Page 45 of The Presidents Shadow

“I can’t stand this. We worked our butts off. We traveled a million miles. The goddamn world is falling apart. And we’re sitting here in an expensive hotel room eating fish sandwiches. We’re doing nothing!”

I nod. “We all feel this way,” I say.

“So?” asks Burbank.

“So, I’m going to do something. We’re going to get out of here and get to work. We’re going to get back to the Americas.”

“I’m sure you can get there by swimming the Atlantic Ocean, Lamont, but what about the rest of us?” asks Tapper.

“We are all going. You’ll see,” I say.

“Great,” says Margo, watching me closely. “Now answer Tapper’s question. How?”

“Don’t worry,” I answer.

“What’s the plan?” asks Tapper.

“Well…” I say. Then I pause, and the pause is alarmingly long.

Shit. I’ve got to come up with a plan.

CHAPTER 63

I DECIDE TO play it by ear.

If Dache ever heard me say that, he’d be through with me. If he thought for a moment that I might give that same advice to Maddy, well… I can’t even imagine what he might say—or do.

But in the horrid confusion of the visits to Kyoto and Copenhagen, with the terrifying knowledge of a global plague, I’ve got to come up with something.

I tell my team that this might be a risky undertaking, but they are all in. As Tapper puts it, “Doing something is better than doing nothing.” I don’t dare let on that this is not always the case, especially when thesomethingcould get us all killed.

We exit through the back stairway of our hotel and end up on an empty side street. But no one told the hungry dogs and rats of Copenhagen that the entire world is on lockdown. The starving animals are out in full force and seem just as desperate as we are. We keep moving.

I mentally summon a taxi’s ignition remote from the pocket of a sleeping driver. With almost no traffic on the streets, the ride should take only twenty minutes. With an added microelectronic engine boost from me, we’ll be at our destination in two.

We arrive at an empty airport, no people, no noise, no loudspeaker. Margo looks around, her voice echoing when she says, “It’s not normal. It actually scares me.”

I tell her, “None of this is normal. The entire world is not normal. This night, this moment is not normal.”

The arrivals board is completely blank. The departures board lists only three destinations, all of them showing the same status.

FRANKFURT, GER canceled

MILAN, IT canceled

AMSTERDAM, NETH canceled

We walk quickly from one terminal to another. But we are lost in this vast auditorium of luggage carts with no luggage, and food counters with no customers. Every few hundred yards exit doors promiseTAXAER, but we don’t need a taxi, we need a miracle. And that’s sort of what happens, although I must say that this miracle is a veryminormiracle.

A sign over a huge steel door declaresKUNAUTORISERETPERSONALE. I’ve seen this same sign so many times and in so many languages that I know it translates as “authorized personnel only.”

We ignore that warning, of course, and we find ourselves in a terminal of the Copenhagen airport markedAIRCARGO. This terminal is as empty and creepy as the passenger terminal. Through one of the loading gate windows I can see a plane, near a stack of shipping containers on the ground, waiting to be loaded. I’d gamble that it’s a plane that was gassed up and ready to roll, only to be halted like the rest of us.

I head through the exit door that I’ve strong-willed open with my mental forces, and tell my group to follow me onto the tarmac. Inside the plane, I use the same mind strength to unlatch the cockpit.

We’re inside. On the copilot’s side of the controls the screen is frozen, but a piece of information lingers on the display. It shows a weather and route map with a very simple heading.

DESTINATION: NEW YORK CITY.

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