“I doubt things could get a whole lot worse than a twenty-story wave crashing through the Eastern Seaboard. Not to mention the Caribbean, Venezuela and Brazil. Let’s face it, Emily, we can’t just sit here and watch the whole world go to hell. Someone will have to try.”
Swenson nodded, turned away. Decker felt the labyrinth of his argument unwind.
Warhaftig stumbled down the aisle. He looked completely stunned, as if someone has just punched him in the face. “That was the President,” he said. “He and his advisors all agree that there’s only so much we can do in only fifteen hours. We’ll do our best, of course. FEMA will supervise emergency evacuations of all the major cities on the coast. New York, thank God, is already virtually deserted. Members of Congress and the White House staff are being flown to safety as we speak. The Pentagon… ” He shook his head. “By dawn tomorrow, more than thirty-five million Americans will be dead. Tens of thousands will die just trying to get away. If only we had listened to you sooner, John, we might have—”
“We have an idea,” said Decker, interrupting him. “Well, Swenson does. A way of maybe stopping this.”
Warhaftig looked shocked. “But I thought you told me—”
“A counter-wave,” she said.
“A counter what?”
Swenson told him of her plan.
After a moment, Warhaftig said, “Do you really think it could work?”
“I don’t know,” said Swenson. “But John is right. Someone has to try.”
Warhaftig walked back toward the front of the helicopter and gathered up some headsets. Seiden was standing in the cockpit chatting with his superiors. “We have a plan,” Warhaftig said. He described it briefly.
“Wait a minute.” Seiden tapped his microphone. “Just a moment, sir, there’s been a change in strategy. I’ll have to call you back.”
Warhaftig carried the headsets astern. He handed them out, put one on himself, and showed them how to plug into the console.
Decker slipped his headset on. Now that it was gone, he suddenly realized how loud and irritating the noise from the blades and open hatch had been. He could hear Warhaftig’s voice clear as a bell.
First, they contacted the Azores and arranged for the fastest plane available to meet them in São Miguel, some commandeered Citation X. The Spanish millionaire who owned her threatened to call the Prime Minister of Spain, but then he heard about the looming wave and changed his tune. He’d be more than happy to assist the Americans, he said. At no expense.
Swenson knew a fair amount about the islands of the Azores, having traveled there for a conference three years earlier. She informed them they were the EU’s most secluded outpost, spread out across 600 kilometers of ocean, located roughly 1,500 kilometers or two hours' flying time from Lisbon. Running along a southeast to northwest axis, the islands were separated into three main clusters: the Eastern Group of São Miguel and Santa Maria; the Central Group of Terceira, Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico and Faial; and the Western Group of Flores and Corvo.
Like the Canaries, they had been formed by the eruption of volcanoes, and lay on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a fault line that zigzagged for some 16,000 kilometers from beneath the northern icecap southwards, turning east around the southern tip of Africa to meet with the Indian Ocean Ridge. Three plates collided underneath the ocean at the base of the Azores, or rather diverged, said Swenson, in a kind of T-shaped triple junction between Flores and Faial.
The more Decker listened to Emily, the more entranced he became — and the more uncertain. As a Midwesterner, he had never experienced earthquakes or seismic activity of any kind. The earth had always seemed a permanent place to him; indeed, uncompromising. But it wasn’t fixed. Nothing was fixed. The ground swirled over molten rock, the earth twirled round the sun, the sun whirled silently around the galaxy in space.
“Decker?”
Decker looked up. Warhaftig was pointing at his headset. “Get ready.”
“For what?”
“The President. I explained your plan to him. He wants to talk to you.”
Decker sat up. “The President wants to talk to me?”
“To you and Emily. And Acting Chief Seiden too. Stand by. Go ahead,” he said. “Mr. President, can you hear me, sir?”
“I can hear you,” someone said. “Hello, Dr. Swenson. Are you there?” The voice sounded tinny and distant, and yet Decker knew it was the President. He sounded just like on TV, with the same Texas twang and nasal overtone.
“Agent Warhaftig has briefed us on the situation. I’m going to hand the phone over to one of my advisors so you can tell her exactly what we need to do. Is Special Agent Decker there?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I can hear you, Mr. President.”
Swenson grabbed Decker by the sleeve and drew him close. Their heads were almost touching.
“I just wanted to thank you two for everything you’ve done. Secretary Dale has been keeping me abreast of your activities, every hour, on the hour, all day long. No matter what happens, whether this plan of yours succeeds or not, you two are heroes in my book. You’ve both risked your lives for your country, and that’s something that none of us will ever forget. That goes for you too, Chief Seiden. I understand that without your help, Special Agent Decker and Ms. Swenson wouldn’t be here to accept my gratitude. This will only strengthen the alliance between our two great nations. I wish you all good luck. And God speed,” he said. “Now, let me put Allegra on. Tell her exactly what she needs to do and we’ll make it happen.”
“OK,” they heard a voice say. “Hello, Ms. Swenson, Agent Decker. This is National Security Advisor, Allegra Wheatley.”
“Nice to meet you,” Swenson stuttered, immediately rolling her eyes.
“Nice to meet you too, Emily. Are you okay? Don’t be nervous. Just tell me what you need. We have a Navy attack-class submarine already stationed off New York.”
Decker could hear Swenson sigh. He felt her hand slip into his, and squeeze. “That’s not going to work,” she said. “A nuclear sub’s too big. The canyon passages are really narrow and unless you want the wave to end up on the coast, you’ll have to plant it deep inside a fissure on the eastern flank. We’re going to need a Deep Submergence Vehicle. A DSV. The nearest one’s probably at WHOI. I mean the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, in Massachusetts. She’s called the Alvin.”
They could hear Wheatley cover up the phone and chat briefly with someone else. “That’s fine, Emily,” she continued. “How much does it weigh?”
“Weigh? I don’t know. Ten to fifteen metric tons, I guess. In the air? Maybe more. I don’t know,” said Swenson nervously. “Why?”
“It will take too long for the Alvin’s mother ship to steam down from Woods Hole. We’ll have to transport it by Chinook. That’s a helicopter.” She was interrupted once again. Someone else seemed to be listening at the other end. “OK,” she continued. “I’ve been told that an MH-47E Chinook can only hoist around 27,000 pounds. We’re going to have to call our friends in Cuba and ask to borrow an Mi-26. It’s got the hauling capacity of a Hercules.”
“Are you sure the Cubans will comply?” Warhaftig said.
Wheatley did not hesitate. “Once this tsunami hits, they’re going to need an awful lot of aid. Frankly, we’ll be their only hope, no matter what they feel politically.”
“Cuba’s a long way away.”
“The Mi-26 cruises at around two hundred miles per hour,” said Wheatley. “If La Palma doesn’t collapse for another nine or ten hours — which none of us thinks is likely — and if it then takes the wave another six plus hours to reach us, we should have enough time to fly her up to Woods Hole and hoist the Alvin back. Where would you like us to bring it, honey?”