Peter Hernon - 8.4

“So tell me what I can do to help,” the president asked.

“Get us a helicopter,” Atkins said.

MARSHAL WAITED UNTIL HE COULD APPROACH Weston alone in the library annex, then quietly suggested they take a short walk outside. The president’s helicopter had just taken off. When Weston started to object, Marshal took him by the elbow and firmly led him toward a door.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said when they were outside. He looked and sounded nervous. He handed a white envelope to Weston. They’d gone behind the annex building, where they could talk without being overheard.

Weston opened the envelope, which contained four photographs.

“Who gave you these?” he gasped.

“One of the construction people up at the dam,” Marshal said. “You know him. Jensen. He’s lucky he’s alive. He got out about an hour before it washed out. Wanted to let us know about this. Of course, he also wants to be paid.”

“How did he get here?” Weston was still staring at the photographs. The quality was grainy, but the images were remarkably clear.

“Hitched a ride in an Army helicopter from Fort Campbell,” Marshal said. “A squad was sent down to provide security for the president. He pulled some strings and got aboard. Said he had some important information about the earthquake.”

The photographs that Weston was studying so intently showed John Atkins and Elizabeth Holleran inside the dam at Kentucky Lake. A security camera had taken the pictures when they were on one of the catwalks.

“They know all about those cracks,” Marshal said, angrily. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “They were snooping around in there after you had that meeting with all those people in Mayfield. The one where you said the cracks weren’t serious.”

A big man in a bulky, down-insulated overcoat, he towered over Weston. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” Weston said. “In case you forgot, the dam was destroyed in the quake. They can’t prove anything.”

“They can start asking questions,” Marshal said, becoming agitated.

“Calm down and forget this,” Weston said, carefully putting the photographs back in the envelope and placing it in his jacket pocket.

“No fucking way,” Marshal snapped. “How many people died when that damn broke? A thousand? Two thousand?”

“Keep… your… voice… down,” Weston said. “You need to get a grip on yourself. We’re not to blame for what happened at the dam.”

“We’ve got to do something,” Marshal said, taking Weston by the arm again.

Weston pulled away, squaring back his shoulders. He quickly looked around to see if anyone was watching.

“We’ll discuss this later,” he hissed, turning away and striding back toward the building. “Meanwhile, doctor, you’re going to do what you’re told.”

FRED BOOKER BOARDED THE SMALL, SINGLE ENGINE plane early in the morning. He’d been told the air was calmer at that time of day. That was important because for the first time in his life he was going to jump out of an airplane. He didn’t want to fight a strong wind, which might blow him off course.

It was going to be difficult enough landing near the University of Memphis. News reports said many parts of the city were still burning. Booker didn’t want to get caught in the updraft from the fires—or drift down into them.

That’s why he’d paid strict attention when his good friend from the ORNL, a former Army paratrooper, had explained how to operate a parachute. The day before, the friend had outfitted Booker with a brand-new parafoil chute. “You want to go left, pull on the left cords,” the friend told him. “You want to go right, pull on the right side. You want to drop straight, let up on the cords and just hang on. When you land, loosen up; take the jolt in your legs, keep them bent. You’ll hit nice and easy. Just like jumping off a ten-foot wall. No problem.”

No problem for a forty- or even a fifty-year-old, Booker remembered thinking. He was nearly seventy with a bum left knee that needed cartilage surgery.

The pilot looked like the recently retired air force major he was—lean, tanned, and wearing dark green aviator sunglasses. When he found out why Booker wanted to go to Memphis, he’d agreed to take him for free.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

Booker nodded. He wanted to talk to some of the geologists in Memphis and explain his idea for using a nuclear explosion to try to turn off the cycle of earthquakes. The aftershocks, which had shown no evidence of slackening, were killers. His friends, the two geophysicists from the Shock Wave Lab, thought he was crazy, but had written him letters of introduction addressed to Walter Jacobs.

The flight west to Memphis was short, less than two hours in a small plane. The pilot had to keep changing altitude because of all the emergency air traffic.

“The hell of it is they can’t land there,” he explained. “The airport’s closed. All the navigationals were knocked out. Radar, light beacons, everything. The whole damn control tower went down.”

“So where’s everybody going?” Booker said. They’d just dropped from ten thousand to eight thousand feet to make way for a C-140 military cargo plane. The huge gray jet seemed to move in slow motion yet rapidly pulled away from the Cessna.

“They’re using Interstate 55 just north of Memphis on the Arkansas side of the river. Highway over there’s in pretty good shape. They’re flying in relief supplies. Cargo planes are stacked up all across the country, waiting to get in. That stretch of highway is the only place within four hundred miles where they can land. The airport in St. Louis is out of commission; so are the ones in Little Rock and Louisville.”

The time to jump came with dramatic suddenness.

“There’s Memphis and look at her burn!” the pilot said. “I don’t believe it.”

Booker saw the smoke long before he saw the flames, so much smoke it was almost impossible to pick out any landmarks.

The pilot dropped lower. He found an opening in the clouds of smoke and thought they were over the eastern part of the city. “This is as good as it’s gonna get,” he shouted to Booker, who’d worked up the nerve to move to the open doorway. “You ready?”

Booker nodded. He was holding tightly to the doorframe, then he let go and leaned forward, closing his eyes as he fell into space. The wind slashed at his face and howled in his ears. It was incredibly loud and pulled at his trousers so hard he thought he was going to lose them.

Pull the ring, he told himself. Pull the ring.

Groping, eyes still closed, he clenched the metal ring and gave it a strong downward tug just as he’d been instructed.

He immediately shot upward, a bone-jarring ascent, and felt his bladder start to go. He was falling more slowly now, swaying in his harness. He opened his eyes and stared up at the parafoil, a brilliant yellow rectangular canopy. It was swept back slightly along its rear edge. The puffed-out rip-stop fabric, all that was holding him up, was much smaller than he would have thought.

Booker took a breath and looked down. The ground was coming up quickly. He pulled on the right cords and immediately moved right, away from a cloud of thick smoke. He was relieved to see how easily he could steer. He pulled on the left cords and veered in that direction.

Beautiful.

Now where the hell was he?

It looked like a residential district. Through the drifting smoke he could make out the damage; many of the buildings were down. He figured he was about a thousand feet up. He twisted slightly in the harness, trying to pick out the university. It was impossible.