Saving Cascadia

by John J. Nance

  “Open your coat.”

  He shrugged and unbuttoned his trench coat and she came forward and reached into his inside coat pocket for the small digital recorder he always carried. There was no tiny red light indicating it was on, but she threw it over the railing anyway, a small splash marking its entrance into the water below.

  “What was that about?”

  He hadn’t noticed the tears in her eyes before, but now they were there, streaming down her face.

  “I loved you,” she said, her voice very controlled.

  “Diane, for God’s sake. Is that what you wanted to see me about?”

  “I loved you, Mick Walker. Since I was, as you have always put it so indelicately and embarrassingly, ‘in diapers,’ I loved you and wanted you to love me.”

  “Diane, look—”

  “No! You look. You listen. This is my scene. My finale.”

  “Finale? What are you talking about?”

  “I loved you as a little girl, Mick. You had to know it. I collected pictures of you. I hung on your every word when you were at my house. I always hugged you and you hugged me back. When I found out what sex was, I went to sleep each night dreaming of making love to you, giving my sex to you, molding myself to you every night, being your lover, your mistress, anything. And one night on your boat—a magical night when I was just starting college—you took me to your bed and had sex with me.”

  “Yes, and it was beautiful, Diane. In every way. But it was wrong to make love to you. You were my best friend’s daughter. I had no business making love to you.”

  “You didn’t make love to me, Mick! Oh, that’s what I wanted, all right. I made love to you, but love had nothing to do with your motivation, although I didn’t know it at the time. No, you just screwed me. That’s all. You were just using me. There I was, surrendering mind and body to you, deliriously in love with you and all you wanted was to screw me and send me away, like some two-bit whore.”

  Diane, that is absolutely untrue! That night… you were incredible in that red dress, your hair, your face… You’d grown up to become a sexy angel and… you came on to me. Surely you remember? You were insatiable with your kisses and your hands and… and I simply couldn’t resist you. I felt terrible about it afterwards. We talked about it, too. I thought we understood each other.”

  “So why didn’t you want more sex? Was I a bad lay?”

  “Good Lord, don’t be crass. You were a wonderful lover. Amazingly good for your age, but it was wrong.”

  “No, it was my dream, Mick. You screwed my dream and me, and then walked away without a thought.” Her voice became a mocking caricature. “Ya nailed little Diane! Got that little piece of ass and put another notch on your bedstead, didn’t you?”

  “That is so wrong, Diane. I never thought that way for a moment.”

  “But you also never held me again, never kissed me, wouldn’t take me anywhere. It was back to patting the silly little girl on the head.”

  “Diane, I am so very sorry that… that the way we interacted has hurt you. I never knew you had a crush on me.”

  “A crush? Is that what you think? A crush? I was head over heels in love with you!” Her voice had become a pained cry now, and the tears were flowing again as she spoke through gritted teeth. “I gave myself to you! You were the first.”

  “Now, Diane, that’s just not true.”

  “Oh, yes it is! I would know.”

  “Well, so would a guy. I mean, I was not the first.”

  “You were the first. You were! I handed you my heart and you crushed it, and now… now I’m returning the favor.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  She was circling again, her face hardening to anger.

  “You’re ruined, Mick Walker.”

  “Well, you may be right, but—”

  “You’re ruined, just like you ruined my life. You’ve heard the old statement that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Well, welcome to hell, bastard!”

  “What do mean, exactly, you’re returning the favor?”

  “You want the details? Start with this. You can’t blame Chadwick and Noble for failing to tell you about the fault line, because they did.”

  “What? You know that’s not true!”

  “Oh, you may believe that’s not true, but the evidence will prove otherwise. Your records… which are being seized by the FBI in San Francisco as we stand here… clearly show that you were given the real report, and you had a bogus version with no fault-line warnings prepared by a confederate and you tried to stick it in our files.”

  “Diane, that’s bullshit and you know it! And I don’t care who seizes my records, by the way. I know what’s there.”

  “Do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I discovered the fault when I crunched my own data before leaving this island. I was shocked, and at first I was going to tell you. Protect you. And I decided to call and see if you’d call me back. You remember that?”

  “When?”

  “Right before the construction permits were granted? Remember the calls you got from poor naïve little Diane that you just couldn’t return yourself?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Remember my note? I asked you to meet me in Carmel. I said I loved you and that I had something you needed to hear. You ignored me.”

  “I don’t recall any note.”

  “You didn’t want me anymore, and that was your test and you failed it. If you’d just taken me to dinner, kissed me once more, been nice to me, I would have told you what the data really showed before you were committed to lose a hundred million dollars. You didn’t care, so guess what? Neither did I.”

  “I told you I didn’t receive any note from you. And regarding the report, the seismic data itself showed nothing about a fault. How do you explain that?”

  “Because I doctored the data! Yeah, that’s right. You should look incredulous. That’s the price you pay for using and abusing a young girl’s heart. Chadwick and Noble’s geological survey department got the doctored data and produced the report you’ll be trying to tell everyone you saw. But there’s no record of that doctored data anymore, Mick. It’s a figment of your imagination. Yet there are plenty of copies of the real data, and of the real report that was prepared and, as all the evidence will clearly show, sent to you personally a long time before construction began.”

  Mick Walker’s face had turned dark with anger. “You’ll not get away with this. I have extra copies of the original report that showed no problems, and they were filed with God knows how many different loan applications and other official papers.”

  “Right. All of them fraudulent. And that was the version Jerry Schultz prepared for you, or so everyone will think. Maybe you shouldn’t have secretly put Jerry Schultz on your payroll to make sure you got only the good stuff.”

  “I never paid Jerry Schultz a cent! I don’t even know the man.”

  “That’s not what the records show. And I’m very, very good at making the records airtight.”

  Mick was shaking his head. “You think I’m not going straight to the authorities with everything you’ve told me?”

  “Oh, I was counting on you to make that threat. Of course, we’re out here with the roar of the surf and the wind and no light on my lips. Not even the best surveillance equipment would have a chance of hearing or interpreting what I’m saying to you. Your little recorder’s gone, there are no witnesses, and this meeting never happened.”

  “I have your note.”

  “So what. Did I sign it? Or did you fabricate it on your computer?”

  “Obviously, you’re here.”

  “No, Mick, there is no way to prove that note came from me, or even that I’m here. In fact, I can prove I’m somewhere else on the island right now. But I’ll tell you what can be proved: a trail of evidence that will show the world Mick Walker doesn’t give a damn about safety, or about hearts.”

  “How can you be this… this sinister to me?
This hateful?”

  “You crushed my heart. You led me on for all those years as a little girl.”

  “I led you… what?”

  “ ‘Diane,’ you’d say, ‘you’re so cute! You keep growing and one of these days I’ll marry you!’ Remember that?”

  “Good Lord, Diane, those are just things a man says to flatter and encourage a little girl. No one takes them seriously!”

  “I did! And I grew! And I waited for you, and you took me and threw me away, you bastard!”

  Mick was all but frantic, his voice barely controlled as the enormity of her preparations unfolded.

  “Diane, my God, even if you misunderstood, how could you try to ruin me like this? Have you no heart?”

  “I did. And it was yours. And you destroyed it like I’m going to destroy you.”

  “You need serious professional help, Diane. I mean it! I know you think you’ve got all your bases covered here, but you don’t. This attempt will fail, you’ll lose your job, and you may even go to prison. But if you drop this nonsense right now, tell me what you’ve done to the files so I can repair it, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, provided you agree to some deep psychiatric work.”

  “Oh, nothing’s going to happen to me, Mick. Know why? Because if I have any legal troubles, you’re the one going to prison.”

  “For what? I didn’t write any reports, and my attorneys did all the filing in good faith.”

  “My diary contains the details of that heavenly night in your arms. That and my driver’s license will put you away.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “You forgot my birthday, Mick.”

  “Your birthday? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I hadn’t had it yet. I was still seventeen. I was incapable of giving sexual consent in the state of California.”

  “No!”

  “You raped me, and I can prove it.”

  For a few moments he couldn’t respond. The enormity of the mistake he’d made in having sex with her to begin with was bad enough, but now to be told that she was underage, even if it didn’t lead to an indictment, would be unforgivable in Ralph Lacombe’s eyes.

  He sighed deeply, rubbing his eyes before looking back at her. “All right, Diane. This is the worst night of my life. I surrender. What do you want?”

  “What I’m getting. You, ruined.”

  “What does that accomplish? You said you loved me. Is there no chance of… of reinvigorating that?”

  She laughed. “Ever the negotiator and the deal maker, aren’t you, Mick? But this time you can’t wheedle your way out. No, Mick. I don’t love you anymore. I just wanted you to know why all this is happening to you. You tromped on the wrong little girl.”

  She turned and began walking away and Mick rushed after her, roughly grabbing her elbow and turning her around, unnerved by the smug expression on her face.

  “Yes, Mick? What are you planning? Want to beat me up? Strangle me? Rape me again?”

  “Do you think for a second your father would be anything but mortified at your behavior?”

  “Not if he understood what you did.” He knew she was right.

  She pulled away and resumed walking back toward the helipad, leaving Mick in the middle of the road thoroughly stunned and profoundly frightened at the very intensity of her hatred.

  What was worse, he thought, she was just clever enough to pull it off.

  Chapter 42

  ABOARD THE MV VIVIAN O. SPEETJENS

  Doug’s cell phone rang with Sanjay on the other end just as the last section was tied in place.

  “We’ve had a 6.2 tremor in the Eureka, California, area, Doug, at the southern end of the zone. No major damage as far as we know.”

  “Sanjay, we’re complete out here. The barriers are in place. Please tell me the resonant tremors are decreasing.”

  “I wish I could. What I can confirm is that all the descending seismic impacts have stopped. But nothing has changed below in the Quiet Zone. It’s still roiling.”

  “I thought what it was sending back up were almost echoes of the pounding this island was taking. You know, for each impulse that goes down, one comes back.”

  “Maybe we were, but now it’s generating its own activity without that stimulus. The hypocenters are in the same place in the middle of the Quiet Zone and the microquakes are all but constant.”

  “Not just here?”

  “All up and down the axis of the zone.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I’m sorry, Doug.”

  “So am I.”

  “We were too late. But it doesn’t mean your theory is wrong.”

  “To hell with my theory!” Doug said, wishing his response hadn’t been as sharp. Vivian Speetjens was watching him carefully, obviously aware of the overall nature of the report. The implications were clear: all their efforts had been in vain, and the monstrous subduction zone quake with all its costs now seemed inevitable.

  “Doug, I just meant…”

  “I’m sorry, Sanjay. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just that I don’t care whether I’m right or wrong about the trigger thing, I just thought we had a real chance of stopping this nightmare.”

  “Yeah. So did I.”

  Noel Speetjens was backing the tug away from the secured bridge span with all the crewmembers back aboard as he briefed them on the disturbing results.

  “So what do you do now, Doctor?” Vivian asked.

  “I guess I hitch a ride with you back to Seattle and get ready for the worst.”

  “How soon will it hit?”

  “I don’t know. This is all uncharted territory. Ten seconds. Ten minutes. Ten days. But it’s coming.”

  CASCADIA ISLAND HELIPORT

  At last the number of empty seats in the two waiting helicopters equaled the number of humans left on the island, but one was refusing to board.

  Sherry Thomas had spent a working lifetime quietly guiding Mick Walker’s daily professional life, but all attempts to change his mind now were hitting a brick wall.

  “What?” she asked at last, as much out of fatigue as resignation. “You want to go down with the ship, so to speak?”

  He pointed to the first helicopter. “Sherry, get aboard. I’ll follow later. I have a few things to recover from the office.”

  Her hands migrated to her hips, her wild, windblown hair too disastrous now to worry about. She figured she looked like a medusa in the stiff, cold wind that had once again accelerated to thirty-knot gusts.

  “Mick, stop being stubborn!”

  “I can’t,” he replied, trying and failing to smile. “That’s who I am.”

  “Then I’m staying with you, because that’s who I am. Okay?”

  “Sherry, I’ll be fine.”

  “We could get washed away any minute, Mick. It’s time to go. There’s nothing in your office we don’t have copies of in San Francisco. We’ve got all the staff evacuated and it’s down to us, and this is stupid.”

  “There’s no time to explain.” He was just standing there, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his broad shoulders hunched over against the wind, looking at her with what she once described as Lyndon Johnson eyes.

  “Explain what?”

  He shook his head, looking down.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then let’s go, Mick.”

  “Just a moment.” He pulled out a small notepad and wrote something, pocketed the note, and wrote a longer memo before putting the pad away.

  “Okay.”

  She guided him by the hand toward the open door of the helicopter and he helped her up before following, snapping her seat belt in place and handing the pilot one of the notes when she wasn’t looking.

  “You’re sure, Mr. Walker?” the pilot asked, half turned in his seat.

  “I’m sure,” he replied, waving away the concerned expression from Sherry as he tore several pages from the small notebook, then folded and handed them to her.r />
  “Read this once you’re airborne,” he said, backing out of the helicopter and closing the sliding door.

  Sherry’s hand triggered the seat-belt release and she jumped up intent on reopening the door, but the pilot was already lifting off.

  “No!” she yelled forward. “Land! We can’t leave him behind!”

  “That’s what he wants, ma’am,” the pilot replied, his eyes still locked out front as he accelerated and climbed away into the stiff, gusty wind.

  “No, I said land!” she yelled, startled when he took his left hand off the collective long enough to hand her the slightly crumpled note.

  Captain, I’m staying here and will use a lifeboat to get to shore. Do not come back for me, and do not follow Miss Thomas’s orders to land again.

  Mick Walker

  Sherry moved to the cabin window, pressing her face against the Plexiglas to catch a glimpse of Mick still standing alongside the helipad, his right hand raised in a good-bye wave. She saw his hand drop and watched him turn and walk away as the clouds enveloped the helicopter, drawing a misty curtain over the scene.

  She sat back in the seat, thoroughly stunned, almost forgetting to open the folded note he’d handed her.

  Sherry,

  I know you’d walk with me through hell, and I love you for such blind loyalty, and more. But the hell I’ve got to traverse now must be traveled alone. Go home, keep the office running, and pray I can untie the noose Diane Lacombe has around my neck. No time for the details, but know that she’s insane and determined to ruin me.

  Mick

  NEAH BAY, WASHINGTON

  Noel Speetjens had executed a flawless touch-and-go maneuver at the Neah Bay dock, letting Lam step off the powerful tug to hire a ramshackle local taxi for the almost four-hour drive back to Seattle.

  With his cell phone car charger hooked into the aging beater’s grimy cigarette lighter he was rapidly back in communication, relieved to find that everyone had been successfully airlifted from Cascadia Island, and equally disheartened to hear from Sanjay that nothing in the Quiet Zone had quieted. By the time the smoky, drafty old cab had rumbled past the town of Sequim on the northeast side of the Olympic Peninsula, he’d given up worrying about carbon monoxide asphyxiation and fallen asleep in the backseat.