“I think,” Coones said, “that the cabinet should help you considerably. They’re good people, Byron.”
Walsh raised his head, swung the swivel chair around so that he faced the window and stared at the scene outside. For most of his adult life, he’d wanted to be president of the United States. Through a combination of hard work, good genes, and luck, he’d made it.
Up until yesterday, he’d loved almost every minute of it. And now …
“Byron …”
“Yes?”
“Reserve judgment on everything for awhile. At least until you see what the cabinet and those three wise men come up with.”
Walsh swung the chair around and faced Willard Coones. “Do I have a choice?”
Thirty-two
* * *
It was the most rancorous and divisive cabinet meeting ever held during the Walsh administration. It lasted the entire day, pitting friend against friend, friend against enemy, and by the late afternoon, the president stood almost alone.
Earlier, confronted with the specter of a full-scale panic in the city of Los Angeles, the cabinet had agreed on a course of action with uncommon swiftness and President Walsh had acted accordingly. But now, perhaps because of that earlier decision, there was a divergence of opinion almost equal to the number of men and women in the cabinet.
There were those who refused to believe that it was possible to predict an earthquake. Even with the original, unaltered “Wilson” report in their hands, they clung to a logic born of another era, choosing to deny the reality of such predictions, sloughing off the string of successful predictions as unexplainable nonsense. Like a cancer patient denying the existence of the disease, they denied the existence of such technology.
There were those who believed that the “Wilson” report was correct, up to a point. Perhaps, they contended, earthquakes could be predicted, but surely, the magnitude of this earthquake had been grossly exaggerated. It had to be. There had never been a quake of this size in modern recorded history. Why now? And why Los Angeles? Besides, they went on, the scientists had always held that it was the San Andreas that was due for a big quake at some time in the future, not the Whittier Narrows fault line. The Whittier Narrows fault line was unknown a few years ago. How, therefore, could anyone make such a prediction based on so little historical data?
As for the idea of using nuclear devices as a tool to either diffuse or lessen the magnitude of the quake, the opinions again ran the gamut. There were those who believed that the use of an unproven nuclear device in some desperate attempt to obviate evacuation was the height of irresponsibility.
Still others held the view that the use of the devices was too risky even in the event that a decision was made to evacuate the city. They were of the opinion that those responsible for the tests already conducted should be severely punished, in view of the fact that the tests had been disguised as weapons tests, thereby reducing the actual number of remaining weapons tests allowable under recently signed treaties.
And aside from the president himself, not a single member was in favor of going public with the entire matter, feeling that it was political suicide. Going public, they reasoned, would mean that the administration would be held fully accountable for everything that might go wrong, and they were convinced that there were many things that would go wrong.
Most agreed on one issue. The short-lived, but almost devastating panic in Los Angeles had convinced them that evacuation was truly impractical.
As the meeting continued past late afternoon, and the hastily prepared report was presented by the “three wise men,” as Coones had called them, the arguments began afresh.
Jason Shubert, Donald Morgan and General Howard had been ordered to meet with Robert Graves’s group of geniuses and produce a plan for the evacuation of Los Angeles. And so they had. As if to emphasize their negative attitude, the plan had been presented six hours prior to the deadline imposed by the president.
It called for three hundred thousand troops to be moved into the city of Los Angeles before Saturday, the fifteenth. Another one hundred thousand troops would be positioned in other areas close to the major southern California cities. An announcement would be made, understating the troop strength at fifty thousand and claiming that they were being brought in to quell a rumored civil rights disturbance in Watts.
In the meantime, a large section of the Mojave Desert near the town of Victorville would be turned into a refugee camp. For how long, was anyone’s guess. It was estimated that the length of time could extend into the following year.
The area picked for the camp would consume some two hundred square miles for the camp itself and an additional fifty square miles just to accommodate the three million plus vehicles expected. Vehicles that would be allowed to make a one-way trip simply due to the lack of other transportation available.
Tents, portable cooking equipment, food, potable water and sanitary supplies, blankets, pillows … millions upon millions of tons of equipment and supplies would be commandeered from all over the world on an emergency basis and placed in the camp area. Edwards and George Air Force Bases would be used as marshaling areas for airborne supplies, while the massive freight yards at Barstow would be used for ground vehicles, which would be piggy-backed on flatbed freight cars. All nonemergency freight activities in southern California would come to a halt for as long as sixty days, an action that would all but destroy the cash crops of thousands of farmers.
Another two hundred thousand troops, comprising Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel, would be brought in to maintain order and provide services in the camp itself.
Then, on Saturday, May 15, martial law would be declared for almost all of southern California.
“Operation Move” would be reinstated.
Southern California would be divided into ten areas, according to population strength. Each of the ten areas would be fully evacuated, one area each day, the people directed to the camp in the desert, a minimum of four to a vehicle. Those without vehicles would be bused to rail lines and loaded onto freight cars. Everyone would be allowed to bring some clothes and personal hygiene items and nothing else.
Nothing.
All citizens would be advised as to the nature of the emergency and told that failure to obey orders from those assigned to assist them would mean immediate arrest. Looters would be shot on sight.
Hospitals would be evacuated by Navy and Army hospital aircraft and the patients flown as far inland as Kansas City.
As each section was evacuated, it would be sealed off by troops. Barriers would be erected. By the end of the operation, the day before the anticipated quake, the city would be ringed with troops, out in the open, who would remain there throughout. No one would be allowed in until after the quake had struck.
The exact same procedures would be followed, on a smaller scale, in the evacuation of other smaller cities, such as San Diego, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and everything within that perimeter.
The rest of the state, while advised of the quake and its anticipated magnitude, would be on its own and officials advised to take normal precautionary measures. There would be no announcement of the attempt to diffuse the quake by the use of nuclear devices.
There were 163 other items covered, most dealing with the aftermath of the quake, should it occur in the strength anticipated. But the basics were frightening enough. They had fifteen days to move over twelve million people.
Anticipated initial cost: 28 billion dollars.
Total number of troops required: 730,000.
Expected deaths and injuries due to noncompliance: 14,000.
The report was unsigned. As President Walsh finished reviewing the proposal, he turned to one of its authors, Donald Morgan, and asked, “Do you think this is viable?”
Morgan sat stiffly in his chair and said, “No, Mr. President, I do not. The report bears no signatures. You demanded that we produce this report and we have done so. It is the best that we can do. But, speaking
for the group, I tell you that this report is prepared under protest. Not a single one of us believes it can work. We stand by our earlier recommendations and resent your attempts to have us change our minds.”
At that point, Edward Small, the secretary of defense, rose to his feet and said, “Mr. President … This operation, should it move forward, would totally disrupt the normal defense posture of this country. As much as I sympathize with the people of Los Angeles, I must tell you that the adoption of this plan would require my immediate resignation. I cannot, in all good conscience, be a party to this.”
Byron Walsh sighed and said, “I take note of that, Secretary Small.”
It was the first of many threats the president would hear before they broke for the day, the issue still unresolved, to be carried over the next day. As the meeting was about to break up, Byron Walsh, drained and depressed, stood at the side of the table and made a calculated gamble of his own.
They were getting nowhere. Time was running out. He felt compelled to do something that would drive these people to some sort of consensus. So he said, “I appointed you to this cabinet because I value your judgment. I have no wish to be a dictator. I have no desire to implement any program that does not meet with the approval of a majority of the members of this body. And I will support such a majority opinion, be it in favor of the proposal, or against the proposal … or a variation.
“But I say this to you: there are time constraints here. The proposal suggests that the outside limit for implementation of this exercise is tomorrow evening. Therefore, if there is no agreement by 9 P.M.tomorrow, I will be forced to make the decision on my own.
“You owe it to your fellow Americans and yourselves to make every effort to arrive at a consensus. I know you won’t let me down.”
* * *
The Washington press corps was in a turmoil. It was no secret that important meetings were being held at the White House. But no one was talking.
Coming, as it did, on the heels of the president’s rebuttal of the story that had appeared in the Los Angeles Globe, speculation was rampant.
Was it possible, some were asking, that there was more to the president’s denial than met the eye?
A careful analysis of the Globe story had shown that there were a number of items that were other than pure speculation. Court records had been examined. The oil wells had been used for earthquake prediction research. The wire services and others had reported that “Operation Move” did indeed seem strange, with almost no effort being made to establish alternate facilities for the companies involved.
A San Diego newspaper, digging into the case, had profiled both Ted Kowalczyk and Theresa Wilson. Her divorce records were made public. His history was reexamined. Witnesses were found who swore that they hadn’t been seen together for over two years. Sergeant Drucker of the Menlo Park Police Department was now unavailable. None of the people who had worked for Dalton Research were available.
And there was the insurance industry itself. It was true that they had been working with the government in the pursuit of finding a dependable method for predicting earthquakes. And now, they were taking every possible step to assure that their losses would be minimal should a major quake strike. The analyses that had been made in Sacramento seemed silly. Everything was pointing to the opposite.
It was starting to stink. Veteran reporters were finding that their sixth senses were being fully activated.
As for the Los Angeles Globe, they issued a statement welcoming a full and exhaustive inquiry into their story. A story they continued to stand behind 100 percent. Even the executive editor of the paper, speaking from his hospital bed, had words of praise for Bill Price, not condemnation.
The owner of the newspaper, Brian Cantrell, was unavailable, but the speculation was that he’d flown to Europe for a lengthy vacation.
And in Los Angeles, Darlene Yu received a strange telephone call. The caller wouldn’t give his name, but insisted that she would not be disappointed if she came to a secret meeting in Las Vegas Wednesday night.
“Las Vegas?” she asked. “Look, you’ll have to tell me what this is about. I’m not about to …”
“Listen, babe,” the caller insisted, “this is the biggest story you’ll ever cover. Ever! Trust me!”
“Trust you? I don’t even know who the hell you are!”
For a moment, the man said nothing. Then, “I understand that you know Ted Kowalczyk.”
She felt her heartbeat quicken immediately. “So?”
“I need your promise that you’ll keep this confidential.”
It was against her principles. Her first inclination was to hang up. The fact that she knew Ted had been part of the story that had appeared in the Globe. But there was something about the voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a journalist. I report the news. I can’t make a promise like that to someone I don’t know.”
The man tried again. “You interviewed him when his wife and child were murdered.”
“Yes.”
“He told you things then that were never published.”
Her interest was increasing. “Give me an example.”
“He told you about his father. About the time they talked about the Holocaust. He told you how his father felt about that. How ashamed he was. How ashamed he was of being ashamed. It was a family secret.”
She remembered. Vividly. Ted Kowalczyk had cried like a child when he’d told her that. Only someone very close to Ted would know he’d told her that.
“All right,” she said. “You have my word.”
She heard the caller let out a deep sigh. “OK, babe. Ted wants to meet you tomorrow night. After midnight.”
“Where?”
“Vegas. The Riviera, on the strip. Stay near the check-in counter. I’ll meet you and take you to him. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said.
“Bring your camera and your tape recorder.”
“OK.”
“See ya, babe.”
She hung up the phone and stared at the wall. Something in the back of her mind told her that she was on the threshold of a major, major story. It made her entire body tingle with excitement.
On Wednesday, a majority of the members of the cabinet, after another grueling session, and fully cognizant of the mounting interest in the press, finally agreed on a course of action. Unfortunately, in the view of Byron Walsh, the majority decision was to follow the recommendations originally proposed by the late Robert Graves.
They would not evacuate southern California.
They would employ the nuclear devices.
“Operation Move” would begin — again — on the twenty-fourth.
Nothing would be made public.
The president had pledged that he would support the majority decision and he did so now.
But, it was the saddest day of Byron Walsh’s life.
Thirty-three
* * *
While the Nevada Nuclear Test Site sprawled over an area of desert and mountains encompassing some four thousand square miles, the administration buildings were confined to a heavily secured compound that consumed less than two square miles of the tract. Except for one, the buildings were laid out in clusters, six clusters of eight buildings each, the clusters standing quite close to each other. Almost a half-mile away stood another building. A solitary green building that housed, it was hoped, Tommy Wilson and Vance Gifford. The main entrance to the compound was situated in the town of Mercury, some seventy miles northwest of Las Vegas, just off Highway 95.
A fence and two guarded gates would have to be penetrated before the group could get to the target building. Two gates and six miles of open road within the federal facility. A facility that boasted a full complement of soldiers.
Twenty-four miles to the west of Mercury lay the small town of Amaragosa Valley, which Ted Kowalczyk had picked as the staging area for his makeshift army of Vietnam veterans and insurance investigators. Still further west, sixty-five m
iles away, near the town of Scotty’s Junction, the diversionary group of students were assembled and given their final briefing.
All of them, students and Ted’s counterfeit army, had made their way from Los Angeles to the site within the last twenty-four hours. The students had boarded rented buses and been driven along Interstate 15 until they reached the town of Baker, California. From there, they had turned north, traveling along mountainous Highway 127 to the Nevada border, where the highway became 373, dead-ending at Amaragosa Valley. The buses had turned left and gone on to Scotty’s Junction.
Throughout the day, half of Ted’s people had trekked back to Los Angeles to pick up the trucks, jeeps, and equipment that had been arranged for by Frank Leach and ferry them back to the staging area. They had taken the same path as the students, stopping just outside the town of Amaragosa Valley. From there, trucks shuttled back and forth from Las Vegas to round up the rest of the people and bring them out.
While it might have seemed odd that the two groups, students and “Ted’s Army,” were so far apart, it was intentional. Ted wanted to keep the two units as far apart as possible until the time of the actual attack.
The trucks and jeeps all looked authentic. Ted’s people wore Army uniforms, a calculated gamble. The highways had been cluttered with genuine Army vehicles as they escorted the convoys that formed part of “Operation Move” back to Los Angeles, a result of the president’s announcement that the operation had been cancelled. Other Army units were moving out of Los Angeles after quelling the panic that had occurred some thirty-eight hours earlier. So Ted’s group failed to draw attention to itself, due to circumstances that seemed almost providential.
For the last two days, Ted Kowalczyk had planned for this operation, using the motor home as a command center, having the chosen representatives come and go as unobtrusively as possible as they reported on the progress of each and every step.
The Big One Page 30
