Page 18 of The Presidents Shadow

A man pushes through the crowd in a flat-out run, coming from the direction of the Charles River. The character of the throng changes, verging on panic.

I have to get to Dr. Henry’s office. Now. Fast. I think I can snake through the crowd sideways. Total focus and total determination have always been my best friends. I’m on it. Tapper and Hawkeye will catch up with me at the rendezvous point.

CHAPTER 23

SQUEEZING THROUGH. MOVING roughly. Sideways, shoulder first, it takes me exactly six minutes to arrive at the recently unveiled Harvard Hall of Science. I turn back to look at the crowd, but they are lost in a fog bank, like smoke from a nearby town. I know it’s the steam rising from the bubbling, boiling water.

The doors of the Hall of Science fly open as students, professors, and men and women in white lab coats all hurry out of the building. Most of them head for the river, carrying beakers and racks of test tubes. Inside, I stop three ordinary campus security guards who are rushing out.

“Have you seen Dr. Atticus Henry?” I shout.

“I don’t know who the hell I’ve seen,” one of them says. Then they disappear into the crowd.

I glance at the framed office directory on the lobby wall and learn that Dr. Henry has an office and lab on the tenth floor. The highest floor. The elevators have been locked down. Great.

I run up the service stairway to the tenth floor, a long hallway that’s completely deserted. When I locate Dr. Henry’s office, I don’t stop to knock. I barge in and find a distinguished-looking white-haired man, perhaps seventy years old. This must be Dr. Henry.

Dr. Henry is calmly pressing some buttons on a handheld computer. He looks up at me and smiles.

“Ah, you must be my three-o’clock appointment. Mr. Cranston, I presume.”

CHAPTER 24

DR. HENRY EXTENDS his hand. He bows slightly and smiles warmly. I’m wondering if it’s possible that he doesn’t even know that the Charles is steaming, even boiling, that people are fleeing. This doctor is no wild and crazy old scientist. He’s very calm.

“You’ve certainly chosen an interesting time for your visit,” says Dr. Henry.

“It seems so,” I say. “I’m here to seek your advice on the events in Copenhagen and Kyoto.”

Still smiling, he goes on. “Yes. Kyoto, Copenhagen… and now we seem to be having an interesting event occurring right here in Cambridge.”

So Dr. Henrydoesknow what’s going on a half mile from his office. But if he’s at all worried, it doesn’t show. He motions me over to a large computer screen.

“Pull up a chair,” he says, moving a steel workbench in front of the computer. “You will have a front-row seat to watch the end of the world.”

I force a tiny laugh, assuming he’s joking.

I am a smart guy. Some people even think I’m a sensitive guy. My history has certainly proven that. But I can’t figure out what the deal is with Atticus Henry. Is he always so overwhelmingly calm, even with the horrors in Japan and Denmark? Even with a toxic river in his own front yard? Does he know something about these events that I don’t?

“You are about to see a close-up of the destruction in Kyoto and Copenhagen,” says Dr. Henry. He touches his handheld device and the big computer screen fills with a picture of murky brownish water.

“This is the bottom of the sea surrounding Copenhagen,” he says.

“Off the coast of Denmark?” I ask.

“More or less. It is specifically the bottom of the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Copenhagen.” He pauses, and for the first time he looks and sounds animated. “This is my first historical video. But there’s more.”

He taps a few more buttons. A new video begins.

“Look at that!” he says, and we both watch as the screen fills with huge bursts of orange and red and yellow. I’m not certain what I’m looking at. Insane fireworks?

Dr. Henry pushes a few more buttons. The screen dissolves to another scene—dry, cracking, splitting land. Massive pieces of earth tumbling and tumbling.

“What’s happening?” I say.

“Hell is happening,” he says. “Hell is coming out to visit.An earthquake deep below the ocean itself has cracked open the ocean floor. Magma is spewing out from the very center of the Earth.”

“Magma?”

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