When she turned around, she saw her four man team, who had just been measuring the ice, were now running as fast as they could toward her. Far off in the background, she could see the familiar white fog rising into the air, but this time it was much, much bigger. In the far distance, she could see mud slides beginning against the base of the giant glacier. It was happening! The glacier was collapsing!
Now Manly was running toward her with his arm behind one of the drillers. Kathryn turned to Steve and Andrew and shouted, pointing at the plane. “Don’t let the plane stop!” They both nodded and ran after it.
The shaking began under her feet. She kept waving the others in to her and looked for anyone else. Tadri was one of the team members running toward her. She stopped to pick up someone who had fallen and helped her to her feet. Kathryn kept looking at the living quarter huts, praying that they would come out. She looked back at the plane and watched Steven and Andrew jump up through the rear door as it slowed to a stop. A moment later the engines which were winding down suddenly roared back to life. The plane quickly began to turn around to face the other direction.
The others finally caught up to Kathryn, and they all ran for the plane together. She looked over her shoulder and finally saw the others coming out of the living quarters. They looked around and then at Kathryn and the rest running toward the plane. At that moment, a wide crack appeared and spread in a long jagged line between Kathryn and the camp. It was too late.
The shaking was growing stronger and everyone tried to keep from stumbling sideways. They covered the distance to the strip as the plane was slowly passing them. Stumbling back and forth, they rounded the back of the plane and chased after the side door. Both men were waiting and holding onto each side of the door. They grabbed Tadri’s hand and pulled her off her feet and inside. They reached out for the driller and then for Manly and the rest until finally they grabbed Kathryn and hauled her in.
The engines roared again and the plane accelerated. Everyone in the back looked out the side windows as the ice sped past, watching as the cracks grew larger and larger. The wheels of the plane hit a big crack and everyone flew up hitting the metal ceiling then fell back down. They all looked at one another rubbing their heads.
The plane was really moving. Outside, most of the ice became a blur, but all of the supplies were still onboard and with the added weight of its new passengers, the plane was struggling to take off. Boom. They felt another impact against the wheels that sent everyone into the air and then fumbling for a better hold after they crashed back to the floor again.
Kathryn looked out one of the side windows. The glacier was barely visible and had turned dark brown from all the slides. The plane suddenly became smooth as it lifted off the ice just as she watched the glacier collapse in the distance under its own weight.
At that moment, several billion tons of rock and ice separated and slid beneath the shelf. The collapse displaced an unimaginable amount of water, forcing it out and up into a giant tsunami. As the tsunami rose, it forced the entire ice shelf up with it, rising hundreds of feet within seconds.
Kathryn’s team on the plane watched the ice shelf rise up, pushed skyward by the force of the tsunami. Their eyes grew wide and their breathing increased with every foot the shelf rose under them. As it climbed higher and higher, everyone instinctively tightened their grip waiting for the giant land mass they had all just been standing on to smash into the bottom of the airplane.
The plane climbed as quickly as it could, but the speed of the rising shelf was much faster. No one in the back heard the pilots shouting in the cockpit and giving the engines everything they could. It was at that moment that Kathryn remembered all of the drilling explosives that were still onboard. The ice below looked like it was now just inches away. Several of them closed their eyes and waited for the impact, but it never came.
President Carr was glaring at Stevas when the phone on his desk beeped three times. He left the men standing in front of him and walked across the room and around his desk, pushing the speaker button on his handset. The voice of one of Mason’s female assistants came on. “Mr. President, I have an urgent message for you from a Ms. Lokke.”
Carr looked at the phone and squinted curiously. He looked at the other men and replied. “Put her through.” There was a short click and the President spoke up loudly. “Hello Ms. Lokke, what do I-”
“It’s happening!” she screamed through the phone. “It’s collapsing right now!”
Panic filled the room as Carr looked at the others. “The shelf?”
“The glacier!” she answered. “The glacier has collapsed and destroyed the shelf!”
“Oh god.” the President said, trying to think. He lowered himself close to the phone. “Is it as bad as you thought?”
“Yes!” she answered immediately. The sound of the plane’s engines in the background were drowning out her voice. “The tsunami is enormous and it’s headed north!”
“How fast?” Carr asked. The other men quickly crowded around his desk. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know.” She said, yelling over the background noise. “Probably three or four hundred miles an hour which means it would hit Florida in,” she paused, “something like twelve hours. But it will hit South America long before that!”
Carr closed his eyes and hung his head. “What are our options, Ms. Lokke?”
“I told you there were no options.” she said. “We can’t stop this. The only thing we can do is evacuate!”
“Hold on.” The President said and muted the line. He looked at the men around him. “Jesus Christ. Is that even possible?”
“Evacuate the entire Atlantic seaboard, in both North and South America?” Miller said shaking his head. “No, not in twelve hours.”
“But some would be able to get out right?” Carr said.
“Not necessarily,” replied Langford. “We’d start a panic of biblical proportions. It would likely be nothing but a mob scene until the tsunami arrived.”
“Mr. President?” asked Kathryn.
Carr quickly took her off mute. “Yes Ms. Lokke, we’re here.”
“You stopped the nuclear test right?!”
He raised his eyebrows and looked at the phone. “Nuclear test? What nuclear test?”
“The one that John Clay told me about.”
Carr looked up again at the group surrounding his desk. “What exactly did John Clay tell you, Ms. Lokke?”
Kathryn was still yelling over the engines. “He called and asked me whether the shock wave from a nuclear test you were planning could accidentally trigger the glacier collapse. He was going to stop it.” She paused for a moment when she realized what had just happened. “My god, you didn’t stop it did you?! That’s what caused the collapse! Tell me you stopped it.”
The President muted his microphone again and looked directly at Stevas. It all became clear. “Clay knew what was going to happen, and he was trying to stop your attack.” The President raised his voice. “Your nuclear explosion just triggered a global tsunami!”
Stevas’ face went white. He shook his head utterly speechless.
The President looked like he was going to come over the desk at him. Instinctively the other men stepped back. “You did what you had to do! That’s what you said, and now tens of millions of people are going to die because of YOU!”
“I–I was just doing what-” Stevas stammered, looking at Mason for help. “I didn’t know. It was the ring we were worried about…I didn’t know it would trigger anything.“
“Look at me Hank.” The President growled as he leaned forward. “Where is John Clay?”