Page 57 of The Presidents Shadow

OUR BODIES ACHE. Our brains ache. But Margo, Burbank, and I carry with us a tiny bit of hope as we travel from Kyoto to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen, like Kyoto, is an extraordinary site of damage and destruction.

But each of these cities is distinctly different in its kind of physical ruin.

While Kyoto was a mass of stones and concrete and dirt, Copenhagen is a swamp of battered buildings.

Rivers flow where streets once were, and sad citizens paddle along in makeshift rafts.

We are greeted by a seriously despondent Tapper.

After our discovery of the warnings to Dr. Nakashima in Kyoto, we asked him to find out whether anyone who’d been present the day of the tidal wave had received similar messages.

He has been trying with little success to uncover any threats that might have been sent to academics in Copenhagen.

“Here’s what I have, and it isn’t much,” says Tapper.

“I went through hundreds of messages, maybe a thousand, received by personnel at a bunch of schools: Technical University of Denmark, Roskilde University, even the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. I examined the files of professors, visiting professors, student teachers, even the correspondence of maintenance workers and secretaries.”

As the list grows, energy leaks out of Tapper’s tone. Then he stretches out his arms in a kind of despair. “What in hell do I have to show for it?” he says loudly. He is clearly a man on the brink.

I am all too familiar with Tapper’s sense of frustration. I’ve been there. I am there right now. But I have neither the time nor the urge to play baby nurse and dispense comfort to my colleague.

“Exactly,” I say, somewhat sternly. “What the hell do you have to show for it?”

“That won’t take long,” warns Tapper.

He snaps some buttons on his electronic device and shows me four messages that may be pertinent. Like the messages sent to young Jason’s late father in Kyoto, they are threatening and harsh. They promise tragedy if they are ignored.

Margo reads them as well, then leans back. “The first thing we have to do is speak to the people who received these messages. Who are they? Did they survive the tsunami?”

“One is a revered Danish botanist. Another is an honored female professor of ancient Scandinavian literature. The last is a Swedish teaching assistant who had only been in Copenhagen two weeks—and they’re all at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.”

What can I do? What can I be? We can shape-shift into deep-sea diving creatures and scrape the bottom of the sea. But we have no ability to bring the dead back to life.

“But there is one other thing,” Tapper says.

Margo, Burbank, and I glance up hopefully.

“What? For God’s sake, what?” I say.

“There is one survivor. I was about to tell you—”

“Tapper!” yells Margo. “Dear God, don’t you know the proper order in which to relay information?”

I reach out, covering her hand with mine. “He’s not married,” I remind her. “He hasn’t had that kind of training.”

“Well, get married,” Margo snaps at Tapper.

“Or,” Burbank suggests, “just go ahead and share the good news.”