Struggle for a Small Blue Planet Read online

  "I'll keep this for a while, if you don't mind," he said. "If I'm going to have to disarm you every time we talk, it's going to take a while to get anywhere."

  Her cheeks flamed red. Being separated from your weapon was the number one sin in police work.

  "What if I call my team down on your sorry ass," she said angrily.

  "Then you would have to explain why you were bound and gagged when they came looking for you in half an hour. I think they'd get a good laugh at your expense, don't you?"

  She was fuming, but she was also making an effort to calm herself. The tall man approved. If she'd been trained properly, she would soon turn her mind to ways she could gain control of the situation.

  "Anyway, what unit are you with?" he said, breaking the tension.

  "Richmond Tactical," she said, after a moment's hesitation. The tall man nodded. Something like the Armed Offenders squad back home.

  "Look," he said, in his most conciliatory tone, "my government has talked to your government, and your people know I'm here. That can be confirmed with a phone call, but I'd rather just be on my way.

  "You can claim credit for that lot if you like," he said, waving a hand in the direction of the customised car.

  He thought he detected the hint of a smile.

  "Yeah, right," she said. "As if anyone would believe I did that on my own."

  The tall man smiled. "Well, yeah," he said quietly.

  "And you don't really want me to call that number," she said, "because then you'd lose face."

  The tall man's head came up sharply, but he didn't say anything.

  "This is some sort of training run, isn't it?" she hazarded. "That's why the down-and-out clothing. So getting caught out by local enforcement wouldn't look good, right?

  "And seeing the way you move, I think you're the trainer. I also think you're English, but not from England. Not Canadian either. One of the old colonies? And where exactly is your team if you're not with them?"

  There was a long silence, and the break and enter squad marched a number of people out onto the sidewalk. Two police cars and a prisoner wagon pulled in before the building.

  "How am I doing?" she said casually.

  "Can't confirm or deny," he said, trying not to let his expression show. This was one smart woman, and he didn't usually get on well with smart women.

  For a few moments there was silence, a stalemate between two equally matched players, though skilled in very different ways.

  "Anyway, you'll have to get that seen to," she said awkwardly, looking at the blood spreading along the sleeve of his shirt. "So you'll need a lift to hospital. I can drop you off after we've got this raid tidied up."

  "No hospital visits," he said. "No record I was ever here, remember?"

  She looked annoyed with him all over again.

  "Looks worse than it is," he said lightly. "Tourniquet is just a precaution. I've got a basic medkit with me. I'll clean out the wound and sew it up, then take some antibiotics. No probs."

  "You are not doing that yourself!" she exploded. "No one can sew up a cut one-handed. You might get the skin right, but you have to align the muscles as well. Those muscles drive your hand, Dumbass, do you want to ruin your grip!"

  She looked at him like her argument was undeniable. Which on reflection, he realised, it was.

  "You seem to know your stuff," he said quietly.

  "I'm a paramedic," she snapped."Or I was. My certificates are bit out of date."

  Then she seemed to come to a decision.

  "Get your stuff together and wait around. When I'm free, I'll fix your goddamn arm for you. My place is in Richmond. That's a half hour drive. You should live that long.

  "I can say I put some shots into the car, and must have got lucky. Our guy on the roof helped. Then I can say I tidied up. Maybe I can cover for you."

  She glared at him. "IF I get my piece back. Otherwise you can bleed to death."

  "Sounds like a fair trade," said the tall man, withdrawing her pistol and wiping the prints off it with his shirt. Then he handed it back.

  She snorted, and checked the weapon thoroughly, as if it had been contaminated.

  Looking at him one last time, like a headmistress who had caught an unruly student smoking behind the gym, she strode over to one of the police cars.

  6

  Present day

  National Earthquake Information Centre

  Golden, Colorado

  Joey Tavalis waved a handful of earthquake reports at Theo Kettle as his replacement supervisor walked into the control room at NEIC. It was midnight, and Theo was facing his least favourite shift.

  "You aint gonna believe this, buddy," said the seated man. Theo raised his eyebrows. Joey had the rolling cadences of his Texas upbringing, but he was a solid member of the supervisory team. He never panicked, and he didn't raise the alarm unless it was clearly warranted.

  "Read these," said Joey bluntly, pushing the reports at Theo. The copper-skinned, heavy-set man in his fifties took a seat next to him. Joey always said he learned more from a piece of paper than he did from a screen, and Theo had to agree. Maybe it was because they were both from an older generation.

  The reports were computer generated, sent when one of the automated stations across the United States noted an event exceeding its set parameters. In most cases it was just minor fluctuations in the stresses and strains that shook the planet. Nothing to make the NEIC issue a public warning. But in this case Joey wanted to talk to Theo about the reports. Something was up.

  The top form was from Oregon. It had been generated because low levels of background activity had not subsided within the statistical time frame for an 'almost certain' scenario – the 99th percentile if Theo wanted to get technical.

  He picked up the next one. It was from the Appalachian Mountains on the opposite coast. He looked at it more closely, and saw it had been generated for the same reason. When he picked up the third one, he leaned forward to look at it intently. He quickly scanned the rest. The same persistent, low-level tremors were present in all of them.

  Theo took a few moments to wonder what that might mean, and got nowhere. The situation was entirely outside his experience. When he turned to Joey, his friend had nothing to add either.

  Deciding to err on the side of caution, Theo rang his equivalent at the Advanced National Seismic System. The ANSS did more of the nuts and bolts work in the earthquake field, and they might have a better idea of what the reports meant.

  When he got through, the discussion was brief.

  No, they didn't know what was going on, but yes, they were working on it. Theo would get copies of the reports shortly, with a more detailed analysis. He would find the effect was spreading, and it was likely to continue doing so.

  Theo passed the ANSS message to Joey. The two men were considering what it meant when another message came in. It was a secondary report, only triggered when an earlier report had an increase in activity of at least 15%. Secondary reports were meant to limit repetitive information, and establish trends.

  "Whatever this shaking is, it's on the increase," said Joey, handing the latest report to Theo. "What do you think we should do about it?"

  The secondary report was enough for Theo. It might be past midnight, but he put out a summons for the emergency team to convene immediately. When he had done so, he looked across at Joey.

  "You can head home now," he said softly.

  "Wouldn't miss this for the world," said Joey, patting him on the shoulder. Theo smiled. Joey was solid. Solid in his work and solid with his friends.

  The two of them had about twenty minutes until the emergency team were fully assembled. More reports came in, some of them secondary ones. Theo started plotting the data, and trying to draw conclusions. Then he and Joey took the short walk, and long elevator drop, to the heavily reinforced crisis room.

  The large, high-ceilinged room looked too bright under industrial lights. Theo held thirty printouts in one hand as he greeted t
he members of the emergency team. Once he and Joey were settled, the five people around the long table listened to his rundown of the situation. Then he passed the reports around. It was a signal for the team to scrutinise them closely.

  "How widespread are these?" said Grant Lumley, Theo's immediate superior.

  "The effect started in the northern Rockies and Appalachians," said Theo, "and it's spreading steadily from there."

  He took a deep breath and continued, "ANSS has around 100 stations covering the US. Personally I believe we'll get a report from every one of them by morning."

  The members of the emergency team looked at each other, then at Theo. They didn't believe him. Nothing was ever that widespread.

  "Anything on how fast the effect is increasing?" said one of the team. "Is it geometric? Exponential? Can you tell us what the statistical error is on what we've got?"

  "Nothing like that from ANSS yet," said Theo, "but I've been plotting the reports against time, and running a line of best fit through it. I would say the effect is building geometrically, and it will start doing damage to buildings within a week or two.

  "There are large amounts of error in a rough calculation like that, but the earthquakes so far are all less than two on the Richter scale. People won't be noticing them yet."

  "So we don't need to put out a public warning," said Annie Belcher, the Press Officer. She looked determined to get this point across.

  "There are no hotspots along faultlines right now," she continued, "and no volcanic activity. There's nothing substantial to back up these reports, and certainly no reason to believe the tremors will keep increasing indefinitely!"

  "Just reporting what I'm seeing," said Theo. Several of the others round the table nodded in agreement. They were from the hard sciences, and tended to think dispassionately. Annie had to break bad news to the press, and cope with political fallout. She didn't want to go public until she was forced to, and there were others on the team who thought similarly. The divide in the group was an ongoing problem.

  "As I said," continued Theo, "the effects aren't noticeable yet. If the tremors continue to increase, I think we've got a few days before we have to decide whether to make a public statement."

  "For myself," said Theo quietly, "I'm taking it seriously. I'm heading for the Mesa Laboratories to look at Dr Arms' predictions on widespread earthquake activity as soon as it gets light. Which reminds me, I'd better get some sleep first.

  "That okay with you, Grant?" he said, looking over at his boss. Grant Lumley nodded. There was nothing more the team could do here for the moment, and he could call in another supervisor easily enough.

  "Theodore Arms and Charlie Kettle?" said Annie. "That paper had no support from the scientific community at the time. Don't we need you here in case the situation changes?"

  An embarrassed silence followed her words.

  "Theo's PhD was on that paper, among others," said Joey quietly. "Call his doctorate the early history of NCAR if you will." Theo smiled gratefully.

  "And he doesn't take up a line of enquiry without good reason," chipped in Grant smoothly. "I'm going to okay a few days leave, if that's what Theo wants."

  "Thank you," said Theo, feeling his blood pressure coming down. "That paper was peer reviewed and it was faultless. There were a number of predictions in it we should have looked at more seriously, especially now . . ," he said, tailing off. He was defending the paper too vigorously, and Annie Belcher was looking at him questioningly.

  "Kettle. Same name," she said. "You're related. I've been on this team for three years, and I never knew that."

  "Grandson of Charlie Kettle, godson of Theodore Arms," said Grant, "and he has the remarkable abilities of both of them. You can go now, Theo."

  Theo took the hint, and gathered up his papers quickly. Grant had stepped in for him once again, and he appreciated it.

  Once at his flat he laid out the equipment he would need, and then a change of clothes. It was 30km to Boulder on Highway 93, about half an hour in early morning traffic. The visitor centre would be open at 8am, and he would be waiting on the doorstep when it did. That gave him five hours sleep.

  He would take all the notes from his PhD. He was intimately familiar with the academic paper attributed to his grandfather and his godfather, but he would be looking for different things in it this time round. He wondered if his two predecessors ever figured their predictions would come true. Then he wondered if this was it.

  Back at the crisis room, Grant was thoughtful. He didn't like to go behind the emergency team's back, but Theo's intuition had never failed the NEIC. He decided to make a phone call to someone he knew in Washington.

  7

  Oval Office

  The White House

  Washington, DC

  One of the National Security Staff signalled that an international call had been put through, and President Marshall stood to take it. It was an action that sent a message. It reminded him that the final decision on matters like these rested with the President. It also reminded the others in the Oval Office of that very same fact. Standing set the President apart.

  Scattered about the room were the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Military Service Chief of the National Guard Bureau, the President's Science Advisor, and two National Security staff. The President thought it was overkill, but any call to China had to have enough experienced people present to answer any questions that might arise. It was policy.

  While he waited for the security advisors at either end of the line to satisfy themselves the call was secure, he ran his thumb and finger along the coils that connected the handpiece to the phone.

  It was more symbolism. He preferred to be physically connected to the problem, really getting his 'hands dirty' as his industrialist father would have said. He was not adjusting the prettified screen of a cell phone, or looking idly around as he interrupted the conversations of other people with mindless chatter. This was a real conversation, and it had real consequences.

  When President Jingpao came on the line, the Chinese head of state spoke his own language, one of the NSA staff translating effortlessly into President Marshall's earpiece seconds later. Jingpao spoke very good English, but it was policy that heads of state should speak their own language. Misunderstandings could shake the foundations of commerce and cooperation.

  "I am told similar things are happening in Yunnan and Tibet provinces," said Jingpao carefully. Neither side wanted to give away the extent, or capability, of their seismic systems. Marshall had been expecting a wider spread of Chinese tremors, into the mountainous parts of Sichuan and along the coast off Taiwan, but he said nothing.

  "The effect appears to be spreading, and deepening," said Marshall. He paused momentarily, and decided it was better to share what the US knew – though he wouldn't mention the report from Taiwan, China's political sore spot.

  "Both coasts of the US are now affected, and isolated parts of the mid-continent are showing mild signs. Japan has reported something similar in all its four main islands, but there is nothing definite from Europe yet."

  This time there was a longer pause.

  "Forgive my question, First Minister of the People's Republic: does China have some scientific or military program it is testing at this time, anything that might account for this strange effect?"

  There was silence at the other end of the line, then a brief "one moment", and the line went to hold. When Jingpao came back, he had also made a decision to share information.

  "I can tell you, President Marshall, that the People's Republic of China is as mystified as you are. My officers assure me there are no programs in place that could cause such a thing, and there is no testing scheduled at this time.

  "However, I suggest your Science Advisor talk with Bai Junli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and make some arrangement to continue doing so. I believe we should monitor developments closely."

  "I agree," said President Marshall quickly. H
e knew better than to ask what the Chinese thought was causing the tremors. Perhaps his Science Advisor could come to some theory-sharing arrangement with Dr Junli. He hoped so. Then he went through the usual diplomatic courtesies, consisting mainly of promising close future cooperation, and ended the call. A moment later he opened an internal line.

  "Get me Cleet Anderson," he said.

  Cleet drove himself across town from the American Institutes for Research building, and found himself waiting outside the Oval Office. Eventually the various Chiefs and NSA staff left. It had been a long discussion.

  "How's it going, Cleet?" said the President, stretching out his hand to take that of the Institute head. Then he guided them both to seats on one side of the Oval Office. To Cleet he looked fitter these days, as if he worked out. Apart from that he was still a solid man in a grey suit with an indistinguishable face.

  "You've got an expert on this rolling wave phenomena for me," said the President, once they were seated.

  "Hardly that, Mr President," said Cleet, in some alarm. Garret Marshal had tried to get his old friend to call him by his first name many times, but ever since that fateful election day, Cleet had stuck with 'Mr President'.

  "But he is senior NCAR staff?"

  "Yessir, highly thought of," said Cleet.

  The President nodded. "See that sign on my desk?" he said suddenly.

  "Ah, yessir," said Cleet, turning his head to examine it. "It says 'Be Prepared'. I presume it comes from the quote by George Washington. 'To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.' "

  The President nodded again. "That quote means a lot of things to me," he said, "but right now it means I need somebody with direct experience of this thing close by, in case it comes around and tries to bite us in the ass. You with me?"

  It was Cleet's turn to nod.

  "So get this guy up here to DC," said the President. "Put him up somewhere. Introduce him to your team."