Page 7 of A Demon’s Resolve (Demonic Tales and Adventures #3)
CHAPTER 7
“Sir, we’re getting reports of a devastating earth…” Chief of Staff Jackson Pierce had burst into the Oval Office without knocking with panic in his eyes. But he never finished what he was saying as the ground beneath their feet rolled, pitching those in the room to the floor in a heap.
Daniel Burrows was the most powerful man in the world. Sometimes he forgot that was a political distinction, not a physical one. It was moments like these that life humbled him by reminding him just how little power he really had. For as hard as he and the others in the room tried, getting back up on their feet was an impossibility, even when a crack raced along the length of the room and up the outside wall.
National Security Advisor, Charles Lutz, shouted, “What’s going on?”
The doors slammed open from two directions as Daniel’s secret service detail barged in, stumbling as they somehow forced themselves to remain mostly upright to swarm around the President. “We have to get you out of here, Mr. President,” Lukas Hunt, the head of his security detail, shouted.
Daniel glared at Lukas for daring to stand on his feet no matter how dramatically the ground bucked beneath them. “How are you still standing?” Even the other men who made up his detail were stumbling around as they desperately tried to maintain remaining on their feet, which often ended with them having to take a knee to regain their balance before pushing forward once again.
Lukas grinned at him. “Not sure what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Bastard,” Daniel grumbled even as Lukas lifted him up and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Is this really necessary?” he shouted at Lukas as they ran out the doors leading to the portico. “I’m the President of the United States, not a sack of fucking potatoes.”
Lukas snorted, which Daniel only just barely heard over the winds that were whipping around them. “Sir, if I thought for a moment you had any chance of standing, or that my men could help to keep you upright without falling themselves, I would gladly have kept you on your feet. Unfortunately, we only have minutes before our window to get you out of here closes.”
Daniel had no idea what Lukas meant by that, but he trusted Lukas. There was nothing more important to Lukas than protecting the President of the United States. He took his job seriously and would do whatever it took to ensure Daniel survived whatever was happening.
From his vantage point over Lukas’s shoulder, Daniel saw his Chief of Staff and Security Advisor being ushered as well as those the rest of the security detail could manage. They headed straight to the lawn where Marine One was just landing.
The moment the helicopter landed, Lukas tossed him inside. “Buckle up, Mr. President. This is going to be a bumpy ride.” Lukas climbed in behind him and gave the order to lift off, even as a second helicopter hovered nearby to land for the others.
Daniel had just managed to click the seatbelt in place when Marine One lifted off, pitching wildly by the strong winds that buffeted the aircraft.
“Hold on, sir,” the pilot called over the headphones that Daniel slipped on. “The winds are picking up speed.”
Daniel turned to Lukas, who was watching the ground, most likely to see if the others made it to the second helicopter. “Why are we flying in this instead of going to the bunker?”
“The entrance to the bunker was crushed within seconds of the first tremble.” Lukas shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it either. “Even if we could have gotten you there, we couldn’t be sure it would have held.”
That was impossible. “But it was built to withstand a bomb.”
Lukas’s steady gaze held his for a moment before he said. “That might be true, but from the reports coming in, this earthquake is the strongest the world has ever known. There was no way to know if the bunker could withstand the pressure of what’s happening underground.”
Daniel had a million questions but a strong gust of wind tilted the helicopter, nearly turning it over. Bells and alarms were blaring from the controls as the pilot and copilot fought to keep it upright.
Twenty minutes later, they had made it past the worst of the winds and were heading west. “Sir, I have General McKnight from Pacific Command on the line,” the copilot said.
“Mr. President, are you okay?” General McKnight asked.
The helicopter pitched to the right as another strong wind blasted them, but the pilot was able to get things under control relatively quickly. Daniel had never been so scared. They might have gotten through the worst of the weather, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.
But as terrified as he was, he had a country to run. With the same determination that had won him the election, he forced his fears down and said, “Yes, General. We aren’t completely out of the bad weather, but my pilots are the best in the world and I have every confidence they will overcome all that Mother Nature has to throw at us.”
“That’s just it, sir.” There was a hesitation in the General’s voice as if he were afraid to tell Daniel whatever was on his mind.
“Spit it out, General.”
There was a pause before General McKnight sighed and said, “We’re not sure this has anything to do with Mother Nature, sir.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” There were reports of technology that could create weather. Hell, the United States had dabbled in it on more than one occasion, but this went way beyond anything they’d ever been able to generate.
“Nothing about the earthquake is making sense and the winds and fires that are spreading across the county don’t correlate with an earthquake.” As if to prove the General was right, the winds suddenly disappeared almost as if someone had flipped a switch and turned them off.
The tension that had taken hold of Daniel from the moment he’d tumbled to the floor in the Oval Office, seeped from his body as that fear of not surviving eased. “What’s going on, General McKnight?”
“Sir, we don’t know. The earthquakes stopped for the most part, although there are still some residual tremors. The wind has stopped altogether and the fires that were scorching a path from the Smoky Mountains west toward the Mississippi have also diminished. There are still a few flames, but it’s like someone put the majority of them out just as suddenly as they had begun.”
The general was right. Nothing about what happened could possibly be natural. “Any ideas on who might have caused this?”
“Shit. Sorry, sir,” the general apologized for swearing.
Daniel ignored the apology. He didn’t have time for niceties, not if he was going to reassure the country. Something he wasn’t sure they could do if they had been attacked by a country with the power to control Mother Nature. “Spill it, General.”
“That quake spurred a tsunami in the Atlantic. We need to put out warnings, not just to our coast, but the European coast.”
Daniel closed his eyes as he damn well knew there was no way they’d be able to evacuate the major cities along the East Coast. “How long do we have?”
“Twenty minutes,” General McKnight told him.
“Get the warnings out. As soon as we land, I want a sit rep.” General McKnight assured Daniel he would be ready.
Daniel then spoke to the pilot. “How long before we land?”
It was Lukas who answered. “About thirty minutes, sir. Air Force One was able to take off just before a fissure opened up along the runway at Andrews. They were lucky to get out when they did. Unfortunately, many airports Air Force One could land at suffered the same type of damage or are being forced to take planes that had been diverted from those damaged airports.”
It wasn’t what Daniel wanted to hear, but he also wasn’t surprised.
“We’ll head to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio before taking you to a safe location,” Lukas informed him.
Daniel knew that meant the bunker within the Rocky Mountains. It was one of the safest places on earth if they were under attack. Then again, if Lukas had been right about the bunker under the White House possibly not holding during the massive earthquakes, Daniel wasn’t sure there was such a thing as a safe location.
“Fine.” Not that it was. He needed to be with his security council to deal with this disaster, but there was no point in worrying about it. He’d have to settle for video conferences or using a phone when video wasn’t possible.
He reached over and turned on the monitor to contact his Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor in the helicopter that was now flying close enough for Daniel to see out the window. While he waited for someone to pick up, he also flipped the switch to start the onboard screen that streamed three of the major networks.
The U.S. government may be great at gathering information, but they tended to keep things they couldn’t corroborate to themselves. The news didn’t have that problem. They would say just about anything in order to be the first to report.
Usually, it was nothing more than conjecture, but in his years of politics, Daniel had found there was often a nugget of truth in their far-fetched theories. All three screens were currently showing the devastation as vans from local stations drove through the areas hardest hit.
“Sir, I’m glad to see you made it.” Jackson Pierce’s features looked tense as he stared into the computer screen. “We are getting reports that this wasn’t natural.”
He didn’t have time to repeat what he already knew. “I’ve already been told that. What do we know about the tsunami headed for the coast?”
There was a long pause as Jackson glanced to the side, most likely to read another update being sent to him. When his gaze returned, there was fear in their depths. “The data being sent indicates the wave that will hit the coast is catastrophic.”
Daniel’s patience wasn’t with him at the moment as he barked out, “Numbers, Jackson. What kind of damage, how far will it extend and more important, what are we looking at for casualties?”
Charles Lutz appeared on the screen. “I’m patching in several of the others, sir.”
The bank of screens in front of Daniel lit up to show eight men and women who led the FBI, NSA, CIA, along with one general from the Pentagon, who stood next to a lieutenant, the name of whom Daniel couldn’t remember. There was also his Vice President, Secretary of State and Homeland Security.
“General Rose, what can you tell me about the tsunami?” There was no time for niceties, so he didn’t bother with them. He needed answers and quickly if they were going to save as many people as possible.
Somber eyes stared back at him from the screen. “Sir, the news isn’t good.” A satellite image replaced all the faces that had been on the screens before him. The scene was that of the ocean with what appeared to be two bumps of water, which Daniel assumed was the tsunami. One headed for the East Coast of North America and parts of Central America, while the other headed for Europe.
Except, instead of two colored lines appearing where those bumps were, eight lines appeared on the screen. Two slashed along the area Daniel had been staring at, but six other lines also cut across the screen. Two were horizontal, while the others were all vertical.
It was the Lieutenant who spoke as he pointed to the line along the bottom of the screen. “This one, we aren’t too concerned about as it is heading south and will hit Antarctica.”
Then he pointed to the horizontal line at the top. “This one will impact Iceland, Greenland, and parts of Canada. Again, we have put out warnings and since they have a decent timeline before it gets to them, there shouldn’t be much loss of life.”
All six vertical lines were then circled together. “It is these that will cause the most damage. Europe has more time and already started evacuations, so their causalities will be much lower, but the United States just doesn’t have enough time.”
“What are you talking about?” Daniel shouted. “I was told there was a twenty minute warning. We should be able to evacuate a large number of citizens in that amount of time.”
“If the earthquake hadn’t been so strong, that might have been true, Mr. President.” In red, a line was drawn from Maine, down to Florida. The line cut through the middle of most of the eastern states, but with Florida the line went into the Gulf of Mexico. “But the sheer strength that caused this tsunami is bigger than anything humanity has ever known.”
Daniel stared in horror at the map before him. “Lieutenant, what exactly are you saying?”
A heavy sigh could be heard before the lieutenant answered. “Mr. President, I’m saying the entire east coast will be completely lost. There isn’t time to evacuate, especially in areas that received damage from the quake, and I’m afraid anyone in its path will die.”