by Peter Tonkin
‘The primary storm front is the one with the hurricane winds and the worst seas, and the storm surge. We estimate that once this is past you’ll be looking at moderating conditions. Moderating through severe storm to storm. Winds coming down from gusts of over one hundred miles an hour to between forty and fifty. From twelve down to nine or maybe eight on the Beaufort scale, moderating further in time. With increasing periods of calm, perhaps the occasional dead calm, especially at ground level, though there will be strong winds higher up. But even if the wind moderates and the seas begin to settle, the rain won’t stop. What you have above you is what I described at the Chamber of Commerce. A river of warm, saturated air stretching from where you are right the way back beyond China, and it’s going to come across the ocean non-stop and precipitate everything its carrying as it hits the Sierra Madre.’
‘Yes. I’ve seen it.’
‘No. That’s my point. With respect, Captain Mariner, I don’t think you have seen it. So far, bad as things may have been for you, you haven’t been at the leading edge when it hits land. That’s where the real downpours are occurring. And that’s where the big winds are too, though up high for the most part. We’re looking at precipitation rates of one, perhaps two inches an hour. Have you any notion of the damage potential of precipitation of that intensity? How long has this incident been going on so far? Three days? Seventy-two hours. One hundred and forty-four inches of rain. That’s twelve feet of rain.’
‘No wonder it flooded California in 1862. But, Doctor Jones …’
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘On the west coast of Mexico there’s no big central valley like the one stretching down from Sacramento to Bakersfield. The mountains in Mexico come right down to the beaches. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.’
‘We’re hearing here that the Mexican authorities have advised anyone who can get away to run south or east over the Sierras to Guadalajara. They’re setting up temporary evacuation centres south of the main storm front from Vallarta on down to Acapulco. But there’s been nothing from Puerto Banderas.’
‘There’s only one way to be certain. And I’d like to be more certain than I am now – before I take Sulu Queen into Puerto Banderas harbour.’
‘Good luck, Captain Mariner, whatever you’re planning. Stay in touch.’
‘I will, don’t worry. All relevant details will be exhaustively logged and passed straight along to you and your colleagues at USGS and NOAA.’
Richard broke contact and sat back for a moment, looking at the blank screen of his laptop. Then he pulled himself upright and strolled through on to the bridge with studied nonchalance. ‘Mr Cheng,’ he said. ‘We have agreed the course we want Sulu Queen to follow during the next couple of hours?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ answered Cheng. ‘Why do we need to agree this?’
‘Because, Mr Cheng, you have the con. I’m stepping out for a while.’
‘Stepping out?’
‘Precisely. Major Guerrero, would you like to accompany me?’ He walked forward to the communications console and pressed the All Hail. ‘This is your captain speaking. Would Biddy McKinney report to the bridge, please? I repeat, Biddy McKinney to the bridge …’
THIRTY-SIX
The Bell 429 skipped low over the round lake in the dead volcanic crater of Isla Santa Isabel and settled towards sea level beside the sheer, rocky islets of Las Monas. ‘You were right, Richard,’ called Biddy through the earphones. ‘The air is quieter just above the waves – as long as I keep clear of the spray and foam. Do you think the rain is beginning to ease a little too?’
‘Looks like it,’ answered Richard. A flaw in the wind combined with the easing of the downpour giving him a glimpse of the high white surf-line stretching away northwards, where the reefs reached out from the little island. Even in these conditions, the air above the boiling water was dark with flocks of boobies and frigate birds hunting the breakers. He turned his attention to Juan Jose Guerrero, who still looked more than a little shaken from the scarily stormy lift-off. ‘This take you back to your youth, Major?’
‘A bit. Though I have to admit I was never out here in a chopper. And, given half a chance, I won’t ever be again. Getting the Bell ready for take-off and then lifting off in this weather has aged me by decades. Not years. Decades. Anyhow, it all looks different from a fishing boat. Bigger. And, of course, I’ve never been out in conditions like these.’ The cabin tilted slightly as Biddy put the Bell’s nose down and pushed her airspeed up. The grey corrugations of foam-webbed wave-sets sped past at hypnotic speed. The bellow of the wind quietened and the rainfall seemed to ease a little more. But Richard could see the major’s point. Nobody in their right mind would bring a boat out in this. He was even beginning to have second thoughts about his own massive ship. But he was committed now; he had given his word. And there was the matter of finding Robin …
Biddy was taking the Bell on the route by which Richard was proposing to bring Sulu Queen into the harbour at Puerto Banderas. Conditions in the air were not quite as bad as those they had experienced over Baja California Norte, Richard thought. But they were still a way out from the land. And if what Dr Jones said was accurate, it was where the aerial river of the ARkStorm met the ten thousand foot wall of the Sierra Madre Occidental that he would find the heaviest downpours. He tried to imagine what twelve feet of water poured on to the west-facing slopes of those massive mountains would unleash. Only to give up. Speculation was a waste of time. He would see the reality of it soon enough.
See it at once. ‘What’s that?’ demanded Guerrero. ‘A whale?’
Richard strained to see what he was pointing at. A long black shape was tossing in the grip of the waves. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It’s the keel of a boat.’
The upturned wreck was only the beginning. As the Bell sped shorewards the rain began to intensify again. But it was still possible to see everything in the water beneath them. The waves steepened. The colour of the water changed – from grey-green to grey-brown. And the pieces of flotsam became more numerous. More varied. ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Biddy.
‘It’s the outwash,’ said Richard grimly. ‘The eastward set of the ocean is being met by the westward flow of floodwater washing out from the land, bringing with it anything that will float.’
‘Anything that’s been washed off the hillsides – whether it’s from the jungle or the town.’ Guerrero nodded.
‘With, first of all, anything that’s been washed out of the harbour by the floods coming out of the river or down off the land. Hence the boats. There’s another. At least it’s the right way up. Looks abandoned, though.’
There was almost a surf-line where the waters of the ocean and of the flood fought for supremacy. A solid-looking band of rubbish heaved and rolled, defining the line where the waters met. ‘You’ll have to take Sulu Queen through that pretty carefully,’ said Guerrera.
‘I was thinking the same thing. And from the look of some of the ropework, tackle and netting down there I was thinking, thank heavens for the Spurs cutters on my propellers.’
‘I don’t know about your propellers,’ Biddy added, ‘but it looks as though an ice-strengthened bow would be useful. Is that a car?’
‘Looks like a Volkswagen,’ said Richard, as precise as ever. ‘Heaven knows how it’s floated out this far.’
‘This is like pictures of the sea beside Japan after the tsunami in 2011,’ said Guerrero. ‘Could the flooding be that powerful? Like a tsunami?’
‘Looks like it,’ answered Richard shortly.
‘God help them.’
‘That’s what we’re here to do,’ said Richard. ‘Give the Almighty a hand.’
‘But what can we do?’ demanded Guerrero, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of what they appeared to be facing.
‘Make a start,’ said Richard. ‘Make a difference, no matter how slight. No matter what, it’s better that we’re here to help than the alternative, which looks like nobody
here to help. For the moment, at least.’
‘I guess,’ said Guerrero, but he didn’t sound convinced.
And Richard could see his point. The rubbish on the water beneath them grew thicker. Prompted by Guerrero’s thoughts, Richard suddenly remembered a story Liberty Greenbaum had told him about something she had seen when sailing the North Pacific. She had come up against what appeared to be an uncharted island in the middle of the ocean, only to discover that it was several acres of floating rubbish from the Japanese tsunami on its way across to North America. Thinking of Liberty made him wonder about Katapult8 and how she could have made her way through this – if, indeed she had done so. And thinking of Katapult8 made him think of Maxima. And of Robin. Suddenly he found he was short of breath, with an actual ache in his chest.
‘You OK?’ asked Guerrera, seeing the change in his expression.
‘Yes. I was just wondering about Maxima.’
‘She’ll be in the harbour. That’s where the beacon is.’
Yes, thought Richard. But what if the beacon’s not on Maxima at all? What if we’ve been on a wild goose chase all along and she’s still out there in the deep ocean – on the top or at the bottom?
He gave voice to none of his fears. It was not in his nature to do so. Once a decision was made he stood by it. It was not his style of leadership to be constantly second-guessing himself and agonizing over what if? or what might have been. But he had never been this worried about Robin before; never felt that she was at so much risk. So, instead of continuing his conversation, he leaned over and pushed his face close to its pallid reflection in the glass, staring through his ghostly profile down at the debris and the almost pitch-black water on which it heaved sluggishly, as though its buoyancy was being overcome by the weight of the lashing rain.
‘There,’ shouted Guerrero, who had been looking shorewards rather than downwards. As he spoke, Biddy called, ‘Land-ho!’
Through the driving downpour, the coast looked at first like another low thunderhead sitting just above the sea, its normally vivid green seemingly washed out by the grey rain. The drab spectacle swung round as Biddy adjusted her course to run northwards towards Puerto Banderas itself. As she did, the Bell came over the main coastal highway and Richard was given a brief but vivid view of the tail-end of a slow-moving traffic jam being pounded by the downpour and blasted by the wind. ‘Looks like some people have managed to get out of town,’ he said. ‘Where does that road lead to?’
‘San Blas,’ answered the major. ‘Then Tepic and Guadalajara if they can get over the mountains; Vallarta and Acapulco if they can’t.’
‘If they can get ahead of the weather somehow, as long as the road holds out. I’d say there was a considerable outwash flooding down off the coastal mountains. The same here as there was on the Baja California.’
The Bell swung out over the water then, and Richard put the caravan of refugees out of his mind, returning to the matter in hand. The flotsam began to take on a pattern, spewing out in a widening fan from the still-distant mouth of the harbour. Its outer edge, to the left, formed that strange surf-line where it met the incoming rollers. Shorewards, on their right, it washed towards the long, grey-gold beaches. But they were themselves awash with run-off that spewed at first from the jungle and then – as they flew further northwards – from the tarmac and concrete acreages of the town’s roadways, yards, flat roofs and over-brimming swimming pools, pouring down with sufficient force to keep the beaches awash but clear of rubbish. At first glance, Richard felt heartened. The town looked to be in better condition than the junk in the ocean had led him to expect. ‘Biddy, can you take us closer in?’ he asked. She complied. The two men strained to see though the rain and to stay focused as the buffeting wind returned.
‘Where is everybody?’ asked Guerrero.
‘Indoors if they’ve got any sense. Or on their way to the government evacuation centres. Just look at that!’ A wide boulevard led straight downhill towards the beach and a line of tall hotels and apartments. A river of runoff was cascading down it, making rapids where anything stood in its way or where the sewers overflowed like geysers, throwing yellow foam high into the air.
‘That’s Avenue Sixteenth September,’ said Guerrero, awed. ‘It’s always packed with cars. It leads past the mercado market to the beach at Playa Camerones.’
‘Is that the market?’ asked Richard, pointing to a great square black lake which appeared to be still – until the chopper passed above a line of corrugated-iron roofs over which the water boiled like the reefs by Santa Isabel as it poured away downhill. ‘And there are your cars,’ Richard added as they skimmed just above the hotels standing behind Los Muertos beach and saw piles of vehicles forming dams and barriers across the bottom of the avenue and all the roadways running down parallel to it. It seemed incredible that there should be so many still left when they had just seen so many more heading south.
Biddy took matters into her own hands then, taking the Bell to the right, rising up the hillside until they were over the jungle immediately above and behind the town. Then, in spite of the buffeting of the gusty wind and the renewed intensity of the precipitation, she raced them over to the Rio Cortez. What had been a sedate stream falling in picturesque waterfalls and sluices from one pretty lake to another was now a non-stop torrent. The lakes had all spread along the hillside steps, as though even the speed at which the river was roaring down was not enough to keep them contained within their natural shorelines. ‘Mother of mercy!’ she whispered as she came over the last of the lakes, familiar from the film she had shot for Nic. Except that Dahlia Blanca was no longer there. The lake that had lapped so sedately near the beautiful building now filled its grounds, brimming over the tall wall that had edged the cliff at the end of the massive estate. And the house, like the market, was little more than a reef over which the water boiled in a cataract that would have been at home on the Nile or the Colorado as it rushed through the Grand Canyon. ‘Mr Greenbaum is going to be pissed when he sees this!’ said Biddy.
‘Right,’ said Richard, unable to bear the suspense of not knowing Maxima’s fate any longer. ‘Let’s go down and tell him. He’s in the outer harbour.’
They followed the rampaging river on down to the ocean, keeping low, especially when the buildings began to break up the brute force of the wind. But they paid for the protection by coming face-to-face with yet more destruction. Long before it reached the harbour – before it had reached the outskirts of the town proper – the river burst its banks once more. Riverside houses, hotels and condominiums became reefs, wrecks or islands in the foaming stream. Items of furniture joined the vehicles swirling in the flood. Chairs, sofas, tables, televisions, stereos, beds. But so far no bodies, living or dead.
It was hard to see where the inner harbour began, for the water level was high above the marina’s jetties and only the occasional boat on a long, strong mooring gave the position of the facility away. The roofs of the marina’s restaurants and shops gave some sort of definition to the shoreline, apparently floating like terracotta rafts on the swift current. But that was all. The only real definition of the end of one and the beginning of the other was the tall arch of the single-span road bridge that leaped upward out of a welter of foam at the foot of a six-lane highway running parallel to the Avenue Sixteenth September. ‘That’s the Boulevard Centrale,’ said Juan Jose. ‘It was built to link the breakwater hotels with the centre of town.’
‘The bridge seems to be holding up well, though,’ said Richard.
‘That’s because of the high curve on it. They built it like that so even quite large vessels could get into the inner harbour. They wanted Puerto Banderas to be the next billionaires’ playground on the Pacific coast.’
The outer harbour beyond the high arch of the wide bridge was much broader, and had fared better in consequence. The L-shape of the breakwater was above even the swollen water level, and the Malecón opposite was built on top of a high embankment. Even so, runoff gush
ed off the Boulevard Centrale and between the buildings, pouring out into the dock as though the entire Malecón was the side of a ship frantically pumping out its bilges.
But Richard had no eyes for any of this. He was instead focused on the inner wall of the breakwater. His plans dictated that he should be searching for the great dockside cranes like the one he had left in Long Beach, big enough and strong enough to lift the National Guard containers off his deck. But no. He was focused entirely on his increasingly desperate search for a multihull with a tall black solid sail and a sleek white billionaire’s plaything. And, sure enough, there were some vessels tethered to the outer dock. But all of them looked deserted and none of them looked like Katapult8 or Maxima. His heart sank painfully again as Biddy skimmed as low as she dared over the filthy, battered derelicts. But then: ‘Oh! Sweet suffering Christ!’ she said. And the Bell whirled, nose down, settling towards one of the worst-looking wrecks. Richard stared at it, wide-eyed with shock, wondering what Biddy was up to. The state of it! he thought numbly. Its communications gear was gone. Two stumpy masts ended in tangles of twisted wirework. The stern section, from midships back, had clearly seen better days. There had apparently been an on-board pool but it was a total wreck now. There had been an aft section that folded down to water level; it had clearly been torn away. The hull looked rust-streaked, salt-grimed. Little better than a hulk on its way to the breaker’s yard.
It was not until the Bell settled on the third deck up like a homing pigeon returning to its roost that Richard realized. Heart suddenly lifting, he unstrapped his belt, tore off his headphones and opened the side. Oblivious to the deluge, he jumped down and ran forward. The familiar glass doors slid open and Robin was standing there. He stopped. Stepped forward, feeling that his chest was going to explode. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I’ve been so worried about you!’
‘Me too,’ she said with a pale grin. ‘I’ve been really worried about us. And with good reason. You don’t know the half of it!’
