Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  “Thanks.”

  He pushed himself over the side again, feeling the same desperate need to claw himself back into the cabin, realizing at the same time that he still had his headset on. Jennifer’s eyes were on the tug below as she fought to maneuver into position, but she was having trouble with the lump in her throat and the inconvenient mix of guilt and relief that were forcing tears into her eyes at the worst possible moment. She blinked them back as she spoke for herself alone.

  “Please come back to me, Doug. I do love you.”

  Chapter 38

  CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT 2:50 A.M.

  “Are you Miss Lacombe? Diane Lacombe?”

  The driver of the bus watched the young woman climb aboard. Her eyes were systematically searching his passengers, and she fit the description he’d been given.

  Diane looked at him, trying to be appear startled, yet somehow glad she wasn’t yet completely numb from the events of the last few hours.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I have a message for you.”

  “From Robert Nelms? That’s who I was looking for.”

  “I don’t know. One of our staff handed it to me a while ago.”

  “Was there a large, heavyset man aboard a while ago?”

  “I think so. But he got off. Mr. Walker apparently knows him.”

  “Okay. That’s the one.”

  She took the note and opened it.

  Diane,

  I’m assuming you’ll be looking for me. I need to talk with you immediately. One of Walker’s staff has provided a bit of shelter with telephones in the small utility building just across the street from where the bus is waiting. Please join me there.

  Bob Nelms

  “Thanks,” she said, refolding the note and stepping out. The only structure close by was a small, windowless building some thirty yards away, and she hurried in that direction. There was a single door on the side and she tried it, unsurprised when it opened. She stepped inside and moved, through a small entryway, then through another door into a small room with a line of desks facing a wall of dark screens which looked like some sort of emergency command post. There were a few low lights around the perimeter of the room, but in the subdued light she couldn’t make out where he might be.

  “Mr. Nelms?” she called. “Are you here?”

  A bright overhead light snapped on suddenly and she blinked at the painful intensity as she tried to shield her eyes. Someone had moved into the room from the far end. No, there were two people there.

  “Diane, sit down, please.”

  “Excuse me? Who’s that?”

  “Bob Nelms. And Jerry Schultz is here as well.”

  “Jerry? Why? What’s going on here?”

  “Sit, please,” he repeated.

  Diane pulled a swivel chair toward her and sank into it, a guarded expression on her face. The threatening nature of the ambush was overwhelmingly obvious, and she quietly refreshed her memory of where the exit was in case she needed to bolt.

  Robert Nelms was standing a few feet away, his face stern and ashen, his demeanor one of tired outrage.

  “Diane, I’ve got some serious conflicts in the stories I’m being told.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, Jerry here says he never sent you a memo telling you to stop asking for the raw data or interfering in another department’s work.”

  “You deny sending me that?” she asked Jerry Schultz, who was looking alarmingly ill.

  “Diane, I never sent you any such memo.”

  “I have a copy, and it bears the filename of where the thing is on your computer.”

  “That’s not possible…”

  “It is what it is,” she said. “Did I see you type it and print it and hand it to me? No. But I did ask you several times about getting the raw data and you told me no.”

  Schultz was moving toward her now, his hands shaking slightly.

  “Diane, you asked me to take you off another project to let you go reexamine that data, for which you’re not even qualified. You kept bugging me about it without an explanation.”

  “And you remember very well I said I was less than pleased with the copy of the report I’d received regarding my data. Remember? We were at Jane’s farewell party, and you’d—”

  “He’d what, Diane?”

  She looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jerry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “What?” Nelms asked more sharply, noting Jerry Schultz’s reddening face.

  “He’d had a lot to drink, Mr. Nelms,” she explained.

  “It was a party, for God’s sake!” Schultz exploded.

  “He was drunk?” Nelms asked her directly, ignoring Jerry Schultz.

  She nodded. “Enough so that I discounted two dirty jokes and a pass at me, but when he started fussing at me about my requests for the data, I explained about the report, and he got really angry.” She turned to Schultz. “Jerry, I know you remember that!”

  “Maybe a little,” he sighed. “I just don’t remember your telling me the report was bad.”

  “I didn’t. That would have been presumptuous of me. I was worried about it.”

  “Okay, that one’s resolved,” Nelms was saying. “What is not resolved is this.” He reached around the edge of the counter and plopped the copy of the report Jerry Schultz had taken from Mick Walker’s files. “Jerry says he saw you looking at this.”

  “He was watching me? From where? And why?” she replied, her eyebrows shooting up, studying their reactions to spot who was responsible.

  “I was worried that—” Schultz began.

  Robert Nelms raised his arm sharply to stop the rest of the response and Schultz shut up in midsentence.

  “He was where he was supposed to be, Diane. But that’s not the point. Did you know what was in that report?”

  “It appeared to be the same report I saw and was worried about. It was too cursory, and now we know for certain that it was obviously very flawed since it didn’t say anything about the fault line that’s tearing this place apart.”

  Nelms was shaking his head.

  “That’s not what this report contains.”

  “No? Well, I didn’t get a look at anything but the cover and title page. What does it contain?”

  “The complete story, Diane. All your data, just as you presented it to me verbally a while ago, and a very comprehensive warning that a surficial fault exists that could split the island in half.”

  “God! Really?”

  He was nodding as she looked between Schultz and Nelms.

  “Well… then the firm is off the hook, right?”

  “Jerry says that’s not the report he approved.”

  Jerry Schultz had apparently experienced a jolt of courage and moved a step closer, his hands flailing the air for emphasis.

  “I never saw that version! I never knew anything about a hidden fault, or any of this Douglas Lam theory stuff!”

  “I’m confused!” Diane said.

  “So am I,” Robert Nelms added, glancing at Jerry Schultz again. “If that’s not the formal report we approved and sent, who wrote it and what the hell is it doing in Mick Walker’s files?”

  “I don’t know,” Diane said. “But if he had it and read it and built this complex anyway, then clearly he’s the bad guy,” she added. “Wouldn’t that be your read?”

  “Diane, why in hell would anyone as sophisticated as Walker ignore information like that and build a time bomb?”

  “As I said, I know him through my family, and I can tell you that Mick Walker is a gambler who doesn’t like to lose.”

  “Fine,” Nelms sputtered, “but why in God’s name would he be dissatisfied with a seismic report that wrongly gave him a clean bill of health and go out and fabricate a second version that would squarely implicate him in any seismic disaster? That doesn’t make a lick of sense. I mean, I assume the man doesn’t have a financial death wish.”

  “Of course not,” she replied.

/>   “Then, there’s the question Jerry came up with before we asked you to come in here. If not Walker, then why would anyone at Chadwick and Noble fabricate this bogus version of the report—even though it’s a version which ironically happens to be correct? And why would anyone in our shop plant it in Walker’s files?”

  Diane looked at Robert Nelms before glancing at Jerry Schultz, on whom the import of the question had just dawned. What little blood remained in his face was draining rapidly, and his mouth was flapping up and down without noise.

  Diane took a deep breath and returned her gaze to the chairman.

  “I think,” she began, “that you just asked and answered your own question.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If someone at the firm didn’t do it to get the firm off the hook, then he did it to get himself off the hook, especially if the first version that found no faults on the island had been signed off on his watch.”

  She could see the light go on in Robert Nelms’s mind as he snapped his gaze to Jerry.

  “You signed off on the original report, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but the data—”

  “The data was what Diane found in the vaults! Who else, Jerry, do I then look to as a possible cover-up artist here?”

  “Cover-up? No! No, you have it all wrong! She’s behind this somehow, and I—”

  “Shut up, Jerry! That’s pathetic. You’re the manager. You’re the one I charge with the responsibility for keeping our work products unassailable. So what did you do, make a mistake and ship the wrong dataset to geologic engineering, and then try to hide it later?”

  “No!”

  Nelms was moving closer to Schultz, his face dark with rage.

  “And the most suspicious thing of all, Jerry, is the question of what the hell you’re doing up here? I called you in San Francisco not eight hours ago and suddenly you appear here. Why?”

  “I told you, sir, I got a call from your secretary saying I was to get a cab to the airport and get on the company jet immediately and then charter a helicopter.”

  “Guess what, Jerry? I called and checked. She made no such call. In fact, I’ll bet you’re the one who scrambled the jet and the crew without authorization. You came up here to protect yourself from someone finding the wrong report in his files, didn’t you? You chickened out on your own plan. So when did you plant it in his files?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Was it supposed to be an insurance policy for you? Or were you planning on blackmailing him somehow?”

  “May I go now?” Diane asked quietly.

  Robert Nelms whipped his attention around to her, his face softening.

  “Yes, of course, Diane. I’m sorry I thought for even a moment that you might be the culprit here.”

  “Goddamnit, sir, she is the culprit! I don’t know how, but—”

  Nelms whirled on him. “Shut up, Jerry! If I hear that once more I swear I’m going to slug you. I’ve got to figure out what to do now. I don’t want another word. And Diane? Please, say nothing to anyone, especially not Walker, until… until I can figure out how to handle this.”

  “Yes, sir. I should warn you, that Mick Walker is well known for keeping duplicate files in different offices and backing up everything. Whatever he really had in his files he’ll have copies of elsewhere.”

  “And that means?”

  “Whatever we really gave him as the seismic report he relied on will be very much in evidence.”

  “Thank you.”

  Diane left quickly, closing the door behind her and spotting her bus still sitting in the number-three position as another round of people were offloaded to board the helicopters. She took a deep breath, letting her mind record what had just transpired in exquisite detail.

  Behind her, Jerry Schultz was on the verge of tears.

  Chapter 39

  ABOARD THE MV VIVIAN O. SPEETJENS 3:15 A.M.

  The skipper of the tug Vivian O. Speetjens took one look at the man dangling over his bow from a helicopter and broke out his sidearm. Never in his thirty-two years at sea had such a thing happened on a boat he was crewing or commanding, and thoughts ranging from terrorists to pirates were pinging in his mind as he considered and rejected the idea of ringing for the engines to come to idle.

  There were two heavy floating-bridge sections trailing behind them, and idling the tug in rough seas could cause their loss.

  “Go out there and retrieve that idiot!” he snarled at his first mate, who had already pulled on his coat.

  The man had been swinging in a narrow arc but now thumped to the deck and fell over. He could see a small blue spark and understood whoever he was had just grounded himself successfully. He watched the man unhook the line and motion to the pilot, who immediately pulled up and away, the flashing red beacon on the belly disappearing rapidly in the murk.

  Within a minute, the first mate brought their new arrival to the bridge.

  “What the hell are these dramatics about?” the skipper roared. “Flashing lights over my boat and buzzing us?”

  “Request permission to come aboard, Captain,” Doug managed, trying to brush some of the water off his face.

  “And if I say denied, are you going to jump overboard?”

  “That was meant to be a courtesy. I’m not planning on jumping overboard.”

  “And I wasn’t planning on having my crew scared out of a month’s productivity. What kind of maniac was flying that thing?”

  Doug fixed the captain with a steady gaze and smiled to think of Jennifer’s reaction if she heard what he was about to say.

  “My fiancée was the maniac flying that thing.”

  “What?”

  “She owns the helicopter company. Could I formally say hello to you now and exchange names? There’s a major emergency in progress that brings me here.”

  The captain hesitated, then took his outstretched hand and shook it roughly, releasing it as if he’d been forced to pick up a rotting fish.

  “I’m Noel Speetjens, captain of this boat.”

  “Dr. Doug Lam. I’m an affiliate professor of geophysics at the University of Washington and a scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey.”

  Doug could see Speetjens relax just slightly.

  “Doctor, what the hell were you doing coming aboard a working tug in rough waters in a damned helicopter?”

  “Trying to stop a major earthquake.”

  Noel Speetjens was in the process of shaking his head and asking him to repeat the answer when an elderly woman in a deep-blue velour bathrobe climbed past the top rung of the internal stairway to the bridge, eyeing Doug with an unyielding expression. She stood no more than five feet tall with a head of pure white hair, and a demeanor of unquestioned authority.

  The captain caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and turned around to confirm who it was, then turned back to Doug.

  “Doctor Lam, you’ve dropped aboard the motor vessel Vivian O. Speetjens, and this lady is the original Vivian O. Speetjens, and the owner of our company.”

  She said a few words in a foreign language to her son, who nodded.

  “My mother’s Dutch,” he explained.

  “But she understands English perfectly,” Vivian Speetjens continued, moving forward with a firm handshake. “You were saying something about earthquakes, Doctor?”

  “Yes… as bizarre as it sounds.”

  Doug ran through as succinct and rapid a narrative as possible of his theory, the validation, the massive consequences of a major subduction zone earthquake, and the fact that they were running out of time to shut down the effects of the WaveRam.

  “This is a utilitarian visit with a gun to my head. We may already be too late.”

  “Can you really stop an earthquake?” Noel asked.

  “I don’t know the answer. It could be that even blocking the WaveRam won’t stuff the genie back in the bottle, but I have a sixth sense that the only thing unlatching the Quilieute Quiet Zone is tho
se amplified impacts. The bottom line is, we have to try.”

  “Those bridge sections belong to someone else,” the captain said. “We’re completely liable for a huge amount of money if we lose them.”

  “What if you were commandeered?”

  Noel Speetjens straightened up, a defensive tone in his voice.

  “By whom and how?”

  Doug already had his hand up to defuse the impression. “I don’t mean by force, Captain. I mean by law. The same as a police officer can jump in and commandeer a car under the state’s police powers in a valid emergency.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Doug quickly sketched out the WaveRam and where the two barges would have to be tied up to cancel the hydrodynamic effects of the structure.

  “Are there secure tie downs, or attach points, on that thing?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen them.”

  Noel and Vivian exchanged a few words in Dutch before she looked at Doug.

  “Lam, if you can get this police chief on the radio or on a phone and have him order me to divert, we’ll consider it. I need a name and a voice.”

  Doug whipped out his cell phone, punching in the number of the Cascadia Command Center which was still on his screen from the previous call. After reaching Jason Smith and explaining what he needed and why, Smith agreed.

  “Put the captain on and I’ll do my best.”

  Noel Speetjens took the cell phone and leaned over the chart table, writing several detailed notes in a highly readable cursive before thanking the security director and handing the phone back.

  Noel picked up a pair of dividers and placed the respective points on the chart, one on Cascadia Island, the other somewhere to the west in the water, comparing the resulting gap.

  “Well! Bless me.” He looked up at Doug and smiled. “Seems we blundered into the territorial waters of the Quaalatch Nation, and I guess we’ve been duly commandeered.”

  “Terrible blunder, that,” Vivian said, swatting her six foot two son on his arm. “Better navigating in the future, Mister!”

  “Aye, aye, Ma’am.”

  She turned back to Doug. “Now, the serious part, Doctor. First, I want to see every scrap of identification you have in your wallet, I want to talk to someone at the University who can vouch for you, I want to talk to the emergency services director of the state or some higher authority, and I need to talk to the Coast Guard. In the meantime, we’ve got to change our course, figure the currents, get the crew briefed, and decide how to do this without sinking the bridge sections, or us.”