Jeff lives in a moderately luxurious home in Sugarloaf Country Club, Duluth, Georgia, if there is such a thing as moderate luxury in Sugarloaf.
His Sugarloaf Club Drive home, at 5600 square feet, was one of the smaller homes in the area but was attired with a remarkable pool with island bar, spa and waterfalls. At night, the tubular LED lighting encircling the pool perimeter, just under the lip of the edging stones, cast an ever-changing light across the crystal-clear water, an alternating pink, then blue and then green glow, seducing his guests into the pool’s artificially cooled water.
The water falls were situated above the pool on three separate levels, three falls in total; and the water flowed from the falls, down the sculptured rock, into the spa and then the pool where the water was recirculated in a continuous flow. Jeff was one of the area’s more successful bachelors and had little trouble attracting women. As of late however, Jeffrey’s interest in “finding someone” had waned. Tonight however, his new friend, Judi Ellis from Park Place Café, would join Jeff and his guests.
After a day of golf, everyone met at Jeff’s home for showers and then, relaxation. Jeff’s next door neighbors, the Faheys, came over to meet his friends. He introduced Toni and Terry as the neighbors who let Jeff have the use of their car when his friends had been visiting just a few weeks earlier.
“Remember? Toni and Terry let you use their new Buick when they were in St. Louis,” he told Chad.
“You didn’t tell them about the dent in the trunk did you?”
The evening was young, and the spirits jubilant, considering… “Do you have a date tonight, Jeffrey?” Sheryl knew Jeff well and understood he still had a thing for Melissa. He hadn’t experienced a serious relationship since his divorce; but he did still have an eye for the ladies, at least the pretty ones.
“I do, believe it or not. Someone I recently met at Park Place.
I think you’ll like her.” Jeff seemed excited for a change.
This night, the laughter flowed from the pool area like a ground fog on a winter’s day, invading the 3 acre mini-estate but bothering none of Jeff’s neighbors. For the most part, the day had ended after eighteen holes at the Sugarloaf Country Club, one of the South’s premiere golf courses. Sheryl was elaborating on The Admiral’s pitiful game.
“Did you see that shot? The Admiral’s new $ 400 driver helps him hit a lot farther into the woods!” Sheryl laughed all over herself, relaxing on the deck overlooking Jeff’s pool. The temperatures lately were too hot for playing golf, and she was happy they were all in shape and now sequestered around the comfort and privacy of Jeff’s outdoor gardens and water falls.
The patio area, tiled in light-blue slate, reflected much of the heat, unlike the dark-stained wood of a deck. The area was cooled by two separate air conditioning systems, blowing ten tons, 120,000 BTUs, of crisp, cold air; and the air danced across the patio tile, reminding Sheryl of Disney World and all the buildings that blew cold air outdoors to cool the tourists. Not very green, but really comfortable, and necessary.
“Yeah,” Chad chimed in. “He hit the drive on the 18th so far in the woods, the ball was out of GPS range.” The table erupted again in laughter with Admiral McLemore taking as much ribbing as the gang could dole out. They knew he was a great sport, just a bad golfer.
Many people in the world were not laughing, having experienced the reality, the hell, from both the heavens and from man, of the past weeks.
Sheryl continued.
“Yep, he hit that ball down to the edge of this pond, you see; he didn’t think we could hear, since we were in the fairway and he was way down in the woods!” She chuckled.
“So we all hear Justin talking to someone down by the pond. We walked over to the edge of the woods; and there he was, talking to a frog. The frog told Justin that she had once been a princess, had looked just like Natalie Wood and a mean old jealous witch turned her into this frog, you see.”
Sheryl was already so tickled, she couldn’t finish the story.
Jeff took the ball and ran with it.
“Yeah, the frog told him that if he would kiss her, she would turn back into that princess who had looked like Natalie Wood and spend eternity with him, taking care of his every desire. The Admiral picked up the frog and put it in his golf bag. When we finished the 18th hole, Sheryl asked him, ‘Why didn’t you kiss that frog and have a princess for the rest of your life?’”
Toni and Terry waited for the punch line.
“The Admiral thought a minute and said, ‘At my age, I think I’d rather have a talking frog.’”
The laughter might have disturbed the neighbors this time, the sound scooting across the lawn and out the gated driveway, flowing across the adjoining acreage.
When the alert system chimed, Jeff knew that Judi Ellis was coming up the drive and excused himself. Greeting her at the front entry, they exchanged a cordial hug; and Jeff led her to the kitchen bar. There he poured her a Dirty Martini, remembering her drink of choice that night at Park Place.
Jeff escorted Judi to the patio, and Sheryl took one look at her and nearly dropped her glass of chardonnay.
“Judi? I can’t believe you’re Jeff’s date! What an unbelievably small world! How do you know him?”
Judi hugged Sheryl like they were long, lost friends; and Sheryl explained that she and Judi had been friends for two years and most recently worked together as volunteers for a conference at Emory, the lecture by Dr. Rosenberg.
“Was that the conference just a couple of weeks ago?” Jeff asked Judi.
“It was, a lecture about Bible prophecy and the Signs of the Times.”
Jeff’s thoughts turned briefly to his friend Samarra Russell, who had invited him to that very same lecture, the lecture he decided not to attend. It was a small world, and that had been a day that changed Samarra’s life forever. Jeff didn’t realize at this point that the day had changed the world, forever.
As the evening wore on and intruded on the hour of midnight, Jeff found himself intrigued by his new friend and offered her one of his guest rooms if she didn’t want to make the drive back. Judi refused, politely, and said maybe next time. Jeff kissed her, a cheek-friendly type of kiss and headed to bed as she exited the gated driveway.
He hoped sleep would come easily, because the next day would be a day of much activity. He would be attending a meeting at the CDC with Shirley and The Admiral, at their invitation, since he was a close friend of Samarra, the apparent first victim of whatever illness was affecting so many people in the United States and Canada. Then he wanted to pick Chad’s brain on the NEO still heading toward Earth.
Sleep did come easily to Jeff that night, but it was a restless night, dreams of doom and disaster, and of the blip of light that only he and Abe the Bartender had seen. It seemed to be haunting Jeff like the ghost who could not quite make the passage from the dimension of life to the dimension of death.
The Discovery Luxury Yacht was manufactured by the world’s leading designer of elegant submersible craft, U.S. Submarines, Inc.
The luxury submarine is not for the faint-of-heart or the weak of gold and fortune. U.S. Submarine, Inc.’s premier luxury sub designed for personal use, the Phoenix, came in at a cool $ 80 million and 213 feet of linear beauty. With 5000 square feet of interior luxury and leather, the Phoenix 1000 was transoceanic with a range of 3400 nautical miles.
Leon “Bubba” Haskins did not need the Phoenix 1000 for his planned business venture at Lake Lanier Islands in Buford, Georgia; because at a mere cost of $ 3,500,000.00, the Discovery 1000 would suffice.
Leon looked far and wide for this type of machine, spent hours with high-paid consultants, all to no avail. Then his wife Jill met Vinny one day at the arts center, when he appeared from a competitive HVAC company and finally repaired the air conditioning. She almost hired him on the spot. He smiled at the memory.
Vinny, it turned out, was an amazingly intelligent man and knew a lot more than heating and air conditioning. He hated that Vinny had to quit because of his ailing mother’s health, and the last few weeks had been stressful, what with losing two top technicians in as many days. Leon thought about Charley and wondered if the police would ever find him after the CDC fire that night. The whole thing was odd.
Fortunately, thanks to Vinny’s vast knowledge of so many fields of interest, he turned Leon on to U.S. Submarines. It turned out that Vinny at one time piloted a tourist submarine at Grand Cayman Island.
After months of negotiating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USACE agreed to Leon’s request to operate Lake Lanier’s only tourist submersible. There were obvious concerns, like: What are you going to be able to see? The visibility is not good.
Leon owned Georgia’s largest minority air conditioning company; and Global Warming HVAC provided the heating and air conditioning service for all Georgia USACE offices, as well as most of Atlanta’s government facilities. He knew people, and everyone liked him, a lot. Leon had a keen business sense, or so it had been to this point in his life.
If dressed in a dark suit, Leon could certainly win the Choice Awards for tall, dark and handsome. Leon, however, was not a girly-man; and he could repair almost any kind of motor or engine. His six-foot four frame, tanned skin and slightly graying hair made him attractive to the ladies at the lake; but Bubba was as happily married as happily married could be. Plus, Jill put up with all his wild business ideas.
Leon drove submarines when he served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Corps and never lost his thirst for the sea, not the surface but what’s underneath, a world that most people never saw except by DVD. He knew this submarine venture would be a hit, but only with a small niche of the market, those who could fork over $ 250 for the underwater tours of the old pine forests at the bottom of Lake Lanier and the 300 pound catfish that lived in the lake, at least according to legend. Night tours, if they were allowed by USACE, would be more expensive of course; and the outboard lighting on the Discovery 1000 was something science fiction movies were made about.
“How’s it goin’ Bubba?”
“Hey Gary, how’s the wife?” Leon liked Gary Rowelle because he was so unpretentious. A Frenchman, he had recently purchased Holiday Marina, one of the largest inland marinas in the country; but you would never know it. He was as humble as humble pie.
“Oh, she’s same ole same ole. Nothin’ ever changes. How you likin’ your new boat, El Capitan?”
Leon couldn’t help but laugh and wondered how long it took the Frenchman to speak redneck.
“Now Gary, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard redneck with a French accent.”
“Nope, not many men can do it, monsieur.” They shook hands with a double-fist bump and gave each other a man-hug.
“I love it man. What’s not to love?” And Leon did love the new boat and the excitement of the venture.
“So tell me about it. I looked it up on the internet but it was a lot of readin’”
“Well, it’s a Discovery 1000 and can carry up to ten passengers into the depths of the deep, brown waters of Lake Lanier, down where the catfish reside. Almost the entire hull, that would be the front for you Frenchman, is see-through. The seats are leather, and the sub’s fully air conditioned.”
“Looks like a regular yacht from the top. I wanna see.” Leon escorted Gary to the lower deck, and it truly was impressive.
“It’s guided with that joystick on your right and the touch screen display. Everything is done through the animated graphics. She can dive to a thousand feet and stay underwater for about 30 hours, thanks to her 15 kilowatt electric motor. On the surface, she’s powered by a diesel engine. That’s about it.”
“That’s about it? She looks like she belongs in the Louvre!
When do you plan to start bidness?”
Leon rolled his eyes. “My plan is, hopefully, to have this operation going by July 4th and the Lake Mead operation by Labor Day of 2012; but it doesn’t look like Lake Mead will happen as quickly as planned. We should open the Holiday Marina operation about two weeks before Labor Day. We’re already doing dry runs.”
As they exited the Discovery 1000 and said their goodbyes, Leon saw a couple of guys in dark suits walking down the dock. He recognized one, a Homeland Security agent he talked with just after Charley Rich disappeared.
Jeff was the first to wake, as usual; but the other three weren’t far behind, the aroma of Jamaican Blend permeating the airways, circulated throughout the home via the central air system.
“I smell coffee!” Admirals drink a lot of coffee, especially those who experienced submarine duty.
“How’s that back Admiral? I mean, after all that swinging you did yesterday. You need to park in handicap parking.”
“Don’t start Sheryl. It’s way too early.” The Admiral did look a little grouchy.
Chad was the late arrival and joined the other three on the patio five minutes later. Dressed in black shorts and yellow T- shirt, Chad’s lily-white legs were hard to ignore, and skinny; but his cowlick was even more distracting, sticking three inches in the vertical and reminded the others of Alfalfa in The Little Rascals series.
“We have a lot to cover this morning, gentlemen; and we can’t cover it at the Rexall Grill. Too crowded and way too many ears soaking in the gossip. I suggest we have breakfast here, or at least somewhere private. I know you like the Grill, Chad, but…” Sheryl paused to pour a cup of coffee into her personal coffee cup emblazoned with a Mickey Mouse logo, a cup that she carried with her when she travelled, an idiosyncrasy.
“No, I like the owner. The food is good; but she’s a very cool lady, pretty too, nice wheels.” Sheryl thought Chad was getting more like Wild Willy every day.
Chad agreed that the Grill would not be private; so they opted for coffee and banana nut muffins on the patio.
Jeff asked the opening question, “So where do you want to start?”
“There are so many starting places. I’ll hit on a few. Some of the stuff you hear today is classified, information I couldn’t email you.” Sheryl paused.
“The latest bad news is the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Apparently, many seismologists are beginning to agree that the rumbling along the New Madrid fault between St. Louis and Memphis is being triggered by the continuing crude oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly elsewhere. Not sure exactly why they believe this; but as you all know, many seismologists and vulcanologists have theorized for years that removing planet Earth’s most abundant lubricant probably leads to earthquake and volcanic activity. They preach, incessantly at times, that an engine cannot run without oil and that planet Earth is an engine. The shifting plates are finding it more difficult to shift. At least that is the theory of Oil Induced Ground Activity, or OIGA.
“Last fall when a hurricane hit the Gulf with category four winds, several surface ships sank; and some drilling platforms just disappeared. If you recall, the hurricane entered the Gulf as a cat-one storm but suddenly strengthened after passing over the now dark waters. Two of the destroyed rigs were owned by Shell, and the rest by Chevron. Since then, some repairs have been successful; but leak estimates run in the millions of barrels and continue. Many Floridians are now referring to the Gulf as the Black Sea. Thankfully, the seal cap that was placed on the New Horizon well last year is still holding.
“Next we have this thing from outer space, headed directly toward us. This information was not intended to be available to the public yet, but Rich Badey at CNN somehow broke the story. We have questioned him, but he refuses to divulge his sources. Chad, can you take over?”
“You bet Sheryl. This thing as you call it is still a long way from Earth. It is not an NEO, at least not yet; but it is getting nearer every day and appears to be traveling in excess of 50,000 miles per hour, about 65 times the speed of sound, possibly faster. That means it is traveling about a million miles or more a day. At that speed, it should hit Earth about equator-high, on or about next January 16th. That’s not a great way to start 2012; and since so many think December 21, 2012, will be the end of the world, there could very well be panic in the streets.
“This massive object has been referred to as a planetoid or minor planet, with a diameter of approximately 100 miles, about a fifth the size of Ceres. Ceres, with a 600 mile diameter, is the largest known asteroid in the asteroid belt. As you guys know, the asteroid belt is located in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
“If these calculations are correct, and every indicator says they are, when and if this thing hits, it could be the end of life on Earth as we know it.”
“Unless we can destroy it, or alter the course somehow. What are the contingency plans?” The Admiral interrupted.
“Not likely sir, at least not based on today’s technology. At that mass and that speed, we don’t have enough nukes to affect it. Other plans to alter the course of an asteroid, via gravity alteration or solar-powered laser manipulation, are not technologically available. Plus, those plans, if implemented today, would still take years to make a difference. We don’t have years.
“There are several oddities with this object that we’ve not seen before. It seems to disappear and reappear, it absorbs light and radar; so it’s impossible to get an accurate reading on speed. The speed has changed at least twice, as has its direction. That is not normal.”
“How much damage can a 100 mile asteroid cause? Would it definitely destroy the planet? I mean, could it actually break the planet apart?” Jeff asked the important question, could the Earth break apart?
“Not likely Jeff,” Chad continued, “But the asteroid that took the dinosaurs out 65 million years ago was only six miles in diameter. This is sixteen times more massive.
“There is a very remote chance that the moon could have enough gravitational affect to alter the impact sight, or even cause a near-miss. Even a near-miss will have devastating effects if it’s close enough.”
The Admiral and the others pondered the situation, still wondering if nuclear missiles could help, assuming the whole world would provide every missile available.
“Jeff, would you mind turning off the TV in the kitchen. It’s a little distracting.” Sheryl was in her pushy mood.
He walked through the double French doors; and the air conditioning provided a brief respite from the heat, already 91 degrees according to the display on the screen. Reaching for the remote, another Breaking News alert was scrolling across the TV screen. Jeff was a sucker for news alerts, and turned up the volume. He awaited the report from the mouth of the illustrious Condi Zimmerman.
“There has been a major earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico. Initial reports indicate the quake was at a depth of 6 miles and registered a whopping 6.9 on the Richter scale. A tsunami alert, can you believe this, has been issued for coastal residents in the United States, Mexico, South America, Cuba and the Caribbean Island communities.
“As reported last week, a growing number of scientists believe the loss of so much oil from the reservoir beneath the Gulf is the cause of all the shaking in the New Madrid Fault zone between St. Louis and Memphis. There were three major earthquakes along the New Madrid in the 1800s.
“Let’s switch to Rich Badey, investigative reporter for CNN, who is in Alabama watching the Orange Beach cleanup; and FOX News would like to thank CNN in this unprecedented example of news sharing.
“Rich, are you there?”
“Condi, I’m here but not for long. All the news crews are packing up and heading to higher ground, just to be safe in case a tsunami has been generated. I will be disconnected when they pull the plug, but this is what I know so….”
The screen went to black, the plug apparently already pulled.