Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  “It’s C-4,” the prisoner mumbled.

  “Whatever it is. You gonna cooperate?”

  Lester looked up. “You gonna let me go?”

  “Lester, you could be facing a lot of years in prison.”

  “Bullshit. I hurt no one. I blew up property, that’s all.”

  Smith shook his head and turned to Doug.

  “I gave him a quick briefing on what you’re trying to do, and how urgent it is.”

  “Lester,” Doug began, “I’m trying to save thousands of lives.”

  “How?”

  “Let me talk to you for a moment and I’ll tell you. But we don’t have a lot of time, and I need to know how to work with your explosives.”

  “What are you, suicidal? You can’t learn demolitions in a few hours.”

  “Well, is there anyone on the island not in handcuffs who knows how to handle them?”

  Lester shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “Then you’ll have to do.” Doug sat on a steel chair as Diane left the room with Jason Smith, who turned to her as soon as he had secured the door. She introduced herself and quickly explained her suspicion that her boss—now sitting on a bus a quarter of a mile away—had stolen a valuable report from Mick Walker’s files. Smith was openly skeptical, but she worked hard to win him over to the idea of a quick interrogation.

  Smith scratched his chin and ignored the now-familiar side-to-side shaking as another tremor began. “All right, I’ll have one of my guys go to the bus and ask him to produce it. If he has it, I’ll show it to you and then give it to Mr. Walker.”

  “Fair enough,” she said, reaching out to hold on to the doorknob. “Should I wait here?”

  He nodded as he pulled out his handheld to issue the orders. The shaking was getting worse, the roar and rattling of items through the command center making almost too much of a racket to hear the radio.

  The seismic waves ended as before, and whichever security guard was on the other end acknowledged his call. Smith was reholstering his radio when an excited voice broke through the squelch.

  “Control center, Twenty-Six! The rest of the hotel has just collapsed! Repeat, the western end and the lobby just collapsed!”

  Chapter 36

  CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT 2:20 A.M.

  The Nightingale air force was converging on Cascadia Island, and Sven Lindstrom had assumed the role of air traffic controller.

  From inside a utility van parked at the edge of the helipad, he’d found a grease pencil and was using the inside of the windshield as a tracking board.

  The remaining injured had been lifted out in the big Bell 412 minutes before, and two more BK-117s along with all of the Eurocopters and a Jet Ranger were approaching, several of them flying formation along the coastline as their brethren had done a half hour before.

  Fuel trucks were due at the mainland ferry slip inside of an hour, and as soon as the first BK-117 touched down, battling the fierce winds, six passengers were ushered into the aft compartment. The chopper was off again almost as soon as the pilot had alighted, since he’d already been briefed on the pathway across the channel.

  Sven made a notation of the outbound passengers and the pilot’s name on the inside of the van’s window, and made a check mark by the next incoming ship as he raised a borrowed walkie-talkie to his mouth.

  “Okay, bring on four more passengers for an inbound Dauphin. Three in the back, one in the front left. The next flight will be on the ground inside one minute.”

  The ground crew had been cobbled from the small force of Mick Walker’s staff who had left the hotel to keep attending their refugeed guests. With news that the rest of the hotel had come down, there was a somber mood among the occupants of the buses as they all thought about where they had been standing an hour before.

  Jennifer had been cleared in by Sven on the radio after the BK-117 departed, touching down in the Dauphin and having as much trouble stabilizing the landing as before. The winds were holding steady at thirty-one knots, but the effect of the various burbles and eddies in the wind currents flowing over the helipad was nothing short of frightening to any passenger, with the exception of the elderly woman who emerged from the helicopter to the complete surprise of those pressing to get aboard.

  Marta Cartwright smiled thinly at the crowd, her heart pounding now from the reality she was glimpsing. She had asked for this kind of ruination of Cascadia Island, but she had not imagined the traumatized faces of the ordinary, innocent people who would become victims.

  “Thank you,” she said to Jennifer, smiling as broadly as she could with her heart heavy as she climbed out.

  “Be careful, Marta. And be quick! Our last flight off this rock will probably be in three to four hours. Please don’t miss it!”

  Marta smiled and nodded, hiding the shame she was feeling. Her destructive wishes had been as real as these refugees, and if she had made this a reality through her dreams and thoughts and her hatred, then she had surely fallen into evil.

  Marta suppressed the powerful urge to apologize and take responsibility. No one would understand a batty old woman running around apologizing for something no one would believe she could cause.

  But she knew. In the guiding philosophy of her people, for thousands of years shamans always had an extraordinary responsibility to be very careful of their wishful thoughts. To wish something evil was to commit it.

  CASCADIA CONTROL CENTER

  Lester Brown sighed and shook his head. “Man, if you get the sequence screwed up like what you just said, you’re dead.”

  “What? Which step was out of sequence?” Doug asked, alarm showing on his face as he thought about the lethal consequences of an accidental detonation. He’d written down each step in priming and fusing the plastic explosive. What could be wrong?

  Lester looked up at him.

  “You know what, man? Just go away. I’m not going to help you kill yourself. I’m in enough trouble already.”

  A woman’s voice, reedy and redolent with the tones of advanced age, found his ears. “You certainly are.”

  “Grandmother?”

  Lester Brown looked around, his eyes wide, finding no one but Doug and a deputy in the room.

  “What?” Doug asked.

  “I… just thought…” he stammered.

  The door was opened by Jason Smith, who stepped aside to admit Marta Cartwright. She snapped a finger at Lester to quiet him and turned to Doug.

  “Would you excuse us for a moment. My grandson and I must talk.”

  Doug glanced at Jason Smith, who nodded.

  “Lester, I’ve got to try this whether you help me or not. I have no choice and less time. So, if it means anything to you to not let me kill myself in the process, I need to know what you know.”

  “There’s no way—” Lester began, but once again Marta snapped her finger and he shut up in midsentence.

  She turned back to Doug.

  “Please allow me a couple of minutes and he will be ready to help.”

  Doug followed Smith into the hallway and waited until the soundproof door was closed behind them.

  “That’s his grandmother?” Doug asked.

  “Marta Cartwright is… was… the spiritual leader of our tribe.”

  “Our?”

  “I’m Quaalatch.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “That turkey really is her grandson, and she is not happy.”

  “He called her, I take it?”

  “No.”

  “Then… you called her?”

  “No. She’s a shaman. She doesn’t need a call.”

  The explanation was obviously meant to be complete, and Doug let it pass.

  “Were there… any new casualties at the hotel?”

  Smith shook his head. “No. Fortunately we had it completely evacuated. The state is now ordering everyone off the island and away from the coast. It’s the largest evacuation since World War II, from what the State Patrol is saying. But
I still can’t believe two of our three main buildings have collapsed.” He laughed in a staccato explosion of pain. “This is going to turn out to be the shortest job I’ve ever held.”

  “Where is Mick Walker?”

  “At the helipad, supervising the evacuation, I think.”

  Diane had returned from a trip to the ladies’ room and was giving Doug a questioning look when the door to the interrogation room came open and Marta Cartwright appeared.

  “Who is Dr. Lam?”

  “I am, Ma’am.”

  “I apologize for the criminal behavior of my grandson. He is ready to help you now.”

  “Good! I’ve got to learn how to prepare the explosives.”

  “No, he will do that himself for you.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She turned to Jason Smith. “Jason, I need you to release Lester to Dr. Lam’s custody. He will prepare whatever needs to be prepared and turn his evil to some good.”

  Much to Doug’s surprise, Smith nodded.

  “If that’s what you’d like, Marta.”

  “That’s what is needed,” she replied, turning her gaze on Doug. “Doctor Lam? Lester will prepare this explosive you need and place it himself for you. It’s the least he can do.”

  She turned without waiting for a response and started down the hall.

  “Marta?” Jason called after her. “We need to get you back off the island to safety.”

  She stopped and turned, smiling. “I’m safe wherever I am, Jason Two Otters.”

  “Well… where do you want to go?”

  “Wherever I’m bound. This island’s fate and mine are the same.”

  He sighed. “Why don’t you rest here for awhile, then.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Just have a seat in my office there on the right and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  The walkie-talkie on his belt beeped and Jason acknowledged the call.

  “Jason, we’ve completed searching through all the buses and the lists of those waiting for evacuation.”

  The transmission ended.

  “Yes? And?” Jason prompted.

  “Sorry… someone was asking a question. Yeah, the thing is, we’ve checked and there is no Jerry Schultz out here anywhere. Robert Nelms is here, but no Jerry Schultz.”

  “Which means,” Diane said, “that Jerry’s run to his confederate.”

  “And that would be?” Jason asked.

  “Not important,” she said with a sigh. “But thanks for the help.”

  MADIGAN ARMY HOSPITAL, FORT LEWIS, WASHINGTON

  The fact that the governor of Washington and his family were injured and inbound had caused the state’s adjutant general to order his pilots to go directly to the preeminent center of military medicine in the Pacific Northwest. A quick call to his active-duty Army counterparts sealed the arrangement, and a formation of physicians and nurses were waiting as the Chinook settled onto the Madigan helipad.

  With Frank and Janet O’Brien whisked away, followed by the three injured teens who’d survived Lindy O’Brien’s party, Lindy was escorted to another section of the emergency department to attend to the cuts on her forearms. Bandaged and impatient, she’d enlisted one of the younger doctors to take her to her friends.

  Matt had a concussion and broken ribs, but nothing life-threatening. Karen, however, had collapsed during the evacuation flight and had been rushed to the OR with severe internal bleeding. While Jaimie would be ready for immediate release, Karen’s life hung in the balance.

  And the bodies of Jeff and Davie had yet to be recovered, or their parents notified.

  Lindy felt somewhere beyond numb. She stood like a zombie trying to process it all before the doctor placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “You want to check on your mom and dad now?”

  She looked at him as if she’d been in the process of drowning and he’d interrupted from somewhere above water. Her parents. For a second she’d forgotten.

  “Yes,” Lindy managed, and he pointed the way down yet another hallway.

  The governor’s injuries were confined to broken bones and a mild concussion, but her mother was in another operating room, and when she pressed a circulating nurse for the reason, all she could get was a sympathetic word of useless encouragement.

  “I… I asked you what they’re doing in there?” Lindy said again, having caught the nurse, an Army captain, by the sleeve.

  “Miss O’Brien, I told you, they’re working to stabilize her.”

  “Do you know what her injuries are?” Lindy asked, her voice shaking but rising in volume.

  “I can’t discuss that with you right now,” the captain replied.

  “The hell you can’t! That’s the first lady of Washington in there and I’m her daughter! Tell me the truth, damnit!”

  “Look—”

  “That’s an order!” Lindy bellowed, tears streaming from her eyes.

  The nurse looked closely at her for a few seconds. The young girl with the shaking shoulders would have bordered on the ludicrous trying to pull rank if her mother’s life wasn’t in question. The captain moved toward her and gathered her in a hug.

  All the fight went out of Lindy, and she let herself be enfolded as she sobbed openly.

  The nurse waited for more than a minute before speaking.

  “What’s your first name, Miss O’Brien?”

  “Lindy.”

  “Well, your mom is fighting for her life, Lindy.”

  Lindy looked up, feeling like a five-year-old but unable to help herself.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Are you strong enough to hear the details?”

  Lindy nodded.

  “Very well. There are broken ribs, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, a crushed left leg which will take massive effort to save, and when we got her on the table, she went into cardiac arrest. We got her heart restarted within a minute, but she’s in very critical condition, in surgery, and you need to be prepared. We may lose her.”

  Chapter 37

  CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT 2:40 A.M.

  A sudden burst of rain had wiped out visibility around the island for just long enough to force the Dauphin and one of the Eurocopters back to the peninsula, wasting precious time. When Sven called to report the squall had cleared, Jennifer let Gail Grisham take the Eurocopter in first. She held the Dauphin in a hover for the two minutes it took for Gail to load the next group of escaping passengers. Five Nightingale choppers were now churning back and forth between the island’s helipad and the mainland ferry parking lot, and the three that had been used for emergency evacuation earlier were now on their way back from Seattle to join the effort.

  Sven cleared the Dauphin in as soon as Gail had lifted off, and once more Jennifer battled the controls to stay on top of the fierce wind and occasionally surprising side gusts.

  She had expected someone to open the copilot’s door, but the face of the auburn-haired young woman in the doorway was unfamiliar at first. Jennifer pulled part of her headset away from her left ear and leaned in the woman’s direction.

  “Are you getting in?” Jennifer yelled over the noise of engine, rotor, and wind.

  “No. They need you for a special mission, but I need to talk to you first.”

  “What?” The woman’s voice was getting swallowed, and Jennifer offered the spare headset to her as she balanced on a footstep mounted on the left side. The woman put on the headset after fumbling to determine which side was which.

  “I said I needed to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About your fiancé, Dr. Lam.”

  Jennifer froze for a few seconds, her mind flashing to a picture of the bathrobe-clad female next to Doug Lam in the hotel. Diane Lacombe!

  What is she doing here?

  “He’s not my fiancé,” Jennifer said, her tone instantly hardened.

  “Whatever. He told me you’d seen the two of us together earlier, and that you got the wrong idea. I wanted t
o tell you, woman to woman, that absolutely nothing sexual or even suggestive was going on! I took a terrible chance coming to this island, but I needed his help as a scientist. He stood out in the rain and listened to me. I was trying to avoid pneumonia and get dry. I was in a bathrobe just to avoid pneumonia!”

  “Nice speech,” Jennifer shot back, watching Diane’s eyes, which narrowed in frustration.

  “Speech?”

  “Yes. You delivered it well.”

  “It wasn’t a speech. It’s the truth.”

  “Thanks. Anything else?”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because there was no time for it to be anything but the truth. Let me ask you this. You know the man, and I don’t. Is Dr. Lam an impulsive type who would jump in bed with the first girl he found, especially when his fian—his steady, is on the same island?”

  Jennifer hesitated just long enough to validate Diane’s point.

  “See? You know he isn’t, and yet for us to be fooling around, that’s what would have to have occurred.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Look, you’ve taken a position that he’s guilty, but you need to change it. I’ve worked for men like you, and when they refuse to reexamine something, they make terrible mistakes.”

  Anger was bubbling around the confusion Jennifer was feeling at being confronted by the very woman she assumed Doug had strayed with. But in the end, the whole exchange was little more than a personal distraction which was interfering with the mission and her duties, and that was unacceptable.

  “I’ll take the headset now,” she said with as much finality as she could manage.

  But Diane Lacombe hadn’t budged, her eyes boring holes in Jennifer’s face until she turned and snapped at her one more time.

  “What?”

  “He’s innocent, okay?”

  “No male is ever innocent, Honey,” Jennifer responded, reaching over and pulling the headset off the woman’s head to end the exchange. She turned her eyes away to avoid Diane Lacombe’s reaction.

  The left rear door of the Dauphin opened at the same moment and a large-chested male climbed in carrying a coil of rope and wearing a safety harness. He placed a jump bag on the seat beside him and nodded unsmilingly to her. Lacombe disappeared and Doug now came running toward the Dauphin and clambered into the copilot’s seat, sweeping on the headset.