AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What is happening?” Guan-yin asked, staring back at the bay.
Gray pointed to the east. The dark skies shone with fire, as if the sun were rising. “Volcanic eruption.”
And it was not just in that direction. All around, fiery patches dotted the horizon with distant flames. Booms continued, as if marking the end of the world.
They reached the city and fled away from the bay, knowing another tsunami would surely hit. Though the quake had not been fierce or prolonged, it must have set off a chain reaction across the volcanic chain of islands, something the geologists had predicted. Already, a hint of sulfurous brimstone reached him, blown by the stiff wind off the bay, coming from the direction of the brightest flames.
As they fled through the city, the streets grew crowded. Faces stared toward the fiery horizon. Lightning flared in jagged bolts, illuminating a black plume rising from a glowing caldera.
“Over here!” Zhuang yelled.
The triad lieutenant led them unerringly off the streets as panic and shouts grew. He drew them into an alleyway and down a crooked course, before stopping at a nondescript tall gate.
“We’ll be safe in here,” Zhuang said.
Gray doubted this, but he followed the others into a small courtyard. Three stories of balconied levels surrounded them. He stared up as the stars slowly faded, erased by the smoke rolling in.
A light fall of ash rained down. The flakes stung his cheek and forehead, still retaining the heat of the eruption.
The booming had finally gone silent, but it felt more like the world was taking a deep breath before it truly unleashed Armageddon.
Gray felt a buzzing from the inner pocket of his jacket. He removed the sat-phone—the one supplied to their group back in Singapore. Only one person had this number.
Gray lifted the phone to his ear. “Director Crowe.”
“Gray,” Painter said. “Thank God, you’re still okay. You and the others need to get out of that region. Projections are for a total geological collapse. It’s going to become hell on earth over there.”
“What about the Chinese, their submarine—”
“It’s the least of anyone’s concern.”
Gray stared toward the streets.
Not to the Chinese.
Still, Gray had his own worry. “Were you able to warn Monk and Kowalski?”
The phone remained silent for a long stretch. Gray feared he had lost the connection.
Painter finally spoke. “Kat has tried to reach them since she landed in D.C. Both theTitan Xand the project’s base station in the Coral Sea have gone silent. We’re trying to access an NSA surveillance satellite, but neighboring islands—both the Kermadec chain near the Tonga Trench and the Solomon Islands near the Titan Project—started erupting two hours ago.”
Gray swallowed. That was long before the quake here.
“Reports are of heavy ash obscuring the area,” Painter said. “At the moment, we have no optical sightlines. Even our SAR satellites—which can normally pierce thick clouds and smoke—are failing to offer any clarity due to the heavy static charge of the ash clouds. Or possibly it could be due to EW jamming by hostiles. Maybe both.”
Gray stared up. The stars were completely occluded now. He sought shelter under a balcony as the ash fell heavier, swirling with fiery flakes.
“We’ll keep trying to raise them,” Painter promised. “Right now, you have to get clear of the area before all flights are grounded.”
“It may be too late for that.”
“Then get to a boat.”
Gray heard a distant rumbling and cracking coming from the direction of the bay. He recognized that ripping growl from yesterday. A tsunami had struck the coast, likely pushed out from the nearby volcanic eruption.
He remembered not only his own experience, but also the accounts he had read from two centuries ago, when Mount Tambora had erupted. He also knew who had been here. Sir Stamford Raffles. History was repeating itself, only a hundredfold worse.
While he had only a short time to review the pages recovered from the museum, he remembered Raffles’s words in the introduction of his account:The only hope for the world lies within the pages that follow.
