The waves lashed against the San Bernardino Mountains to the east, then poured into the Imperial Valley and the Mojave Desert. Floodwaters poured through tunnels and mountain passes into Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to the north.

Steadily, like the hand of a death-dealing monster, the second surge moved up the coast toward San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose.

Like concentric rings on a pond, massive walls of water were hurled northward toward Alaska and the Aleutian Islands; southward along the coast of Mexico and further south toward Peru and Chile; westward toward Hawaii and the islands of Polynesia; and then on to the west, where they were soon to encompass Japan, the Philippines, Korea, and the islands of the Pacific. The havoc unfolded like clockwork, and even the most hardened disaster trackers knew that nothing like this had ever before been witnessed by mankind.

Pressure from the underwater blast had been so intense that all fish and marine life within a thousand-mile radius of the Impact Zone were instantly killed.

No ocean vessel, no military or civilian transport, and no other craft at sea, no matter how sturdy or how skilled her crew, was able to survive in that area of the Pacific lying between the West Coast of the continental United States and Hawaii. Every single ship in the water capsized, was broken apart, or simply sank under the sudden and relentless deluge. No human being could withstand the awesome force. Everyone on the sea that day, whether they were there for business or pleasure or official duty, died. There were no survivors.

THE UNFOLDING PANORAMA of horror was more than any human being could take in. The men and women in the White House Cabinet Room watched as what appeared to be the entire contents of the tidal basin came crashing against the side of the tallest mountains in the San Gabriel and Santa Ana mountain ranges. They watched as surging fingers of water laced with fire dashed through the low-lying passes and tunnels, then flooded beyond, over, and through them. Nowhere in that raging, steaming, roiling inferno was there any sign of life. No possibility of survival, and little or no sign of hope.

But as the satellite cameras scanned the mountain ridges, something moving caught Dr. Eisenblatt’s eye. “Stop!” he yelled to the operator. “Quick, back up and zoom in—over there!” He gestured with his finger to a point on the screen at the rim of a mountain. There in the midst of charred ruins, a man, a woman, and three young boys were huddled together.

“This is—it’s unbelievable. How did they survive? How could they survive in that place?” Dr. Eisenblatt asked no one in particular. Then, in answer to his own question, he said aloud, “They must have been covered by the hand of God Himself.” No one in that room whispered an objection to his unscientific assessment. What else could they think?

From a headset on the table, they could hear the voice of the technician. “That’s the antenna farm on Mount Wilson, Dr. Eisenblatt. I can’t detect any other movement out there, but they appear to be standing by what used to be a television transmitter site.”