“Good.”
“You’re sure?”
She shook her head. “Ted,” she said, “will you please stop acting like a sixteen year old? I’m a big girl now. OK?”
There was a spark of anger in the eyes which he found strangely reassuring.
“OK,” he said.
* * *
He’d driven about ten blocks when he realized he was being tailed again. This time, it was obvious, the car following behind him too closely to be missed. He stomped the gas pedal and forged ahead. After another half-mile of turns and switchbacks, he was sure of it. They weren’t even trying to be subtle.
It enraged him. It was confirmation George Belcher was part of this hideous conspiracy. That never would have happened four years ago. Once they’d been allies. Now they were on opposite sides. Of what? What was this madness? It wasn’t like George to be involved in something like the cover-up of a murder, no matter what the reasons.
What enraged him even more was his own stupidity. He’d thought he’d shaken the tail yesterday. Now they knew where he’d spent the night. He’d placed Terry in danger unnecessarily.
God!
The thought of it stabbed at his heart. Why had he spent the night? The report from Tommy had scrambled his brain. He should have stayed the hell away from her. His only contact should have been by telephone. He never should have gone near her. He’d sworn to himself never to place a woman in any sort of danger again. And he’d broken that pact. Worse yet, he’d told her everything.
In his frustration, he slammed his fist on the steering wheel. Then, sighting a pay telephone box, he pulled over and screeched to a stop. He had to warn her. She had to run.
He was halfway through dialing the number when the car that had been tailing him stopped behind his and the secondary object of his anger stepped from the car. And then Belcher was striding toward the phone box and Ted was holding the receiver out in front of him, listening to the sound of a busy signal.
Ted slammed the receiver on the hook, stepped out and, without a word, threw a right hook that sent George Belcher sprawling to the ground. Within seconds, men stood on either side of Ted, their guns drawn, their fingers tight on the triggers, the look in their eyes one of surprise and anger. One of them screamed, “Grab the wall, you bastard!”
“No!”
It was Belcher, lying on the ground, one hand on his aching jaw, another held up in the air. “Leave him alone. Get back in the car! I’ll deal with this.”
Ted just stared at him, his hands still formed into fists, as he struggled to his feet, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. “Jesus Christ! You pack a wallop! An inch in either direction and I don’t think I’d have a jaw left. What the hell did you do that for?”
The two agents were still standing there, guns drawn, not really wanting to get back in the car.
Belcher motioned to them and barked, “I told you! Get in the fucking car! I’ll talk to him … alone!”
Reluctantly, the two men put their guns away and got into the car.
“You told me,” Ted said, his voice cold and harsh, “that you’d drop the tail. We had a deal, you bastard.”
Belcher ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m just following orders. This morning, I realized I needed to talk to you. I didn’t want to involve the woman, so I waited until you came out. I thought I was being discreet, damn it. If you’d given me a chance to explain …”
“Talk? What about?”
“Can we go somewhere?”
Ted scanned the street. There was a pancake house about a half-block away. “Come, follow me,” he said brusquely.
They walked to the restaurant, taking a window booth in the rear of the place, far enough away from the few other patrons so as not to be heard. Once the waitress had left the coffee on the table, Ted nodded and said, “OK, what’s on your mind?”
George Belcher looked extremely uncomfortable. His face was pinched, the brows furrowed, all of his usual affectations cast aside. He looked like a man who’d undergone a hemorrhoid operation less than five minutes ago.
“First off,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, “Tommy Wilson is alive.”
For a moment, it looked as though Ted would hit him again. The man’s entire body stiffened and his eyes became dark, smoldering coals. He fought to control his rage while he continued to glare at Belcher.
“And Gifford?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper.
“The same. He’s alive too.” Then, his eyes opened wide as he realized what Ted had said. “You know!”
Ted sipped his coffee for a moment and said, “A variation on the witness protection program?”
“Exactly. Both bodies were unclaimed cadavers.”
“Where are they?” Ted asked, his voice barely disguising the fury that was still building within him.
“It’s a long story,” Belcher said, his face a picture of anguish, “but bear with me, OK?”
Ted didn’t answer. He simply glared at his former associate. Belcher cleared his throat and started talking.
“Obviously, you know a lot more than you told me yesterday. I had a feeling.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Tommy told you about NADAT. What else did he tell you?”
“You said you wanted to talk, not ask questions,” Ted snapped, the voice sharp and hard, the hostility twisting his face into an angry mask.
“OK, OK.” Belcher looked around, as though to reassure himself that no one was listening to their conversation.
“NADAT,” he said, “is an arm of the Pentagon. They’re basically a think-tank run by a guy named Robert Graves. They’re supposed to advise the Pentagon on what to do in case some disaster happens. Well, we’ve got a dandy coming. Are you aware of that, too?”
Ted continued to glare at him. “Just keep talking,” he said.
Belcher swallowed hard, looked around once more and leaned forward. “About two years ago, a scientist … this Gifford guy … after a number of years of research, developed a complicated system that not only predicted earthquakes, but explored various ways to stop them ahead of time. Graves found out about it and had the research classified. At the same time, Graves started testing some of the man’s theories on stopping quakes. So far, the results are inconclusive, but they haven’t given up yet. They’re still testing.
“Anyway, Gifford, still testing out his prediction theories, suddenly announced that he was sure a monster quake was going to hit L.A. and soon. He spelled out the day and everything. According to him, it was going to be the biggest quake in history, leveling L.A. and causing damage all over the West Coast. He demanded that L.A. be evacuated. Said he’d go public if it wasn’t.
“Well, you can imagine what a flap that created. Graves and his people had apparently done a lot of research on the problems surrounding the evacuation of large cities and had concluded that such a thing was logistically impossible. At the same time, he had these tests going on whereby they were experimenting on ways to prevent the quake from happening. Naturally, going public would throw everything in the ash can. Christ! The panic would be terrible. Besides, there was always the chance that Gifford was full of shit. So, he had him snatched and we set up a phony death to keep things cool.
“Then,” he continued, his face becoming pinched, “Graves gave Wilson, who’d been kept pretty much in the dark, a look at what his friend and colleague had developed and asked him to check it out. All hush-hush, of course. Wilson did just that and came to the same conclusions that Gifford had. Including the one that the whole thing should be made public. So, they had him snatched as well.”
“I ask you again,” Ted said, his patience wearing thin, “where are they?”
Belcher sighed and ran a hand across his forehead. “They’re both out in the desert. The nuclear test site.”
“Why there?”
“Because,” the FBI man said, “that’s where they’re testing the gimmick.”
“The gimmick?”
“Y
eah. If you can believe it, they’re going to try to stop the earthquake by exploding a series of small nuclear devices. The idea being that the heat created will melt the rock and let it slip a bit at a time. According to Gifford, there are other ways to stop an earthquake, but with one this big, this is the only thing that has a chance. Real tricky stuff.”
Ted couldn’t help himself. “They have to be out of their minds!” he said.
Belcher looked around the coffee shop again and said, “Keep it down, will ya?”
Ted continued to stare at him in shock. The report Tommy had sent him had made reference to several proposed methods for preventing earthquakes, but the references, while interesting, were minor, almost insignificant. A nuclear solution had been given a single sentence. Clearly, Tommy Wilson was not keen on that idea.
Belcher took another gulp of coffee and continued. “You see,” he said, “I don’t know diddly about earthquakes, but the way I understand it, they’re saying that the rock is locked together along a line that’s about a mile long and two miles deep. They think that they can explode a small device which will create enough heat to melt some of the rock and let it slip just a little. Then they do it again, and again, maybe five or six times, until all of the pressure is released. That way, there’ll be a series of small quakes, but no big one. I haven’t a clue if it’ll work, but I don’t know what else they can do.
“Naturally, if this got out, every goddam pressure group in the world would raise hell. The whole operation would be stopped in its tracks. You know as well as I do that there’s no way on God’s green earth they’d be legally allowed to explode a series of nuclear bombs practically in the middle of Los Angeles.
“Even though Gifford and Wilson have been proven right four times in a row, as far as predicting earthquakes is concerned, ninety-five percent of the scientific community would never buy this. The only way they’ll be convinced is when the big one hits. By then, it’ll be too late.
“So what it boils down to is this,” he said, winding up. “As crazy as it is, this is our only shot, Ted. I kid you not. If this works, we’ll avert a catastrophe. If it doesn’t, we may in fact trigger the very quake we’re trying to prevent. It’s a real crap shoot. With the lives of millions at stake.
“I’m no scientist. I don’t have the answers. Jesus! I just don’t know if it’s right or not. But I do know this: if you take this information to the press, it’s all over.”
Some of the shock was wearing off. “Can it work?” Ted asked.
“Like I said, I don’t know,” George replied, honestly. “But what the hell else is there? If this becomes public, all hell will break loose. I’ve looked at some of Graves’s data. His views on evacuation, while appearing very cruel on the surface, are pretty solid, as far as I’m concerned. You know what people are like, Ted. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. God!”
“Maybe,” Ted said, “but that shouldn’t be his decision. Who the hell is this guy? He’s never been elected to anything. Neither have those guys at the Pentagon. This kind of decision has to be made by … well … I’d say the president. Nobody less. We’re talking about people’s lives here!”
Belcher said nothing.
“So Gifford and Tommy are prisoners?”
“Sort of. It started out that way but now both of them are working with the group doing the testing. They’ve both come around to Graves’s way of thinking, but they won’t be let loose until it’s all over, and even then, they’ll have to be somebody else for the rest of their lives. Even if this deal is successful, they won’t be able to make it public for obvious reasons.”
Belcher drank some of his coffee and said, “Right now, my problem is you. I thought if I talked to you, I could get you to come out there voluntarily. They’re real worried about you. If you don’t come out on your own, I’m gonna have to take you there. The woman, too.”
Ted couldn’t help it. A smile found its way to his lips. “You haven’t lost your balls, George. I’ll say that for you.”
Belcher smiled himself. “I know. Neither have you. It’s a good thing to see.”
There was a certain look in the eyes. A set to the jaw. A total look about the man that was compelling. Ted was convinced that the man was telling him the absolute truth. At least, as far as he saw it. The raw, unvarnished, impossible truth. It was too crazy to be otherwise.
“This Graves character,” Ted asked. “This is all his doing?”
George nodded. “Yeah. He’s in charge of the entire operation. I think they’ve kept this from the politicians because … well, in the first place, they don’t trust them … and in the second place, if it all goes bad, the pols can say they didn’t know a thing. And mean it.”
Ted should have been surprised, but he wasn’t. The pattern had been set years ago.
“Very thoughtful of Mr. Graves,” he said. “How’d he hook you into this?”
George took a mouthful of air and said, “I was approached by Shubert. At first, he just told me that this thing involved the national security and that he’d been authorized by the director to talk to me. But gradually, he opened up a little more. I don’t think the director even knows about it.”
“You didn’t check?”
Belcher shook his head. “In the beginning, I was sure he was involved. Besides, I was sold on what they were trying to do. By the time I realized this whole thing was Graves’s doing … the full extent of Graves’s influence, it was too late. I was in it up to my ears.
“Keep in mind,” George continued, “that this guy Graves has seen six or seven administrations come and go. He stays on. He knows how they think. No matter what the situation, politicians have this built-in penchant for shooting off their mouths. Sometimes, they don’t have a clue as to the damage they do. Look! You know as well as I do that this problem is an impossible one. You had the chance to go to the newspapers and you didn’t. You were smart enough to realize what would happen.”
For a few moments, they sat there and stared at each other, neither speaking, both lost in thought. Then George asked, “What are you going to do?”
Ted shook his head. “I don’t know. First, I want to talk to Tommy on the phone. Then … we’ll see.”
Belcher’s face blanched. “That’s impossible!”
“Why?”
Belcher squirmed in his seat for a moment and then hung his head. “I’ve told you these things in confidence. If I ask them to put Wilson on the phone, they’ll know I’ve talked to you. I wasn’t supposed to do that.”
“That’s too bad,” Ted said, the anger surging within him again. “Look, you’re up to your ears in something that’s flat-out wrong. According to you, this whole thing is the brain child of some chrome-dome who works for the Pentagon. Maybe … maybe not. But you know damn well that this is not the way things should be done. I don’t care what the problems are with evacuation, the fact remains that if there’s a chance that a terrible earthquake is going to hit L.A., the people have to be warned. Jesus! You can’t just sit back and let it happen. That’s criminal!”
Belcher squirmed in his seat. “If you feel that way, why didn’t you go to the press when you had the chance?”
“Because,” Ted said, “I’m not sure going to the press is the answer. There has to be something else. You’ve answered some of the questions in my mind, if what you’ve told me is the truth.”
“It is.”
“Well … if that’s so, the person we have to talk to is the president himself.”
Belcher laughed out loud. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious, George.”
“You think you can just phone up the president of the United States and talk to him?”
“Of course not. I have to work through channels. And I have to make sure the channels I pick are ones I can trust. If, as you say, this Graves guy is operating on his own, I have a chance. If the president is in on it, I’m well and truly screwed. The only alternative then will be to let t
he press have the story and to hell with the panic.”
A sick grin came over Belcher’s face. “Nobody will believe it, you know.”
“They will if you work with me. They will if we pull Tommy out of there. That’s what has to be done.”
Belcher threw his hands in the air. “You’re crazy! You’ll never get in there! It’s impossible!”
Ted shook his head. “Nothing is impossible, George. You know that. It’s just a question of making the right moves at the right time. Between us, we can make it work.”
“Us?”
“Yes … us.”
Again, they sat there, looking at each other, saying nothing. Then Ted said, “Look, George, I know you’re a little fucked up. So am I. It all stems from something that happened years ago. The time when Erica and Grace got killed because you and I botched things up. We’re both carrying around a lot of guilt about that, George. You know it and I know it. Frankly, I’m sick of it. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in pain because of it. And if I blow this thing, I know that’s what I’ll be doing. Same goes for you.
“I’m no scientist, but I know enough about the workings of the Pentagon to realize that they aren’t exactly geniuses either. Whatever their plans are, there’s too big a margin of error. Much too big. The city of Los Angeles has got to be evacuated and that’s all there is to it. Maybe there will be loss of life because of the panic. Maybe it’ll be a real disaster. But it won’t be anything like the disaster a big earthquake will cause.”
George pressed his fingers to his temples. “How can you be so sure those guys are right?” he asked. “What if there isn’t any earthquake?”
Ted clenched his jaw tight and hissed the words. “I had to make a decision about that and I have. I could spend the rest of my life debating this with myself and do nothing. There’s no time for that. I’ve made my decision, George. Now it’s time for you to make yours. What’s it going to be?”
George looked like he wanted to cry. For a moment, he just stared out the window. Then, he lowered his head and said, “OK. I’m with you. What do you want me to do?”
The Big One Page 16
