Page 81 of The Presidents Shadow

“Anything I can do, small or large, to restore some peace and order to this awful universe is a great privilege.”

I explain to Gutta the intricacies of my planned, somewhat crazy rampage. I further caution him that it is only my personal instinct that the Terrageddon satellite attacks are supported by President Townsend, though executed by Glenn Ambrose.

“This is based partly on my intuition,” I tell Gutta. “I have been wrong before. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

Gutta laughs, then speaks. “Don’t want to? Don’t want to? Listen, Lamont. You are my hero, and there’s no way I’m backing out on a chance to help you save the world.”

After that burst of hope and praise, I tell Gutta that hemust immediately arrange to have a ship fortified with advanced antiaircraft artillery and superior technocommunication capabilities.

“I’m on it. You know that you can depend on me,” he says.

“Yes, I know that.” At least, I think I know that. There is always a tiny bit of doubt that I carry with anyone, everyone. I see potential betrayal everywhere, except within my own family and team.

Even a man who has powers beyond belief cannot work alone. I must trust that Gutta will do as he says.

But my trust extends no further than that.

CHAPTER 104

I AM ALONE. Alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere miles away from the west coast of Africa.

I am alone, standing on the top deck of a Bandon Sapphire 220 battleship, a small, tough, nimble ship that last saw action fifteen years ago, during an unsuccessful Russian invasion of Poland and Germany.

No other crew members, certainly no other passengers.

My battleship is operating by remote navigation. Although Gutta Linderson is thousands of miles away, the multiple onboard cameras, along with my voice commands, help guide his manipulation of the vessel.

The ocean is not gentle. The mid-Atlantic is never a safe location. But my luck, recently astonishingly bad, has changed, at least momentarily. The waves are no higher than a few feet, relatively gentle for this time and place. Gutta has transmitted his evaluation that the winds are significant but not treacherous. There is no other naturalforce at the moment to interfere with the radar tracking and satellite identification of the battleship’s location. In other words, my ship and I can easily be traced by Gutta and by his monitoring allies from among the European coast guards. And most importantly… by the insane and vigilant Glenn Ambrose.

And that is precisely what I want.

CHAPTER 105

OH, DAMN, HOW painfully I feel the wicked wind. I watch the thick, charcoal-gray clouds above. The ocean spray bombards my face and hands like sharp bullets. And yet my power and determination overwhelm whatever fearfulness I might once have had.

It is my chance to confront my enemy. It is my chance to protect the world. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were.

No human voice is strong enough to guarantee that the enemy will hear my message. So I call upon the power inside me to change my physical body.

I must begin. I concentrate. Yes!

My very neck expands. From a twenty-inch circumference it grows into a fifty-inch circumference. I grind my teeth and force my vocal cords to grow and swell and spread. More and more and more, so much that they can barely be contained by the super-huge neck that holds them.

My chest begins to ache. I know my lungs are increasing to match the size of my vocal cords. I recall that Dache always taught me that a charge of new power almost always causes more power to erupt.

I watch the dark and gloomy sky. I watch and a thought erupts in my mind.

Is it merely Glenn Ambrose whom I am bursting to confront? This insignificant little nobody of a clever, well-educated science student. A boy. A child. A brat.

What if Glenn Ambrose is the tiniest cog in a gigantic wheel of evildoers? What if there are a thousand other devils in league with him? What if he is merely a servant to the greatest horrible genius of them all? Could my nemesis, Shiwan Khan, have returned? What if Ambrose is in the control of Satan himself?

I clear my throat. The rumble in my chest is my new and gigantic larynx. It clicks into place with my new vocal cords, my new lungs, my new strength.

It is time to shout to the heavens.

But first a test run.

“I am here!” I scream.

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