“Mr White, we don’t have those six hours to waste. This storm is carrying winds at the center of more than 160 miles an hour, and she is still building. She is going to be the biggest storm this century. Maybe of any century.”
“Great stuff. And we predicted it. You predicted it, Richard. Congratulations. It’ll sure boost the ratings. And we’ll get those chats of yours going again.”
“Mr White. Faith is going to kill people. Maybe a whole lot of people. We have to do something about that, now. You have to do something. You have to call the Mayor, and the police, and get them to endorse our warning and move the people out of all low-lying areas.”
“Richard, you are starting to sound hysterical. How far away is this system?”
“The center is approximately 370 miles south-east of us. You could say, due east of Norfolk, Virginia.”
“And how fast is she moving?”
“Approximately 10 knots. That is real slow, and that is additionally dangerous, because every minute she spends over the sea she builds some more.”
“But she is still at least 36 hours away.”
“36 hours isn’t very long to evacuate Manhattan. And storm conditions, especially the rise of tide, will happen some time before the center arrives.”
“36 hours gives her one hell of a lot of time to change her course again, though.” As usual, JC was concentrating on what he considered the essentials. “If we started sounding off the way you want to, and she went off again, as she could well do, Jesus would we be in shit alley. We’ll issue our warning when we’re absolutely sure she’s gonna hit.”
“Mr White, that will be too late.”
“We have done our bit, Richard. We forecasted this storm, and we were laughed to scorn. Okay. Now it’s up to the Mayor and the police, as you say, to do something about it. Hell, they must watch the forecasts too. Nobody can now hold us responsible for what may happen. If Faith does come close, you, me, the whole station, will have had one mighty lucky escape from an acutely embarrassing situation. We’d be crazy to go sticking our necks out again without proof positive. You can’t have that before tonight. If Faith is still coming at us then, we’ll reconsider the situation. But we do nothing further until then. Got me? Now either get off the phone and go home and take a rest, or let me have your resignation Monday morning. Have a good day.” The phone went dead.
Richard looked at Julian, and Julian looked at Richard.
“I have City Hall, Mr Connors,” the switchboard said.
Richard picked up the phone again. “May I speak with the Mayor, please?” he asked. “This is Richard Connors on behalf of Station NABS.” He wondered why he was wasting his time.
“The Mayor has gone to lunch.”
“I thought he might have. What time do you expect him back?”
“We don’t, today. It’s an official function which will last late into the afternoon and afterwards he’s going straight home.”
“Well, look, it is vitally important that I contact him, or at least get a message to him.”
“Yes?” the man said.
“Is that possible?”
“No,” the man said.
“But you can contact him, presumably. If it’s important enough.”
“If it’s important enough, yes.”
“Then will you do so?”
“Why should I do that, Mr Connors? If you wish to make an apology for the scurrilous attack you launched on this administration last night, I suggest you put it in writing.”
“Okay, I’ll apologize. But right now I want to talk to Mayor Naseby about the hurricane itself.” Richard kept himself from shouting with an effort.
“The hurricane? Our information is that she no longer poses a threat to New York.”
“Well, I have news for you. She does pose a threat, more than ever before. She is changing direction and could well be coming straight at us. You tell the Mayor that there is a distinct possibility that Hurricane Faith may hit this city within 36 hours.”
“36 hours,” the man said, thoughtfully.
“And that I consider it absolutely essential that he order the evacuation of all low-lying areas of the city, immediately.”
“Evacuation immediately,” the man repeated; obviously he was now making notes. “Immediately? You mean, like right now?”
“I mean, like right now.”
“Mr Connors, the Mayor isn’t going to be happy to be told this. And you’re not his favorite person, right this minute.”
“You ask him if he’s going to be happy when he has a 20-foot wall of water rushing up Wall Street.”
“20-foot… well, I’ll call him, Mr Connors. But I must warn you that he doesn’t like being interrupted when on an official function except in an emergency.”
“I think this could just be described as an emergency,” Richard said. “Tell him NABS is ready to broadcast such an evacuation order, with details of routes to be used, and call me back here. Right?”
He replaced the phone. Julian scratched his head. “Think he’ll call back? Because if JC gets to hear of this, after telling you to cool it, he’s gonna have your guts for garters.”
Before Richard could reply, the phone buzzed again. “I have Assistant Commissioner McGrath on the line, Mr Connors.”
“Oh, Christ,” Richard muttered. McGrath was the man he and Kimmelman had interviewed yesterday morning. “He won’t do anything on my say so.”
“He won’t do anything at all without directions from the Mayor,” Julian pointed out.
“So you talk to him. Tell him we anticipate receiving such authority within the hour.” He got up. “I’m going to obey JC’s orders, at least for a while. Call me at Josephine Donnelly’s apartment the moment you hear from the Mayor.”
Park Avenue — 1.00 pm
“My God, you’re sopping wet!” Jo exclaimed as she opened the door.
“Well, it’s pouring with rain out there.” Richard made to kiss her, then saw the children. “Hi.”
“Hi, Mr Connors,” Owen Michael said. “This is Mr Connors, the weatherman,” he told Tamsin. “I have his autograph,” he added proudly.
“Hello, Mr Connors,” Tamsin said. “May I have your autograph too?”
“Sure. Just bring your book.”
“Maybe you’d like to stay to lunch,” Jo suggested, handing him a towel to dry his head; she had already spread his jacket over the back of a chair.
“That would be very nice, Mrs Donnelly.”
“Have you any news on what’s happening with Dad?” Owen Michael asked.
“Well…” Richard wrote in Tamsin’s autograph book. “I guess he’s having some rough weather out there.”
“Dad doesn’t worry about rough weather,” Owen Michael declared.
“Well, that’s great,” Richard said.
“Fix yourself a drink,” Jo said. “I’ll have one too. And you two run along and watch TV until lunchtime. They haven’t been able to go outside all day,” she explained.
Richard watched the door close. “Jo…” he took her in his arms.
“Is it bad?”
“Bad, and getting worse. This is hurricane rain.”
“And Michael?”
“I don’t know, Jo. I just don’t know. I simply can’t imagine what it might be like out there. And it’s going to get worse.”
She sighed, and rested her head on his shoulder. “And you want me to go up to Connecticut.”
“Don’t you think you should? You have your children to think about.”
“And not my husband?”
“Jo, you can’t help your…” They both spun round as the phone buzzed.
Jo ripped it from its stand. “Jo Donnelly? Oh. It’s for you.”
Richard took it. “Anything good, Julian?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“What did McGrath say?”
“You want his exact words? Get off my back, you punk.”
“That sounds in character. What about the Mayor
?”
“Ah… the guy at City Hall came back and said he’d been in touch with the Mayor and had been instructed to tell us that when the Mayor wishes the assistance of the National American Broadcasting Service in running New York City, he will most certainly ask for it. What do we do now?”
“What can we do, save wait for six o’clock? I’ll be along in a couple of hours.” He replaced the phone, took the glass Jo was holding for him. She watched him pace the room, drink in one hand, while the fingers of the other clenched and unclenched. Anger, frustration, and worry were boiling in his mind, obviously, and she waited for the inevitable overspill.
Aware of her eyes on him, he stopped, and, shoulders hunched, spread his arms wide in a gesture of despair. “They just don’t believe it can happen.”
“Surely New York has been hit by a hurricane before,” Jo said.
“Sure it has. And there’s the trouble. Because the city was virtually undamaged on those previous occasions, they all reckon it can ride anything.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If it was undamaged…”
“Let me give you a few facts. The last hurricane seriously to affect New York was Gloria. She passed over Long Island, right? A big storm, Category Three. Faith is already blowing 40 knots more than that. Then there was Belle, in 1976. She tracked over Long Island, too. But she was already collapsing, was only Category One when she came ashore. In 1960 there was Donna. Donna was a Category Three when she got up here, a big storm. But like the others, she was already turning northeast and went over Long Island. Same with Carol in 1954, and according to the records she shook people up and then some. But how many people remember back more than thirty years? They didn’t give names before 1950, but New York had hurricanes in 1944, in 1938 and in 1916, all following the same route, a sweep to the mainland, then a sharp turn away to the north-east. So what’s the operative phrase in all that?”
“The north-east?”
“Correct. And Long Island. The centers of all those storms passed over Long Island. That means that in each of those hurricanes New York was on the left, the western side of the track. The side where the winds are not only weaker but start to blow from the west earlier as the center passes through. The side where the storm surge is minimal. New York has never been in the northeast sector, the dangerous sector. Do you know what mariners used to do in the days before forecasts, when the sky or the barometer indicated a big storm was about? They faced the wind, and knew the center of the storm would be just over 90° to their right hand, in the northern hemisphere. It’s a natural law, named after the Dutchman, Buys Ballot, who discovered it. So the ship would alter course to the left, to make sure it stayed on the weaker side, the navigable side. That’s all New York has ever experienced, the navigable semi-circle.”
“And you think Faith is going to behave differently from all the others?”
“Ultimately, no. I think she will turn northeast after hitting land. But it’s where she hits land that matters, and right now, if this turning movement continues — and don’t forget that she did just this over Eleuthera on Wednesday — she could come ashore south of Manhattan, and if she does that, with the kind of winds she is generating, it’s going to be like nobody can even imagine.”
“Surely those people, the Mayor and the police, can see that on the weather map?”
“No they can’t, because it’s not on the weather map, as yet. All they can see is a big storm behaving exactly the same as every other big storm. Up to two hours ago they were right. The fact that she has begun to turn west won’t be clearly apparent for several hours.” He drank some whisky. “The administration is at least basing its ideas on history. I feel they are dreadfully wrong, but I can’t prove it until Faith’s new track is clearly defined, and that may be too late. But you know, at the other end of the scale there are people like JC. He is mad. Quite insane. He actually wants Faith to hit New York so he can take the credit for his station having predicted it would happen, and thus score a big win over the Mayor. Can you believe that? He doesn’t give a damn about the possible loss of hundreds, thousands of lives, doesn’t seem able to assimilate the fact that he’ll probably be amongst the victims.”
“But doesn’t he accept the fact that she is coming this way? And that if you put out a definitive warning now you’ll still be scoring off the Mayor?”
“He won’t take the risk that we might be proved wrong. He was pretty upset during the eastward movement, after our attack yesterday: quote ‘we’ll be left with egg on our faces’ unquote. So now I’m banned from issuing any warning just in case she moves off again. The most important thing in life is JC’s public image.” He drained his glass, and Jo got up to refill it. “My darling…” He caught her wrist. “Will you listen to me? Believe me? Please?”
“I do believe you.”
“Well, then, get out of town.”
She took the glass to the bar, poured. “I can’t, right now. God knows my marriage is over, Richard. But Michael is the father of my children. I have got to be where he can get in touch with me, tell me he’s safe… or where I can be told of his… well, whatever happens. He’s out of radio range right this minute; he only has an MF set, with a maximum range of 280 miles. But I know he’ll call; as soon as he nears the coast.”
He sighed. “Which will be when?”
“Well… he should be back within range by this evening.”
“By this evening, if I have my way, this entire city will be under evacuation, and there are going to be some real traffic jams. Listen, you can call him from his folks’ place, surely.”
Jo hesitated. The last thing she wanted right this minute was for Big Mike and Babs, not to mention Belle and Dale, to hear the sort of slanging Michael had taken to dishing out to her. But she could see Richard was deadly serious. “Okay,” she said. “Listen. I’ll hang on here until seven tonight, and see if I can raise him then. And if Faith is still coming straight for us this evening, I promise I’ll go as soon as I’ve spoken to the yacht.”
“You don’t really believe me, do you,” he said sadly.
“Well…” She bit her lip. It was really impossible to imagine anything serious happening to New York. “Of course I do, Richard, but I really don’t want to descend on the Donnellys in their present state unless I have to. Besides…”
He knew what she was thinking. “Listen, Jo, I have no doubt at all that this is one hell of a fine building, and can stand up even to 160 mile an hour winds. But what about that window?”
Jo looked at the picture window and frowned.
“That is going to explode like a bomb,” Richard told her. “Do you really want your kids in here when that happens?”
“My God,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“So get out while you can. If you don’t want to trouble the Donnellys, go to that cottage of yours.”
“Sure. I’ll do that.”
“But not until tonight?”
“We’ll have time. Won’t we?”
He sighed, and nodded. “Okay. Tonight.” He took her in his arms. “Promise?”
“Guide’s honor.”
“I’ll be counting on that. I have an idea things are going to start to hum tonight, and I probably won’t have the opportunity to call you. But if you’re going to be out of town, I won’t have anything to worry about.”
“And what are you going to be doing? Aren’t you at risk from flying glass as much as anyone?”
“Sure. But I at least know what to expect. And I have a job to do. I’ll call you at Bognor, the moment I can. Now…” He kissed her to stop her protests. “Let’s drink to Michael. I reckon he’s doing it the hardest possible way, right this minute.”
The Gulf Stream — Afternoon
The squalls continued all morning, the wind speed gradually rising in each one, and the wind gradually backing as well, from south-west to south-east and then through east to north-east. Michael shut down the engine as even under reefed main and s
torm jib Esmeralda was making nine knots; but as the wind began to head him it was not possible to maintain a course as much north as he would have liked.
It was a peculiar day in that during a squall visibility would close down to under a mile, and they seemed alone in an empty grey world. Then the rain would pass, the clouds would break as they chased across the sky, and, at least on the top of the swells, they could see forever, the horizon at once sharp and serrated by the surging waves. On these occasions they became comfortingly aware of how busy a stretch of ocean this was. Steamers appeared and disappeared again, all heading north as fast as they could, and Sam chatted with one huge container ship, whose operator remarked, “Say, you guys know what’s behind you?”
“We’re keeping an eye on it,” Sam said, blood tingling at the nonchalance in his voice.
“Well, good luck,” the operator said. “Keep your whisky clean.”
The swell was now mountainous, at least 20 feet from trough to crest, but still long, perhaps 300 feet between each crest. With each squall the crests rose another six or eight feet in curling waves, a foretaste of what was to come. Yet Esmeralda coasted along very comfortably under her reduced canvas, and she was as ready for the storm as human ingenuity could manage. Michael had sailed in the infamous Fastnet Race of 1979 when a freak storm had caused a large number of yachts to be abandoned and some fifteen men had been lost, and he remembered that the casualties had been caused by two main factors: premature abandonment of a ship for a life raft, and failure of safety gear. He also knew that the greatest danger any yachting crew can face in bad weather is that of man overboard. And already occasional waves were overtaking the yacht; he was now steering with the wind on the starboard quarter to avoid the dangers inherent in running dead in such conditions, but even so water would often splatter over the stern, not solid enough to be considered pooping as yet, but again a portent of what was on the way, with the consequent danger of being washed out of the cockpit. Thus he had given instructions that no man was to leave the cabin without two safety harnesses, so that he could be clipped on to two strong points at the same time — he knew the force that could be exerted were the ship to be knocked down. He had also commanded that two men were to be on the helm at all times, one steering, the other ready to take over should anything happen. And still he tried to envisage all possibilities, but as the afternoon wore on he felt he could relax for a while. He had done everything he could. After they had eaten the first of Mark’s stews, he told the watch below to turn in and try to sleep, but they all preferred to remain on deck, watching the horrendous cloud formations looming up from the south.
Her Name Will Be Faith Page 26
