Page 58 of The Presidents Shadow

“HER NAME IS Langi Singh,” Tapper says. “She is originally from Pakistan. Now she is a professor of physics at the Technical University of Denmark. That’s the good news.” He looks carefully at Margo, as if checking if he can continue. She waves him on.

“She’s currently in the intensive care unit of Rigshospitalet, the most respected hospital in Copenhagen.”

Tapper tells us that her survival was miraculous.

Thousands died in the tsunami at the awards ceremony, but for reasons that no one can discern, Ms. Singh, a thirty-five-year-old woman who had never even learned to swim, made it through.

She was found unconscious on the penthouse roof of an apartment building in Nyhavn, a fashionable section of the city.

The woman was alive, but both her legs had been broken, and she had lost total hearing in her right ear.

Equally serious, her right lung was filled to near capacity with water, dirt, and grit.

Burbank joins Margo, Tapper, and me in the small intensive care room where Langi Singh lies, hooked up to two IV drips as well as an oxygen nose clasp. Her legs are swaddled in large casts and suspended by wires from above her.

Ms. Singh’s eyes are closed when we enter, but she must feel our very presence, because as we approach her bed, her eyes open.

Margo, with a gentle voice and authentic concern, speaks. “Good morning, Ms. Singh. Are you feeling well enough to talk?”

The injured woman replies with her own question, her voice surprisingly strong.

“Are you doctors?” she asks.

“No,” Margo says. “We are here to investigate the great tsunami, the one that you managed to survive.”

“If you call this survival,” Ms. Singh says, nodding slightly toward her bound and bandaged body.

“We understand, but if you could, we are hoping you might answer a few questions,” says Margo.

The woman in the bed asks simply, “Danish?”

“No, we’re American,” I say. “Why do you ask?”

“Can you get me a Danish, I mean,” Langi says, a smile curling the edge of her mouth as she nods toward a side table. “My arms work, so I can feed myself,” she says. “Just can’t reach them.”

We all laugh along with her as Margo hands over the pastry. This woman clearly will be able to survive.

Carefully, in between bites, she begins to tell us her story.