Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  “It’s that complex and difficult?”

  “You have no idea the magnitude of what you’ve asked us to do. But I built this company doing the impossible while a galaxy of sexists snickered up their sleeves. I’m not about to run from a challenge now. So, let’s just hope you’re right.”

  DAUPHIN, AIRBORNE

  Jennifer had been halfway back to the Cascadia helipad when she suddenly turned around, unable to accept defeat in the matter of her missing passenger. She banked the helicopter to the south and headed for the northern wing of the WaveRam, where she’d been hovering when Lester was blown overboard. The chances an already-injured man could have survived a ninety-foot drop to the water were minimal, but she couldn’t discount the possibility.

  With the Night Sun turned on again, she descended and stabilized the Dauphin at thirty feet above the waves, raking the outer wing with light several times before deciding it was, indeed, hopeless.

  Wait a minute. This thing focuses the waves inward, I haven’t checked the rest of it.

  She turned south and began walking the light beyond the curved concrete to the long, straight portion of the wave-shaping structure, spotting something a hundred yards ahead, a dark mass that was almost certainly seaweed.

  But as she brought the Dauphin within fifty feet of the seaweed, she could see it was something else. A body, with arms and legs, lying facedown on the top of the concrete wall where it broadened into a wave-swept, three-foot-wide flat walkway.

  She gauged the height and timing of the inbound waves and moved the Dauphin closer, the retractable landing gear almost on the edge of the concrete. If that was Lester Brown, she decided, he was either dead or unconscious. There was no movement, other than his clothes rippling in the gale-force rotorwash.

  Now what? she thought. If I go for help, he’ll wash off of there by the time I get back.

  The enormity of the problem was the immense frustration. Lifesaving was her business, and here was a life to save and she was the only living soul aboard the helicopter.

  I’ve gotta get help.

  Jennifer keyed the radio, waiting for Sven to come back on frequency, which he did quickly.

  “Dad, can you send someone out here with a crew that can pull this guy off the ledge?”

  “In ten minutes or so, yes,” he said. “The 412 is just landing on the peninsula.”

  “I don’t know if we have that long.”

  “Hang in there, Jennifer, and stay on frequency. I’m calling them now by cell phone.”

  She could see another large, shaped wave bearing down on her and popped the Dauphin back twenty feet higher, watching with her heart in her throat as the unconscious human form was shoved several feet along the top of the wall, both arms now dangling over the far side. One more wave like that, she thought, and he’s gone.

  There was no conscious decision behind the quick descent back to the wall, but the idea seemed feasible enough to try, with the unspoken understanding in her head that the slightest problem and she’d be out of there.

  Quickly she positioned the Dauphin’s main wheels over the top of the wall, keeping the helicopter into the wind and locking the brakes. Lester Brown’s unconscious form was just to the right. She unloaded the collective fully, putting the weight of the machine on the landing gear, and sat for a second, communing with the machine to check its balance and whether the wind might topple her backward.

  It felt stable enough to try.

  She unsnapped her seat belt as she popped open her door and swung her feet onto the step and then to the concrete, moving as quickly as she could to the man.

  “Lester! Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  She tried to get her arms under him just as a large gust of wind caught the Dauphin. She could see it teeter backward slightly, the rotor blades still churning the air at full rpm for a quick getaway.

  Once more she attempted it, but the man had to weigh over two hundred pounds and as dead weight on a slimy, slippery concrete surface, it wasn’t going to work.

  Jennifer looked to the northwest. The shadow of another huge wave was forming. There was no time.

  She leapt for the back door and the winch, trying to motor it downward, but it was jammed again. There was a flashlight in the pocket of the copilot’s seatback and she grabbed it and took a large swing at the pulley, hearing an assaulted “thwang” in response.

  And suddenly the winch was free. She grabbed the hook and backed away with the line until it reached Lester Brown, then she rolled him over and snapped the hook back into the ring of his harness.

  The wave was bearing down on them now, less than a hundred yards out. She launched herself back at the pilot’s seat, struggling against heavy gusts of wind that rocked the Dauphin back, feeling the wheels themselves skidding slightly over the slimy green covering of the top of the wall. She slammed her left thigh into the edge of the floor before hauling herself in, being careful not to touch the controls until ready. There was no time for seat belts, but she flailed for and finally caught the door and slammed it shut as her left hand closed around the collective and rotated the throttle, her right shoving the cyclic forward just as the Dauphin’s rear landing wheels slid far enough backward to tumble off the wall.

  She caught the motion and checked it as she brought in the collective, the dark shape of the approaching wave on her right filling her peripheral vision, the entire sequence unfolding in slow motion as time dilated. She felt the Dauphin stabilize on the edge of the wall, felt the blades bite into the turbulent air for lift, and felt the machine become airborne only to be yanked into a right bank with the weight of Lester Brown hanging from the winch on the right side.

  The wave was almost on her as she fought the helicoptor’s roll to the right, demanding every ounce of lift it could provide. She was trading rotor rpm for altitude, feeling the man hanging from the line on her right pulled by the massive wave as it brushed him in the process of breaking over the wall in a cascade of hydrodynamic energy.

  She let herself take a deep breath and pulled them up to sixty feet of altitude, heading directly for the heliport. She called her father to have someone prepared to catch Lester Brown before she lowered him to the concrete of the helipad.

  “CPR may be needed. I couldn’t triage him. There was no time.”

  There was a momentary silence on the other end before Sven replied.

  “Jennifer, how the hell did you get him aboard?”

  “Not now, Dad. We can talk about it later.”

  Chapter 40

  ABOARD THE MV VIVIAN O. SPEETJENS

  “Dr. Lam, it’s not possible for this boat alone to do what you ask, so I’m calling in another of our tugs. She passed us seaward fifteen minutes ago.”

  Vivian Speetjens lowered her cell phone after an intense series of calls. The wave state outside was approaching thirty-foot swells, and the wallowing of the big oceangoing tug was making Doug queasy. Salt spray was hitting the windows of the boat at intervals.

  “How long will that take?”

  “Thirty minutes. She’s the Linda S, and we’ll have her take the aft bridge section and hold it a mile off while we position the first one against your wave barrier. I’ll need two of my crew on the first bridge section to tie her down, and that will be the most dangerous part. Can you get that helicopter back, or a bigger one that can lift more weight?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “Please do so. As quickly as you can.”

  CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT

  With Lester Brown safely removed from the Dauphin’s winch line, Jennifer settled the helicopter back on the concrete and sat in semi-exhaustion for a minute as the rotor blades slowly wound down. She could see Brown beginning to respond to the CPR one of the emergency medtechs was administering, and she resisted the impulse to go join the effort. She saw Lester lift a hand and felt a wave of relief.

  Sven Lindstrom opened the pilot-side door and stood assessing his daughter’s condition, figh
ting his own internal battle with the lifelong tendency to instantly issue commands to subordinates and orders to children.

  “Honey, you look wrung-out,” he said, avoiding the obvious question of how a single pilot could have gotten an unconscious man hooked to the end of a winch line. There was only one answer, but they could discuss it some other time, if ever. He could see she’d begun to tense for that very discussion, but when it didn’t come, she sighed and smiled.

  “I’m okay, Dad. What are we now, about 50 percent complete on the evacuation?”

  “Little over that, Jen. But it’s working.”

  “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “Okay. Obviously, it’s your choice whether to keep flying, but may your old man make a suggestion?”

  “If you put it that way, of course.”

  “Since the Dauphin is obviously our best rescue ship, and since the rest of the group is doing fine on the turnarounds, maybe you should stay on the pad awhile.”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  Without a word she unbuckled her seat belt and swiveled her aching body around, accepting his hand as she stepped down from the Dauphin and hugged him.

  “Thank you, Dad.”

  “Why?”

  She pulled back looking at him. “For asking. For not ordering.”

  “Old dogs and new tricks, Honey.”

  “I know, but I appreciate it. And normally I’d tough it out, but I think maybe all of you have it under control without me.”

  “How about under control because of you?”

  She laughed, the sound getting lost in the wind. “The operable word is control, and I’m thinking it’s time to stop chasing after it so hard.”

  “There’s a mobile lounge over there Walker ordered in and it has several unoccupied sofas you can use. I’ll come get you when we’re down to the last of us.”

  She nodded, waving as she walked toward the indicated lounge, which was a very long, very modern motor home.

  There were several people sitting in the front room of the coach, and they nodded to her before resuming their own conversation. She moved to the aft sitting room and sat down on one of the facing couches, letting her body rotate slowly to the horizontal as she permitted fatigue to wash over her.

  She sat bolt upright just as quickly, remembering her forgotten mission:

  Oh my God! I was supposed to find Jason Smith and fly him back to that tug!

  Jennifer jumped to her feet and raced out of the coach, standing in momentary confusion in the cold wind as she tried to recall where the command center was. Instead, she headed directly for the first Cascadia employee she saw carrying a walkie-talkie, enlisting his help in locating his security chief.

  The man hunched over the radio for a few exchanges before straightening up.

  “He’s on his way over here already, Ma’am,” the man said.

  “Okay. How long?”

  “It’s a small island, and getting smaller. Two minutes.”

  “Will you please point him out?”

  “Well, he’s right there,” the man said, gesturing to an approaching electric cart. She waved at Smith and he slowed and got out, listening to her self-introduction as she relayed the need for his immediate presence on the tug.

  “Already taken care of, Miss Lindstrom. The tug captain called me a short while ago and I formally commandeered him, and he agreed.”

  “Really? That’s a relief.”

  “As I understand it, they’re going to be placing some sort of floating-highway sections back against the WaveRam, similar to what we had blocking the thing up until several days ago.”

  “Good. Any word on Mr. Brown?”

  “Bruised and a bit hypothermic, but I think he’ll be okay. I heard the details of the rescue. That was amazing.”

  “That’s what we do,” she answered, feeling uncomfortable. She thanked him and excused herself, returning at a more sedate pace to the coach and the aft sitting room and readjusting to lie down again on the couch.

  Jennifer felt her eyes closing and the fuzz of fatigue competing with her mind, which was all but racing around wildly questioning everything.

  Can they handle the rotation of the helicopter fleet without me?

  Yes. Dad’s been doing that.

  But did the fuel truck arrive on the other side?

  You think our pilots don’t know how to monitor their fuel? Besides, it’s either there or it’s too late.

  But how about Doug’s progress? Who’s going to monitor that?

  You mean, who’s going to actively worry about that! Damnit, you need sleep. Stop trying to control everything.

  Once again she began to drift into the higher realms of sleep only to be jolted out by another disturbing thought.

  We’re going to have that damned dream again, aren’t we? We’re going to lose control and crash again because at the critical moment, we let go. What does that tell us?

  Her eyes fluttered open and remained open, and the more she tried to force them closed, the more she thought of reasons not to, the small cerebral war escalating to a mental shouting match until she sat bolt upright again, rubbing her eyes and inadvertently voicing her thoughts out loud.

  “Damnit! I can’t get control of anything!”

  A man and woman had been standing in the middle part of the coach in conversation. They stopped now and looked in her direction, wondering whether to say anything to the young woman looking so frazzled and frustrated on the rear seat. Jennifer noticed them at the same time and attempted a smile.

  “Sorry! It’s been a long day.”

  “Sure, no problem!” the man said, turning back to the woman.

  Jennifer, they’re doing all right out there without you, okay? Give it up. Relax. Let the world take over.

  Once more she lay down, strangely relieved, her immediate burdens formally laid aside, and her eyes closing before her head hit the tiny pillow.

  ABOARD THE MV VIVIAN O. SPEETJENS

  When the first floating-bridge section had been placed against the WaveRam, Doug hurriedly punched in the direct number to the seismology lab to find out if the resonant reactions from deep within the Quilieute Quiet Zone had diminished.

  “It’s hard to say, Doug,” Sanjay said. “We just had another 5.3 under Seattle. We’re checking right now. Hang on.”

  A helicopter and crew were working on securing a third line before moving over to the second bridge section, which was already being towed inbound by the Linda S.

  Sanjay came back on the line, sounding excited. “Doug, this is very preliminary, but the seismic impacts have diminished!”

  “By how much?”

  “At least a factor of 50 percent, maybe more. The echoes are way down.”

  “And from the Quiet Zone?”

  “Well… it’s still sending its resonant waves back up, one for one, and the zone is active now from Mendocino County, California, all the way to northern Vancouver Island. The whole thing is alive with activity. But there are changes in progress, so we can hope.”

  “Keep me posted. The second section is being moved in right now.”

  Chapter 41

  WAVERAM OBSERVATION PLATFORM, CASCADIA ISLAND

  Several dark suspicions had flickered around the edges of Mick Walker’s mind during the previous hours of chaos and destruction, but before the unexpected note from Diane Lacombe, he’d rejected them all. The note had been written on a computer and formatted like an e-mail and handed to one of his employees.

  Mick—I’m in your command post and I just found out some amazing and damaging information about Jerry Schultz’s involvement in the seismic data deficiency. I’ve also discovered, much to my shock, that he’s here on the island. As you recall, he’s my boss at Chadwick and Noble and the man ultimately responsible for the report you received, and its lack of information on the fault. I caught him taking a version of the seismic report from your office after the quake that collapsed part of the hotel! I don’t want to be overhe
ard or seen. Could you possibly break away for a few minutes and meet me at the WaveRam overlook?

  Diane

  Mick took one of the Lincoln Town Cars and drove the short distance to the overlook, crossing the widening break in the roadway caused by the fault. He stopped the car and put it in park, leaving the engine running and the lights on, searching in the perimeter of the darkness for some sign of her, aware that fatigue was playing tricks on his mind. He was mentally exhausted, and among other wild mood swings, it was making him a bit paranoid.

  At least he hoped that was the cause of his growing suspicions.

  Mick pulled his trench coat around him and buttoned it up against the stiff, cold wind as he got out of the car and walked toward the railing. If Diane was out here somewhere, she had to be freezing, he thought. He stood at the railing, watching the lights of what appeared to be two tugs and a helicopter in the distance as they worked to dismantle his proudest creation. It was a surprise when her voice reached him from less than two feet away.

  “Thanks for coming, Mick.”

  “Diane!” he said, turning and placing his hands on her shoulders. “You must be cold.”

  She shook him off.

  “You have no idea,” she said, walking slowly around him like a cat circling its prey, watching his baffled expression.

  “What’s all this about your boss Schultz and something taken from my office?”

  She continued circling, staring at him with an unnerving look that seemed to confirm his worst fears as he kept turning to face her.

  “Diane? What’s the matter? Talk to me.”

  She chuckled, looked at the ground, then back at him, having completed a full circle.

  “Open your coat, please.”

  “Excuse me?”