Page 56 of The Presidents Shadow

Maddy decides wisely to use her innate physical powers. She wriggles and twists, her bound limbs aching, to make the very short journey to the trunk. She squirms to her knees, gingerly edging the tips of her fingers under the lid of the trunk. With her hands bound, she’s unable to lift it very far. Slowly, she lowers her head to glance inside. It takes a few seconds to adjust to the low light inside the trunk.

She looks. She registers the contents inside. She pulls her hands away. The trunk snaps shut.

She cannot believe what she’s just seen.

CHAPTER 75

I AM SCHEDULED to have a top secret one-on-one meeting with Dr. Carl Laksa, one of the world’s top geologists. Dr. Laksa, Indonesian-born, has just completed a virtual three-day seminar with three other geologists at the University of Peru; they have come to the same conclusion as my team and I—these natural disasters are most likely man-made in origin. After they agreed on this, the four seminar participants became fearful for their lives, and Dr. Laksa informed me that he believes he is being followed.

For this reason, Dr. Laksa did not want to let me know his current address, no matter how secure I assured him my own personal devices to be. Right now, I’m waiting at the Hunts Point bus station, where I was told he would meet me.

When an unshaven middle-aged man wearing a filthy once-white ski jacket and equally filthy brown gaberdinetrousers that bunch at the ankles stumbles toward me, I’m not particularly frightened, because I see right through his disguise. Dr. Laksa may be an eminent geologist, but he’s no actor.

“Mr. Cranston?” the make-believe bum asks, leaning in.

“Yes,” I say. “Dr. Laksa?”

“Yes,” he says. Then he immediately adds, “Please try to look disgusted and repelled by me. Someone is probably watching us. Now… get ready to yell at me.”

Then, in a loud voice, Laksa says, “C’mon, man, a dollar. A dollar. I gotta get some food.”

“Leave me alone,” I say sternly.

“Just a dollar,” Laksa says.

“Get the hell away from me.”

As Laksa staggers away, he speaks quickly and softly.

“Shamrock Hotel, 650 West 42nd Street, room 201. In thirty minutes.”

The Shamrock Hotel, far west on 42nd Street, is disgusting. A small lobby contains one severely ripped leather sofa and a matching chair covered with the random crusts of a pizza party. No one is manning the shabby front desk, so I take the back stairs to room 201, where I’m greeted by Dr. Carl Laksa.

Dr. Laksa is now dressed as the perfect example of a college professor: rimless eyeglasses, brown and gray plaid wool sports coat, brown corduroy pants.

“I almost didn’t recognize you out of costume,” I say.

Laksa neither laughs nor smiles. Obviously this is going to be a serious meet-up.

“Welcome, Mr. Cranston,” says Laksa. “I realize that this room is a less than ideal meeting place, and I apologize for the playacting on the street, but at least nobody can spy on us. The only ones watching us will be the cockroaches and an occasional rat.”

Then he says, “I brought these.”

I am expecting him to produce elaborate plans, or, at the very least, a file full of hot information. Instead, Laksa reaches into his small metal briefcase and takes out two large cans of Pellegrino water. He hands me one of the mineral waters and says, “I brought my own, as the Shamrock Hotel room service leaves something to be desired.”

The professor goes on. “I’m going to give you a verbal report, Mr. Cranston. Hence, we will not leave any confidential data information behind for enemy sleuths.”

My body tenses as I prepare to hear Dr. Laksa out. How much more bad news can a man be asked to stand? The destruction of the Earth by disease? The planet slowly falling apart? How many disasters can collide in my world at once?

“I’m counting on you, Professor. I’m really counting on you,” I say.

“Very well,” says Laksa, and I can’t help but notice a note of satisfaction on his face. He is a man who is accustomed to being treated as important.

And what an extraordinary font of important material he is.

“On the second day of my video conference with my esteemed colleagues, I received a message from a former student of mine. His name is Glenn Ambrose.”

“He was a student of yours in Peru?”

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