Light's Hand

While Americans and people around the world were dealing with terrorist threats, another dangerous challenge had emerged. Mother Earth herself had moved and triggered serious earthquakes around the Pacific Rim. Tidal waves hit the Pacific Rim area hard. Following the powerful earthquakes and a series of aftershocks on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, coastal areas of Japan and Alaska had sustained widespread damage and loss of life from the tsunamis. Seismologists confirmed what many people suspected: the whole Pacific Plate had moved. The decades and centuries of increasing pressure along the plate edges near the west coast of North America and South America all the way to Japan and Asia had finally resulted in the slight but violent slippage of the large plate of Earth’s crust. In general terms, it was a counter-clockwise movement. In California, the San Andreas Fault also trembled from moderate quakes centered near the central coast. Moderate damage occurred from Santa Barbara to Big Sur. When the members of the Joint Reconnaissance Study Group returned to San Diego from Flagstaff, Arizona, coastal areas were cleaning up from huge swells that had washed over the beaches and deposited sand, kelp and sea creatures everywhere up to a quarter mile inland. Three surfers had died foolishly trying to surf huge waves in the aftermath of the quakes. Air Force Captain Amy Mella’s cottage in Pacific Beach had been flooded along with the other buildings in the area. Other JRSG team members who lived near the ocean also returned to find soaked carpets and furnishings of ground-floor homes, condos, and apartments. Amy and Mike Green had driven back to San Diego from Flagstaff with the rest of the JRSG. Once home, they found the soggy neighborhood and a massive cleanup underway in the beach areas. Their commanding officer, Air Force Colonel Tom O’Brien, gave some of the group members time off to take care of their homes. Amy and Mike moved into a nearby motel for a week while the cottage was being cleaned up and new carpet installed. Their third weekend back in San Diego they moved back in. Warm, sunny weather had dried out the neighborhood, though on this Saturday afternoon some streets and sidewalks still were covered by nearly a foot of sand mixed with kelp. The smell of decomposing kelp was ripe in places. “Good thing I had flood insurance on this place, Mike. When I bought it I thought it would be a good investment. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s time to head for higher ground.” Mike had a paintbrush in his hand and was touching up the baseboard trim around the new carpet. “I wonder if the apartment in Hawaii got wet?” he asked. The islands had also been hit by waves from the quakes. “Good question. Colonel O’Brien hasn’t said when or if he wants me back out at the dolphin project at Kaneohe. He’s been too busy with the follow-up from the action up on the Navajo Nation.” “Amy, I’m not sure I even want to go back out to Oahu until the Pacific Plate settles down a little. Besides, all the action in Flagstaff and Navajo land tells me there’s a lot going on right here we need to deal with.” She thought about that as she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a couple of cold beers. “Take a break from painting, honey,” she said as she handed him the bottle. “Let’s sit out on the porch.” As they sat on the small wooden porch outside the front door, Amy and Mike sipped the beers and soaked up the warm sunshine and the gentle salt-air breeze. Mike put his feet up on a small table and closed his eyes. The normalcy of painting parts of the cottage and sitting on the front porch on a sunny Saturday was comforting. Only a couple of weeks ago they were in Flagstaff and the Navajo Nation for a meeting with friends, VIPs, scientists, retired generals, and others. The ancient kiva in a remote hidden canyon on Navajo land had proved interesting indeed. Some kind of anti-gravity force had affected the whole group that night. And the two snipers that Uncle Jack, JRSG members, and the Secret Service had arrested during the same events were undoubtedly being interrogated and investigated. The strange craft that had hovered briefly over the canyon cliffs was still a mystery. Amy was convinced it was a state-of-the-art Air Force stealth aircraft. Mike wasn’t so sure. It felt good to be back in San Diego, back in Pacific Beach. The beach boardwalk nearby had been cleaned off by city crews and was once again humming with the usual activity. Joggers, bikers, skateboarders and folks just out for a leisurely stroll along the beach filled the boardwalk. San Diego lifeguards again patrolled the beach in their sport utility vehicles and Mike had noticed that work crews had made progress cleaning up the mountains of kelp on the beach from the huge waves. Mike and Amy watched surfers patiently sitting on their boards out on the water, waiting for a good wave. As usual, women in bright-colored, skimpy bikinis added to the beauty of the white sand beach, green palm trees, and the blue sea and sky. They strolled south on the boardwalk, heading to the Mission Beach area. The breeze blowing onshore from the ocean had been almost cold in the early morning. Now, the sun was warming up the air, sand, and the cement boardwalk. Amy had been thinking about the upcoming group meeting on Monday morning. What direction were the three teams of the Joint Reconnaissance Study Group going to take now? “Mike, what do you think we’re going to cover at the meeting on Monday?” He’d been focusing on the beautiful day, the waves, the warm sun tanning his face and shoulders, and the women in bikinis. It took Mike a few seconds to shift gears in his awareness. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get some news on those guys we arrested. I want to know what that big aircraft was, too. And what’s the explanation for fifty people levitating six inches off the ground in that kiva? It’s all too weird. What do you think Colonel O’Brien’s got up his sleeve next?” Amy thought about the two intruders with sniper rifles that night up in Navajo land in the Four Corners area. And she remembered the day near Sedona, Arizona when unknown snipers shot Mike and Bill MacNeil as the JRSG was heading to a meeting in the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness Area. “I know he doesn’t want anybody else shot or hurt while he’s the commanding officer of the group. Tom O’Brien is still haunted by his Air Force days in Vietnam. You know that, Mike.” “The earthquakes and tsunamis from the Pacific Plate movement have got to be a focus area. Those ‘Earth changes’ theories that Dan Wells told us about are getting scary now. I still remember that dream I had about a major natural catastrophe. It’s definitely a national security issue. Maybe the dolphin project can play a part in checking out the underwater fault lines of the Pacific Plate.” Mike was willing to wait until Monday morning to find out what directions the JRSG was heading in. Now that the day was warming up, he noticed people were wading into the ocean and swimming. Kids were boogie boarding on the small waves near shore. A young couple was holding each hand of a toddler as the three waded into a few inches of water. “Did you wear your bikini underneath?” he asked. Amy was wearing short and tight blue jean cut-offs and a T-shirt. “Why? You want to go for a swim?” Mike nodded and they climbed over the short wall of the boardwalk and stepped onto the sand. Both of them took off their running shoes and socks. The sand was warm as they walked toward the ocean. The waves were breaking thirty feet out, then rolled in and gently kissed the beach sand.