Peter Hernon - 8.4

Lauren stayed with the boat. Holleran and Atkins started climbing the pile of broken rock, carefully working their way across the face of the dam to the platform. They were soon out over the water, the waves crashing below them against the wall of stone.

Holleran, a strong climber, easily made it to the platform and pulled herself over a low railing. Atkins was right behind her. She opened the metal door. Slipping inside, they found themselves in a darkened service tunnel.

Atkins was relieved to get in out of the biting wind and cold. Water poured off his snowmobile suit. He wiped it from his face and eyes.

Turning on flashlights, they walked about thirty yards down the tunnel. There they heard heavy machinery, the pounding of pneumatic drills and truck engines. It sounded like a construction site. The tunnel—it was more of a catwalk—ended at a ladder. They climbed down to a lower level about twenty feet below them.

They were inside the huge double wall of the dam. The space was about fifty yards wide at the base with concrete walls that soared up on each side, tapering in the darkness high above them.

From the catwalk, which was in shadows, they were able to peer around a pillar of reinforced concrete. The scene below almost made them gasp. Five cement trucks were lined up bumper to bumper. At least thirty men, maybe more, were working under the bright illumination of portable lights. Drills and jackhammers were pounding. Blue and orange sparks showered down from tall scaffolding where six men were welding steel reinforcement plates against the wall.

Atkins pointed to the wall that faced the lake. Four large cracks fanned out across the concrete like the tributaries of a river, each of them more than fifty feet long. Water was seeping from two of them. They were pumping it out. It was impossible to tell how deep the fissures were. One of them extended into the wall. One of them looked at least six inches wide.

“I wouldn’t call those minor surface cracks,” Holleran said, shouting out the words. She remembered how Weston had described them a few hours earlier.

Realizing at once what those gaping cracks signified, Atkins felt a cold fear well up in him. The dam was in serious danger of failure. If another moderate to strong quake hit before they finished making the repairs, it was going to collapse. He wasn’t a structural engineer, but he didn’t see how it could survive. He couldn’t begin to comprehend what it would mean if those walls gave way and the lake water poured out into the Tennessee River.

“Weston must have known this,” he said.

He couldn’t believe, seeing this, that the man had lied so blatantly.

“Let’s see if we can get a little closer,” Holleran said.

“That’s not a good idea,” Atkins said. “They might see us.”

“You can stay here, but I’m going,” Holleran said firmly. “I want a better look at those cracks.”

“Are you always like this?” Atkins said angrily. He felt like grabbing her so she couldn’t move.

“You’re damn right I am,” Holleran snapped. She’d had enough of Atkins’ arrogance. She’d put up with it at the restaurant in Memphis, but not here.

She’d just started to reach for the ladder to descend to another catwalk when the ground shook. The tremor lasted four or five seconds. Maybe a magnitude 3, Atkins thought.

They scrambled back up the ladder to the service tunnel. They hit the door on the run and got out on the equipment platform. They were scrambling over the railings when someone shouted at them from the top of the dam.

“Don’t move down there!”

“Keep going!” Atkins yelled to Holleran, who was in front of him.

There were more shouts from the dam. Someone had a bullhorn. A booming, amplified voice ordered them to halt.

Lauren already had the engine revving when they reached the boat. Atkins untied the lines and jumped in. Lauren gunned the outboard and turned in a tight circle. She shot out of the protected eddy and headed back into open water.

“We’ve got company,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Two boats were angling toward them across the lake. They were coming from the opposite end of the dam. Even in the darkness, Atkins saw the white rooster tails the engines threw up behind them.

Lauren had the throttle wide open. She was still hugging the shore, fighting the strong current. This wasn’t even going to be close. The boats were going to overtake them long before they got back up into the cove.

Suddenly they were pitched sharply to the left. It was as if something had given the boat a hard sideways shove.

Holleran and Atkins both understood what had happened. Another quake had struck, stronger than the one they’d had a few minutes earlier.

The effect on the lake was instantaneous. Waves rose up in front of them. The suddenness of it all was breathtaking.

Lauren turned in toward shore. It wasn’t far. Maybe thirty yards. Atkins and Holleran were bailing with their hands. The boat had taken on a lot of water when it was pitched to the side. They’d almost swamped.

“Get your life jackets strapped on!” Lauren screamed at them. “Do it now! Make sure they’re tight!”

Atkins looked across the lake. He could see only one of the boats. It had flipped over on its side and was heaving up and down in the waves, stern up. He couldn’t see anyone in the water. There was no way anyone could survive out there, even in a life jacket. It wasn’t much better closer to shore.

A wave crashed over their boat, flooding the engine. They began to roll over.

“Get out and try to hold on to the side,” Lauren yelled as they all went into the water. “Stay with the boat! Whatever happens… stay… with… the… boat!”

Atkins and Holleran worked their way to the same side of the hull as Lauren. They began kicking, trying to keep the shore in view as they rose and fell with the waves. They were being pulled farther out into the lake.

“We’ve got to try to swim for it!” Atkins shouted.

“I don’t think I can,” Lauren said. “Can’t move… I can’t move my arms.”

Her teeth were chattering. It was hard for her to talk. Hard to think in the cold. Wet and chilled to the bone, she’d been freezing ever since they’d left the dam. She was losing the feeling in her legs and arms. Her body chemistry was starting to shut down.

Atkins looped his arm through the straps of her life jacket.

“Go for it, Elizabeth!” he shouted.

The boat was lifted up on a swell. Atkins got a good look at the shore. He fixed on a tree. It was barely ten yards away. So close he could see the individual branches hanging out over the water. He tucked up his legs and pushed off as hard as he could against the side of the overturned boat. He saw Elizabeth do the same and then she was lost from view.

“Kick!” he screamed to Lauren. “Kick as hard as you can. Keep kicking!”

The water was very cold. Atkins tried to keep his eyes locked on the tree. Every time a wave lifted them up, he tried to get his bearings, focusing on a point midway up the trunk. He told himself to keep staring at it. His arms were starting to get heavy. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep this up. He could feel Lauren next to him. She was kicking, flailing with her arms. They weren’t making any headway. The waves were driving them into the shore, then pulling them back out.

Gripping the straps of Lauren’s life jacket, Atkins started thrashing with his right arm. He kept kicking. He thought he was going to drown, that his clothes and boots were going to pull him down. He kicked with his legs and beat at the water with an arm that felt like a lead weight. They were closer to the rocks. He bit down hard on the life jacket strap and clawed his way toward them with both arms, trying to keep his head up.