Page 44 of The Presidents Shadow

AS SOON AS Mr. Fujita leaves to alert the acting president of the postponement, Burbank removes a sonic measuring rod and its high-frequency evaluation screen from the equipment case he’s been carrying.

“You’ve read my mind, my friend,” I say to him.

“As did I,” Margo says. “It’s incredibly rude to keep the president waiting, but you just couldn’t wait to get started, could you, Lamont?”

“Not when this could be an important discovery,” I say, shaking my head. “And on our first day, too!”

Margo and I watch as Burbank forcefully but carefully pushes the control stick into the earth.

“How far can the extendable probe go?” Margo asks.

“About three meters,” I answer.

Burbank does the math. “That’s about ten feet,” he says.

“Thanks for that,” Margo says, sarcastically.

I am holding the information screen in my hand. It will soon be communicating the levels of pyroxenes and feldspars. These are the minerals most common in earth samples everywhere in the world. Sure enough, there are high levels of each.

“I’m pretty much totally extended. Let me try to get a little deeper with manual force,” Burbank says as he pushes the testing probe deeper, until it is almost flush with the red pebbles.

“Right now I’m getting a water reading,” I say, the excitement clear in my voice.

“What’s the reading?” Burbank asks.

“I’m getting a notice of illite,” I say. “That’s just clay. Damnit. What the hell is going on?”

Leave it to Margo to have the answer.

“Rice,” she says. “We’re in Japan. Rice is farmed everywhere. Clay, along with the mineral illite, creates the best soil for growing rice.”

Of course, after over two thousand years of rice growing, the entire Japanese chain of islands contains millions of tons of clay.

So much for a lucky break.

I stare at the screen. If only my mind training could force greater information onto this screen. But I’m an arrogant fool for even fantasizing such a possibility.

“Should I reel in the probe, sir?” Burbank asks.

“You might as—” I begin, but then there are three quick bright flashes on the screen.

After each flash the screen continues to register the illite reading.

What the hell is going on? I keep my eyes glued to that screen, and I’m rewarded with three more flashes.

I tell Margo and Burbank what I’m seeing.

“I’ve seen that happen in some lab work,” Margo says. “It usually means that there’s a danger of radiation.”

And then it all comes together—gamma radiation. Of course. That’s precisely what Dr. Henry believed was happening in the natural disaster in Cambridge. The gamma radiation created waves of power at the nearby epicenters.

I share this theory with Margo and Burbank. They both think it makes sense. We wait a few seconds more. We hope for more information, and I hold my breath as the screen darkens, then brightens. Then the screen tells us something new.

NO POWER

The screen goes dark.

Yes, there must be some connection between the disaster in Cambridge and the disaster that took place here in Kyoto.

A clue. A good clue. An important clue.

But what the hell do we do with it?