And then, from the jungle behind them, a sudden burst of machine-gun fire opened up. The men on the beach were alarmed now, swinging their guns, looking this way and that.

"Screw it," Jennifer said, taking Evans's rifle. "This is it. It won't get any better."

And firing, she ran out onto the beach.

The crocodile had charged Kenner with frightening speed. He had little more than a glimpse of huge white jaws open wide and thrashing water before he fired with his machine gun. The jaw smashed down, just missing his leg; the animal writhed, twisted, and attacked again, jaws closing on a low-hanging branch.

The bullets hadn't done anything. Kenner turned and ran, sprinting down the streambed. Kenner turned and ran, sprinting down the streambed.

The croc roared behind him.

Jennifer was running across the sand, heading for the nearest tent. She went about ten yards before two bullets struck her left leg and knocked her down. She fell onto hot sand, still firing as she fell. She saw the guard at the entrance to the tent drop. She knew he was dead.

Evans came up behind her and started to crouch down. She shouted, "Keep going! Go!" Evans ran forward, toward the tent.

On the ship, the men halted the descent of the submarine, stopping the winch. Now they could hear the gunshots coming from the beach. They had all rushed to the starboard side of the ship, and now they were looking over the railing, trying to see what was going on.

Sanjong went down the deck on the port side. No one was there. He came to the cabin. There was a big board there, dense with electronics. A man in shorts and a T-shirt was crouched over it, making adjustments. At the top of the board were three rows of lights, marked with numerals.

The timing board.

For the undersea detonations.

Sarah and Morton were sprinting along the edge of the beach, staying close to the jungle, as they headed for the second tent. The man outside the tent saw them almost at once and was firing bursts of machine-gun fire at them, but he must have been very nervous, Sarah thought, because he wasn't hitting them. Branches and leaves snapped all around them from the bullets. And with every step, they were getting close enough for Sarah to fire back. She was carrying Morton's pistol. At twenty yards, she stopped and leaned against the nearest tree trunk. She held her arm stiffly and aimed. The first shot missed. The second one hit the man outside the tent in the right shoulder, and he dropped his gun in the sand. Morton saw it, and left the forest, running across the sand toward the tent. The man was struggling to get up. Sarah shot again.

And then Morton disappeared inside the tent. And she heard two quick gunshots and a scream of pain.

She ran.

Evans was inside the tent. He faced a wall of chugging machinery, a huge complex of twisting pipes and vents, ending in a flat, round plate eight feet wide, set about two feet above the surface of the sand. The generator was about seven feet high; all the metal was hot to the touch. The noise was deafening. He didn't see anybody there. Holding his rifle ready-painfully aware that the magazine was empty-he swung around the first corner, then the second.

And then he saw him.

It was Bolden. The guy from the Antarctic. He was working at a control panel, adjusting big knobs while he looked at a shaded LCD screen and a row of dials. He was so preoccupied, he didn't even notice Evans at first.

Evans felt a burst of pure rage. If his gun had been loaded he would have shot him. Bolden's gun was leaning against the wall of the tent. He needed both hands to adjust the controls.

Evans shouted. Bolden turned. Evans gestured for him to put up his hands.

Bolden charged.

Morton had just stepped into the tent when the first bullet struck his ear and the second hit his shoulder. He screamed in pain and fell to his knees. The movement saved his life because the next bullet whined past his forehead, ripping through the tent cloth. He was lying on the ground next to the chugging machinery when the gunman came around, holding his rifle ready. He was a twentyish man, bearded, grim, all business. He aimed at Morton.

And then he fell against the machine, blood hissing as it splattered on hot metal. Sarah was standing inside the tent, firing her pistol once, twice, three times, lowering her arm each time as the man fell. She turned to Morton.

"I forgot you were a good shot," he said.

"You okay?" she said. He nodded. "Then how do I turn this thing off?"

Evans grunted as Bolden smashed into his body. The two men stumbled back against the tent fabric, then forward again. Evans brought the butt of his gun down on Bolden's back, but it had no effect. He kept trying to hit him in the head, but only connected with his back. Bolden, for his part, seemed to be trying to drive Evans out of the tent.

The two men fell to the ground. The machinery was thumping above them. And now Evans realized what Bolden was trying to do.

He was trying to push Evans under the plate. Even by being near the edge, Evans could feel the air vibrating intensely. The air was much hotter here.

Bolden hit Evans in the head, and his sunglasses went flying across the ground, beneath the flat plate. Instantly, they shattered. Then the frames crumpled.

Then they pulverized.

Vanished into nothing.

Evans watched with horror. And little by little, Bolden was pushing him closer to the edge, closer, closer...

Evans struggled, with the sudden strength of desperation. Abruptly, he kicked up.

Bolden's face mashed against hot metal. He howled. His cheek was smoking and black. Evans kicked again, and got out from beneath him. Got to his feet. Standing over Bolden, he kicked him hard in the ribs, as hard as he could. He tried to kill him.

That's for Antarctica.

Bolden grabbed Evans's leg on the next kick, and Evans went down. But he kicked once more as he fell, hitting Bolden in the head, and with the impact, Bolden rolled once.

And rolled under the plate.

His body was half under, half out. It began to shake, to vibrate. Bolden opened his mouth to scream but there was no sound. Evans kicked him a final time, and the body went entirely under.

By the time Evans had dropped to his hands and knees, to look under the plate, nothing was there. Just a haze of acrid smoke.

He got to his feet, and went outside.

Glancing over her shoulder, Jennifer ripped her blouse with her teeth and tore a strip of cloth for a tourniquet. She didn't think an artery had been hit, but there was a lot of blood on one leg and a lot of blood in the sand, and she was feeling a little dizzy.

She had to keep watching because there was one more tent, and if the guys from that tent showed up...

She spun, raising her gun as a figure emerged from the forest.

It was John Kenner. She lowered the gun.

He ran toward her.

Sanjong fired into the glass in front of the control deck, but nothing happened. The glass didn't even shatter. Bulletproof glass, he thought in surprise. The technician inside looked up in shock. By then Sanjong was moving toward the door.

The technician reached for the control switches. Sanjong fired twice, once hitting the technician, once aiming for the control panel.

But it was too late. Across the top of the panel, red lights flashed, one after another. The undersea detonations were taking place.

Automatically, a loud alarm began to sound, like a submarine claxon. The men on the other side of the ship were shouting, terror in their voices, and with good reason, Sanjong thought.

The tsunami had been generated.

It was only a matter of seconds now before it would hit them.

RESOLUTION BAY.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14.

4:43 P.M.

The air was filled with sound.

Evans ran from the tent. Directly ahead he saw Kenner lifting Jennifer in his arms. Kenner was shouting something, but Evans couldn't hear. He could vaguely see that Jennifer was soaked in blood. Evans ran for the jeep, jumped in, and drove it over to Kenner.

Kenner put Jennifer in the back. She was breathing shallowly. Directly ahead, they saw Sarah helping Morton into the other jeep. Kenner had to shout over the noise. For a minute Evans couldn't understand.

Then he realized what Kenner was saying. "Sanjong! Where is Sanjong!"

Evans shook his head. "Morton says he's dead! Rebels!"

"Do you know for sure?"

"No!"

Kenner looked back down the beach.

"Drive!"

Sarah was in the car, trying to hold Morton upright and drive at the same time. But she had to let go of him to shift gears, and as soon as she did he'd flop over against her shoulder. He was wheezing, breathing with difficulty. She suspected that his lung was punctured. She was distracted, trying to count in her head. She thought it was already ten seconds since the landslide.

Which meant they had fifteen seconds to get up the hill.

Sanjong leapt from the ship to the trees on the shore. He grabbed a handful of leaves and branches. He scrambled down to the ground and began to climb the hill frantically. On the ship, the men saw him, and they jumped, too, trying to follow him.

Sanjong guessed that they all had half a minute before the first wave struck. It would be the smallest wave, but it would still probably be five meters high. The runup-the splash on the hillside-could be another five meters. That meant he had to scramble at least thirty feet up the muddy slope in the next thirty seconds.

He knew he would never make it.

He couldn't do it.

He climbed anyway.

Sarah drove up the muddy track, the jeep slipping precariously on the incline. Beside her, Morton was not saying anything and his skin had turned an ugly blue gray. She yelled, "Hold on, George! Hold on! Just a little!" The jeep fishtailed in the mud, and Sarah howled in panic. She downshifted, grinding gears, got control, and continued up. In the rearview mirror, she saw Evans behind her.

In her mind, she was counting: Eighteen.

Nineteen.

Twenty.

From the third tent on the beach, two men with machine guns jumped into the last remaining jeep. They drove up the hill after Evans, firing at him as they drove. Kenner was firing back. The bullets shattered Evans's windshield. Evans slowed.