Page 117 of The Presidents Shadow

I HAD NEVER considered what the mysterious Glenn Ambrose looked like. If I had been told to guess at his appearance, I would most likely have imagined tall and evil, maybe even with a comic handlebar mustache and an exaggerated sneer on his face, wearing a white lab coat.

But here, in the flesh, Glenn Ambrose can be described easily with one classic, very old-fashioned schoolyard taunt— NERD. He looks like a lonely teenager who spends too much time trolling online message boards.

It is difficult for me to believe that this is the person with the goal and the power to destroy the world.

Still, we must remain cautious. I order Jericho to frisk Ambrose for weapons.

Then Jericho secures him, tying the scientist up with steel-reinforced wire we have brought. Ambrose offers no resistance.

“How did you find out that we were trying to locate you?” I ask our now completely immobile prisoner.

Suddenly, his face seems to change. Ambrose’s eyes widen. His mouth opens, and he begins speaking with a new voice, a voice that is painfully loud. It is booming. It creates an echo. No, he is not changing into a superhero, but he certainly is not the nerd he seemed just a few minutes ago.

“ There will be no answer! You will find in me no information! ”

The new voice is so angry, so loud, that Jericho reflexively moves back a step. I force myself to stay stony and stand still. I must be ready for a fight.

While Jericho watches Ambrose, I walk a few feet to the jagged entrance of the cave.

I look in and see a surprisingly small steel-paneled room.

I hear the soft, easy whirring and whistling of machinery.

Yet I can see only a few computer monitors, plus a modest-sized video screen attached to the wall.

The entire setup looks shockingly basic.

It looks like any one out of a billion very unimportant offices.

Wait a second. Ambrose is going to destroy the world with a few souped-up computers? I’m clearly missing something.

“I’m going inside to examine this room,” I tell Jericho. “It looks like you’ve got Ambrose under control.”

Without taking his eyes off the tied-up Ambrose, Jericho nods and says he’ll yell if he needs me.

Then I step into the cave.

The room is just as simple and modest inside as it appeared to be when I glanced in.

Two large computer screens. Two large keyboards, one with the English alphabet, the other with the Russian alphabet.

Two large closets. The first closet that I open holds nothing but three white shirts on three wooden hangers, as well as a small refrigerator.

The refrigerator is empty. I open the second closet.

It, too, is empty but for another small refrigerator, the twin of the refrigerator next door.

I open this refrigerator. This appliance is holding a metal case about the size of a shoebox.

The metal case has an ordinary-looking plastic light switch on its top. Next to it is the word IGNITE .

This must be the mighty Terrageddon.

This is, of course, not the time to test the switch.

I lift the box. It’s deceptively heavy, certainly at least ten pounds. I am still holding and examining the box when I hear Jericho’s voice coming from outside the room.

“Lamont, come out here,” he shouts.

And so I go quickly outside and see that Ambrose is squirming and struggling against his wire confinement. Somewhat foolishly, he is trying to break free. But given the strength of the steel wires encasing him, I know that Ambrose is waging a losing battle.

It turns out that I am very wrong. The wiring around his chest begins to break. Then the wiring around his stomach bursts open. How is this possible? Has young Ambrose managed to harness radioactivity inside his own body? Has he transferred some of the power of Terrageddon into his own flesh?

Somehow his very struggles and actions seem to have created other reactions within the cave, as if the machines inside are reacting to the movements of their maker. He must have created some kind of electrical connection between himself and the technology he has spawned.

As Glenn Ambrose begins to break free, the natural world around us immediately begins to turn violent. I don’t know how, but clearly the man himself has become Terrageddon.

The sky turns dark, very dark, almost too dark to see clearly beyond a few feet.

Thunder. Lightning. And then a terrible shaking earth beneath us.

As fast as our world turned dark and ominous, so does it instantaneously return to enormous brightness. Exquisite quiet. Complete stillness.

Jericho and I look back at Glenn Ambrose. He is standing. He looks at the two of us. He is free of his bonds, but he makes no attempt to move. Tendrils of electricity run across his skin, illuminating it in a blue glow.

“It worked!” he cries, raising his hands in victory.

The lovely quiet is pierced by an ear-splitting thunderclap, and a bolt of lightning tears through the sky.

Then we watch as Glenn Ambrose bursts into flames.