Breakthrough (31 page)

“But some would be able to get out right?” Carr said.

“Not necessarily,” replied Langford.  “We’d start a panic of biblical proportions.  It would likely be nothing but a mob scene until the tsunami arrived.”

“Mr. President?” asked Kathryn.

Carr quickly took her off mute.  “Yes Ms. Lokke, we’re here.”

“You stopped the nuclear test right?!”

He raised his eyebrows and looked at the phone.  “Nuclear test?  What nuclear test?”

“The one that John Clay told me about.”

Carr looked up again at the group surrounding his desk.  “What exactly did John Clay tell you, Ms. Lokke?”

Kathryn was still yelling over the engines.  “He called and asked me whether the shock wave from a nuclear test you were planning could accidentally trigger the glacier collapse.  He was going to stop it.”  She paused for a moment when she realized what had just happened.  “My god, you didn’t stop it did you?! 
That’s
what caused the collapse!  Tell me you stopped it.”

The President muted his microphone again and looked directly at Stevas.  It all became clear.  “Clay knew what was going to happen, and he was trying to stop your attack.”  The President raised his voice.  “Your nuclear explosion just
triggered a global tsunami!”

Stevas’ face went white.  He shook his head utterly speechless. 

The President looked like he was going to come over the desk at him.  Instinctively the other men stepped back.  “You did what you had to do!  That’s what you said, and now tens of millions of people are going to die because of YOU!”

“I-I was just doing what-”  Stevas stammered, looking at Mason for help.  “I didn’t know.  It was the ring we were worried about…I didn’t know it would trigger anything.“

“Look at me Hank.”  The President growled as he leaned forward.  “
Where
is John Clay?”

Stevas did not answer.  His mind was struggling to understand exactly how everything had just turned so horribly wrong.

“I said,” the President repeated, “where is John Clay?!”

Stevas looked down at the floor.  “I-I sent a Delta team.”  He looked up sheepishly.  “They killed him.”

Langford’s eyes suddenly filled with rage, and he leapt at Stevas.  “You son of a bitch!”  He grabbed Stevas by the collar and hit him with a right punch knocking him over a small table and onto the floor.  Without missing a beat, Langford jumped over the table and reached for Stevas again before Miller and Bullman grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

“Mr. President?” Kathryn called out.  “Are you there?”

“Yes Ms. Lokke, I’m still here.  Please hold on a minute.”  He looked at Stevas who was trying to stand up.  “We’re working through something here.”  The President watched Stevas regain his balance and back away from everyone in the room.  The President was about to walk around his desk when his phone beeped again three times.  He slowly reached down and hit the second line.  “Yes?”

“Mr. President,” a man’s voice said, “this is Agent
Rubke downstairs.  There’s uh…someone here to see you.”

“Someone to see me?” Carr asked.  “Who the hell is it?”

“He says his name is John Clay.”

43

The Secret Service agent walked into the room and held the door open, waiting for Clay to enter.  Everyone in the room was surprised to see Palin follow Clay in.  Clay stopped and scanned the room.  When he got to Stevas, his eyes locked on him.  “That’s him,” he said to Palin. 

Palin stood still, staring at Stevas.   For the first time, Clay saw genuine fear in Stevas’ eyes and watched as he backed up still further into the wall.  If he could have become the wall, he would have.

“I’m sorry sir,” the agent said to the President.  “We don’t know how they got past the gate.”

“It’s alright,” Carr said.  “You can leave us.”

The agent hesitated until Carr looked at him again.  He finally stepped past them and joined the other two agents waiting outside.  The door closed quietly behind Clay and Palin.

“Well, well Mr. Clay, we’ve been looking for you.”  The President said stepping forward.  He glanced at Stevas.  “In fact, we thought something had happened to you.”

“Something did.”  Clay followed Carr’s look back to Stevas and then looked over at
Langford.  “They killed Caesare.”

Langford
’s jaw tightened in anger, but he remained silent, glaring at Stevas.

“I’m sorry Clay.  It seems some of us thought you may have been on the wrong side.  Something that just got corrected a few minutes ago.  I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we are relieved that you are alright.  Both you and Mr. Palin.”  He gestured toward the phone.  “Ms. Lokke has informed us that you were evidently trying to stop the nuclear blast.”

“That’s right.”  Clay stated simply.

“Well, now we have
a serious problem on our hands.  That nuclear explosion apparently triggered the collapse in the Ronne Ice Shelf just a few minutes ago.  We now have a tsunami headed north that we cannot stop.”

Clay pointed to the phone.  “Is she still on the line?”

The President reached down and pushed the button for the first line.  “Ms. Lokke, are you still there?”

After a moment, her voice came out of the speaker.  The engines sounded lower.  “Yes sir.  We have to head back to McMurdo though as we won’t have enough fuel.  I have lost sight of the tsunami.”

Carr quickly motioned to Mason his Chief of Staff.  “Get us a video feed!  However you have to do it.”

Mason nodded, walked to the far side of the room, and pulled his cell phone from his jacket.

Clay looked at the President who nodded and moved back, giving him the phone.  Clay walked across the giant rug and sat slowly down in the seat.  Palin followed and stood next to him.  Clay exhaled slowly and spoke into the phone.

“Ms. Lokke, this is John Clay.  We spoke a few days ago.”

“I remember.”  Kathryn replied.  “You said you were going to stop the explosion.  What the hell happened?”

“Well,” Clay said, “some people had other plans.”  He softly put a hand to his chest and scooted forward in his chair.  His wound was still extremely painful.  “Ms. Lokke, I understand this cannot be stopped by conventional means…but there are other islands that are also at risk of a massive collapse correct?”

“Yes.” She replied quickly.

“Isn’t Tristan Island one of those high risk locations?”

“Uh yeah,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, “although Tristan is medium risk.  There are dozens of them around the world.”

“Ms. Lokke,” Clay continued slowly.  “Isn’t Tristan’s slide zone on the south side of the island?”

“Well yes.”  She answered and then suddenly gasped. “Oh my god!  Yes it is!”

“Is this possible?” Clay asked her.

“Yes!” she said almost yelling into her headset.  “Yes, it’s possible!  We’d have to check some things but it might work.”  She paused.  “But we would need something to start it.”

Everyone seemed to close in around Clay and Palin at the desk.  “What?” said the President.  “What might work?!”

Clay turned to Carr.  “These land mass collapses have happened throughout history and are very infrequent, but as we know the effects are devastating.  Tristan is a large island in the South Atlantic and is one of the locations where part of the land mass is slowly separating.  It’s not due for a very long time but we may be able to help it happen, and create a tidal wave traveling in the opposite direction.”  He looked at everyone as he spoke.  “If we can’t stop the tsunami headed this way, perhaps we can block it.”

Everyone looked eager.  “Ms. Lokke?” asked Carr.

“We need to verify our data,” she said, “but we would have a good chance at reducing the size of the wave traveling north.  It may mean the difference between thousands of lives instead of millions.”

Carr looked back to Clay.  “And how would we start it?”

“It would take something big.” He said.  “Like a nuclear impact.”

The President shook his head.  “Wait a minute.  We’re talking about
another
nuclear bomb?”

The irony was not wasted on Clay, or the President for that matter, that without the first nuke they would not have needed the second.  But more importantly, this would be the first time a nuclear explosion was used to save lives.  The President stepped back shaking his head. 
How on earth was he going to explain two nuclear explosions?

Langford
placed his hand gently on Clay’s shoulder.  “How did you know that, John?”

Clay shrugged innocently.  “I read up on Ms. Lokke and her work after we met her at JAX.”

Miller looked at the President.  “Sir for this we are going to require launch codes.  And the Vice President.”

“Mr. President, we have a visual on the tsunami.”  Mason turned on a large monitor on the wall.  “It’s a live satellite.”  The picture in the monitor showed a wide angle view of the South Atlantic Ocean.  When Mason zoomed in, a small, almost faint line could be seen moving up the picture.

“It looks smaller than I thought.”

“Tsunamis cannot be seen in deep water.”  Clay said.  “They grow when they reach the shore.”

The phone rang and Carr answered immediately.  “Go ahead.”

Kathryn’s voice came over the speaker.  “Mr. President, we’ve just gone over the data with some colleagues in D.C.  We think this is our best option.”

Carr sighed.  “And what happens if we unleash another wave in the wrong direction?”

“Mr. President,” came Kathryn’s voice over the loud engines, “I honestly don’t think we can make this situation worse.”

He looked at Mason.  “Get the Chinese and the Russians on the phone.  We better make damn sure they know what this is when it shows up on their radars.”  Mason nodded and ran for the door.  He opened it just as Miller and Vice President Bailey were coming in.  Miller was carrying the infamous briefcase called ‘the football’, which carried the country’s nuclear launch codes.   He placed it on the table in front of the President.

Carr skipped to his second phone line.  When the female voice answered he said “Get me NORAD.”  He then moved to the metal briefcase, turning the tumblers to the correct combination and then pressing the buttons in to release the locks.  The lid popped open quietly.

“NORAD is on sir,” replied the female voice.  A moment later it was replaced by a deep voice.  “This is General Schmidt.” 

The Vice President stepped to his side as Carr leaned into the microphone.  “This is President Jonathan Scott Carr, prepare to verify.”

The sky was overcast over most of central Georgia.  The trees were dark green, and the forest seemed to go on forever.  The rolling forested hills were only interrupted periodically by patches of open space covered with bright green grass waving gently under the cool breeze.  One large patch of open space was nearly hidden among the oaks and pines and surrounded by a large steel chain link fence.  The old painted sign on the entrance to the area read ‘No Trespassing - Department of Agriculture’.  Inside the fence was a large metal shed with a dome on top of the roof and a tall antenna tower standing next to it. 

Suddenly the silence was split when a deafening siren sounded and the dome lit up with a bright orange spinning light.  On the ground, a large section of grass rumbled sideways revealing a silo beneath it.  As the silo was revealed, so too was the tip of a large missile.  No sooner had the door slid fully open than the silo instantly filled with smoke and fire.  In less than a second, the missile shot from the ground, climbed quickly through the air
and disappeared into the gray clouds above.

44

First sighted in 1506, the island of Tristan Da Cunha was the largest island in the most remote archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, lying over 1,700 miles from the nearest major land mass.  Annexed by the United Kingdom in 1816 to prevent it being used as a staging ground to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte on Saint Helena, the island was home to just over 260 residents.  With only one small town called “The Settlement”, the local families were far removed from modern conveniences, and problems.

Eleven year old Neri Repetto had finished school and was climbing the hill to his secret place along the island’s only waterfall.  The days were long this time of year and he still had plenty of time to finish his chores.  Today he hoped to surprise his mother and younger brother with fish for dinner.  He had been hoping the same thing
every day for almost two weeks but Neri was not one to give up.

As he climbed the side of the mountain, he spotted a goat behind a large tree and contemplated whether he should take it back to Mrs. Hagan.  He decided to take it home on his way back.  The afternoon was warm and in tattered shoes Neri jumped from rock to rock as he continued to climb.  It was not long before he could hear the sound of the waterfall beyond the large trees.  With long strides, Neri quickened his pace and headed into the shade beneath the trees.

Neri froze.  He stood still staring and trying to figure out what it was that he was looking at.  He slowly looked around and seeing no one else he took a few steps forward.  It did not look like anything he had ever seen.  He crept a little closer.  It was wavering slightly and the bright blue light formed a large oval that was a little higher than his head.  The center looked dark, but not quite black.  He studied the object carefully.  He looked at the ground in front of the strange oval.  There appeared to be footprints in the wet grass.

“Mama! Mama!” he yelled running into the small house.

“Neri!” His mother snapped looking up from her wood stove.  “Your brother is asleep!”

“Mama!” he said quietly.  “You have to come see!”

She wiped her hands on her apron.  “Come see what Neri?  Did one of those goats run off again?”

“Yes, yes, but that’s not what I want to show you.”  He grabbed her hand and pulled her reluctantly out the door.

His mother stepped outside looking around.  None of the red roofs of
The Settlement appeared to be on fire and there was no sound coming from the main street.  “What is it?” she asked.  “I don’t see anything.”

“No,” he said, “it’s up there.”  Neri pointed to the trail that ran up the mountainside.  “Up by the waterfall.” 

His mother squinted her eyes.  “I still don’t see anything.”

“You can’t see it from here.  You have to come up.” He insisted still pulling on her arm.

“Please Neri.” she sighed.  “I can’t very well leave your brother here alone.”

Neri was still breathing hard from this run back to town.  “It’s…a light.  A bright blue light, just standing on the grass.”

She eyed Neri with a raised eyebrow.  “Have you been eating the mushrooms?”

“No!” he complained.  “I was on my way to fish.  It’s up there next to my spot.  It’s…incredible.”

“I’m sure it is.” His mother said shaking her apron out.  She really could not imagine what he was talking about.  She turned to walk back into the house when something caught her eye.  She turned around and looked up along the hill.  There was something in the sky, something moving very quickly and leaving a white trail behind it like the big airplanes did.  “What is that?”

Neri looked up and saw it too.

His mother watched it carefully and then suddenly opened her eyes wide.  She did not know what it was but it looked like it was headed towards them.  “Neri!” she screamed grabbing him by the arm.  “Get inside!” she threw him through the door ahead of her.  As she began to close the door she paused just for a moment. 
Why is the sky so blue?
she thought.  She had never seen it like that before.  She blinked and looked at the other buildings around her.  Everything looked blue.

The President and his cabinet watched as the giant wave moved up through the Atlantic ocean at a speed of over three hundred miles per hour.  The island of Tristan Da Cunha and its small archipelago was just below the latitude of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and everyone could see clearly from the satellite that if they could not stop it there the damage would start almost immediately when it hit Africa’s southwestern coast, beginning with the first large metropolitan city of Cape Town and its population of over three million.  The next city to be devastated was Buenos Aires on the South American coast and the other side of the Atlantic.