Stevas did not answer. His mind was struggling to understand exactly how everything had just turned so horribly wrong.
“I said,” the President repeated, “where is John Clay?!”
Stevas looked down at the floor. “I–I sent a Delta team.” He looked up sheepishly. “They killed him.”
Langford’s eyes suddenly filled with rage, and he leapt at Stevas. “You son of a bitch!” He grabbed Stevas by the collar and hit him with a right punch knocking him over a small table and onto the floor. Without missing a beat, Langford jumped over the table and reached for Stevas again before Miller and Bullman grabbed his arms and pulled him back.
“Mr. President?” Kathryn called out. “Are you there?”
“Yes Ms. Lokke, I’m still here. Please hold on a minute.” He looked at Stevas who was trying to stand up. “We’re working through something here.” The President watched Stevas regain his balance and back away from everyone in the room. The President was about to walk around his desk when his phone beeped again three times. He slowly reached down and hit the second line. “Yes?”
“Mr. President,” a man’s voice said, “this is Agent Rubke downstairs. There’s uh…someone here to see you.”
“Someone to see me?” Carr asked. “Who the hell is it?”
“He says his name is John Clay.”
43
The Secret Service agent walked into the room and held the door open, waiting for Clay to enter. Everyone in the room was surprised to see Palin follow Clay in. Clay stopped and scanned the room. When he got to Stevas, his eyes locked on him. “That’s him,” he said to Palin.
Palin stood still, staring at Stevas. For the first time, Clay saw genuine fear in Stevas’ eyes and watched as he backed up still further into the wall. If he could have become the wall, he would have.
“I’m sorry sir,” the agent said to the President. “We don’t know how they got past the gate.”
“It’s alright,” Carr said. “You can leave us.”
The agent hesitated until Carr looked at him again. He finally stepped past them and joined the other two agents waiting outside. The door closed quietly behind Clay and Palin.
“Well, well Mr. Clay, we’ve been looking for you.” The President said stepping forward. He glanced at Stevas. “In fact, we thought something had happened to you.”
“Something did.” Clay followed Carr’s look back to Stevas and then looked over at Langford. “They killed Caesare.”
Langford’s jaw tightened in anger, but he remained silent, glaring at Stevas.
“I’m sorry Clay. It seems some of us thought you may have been on the wrong side. Something that just got corrected a few minutes ago. I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we are relieved that you are alright. Both you and Mr. Palin.” He gestured toward the phone. “Ms. Lokke has informed us that you were evidently trying to stop the nuclear blast.”
“That’s right.” Clay stated simply.
“Well, now we have a serious problem on our hands. That nuclear explosion apparently triggered the collapse in the Ronne Ice Shelf just a few minutes ago. We now have a tsunami headed north that we cannot stop.”
Clay pointed to the phone. “Is she still on the line?”
The President reached down and pushed the button for the first line. “Ms. Lokke, are you still there?”
After a moment, her voice came out of the speaker. The engines sounded lower. “Yes sir. We have to head back to McMurdo though as we won’t have enough fuel. I have lost sight of the tsunami.”
Carr quickly motioned to Mason his Chief of Staff. “Get us a video feed! However you have to do it.”
Mason nodded, walked to the far side of the room, and pulled his cell phone from his jacket.
Clay looked at the President who nodded and moved back, giving him the phone. Clay walked across the giant rug and sat slowly down in the seat. Palin followed and stood next to him. Clay exhaled slowly and spoke into the phone.
“Ms. Lokke, this is John Clay. We spoke a few days ago.”
“I remember.” Kathryn replied. “You said you were going to stop the explosion. What the hell happened?”
“Well,” Clay said, “some people had other plans.” He softly put a hand to his chest and scooted forward in his chair. His wound was still extremely painful. “Ms. Lokke, I understand this cannot be stopped by conventional means…but there are other islands that are also at risk of a massive collapse correct?”
“Yes.” She replied quickly.
“Isn’t Tristan Island one of those high risk locations?”
“Uh yeah,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, “although Tristan is medium risk. There are dozens of them around the world.”
“Ms. Lokke,” Clay continued slowly. “Isn’t Tristan’s slide zone on the south side of the island?”
“Well yes.” She answered and then suddenly gasped. “Oh my god! Yes it is!”
“Is this possible?” Clay asked her.
“Yes!” she said almost yelling into her headset. “Yes, it’s possible! We’d have to check some things but it might work.” She paused. “But we would need something to start it.”
Everyone seemed to close in around Clay and Palin at the desk. “What?” said the President. “What might work?!”
Clay turned to Carr. “These land mass collapses have happened throughout history and are very infrequent, but as we know the effects are devastating. Tristan is a large island in the South Atlantic and is one of the locations where part of the land mass is slowly separating. It’s not due for a very long time but we may be able to help it happen, and create a tidal wave traveling in the opposite direction.” He looked at everyone as he spoke. “If we can’t stop the tsunami headed this way, perhaps we can block it.”
Everyone looked eager. “Ms. Lokke?” asked Carr.
“We need to verify our data,” she said, “but we would have a good chance at reducing the size of the wave traveling north. It may mean the difference between thousands of lives instead of millions.”
Carr looked back to Clay. “And how would we start it?”
“It would take something big.” He said. “Like a nuclear impact.”
The President shook his head. “Wait a minute. We’re talking about another nuclear bomb?”
The irony was not wasted on Clay, or the President for that matter, that without the first nuke they would not have needed the second. But more importantly, this would be the first time a nuclear explosion was used to save lives. The President stepped back shaking his head. How on earth was he going to explain two nuclear explosions?
Langford placed his hand gently on Clay’s shoulder. “How did you know that, John?”
Clay shrugged innocently. “I read up on Ms. Lokke and her work after we met her at JAX.”
Miller looked at the President. “Sir for this we are going to require launch codes. And the Vice President.”
“Mr. President, we have a visual on the tsunami.” Mason turned on a large monitor on the wall. “It’s a live satellite.” The picture in the monitor showed a wide angle view of the South Atlantic Ocean. When Mason zoomed in, a small, almost faint line could be seen moving up the picture.
“It looks smaller than I thought.”
“Tsunamis cannot be seen in deep water.” Clay said. “They grow when they reach the shore.”
The phone rang and Carr answered immediately. “Go ahead.”
Kathryn’s voice came over the speaker. “Mr. President, we’ve just gone over the data with some colleagues in D.C. We think this is our best option.”
Carr sighed. “And what happens if we unleash another wave in the wrong direction?”