“You’re right on that,” Keith agreed, nodding. “On that we’re just going to have to pray.”
Phil stared at the screen as Keith flipped it back to the radar image. He couldn’t quit thinking about it, rearranging the barges from the simulation screen to a tighter area, or leaving large gaps at one point or another, and trying to see her face—her older, wiser face—as the storm bore down on the barges, and the woman he loved, threatening to wipe her away as cleanly as fate had removed the last thirty years of his life.
Phil Wicks wasn’t a religious man, but as he watched, his lips moved, and he whispered his prayers into the dark, empty night.
Chapter Twenty
Andrea gripped the rail tightly and stared out over the choppy waves. It wasn’t too rough yet, but she knew what they were experiencing was the veritable calm before the storm. Her two boats, with the tug out of Norfolk, had formed a ragged flotilla that made its slow passage toward Bermuda at a steady pace. Her calculations put them well ahead of the hurricane, and radar reports backed her up, but there was something about the gray of the sky that would not allow her heart—or those around her—a moment’s peace.
It was like staring into a vast gray expanse and wondering if you were moving toward it, or if it was moving toward you. The sky might have been a huge wall of water, disguised only by the fact that it stretched so impossibly high that it broke through the clouds and you couldn’t make out the whitecaps riding the top of the wave.
Andrea knew the sensation. She’d felt it once or twice in movies, sharing the adventures of some ill-fated group just before the arrival of a desert sandstorm, or the avalanche that dropped half a mountain of ice and snow down on their heads. She’d seen it in the eyes of those waiting for the monster they knew was out there, poised in the dark and ready to leap onto their backs and steal their lives. She knew she had seen it at least once in her father’s eyes, after he’d come home from the wars. She’d woken him up early one Saturday—her stomach had hurt, and his side of the bed was closest to the door.
Without thinking, young Andrea had stepped close and laid her hand timidly on her father’s cheek. He had come out of his sleep so quickly, and so completely, grabbing her wrist painfully and lashing out, that she’d barely managed to turn to the side and avoid the blow. In seconds he was himself again, pulling her close and whispering to her that it was going to be all right, but in that moment she’d seen stark terror and absolute rage warring behind his eyes, and after that she knew they were there.
This was like that. She saw the calm, gray sky, so heavy with moisture and covered in clouds that it seemed nothing could penetrate its gloom. Behind that, her storm waited, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, whirling in and in and in to the perfect circular eye in the center. She knew that eye, had met its gaze a thousand times on her computer screen. It was watching them, and—and it was hungry.
Still, they were making good time. Andrea swept her gaze over the tightly formed group, over the tugs and their crews, either standing as she was at the rails, or bustling over the decks. She had Phil’s old Navy peacoat wrapped tightly around her, the collar flaps up. It wasn’t really cold, but it wasn’t warm either, and the spray from the waves gave her chills wherever it struck her skin. It should have been bright and sunny, but the sun was temporarily lost to them, and she wondered how many of them would ever see it again.
Then she shook those thoughts from her head and turned back toward the cabin. Before she reached the doors, a loud THWUP! THWUP! rose, and she spun wildly, afraid the storm was on them without warning. She turned around completely, growing dizzy. Before she could stumble, Jay Greenwood, the captain of the tug, came up behind her and steadied her. Then, raising an arm, he pointed into the sky to their left.
An orange and white United States Coast Guard helo hovered in the air, chopping whitecaps from the waves as it came down low over the water. A man in an orange flight suit stood in the open door holding a bullhorn.
“Turn back to shore,” he called out. “There is a storm ahead, you cannot ride it out, turn aside.”
Andrea covered her eyes by flattening the palm of her hand in a sort of salute and stared up at the man. She’d expected this. She hadn’t gotten clearance for what she was attempting, but she knew they had no way to force her little navy back into port, other than by threat of the storm itself.
She waved.
The man repeated his warning, a bit more loudly. This time he added, “This is the United States Coast Guard. You are ordered back to land. I repeat, there is a storm ahead—you cannot ride this out.”
Andrea shrugged, and for a moment, she was afraid that the helo would hover directly over their boat and lower a man to the deck. Then Captain Greenwood returned to her side and thrust a bullhorn into her hand.
“Let them know we have no intention of turning back,” he told her. “They’ll argue, but they won’t waste much time on us—they have a sweep to make, and they have to get back in, refuel, and get themselves to safety.”
Andrea nodded. “This is Andrea Jamieson of Operation Stormfury,” she called out. “We know about the storm, we are out here to try and stop it.”
There was silence after this, and she saw the man repeating her message to those inside the helicopter. She could imagine the stunned responses. Then the man was in the doorway again.
“We have no authorization for your operation. Stand down, and return to port.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Andrea replied. “We know the risks. If you have others to warn, you’d better get going.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “We’ll be fine. We know what we’re doing.”
As she spoke the words, she wondered if any bigger lie had ever been spoken in all of human history. She knew what they were trying to do. She knew what they hoped would happen, and she really believed that they would probably be all right. She let none of her doubt taint the conviction in her voice.
The young man clung to the door of the helo and watched her for a long moment. Then, with a shrug of his own, he brought the bullhorn back to his lips. “Good luck, then. God knows, you’re going to need it.”
Andrea didn’t respond, only waved, and the helicopter door slid closed. A moment later it rotated and dipped its nose, rising and gaining speed rapidly, swinging back to a parallel course with the shoreline. Captain Greenwood had been right, there were others to warn, and they had plenty of miles to cross before they’d be able to think of their own safety.
Andrea wrapped her arms across her chest to pull the peacoat tighter, then turned and stepped into the boat’s cabin and out of the weather.
There was a smaller version of the chart tables she’d grown accustomed to over the years in one corner. Near it was the equipment she’d had installed after leasing the tugs several years earlier. There were two radio sets, a satellite cellular phone with Internet capabilities, and a UHF receiver set up to relay radar information from the compound. They could pick the storm up on their own equipment, but it wasn’t long-range, and it wasn’t intended for something of the scope that this hurricane presented. Andrea shrugged out of the heavy wool coat and slid into the chair.
Their signals had been strong so far. One of the boat’s crew, a seaman named Seth, was at the helm. He watched an array of dials and indicators, watching his speed and course and being careful to keep steady tension as he towed the barges through the choppy water. His movements were quick and confident, and Andrea smiled.
“The other boats checked in on the hour, ma’am,” he called over his shoulder without taking his eyes off of the ocean or the gauges. “They had a small problem with one guide wire on number two, but they’ve gotten it under control. We’re dead on course and about an hour ahead of schedule.”
“Thanks,” Andrea replied, “we’ll need every minute we can get, I’m afraid. We’ll be ahead of the storm, but who knows what kind of surge, or waves might run out in front? Best we’re in and out of there as quickly as possible.”
“Yes ma’am,” the young man agreed. “That’s what we’re aiming for.”
She turned to her laptop and settled the mouse’s pointer over the icon that would link her to the satellite. She knew this was a luxury they would lose, eventually, as their proximity to the storm began to distort and wipe out their signals. Andrea intended to check the charts, and to get an updated map of the storm’s progress, but in the back of her mind she knew what she truly wanted. She wanted to get to her e-mail and see if there was anything there from Keith. She wanted to know about Phil.
The last communication she’d seen had told her that Phil’s plane was on final approach to Norfolk Naval Air Station. Keith had been on the phone all day trying to get through, to get information and to get clearance, once the plane was on the ground, to see Phil and get him out of there if he could. It was a snarl of red tape and not rendered any easier by the imminent storm. The base was being evacuated, and Phil had tumbled into the middle of that, presenting only his own questions and confusion, no doubt, and interfering with their schedules.
The modem ran through its sequence of clicks and whirs, then the sound—almost like a pay phone makes when the quarter drops home—rang out from the small speaker and after a quick, loud burst of static, the modem connected. Andrea didn’t hesitate—the computer was as familiar to her as her own mind. She quickly activated the automatic data downloads from radar and the storm tracking software. While these were running, she opened her e-mail.
Five new messages blinked into her inbox, one at a time. The top one was from the Penatagon. She almost ignored it, and then opened it with an impatient click. The other names on the list of addressees were all men and women she knew, most of them working out of NOAA. The subject was simply, “The Storm.”
Andrea scanned the message ruefully. They were a slow-moving lot, but it had taken only a day for the government to get around to asking her whether there was anything she thought they could do about Hurricane Andrea. They didn’t call it that, of course. They called it simply “The Storm,” not bothering with the niceties that would give it a human name to splash across the banner headlines of newspapers around the world. This was too close, and too powerful. They didn’t want to name it; they wanted a way to stop it.
Andrea hit the “reply to all” button and left a short, concise message to them all.
~ * ~
To all concerned. We have been waiting for a chance like this. My people are already under way. Details can be verified through Keith Scharf at my complex in North Carolina. Simulations indicate that what I’m about to attempt may work. If not, I hope you all have long lives, and that you have sense enough to get out of the way of this storm. I call her Hurricane Andrea, and she’s a monster.
~ * ~
Andrea signed the note and hit send. Then she quickly ran through the rest of her messages. Three were unimportant, but the last one was from Keith, and she opened it breathlessly.
“Phil has landed,” it said. “Gone to Norfolk to try and bust him out. If not, will locate him after the storm. No worries at this end—go get that thing and make it go away.”
Andrea stared at the screen, and it blurred as tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she did, she saw his face, rugged and handsome, staring at her through his bright blue eyes. She wanted to reach out to that image, take his hands and step to the side.
Quickly, she hit reply and typed simply, “Tell him that I love him. I will be home soon—Andrea.”
She hit send, but at that same moment the boat lifted and dropped from a particularly high swell. The dip of the antenna must have caused the already shaky signal to break. The modem light died. She had no idea whether or not her reply had gotten through.
Andrea pressed the connect button again, but though the computer tried several times, a solid connection could not be made. Andrea closed the program and brought up the map quickly. She worked as fast as her fingers would fly, her lips pressed very tightly together, fighting the urge to slam the lid of the laptop so hard that the thin, powerful computer was smashed.
The work calmed her, and she printed out her results carefully. This done, she tried to connect a final time. There was no answering tone from the far end at all, and she closed the laptop with a long, heavy sigh. She took the printout from the computer, stepped to the chart table, clipped the paper in place and removed the previous update. She crumpled the old sheet and tossed it in the garbage can tied to the bulkhead. There was no sense keeping it; all of the files she was receiving were archived and analyzed back in the compound.
“This might be the last update for a while, Seth,” she said. “We’ll be on our own unless we can connect again.”
The young sailor nodded. “That’s fine, ma’am,” he replied. “We pretty much navigate by our own radar, and we have our course. All those maps do is remind us of that storm, and I’m as happy not knowing just how close we’re going to cut this, for myself.”
Andrea smiled. She hadn’t considered that. When she’d had all of this equipment lugged on board and set up, it had been more out of habit than out of thought. Seth was right, of course. Her charts could show them the position and speed of the storm, the position and speed of the other boats, and the other barges, but it wouldn’t matter much as far as navigating this particular boat was concerned. That was in Captain Greenwood’s hands, along with Seth and the rest of the crew.
“Have we heard from the cutters yet?” she asked.
The two larger, faster craft should have come out of port about a half a day behind them, but as of the last time Andrea had checked, there was no report of them. She scanned the printout she’d clipped to the table. There was one blip behind them that looked like it might be one of the two ships, but the other was nowhere to be seen. Frowning, she stepped over to the computer, sat down, and brought up an enhanced view of the data she’d downloaded.
The same boat showed up, but there was no sign of a second.
“Nothing so far,” Seth answered. “If we had Satcom, we’d have picked them up right away. We won’t get them on the line-of-sight until they get within range. They were pretty far behind, and even as fast as those boats are, they’ll take some time to get in close enough.”
“I only see one of them on the printout,” she said, talking as much to herself as to Seth. She was trying to figure out what might cause a glitch that would prevent one or another of the boats from showing on the radar. The barges and their tugs, even the one slipping around from the far side of Bermuda, were all accounted for, but where there should have been two cutters, there was only one.
One of the ships could carry all of the crews, if it was necessary, but she wasn’t at all sure there would be time for them to come alongside the barges, one by one, and get the people out. Not with only one ship doing the work.
“Keep trying to reach them,” she told Seth. “Call once every fifteen minutes until you make contact. I’m going to go discuss the situation with Captain Greenwood.”
Seth nodded, and Andrea grabbed Phil’s coat, wrapped it back around her slender frame, and stepped back onto the tugboat’s deck. She shivered, not just from the wind, but at the thoughts now whirling through her mind.
If they didn’t have all of the cutters, they weren’t all going to get off of those barges in time. The worst of it was, with communications out at this point, there was no way to know for sure if her fears were ungrounded, or to try and make changes in their plan that would solve the problem before it happened.
The thought of anyone stuck on one of her barges with the hurricane bearing down on them was not one she wanted to dwell on—but what choice would she have? If she told them all before hand that she suspected some of them would be stranded, what would they do? Mutiny? Would they head off to sea around the far side of Bermuda and let Hurricane Andrea devastate their homes, and in most cases, their families? She didn’t think so. She thought they would stick with her no mat
ter what, but she didn’t know. One more thing, she thought, that she just didn’t know.
She saw Captain Greenwood assisting two seamen with one of the tow cables, and she turned away, moving back to her spot along the railing and staring off toward the distant storm. It didn’t matter yet. She could talk to the Captain about it later, and probably she’d find out, after worrying herself sick over it, that both of the cutters were right on course and schedule, and that her fears were ungrounded.
As she watched the nose of the tug press steadily through the waves, the weight on her shoulders doubled, and she closed her eyes, clinging to the rail for support. For the first time that she could remember, Andrea felt her sixty-nine years fully and completely. She was tired, and it was time to bring this all to an end. As her thoughts drifted, Phil stepped in to fill them. The tears were wiped heartlessly from her cheeks by the whipping chill of the wind.
Chapter Twenty-One
As it turned out, Phil didn’t get a lot of time to tour the new facility, or to rest. Once the odd silence his entrance ushered into the room dissipated, and the first tentative questions were asked, they were all sucked back into the moment. The screen, bigger and more colorful than anything he’d ever seen, reminded Phil enough of a radar scope for him to get the gist of what he was seeing, though it was hard to shake the sensation of walking onto the set of some weird science-fiction movie.
The storm was displayed as a whirling white mass, the eye a focused pool of black in the center. It was enormous. Bermuda was clearly marked on the map, and the storm would have stretched out and blotted it out with just a single corner of the covering, whirling clouds, that it might not have existed at all.
There were a number of colored blips on the screen, also very small. Some converged on the path of the storm. One circled around from the far side of Bermuda, and one other followed behind the first two.
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