“Mr. President,” came Kathryn’s voice over the loud engines, “I honestly don’t think we can make this situation worse.”
He looked at Mason. “Get the Chinese and the Russians on the phone. We better make damn sure they know what this is when it shows up on their radars.” Mason nodded and ran for the door. He opened it just as Miller and Vice President Bailey were coming in. Miller was carrying the infamous briefcase called ‘the football’, which carried the country’s nuclear launch codes. He placed it on the table in front of the President.
Carr skipped to his second phone line. When the female voice answered he said “Get me NORAD.” He then moved to the metal briefcase, turning the tumblers to the correct combination and then pressing the buttons in to release the locks. The lid popped open quietly.
“NORAD is on sir,” replied the female voice. A moment later it was replaced by a deep voice. “This is General Schmidt.”
The Vice President stepped to his side as Carr leaned into the microphone. “This is President Jonathan Scott Carr, prepare to verify.”
The sky was overcast over most of central Georgia. The trees were dark green, and the forest seemed to go on forever. The rolling forested hills were only interrupted periodically by patches of open space covered with bright green grass waving gently under the cool breeze. One large patch of open space was nearly hidden among the oaks and pines and surrounded by a large steel chain link fence. The old painted sign on the entrance to the area read ‘No Trespassing — Department of Agriculture’. Inside the fence was a large metal shed with a dome on top of the roof and a tall antenna tower standing next to it.
Suddenly the silence was split when a deafening siren sounded and the dome lit up with a bright orange spinning light. On the ground, a large section of grass rumbled sideways revealing a silo beneath it. As the silo was revealed, so too was the tip of a large missile. No sooner had the door slid fully open than the silo instantly filled with smoke and fire. In less than a second, the missile shot from the ground, climbed quickly through the air and disappeared into the gray clouds above.
44
First sighted in 1506, the island of Tristan Da Cunha was the largest island in the most remote archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, lying over 1,700 miles from the nearest major land mass. Annexed by the United Kingdom in 1816 to prevent it being used as a staging ground to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte on Saint Helena, the island was home to just over 260 residents. With only one small town called “The Settlement”, the local families were far removed from modern conveniences, and problems.
Eleven year old Neri Repetto had finished school and was climbing the hill to his secret place along the island’s only waterfall. The days were long this time of year and he still had plenty of time to finish his chores. Today he hoped to surprise his mother and younger brother with fish for dinner. He had been hoping the same thing every day for almost two weeks but Neri was not one to give up.
As he climbed the side of the mountain, he spotted a goat behind a large tree and contemplated whether he should take it back to Mrs. Hagan. He decided to take it home on his way back. The afternoon was warm and in tattered shoes Neri jumped from rock to rock as he continued to climb. It was not long before he could hear the sound of the waterfall beyond the large trees. With long strides, Neri quickened his pace and headed into the shade beneath the trees.
Neri froze. He stood still staring and trying to figure out what it was that he was looking at. He slowly looked around and seeing no one else he took a few steps forward. It did not look like anything he had ever seen. He crept a little closer. It was wavering slightly and the bright blue light formed a large oval that was a little higher than his head. The center looked dark, but not quite black. He studied the object carefully. He looked at the ground in front of the strange oval. There appeared to be footprints in the wet grass.
“Mama! Mama!” he yelled running into the small house.
“Neri!” His mother snapped looking up from her wood stove. “Your brother is asleep!”
“Mama!” he said quietly. “You have to come see!”
She wiped her hands on her apron. “Come see what Neri? Did one of those goats run off again?”
“Yes, yes, but that’s not what I want to show you.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her reluctantly out the door.
His mother stepped outside looking around. None of the red roofs of The Settlement appeared to be on fire and there was no sound coming from the main street. “What is it?” she asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“No,” he said, “it’s up there.” Neri pointed to the trail that ran up the mountainside. “Up by the waterfall.”
His mother squinted her eyes. “I still don’t see anything.”
“You can’t see it from here. You have to come up.” He insisted still pulling on her arm.
“Please Neri.” she sighed. “I can’t very well leave your brother here alone.”
Neri was still breathing hard from this run back to town. “It’s…a light. A bright blue light, just standing on the grass.”
She eyed Neri with a raised eyebrow. “Have you been eating the mushrooms?”
“No!” he complained. “I was on my way to fish. It’s up there next to my spot. It’s…incredible.”
“I’m sure it is.” His mother said shaking her apron out. She really could not imagine what he was talking about. She turned to walk back into the house when something caught her eye. She turned around and looked up along the hill. There was something in the sky, something moving very quickly and leaving a white trail behind it like the big airplanes did. “What is that?”
Neri looked up and saw it too.
His mother watched it carefully and then suddenly opened her eyes wide. She did not know what it was but it looked like it was headed towards them. “Neri!” she screamed grabbing him by the arm. “Get inside!” she threw him through the door ahead of her. As she began to close the door she paused just for a moment. Why is the sky so blue? she thought. She had never seen it like that before. She blinked and looked at the other buildings around her. Everything looked blue.
The President and his cabinet watched as the giant wave moved up through the Atlantic ocean at a speed of over three hundred miles per hour. The island of Tristan Da Cunha and its small archipelago was just below the latitude of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and everyone could see clearly from the satellite that if they could not stop it there the damage would start almost immediately when it hit Africa’s southwestern coast, beginning with the first large metropolitan city of Cape Town and its population of over three million. The next city to be devastated was Buenos Aires on the South American coast and the other side of the Atlantic.
Kathryn had landed just minutes ago at McMurdo where she and her team now watched from a large conference room. The room was deathly silent as they watched the giant wave.
The dark line in the ocean approached a small uninhabited island two hundred miles southeast of Tristan. This island would provide the best measurement of the tsunami’s energy. It would be the first island hit full force, and give a visual estimation for what was to come.
Kathryn and her team knew that if a counter wave could not be generated before the tsunami passed much farther beyond this first island, it would not be able to travel far enough from Tristan to provide the effect they needed or spread wide enough across the ocean.
As the tsunami reached the first island it quickly grew much larger on the monitor as the island’s rising mass beneath the ocean forced the full size of the tsunami up to the surface. Kathryn and her team gasped. It was enormous.