by Jack Mars
The bar moved. Not a lot, but a noticeable amount. It was now between 100 and 90.
“You got this, man. It’s moving!”
“It’s burning my hands!”
“Do it!”
Ed gritted his teeth. He bounced up, then dropped into his crouch again. Powerful legs, powerful arms, his entire body in the effort, Old John Henry tearing apart a mountain with his bare hands.
“Aaaaaahhhh!”
The machine thrummed violently. The humming was LOUD, almost unbearable.
The iron bar lurched. From 95 to 80 in one big move. Ed grimaced, confident now, jumped up, and dropped into the crouch again. The momentum alone pulled the bar to 70. After that, he pushed it to 60 through strength. He let go of it and looked at his hands.
“Go, baby,” Luke said.
Tears streamed down Ed’s face. “It hurts.”
Luke nodded. “I know it does.”
Ed launched himself at the bar again—60 to 40 in one massive burst.
The ground beneath their feet shook.
Luke shouted, but now he couldn’t hear himself.
Ed screamed, and he couldn’t hear that either.
Ed wrenched the handle. It moved again, another big move. He yanked it, his giant body pressed against it, his face turning red, his mouth open in a frozen, silent howling scream. The only sound was the unspeakable HUM.
Ed fell to his knees.
Luke looked at the iron bar. It was on 10.
Something had changed. The weapon was bouncing now, bouncing an inch off the ground. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG. Luke’s skin broke out in gooseflesh. His hair stood on end.
“It’s gonna blow!” he screamed, but his scream made no sound.
He grabbed Ed by the shirt collar and dragged him to his feet. Ed was spent. He stumbled, Luke shoving his massive bulk from behind. They ran to the end of the ledge and fell off the side. The drop was a few feet. They crashed together to the ground.
The noise was everything. Ed pressed his bleeding, shredded hands to his ears and screamed again. Luke couldn’t hear it.
Luke looked at the weapon. It shimmered. A stream of… something… something transparent, something that seemed to warp reality itself, fired out from it, straight across the water. The ocean rippled like fire.
The solid ground beneath them started to roil. It churned, as though it had turned to cake batter. Then it stopped. It solidified again and didn’t move. Luke pressed his hands against it. The ground was not vibrating.
The device had stopped. It stood there on the plateau overlooking the water, tall and strange and dead. It didn’t move. The humming had stopped.
Luke’s ears were ringing. Otherwise there was no sound. He lay on the hard ground, breathing heavily. He looked at Ed.
Ed was crying like a small boy.
A new sound came, starting slow and small, but gradually getting louder. It was a rumble like distant thunder, the sound of a building imploding. It did not stop. Luke climbed to his knees. He gazed across the dark water and the black sky. The sound was out there, far away, but still growing louder. Giants were stomping across the Earth.
Landslide.
“Oh God,” he gasped.
He pushed himself to his feet and turned to Ed. Ed was sprawled on his side now, his mouth hanging open.
“Get up!” Luke screamed.
Ed just stared at him, eyes wide and blank. Luke kicked him in the chest.
“Get up! Get up!”
Ed pushed himself slowly to a crouch, and Luke yanked him the rest of the way. Luke pushed him back toward the center of the island, inland, uphill.
The rumbling behind them was loud now. LOUD. And coming this way.
“Run!” Luke screamed. “Run!”
Ed, nothing left, began a lumbering, shuffling run uphill. He was going too slow. Luke punched him in the back. “Run faster!”
They ran, crazy, bounding, spastic gaits.
The fires were just ahead of them. Dunn appeared out of the flames like a nightmare vision, like a demon from hell. His clothes were torn apart. He was caked in mud or blood or soot, or all three. His AK-47 still dangled from one hand.
“Run!” Luke shouted.
They blew past him and plunged into the swirling firestorm.
Then Dunn was with them. His gun was gone. He pumped his fists as he ran, arms moving like pistons. He was fast. He broke out ahead. They ran across the road, out of the flames, picking their way up the black hillside.
A new sound came—the sound of rushing water, of river rapids.
Luke climbed now, on all fours, hands and feet scrabbling across the rocks. Then the water was all around him, flowing past him. A few inches deep, then half a foot, then as high as his elbows. He slipped and fell onto his face and the water rushed over him. He pushed himself up and off the rocks, but now he flowed with the water.
It was cold, and he was in the dark. His head surfaced, gasping for air. He caught sight of Dunn, just ahead, slip and fall under. Ed was just gone.
The dark came again. Luke curled into a ball. He had the sensation of spinning, surging, being driven forward by forces beyond his control.
* * *
Luke woke up lying in a patch of black volcanic sand.
For a long moment, it didn’t even seem like he was alive. Everywhere around him, it was dark. High above him, however, wisps of white cloud skidded across the night. He tried doing a body scan, but he was either perfectly fine, or totally demolished. He couldn’t seem to feel anything at all.
Then he moved. A dull ache went through him. His entire body was battered and sore. Even his jaw hurt, as though he had been punched in the face. He must have been lying here a while. Slowly, and with infinite care, he pulled himself into a sitting position.
The ocean was gone.
All of the water had been sucked away somewhere. The bottom of the sea was exposed, strange shapes looming in the darkness. The tsunami must have happened, and it must have drawn the water to itself.
Luke climbed to his feet and began to pick his way over the rocks.
There were no fires anywhere. About a hundred yards down, he came across the wrecked truck, knocked over on its side. Beyond that was the tectonic weapon, bent in half. It was definitely off—it no longer made any sound. The atom bomb inside it hadn’t exploded. That was a positive.
Just beyond the device, Luke found Ed Newsam sitting on a large flat rock with his elbows on his knees, and his face resting on his hands. His hands were raw and bloody. He appeared to be staring out at nothing. One of his boots was gone, as was the sock that would have been on underneath it. Ed had one bare foot, and one foot with a boot.
“How you doing, Ed?”
Ed didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Luke there.
“Okay,” he said.
Luke looked at him closely.
“You hurt?”
Ed shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Just my feelings.”
About fifty yards across from them, a large figure lurched across the dark alien landscape like the Frankenstein monster.
Paul Dunn.
Luke pulled out the phone again. The screen was shattered. There was no readout. That was okay. Shockproof had its limits. Luke found that he didn’t care if the phone worked or not. He pressed the green button anyway. Maybe it would work. Maybe it would remember the last number it dialed.
He pressed it to his ear. Sometime later, a voice answered.
“Luke?”
“Swann,” Luke said. “How bad is it?”
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
4:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“What’s the update, Kurt?”
Most people had stayed in the Situation Room after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Aides were racing in and out, communicating with the outside world, receiving information from areas hit by flooding.
The news was mostly… g
ood.
White House catering had brought sandwiches and soft drinks, which had been laid out on the conference table. Susan found her appetite had returned. That must be true of everyone. The long sandwich tray lay in a state of annihilation.
Kurt took a bite of roast beef on rye. “Amy?”
She referred to her tablet.
“Meteorological data shows that a now one-hundred-foot-high wave is crossing the Atlantic at very high speed, land equivalent of over two hundred miles per hour. But speed is decreasing and wave height has decreased dramatically from over one hundred fifty feet at inception. Computer models suggest the wave will be approximately twelve to fifteen feet when it reaches the United States, many hours later than first projected. Some flooding is anticipated, particularly in eastern Long Island.”
She swiped to another screen.
“Satellite data is showing that perhaps five to ten percent of the Cumbre Vieja volcano wall came down in the landslide. Further ancillary slides are anticipated in the coming days and weeks, perhaps amounting to a total of another three percent of the western wall. These may cause some locally rough seas and hazards to navigation.”
“Casualties?” Susan said.
Amy swiped again. “There are hundreds of minor injuries, as well as a handful of serious, grave, and critical injuries. Most appear to be from blunt trauma and falls associated with the earthquake. Local hospitals are stretched to the breaking point, and Red Cross personnel and resources are being routed to Tenerife. No deaths have been reported at this point, but about two dozen people are still missing. That number is down from over fifty an hour ago. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing, by land, sea, and air, spearheaded by the island police departments and the Spanish Coast Guard.”
She swiped to one more screen. “Most cities and towns on the islands were largely unaffected. There is a bit of chaos, however, as tens of thousands of tourists and others are attempting to leave at the same time.”
Amy looked up.
Susan had waited through that report because it was expected of her, and it was the right thing to do. The lives of all those people were important. That no one had died so far was a minor miracle, and one for which she was deeply thankful.
But all of that out of the way, she asked the question that nagged at her the most.
“Any word from Agent Stone?” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTY
11:15 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (6:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Hassan I Airport
Laayoune, Western Sahara
Morocco
The water along the Moroccan coastline had been sucked out to sea. It still hadn’t come back yet. People, many carrying flashlights, walked around on the seafloor half a mile out from the beach.
The four-seat Spanish Coast Guard chopper flew in low over the city of Laayoune, a sprawling, low-slung outpost bisected by a wide river. Streetlights lit up the urban grid, sparse traffic moving along empty streets. The lights of distant settlements twinkled at the far edges of the city.
“Even the river looks dry,” Ed Newsam said. “That’s amazing.”
“The river is always dry,” the chopper pilot said in English. “This is the Sahara.”
Ed nodded. “Ah.”
Luke sat in the back with Dunn. It was crowded—Dunn’s bulk was pressed against him. Luke was tired. He was no longer soaking wet, but he was damp and he was bedraggled. His body ached. He felt like he had been pummeled with tube socks packed full of quarters.
It was time to go home. Swann and Trudy were already headed that way. Swann had gotten them this chopper ride, then he and Trudy had left Niger on the first Army transport they could get bound for Stuttgart, Germany. From there they would make their way back to the States, probably on commercial air.
Probably in first class, knowing those two.
On the SRT dime, naturally.
After all, Trudy had access to the SRT accounts.
Luke smiled and shook his head. Government waste. He would sign the expense report when it came—he wouldn’t even look at it. Jack Butterfield was dead, but there was always another Congressman ready to show his patriotic bona fides by fighting for the intelligence budget.
The chopper was coming to the airport now. It settled into a line of helicopters, all of them coming from the Canaries, bringing rescued people, frightened people, and stranded vacationers—people who wanted out. The airports on the islands were overwhelmed.
From the sky, Hassan I looked like a small airport, with two runways and a one-story terminal. The terminal had a scalloped front that reminded Luke of seashells, along with a line of fat palm trees. Red Moroccan flags flapped in the stiff breeze. Hundreds of people milled around outside the terminal. Cars—mostly taxis and minivans—were lined up to the airport exit.
The chopper touched down on a helipad a hundred yards away. The pilot looked at the bunch of them. He indicated the glass door.
“Vaya con dios,” he said.
They were barely out and walking away when the chopper lifted off again. It headed south over the city, then banked to the right, back out to sea. Luke watched its lights get smaller, then mingle with all the other lights, then disappear.
The three men walked toward the terminal and the crowd of people there. They had no bags, no weapons, just the clothes on their backs. The SRT jet was here somewhere. The plan was to hop on board, get a departure clearance, and fly straight to DC. This job was over.
They stopped at the edge of the crowd. Luke and Ed looked at Dunn. He was much the same as when they met him—big, broad, ragged, with a red beard and sharp, narrow eyes. He looked like he had something on his mind—something that was almost funny.
“What do you want to do?” Luke said. “We’ve got the plane. It’s gassed up and ready to go. You’re welcome to come with us.”
“Oh,” Dunn said. “I appreciate that. But… arrest warrants, extradition treaties, and all that kind of thing. You know. Could be a little awkward for me in the States right now. They might have me sitting in Leavenworth, waiting for a bus to Mexico.”
“You’re a hero, man,” Ed said. “You rescued a hundred girls from Boko Haram. You were instrumental in thwarting a major terrorist attack. There has to be some leniency baked into that. Stone and I would both testify on your behalf.”
Dunn nodded. “I know you would. But you’d be on the outside while you were testifying. And I’d be on the inside, hoping all that testimony worked. Meanwhile, walls don’t really agree with me.”
“Where will you go?” Luke said.
Dunn shrugged. “Back to Nigeria, I suppose. Where else? The forest is calling my name, and there’s plenty more to do in there. Boko’s not dead yet.”
“Uncle Sam owes you some money,” Ed said.
Dunn smiled. “I’ll send them a bill.”
He started to back away toward the milling crowd of people. No handshake, nothing. “Thanks for the trip,” he said. “It was fun. I’ll see you guys around, eh?”
He turned to go.
“Hey, Dunn!” Ed said. “This is a Moroccan regional airport. The flights go to Casablanca and Marrakech. You can’t even get to Nigeria from here.”
“There’s always a way,” Dunn said over his shoulder. “If you want to go bad enough.”
Luke watched Dunn wade into the crowd. He was big, and his head and shoulders floated above the mass of people around him. He passed behind a wide round pillar, and then didn’t come out on the other side. He was gone.
Luke turned to Ed. Ed was facing the other way now, staring out at the warm and windy desert night. His hands hung at his sides. They were red and raw, the skin flayed open. Ed barely seemed to notice.
“Hey, brother,” Luke said. “Let’s go find that airplane.”
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
January 31
5:05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
A Living Room
Brooklyn, New York
The TV squawked in a corner of the
room. On the screen, a sexy young model with plumped-up lips eyed a new red Lexus as it drove by in slow motion, while some sort of disco dance music played.
The old woman sat in her favorite chair, half-watching the television, half-listening to her friend talking to her on the phone.
“I told them all I’m eighty years old,” she said to her friend. “Where am I going to run? If the terrorists are going to flood the city, I’ll go upstairs. If the water keeps rising, I’ll drown. So be it. I’ve lived long enough. And you know? It didn’t happen anyway. It never does. I think they exaggerate these things just to sell newspapers.”
On the TV screen, the New York–based regional five o’clock news came on. The anchors—a man who was some indeterminate race halfway between white and black, and a pretty Asian woman of some indeterminate age between thirty and fifty—sat upright at their shared desk. They were already speaking.
“Okay, honey,” the woman said into the phone. “The news is on. I want to see the damage. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up and focused on the TV. The pretty Asian woman was speaking.
“Chuck, it was a near miss last night and today, and most of us are breathing a giant sigh of relief. But not everyone is overjoyed. Folks on the east end of Long Island have been dealing with serious flooding all afternoon. This was the scene in Southampton earlier today. Noel Mitchell reports.”
The TV screen changed to an outdoor scene of a small, clean, and very well-kept village center. There appeared to be about two feet of water in the street. The camera focused on a tall blue Range Rover as it pushed slowly through the flood. Several other cars, including a white Mercedes sedan, were stalled and sitting in water up to their door panels.
The camera panned back to take in a man with glasses and a thick mustache. He wore a blue windbreaker and held a microphone.
“Katie, the village of Southampton, playground of the rich and famous, is underwater. We are standing on a small grassy knoll just west of Route 27. I can tell you that the water you see below us is cold—ocean water has inundated the town. You can see that snow flurries are falling here. The sewer system is overwhelmed and no one is quite sure when the water will flow back out to sea.”
