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.'Washington has arranged the flight.We have time to spare.'Alvarez put his mouth close to Tweed's ear, kept his voice down.'For Washington read Cord Dillon.'The Chinook was lifting off, higher and higher, then it began its flight north, over the ocean.Entering the main cabin Tweed had the impression the Chinook had been furnished for top brass.Rows of comfortable double seats lined both port and starboard with a central aisle, occupied the fuselage.Vanity was sitting next to Newman, who waved cheerily.Tweed chose a seat by himself on the starboard side next to a window.It gave him a view of the coast.They had passed Monterey and he estimated they must be close to Moss Landing when, looking down, he saw in the moonlight the Kebir, twin dredger with the Baja.As he watched, a tremendous explosion shook the Chinook.The helicopter bucked, but the pilot had it under control within seconds.Paula had moved forward, seated herself beside Tweed just before the explosion.'What on earth was that?' she asked."The second Xenobium bomb detonating.Ethan's work.Look down.'She leaned over him, stared.The Kebir had keeled over, was wallowing in a turmoil of surf and raging water.As she watched it sank, as though sucked down by some enormous force.A tidal wave appeared, more like a mountain than a wave.It drove forward to the coast, inundated it, continued inland across the flatlands until she could no longer see it.She sat down, let out her breath.'It looks like a cauldron down there.''It is a cauldron.Lord knows what's happening to the south of us c'The San Moreno earthquake, combined with the detonation of the Xenobium bombs, produced the colossal reaction Professor Weatherby had eventually feared.The tectonic plate off California was shifted under the coast.The results were catastrophic.Starting just north of Los Angeles, a gigantic chasm opened up in the Earth's surface.In certain areas it ran inland, in others it destroyed the coast for ever.LA itself did not escape the devastation.Several buildings constructed of two wings at right angles to each other split apart.Shudderings from the ground travelled up the buildings, increased in ferocity as they reached the tops.The buildings broke in two, one wing going one way, the other in a different direction.Cars parked in the streets were flattened like sardine cans.Because they were office buildings and it was after working hours casualties were light.Not so in homes on the edge of the sprawling city.People inside concrete structures were crushed.Further away pictures were shaken off walls, ornaments crashed off mantelpieces, doors broke loose from their hinges.All this was nothing compared with what happened when the chasm opened from Santa Barbara north to San Francisco.After being knocked to the ground by Brand at Black Ridge, Ethan was terrified by what he had released.He ran round the back of the mansion, started to climb the hills looming above, despite the height at which the mansion stood.He had reason to be scared out of his wits - he knew what was coming.The ocean gathered itself up into one of the most feared products of a major earthquake - a tsunami, the Japanese term for a mighty tidal wave.Scrambling up the slope, he paused for breath, looked back and screamed.A wave higher than Black Ridge, a monster in the moonlight, green with a curl of surf at its summit, rolled majestically forward.At that moment Ethan felt the ground trembling under his feet.Looking down, he saw a huge chasm ripping the slope asunder.The monster wave slammed against the hillslope, struck him in the back, toppled him into the chasm.Millions of tons of ocean flooded down into the chasm.Ethan was drowned.When it eventually receded the wave took half the coast with it.A landslide shifted the Gothic mansion of Black Ridge, clawed it down the slope as it broke up into a thousand pieces.Other three-million-dollar houses were sliced off the slope, carrying their inhabitants down into the depths of the ocean.The whole landscape in the Big Sur area was transformed into a series of ugly island crags.The chasm continued ripping north, devouring forests, hamlets, highways in the most terrible rampage in the history of man.Ethan had tampered with Nature, had paid the penalty - but so did many others.The earthquake registered 8.9 on the Richter scale.Later, casualties were estimated at 150,000.Tweed realized they were in trouble as the Chinook began its descent on San Francisco International Airport.The pilot landed his machine close to a waiting Boeing 747.The plane was surrounded by State troopers holding guns.'People are panicking trying to board our plane.' he warned Paula.'Poor devils.''Let's just hope we can reach the aircraft.''You'll have to force your way through two files of troopers,' reported the co-pilot who had entered the cabin.'Just keep shoving until you're inside the 747.''I must look after Mrs Benyon.' Tweed said.'I'll help you,' Paula insisted.'It's chaos out there.'It was worse than that, Tweed thought, glancing out of the window.He stiffened.In the distance he saw the lights of a Lear jet moving down a runway.As it passed near an overhead glare light he read the huge letters painted on the fuselage.AMBECO.The jet took off, climbing rapidly as it gained height.Vincent Bernard Moloch was leaving America.43There is nothing more frightening than a panic-stricken mob stampeding out of sheer terror
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