Tsunami: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Crawford Kilian

  “What if the government gets back to normal too? Suppose they kick your precious locals right in the ass and tell us to get lost? They weren’t too keen on importing our wood before this all started.”

  “We’ll smuggle it in if we have to. You used to run booze into the States; it’d be like old times.”

  “Christ, you’re even dumber than you look. I can just see you tryin’ to outrun the Coast Guard with a log boom tied to your ass.” But he was smiling. “I just don’t like the idea of playing footsie with all these goddamned radicals.”

  “You leave that to me and concentrate on getting rich. Do we have a deal?”

  “Jesus, listen to you talk. ‘Getting rich.’ How come the high and mighty scientist wants to get down in the gutter with his old granddad?”

  “I can’t do oceanography without money, Grampa. If I’m running KenFor, and KenFor’s making money, I can steal enough to do some science on the side.”

  “That makes sense. Okay, buster, you got a deal.”

  *

  Early the next morning, Don drove one of the other family cars — a Honda Accord — over Second Narrows Bridge into North Vancouver. Burrard Inlet, the city’s great harbour, was covered by a tangled mat of debris formed by the flooding of the low-lying shore. At the far end of the inlet, east of the bridge, four or five freighters rode at anchor; but no ships moved in the harbour.

  Taking the first exit from the bridge, Don drove to the light-industrial zone behind the waterfront. He parked in front of an anonymous cinder-block building, got out, and tried the door. It opened.

  The reception room was silent and dusty. Its walls were decorated with colour photos of submersibles and scuba divers; Don recognized himself in one photo. He went down a corridor into a large, high-ceilinged machine shop at the rear of the building. Skylights cast yellow-moted beams onto the floor and walls.

  In one of the beams stood a submersible on a modified flatbed trailer. It was no longer than Plummet, and only a little wider, but it was taller from keel to sail. Its nose was a hemisphere of glass; floodlights and twin manipulators were recessed into the sharply tapering hull.

  A man stood near the sub’s pointed stern, his feet buried in tangled cables and hoses. He was adjusting a diving plane; his wrench made soft metallic noises.

  “It’ll never fly,” Don called out. Morrie Walters lowered his wrench and turned, squinting into the shadows. In the beam of sunlight he looked almost skeletal: tall, emaciated, with stringy brown hair fringing a bald scalp.

  “Don Kennard! What brings you back to the scene of the crime?”

  They shook hands casually, unmindful of the three years since they had last met.

  “This is your new baby?” Don asked.

  “Yeah. She’s called Squid. She was supposed to be operating in the Beaufort Sea, before everything went to hell. Hey, did you know I’m bankrupt? Not that it matters. Let me show you what she’s like inside.”

  Inside were two bucket seats, side by side, and banks of instruments arrayed on the inside of the hull. Behind the seats were lockers, batteries and electronic equipment, covering the circular rear bulkhead. Morrie ran through her specifications while pointing things out with a flash-light.

  “She’s beautiful,” Don said. He settled himself in the pilot’s seat and crossed his legs. “And plenty of room. You’ve done yourself proud.”

  “I know. If the sea level gets much higher, she’ll float right out of here. Think I’ll take her to Hawaii.”

  “Bring her to California. I’ve got work for her.”

  Don told him about the Sitka Carrier and Rachel. Morrie, sitting beside him, listened thoughtfully and stared through the bubble at the roll-up metal door in the rear wall of the building. He rubbed his sunburned scalp. “When do we go?”

  “Next week, if we work fast enough.”

  “I’ll have to talk it over with Jenny. She and the kids couldn’t come. For how long?”

  “Depends. Probably all summer, unless we’re really lucky.”

  “How are you going to pay me? I’m not taking U.S. dollars.”

  “How about a bargeload of gasoline and diesel?”

  “Oho. Not bad.”

  “You can tow it back with Rachel and use her until Kirstie and I come back for good this winter.”

  “For good? Hey, wonderful. But I thought you never wanted to live here again.”

  “Well — Geordie’s dying, Morrie. He’s looking pretty frail. When he was still in his eighties, it wasn’t so hard to hate him, and my dad hadn’t been dead for long. After a while you can forgive a lot. And forget the rest. My mum’s not looking all that great, either. I can’t just leave her here, with poor old Samuel to look after her. Anyway, I made the deal with Geordie. For coming back, I get Rachel.”

  Morrie nodded. “Good. Hey, it’s gonna work out. And we’re gonna have a blast with this baby. She is so state-of-the-art, even I don’t know everything she can do.”

  The sun, climbing higher, blazed through the skylight and down onto the glass hemisphere. It sparkled and glittered. Don looked up at the glare of the sky.

  *

  The preparations took five days. With Bill, Einar and Chief, Don took Rachel out of the Fraser River and into Burrard Inlet. Once they had moored in North Vancouver, it took half a night to move Squid to her new home on the barge. Setting up a maintenance shop and fuel supply on the barge took four days.

  *

  On the night of Rachel’s departure, the crew had supper in Shaughnessy and then squeezed Geordie and Elizabeth into the limousine for the last trip to North Vancouver.

  “Everybody sleeps all day,” Geordie said, “and then they run around all night. Lucky bastards. I don’t sleep more’n two-three hours, day and night. Nothing to do but play solitaire and think about my sins.”

  “That ought to be enough to occupy you and two helpers,” Elizabeth chuckled.

  “It’s more fun than listening to you and Samuel tell me all the things I’m not allowed to do any more.” He subsided into testy silence, glaring out the window. Elizabeth looked at Don, rolling her eyes.

  When they reached the dock, Geordie and Elizabeth stayed in the car. Don and Kirstie sat with them to say good-bye.

  “It’s like sending you off to Harvard,” his mother said.

  “Only more expensive,” Geordie growled. “Well, get going. The sooner you get down there, the sooner you can come back and peck in the shit with me and the chickens.”

  *

  Geordie’s supplies of diesel fuel had been large; Rachel’s tanks were full, and Squid’s barge carried a sizable reserve. Don and the rest of the crew swung between exhilaration at having so much energy at their disposal, and anxiety about wasting it.

  The tug ran south through the Strait of Georgia, dodging deadheads and other floating hazards, and then turned northwest into Juan de Fuca Strait. The sky was cloudless but smoky; long, steep swells rolled up from the south. Off the mouth of the Columbia River, the weather turned stormy, and the swells became wind-torn waves. Einar, doing a periodic check for radio broadcasts, picked up a news bulletin from Portland:

  “ … accordingly, President Wood has agreed to suspend his responsibilities until normal conditions are restored and has urged all Americans to support the new Emergency Administration formed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs are now empowered to proclaim and enforce whatever regulations are deemed appropriate. Their first Emergency Regulation reads as follows:

  “‘The United States of America is hereby placed under martial law. All military reservists are ordered to report for active duty within twenty-four hours. Commanding officers of military installations are to extend their responsibilities to administration of civilians residing near such installations. Municipal, regional and state governments shall place themselves and their resources at the disposal of appropriate commanding officers or their designates. Failure to comply shall be considered a breach of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a
nd offenders shall be tried by court-martial.’”

  The broadcast faded out in static. Don and Kirstie, standing just behind Einar, looked at each other.

  “It can’t work,” said Kirstie. “The military in California are in worse shape than we are. How are they supposed to step in and run things?”

  “If a few officers take over the locals — ”

  “They couldn’t!”

  “They could with enough armed men behind them.”

  “I know what happened to the National Guard the night of the waves,” Kirstie retorted. “They got slaughtered.”

  Don shook his head. “It wouldn’t happen again. The army would come in ready for anything.” He looked unhappy.

  South of Point Reyes, almost at the Golden Gate, Rachel hove to. The sea had calmed, and a dense fog hung in the windless air. With the radar dead and the radio direction finder unreliable. Bill decided to wait for the fog to lift.

  The radio still worked, but so poorly that Einar was sure another solar flare must have hit. He picked up frantic messages from Bay Area locals and ham operators, and occasional broadcasts in code. The details were vague, but it was clear that military units were trying to take over in San Francisco and the East Bay, against strong resistance from the locals.

  After a day and a night in the fog, Einar picked up a conversation between a ham operator working for the Berkeley local and another one in San Francisco. Army units from Sacramento were occupying Richmond and El Cerrito and attempting to break through into Berkeley. The push had been stalled, but missiles had begun falling all over the East Bay, killing scores of people and disrupting the defence of Berkeley.

  “The missiles seem to be coming from the west. Has the army in San Francisco got that kind of hardware? Over.”

  “Not that we know of But we heard a cruiser was off the Golden Gate a couple of days ago. God knows where it came from. It’s all socked in out there now, but maybe they’re the ones. Over.”

  “Christ, I didn’t think they had things like cruisers any more. Listen, tell your people we’re hanging on, but it’s rough.”

  Kirstie turned away, not wanting to hear any more, and paced furiously across the wheelhouse. “Those bastards — those bloody navy bastards. Bill, we’ve got to get in there as quickly as possible.”

  Bill Murphy snorted. “What for? So we can get shot up?”

  “So we can help! Those are our people. Don, shouldn’t we go in?”

  He had walked to the wheelhouse door and stood looking out at the fog.

  “Listen,” he said.

  Kirstie, Bill, Morrie and Einar followed him outside. The air was damp and grey. Off to starboard, something hissed and faded away.

  “It’s the cruiser,” said Don. “It can’t be more than two or three kilometres away. I’ll bet their radar is as dead as ours; they’re just firing blind.” His face was grim. “Morrie, I need to put Squid in the water. You don’t have to come with me.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Morrie.

  Don shrugged and shook his head. Kirstie thought he looked scared and determined. “I’m going to try to sink them.”

  Chapter 11

  As soon as reports of the mutiny at Fort Ord reached him, Mercer set up a defensive perimeter on the crest of the ridge between Carmel and Monterey. Then he sent word to Allison. An hour later, Allison was at Mercer’s headquarters in the principal’s office of Carmel High School.

  “Man, I can’t believe this,” Mercer said through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “We got the word yesterday about the president being arrested and the Joint Chiefs taking over. I figure, big deal, we been on our own for months here. But, man, the troops went apeshit. They figure their hitches are over ’cause their commander-in-chief is locked up. I hear General Miles was pretty drunk when the men started liberating trucks and heading for home — he ordered the MPs to open fire on some dudes driving off the post, and they told him to forget it. So he shot at ‘em himself, and the MPs wasted him.”

  “Christ,” Allison whispered. On the wall behind Mercer’s head, photographs of the president and the state governor beamed down.

  “Well, it’s been getting worse ever since. The troops started fragging officers, trashing everything they could reach, getting bombed and stoned, and taking off. They started comin’ out of Ord around dawn. Half of ‘em still shitfaced. Couple of ‘em drove jeeps and started shootin’ up Alvarado Street just for a smile. When they get tired of that, some of ‘em gonna head here.”

  “Can we handle them?”

  “Sure we can handle ‘em. They’re mostly kids, you know? No organization. The smart ones are already long gone. Going home.” Mercer sipped hot coffee. His sunglasses were propped on the bill of his olive-green baseball cap.

  “If any of them come this way, will your guys fight their buddies?”

  “Course we will. Man, we own this place, this is our home now. We’ll wax ‘em, they ask for it.”

  Allison nodded. Mercer’s army was over three hundred now — mostly army kids, with some civilians and a handful of retreads. The force was in charge of the whole Carmel Valley and down the coast to the northern fringe of Big Sur. Monterey, until now, had been policed directly from Ord. Allison didn’t like thinking about the sudden insecurity on his doorstep.

  “Next question. Can we take over Monterey ourselves?”

  “Ho-ho.” Mercer grinned. “Maybe. Sneak in, pick up a few dudes and find out what’s going on down there. Then we could go in tonight, when they’re getting drunked up again. Lock ‘em up overnight and work on ‘em tomorrow.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Uh, that means shoot and recruit. There’ll be a few real assholes, you know, rapists and like that. We get them identified really quick, shoot ‘em, and then tell the others they can re-enlist in the Carmel Valley Army.”

  Allison shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust the bastards.”

  “Hey, come on! What do you want, girl scouts? Or you want to kill every swinging dick we find in town?”

  “All right, all right. How many men will you need?”

  “All of ‘em. Pull in the guys up the valley and down by Big Sur.”

  “Now, goddamn it, Odell, you know that’s impossible. Frank Burk’s still out there, and if he even guesses we’re all in Monterey he’ll kill everybody on Escondido Creek. Uh-uh, that’s out.”

  “You have really got a thing about Burk, you know that? A thing. Sure, he’s out there. But we don’t know where. Ain’t even seen a trace of him lately. Maybe he even left the Zone to find his people.”

  “My ass. The son-of-a-bitch is up in those hills, waiting for a chance.”

  “And a couple hundred sons-of-bitches are in Monterey, man. Now think: if you throw all your men into town tonight, this time tomorrow you got double the men we have now, and Burk is through. You send in just a few squads, they get shot up and you’re worse off than before.”

  “I want two squads stationed at the ranch. Minimum.”

  “Okay. But you stay at the ranch too.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “You’re my insurance, man. You think everybody in the valley likes me? Uh-uh. They like you, the big movie celebrity with the private army. You get shot, man, and we’re just another bunch of dangerous blacks, far as these folks care. They’ll hide their food and start pickin’ us off.” Allison drew in a breath and slowly let it out. “All right. I’ll stay at the ranch.” He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted: Mercer had said, in effect, that Allison was only a figurehead. But Mercer had also admitted that — for all his firepower and tactical cleverness — he felt alone and vulnerable in a white community. Then perhaps being a figurehead wasn’t so bad after all.

  *

  Allison’s group of friends had, not surprisingly, become the Leadership Committee: each had special areas of responsibility. That afternoon the Committee met in the ranch house living room. Rain pounded on the windows, and logs burned behind t
he glass doors of the fireplace. The curtains, as always, were drawn.

  Allison outlined the meeting’s agenda and settled back to hear reports. They were much the same as last week’s: Hipolito Vasquez was keeping the cars and generator in shape, but worried about fuel supplies. Ted Loeffler was running all over Carmel Valley, coordinating civilian support for Mercer’s troops, and worried about fuel supplies. Bert D’Annunzio kept running patrols into the hills, searching for Frank Burk; he could use more people and vehicles. The women were spending less time in the greenhouse — food was not a real problem, since every household in the Carmel Valley contributed to the ranch’s support — and wished they could get out more.

  “I hear you,” Allison said. “I think we may have a solution to the gas problem, and that might solve most of the other problems.”

  “How?” asked Bert.

  “The Sitka Carrier. If we can get some of that gas and oil out, we’ll be okay.”

  He saw at once, by their guarded expressions, that the idea was too big for them. They were caught up in the immediate problems, too caught up to see the long-range solution. Okay, let it soak in for a while.

  “What about this mutiny?” Ted asked, changing the subject. “Have you heard anything more, kemo sabe?”

  “Mercer’s moving into Monterey tonight, with every man he’s got except for two squads here.”

  The news startled everyone, as he’d known it would. Allison sketched out the reasoning behind the move and its expected benefits.

  “We’ll have more administrative problems,” he said, “but more resources to solve them. And if we’re in control of Monterey harbour, we can get access to the Sitka Carrier.”

  “We don’t have any ships, for God’s sake,” Bert objected. “There isn’t even a rowboat between here and Oregon.”

  “Bullshit,” Allison grunted. “There’s half a dozen freighters down in Morro Bay, and I’ve heard of more up around San Francisco. We can get hold of a ship.”