Elle knew she could count on Laura to keep her promise. Even so, as the door slid shut and the bus began to drive off, carrying Sam away, it took all of Elle’s strength and resolve not to change her mind and chase after the bus, screaming and shouting for it turn around and bring her boy back to her. He was only four years old. He needed his mother.

But he needed to get away, too. Before the monsters came.

Rain began to drizzle from the sky as she watched the bus join the procession heading for the Bridge. She waited, frozen in place, until she couldn’t see Sam’s bus anymore.

Then she turned and headed back to work.

At least Sam will be safe, she thought. If any of us are.

TWENTY-ONE

The tac-ops command center occupied a large state-of-the-art mobile trailer that had been tricked out with sophisticated communications and monitoring equipment. Networked screens lined the interior of the trailer to provide Admiral Stenz and his staff with real-time data, video, and satellite feeds. Large windows at the rear of the trailer offered a direct view of the bay and San Francisco. Analysts and technicians were already at their stations as Stenz strode into the trailer.

“Sit rep!” he demanded. “Where are our targets?”

“The male was spotted thirty miles west,” a civilian analyst reported, “off the Farallon Islands.”

“We’re showing seismic activity to the east, near Liver-more,” Martinez added. “Should be the female, closing in.”

Stenz nodded. “And the big one?”

The analysts shook their heads. The admiral glanced at the sonar screens from the ships offshore. They remained blank.

“Last contact was five hours ago,” Martinez said, “maintaining a bearing of zero-five-three degrees and descending past ten thousand feet. Nothing since.”

Five hours, Stenz thought. That was more than enough time for the submerged leviathan to reach the strait leading into the bay. Frowning, he turned his attention to another bank of monitors, where live satellite and CCTV feeds showed the Golden Gate Bridge. The outbound lanes, leading away from the city, were jammed bumper-to-bumper with school buses packed with kids. Damn it. Why aren’t those children to safety yet?

“There are still buses on that bridge,” he said. “Deploy everything we have. If they come at the bay, at least we’ll slow them down.”

But for how long?

* * *

“Everyone stay in your seats!” the bus driver hollered from behind the wheel. He honked his horn and shouted impatiently at the long line of buses in front of them on the bridge. “Come on, what’s the holdup?”