Page 92 of The Presidents Shadow

“I’m going inside to examine this room,” I tell Jericho. “It looks like you’ve got Ambrose under control.”

Without taking his eyes off the tied-up Ambrose, Jericho nods and says he’ll yell if he needs me.

Then I step into the cave.

The room is just as simple and modest inside as it appeared to be when I glanced in.

Two large computer screens. Two large keyboards, onewith the English alphabet, the other with the Russian alphabet. Two large closets. The first closet that I open holds nothing but three white shirts on three wooden hangers, as well as a small refrigerator. The refrigerator is empty. I open the second closet. It, too, is empty but for another small refrigerator, the twin of the refrigerator next door. I open this refrigerator. This appliance is holding a metal case about the size of a shoebox. The metal case has an ordinary-looking plastic light switch on its top. Next to it is the wordIGNITE.

This must be the mighty Terrageddon.

This is, of course, not the time to test the switch.

I lift the box. It’s deceptively heavy, certainly at least ten pounds. I am still holding and examining the box when I hear Jericho’s voice coming from outside the room.

“Lamont, come out here,” he shouts.

And so I go quickly outside and see that Ambrose is squirming and struggling against his wire confinement. Somewhat foolishly, he is trying to break free. But given the strength of the steel wires encasing him, I know that Ambrose is waging a losing battle.

It turns out that I am very wrong. The wiring around his chest begins to break. Then the wiring around his stomach bursts open. How is this possible? Has young Ambrose managed to harness radioactivity inside his own body? Has he transferred some of the power of Terrageddon into his own flesh?

Somehow his very struggles and actions seem to havecreated other reactions within the cave, as if the machines inside are reacting to the movements of their maker. He must have created some kind of electrical connection between himself and the technology he has spawned.

As Glenn Ambrose begins to break free, the natural world around us immediately begins to turn violent. I don’t know how, but clearly the man himself has become Terrageddon.

The sky turns dark, very dark, almost too dark to see clearly beyond a few feet.

Thunder. Lightning. And then a terrible shaking earth beneath us.

As fast as our world turned dark and ominous, so does it instantaneously return to enormous brightness. Exquisite quiet. Complete stillness.

Jericho and I look back at Glenn Ambrose. He is standing. He looks at the two of us. He is free of his bonds, but he makes no attempt to move. Tendrils of electricity run across his skin, illuminating it in a blue glow.

“It worked!” he cries, raising his hands in victory.

The lovely quiet is pierced by an ear-splitting thunderclap, and a bolt of lightning tears through the sky.

Then we watch as Glenn Ambrose bursts into flames.

CHAPTER 117

I STAND TREMBLING in this splendid new atmosphere of clear skies and brilliant brightness. What does that matter? I have just witnessed a human being become a pile of ash in seconds.

I look down at the ground where Ambrose was just standing. All that is left of him is a small pile of gray ashes and a few charred bones, some of which are still on fire.

“What the hell is going on, Lamont?” Jericho asks. It is more of a sad plea than an actual question. But I have no answer, and even if I did have an answer, I feel so weak from shock that I can barely speak.

“Lamont, answer me, please,” Jericho pleads.

I manage, with great effort, to get out the words “I think he managed to transfer some of the power of Terrageddon into his own body. But he did not account for the frailty of human flesh.”

The steel box that I carried from inside the cave drops from my hands. It lands very close to Ambrose’s remains. Iwonder if the box itself—the original Terrageddon—still holds any power, or if it’s all evaporated along with Ambrose.

Jericho suddenly bends at the waist, grabbing his midsection.

“Lamont, I can’t… I can’t…” He falls to the ground next to the fiery remains of Ambrose, which is when I notice a sliver of rock protruding from his belly. It must have been blown into his body from the force of the lightning strike, but shock kept him free of pain until this moment.

I give my full attention now to Jericho, touching the side of his neck with two of my fingers. Yes, there is a pulse.

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