Wildfire Run Read Free

we cleared to go now?”
    â€œSorry, pal.” Adam tapped his earpiece again, listening with a frown. “I was just told we’re supposed to stay put for a while. They have to run checks on all the sensor systems because of the earthquake, just to make sure everything is working correctly.”
    â€œYou mean we’re stuck inside all day? I wanted to show Theo the tree house and then the garage,and once we get the robot put together, we want to try it outside.” Luke had made a real effort to keep his hands off his new robot kit until Theo could help assemble it.
    â€œWe’ll be able to go outside as soon as they’re done with the inner zone,” Adam said. Luke knew the inner zone was a circle consisting of most of the buildings in the center of the camp. “They’ll test the outer zone in the woods all the way to the fences after that. Maybe we can go for a run on the nature trail when that section is clear.”
    â€œGreat,” Luke said glumly. He took Comet back to his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Theo asked. He sat up and felt around on his nightstand for his glasses. “Why are you up so early?” His hair sprang up in a fan around the top of his head, out of control.
    â€œDid you know when you wake up you look like a bergruutfa caravan beast?” Luke asked. Theo wouldn’t be able to top that one.
    Theo put on his glasses and peered at Luke. “You shouldn’t talk about hair. If those bits of hair that stick up on the top of your head were green instead of almost albino blond, you would make a perfect reptilian Rodian. Maybe you could justbe an albino Rodian. I’m going back to sleep.” Theo took his glasses off, lay down, and then sat up again. “I don’t remember what planet the bergruutfa caravan beasts come from.”
    â€œHa!” Luke was thrilled. It wasn’t often he knew more about Star Wars than Theo. “Teloc Ol-sen,” he said, trying to smooth down the cowlicks. Theo was right, unfortunately; they did look like Rodian antennae.
    â€œNow I’m awake,” Theo said. “You never answered me. Why are you up so early?”
    â€œEverybody but you is up, because there was an earthquake. You slept through it all. It was a long way away, so we only felt some shaking—but there were sirens.”
    Adam knocked on the door and then came in. “Morning, Theo. Luke, since we can’t go for a run now, why don’t you boys have breakfast?”
    The window rattled again, harder this time, and Luke looked around for something to steady himself, in case it was another earthquake.
    â€œIt’s just the wind,” Adam said. “The forecast is for high winds all day, but no storms. Nothing to worry about.”

6
The Command Center
    CAMP DAVID, 6:55 A.M.
    The Marines in the underground command center at Camp David knew they were sitting under twenty-one thousand gallons of water, but they never worried about it, assuming whoever built the President’s pool knew what they were doing.
    But, in fact, when then President Richard Nixon decided he wanted a new pool outside the back porch of his lodge, no one spoke up to tell him the site was a poor choice. It was right over the main security operations room of the command center, which was based in what had originally been a small bomb shelter. The roofof that room had to be reinforced to support the weight of the new pool’s water. An outside entrance to the bomb shelter and the concrete steps leading underground were covered over for a new pool house.
    Crumbled bedrock like that in California damps down earthquake waves, preventing them from spreading too far, but the bedrock between the pool’s bottom and the security operations room’s ceiling was in large slabs, like most of the bedrock east of the Mississippi. When the earthquake struck in Missouri, the waves spreading east didn’t