Oh, shit, Ford thought, realizing what was happening. He leapt up to return the boy to his parents, but he was too late. The doors slid shut with a whoosh and the train began to pull away from the platform. Through the windows, Ford saw Akio’s parents reacting in consternation. They dashed frantically to the edge of the platform, shouting and throwing out their arms. The father grabbed onto his wife, as though half-afraid that she would rush onto the tracks. She sobbed hysterically.

“Stay there!” he shouted. “I’ll bring him back!”

The platform dropped from view as the train glided away on the elevated track. Exiting the terminal, the train cruised above the tarmac, where parked and taxiing jets could be seen through the train’s windows. A departing plane took off from a runway as Ford inspected a posted map of the monorail system. According to the map, the train would make a complete circuit of the airport before returning to the station they had just left. He hoped that Akio’s parents had heard him and would stay put long enough for him to get the boy back to them. They’d looked Japanese. Did they even speak English? Had they understood what he’d shouted?

Ford looked down at Akio, who had suddenly become his responsibility. He gave the boy a playfully stern expression.

“You’re under arrest, bud.” He glanced again at his watch, while keeping one eye on his new charge. “I better not miss my flight.”

It was going to be close.

* * *

The young petty officer led Serizawa and Graham across the CDC to another work station, where Admiral Stenz awaited them, a grim expression on his weathered features. He wasted no time bringing the two scientists up to speed on the latest development.

“We’ve lost all comms with a Russian Borei in the North Pacific,” he said, referring to a class of nuclear submarine. He turned toward the young analyst manning the console. “Martinez?”

An impressive array of data and video screens faced Martinez, an alert young officer in her early twenties. She was focused on various screens displaying what appeared to be night-vision helicopter feeds of a platoon of U.S. Special Forces soldiers trekking through a dense jungle. A spectral green glow tinted a view of dense bamboo groves and underbrush.

“Aye, sir,” Martinez reported. “Sparta One is picking up a distress signal northwest of Diamond Head.” Disbelief registered on her face as she confirmed the location. “In the midst of Oahu.”

Serizawa inhaled sharply. Oahu was no ghost town or remote mining camp. It was the most populous island in Hawaii.

The MUTO and humanity were on a collision course.

* * *