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switch in the down position.
    “Are you ready? Are you really ready?”
    “Get on with it, man.”
    Dwight flipped the switch to the on position. The hydraulic actuators started to whine. Suddenly, there was a tremendous roar as a jet of water blasted from the nozzle. George covered both ears with his hands as he watched the trajectory of the water jet in amazement as it flew through the air for a thousand feet or more before dissipating in the air over the Gulf of Mexico. The test stand strained against the large tie-down chains as the momentum of the water jet pushed the stand in the opposite direction. In seven seconds, it ended as abruptly as it started. The silence was deafening!
    “Holy cow, Dwight! That’s not a propulsion system—that’s a directed energy weapon! Hell, if you turned that thing skyward, I’ll bet you could shoot down an aircraft!”
    George walked around the SQID, admiring it as an outstanding bit of engineering, and kneeling down to examine the nozzle. He looked up at Dwight. “Well I’ll be! You did it, Cousin.”
    “ We did it, Cuz. It was all your idea, I just built it.”
    “Let’s try it again, and see if—”
    George was interrupted by Dwight’s foreman shouting something from the control shack. He ran across the deck toward them. His urgency and the ashen look on his face unsettled both George and Dwight. They glanced at each other.
    “Uh-oh,” said Dwight. “This can’t be good.”
    “Dwight!!” the foreman shouted. “You gotta come listen to the radio. Now, man!”

Chapter 3
     
    George, Dwight, and the foreman ran to the control shack and joined a crowd of men around the radio.
    “…repeat. What appears to have been a nuclear blast just occurred in Washington DC. There is no information from the scene. All communication has been cut off to the DC area. Baltimore affiliates of ABC are reporting a mushroom cloud in the direction of downtown Washington. This is ABC News, New York, and the alert level is RED. All off-duty first responders and military personnel are to report to their duty stations immediately. All military installations are on full alert…. repeat…”
    Dwight looked at George. Neither could believe it.
    George looked at his watch: 1140 central time. “Dwight, I have to get back to Norfolk as soon as possible. Would you fly me ashore in the helicopter?”
    “Sure, if we can get clearance. They’re probably shutting down civilian traffic the way they did after 9/11.”
    “Get me on the radio with Naval Air Station New Orleans,” said George. “I should be able to get us clearance to fly to the Naval Air Station. Hopefully, I can catch a military hop out of there to Norfolk.”
    “Okay, I’m on it.”
    “Thanks.”
    One of the best days of George’s life had just turned into the worst.
    Since the Annapolis was in the yards, George was temporarily assigned to a joint-service operations unit surveying the damage in Washington DC. Because of high radiation levels, much of the surveillance was done with unmanned Predator reconnaissance drones. George and other team members worked in a small, portable control van reviewing the video sent back by the Predator and assisting search and rescue (SAR) teams in their efforts to locate survivors. The Predator video was amazingly good—too good in many instances. George saw a lot he wished he had never seen.
    Despite years of military training, none of the Predator team members were prepared for the magnitude of the disaster. The area surrounding the Washington Monument was the ideal location for a nuclear blast to wreak maximum damage to the capital of the United States of America. George and an air force major sat at the Predator control console. Through a remote-control link, the major flew the Predator slowly up what used to be the National Mall. The blast had destroyed everything along the mall’s main axis, from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, and everything along a cross-axis formed by the White