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I witness a sight that should be totally satisfying. It is, however, so frightening that it actually stuns me.

A fissure widens precisely next to where Khan has fallen. He tries to rise but loses his balance. For a millisecond, hepinwheels his arms, trying to regain his balance, but to no avail. He free-falls into the horrid fire below.

If there really is a hell, I hope Khan’s final breath will be like living in it.

I, of course, realize that the end of my own life is probably just moments away. Because I am already on the ground and no fissures have opened near me, my own destruction has been only momentarily postponed. But my safety cannot last much longer. I, too, am destined to fall into the fire. I consider this the worst possibility—to die alongside Khan.

The flames rage, growing higher and higher above the ground.

Then the sky quickly turns gray, then black.

And then, quite suddenly, the earth ceases its wicked vibration. There comes a stillness in the land, a stillness in the air.

Then rain. More rain. Torrents of rain.

I stretch out. I am on my back. The rain washes over me.

The rain stops.

Beside me Terrageddon lies, cracked and smoking, devoid of power.

Finally, it’s over.

CHAPTER 121

THE LAND AROUND me is silent and looks essentially barren. The fallen trees have been battered and split, with branches that look like hastily chopped firewood. The entrance to the cave has been demolished, blocked by boulders. The crevices in the mountainside that only a moment ago were spitting flames that seemed to reach to the sky are still wide open. But they are dry and cold and look as if they have been there since the beginning of time, dormant.

I feel a certain sense of relief. But there is nothing but devastation in my field of vision. The harsh rains have, of course, completely eliminated the burned remains of both Ambrose and Jericho. This time I do not expect to be surprised by my friend’s return.

I attempt to move. I manage to lift a hand, lift a foot. I am in shock.

I hear a voice, a woman’s voice. The voice bombards me with questions.

I easily identify the voice. It is Margo.

“Oh, my God. What happened here? What have you done? Are you hurt? Are you alive?”

She is standing over me. Then she is kneeling beside me.

With Margo’s help, I manage to sit up in a kind of cross-legged yoga position.

We slowly begin to exchange narratives of the past few hours of our lives. I am shocked to discover that she and Burbank experienced not even the smallest disturbance—no eruptions, no earthquakes, no storms. I am apparently resting on the only patch of land that was attacked so viciously, most of Terrageddon’s power having been eliminated when Ambrose was struck by lightning.

I tell Margo and Burbank my horrific tale. It is so startling—the death of Jericho, the astonishing uncovering of Dr. DaSilva as Khan, and my own encounter with fear and imminent death—that their eyes fill with tears, as do mine.

I use Margo’s handheld device to contact Gutta in Helsinki, arranging for him to get us the hell out of here. I contact Hawkeye and Tapper, relaying to them the information about nanobots being present in their blood, along with the rest of us who were injected. They immediately begin conversations with medical experts who will find a way to remove them.

On our flight home on a military aircraft provided by Gutta, I bite the bullet and video President Townsend, letting him know the actual identity of Dr. Anna DaSilva—all the while dissecting his reaction. His face and tonebetray nothing to me. It seems that he might have been ignorant of what was occurring right beneath his very nose.

That, I can believe.

But it still doesn’t mean I trust him.

With a few hours left in the flight, Margo takes my hand in hers and gives me a small smile.

“Sleep,” she advises.

I glance around me to see that Burbank has already dropped off and that Margo is almost there herself. She’s been valiantly ignoring her own needs in order to stay with me while I work. I tell myself as I drift off into a deep sleep that I’m doing it for her sake, not my own.