In that particular pump configuration, when the waterfall was turned on, it shifted the suction of the pool’s skimmer to the bottom drain to feed the flow of the waterfall with an abundance of water. Recently, Etta’s father had noted the vented cover for that suction was broken. He’d removed the cover and had meant to replace it with a new one before the party, but got busy with his work and forgot to do it.
Etta was still inching along the bottom of the pool, feeling the tug of her lungs wanting fresh air, and preparing to pop up and scare the other kids with her rendition of a kraken popping out of the sea. She was hovering an inch over the suction port when the waterfall was turned on and it pulled her down with a force as strong as a crocodile’s bite. She tried not to panic as the soft skin of her abdomen was sucked into the hole so strongly that it felt like the flesh would rip, and it caused her to lose some of her breath. She placed her hands against the pool bottom, and tried to push herself up, but she wasn’t strong enough. The exertion of trying to pull away caused her to run out of breath.
Above, the surface of the pool was covered with floating toys and rafts, the water churned by the downpour of the waterfall and the dozen kids foaming up the water so much it appeared to be filled with feeding piranha. The bottom of the pool was obscured, as was the struggle Etta was enduring.
As the last of the life-giving air left her lungs, Etta realized, and oddly accepted, she was going to drown. She fought to keep the water from entering her mouth initially, but her hungry lungs won the fight, and as she weakened, her mouth went slack and the water rushed in. There was the inevitable laryngospasm that closed off her airway, so very little water made it into her lungs. But, without oxygen, her consciousness began to fade and with it, the pain of drowning eased. Though her eyes were still open, the vision began to darken as if she were looking up from a black velvet bag as someone drew its strings closed.
The earthquake was not a big one by Japanese standards; a four on their Shindo scale. But it shook the Kim’s home enough to topple the patio cake and spill the treats and goodie bags. Children stumbled about and fell, and some scraped their knees as their parents tried to come to their rescue. The rock waterfall trembled, and the pipes that fed it water burst. Then it was over, and the quiet that followed the quake was almost as eerie as the tremors.
“Everyone okay?” someone yelled. Some of the children were crying, but a few of them were delighted.
“That was so cool!” exclaimed one of the kids.
Etta’s father looked about hurriedly. He saw his youngest daughter right away; she ran up and gave him a hug with tears in her eyes. But he did not see Etta. He began to panic. “Has anyone seen Etta?” he called out, just as her body floated to the surface of the pool.
“Oh, no,” he screamed, as he jumped into the pool.
Etta’s mother saw what happened and, without hesitating, called in the emergency and requested an ambulance. By the time she got off the phone, Mr. Kim had Etta laid out on the patio, a few of the other parents gathered around her trying to offer help.
Mrs. Kim had learned CPR while living in the United States. As she approached her daughter’s lifeless body, the lessons she’d learned so long ago came back to her. She knelt next to Etta, noted her eyes were open, the pupils fixed and dilated, her lips blue. Feeling her neck, she detected no pulse. She put her face next to Etta’s mouth, but no breath brushed her cheek. She opened Etta’s mouth, placed her own over it, and blew air into her lungs. She did this twice before sliding her hands along her daughter’s rib cage and locating the arch just below her heart. Mrs. Kim placed her hands on the lower part of Etta’s sternum and began pushing on her chest. She continued doing the compressions, while Mr. Kim took over blowing into Etta’s mouth. One of the guests found a beach towel and covered Etta’s legs in an attempt to keep her warm.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Kim had managed to get a pulse back in Etta and she had taken a few gasping breaths. But she had not regained consciousness, and would not for several days.
Etta was taken to a very good hospital where her vital signs—heart rate, breathing, temperature, blood pressure—all became normal again, but the doctors told the Kims her brain had been too long without oxygen. If she regained consciousness, she would not be the same. What exactly did that mean? The doctors could not be sure. Time would tell.
When she did regain consciousness, Etta did not recognize anything or anyone around her. Once a brilliant student, she could not remember how to speak or even walk.
She had months of extensive physical therapy and eventually learned to walk again, but her growth was altered, she would always remain somewhat small. Her mental state was questionable. Talking came in muted grunts and squeaks. She would scream at times and have what was at first thought to be seizures, her arms flailing about. Later the doctors called it “stimming,” and said it was from her brain being denied oxygen for so long.
Her parents hired trained medical professionals to come to the house and watch over her, help her to be “normal” again. Usually, Etta was quiet, but at times she was quite trying, grunting and stimming and marking up the furniture and walls with whatever she could find. One of the nurses finally, as a last resort, thought she knew what would make her happy; she gave her some drawing paper and colored pencils to settle her down.
Within a few hours, working in complete silence, Etta drew some machines. They were not just fantastical machines either. When her father came home from the nuclear plant that day, he looked over her drawings. He’d seen something like them at the plant; they seemed to be part of a turbine-driven water cooling system they used for cooling the nuclear reactors. But, the ones his daughter had drawn seemed different—improved, perhaps. He took some to work the next day, and showed them to one of the engineers he considered a friend. The engineer, Mr. Sato, was amazed. He asked if Mr. Kim had shown his daughter some of the plant’s engineering and reminded him that some of the internal workings in the plant were confidential. Mr. Kim assured him he had not.
That evening, Mr. Sato accompanied Mr. Kim home to meet Etta. During that day, Etta had filled her sketch pad with a variety of machines so advanced, Mr. Sato was without words. He tried to talk to her with Mr. Kim attempting to translate as Etta could only grunt answers to the engineer’s questions.
As they talked, though, Etta suddenly stopped, her eyes going wide, looking at a wall behind them, as if she could see something they could not. Her face turned red with the effort, but she spoke the first full, recognizable words since her accident.
“Tec…tectonic plates are shifting,” she stuttered. “The…ocean…is upset. There’s going to be an earthquake in…soon.”
Mr. and Mrs. Kim and Mr. Sato all looked at each other, mouths hanging open. Mrs. Kim covered her mouth with her hands as tears began to stream down her face. Mr. Kim talked to their daughter first.
“What…do you mean, Etta?” he asked. “How…would you know that?”
Etta looked at him as if he were blind. “I can…see it. You should go,” she said, mechanically. “You…have…time. It won’t hit…for another hour. Go now. Go to that plant and…make it safe.”
“But…,” Mr. Kim began.
Etta grew alarmed. To her it was like the house was on fire and no one else could see the flames but her. “Go now,” she said, raising her voice. “Go now.”
Mr. Kim looked at Mr. Sato, and said, “Maybe we should go?”
Mr. Sato nodded, looking at Etta’s drawings. “Okay,” he said, thoughtfully. “It couldn’t hurt. We could check to make sure the back-up coolers will turn on if there is a power failure. We’re supposed to do that monthly for a drill, but I’ve been so busy the past few months, I haven’t had time.”
Etta stood up and came over to the man. She took his hand in hers and began to squeeze it, so hard he had to pull it away.
“Please,” she said, urgently. “Go now.”
It was an unsettling moment and the men stood up h
esitantly. “I’d…like to come back some time and talk to you about your drawings,” said the engineer.
Etta nodded, then said again, more urgently, “Go now.”
Mr. Kim and the engineer drove back to the plant in conversation, trying to figure out what Etta was going on about, when the first siren in the earthquake warning system sounded.
They finished checking the back-up cooling system when they felt the first tremors. An alarm went off and a recording began telling all personnel to evacuate the building. As Mr. Kim began making his way through the crowd in the parking lot, he looked toward the sea and saw the tide going out so quickly that fish were being left in the sand, flopping about. Having lived through a tsunami when he was a child, he knew what that meant. It was time to go.
They quickly checked the back-up coolers, and found a start-up glitch that was easily traced to a circuit that had been inadvertently left in the “Off” position. It was turned back on, and the men, assured the units were functioning, then raced back to the car. Mr. Kim sped uphill toward the mountaintop and the safety of their home, just as the tsunami began to push into the shoreline.
In the aftermath, thousands of people were displaced when their homes were washed away in the lowlands, and many lives were lost. The nuclear power facility where Mr. Kim worked was mostly destroyed and, though the initial generator coolers did fail, the back-up coolers sustained their function, keeping the nuclear generators stable, and greatly reduced the devastation that could have resulted if the plant had failed.
Mr. Sato mentioned the incident with Etta Kim to a friend who worked with the media. Within a couple of weeks, after some stability was returned to the area and the community was beginning to recover, the Kim’s house was inundated with local journalists, initially, but soon reporters from countries as far away as the United Kingdom and the United States began to show up to meet the girl who could predict tsunamis. Within a few months, Etta Kim was talking better, though she still exhibited some distressful signs of her accident, such as physical tics and broken speech patterns. But she began to write research papers and design machines for engineering industry magazines and businesses. She wrote books and appeared on television shows, though her appearances were often uncomfortable interviews throughout which few people could understand what she was trying to explain.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Washington, D.C.: Present
The man stepped out of his black town car and walked hurriedly across the spongy grass of the oddly vacant Mall, pulling a satellite phone out of his trench coat. He walked along in the shadows of the tree line, while two Secret Service men flanked him at an ordered distance. With his yellow-tinted shooting glasses and wool fedora—a fashion piece he was pleased to see return to style—he was not recognizable. When the phone vibrated, he put it to his ear and talked in whispers.
“Go ahead. Yes, this is an encrypted phone. Can’t be bugged. We can talk. Yes, the President is doing exactly what we thought he’d do. I can say with confidence, Operation Ragnarok begins now. Once our military is in place, we can proceed with the plan. Like we discussed, it doesn’t matter what he decides to do, it’s a no-win outcome for him. If he evacuates, we go to martial law. If he doesn’t evacuate, we give it to the press, people self-evacuate, and we go to martial law. Yes, we have to with that many people moving. No, the National Guard is not going to be a problem, bunch of weekend warriors that’ll wet their pants and run for the hills the first shot we fire over their heads. It’s time we take back our country, General. You just make sure the militias are ready and take care of those loose ends we identified. If someone figures out we moved that device onto the fault line…well, just make sure no one does.”
***
Alexandria, Virginia
Guy McAllister, late sixties, prepared to leave his house. He was one of those guys who always forgets things, so he would get to the door, place his hand on the knob, then turn and look back into the living room, as if it would somehow tell him what he was forgetting. As a former CIA agent and nautical specialist, he had accumulated many things over the years serving his country. There was a plaque on the wall commemorating his 25 years of distinguished service and a picture of him with the President, shaking hands. Another picture of him in his naval uniform, standing in front of a giant submarine that looked like a whale surfacing behind him. There were pictures of his children and their children.
He saw what he was looking for—his car keys—and went back to fetch them off the roll top desk where he did his bills and correspondence. Back to the door, hand on knob, glance back at the room, check pockets. Yes, wallet was there, cell phone, and now keys. Ready to go.
McAllister strolled out to his car, unlocking it with the remote before getting to it. Once in the car, he looked in the rearview mirror and primped his hair. Checked his smile to see if any breakfast lingered in his teeth. Clean and shiny. Satisfied he was ready to go, he pushed the key into the ignition and started the car.
There was a blinding flash and the car erupted into a fire ball that sent pieces of the car onto roofs of nearby houses and set fire to the American flag that stood in front of McAllister’s home.
***
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Former Naval Commander Anthony Johnson was sitting on the wrap-around veranda of his clapboard home near the ocean. He looked like a model from an L.L.Bean catalogue. Handsome face, with just enough weathered lines to give him character. Thick silver streaked hair, combed back stylishly. A large barrel chest balanced over a still trim waist; not bad for a retired, lifelong seaman. He sipped a cup of steaming coffee and watched as a postal carrier approached his house. Funny, it was a little early in the day for mail.
The postman was built like an engine block, short and wide. He stopped, looked to both sides and even turned before approaching the veranda. He was carrying a package tightly under one arm. He walked up the steps mechanically. “Mr. Anthony Johnson?” he inquired.
“Yes?” said Johnson.
“Admiral Johnson?” asked the postman.
“Well, yes. But no one has called me that in a long time…”
The postman pulled his hand from under the package and extended it toward Johnson. It was holding a gun with a long silencer tip attached. The gun went, “Thwit, thwit.”
Johnson dropped his coffee, the ceramic mug shattering as it hit the ground. The former admiral stood, groaned once then fell to the ground, dead.
The postman turned and walked quickly away.
***
A bar in North Harbor, Maine
A group of sailors—burly, unshaven, wearing Navy pea coats—were huddled around the beer-soaked, worn bar. They drank frothy lagers as they waited on their fried fish and chips and told preposterous stories of living on the sea. It was quiet in the bar, other than the rowdy seamen who were all regulars there. It was a Monday, a slow day for business, so the singular waitress who usually worked there was given the day off. The tired bartender wearily dried glasses with a bar rag as he listened to the men’s tales of travel, women who broke their hearts, and exotic ports of call where other women eagerly waited for them. He’d heard all the stories before.
The entry door to the bar slammed open with a shuttering bang. Two men entered, standing stiffly, wearing mirrored sunglasses, their hair in crew cuts. They were dressed in Army fatigues under long trench coats from which they quickly produced semiautomatic weapons.
The bartender was aghast, but managed to utter these last words: “Now, that’s something you don’t see every day.”
The sailors turned to have a look just as the soldiers raised their rifles and opened fire. Several of the men were cut down immediately, but a couple dove over the bar to join the bartender hiding there. One of the soldiers ran over to the bar, looked behind it, and opened fire, hitting everyone who’d attempted to take cover. The soldiers rejoined at the door and looked around before exiting. The bar was quiet again, gun smoke hung in the air like thick fog off the sea
. The two soldiers hid the guns under their long coats and quickly walked out into the cool afternoon.
One of the sailors lying on the ground moaned and coughed, blood flecked his lips. His trembling hand made its way down to his coat pocket and pulled out a cell phone. With one bloody finger, he managed to dial 9-1-1, and croaked, “Help. We need help. We’ve been…shot.” Then, he dropped the phone and lost consciousness.
CHAPTER NINE
Dr. Pevnick and his “test subjects” were back in the library. Pevnick paced the room angrily, his hands alternately pushing through his hair, as if this action might somehow soothe him. It wasn’t working. His jaw muscles were clenched, and there was a vein sticking out on his forehead that the group had not noticed before.
“You needn’t have been so disrespectful, James,” said Pevnick. “I consider the President a friend of mine…not to mention, the leader of the free world!”
“Time, or the lack of it, dictates that I have to be blunt,” said James, his voice without inflection. Then, he added wryly, “Besides, don’t you know savants struggle with social skills?”
“Now you’re just being flippant,” said Pevnick.
James looked down at his feet, taking the scolding and resisting the urge to bend down and re-tie his shoes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Dr. Pevnick went back to pacing the room. He wasn’t ready for James to apologize so quickly. He wished he would say some other smart aleck thing so he could really lay into him, but he was losing his steam. His professional composure was coming back.
Jeremy jumped in, holding up Pevnick’s watch. “Your watch, monsieur. Watch. Watch. Zee time, eet ees per-fect! Now, better zen new.” He paused before adding, “In Edinburgh, eet ees 10:38. Also, I have put my pants on. Oui? Pants on.”
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