Chapter 14

The live video of the asteroid tsunami was apocalyptic. With so much of the world under full time surveillance, it was not surprising that the news networks had access to live shots as the tidal waves crushed everything in its path as they swept entire cities into the sea. There was no telling what the death toll would reach.

As the first wave approached the Syrian, Turkish and Lebanese coasts, the entire ocean seemed to shrink back hundreds of feet. It looked like a good thing until all at once the incoming wave seemed to suck all the light out of the sky. Climatologists speculated that by the time the asteroid hit the sea it was nine-hundred yards wide and just as deep. The impact into relatively shallow water created an instant crater in the water over one-hundred and seventy feet deep and well over a mile across. The sea literally shook as the asteroid blasted to the sea bottom.

We watched in horror as a wall of water that looked to be higher than the Empire State Building, rose from the exposed ocean bed, and curled over to obliterate everything it touched. Angela shrieked as we saw scores of victims lifted into the air and tossed onshore like children’s play toys. The scene was well beyond anything Hollywood could have created with a computer. These were real people, real families, and real children.

I wanted to look away, but couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away.

The video did not include real time sound. The networks seemed to agree that hearing the screams and pleas of the condemned would be too traumatic.

That would all come later.

The wall of water roared on shore at something over sixty miles per hour, crushing every single thing it encountered. Buildings literally dissolved onscreen. Roads and bridges seemed to vanish in a blink.

It was too much.

And it could have been our west coast, instead of Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. Our families could have been crushed under billions of tons of racing water.

When I finally looked away, Angela, Laney, Gloria, and Crystal were crying. There tears matched my feeling precisely. Zeke was holding Laney. Charles had his arms around Gloria, while Jeff comforted Crystal. Angela and I walked inside to our bedroom, where I held her until the wracking sobs quieted. Dinner was going to have to wait.

The television was our constant companion as damage and death tolls were delivered in monotones. The confirmed number of dead exceeded five million by bedtime. How anyone confirmed anything in that chaos was so far beyond me as to be unfathomable. No one could begin to estimate the economic damage to the region. Israel announced they were launching rescue caravans full of doctors, nurses, and paramedics. They would arrive first, but every undamaged country seemed to agree to let old hostilities die, while they did what they could to help.

The U.N. attempted to take first place, but public outcry put a hard stop to it. No one was willing to give them the opportunity to steal these poor, devastated people blind, like they did in Haiti and so many other places.

Hawk went on national television and announced that Samaritans Purse would be the official response agency of the Unites States. Breaking with tradition, Hawk put the only people in charge who wouldn’t rob, rape, and steal at every opportunity. The U.N. representatives howled, and were immediately ignored by virtually everyone, everywhere. The prime Minister of Israel of Israel went so far as to announce that ANY United Nations representatives found on the ground in the affected areas would be arrested and removed. Hawk and Vladimir Putin echoed those sentiments within minutes. Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria were not going to be sacrificed to a U.N. force that was out of control, corrupt to the core, and as violent as a bunch of psychotic African drug lords.

We needed to be helping and I began to try and put a plan together. We had plenty of money, in a limited fashion, but it was plenty to help get things started.

That’s when I decided to call Colleen and try to access my previous fortunes...

All I got was a phone company recording that the number I dialed was not in service, or disconnected.

I tried the law firm with the same result.

Confused by that bit of information, I looked for the Bell Law Firm on the internet and hit a dry hole. Google had nothing to offer when I surfed the net seeking information on any of my former family.

Then things got unimaginable worse.

Neither Andrea, nor Cassandra seemed to exist. The entire internet had never heard of anyone that I loved, cared for, saved, or bedded.

How DO you explain that?

Why hadn’t I tried this in the months previous?

What in the wide world was going on?

The universe couldn’t be that deranged that it would drop me back into the world with no connection to the people who made me the person I was?

And then the most important question hit me?

Why?

Why did the universe leave me naked as far as the support I’d been able to tap into in my many previous lives?

For hours I searched for those I knew, loved and was loved by. Angela and I surfed for information about Thomas DeBusque and came up empty. Did that mean the Judge was not in this timeline?

What did all this mean?

I had no idea.

That was the only true thing I could be sure of. I Had No Idea...

Oh ... And I had no time to waste. People were dying by the millions and any help I could offer had to be moving to the Middle East right now.