miles from the beaches would be absolutely wiped out, power supplies damaged, communications severed, and there would be widespread saltwater flooding, fatal to infrastructure equipment and installations, such as power stations and domestic water utilities. Henry Wolfson actually managed to frighten himself.
The drift of this first draft was that every citizen had a duty to his country in the face of the oncoming onslaught from the deep. Every family should attempt to find its own point of refuge, driving to friends or relatives who resided inland on higher ground, but some people should remain in the city for several days, if possible, to assist employers with the packing and removal of all items of value—principally from the Federal Government but also from private commerce. A special department was being set up to record when families vacated their homes and precisely where they would reside during the coming catastrophe.
The evacuation of the poorer areas was an even more pressing dilemma, especially with regard to those under criminal justice supervision. Many did not have their own transportation or a place to go. Local authorities were being instructed to provide both, somehow—buses, trains, and reception areas, utilizing schools and community halls beyond a 20-mile radius. They were already contacting towns and cities in nearby counties to the west and northwest, where the Blue Ridge Mountains leave Virginia and cross the border into Maryland.
The President’s seven o’clock speech was dramatic. The East Coast population, already stunned by the resignation of President McBride, now had to swallow the enormous significance of the mega-tsunami. The entire concept was so outrageous that people seemed unable to grasp this mammoth intrusion—the specter of the destruction of the entire East Coast of the United States unacceptable and unimaginable.
People sat transfixed in front of their television screens as President Bedford outlined the opening steps everyone had to take in order to survive and preserve what must be preserved.
The first signs of panic began almost as soon as he concluded the address. The White House switchboard was jammed by thousands of calls. The largest number of viewers in living memory hit the wires to the television networks, demanding more information. There was a late-night run on gasoline, lines quickly forming up and down the East Coast as people prepared to fill up and move inland, right now, never mind October 9.
On the heels of the President’s announcement, the Department of Transportation announced that as of Monday morning, October 5, all ports and airports on the East Coast would be closed to incoming ships and aircraft—except for those aircraft specifically designated for evacuation purposes.
The London tabloids, five hours ahead of Washington, set the tone for the media bonanza, ruthlessly joining together the two American news stories, and the papers appeared on the streets by two o’clock, East Coast Time, on Wednesday morning, September 30.
MAC CRACKS UNDER TERRORIST THREAT, shouted the London Daily Mail’s headline, in end-of-the-world type, above a subhead that read:
U.S. PRESIDENT MCBRIDE QUITS
WHITE HOUSE TYRANT MORGAN RECALLED
One single large photograph of the new President was captioned: PAUL BEDFORD TAKES THE OATH WITH ADMIRAL ARNOLD MORGAN AT HIS SIDE.
It was in fact a dazzling front page, and all the twenty-four-hour American television news channels were showing it before 3 A.M. The Mail devoted six pages to the story, the lead being written by its star political feature writer Tony Pina.
On a bright October afternoon of pure political theater, Charles McBride resigned yesterday as the 44th President of the United States. He left secretly by Navy helicopter from the lawn outside the Oval Office.
Minutes later, Vice President Paul Bedford was sworn into office before a select group of military chiefs, which included the former National Security Adviser Admiral Arnold Morgan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Tim Scannell, and the heads of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.
Senator Edward Kennedy was also in attendance for the ceremony, which was conducted by Judge David Moore, who had been specially appointed by the Supreme Court.
Fifteen minutes into his Presidency, Paul Bedford summoned the White House Press Corps to the Briefing Room, where he explained that his predecessor had suffered a nervous breakdown and was under medical supervision at Camp David.
He then revealed that the United States has been under a monumental threat from a Middle Eastern terrorist group that has already blown up Mount St. Helens, the giant volcano in Washington State, and then exploded the simmering Caribbean volcano on the island of Montserrat on Monday night.
The threat to the U.S.A. was to erupt the Cumbre Vieja o
n the Canary Island of La Palma, thus setting off a mega-tsunami across the Atlantic that would wipe out the American East Coast and greatly harm the shores of Western Europe and North Africa—unless the American President agrees to move its entire military force out of the Persian Gulf area, and strong-arm Israel into conceding an Independent State of Palestine, vacating the left bank territories.
So far as we know, the United States has made no effort to comply with these demands, and is believed to be conducting a massive search in the Atlantic to find a nuclear submarine apparently containing the terrorists and submerge-launch cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
The terrorists’ threat, that horrendous prospect of a mega-tsunami, is believed to have proved too much for President McBride, who was reported to have collapsed on hearing the news that the terrorists had hit Montserrat on Monday, carrying out a previous threat, almost to the minute.
President Bedford has vowed to catch the submarine and destroy it, and has announced plans to evacuate the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Scientists say that from the moment of impact in the seas off La Palma, there would be only nine hours before New York City went under more than 100 feet of water.
On the opposite page was an large picture of Admiral Morgan in Naval uniform, beneath the headline—THE RETURN OF THE IRON MAN. The accompanying story began:
Admiral Arnold Morgan, the former nuclear submarine commander who held the last Republican Administration together, was called yesterday out of retirement and summoned to the White House by the new Democratic President.
The White House confirmed that the Admiral has been appointed Supreme Commander of Operation High Tide, the code name for the massive submarine hunt currently under way in the Atlantic to locate and take out the terrorist warship…
Since the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been reluctant to admit there was any connection between the McBride resignation and the threat from Hamas, the U.S. television networks had been reluctant to join the two stories. The devil-may-care treatment of the situation by the London papers, however, gave them all the Dutch courage they needed, and by breakfast time, there was no doubt in the minds of Americans: Charles McBride had cracked, and wimped his way out of the Oval Office, afraid to face the personal torment of ordering his fleet into action to destroy an aggressor. Worse yet, he may not have had the courage to order an evacuation of the big cities and coastline communities. And there were several newspaper and television features on Arnold Morgan, “The Man the U.S. Government apparently cannot do without.”
There were various headlines on the same drift:
ADMIRAL MORGAN—THE LION OF THE WEST WING
THE DAY ADMIRAL MORGAN FACED DOWN CHINA
ARNOLD MORGAN—AMAN FOR TROUBLED TIMES
ADMIRAL MORGAN—PATRIOT OR A GLOBAL GAMBLER?
MORGAN—THE MAN WHO FLEXES AMERICA’S MUSCLE
What no one wrote, anywhere in the world, was that President McBride had been frog-marched out of the Oval Office by a Detail from the United States Marine Corps, while the Service Chiefs looked on.
It had been a military coup of the kind that usually happens in those restless countries around the world in which economic crises, drug wars, and power-hungry dictators had taken their toll. But with the difference that this was America, Land of the Free, where the coup, if the term even applied, had lasted only ten minutes, after which order was restored and the flag never lowered.
Wednesday morning, September 30, saw a drastic change of pace in Washington. The entire city was dominated by the Military, the National Guard, and the police. All unnecessary business was halted, criminal and civil cases were suspended, arrangements were made to evacuate court officials. In two instances, it was necessary to isolate the juries—certainly for nine days, possibly longer.
Colleges and schools were preparing to close down at the end of the day. Hospitals were canceling planned operations, discharging as many patients as possible, and preparing for the evacuation of the seriously ill.
The Army were already in hospital corridors assisting with the removal of high-value medical equipment. At some of the bigger establishments, there were as many as six 18-wheelers parked outside emergency room entrances, while the troops loaded up and recorded space-age hospital diagnostic machinery in readiness for journeys to U.S. Air Force bases on higher ground.
Hotels and motels all along the East Coast were refusing all new reservations, and guests already in residence were asked to leave as soon as possible. The Hamas threat was not, after all, from a group of reasonable, educated people. It was from a bunch of Middle Eastern brigands who would stop at nothing, and who might even panic and blow the Cumbre Vieja four or five days early, since it was now obvious the U.S.A. could not, or would not, comply with their demands.
If the tsunamis of Krakatoa were anything to go by, any heavy, loose objects, like automobiles, railroad cars, pleasure boats, even light aircraft, would be swept up and hurled around like toys. This applied also to more permanent structures like telegraph poles, statues, billboards, electric pylons, and trees.
Evacuation of the areas was essential for every citizen. FEMA was already drafting plans for removal of such structures, and trucking corporations—even from outside the areas—were to be sequestered by the Government in order to support the evacuation. Railroad stock, both passenger and freight, would be put on standby.
In the meantime, Arnold Morgan pondered the difficult question of how to persuade the awkward and noncooperative French to shut down the European GPS satellite Helios for a couple of days. The question was kicked back and forth in the Oval Office for three entire hours.
Finally, it was decided to make a formal request via the Master Control Station in Colorado, direct to the French Government, to close the satellite down for forty-eight hours, in accordance with the U.S. closure. This would be necessary in order to test significant improvements in the system, which would of course be shared, ultimately, with the Europeans.
All three Admirals agreed this would receive a resounding non from their counterparts across the ocean. And at this point, the U.S. would come clean about their real reason for the GPS blackout.
Arnold Morgan had scientific data showing the presumed path of the tsunami, fanning out from the opening landslide all the way to the nine-hour hit zone along the U.S. East Coast. In three hours, the tidal wave would be a wide crescent in the middle of the Atlantic, but also would head north, with gigantic tidal waves already in the Bay of Biscay.
According to the scientists, the tsunami would likely thunder into the French naval headquarters of Brest, three hours and thirty minutes from the initial impact. The tidal waves would not be as great as those crossing the Atlantic, but they would form a 50-foot-high wall of water that would hammer its way onto the rugged western tip of France.
The Americans knew they would have to explain the terrorist threat in some detail to the French, but that was unavoidable if they were to hunt down the Barracuda before it wiped out New York.
The sight of Arnold Morgan’s tsunami maps was a chilling reminder of the reality of this wave of destruction. The Cumbre Vieja represented a rare geological time bomb, able to ravage countries on the other side of the world. Recent research into the last known mega-tsunami caused scientists to look carefully at the seabed around Hawaii, and they were astounded at what they discovered—the gigantic remains of ancient landslides, millions of years old. The tsunami’s first landfall to the west would be the northern coastline of Brazil, six hours after impact, waves 120 feet high. One hour later, the tsunami would swamp the Bahamas and the outer islands of the Caribbean.
Two hours after that, the gigantic wave would roll straight up Massachusetts Bay, and Boston would be hit by a 150-foot-high wave that would probably sweep away the entire city. The tsunami would then thunder onto the U.S. coast, hitting New York next, then Philadelphia, followed by Washington, and onto the mainly flat coastline of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida,
all the way to Miami and the Keys.
Arnold Morgan’s dossier of recent studies estimated that the first wave could be 2,000 feet high a half-mile west of La Palma, following the mammoth splash caused by maybe a half-trillion tons of rock crashing into the water at 200 mph. Traveling at high speed, 160 miles in the first ten minutes, the wave would weaken as it crossed the ocean, but it would definitely still be 150 feet high when it hit the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the shores of the western Sahara would receive waves of 300 feet, from crest to trough, although there would be shelter in the eastern lee of the bigger Canary Islands, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, depending on where you found yourself as the tidal wave developed.
The scientists were also unanimous that a mega-tsunami off the Canaries, caused by a sudden volcanic eruption, would be the highest wave in recorded history. Even the south coast of Great Britain, though not in its direct path, would still be subject to serious flooding.
In world geohazard opinion, right there, laid out on Arnold Morgan’s reclaimed office table, the Cumbre Vieja was an absolute certainty to be next. Everything was ideal for mass destruction—the towering peaks of the mountain range, the colossal height, the depth of the ocean, the sonorous rumbling of the volcanoes. The last explosion, some sixty years ago in the South Crater, proved it was all still active, and that the molten lava was not so very far below the surface. The underground lakes were ready to boil over at the instant of eruption. And of course there was the enormous fracture-line crack in the cliff, which had already caused a 10-foot shift in the rock face high above the ocean.
The newest report pointed out, thoughtfully, that the last time a volcano erupted with anything like the tsunami potential of Cumbre Vieja was 4,000 years ago on Reunion Island, a French territory since 1643, situated 420 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
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