Pressure (Book 1): Fall
Page 22
Then there was Jake. His friend had told him what happened in Carvers. After explaining what the guy had done (the evidence of which was abundantly clear, just from the damage to Dani’s face), he’d said simply, “So I shot the fucker.”
Charlie had met his friend’s level gaze, had seen from his eyes that this was no bullshit. After a moment, he’d asked, “What did the cops have to say?”
“Didn’t tell them.” Charlie had raised an eyebrow at that, so Jake explained. “Everybody in the place was dead. From what I could see of the town, either everybody else had left, or everybody else was hiding.” He paused for a moment, as if trying to come up with a better reason, but finally shrugged. “And if Yellowstone goes like everybody seems to think its going to, nobody is going to give a rat’s ass about Freddy Fucking Perdue.”
Had this conversation been with anybody other than Jake Campbell, Charlie would have called bullshit. But he knew his friend, knew what kind of iron the man had inside him – or at least he thought he did.
They’d spent many hours together at sea, and many more getting drunk as new civilians. They’d weathered storms, and SAR cases, and a week in the aftermath of Katrina - and he’d met one of the guys who’d been there with him in the Iraqi desert.
7
They’d been in a bar near the wharf outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico, tipping a few dozen drinks to wash away the destruction, and the bloated, fish-eaten bodies they’d seen in New Orleans. The usual suspects were with them: Gus Roessler and Frank Perniola, two engineers, along with Charlie’s favorite black man of all time, Harold F. Simmons, jr..
The table next to them contained four Marine males and one female Navy Petty Officer, all in uniform. The Navy was also in Puerto Rico, presumably for the same reason that the Coasties were: to take a well-deserved break. Charlie had counted at least twelve different ships, including a Carrier, tied or anchored within the harbor. And the Squids and Jarheads were everywhere.
It had gotten rather drunk out that night - at both tables. Inevitably, the derisive comments about “Puddle Pirates” had been thrown, and countered with the epithet, “Jarhead.” When a Marine Corporal stood and looked about ready to take it to the next level, and Jake had stood, ready to throw down, in reply, a booming voice had put a stop to the festivities.
“Corporal Barnes!”
Everybody had turned to see the epitome of a Marine sergeant. He wore camo fatigues, with his name, Drummond, stitched into the cloth above his starched breast pocket, along with an arm band identifying him as Shore Patrol. His high-and-tight haircut, over steel blue eyes, and his ramrod straight posture said loud and clear, Do not fuck with me.
The Corporal instantly snapped-to. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!”
“You will stand down, right now.”
“But Gunny, they–“
The Sergeant had held up his hand, and the Marine had shut right up. “I’ve seen you fight, Corporal Barnes.” He pointed at Jake. “And I’ve seen him fight.” He paused for effect. “You’d lose.”
Jake had smiled, and the rest at their table had just looked on in stunned (if slightly inebriated) silence. But the Marines had gone past the point of confusion.
“Gunny?” The Corporal had asked.
“That man has received the Congressional Medal of Honor. You will show him the respect he has earned. Is that clear, Marines?”
The four Marines and the Navy woman shot to attention, each of them snapping a salute toward Jake, who respond by twiddling his fingers at them. “Yes Gunnery Sergeant!” the Marines had shouted.
“Good,” the Sergeant had said. “Now get the fuck out of my sight.” He’d ignored their departure, and instead, walked up to Jake, clasped his right hand and gave him a one-armed Man-Hug with his left.
“Hey, Jarhead!” Jake had said.
“Puddle Pirate.”
“Isn’t this where the trouble started?” Charlie asked.
“He gets to call me that,” Jake said. “I’ve granted him dispensation.”
“Fuck you,” Drummond had replied with a wide smile. He pulled a chair from the recently-vacated table and joined them. Introductions were made.
“Love the way you made them snap to attention,” Harold had said.
The Sergeant indicated Jake with a jerk of his thumb. “He earned it.”
“You were there?” Charlie had asked.
“Yes I was,” Drummond replied. “Now who’s going to buy me a beer?” he asked, removing his SP arm band.
8
During the course of the shocking amount of drinking that ensued, the Sergeant told them the true tale of what happened - none of that Hollywood bullshit, none of the poster boy propaganda from the CG Recruiting Command, but the Real Deal, made all the more plausible by the fact it was a Marine Gunny telling the tale.
Jake had absented himself for most of the explanation.
And now he sat across from Charlie in a booth in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Eighteen men. His friend had killed eighteen men. Nineteen, now, if he included the guy in Carvers. If he hadn’t seen the medal, hadn’t watched the movie (Hollywood bullshit, though it may have been), hadn’t heard the tale from an eyewitness, then he wouldn’t have believed it possible, in million years - not from Jake, not from the man he knew. But true it was, and if Jake could go through that and still remain more or less sane, then it made him one strong human being.
So Charlie had accepted Jake’s explanation for why he hadn’t informed the police, and then he’d presented Jake with the manifest for the cargo he was hauling.
“Holy shit,” Jake had said, reading the detailed list of what Charlie’s trailer contained. “That’s a lot of guns.”
“Yeah, it is,” Charlie had replied. “And there’s no way I’m driving them into Reno. Not now”
“Don’t blame you,” Jake said, then asked: “Aren’t they gonna know where you are?”
Charlie had smiled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out two computer chips: one about the size of his thumbnail, the other, the size of a matchbook. Holding up the larger one, he’d said, “This is the tracking chip,” but then he’d frowned, shook his head, and held up the smaller one. “This is the tracking chip.”
“And the other?”
“This is the one that governs my engine at sixty-five miles an hour. So now I’m in stealth mode and can drive like a maniac.”
“Is that good or bad?” Jake had asked.
“It’s excellent!” He’d replied, and it was. When he’d removed the chips (something he’d always wanted to do) while waiting for Jake and the ladies to arrive in Winnemucca, he’d felt like he’d just struck a blow against Big Brother and the forces of evil that had always kept an eye on where he was and told him how fast he could go. He’d never been much for that empowerment crap, but damned if it hadn’t made him feel empowered.
“Okay then,” Jake had shrugged, smiling at his friend.
And then Charlie had asked the important question: “Your uncle’s the mayor of that town, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That makes him the Controlling Civilian Authority.”
“I suppose.”
“Is he an asshole or a drunken idiot?” Charlie had asked, completing the second part of the important question.
“He’s a college professor,” Jake answered. “And he really doesn’t like guns.”
“That makes him the perfect person to hand my load over to.”
Jake had considered it for a bit, then nodded and said: “Guess you’re coming with us to Gunter’s Gap.”
9
Medford, Oregon
Thomas Jericho awoke from a dream. At least, he thought it had been a dream. But what if it wasn’t? What if it had been a sign?
He’d been surrounded by darkness, except for a deep, red glow off to one side. Off to the east, he knew, but wasn’t sure how he knew. He could feel a rumbling, feel it through his entire body, but the dream world had been completely silent.
God’s hand had done this.
He knew this with the same certainty he knew one and one made two. God’s Wrath, plus God’s Hand, equals Armageddon.
Lightening flashed around him, also silent, and then a glow, as if from a spotlight, formed, bathing him in its brilliance. Now it’s your turn, Thomas. The silent thought seared through his brain - steady, relentless, impossible to ignore or refuse.
He blinked into the wakeful darkness of his room, in his suite, at his hotel in Medford, Oregon. A bit of Scripture came to mind: something he’d picked up a few months ago, while searching for some new thing to spur the rubes into opening their wallets, yet again.
Ezekiel 7:3: The end is now upon you and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and I will repay you for all your detestable practices.
Yes, thought Thomas Jericho, former confidence man, former televangelist, Beacon of God.
I am God’s Anger, and I shall be Unleashed.
10
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory
A plinian eruption is a variety of cataclysm similar to Vesuvius, the volcano at Pompeii that, centuries later, provided such an excellent venue for a Pink Floyd concert. It is so named because of a letter written by Pliny the Younger in which he described the death of his father, Pliny the Elder, who died along with all the other people in Pompeii.
Plinian eruptions send massive columns of smoke tens of thousands of feet into the stratosphere, and eject millions of tons of pumice and ash via violent and continuous gas explosions. They are louder than the most ear-bleeding Heavy Metal concert imaginable and can last anywhere from a day to several months.
Mount St. Helens was a small one. The eruption of Mount Mazama, something like five thousand years before Christ, on the other hand, was so ferocious, it blew the mountain to pieces and created Crater Lake, a scant forty miles from the tiny hamlet of Gunter’s Gap, Oregon.
Maggie, of course, sitting as she was in a chair on the veranda of the Yellowstone National Park Headquarters building, knew nothing of Gunter’s Gap - although she had once visited Crater Lake. She thought its beauty breathtaking.
St. Helens (a place she’d visited many times) is an example of the typical volcano, featuring a large cone that over the course of hundreds of years turns into a lovely, snow-capped mountain providing excellent photographic opportunities. But when the explosion is so violent it obliterates the mountain (and everything else), it collapses and creates a caldera, so named because it looks like a giant caldron. Crater Lake is one. Yellowstone is a caldera on steroids, crack, crank, and Mother Nature’s own sense of proportion gone thoroughly batshit.
The mechanism of an explosive eruption is simple. Magma is melted rock, superheated by the beating heart of the Earth’s core. Basic physics: apply cold to water (a liquid) and ice (a solid) is formed; apply heat, and steam (a gas) is produced. Magma is hot rock, and when it becomes superheated, enormous amounts of gasses are formed, as if the earth ate way too much five-alarm chili. Encase that gas in millions of tons of solid rock and pressure begins to build.
Like any liquid, magma follows the path of least resistance and so when it finds cracks in the Earth’s crust, like those formed by the recent and unusually high seismic activity experienced within and around Yellowstone, it works its way upward toward the surface. Maggie, Doctor Golatta, Doctor Morgenstern, and David Jessup, age 26, and the sole remaining communications technician, were seated in chairs on that surface when the ground beneath their feet began to roar.
They all stood. They all held their breath. Doctor Morgenstern put his arm gently around Maggie’s shoulders. Doctor Golatta put his hand squarely on her ass and gave it a playful, almost wistful squeeze. She let him do it.
Why the Hell not? She thought, and as the first vent exploded beneath Mammoth Hot Springs, it was the last thought she would ever have.
11
Winnemucca, Nevada
“I can’t believe what’s happening,” Mary said. “I don’t want to believe, but I suppose there’s no point in ignoring it.”
“We could try,” Jake said, patting her left hand. Her right was busy shoveling Shrimp Alfredo into her mouth. They were all ravenous with hunger, and wired on coffee and tension.
They had tried innocuous conversation, at first. Jake had marveled as Charlie tried to ease the awkward silence, after they’d placed their orders.
“So . . . ” Charlie had said, smiling at Dani, who’d been making furtive glances toward all the other patrons, while trying to hide the damage done to her face. “That’s an interesting look you’re going for. What is it? Modern Gladiator?”
Dani had blushed, then chuckled, her shoulders easing their defensive posture. “Racoon with water retention,” she had replied.
Charlie had nodded enthusiastically, tossing a wink toward Jake. “On you, it works,” he’d said. “It really does.”
“I like it,” Jake had added, smiling at her.
“It does have a certain unique flair,” Mary had added. They had all chuckled then, but the uncomfortable silence soon returned because of the football stadium-sized elephant in the room.
“Would it do any good?” Mary asked. “Ignoring it all,” she added in explanation.
“None whatsoever.”
“How bad do you think it’s going to get?”
Jake and Charlie looked at each other, both being certain the other knew the answer.
“Babies in the surf,” Charlie said, finally.
“Babies in the what?” Mary exclaimed, nearly doing a shrimp fettuccine spit-take.
Jake looked at Charlie as if he’d lost his ever-loving mind, so he elaborated. “You remember that Radioman I told you about? Bill Schaeffer? Up in Humboldt?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jake nodded, remembering.
Charlie explained to the two women: “Bill was the best Radiomen I ever worked SAR with. The man was solid as a rock when all Hell was breaking loose around him,” he began. “Although, I suppose I should call him a Telecommunications Specialist, or whatever the latest PC designation is. Don’t want the PC Police to smack me with their billy clubs.”
“Try extending your pinkie when you say it,” Jake offered.
“Good call,” he agreed. “Anyway, it was a twenty-four-hour watch, but if nothing was happening, I could go to bed at ten, and whoever stood watch in radio would call the bunk room and wake me if anything went horribly wrong.” Mary and Dani nodded their understanding. “So Bill and I had a code that was guaranteed to wake me out of a coma: Babies in the surf, because we couldn’t think of a more butt-puckering scenario than little babies rolling around in the surf and needing to be rescued.”
Mary, the trauma nurse, understood immediately, but Dani looked horrified. “Gallows humor,” Mary explained. That seemed to satisfy.
“It wouldn’t matter if I was completely brain-dead and drooling on myself,” Charlie continued. “All he had to say was babies in the surf, and I was wide awake.”
“There’s something seriously wrong with you,” Jake said, because that’s what male friends did. Never let a moment pass without a derogatory comment.
“And yet you’re my friend anyway,” Charlie countered. “So what’s that say about you?”
“I need my head examined.”
“I could have told you that.” They were exchanging insults to avoid the topic at hand, and both of them knew it. But with that topic blaring away at them from three different TV sets above the bar at one side of the dining area, it proved to be a pointless exercise.
“You really think it’s going to be that bad?” Mary asked.
“Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not,” Jake said, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing his roa
d-red eyes. “I think it’s safe to say it’s not going to be good.”
She watched the TV screens for a moment before replying. “I’ve been thinking about triage for hours. The casualties are already astronomical. If something worse happens . . . ” She let the thought trail off. “I’m amazed the Trauma Center hasn’t called me to come back in and help with the overflow I know we’re going to get.”
“For all we know, they have,” Jake said. “We’ve been driving through miles and miles of nothing. Haven’t exactly seen a whole lot of cell towers, have you?” She shook her head. “Probably some out here, though. Why don’t you check your phone?” She did, and low and behold there were a dozen missed messages. “For the record, we’re not driving back to Vegas, Jake said, emphatically. “Not till this thing is over.”
She seemed about to protest, but Jake cut her off. “Most of the oil refineries are on the coast, Mom. Once these stations run out of gas, how long do you suppose it’s going to be before they get any more?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“It’s okay. I did,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything, but we’ve been really lucky so far. As long as I don’t drive like a maniac, we should have just enough gas to get us to Ian’s, even without tapping the jerry cans.”
“See that you don’t then, Kiddo.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Jake said, and then struggled to contain a massive yawn.
“Don’t start that. Far too contagious,” Charlie said. “Next thing you know, they’ll be yawning,” he indicated the women, “and then I’ll start in, and where will that leave us?” He asked, in thoroughly rhetorical fashion. “Anarchy!”
Jake yawned again, anyway. “I don’t think there’s enough coffee in the world to help me make it the rest of the way.”
“Hotel rooms?” Mary asked.