Page 106 of The Presidents Shadow

OH, DAMN, HOW painfully I feel the wicked wind. I watch the thick, charcoal-gray clouds above. The ocean spray bombards my face and hands like sharp bullets. And yet my power and determination overwhelm whatever fearfulness I might once have had.

It is my chance to confront my enemy. It is my chance to protect the world. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were.

No human voice is strong enough to guarantee that the enemy will hear my message. So I call upon the power inside me to change my physical body.

I must begin. I concentrate. Yes!

My very neck expands. From a twenty-inch circumference it grows into a fifty-inch circumference. I grind my teeth and force my vocal cords to grow and swell and spread. More and more and more, so much that they can barely be contained by the super-huge neck that holds them.

My chest begins to ache. I know my lungs are increasing to match the size of my vocal cords. I recall that Dache always taught me that a charge of new power almost always causes more power to erupt.

I watch the dark and gloomy sky. I watch and a thought erupts in my mind.

Is it merely Glenn Ambrose whom I am bursting to confront? This insignificant little nobody of a clever, well-educated science student. A boy. A child. A brat.

What if Glenn Ambrose is the tiniest cog in a gigantic wheel of evildoers?

What if there are a thousand other devils in league with him?

What if he is merely a servant to the greatest horrible genius of them all?

Could my nemesis, Shiwan Khan, have returned?

What if Ambrose is in the control of Satan himself?

I clear my throat. The rumble in my chest is my new and gigantic larynx. It clicks into place with my new vocal cords, my new lungs, my new strength.

It is time to shout to the heavens.

But first a test run.

“I am here!” I scream.

The volume of my voice booms out louder than thunder. My overpowering sound moves the clouds, churns the ocean waves. Rain descends. Then all is calm until the echo of my booming, rolling, roaring words stops.

I scan the sky for a sign of something, anything. A drone? A missile? Terrageddon itself?

But there is nothing but the dark sky and the fat clouds and the yellow of the moon, a moon that looks as if it is watching me with disdainful amusement.

Are you ready, young Ambrose? I hope so. Because what happens next should banish every trace of your existence.