Michael Crichton - State Of Fear

And came out onto the highway, going south.

"What are you doing?" Sarah said. "We have to go to the rocket field."

"It's too late now," he said. "We're going back to the park."

"But we promised Kenner"

"It's too late," he said. "Look at the storm. It's already full blown. We have to get back to help those families in the park."

He turned the windshield wipers on full force, and raced down the road in the storm.

Behind them, the pickup truck turned and followed them.

Trooper Miguel Rodriguez had been watching the waterfall. An hour ago, it had been a clear mist, coming over the cliff 's edge. Now it was tinged with brown, and it had more volume. The river, too, was starting to rise. It was flowing faster, and beginning to turn a muddy brown.

But it was still not raining at the park. The air had turned distinctly humid, and there had been scattered raindrops for a few minutes, but then the rain had stopped. A few families had abandoned their barbecues. A half-dozen more were packing up their cars in anticipation of the coming storm. But most had chosen to ignore it. The school principal was walking among the picnickers, telling people the weather would pass, urging everyone to stay.

Rodriguez was edgy. He tugged at his uniform collar, uncomfortable in the dampness. He paced back and forth beside his open car door. He heard the police radio announce flash flood warnings for Clayton County, which was where McKinley Park was located. He didn't want to wait any longer, but still he hesitated.

He couldn't understand why Kenner hadn't called him. The park was located in a canyon, and there was every sign of a potential flash flood. Rodriguez had lived in northern Arizona his whole life. He knew he should clear the park now.

Why hadn't Kenner called?

He drummed his fingers on the door of the car.

He decided to give it five more minutes.

Five minutes. No more.

What worried him most at the moment was the waterfall. The brown tinge had put people off, and most of the crowd had moved away. But a few teenagers were still playing in the pool at the base of the fall. Rodriguez knew that rocks could come over the cliff any minute now. Even small rocks would have enough force to kill a person at the bottom.

Rodriguez was thinking about clearing the waterfall area when he noticed something strange. Up at the top of the cliff, where the water came over the lip, he saw a van with an antenna. It looked like a TV station van. There was no lettering on the side, but there was a logo of some kind. Still he couldn't make it out from this distance. He saw a cameraman get out of the van and take a position by the waterfall, crouching down with a camera mounted on his shoulder and looking down into the park. A woman in a skirt and blouse stood by his side, pointing in this direction and that. Apparently telling him where to film, because he was turning the camera where she pointed.

It was definitely a news crew.

He thought: A news crew for a school picnic?

Rodriguez squinted, trying to identify the van's logo. It was yellow and blue, sort of swirly interlocking circles. He didn't recognize it as one of the local stations. But there was something distinctly creepy about this crew, coming here right as the storm was descending on the park. He decided he'd better walk over and have a talk with them.

Kenner didn't want to kill the guy now huddled beneath the semi. No member of ELF had ever been captured, and this one seemed a likely candidate. Kenner could tell from the sound of the guy's voice that he was scared. And he sounded young, maybe in his twenties. Probably he was shaken by the death of his friend. Certainly he couldn't handle a machine gun very well.

Now this guy was afraid he was going to die, too. Maybe he was having second thoughts about his cause.

"Come out now," Kenner yelled to him. "Come out, and everything will be all right."

"Fuck you," the guy said. "Who the fuck are you, anyway? What is your fucking problem? Don't you get it, man? We're trying to save the planet."

"You're breaking the law," Kenner said.

"The law," the guy said contemptuously. "The law's owned by the corporations that pollute the environment and destroy human life."

"The only one killing people is you," Kenner said. Thunder was rumbling and lightning flickered dimly behind the inky clouds. It was absurd to be having this conversation in the middle of a storm.

But it was worth it to get the guy alive.

"Hey, I'm not killing anyone," the guy said. "Not even you."

"You're killing little kids," Kenner said, "in the park. You're killing families on a picnic."

"Casualties are inevitable in accomplishing social change. History tells us that."

Kenner wasn't sure whether the guy believed what he was saying, had been fed it at college, or was just distracted by fear. Then again, maybe it was meant to be a distraction amp; He looked to his right, beneath his own vehicle. And he saw a pair of feet moving around the SUV and heading toward him.

Ah hell, he thought. It was disappointing. He aimed carefully and shot once, hitting the man behind the SUV in the ankle. The guy screamed in pain and went down on his back. Kenner could see him under the car. He wasn't young, maybe forty or forty-five. Bearded. He carried a machine gun, and he was rolling over to shoot Kenner fired twice. The man's head jerked back. He dropped the machine gun and did not move, his body sprawled awkwardly in the grass.

The man under the semi began to fire his own machine gun. The bullets were flying wildly. Kenner heard several thunk into his SUV. Kenner lay in the grass, head down.

When the shooting stopped, he yelled, "Last chance!"

"Fuck you!"

Kenner waited. There was a long pause. He listened to the sound of the rain. It was coming down very hard, now.

He waited.

The guy yelled, "Did you hear me, you fucking asshole?"

"I heard you," Kenner said, and shot once.

It was a real desert downpour, Evans thought, gripping the steering wheel. The rain was coming down in dense sheets. Even with the windshield wipers going as fast as they could, he found it almost impossible to see the road ahead. He had dropped his speed to fifty, then forty. Now he was down to thirty. The pickup truck behind them had slowed, too. There was no real choice.

He passed one or two other cars, but they were all pulled over to the side of the road. It was the sensible thing to do.

The pavement was awash in water, and whenever the pavement dipped a little, it formed a lake, or a rushing rivulet. Sometimes he could not tell how deep the water was, and he didn't want to soak his ignition. He gunned the engine to keep it dry.

He didn't see any road signs. It was almost as dark as night out there, and he had his headlights on, but they seemed to make no difference. He could see only a few yards ahead through the rain.

He looked over at Sarah, but she was just staring forward. Not moving, not speaking. He wondered if she was all right.

Looking in the rearview mirror, he could sometimes see the lights of the pickup truck following him, and sometimes not. There was that much rain.

"I think we're almost to the park," he said. "But I can't be sure."

The interior of the windshield was starting to fog up. He rubbed it with the back of his arm and his elbow, making a squeaking sound on the glass. Now he could see a little better. They were at the top of a gentle hill, heading down toward "Oh shit."

"What?" Sarah said.

"Look."

At the bottom of the hill was a fifteen-foot culvert, the road passing over a series of large pipes carrying water from a small stream. Earlier, the stream had been little more than a silvery trickle in a rocky bed. But it had broadened and risen so that it now flowed over the surface of the road, the water moving swiftly.