Excerpt
Chapter One: The Perfect Crime

The wind was howling violently, and waves crashed louder than the thunder that was cracking almost as soon as myriad bolts of lightning flashed. The sea rose with such fury that water was landing on rocks that were normally well above the high water mark. Weather forecasters were at a complete loss to explain the sudden change in the weather. Only ten minutes previous there had been scarcely a cloud in the sky. By then, it was dark as night. The beaches cleared of sunbathers, and even the hardiest fools who would never turn up a wave had vacated for the perceived safer environs off shore. Yet, there was one man who not only braved these elements, but seemed to revel in their power.


He stood five feet, ten inches tall, but his extraordinarily strong frame gave the appearance that he was much larger. He was dressed entirely in black, complete with a cape that was whipping with the wind behind him. The only hair on his head formed a goatee - even his eyebrows had been shaved. His skin was a ghostly white so brilliant it appeared he had not seen the light of day for years. Witnesses, had there been any, may have thought he was a specter, not a man.

Perhaps he was a specter, because he stood atop the rocks overlooking the ocean, with lightning continuing to flash, and it appeared as if the energy was channeling through his body, as he raised his arms out over the ocean. He looked like Moses, standing beside the Red Sea, only instead of causing the sea to part, creating safe passage for the Israelites, this man seemed to be conjuring the storm that was rising along the east coast of the United States. Certainly, this could be no man, because no man could have endured the relentless fury of the sea, as a tidal wave swelled in the Atlantic, a wave so huge that it could actually be seen from space. Yet, he stood seemingly impervious to the conditions.

The man cackled with glee, as the enormous wave grew on the horizon. How many miles away was that wave? Only he and the Creator could have known. It was already filling the sky! Yet, as the wave approached the shoreline, this man stood riveted, with his arms outstretched, and his skin literally glowing. Surely this man would die once the wave reached the shore.

No wave in recorded history reached the height of this tsunami, and millions of people along the coast line were about to see their lives end. Portland, Boston, Providence, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and cities all the way down to Key West would soon be under water. Yet, as the wave was about to inundate the strange man in black, he vanished without a trace.


Three thousand miles away, Antiquity Calais awoke with a start. There was an intense pain in his chest, and he thought he must have been having a heart attack. As soon as he could catch his breath, he exclaimed, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!" and he darted from his bed to his television set, where he turned on the news.


"No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening."