Page 13 of The Presidents Shadow

LIKE A CRAZED pianist at his keyboard, I begin pushing buttons and twirling knobs. With no communication system, we are lost.

The black screen takes on a gray-blue color. It is one of those sickening, creepy shades that tells you there’s something wrong with your video systems. But in this case it is telling us that there is something wrong, terribly wrong, with the entire world.

Then the grayish color on the screen becomes haphazardly streaked with white lines.

“Look. You see those white lines?” Margo yells. “I think it’s water. Waves. Yes! It’s water!”

“How are they filming this?” Jessica asks.

I tell them that I can only assume that a dedicated newscaster, pilot, and cameraperson have taken to the sky in a helicopter. They may become the only survivors in all of Denmark.

The great blur of white lines and gray seems to wither away, then becomes smaller. The helicopter is flying higher and higher, trying to escape the tidal wave.

We watch, hypnotized, as the screen reveals what looks like a toy city about to drown.

The long view of the city of Copenhagen is nauseating and mesmerizing at the same time.

We watch as the waves move closer, become bigger.

There is no sound now, but the pictures are so compelling that we can imagine the roar.

How big are the waves that have begun erasing the coast of Denmark?

Are there actual words beyond billions ?

Zillions? Mega-zillions? Infinite millions?

Whatever the word is, the wave is ready to overwhelm the entire country.

I rub my eyes and bow my head. I think as hard as I possibly can. One thing I know for sure—this was planned. This is no simple freak of nature. This is, at the very least, a phenomenon viciously aided by a member of humankind.

Maddy jumps in, voicing my thoughts.

“Is it connected to the thing in Kyoto?”

“Yes. It’s a different kind of thing, but it is an equally horrifying thing, ” I say.

Cataclysmic events like these are not coincidences.

I know I’m right about this. This tidal wave was carefully calculated to annihilate the great intellects and scholars gathered for the awards ceremony in Europe.

Just as the earthquakes of Kyoto were designed to do the same at one of the greatest brain centers in Asia.

The obvious question is: will this devastation today satisfy the evil goals of the person who designed it, or is this merely the beginning?

I will find out.