Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  But the helicopter hadn’t been low enough for him, and he’d carped at her several times about getting lower, flying more steadily, and had made half a dozen other micromanaging comments that she hadn’t expected and did not appreciate. She knew she was a superlative pilot, but having the master throw barbs at her didn’t prevent her self-confidence from partially deflating.

  Now on the third run Jennifer had been forced to circle twice before realizing that the ferry was actually moving under its own power, half crabbing, half churning backward toward the peninsula ferry slip. Regardless of how the crew was doing it, the ship was listing no further—which meant there was a possibility that it might not sink after all.

  The winds had steadied out around forty miles per hour, and she’d planned the approach to come in around thirty feet above deck level, then inch down again to the same fifteen feet to keep the helicopter safe from any sudden downdrafts or upward pitching of the aft deck in the massive swells. Gail was already in her harness and ready to go down for the last two injured people. They were down to broken ankles and legs now, nothing life-threatening as with the first two, but the adrenaline that had been propelling Jennifer was beginning to give way to a deep fatigue.

  This is where fatal mistakes are made, Jennifer reminded herself, as she mentally reached for whatever reservoir of energy remained.

  “Talk me in, Gail,” Jennifer said.

  “I’ll do it,” her father replied. “Bring her down to ten feet this time. The deck’s steady. You’ve got fifteen to go.”

  “I’m going to hold fifteen feet, Dad. Ten is unsafe.”

  “Bullshit! Bring it down! You’re making things tougher on Gail than they oughta be.”

  She could hear Gail begin to reply, then stop herself, unwilling to get between the two of them.

  “Steady, Jennifer! Steady… right there. Come on down. You’re too damned high.”

  “Dad, cut it out! Gail, are you good to go?”

  Once more Sven cut her off, this time with a wave toward Gail as he looked at his daughter in the right seat.

  “Jennifer, can you hold this machine steady or not?”

  “Of course. I am holding it steady!”

  “Then you don’t have any goddamned excuse for being so high. Get down to ten feet!”

  “Dad…”

  “We’re too high! Get down!”

  “No! Damnit, no! I’m in command of this ship, and I say it’s unsafe below fifteen.”

  “Yeah? And who the hell taught you how to hover over a boat?”

  “You also taught me to be safety-conscious.”

  “Yeah, safety-conscious, but not a coward.”

  “Damnit, Dad, I’m not a coward, but ten feet is too low, and we’re wasting time with this stupid debate!”

  “Staying above fifteen feet is a coward’s altitude!”

  “I am not going to be bullied into doing something unsafe.”

  “Goddamnit, how did I end up with such a pussy?”

  Jennifer’s head jerked around, her eyes full of shock and hurt as she hung on to the controls and watched her father angrily pushing himself away from the open door and unsnapping his safety harness. For a split second she wondered if he was planning to hit her or drag her out of the seat, but instead he launched his body past the center console and into the empty copilot’s seat, his hands and feet finding the controls and shaking them against the constant control motions she was making.

  “I’ve got it, goddamnit! You get back there and run the winch and I’ll show you how a real… pilot does it!”

  “You don’t mean ‘pilot,’ do you, Dad? You’re going to show me how a ‘real man’ does it, right?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  He turned toward her, his eyes red with fury. “Get on the winch! Now! We can talk about this on the ground.”

  Jennifer unsnapped her seat belt, her face crimson with embarrassment and anger and disappointment. She could see the alarm on Gail’s face in her peripheral vision, but she was too crushed to look her in the eye as she took the silently offered safety harness and snapped it around her, giving a thumbs-up as Gail tested her weight again on the winch and swung out the door.

  The helicopter was down below ten feet, Sven’s determination to show up his daughter’s timidity forcing him down to five feet, down to a range dangerous enough that one mistake could send the rotors into the ferry’s superstructure, killing anyone in their way and flipping the body of the helicopter into the sea.

  But even without a medical certificate, Sven was still an instinctive master, and the Dauphin steadied out in a rock-solid hover still enough to suggest it might be welded somehow to the deck.

  Gail motored down the small distance and unhooked, racing inside again for the last two patients as Jennifer sat by the door holding the winch controls, tears burning her eyes and cascading around her face as the rotorwash blasted everyone below.

  Her father made no more attempts to communicate from the left seat.

  An emotional numbness was creeping up her spine, distorting time and insulating her from the outrageousness of the moment. Gail was back, the first patient came up, the basket went back down for the second patient, and then Gail came aboard.

  “The captain and first mate are going to try to get the ferry back to the dock, Jen,” Gail reported. “I’m secure. Let’s go”

  “Jennifer, get back up here and take over,” Sven was saying. “I shouldn’t be seen flying.”

  She stood behind her right seat, the empty command chair, and looked at her father, a barrage of conflicting emotions pinging off the walls of her resolve. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to yank him out of the copilot’s seat. She wanted to open the door and push him out. She wanted to run far, far away.

  But the inner voice that scared her most of all was the one urging her to somehow apologize once again.

  Only a few seconds had passed while her internal debate raged unchecked, but she found herself in motion and back in the right seat, her jaw set, her face hardened against any attempt to ameliorate the man she’d just glimpsed once more, the resentful, uncaring father she’d always tried to deny existed. She knew now she could no longer deny the reality of his true feelings toward her.

  “I’ve got it,” she said, her voice flat and professional.

  His hands were off the controls now, but he was hesitating in the left seat, his eyes burning a hole in her left cheek.

  Jennifer nosed the helicopter forward and brought in the collective and the power, climbing into the gloom and turning once more for Cascadia, letting the previous radio exchange with Norm Bryarly back at Boeing Field replay in her head, blocking other, more disturbing, thoughts.

  There had been another large earthquake, Norm had said, and every helicopter Nightingale had, both medevac and charter, were being pressed into service for critical injury pickups, most in the Olympia area. Worse, the first two patients they had pulled off the ferry were only partially stabilized and were in desperate need of transport to a major Seattle hospital, and while she’d immediately offered to fly them, Norm had overruled her, as she’d given him the authority to do.

  “You’re far too exhausted, Jennifer. Gail’s fresher, and Ben’s back on his feet and waiting with the ambulance and the patients. So let Gail and Ben bring the Dauphin back here. You and Sven can fly the 412 out tomorrow, after you’ve had some sleep.”

  “I’m too tired to argue,” she’d said, vaguely aware that her father had turned toward her from the left seat.

  “Hey, Honey, I’m sorry about taking over, but you just weren’t cutting it.”

  She said nothing, her eyes on the approaching heliport lights, and he refused to take the hint.

  “Jennifer, damnit, the job comes first. But I… I am sorry about that remark. You know, the pussy thing.”

  A wave of bile engulfed her as the import of it all once again washed away the wishful thinking that she could ever measure up.

  “So am I, Dad. So am I.”


  CASCADIA CASINO BALLROOM

  The ballroom once again seemed safe and still, and Governor Frank O’Brien was reveling in what he did best: charming his constituents.

  Especially female constituents.

  Mick Walker had introduced the governor of Washington substantially ahead of schedule and then raced out of the room, which was just fine with Frank O’Brien. In his opinion, developers always tended to talk too long about their accomplishments during groundbreakings or opening ceremonies. Better to leave it to a master politician to strike just the right note, using a mix of humor and the force of a governor’s presence to leave the audience with the idea that they’d just experienced one of the greater celebrations of recent history.

  Right on cue he’d left the podium and exhorted them to enjoy dinner, then moved off the platform. Totally in his element, O’Brien began working the room, greeting a few old friends and allies, embarrassing one political enemy in a humorous way, and paying careful attention to any pretty female, wife, mother, daughter or otherwise. Lately he’d been overjoyed to see his poll numbers climbing again among Washington women. Maybe they’d forgiven him.

  The governor could see the waiters holding his main course at the head table, and he turned to shake one more hand. The man looked familiar, but then there were so many people parading past him every day, there was no way he could remember them all.

  “Governor? I need to speak with you immediately.”

  “Well, apparently you already are. Your name?”

  “Dr. Douglas Lam, of the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington Seismology Lab.”

  Frank cautioned himself to remain polite, even though he wanted to release Lam’s hand and turn away. The scientist had been a thorn in the side of some of his supporters, especially Mick Walker. What the hell was he doing here, of all places?

  “Well, Dr. Lam. What happened? You decide you like this project after all?”

  “Governor, if you’ll give me five minutes, I have a huge growing body of scientific evidence that we’re about to have a monstrous subduction zone earthquake that could—”

  O’Brien’s hand was already up. “Okay, that’s what I figured. You go find my emergency services director.”

  “Governor, I chased you down over here because we’re out of time, and I can’t find Harper. You have to issue an evacuation order for the—”

  “Hey, calm down! Okay?” Frank placed his hand on Lam’s shoulder, leaning down slightly to look him in the eye like a worried teacher trying to get through to a dense student. “Let me tell you this plain and simple. I’m well aware of the earthquakes we’ve been having, I’m well aware of the damage in Bellingham, and I know we just had a quake here a few minutes ago. But I’m not evacuating anything until I’ve got sufficient scientific proof, and that means—as I told Bill Harper a while ago when I cancelled the premature alert he tried to trigger without proper authority—when the USGS, your agency, issues a genuine earthquake warning, I’ll act. Not until then. As leader, that is the appropriate thing for me to do.”

  “Governor, are you aware the state capitol building has partially collapsed?”

  Frank O’Brien dropped his hand and took a half step back, his head cocked in an expression of pity.

  “What are you talking about? That was years ago, and we merely got cracks in the dome.”

  “Well, sir, this time the dome came down. Three people are dead as of twenty minutes ago. You mean no one’s called you?”

  A dark cloud of uncertainty crossed the governor’s face, his smug smile fading rapidly. “That’s Harper’s job.”

  “Harper was on the last ferry. It was sinking, and everyone had to abandon ship in lifeboats, from what I’m told. I don’t even know if he made it to shore.”

  Frank glanced around, looking for his state trooper bodyguard, but the man was nowhere to be found. The governor turned back to Doug. “If you’re making this up, Lam, I’ll have your ass in a sling.”

  “I’m giving you the absolute truth as I heard it about the capitol, Governor, and I’m waiting for printed confirmation of our USGS warning. It isn’t completely official until I get the—”

  The trooper appeared through the doorway of the room and raced to the governor’s side, a cell phone in his hand.

  “Where the hell have you been?” O’Brien growled.

  “I… had a bad signal in here, sir,” the trooper explained. “And—”

  O’Brien cut him off. “You haven’t heard any nonsense about the capitol collapsing, have you Sam?”

  “Yes, sir. I have the command post on the line for you right now.”

  O’Brien looked momentarily stunned, then recovered and snatched the cell phone from the trooper’s hand, his eyes on the floor as someone on the other end transmitted the same grim information. He finished and snapped the phone shut, handing it back to the trooper as Doug waved for his attention.

  “Governor, please let me explain what’s happening about twenty-five kilometers below our feet.”

  “Okay, look, Doctor. I know all about your little theory, and I also know none of your colleagues agreed with you. Furthermore, I don’t appreciate at all the way you dogged my friend, Mick Walker, and made his life miserable because you wanted this island kept untouched.”

  “You’re misinterpreting my entire stance, sir.”

  “Am I? Am I misinterpreting the fact that you stated this island should not be built upon?”

  “No, but—”

  “How about your public pronouncements that people like Walker were subverting the process of environmental protection?”

  “Yes, when he uses his fortune to tie up any opposition in the courts.”

  “That’s not what they’re for? The courts? To fairly resolve disputes?”

  “That’s not how he used them.”

  “I really don’t like your tactics any more than I like rabid, wild-eyed tree huggers who’d rather launch all humans off the planet and keep it pristine for animal life.”

  “That is not my philosophy!”

  “Really? Then who was it who tried to stop this project by ramming his discredited, so-called theory down our throats in order to block the project, despite the tax revenues it raises for the state?”

  “Sir, this has nothing to do with my theory.”

  “What, then?”

  “Please forget any question of why the subduction zone is rumbling and just give me a few seconds to tell you what is happening down there.”

  Frank O’Brien studied him for a moment in thought.

  “Okay, against my better judgment, I’ll give you two minutes, Doctor. This is too important a subject not to hear you out for the umpteenth time.”

  Doug took a deep breath and compressed a half-hour explanation into a headline as Frank O’Brien stood and listened.

  “In a nutshell, Governor, we have a massive series of quakes proving the zone is doing something we’ve never seen before, and if it breaks, there will be no time to evacuate before a tsunami wipes out a huge number of citizens. Those are scientific certainties.”

  “Why do these little quakes have to equate to a huge one?” O’Brien asked.

  I’m reaching him! Doug thought.

  “We don’t know whether they’re an inevitable prelude to the big one or some other phenomenon that doesn’t end with a huge quake. But what we’re seeing has never happened before in modern history, and the only conservative, safe action is to evacuate the coastal areas, if it’s not already too late.”

  “And that includes this island, I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your employer concur? Are they ready to issue the alert I’m still going to demand?”

  “They just did,” Doug said, feeling his blood run cold at the enormity of the lie. There was no justification for saying such a thing, but O’Brien’s antagonism was simply too much to bear.

  “Really? And you found out when?”

  “Just as I walked in
here,” he added to the lie.

  O’Brien was standing in thought. “Okay. Thank you, Doctor. We’ll take it from here.” He glanced at the trooper and inclined his head toward Doug as he turned to walk away. The trooper anticipated Doug’s trajectory and stepped in front of him. “Sir, do not follow the governor. Understand?”

  “I was just—”

  The trooper’s hand moved to the butt of his holstered gun. “Stop!”

  Doug raised both hands and backed away a few feet to wait. The trooper’s expression was angry and he turned suddenly to follow O’Brien out of the hall with a determined Doug Lam right behind. At the doorway the trooper turned and blocked his way. “Come one step closer and I’ll put you in cuffs, understood?”

  “I’m trying to warn the governor of my state of a public hazard, and I’m violating no laws. You back off!” Doug snapped, surprised at the anger in his response.

  Frank O’Brien sighed, stopped, and turned. “Down, Billy. Dr. Lam, stay by your phone.”

  “Do you have my number?”

  “I… Billy?” he said to the trooper. “Write down Dr. Lam’s cell number and then follow me.”

  Doug repeated his number and the trooper turned to follow his boss, who was just sailing out of the room, his voice raised a touch too loud for Doug not to overhear a question about retrieving the first lady.

  CASCADIA ISLAND

  It didn’t require more than climbing out of the car for Mick to confirm Sherry’s report. The Cascadia Island Convention Center—all twenty million dollars’ worth of it—was now a pile of rubble, as if a controlled-demolition company had carefully planted the necessary explosives to flatten it.

  Sherry had accompanied him and was standing by the car, but he waved her back, not wanting her to see the pure, unadulterated panic on his face. His knees felt weak and a large part of him wanted to just sink to the ground and roll up in a fetal position, or maybe take a long walk off the shortest pier he could find.

  Not that Mick Walker hadn’t lived through bad times before. There had been plenty of them, starting with a mean childhood in the Australian outback with a drunk, abusive father. The fact that he’d ended up with any money at all instead of being sentenced to prison in his wild youth was in itself a small miracle. But even after he’d become successful and wealthy, he’d never felt secure. He was sure the establishment he’d conquered and pretended to join was always looking for the opportunity to send him packing back to the poor, hardscrabble life that had spawned him. There had been transitory moments of professional panic before. But this time was different. This time his life, fortune, and self-worth were all inextricably intertwined with the resort. If it collapsed, so would he.