Struggle for a Small Blue Planet Page 7

  "I don't like being looked at like I'm road kill!" she said sharply, and his face broke into a smile.

  "You Americans have such a way with words," he said softly.

  "You New Zealanders have a way with dirty looks," she snapped back.

  "Assessing something," he said quietly. Then he told her what Cal had said. She looked at him in disbelief.

  "Assuming I buy any of this," she said, "why tell me?"

  "You had clearance at the Global Intelligence unit at Fort Belvoir," he said. "Maybe you still have. Maybe you can get clearance, or know someone who works there. You could help us."

  "Can't confirm or deny," she said stubbornly, "but even if the answer was yes, what you're suggesting is a betrayal of my country. That's treason!"

  "There won't be individual nations in a day or two," said Don slowly, connecting the dots himself as he spoke. "Treason will be an empty word. There will just be pockets of survivors. But my boss is organising something, a way of striking back at whatever is causing this, and you could help. What do you say?"

  "I say it's a really dumb idea," she said, and started backing warily toward the bedroom door. Don wasn't surprised. Everything was moving too fast. He figured she had a pistol in her bedroom, and was going for that – which was fine by him. He sat down, and pointed toward the laptop.

  "Spain's next," he said, "and we can expect tsunamis across Western Europe. Why don't you check it out?"

  She moved carefully to the laptop, keeping an eye in his direction. Then she turned the machine back on. It took a few minutes before previous footage was replaced with breaking news.

  "Extensive earthquake activity in Iceland and New Zealand, so far thought to be unrelated, appears to be spreading," said the commentator. "All radio and television broadcasts from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea have ceased, and seismologists report unprecedented quake activity along the mid-Atlantic ridge."

  She paused, and read from a piece of paper that was suddenly placed in front of her. She seemed confused, as if this unscripted way of doing things was new to her. "Ah, there is now a tsunami warning in place for the north and west coasts of Great Britain. Her Majesty's Coastguard is currently responding to several distress calls from shipping in shallower waters around the continental shelf."

  A picture of a container ship, lying on its side, filled the screen, containers spreading out from it. Sunlight sparkled on the water, but the oil slick round the ship was only too real. The commentator's professionalism slipped, and real fear showed on her face. Then the mask was back in place. She went to something on the teleprompter.

  "Rapidly increasing seismic activity has been reported from Gibralter and the south of Spain," she continued. "Residents are being urged to move to higher ground, and away from older buildings and unsafe structures."

  She saw something on the teleprompter and looked off to the side. There was the muffled sound of someone talking in the wings. The commentator looked ashen when she turned back to the camera.

  "The following is a stationary feed from a lighthouse on the Orkney Islands, population nineteen thousand, of what appears to be a tsunami strike."

  There was no 'wall of water', as Jo had always imagined. The sea simply drained away to reveal a forest of kelp, and then darkened, beginning to rise up.

  Don reached over and switched the laptop off. Jo jerked upright.

  "Don't let those images get in your head," he said sharply. "You can't function if you have to deal with that stuff at the same time. Believe me, survival is a state of mind."

  She went to turn the laptop back on, then hesitated.

  "God help us," she said, "how can this be happening?"

  "Give me one day," he said. "I need to get to Charleston today. Come with me, and if you're not convinced by the time we get there, I'll shout you the airfare back home!"

  She thought about it for a long time.

  "I must be mad," she said at last.

  "That's my girl!" he said crisply.

  "I am not . . ."

  "Just a saying for chrissakes!" he said hurriedly. "Now pack will you. A change of clothes and ID only. Call work for a day off if you must."

  "I won't miss what I was doing," she said. "Do you know how demeaning it is to write up a botched raid like yesterday? And it wasn't made any easier by covering for you!"

  He shook his head. They didn't have time for this.

  "I'll change your dressing," she said, "and then we pack. Twenty minutes tops, I promise!"

  The tall man nodded. It was coming up to 10am, and Cal wanted them in Charleston by late evening. They would have to hustle.

  15

  Situation room

  The White House

  "What have we got?" said the President of the United States, once everyone was seated. Cleet Anderson looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  "Developments so far support Theo's suggestion of two starting points for a controlled earthquake cascade," he said cautiously, "but we can't be sure how or why that happened. However the effect is definitely spreading – hell, we've all seen the news reports in the last hour and a half."

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nodded. He had replaced the Vice-chairman from the first meeting. The Service Chief of the Army now sat alongside the National Guard Chief, and Cleet had brought two more specialists up to speed and added them to his science team. Theo was feeling out of place as the vast government machine began to gear up for action.

  "The public will expect us to have an explanation for what's going on," said the Press Secretary, who was another addition. "Whether the earthquakes reach our shores or not."

  The President considered this.

  "I think we should go with the idea there are some 'speed wobbles' in the Earth's molten core," he said. "We can say we're working out how long it will be before things get back to normal. We should deflect any suggestion of changes in the North and South poles."

  "And a disturbance of the core is still the likeliest scenario," said Argyll Rawling, the President's Science Advisor, daring anyone to contradict him.

  "What a cheesecake," whispered the astronomer on Theo's right, one of the new members of Cleet's team. Theo tried hard not to smile.

  "Anyone disagree with that suggestion?" said the President.

  There was silence.

  "Good," he said, and turned to look at Cleet. Clearing his throat, Cleet carried on with his presentation. The reason he was looking so uncomfortable soon became clear.

  "The Chinese have followed through on their promise, and we've been exchanging data as fast as it comes in. They've identified several sites within their borders that are generating gravitational waves, sites that could be feeding into the harmonic wave within the Earth that has been theorised."

  "Why have the Chinese been able to do this, and we have not?" said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Theo could feel the tension in the room increase.

  "The FAST program!" said the astronomer next to Theo. He almost bounced to his feet. "The Five hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, online in 2016. It's a radio telescope sunk into the hills of Guizhou Province. It's five to ten times more sensitive than anything else on the planet, and it's one way of detecting gravitational waves. How those clever little bastards managed to get it directed down onto the planet though . . ."

  Theo reached over and pulled him down into his seat. The man had nil social sensitivity, but he'd answered the question. Argyll Rawlings looked almost sick. Proving a gravitational wave origin for the earthquakes would kill any chance for his molten core theory.

  "And we will continue to consider gravity waves as a possibility," said President Marshall. "But outside this room there is only one explanation, and that explanation is a disturbance of the Earth's core. Is that quite clear?"

  Everyone nodded. The non-disclosure documents the civilians had signed were very specific, and very pointed about the devastating penalties for breaking them. The documents were a good idea. Theo could imagi
ne the panic if someone suggested a malevolent, and possibly alien, hand behind the earthquakes.

  The meeting began to wind down, and Theo still had something to say that his conscience wouldn't let him overlook.

  "Mr President," he said firmly, "I think we should be working on contingency plans. We need to be ready in the event a hostile presence is discovered here on Earth, and military action after the earthquakes reduces us to the level of subsistence farming. It is possible that some sort of military 'cleansing program' is only days away."

  Theo turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for support.

  "It makes sense," said the man thoughtfully. "In all fairness, Garret has asked for just such contingency plans already. I have people working on it, but it wasn't required for this meeting."

  Theo felt his cheeks heat up a little. He might have made a fool of himself, but at least he'd got the suggestion out in the open. The use of the President's first name told him of an inner circle from which he was excluded. But that was all right. he wasn't here to gain favour.

  "I think we should consider the possibility of a United States as it was in the 1850s," he said hurriedly. "I think the population will need practical advice about how to fix roofs to collect drinking water, and maintain civilian law and order, and we would need thousands of drilling machines and a million long drops – while the petrol holds out."

  He was about to go on when the President held up a hand.

  "Thank you for your 'new world order' ideas there, Theo. I think there is a saying about a cart and a horse we can use here."

  Theo tried not to feel like the Earth was about to open up and swallow him, and Garret Marshall must have sensed that.

  "You've got a good man there, Cleet," he said approvingly. "Hasn't got his head stuck in a bucket like a lot of people these days."

  This brought smiles around the room.

  "We're onto it, Dr Kettle," said the Press Secretary, looking over at him. "But I want to hear what you have to say as well. Put it all down in a file and send me a copy as soon as you're done. Go into as much detail as you like, there are always better ways of doing things."

  Theo nodded.

  "And that wraps it up for the moment, people," said the President. "Keep your pagers switched on, and be ready to assemble again at a moment's notice. That is all."

  The room stood as the President rose from his seat.

  16

  Wairarapa plains

  North Island, New Zealand

  The roar of the water bore grew louder. Annie whimpered, and Doug looked sharply at Jeannie. She pulled the girl closer. There were always weak spots in a civil emergency, people and places from which fear spread. But this was his family, and the girl was only fourteen.

  He sighed. His training was so strongly instilled in him. He made an effort to be calmer, and patted Annie on the shoulder.

  "Not easy, is it?" he said. Then he went back to scanning the horizon. The surgical blade and its case, in the front pocket of his jacket, felt heavy. It wasn't standard issue, but it had been a godsend in his job more times than he could count.

  Then it was time to tell them what was coming, and what he was going to do about it.

  "You can't!" said Mikael, his face ashen. Jeannie shook her head firmly and actually stamped her foot. He couldn't recall her ever doing that.

  "We'll be going up like a kite on a string," said Doug. "At some stage we have to cut ourselves free of the rope or we'll be pulled back under the water. The front of the bore will be full of debris it has picked up coming in from the coast. Someone has to steer us through that. I'm the strongest, so I'm the best choice. End of story."

  There was silence. They didn't like it, but there was an impregnable logic in his reasoning – and there weren't any other options.

  "Once you're under that cover you'll have seconds to get yourselves into position," he said. "Work out which part of the floor is yours, and brace yourselves straight away. Got it?"

  Jeannie nodded. She would organise it. Doug's voice sounded harsh, but there wasn't time to have a family discussion. Mikael looked abruptly past his father and pointed. A wall of white water burst into the last paddock illuminated by the car headlights. Doug was shocked at how fast it was moving.

  The cows disappeared in a moment, and then there were two paddocks left. Doug yelled at his family to climb up, and they scrambled for the back of the boat. Once they were under the cover he locked down the last of the clasps, and headed for the front of the runabout.

  Positioning himself flat on the small deck, he wrapped an arm around the rope and rammed his legs against the windshield. His position left him with his head level with the prow. He looked up to see another fenceline disappear. His heart sank as he realised how high the wall of foaming, dirty water was. The runabout would be going through it, not over it. So much for his carefully laid plans.

  Then the bore struck.

  For a long moment they found themselves weightless, as the runabout accelerated madly to catch up with the water around it. Then the rope caught, and the flood slammed into them. Doug was pushed back, despite his fierce grip. The others, inside their protective aluminium shell, began to slip toward the stern.

  The first thing Doug noticed was the silence. There was the hiss of fast-flowing water, and dull sounds like far off gongs. It was almost peaceful. He figured the sounds were debris glancing off the bottom of the runabout.

  Something hammered at his arm, and his elbow folded out of the way. Water forced its way into his nostrils, and began to sting. Sea water, he realised. He should have expected that. Then he wondered how much longer he could hold his breath.

  The torrent of water got worse. Debris slammed heavily into his shoulder, and he felt muscles give. An unknown object rolled down his back. It was oddly rubbery, coated in something soft. He flinched as he realised was a dead sheep.

  But one thing was in his favour. He could feel the runabout moving up, and moving up fast. He figured the extended prow, used for planing, was the reason. Then the boat reared out of the cold floodwaters, and settled back down with a solid thump.

  It was heaven to be able to breath! Doug wiped his eyes, and looked down. The runabout was skating along behind the rope at jet-boat speeds. It looked as if they were being towed effortlessly by a giant fish, but that was illusory. They were stationary, and the floodwaters from the sea were racing past them as they swallowed up the Wairarapa Plains.

  The moonlight reflected off a vast, grey and black watery surface, one that would be a dirty brown sea in morning light. Doug risked a quick look behind him. The stern of the runabout was down. It would be loaded with the equipment he and his family had brought on board, and water that had worked its way under the cover. But the cover had held. It was a minor miracle, and he was grateful.

  Doug could see things sliding past on the surface of the water. He was too slow to stop a small tree slamming into the side of the runabout. He swore, blaming himself. He checked the angle of the rope leading down to the strainer post. It was canted down at no more than thirty degrees, so the water wasn't that deep yet.

  More debris tumbled past, a small farm building turning end over end. He hauled the rope hard to one side, and the runabout missed a pointed branch on a log low in the water. His night vision was improving, but he'd only just seen that one.

  It looked like the water wasn't travelling at the 120 kays Cathy had estimated, but that didn't surprise him. He was familiar with the principles of fluid mechanics, and the speed at the surface lessened as depth increased.

  Then the boat lurched, and gave ground. At first he thought the makeshift rope had parted, then a sharp jerk lifted the runabout and slammed it down again. Pain stabbed through his injured shoulder. When the pain receded, he guessed the strainer post had given way. That meant the end of the rope was now attached to a string of broken posts and tangled fence wire. It was time to cut the runabout free.

  He turned carefully onto his side, an
d pulled the surgical blade from his front pocket. His hands were cold from the water, and he didn't want to lose the blade overboard. It took him time to ease it out of its protective casing.

  The rope parted on the third jagged slice across it, and the front of the runabout bobbed up, released from its tether. Then they were whirled away across the dark waters, another piece of rudderless debris.

  Doug's legs cramped as he pulled them away from the windshield, and he stopped to stretch them out. Then he rolled on his back and looked up at the stars. Everything was so quiet. It took him a while to accept that the unremitting madness was over.

  After a while he got an arm down onto the cover, and tapped three times. He tried to call out, but his voice came out as a croak. Then the cover began to peel back. Mikael was the first to emerge, helping the others out into the night air. Doug climbed gingerly down to join them, and then he pulled his family close. It felt good.

  Some minutes later, Doug had Mikael remove the cover and stow it under the small deck at the front. Jeannie and the kids were wet from the seat of their pants down, but they had warm, dry jackets.

  Doug, though, was beginning to shiver. He stripped down to his basics and wrung out his clothes, while Jeannie rubbed him dry with a towel. The insides of the bags had stayed mostly dry, and she found some light clothing for him to wear. He took a couple of towels for extra warmth, until his jacket had started to dry out.

  It was only when Doug lowered himself into the bottom of the runabout that his shoulder gave him away. Jeannie saw him wince, and slid across to kneel beside him.

  They worked together to get his arm in a sling, and then Doug asked her to get his satphone out of his carry bag. She brought back some painkillers as well.

  17

  Somewhere in South Carolina

  United States of America

  Don was making good time, despite the earthquakes that had rolled through the eastern seaboard forty minutes after they left Richmond. The car seemed to absorb a lot of it.