Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  The last of the 105 passengers scheduled for this particular run were filing aboard two decks below through the luxurious airline-style jetway that the company had built into the dock on the peninsula side of the channel. What was greeting them on entry were rich fabrics and leather, comfortable captain chairs and couches, sparkling bars with well-attired waitresses from the casino and hotel restaurants, and tonight, even a jazz combo playing away in the corner.

  Being proud of the MV Quaalatch was easy. It was great fun to show off his modern bridge, which glowed impressively at night with state-of-the-art electronics, GPS systems, radar, and chrome engine controls alongside the classic wooden ship’s wheel. Even the well-designed car deck was a showpiece. It could accommodate ten cars and three tractor-trailer rigs for island resupply in a clever system of overlapping tunnels.

  There had been a number of used ferries on the market in various parts of the world when Reilly was hired to plan the sea bridge to and from the island, but fortunately Mick Walker had insisted on building something new and impressive, and that’s precisely what Reilly now had under his command—even if the scope of his “voyages” was only a mile in either direction.

  Reilly checked the wind speed again. Part of his mind was already trying to work out the next approach to the island’s newly commissioned ferry slip. Mick Walker’s engineers couldn’t have put it in a worse spot, right at the juncture of a small channel where an intense tidal rip always seemed to be active either in or out. At least the lead-in pilings were new, strong, and well padded with heavy black rubber. He was going to need them. In most of the proving runs he’d been forced to nudge the blunt bow of the twin diesel boat against one or the other of the pilings and shove her in with the brute force of the engines. The shipyard had equipped her with a bow thruster to move the front of the ship left or right with the turn of a small keylike control, but the current at the island slip was simply too much for the thruster, which meant he wouldn’t be using it much. It was false security.

  He needed to go below before they departed, and Dennis, his first mate, swung back into the wheelhouse, as if reading his mind.

  “So, you want me to take over while you go schmooze the passengers, skipper?” the twenty-eight-year-old asked.

  “What do you think?” Shelton replied.

  “Well, seeing as how you have on your impressive captain’s coat there, you might as well show it off before things get messy down there. We’re issuing the barf bags.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re not worried about these crossings?”

  Reilly snorted at the idea. “Me? Son, I’ve sailed through waves bigger than that island over there.”

  “Yeah, right, Captain. I happen to know you spent your career in Puget Sound in a tugboat on glassy waters.”

  “Hey, not true. I’ve got plenty of blue-water experience.”

  “Which blue water? Lake Washington in the summer?”

  “Such rancid disrespect for your elders. You’ve got the controls, Mr. Christian. I’ll be back to keelhaul you in a few minutes.”

  “By the way, Captain Shelton, sir… check out the incredible chick in the deck-length white coat while you’re down there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Blonde, heart-attack sexy, miniskirt barely long enough to be legal.”

  Reilly cocked his head. “Is she the one who came aboard with a man and woman and two other guys hanging back?”

  “Yeah! You saw her?”

  “They give me binoculars up here. First of all, she’s jailbait. Secondly, that ‘chick’ is Miss Lindy O’Brien, the governor’s daughter.”

  “She’s sixteen. I read about her.”

  “Hands off.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “And I’m going down to welcome the governor,” Reilly said, as he headed for the circular stairway leading from the bridge to the main deck. “If he can make a point of helicoptering out just to ride our ferry, I can say hello and protect his daughter from my crew.”

  Instead, he continued below the level of the passenger lounge to the car deck, emerging close to the bow. There were no vehicles on this run and no crewmen on the car deck to watch him walk to the side of the ferry and stare long and hard at the wave state. The crests were already higher than he’d figured, and much more impressive than they’d looked from the bridge. With the tide coming in, the current around Cascadia Island was going to be brutal.

  Once again a strange, cold feeling of dread grabbed him deep inside.

  Mick Walker had made sure there was a VIP lounge aboard his ferry that would please even an Arabian potentate. It was the perfect place for Lindy O’Brien and her important parents. Sixteen, beautiful, spoiled rotten and proud of it, Lindy knew her mother was watching her closely, but there was no way either her parents or the plainclothes state troopers who watched after them could keep up with her. As usual, careful preplanning had set up the whole evening, and she was looking forward to executing the plan as soon as they reached their suite. Getting the room and getting her friends invited and in place ahead of time as a cover had been another triumph of sweet-talking and chicanery, and she was as proud of the success of her clandestine operation as she was excited about spending the night with Jeff.

  Lindy accepted a Diet Coke and sat on one of the plush leather chairs, uncrossing her legs slowly and recrossing them with her eyes on a good-looking young waiter who was more than aware of what she was doing and trying hard not to react. Her mother was glaring at her, and the governor, as usual, was on the phone and oblivious to what his daughter was up to.

  She felt the boat swaying as it rocked with its prow in the ferry slip, the significant waves making their presence known even before the ferry headed across the narrow channel.

  Her special weekend had started, and this was going to be fun!

  One deck below in the main passenger area, Priscilla Ranne from Ames, Iowa, squeezed her husband Tony’s arm again and smiled as she looked around the crowded room—which was already swaying and moving in some disturbing patterns. She felt elegant in her cocktail dress and proud of Tony, looking so young and vital in his business suit. There was an eclectic mix of humanity all around her, she noticed, feeling very cosmopolitan in such a crowd. Several of the men were in tuxedos, but the styles ran the gamut from formal all the way down to the three men by one of the corner windows looking exceedingly uncomfortable in jeans, white shirts, and jackets.

  Just like home, she thought, having gone to so many social functions around Ames as she was growing up. There were always a few good old boys off the farm who simply weren’t comfortable off a tractor and out of overalls. She knew the look and smiled at the memories. It had always been fun to go ask one of them to dance and watch the overly scrubbed boy blush, but later be so appreciative of her attention.

  “Baby, aren’t you glad I entered us in the contest?” she asked Tony suddenly, squeezing his arm again for emphasis. He’d been making small talk with another couple and she wanted to share the excitement she was feeling, not talk politics, or whatever the subject had been.

  “Honey,” he said, looking around at her, “you ask me that about every hour on the hour.” There was a chuckle in his voice as he showed his usual gentle tolerance of her silliness, and he smiled at her as he snaked an arm around her waist. “But I am glad, yes. You can win as many trips for us as you want.”

  “I just love this!” she giggled. “It’s like being in New York or something.”

  Tony turned back to the other couple, who were also contest winners, but who had hauled along their three brats, where Priscilla had been smart enough to arrange for Tony’s mother to keep their two little girls. The chance to have Tony all to herself in a plush hotel room for two free nights was not going to be subjected to the competition of children, she had decided. Besides, maybe it was time to get number three cooking.

  For some reason, she glanced back at the three men in the corner, studying their faces a bit more and wonderin
g if they were Native, or American Indians, or whatever the politically correct description was. She’d heard of all sorts of strange tribes in the Washington area, and some of the names sounded funny. Pew-allup, snow-home-ish, sue-quah-mish, lum-me as in tummy, and a town with the darkly risqué name of Humptulips.

  Whoever those three were, she thought, it was obvious they were going to have to do a better job of enjoying themselves. All three were frowning.

  One hundred yards distant in the parking lot of the Cascadia Island ferry departure terminal an old car pulled around the corner and slipped into a space indicated by a parking attendant, followed by a cloud of bluish smoke memorializing the deteriorating state of the engine. Mary Willis turned off her engine, startled at the relative silence as the cacophony of the sputtering engine ceased. She emerged from her battered Ford, straightened the dress she’d purchased for the occasion, and began checking her purse for her invitation, too absorbed to note a young woman with auburn hair who materialized from a row of cars in front of her.

  “Hi,” the younger woman said. “May I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Sure,” Mary replied.

  The woman looked nervously toward the ferry dock and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, then looked at Mary and tried to smile.

  “I’m… so sorry to bother you, but, I’ve got a big, big problem.”

  “What, Dear? Can I help?”

  “My husband is already on the island, in our room and waiting for me, and he gets very upset if I screw things up. He’s got quite a temper… and I’m supposed to be over there, but I lost my invitation and now they won’t let me on. They say I’m not on the list.”

  “That’s too bad. How can I help? Do you need to borrow a cell phone and call him?”

  The young woman dabbed at her eyes again and shook her head. “I tried. He’s not answering. But—here’s the thing. Is there any way you would consider letting me buy your invitation?”

  “You want to pay me—just for my tickets?”

  “I know it would mean giving up the weekend, and your room, but I’ll pay you three hundred. It’s worth that much to me not to get him angry again.”

  Mary chewed her lip, trying to weigh the sudden proposition against the fun she was expecting to have with her twenty-five-dollar gambling stake and her free room. Only a handful of tribal council members had been invited, but three hundred could buy a lot of groceries.

  “Does he beat you, Dear?” Mary asked.

  She looked startled. “No. Just… he’s got a bad temper.”

  “Well, I had been planning on this weekend for some time.”

  “Please,” the young woman begged. “My marriage may hang in the balance here. How about four hundred?”

  “Well… it’s not just the money, you see.”

  “Okay… all I have, all right? Five hundred cash. Please?”

  Mary sighed and finally nodded, handing over the invitation envelope and taking the money, then watching the young woman’s broad smile as she hugged her.

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked.

  “Mary Willis. And yours?”

  “Cynthia,” she said, waving as she bounded off toward the waiting ferry. “Thank you so much!”

  Mary sighed and sat back down behind the wheel of her battered Ford feeling deflated, despite the money. It was obviously too late to reconsider, and maybe she’d saved a marriage, but losing the weekend was going to hurt, and she felt lonely already.

  She started the engine after the third try, the engine wheezing to life as an image materialized in her head of the young woman’s left hand.

  There had been no wedding ring.

  Wait a minute. If her husband is already there, why does she need my room?

  Mary turned to look in the direction of the ferry. Cynthia had already disappeared inside, and she could see a deck hand on the bow preparing to throw off the ropes.

  But the ferry would be back within the hour for the next load of guests, and, unlike Cynthia, the name Mary Willis was on the invitation list. And Mary Willis had more than enough photo ID cards to prove who she was.

  No. I’ll wait. I’m five hundred dollars richer and I’m still going!

  Suddenly the weekend looked bright again.

  When the MV Quaalatch was safely away from the slip and westbound, the captain picked up the PA microphone and summoned his best, calmest, deepest voice.

  “Folks, this is Captain Shelton. The passage ahead is a little rough, and although we’ll be there in only fifteen minutes, I would appreciate your taking your seats now while we—”

  A large swell pushed the boat to starboard, almost rolling the deck out from under his feet.

  “—while we prepare for our landing on the island’s new ferry slip. It’s wonderful to have you with us on our very first day of operation.”

  He replaced the PA as another roller caught the port bow, heeling the ship slightly as the first officer tightened his grip on the edge of the forward dash panel and Reilly tried to calm his rising apprehension. The Quaalatch displaced nearly five hundred thousand pounds. Even a low-speed impact with that kind of weight could do substantial damage.

  But it wasn’t the prospect of hitting something that was eating away at him, rather the worry that in front of the boss and all the guests, he might not be able to get her landed on the island.

  Worse, he thought, what if the wave state got too high to bring her back even to the peninsula side? What would he do? Where could he take them? Eighty miles south through mountainous waves to find a safe harbor at Hoquiam? The professional embarrassment alone would be total, and Walker would surely fire him.

  It was cold on the bridge and the first officer had already zipped up his coat, but Reilly was too busy wiping a bead of perspiration from his forehead to notice.

  BOEING FIELD, SEATTLE

  The high-speed dash from the lab to Nightingale’s hangar took less time than Doug had figured. He parked his Austin-Healey in one of the spaces reserved for company executives and scrambled into the building, catching the eye of the dispatcher as he approached the desk.

  “Dr. Lam, I presume?” the dispatcher asked, not waiting for a response beyond a slight nod. “The third helicopter out there on the line, the Sikorsky S-76. They’re waiting for you. Take the left, front copilot’s seat, please. Keep your head down as you approach, and approach only from the side. Our line guy will escort you.”

  The pilot was a woman he noticed as he climbed into the seat. “Glad to meet you at last, Dr. Lam,” she said.

  “At last?”

  “We’re all kind of aware of our boss lady’s significant other.” Her eyes were on the horizon as the helicopter accelerated and banked to the west, overflying the north side of the control tower. “I’m Gloria Andrews, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Doug replied. “And thanks for ferrying me out there.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “You’re the military pilot Jennifer has told me about, right?”

  “One of them. I flew Black Hawks in the Army. But two wars and God knows how many skirmishes were enough. I like this a lot better.”

  “I imagine.”

  “May I ask you a question, since you’re a seismologist?”

  “Sure.”

  “My parents live in Ocean Shores. They’re retired, and they don’t think there’s any seismic danger there because its basically a big sandbar.”

  “They’re there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a cell phone aboard?”

  “Why?” Gloria replied, her expression darkening.

  “Once you get in cruise, I’d highly recommend you call them and get them out of there for the next few days.”

  “It’s that bad? Their house is one story and it’s on a slab foundation. There’s no masonry either.”

  “It’s not the shaking, Gloria,” he said, holding the intercom transmit down steadily. “It’s the thirty- to forty-foot-high tsunami t
hat’s going to roar over the entire Ocean Shores peninsula within a few minutes of any great subduction quake. In addition, the whole Ocean Shores spit will probably be yanked down four to six feet, and that puts most areas at or below sea level.”

  There was momentary silence from the right seat as she spoke to a Seattle departure controller about other inbound traffic, then turned back to him.

  “You’re scaring me, Doctor.”

  “I mean to. You’ll almost certainly lose them if the big one does hit us.”

  They were passing Bremerton by the time she was able to make the call, lowering the phone a minute later.

  “Technically I can’t use a cell phone in flight. The FAA thinks it might interfere with the instruments, but with the digitals, that’s so much B.S.”

  “Are your folks going to leave?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. It will take at least three calls. My parents are very hardheaded.”

  They skimmed some low-lying stratus clouds hanging over the northeast shoulder of the Olympic Peninsula and threaded their way along the north edge of the national park before turning south just short of Forks on the final run to the island.

  Doug couldn’t suppress a low whistle as the outline of the buildings became distinct several miles ahead. It seemed as if every inch of the rock called Cascadia Island had sprouted something large and built of steel and concrete, and the effect was astounding.

  Doug watched Gloria, carefully assessing her degree of concentration, concerned about distracting her.

  “Have you been out here before?” Doug asked.

  “Three times today already,” Gloria replied.

  “It looks like a battleship, or… maybe a carrier.”

  “It is bristling, isn’t it?”

  “The hotel alone is huge.”

  “Yeah. And beautiful. See the helipad just to the right there?”

  He nodded as she worked the controls, slowing and descending smoothly as she adjusted the approach into the wind, her expert, subtle movements almost undetectable as the S-76 she had melded with appeared to be obeying her very thoughts, settling authoritatively onto the concrete pad.