Page 84 of The Presidents Shadow

“The ship is turning upside down!” shouts Maddy, reporting on what they all can see for themselves. They watch asLamont is dumped mercilessly into the raging water, and they wait breathlessly for him to appear above the ocean. They wait. They watch. But of course, it does not happen. Lamont does not appear. As the seconds turn into minutes, they all watch the gigantic swells, the extraordinary churning of the ocean, the disappearance of the remnants of the battleship, and they each tremble with fear.

They see what the lost Lamont cannot see. Terrible drones hovering near the ocean’s surface send explosions of power slamming into the water. They see the tons of dirt and sand and plant life spewing up from the Atlantic floor like volcanoes into the dark air.

Maddy breaks out from her tough composure and yells.

“Can we do something? Can we do anything?” she asks. Then she begins a kind of incessant babbling. “Anything? Something! We have to help. We have to do something!”

Grandma Jessica speaks. “There is nothingwecan do. Any salvation that arrives must come from Lamont himself.”

But without discussing the matter, it seems they all know that there is little that even Lamont can do.

As they watch the unrelenting assault from the sky above into the water below, their monitoring system shifts away from its current focus. For just a second, they see the bow of the ship appear above the water once more. But there is no time for hope. The ship disappears back into the water.

Everyone watches with baited breath, waiting for a figure to resurface.

It doesn’t.

“Oh, no, oh, no,” Margo says, her head dropping into her hands.

Jessica jumps in, not giving up hope just yet. “Wait a second. Just wait a second. Do you see that wake? There’s something very large swimming. It’s making its way toward land.”

Burbank touches two icons, zooming in.

“Is that… is that?” Hawkeye asks, his nose almost touching the screen.

“For God’s sake, man!” Burbank sputters. “Back up so the rest of us can see!”

When Hawkeye does, the team can make out a large animal crawling out of the tide and onto the shore.

“He’s aPakicetus!” Maddy yells.

“A pack-a-what’s-is?” Tapper asks.

Burbank twists three dials on the control panel. Then he moves two screen icons to the right side. These actions make the scene a bit clearer, as the animal collapses onto the shore.

But the ocean isn’t done with Lamont yet. Suddenly, the tide begins to rise, overwhelming the beached animal.

“Wake up! Wake up!” Margo yells.

As if he can hear her, the animal begins crawling once again, although it’s form is better suited to swimming. It moves slowly, the tide licking at it.

“Oh, no,” Hawkeye says, pointing to a large wave that is forming farther out in the ocean.

“Run!” Maddy yells. “Or change into something else! Something better on land.”

The thought must occur to Lamont at the same time, as the animal suddenly blurs, shifts, and becomes a tree.

They all watch the screen as if they’re hypnotized. They watch the tree grow larger, the roots digging into the earth for sustenance and strength. It gains purchase and stands against the wave as it batters the shore. Strong and healthy, it withstands the sea, and the waters recede. And then, just as the tree is blossoming with new life and restored energy, the screen goes blank again. Burbank does anything he can to restore visual power. He twists dials, pushes buttons; he even bangs the screen with his fists.

“Something’s happened. The connection is gone. It could be a result of the explosive condition of the oceanic attack, or it could simply be the evil work of the person or persons manipulating the attack,” he says.

It is two o’clock in the morning. Tapper announces that all they can do is wait for a reconnection and hope for Lamont to reappear.

Margo says that she will remain on watch in the communications lab to see what happens. “The rest of you go rest the best you can.”

Grandma Jessica says she will relieve Margo in one hour.

Jericho says that he must catch a nap in order to be of use later. Burbank, Tapper, and Hawkeye second this.

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