Wildfire Run

by Dee Garretson

  “You mean we’re stuck inside all day? I wanted to show Theo the tree house and then the garage, and once we get the robot put together, we want to try it outside.” Luke had made a real effort to keep his hands off his new robot kit until Theo could help assemble it.

  “We’ll be able to go outside as soon as they’re done with the inner zone,” Adam said. Luke knew the inner zone was a circle consisting of most of the buildings in the center of the camp. “They’ll test the outer zone in the woods all the way to the fences after that. Maybe we can go for a run on the nature trail when that section is clear.”

  “Great,” Luke said glumly. He took Comet back to his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

  “What’s going on?” Theo asked. He sat up and felt around on his nightstand for his glasses. “Why are you up so early?” His hair sprang up in a fan around the top of his head, out of control.

  “Did you know when you wake up you look like a bergruutfa caravan beast?” Luke asked. Theo wouldn’t be able to top that one.

  Theo put on his glasses and peered at Luke. “You shouldn’t talk about hair. If those bits of hair that stick up on the top of your head were green instead of almost albino blond, you would make a perfect reptilian Rodian. Maybe you could just be an albino Rodian. I’m going back to sleep.” Theo took his glasses off, lay down, and then sat up again. “I don’t remember what planet the bergruutfa caravan beasts come from.”

  “Ha!” Luke was thrilled. It wasn’t often he knew more about Star Wars than Theo. “Teloc Ol-sen,” he said, trying to smooth down the cowlicks. Theo was right, unfortunately; they did look like Rodian antennae.

  “Now I’m awake,” Theo said. “You never answered me. Why are you up so early?”

  “Everybody but you is up, because there was an earthquake. You slept through it all. It was a long way away, so we only felt some shaking—but there were sirens.”

  Adam knocked on the door and then came in. “Morning, Theo. Luke, since we can’t go for a run now, why don’t you boys have breakfast?”

  The window rattled again, harder this time, and Luke looked around for something to steady himself, in case it was another earthquake.

  “It’s just the wind,” Adam said. “The forecast is for high winds all day, but no storms. Nothing to worry about.”

  6

  The Command Center

  CAMP DAVID, 6:55 A.M.

  The Marines in the underground command center at Camp David knew they were sitting under twenty-one thousand gallons of water, but they never worried about it, assuming whoever built the President’s pool knew what they were doing.

  But, in fact, when then President Richard Nixon decided he wanted a new pool outside the back porch of his lodge, no one spoke up to tell him the site was a poor choice. It was right over the main security operations room of the command center, which was based in what had originally been a small bomb shelter. The roof of that room had to be reinforced to support the weight of the new pool’s water. An outside entrance to the bomb shelter and the concrete steps leading underground were covered over for a new pool house.

  Crumbled bedrock like that in California damps down earthquake waves, preventing them from spreading too far, but the bedrock between the pool’s bottom and the security operations room’s ceiling was in large slabs, like most of the bedrock east of the Mississippi. When the earthquake struck in Missouri, the waves spreading east didn’t have much to slow them down, and the strong waves traveled thousands of miles.

  Six minutes after the quake, the swimming pool in Maryland shifted slightly, cracking the concrete on the bottom.

  When the shaking of the earth stopped and the agents rushed the President inside, no one realized that pool water had begun to seep down through the crack.

  As the water trickled down, it spread out, finding a groove in the bedrock. The groove angled farther down and the water became a tiny stream pulled along by gravity, until it came to the edge of the slab. The stream couldn’t jump across to the next slab, so it dripped into the space between the two rocks, continuing its downward path. The drips found a level spot and formed a puddle on the ceiling panels above the security operations room. Only the size of a dime at first, the puddle grew with each passing minute.

  7

  The Situation Room

  Luke was embarrassed that he let a little wind bother him. “I knew it wasn’t anything,” he told Theo. “Let’s find out what’s happening with the earthquake before we have breakfast. Maybe Dad will let us go to the situation room. I’ll be right back.” Luke darted out the door and down the hall to his father’s room.

  “Dad!” he called.

  His father, still in his wet swim trunks, stood surrounded by a group of people in suits. Sometimes it seemed as if all the people around his father never slept; they were always following him with briefing papers to read, speeches to go over, or information his dad had to know right then, no matter what he was doing. Luke wasn’t stupid; he knew being the President meant his dad needed all those people, but most of the time they felt like a concrete wall to keep him out.

  “Scientists have been predicting a quake at the New Madrid fault for years. I just wish they’d been wrong,” his father said, drying his hair with a towel.

  “Dad, can we come with you to the sit. room?” Luke asked when he reached his father’s side. Luke wasn’t allowed in the real situation room at the White House very often, because it was full of people busy monitoring world events, but his dad took him into the one at Camp David once in a while, mostly to show him places on the computer maps.

  “Yes, get dressed,” Luke’s father said without even looking at him, not noticing he was already dressed. Luke could see the creases in his father’s forehead deepen as he read the piece of paper in his hand. Pierce Brockett was only fifty, but four years as Vice President and two as President had lined his face and turned his hair so gray he looked more like a grandfather than a father. If he won reelection and they were all stuck in the White House for another four years, Luke dreaded to think how old his father would look at the end.

  President Brockett’s lips moved without any sound, and Luke knew what his father was saying. Pierce Brockett once told Luke that when a crisis happened, he always thought of the words, “Yield not to misfortunes, but rather go more boldly to meet them.” It was one of the many ancient Latin sayings his dad loved, like he loved all ancient things. When Theo and Luke’s dad started talking, the two would go on and on about ancient philosophy and ancient Romans and pretty much ancient anything. Luke tuned in only if they got on ancient battles or inventions.

  His father turned and moved away, the crowd of people moving too, matching his motions just the way a flock of birds followed the leader.

  “Did you hear, Adam? Dad says we can go to the situation room.”

  “I heard, but remind Theo to get dressed. I don’t think anyone has ever shown up there in pajamas.”

  Luke hurried to his room. Theo was still in bed, drawing in his notebook. He carried a notebook with him everywhere, sketching designs and making lists, checking things off, always with some little stub of a pencil. Luke couldn’t remember ever seeing him without it.

  “Theo, if you get dressed, we can go see what’s happening with my dad.”

  “Okay,” Theo said. “Comet isn’t happy. He keeps whining.”

  “Hey, boy, you’re going to have to come out sometime, you know.” Luke tried to coax the dog out from under the bed by patting the floor and wiggling his fingers.

  “Maybe there will be another earthquake,” Theo said. “Animals are supposed to be able to sense them coming.” He scribbled a few more lines. “If we’re going to make the robot with the grabber arm, I think we should program it so we can control its movements by the sound sensor. The light sensor wouldn’t work very well outside in the sunlight….”

  “Theo, this was a big earthquake,” Luke said, “in some place called New Madrid, really big. I want to see what’s happening
. My dad says we can go to the situation room.”

  “You mean the New Madrid fault? That’s in Missouri. There was a giant earthquake there in 1812.” Luke should have realized Theo would know exactly where and what New Madrid was. If it involved disasters, Theo knew everything, even down to things like the name of the captain of the Titanic, and how fast the Great Chicago Fire spread.

  Theo started getting dressed, talking excitedly the whole time. “It even changed the course of the Mississippi River so that people thought it was running backward. Whole sections of forest were swallowed up.”

  Luke tried to imagine forests sinking beneath the ground, but it was hard to picture. Did a giant crevice open up just long enough to swallow the forests and then close over them? He started to ask Theo and then he stopped. Theo would launch into a complicated explanation, and Luke’s dad might not stay in the situation room for very long.

  By the time Theo was dressed and they went out in the hallway, it was empty except for Adam and Isabelle. Luke had a whole detail of his own agents. They even went to school with him, one standing out in the hall while he was in class, and one sitting in the back of the room. At Camp David, their job was to follow him around, so when Luke and Theo headed for the sit. room, Adam and Isabelle trailed after them.

  Theo whispered, “Why is Adam wearing a fishing vest? Are we going fishing?”

  “No,” Luke said, “that’s where he keeps his gun. At Camp David it looks silly if they follow me around wearing suit jackets. Dad’s agents almost always wear suits, though.”

  “Oh.” Theo didn’t say anything else, and Luke hoped he was okay with being watched. He wanted Theo to like Camp David so he would want to come back.

  “Part of the command center used to be a bomb shelter,” Luke said as they went down the back stairs. “My dad told me people used to be really afraid back when Russia was the Soviet Union that they would bomb us. People even built bomb shelters in their backyards. Pretty crazy, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” Theo said. “I wonder what happened to them all? It would be amazing to have one you could turn into an underground laboratory.”

  When they reached the locked door at the bottom of the stairs, Adam came around Luke, pushed an intercom button, and spoke into it: “Three eight one.” The lock clicked and then the door opened. An agent stood on the other side. “Morning, Dan,” Adam said. “We’ll be back this way shortly.”

  “I’ll be here,” the man answered.

  About twenty feet down the hall, the corridor split left and right. Luke pointed to the hallway to the right. “This way,” he said. Hector, a Marine guard who was one of Luke’s friends, stood outside a door.

  “I’m sorry,” Hector said when they reached him. “I’m not authorized to let your buddy inside.” Hector looked so apologetic Luke knew he felt bad. Most of the Marine guards were good guys. Hector and some of the others even played basketball with Luke when they were off duty, but when they were on duty they never bent the rules. Camp David was officially a Navy facility, which was funny because the ocean was nowhere near them. Luke knew the Marines liked to be assigned there, so they weren’t going to do anything to get sent away.

  It was stupid they wouldn’t just let Theo in, though, as if he were going to blab some top-secret information. Luke wished he could show Theo the security ops down the hall, but he knew only his father could get Theo in there, and today his dad would be too busy. It was full of computers and screens showing all the views of Camp David from the security cameras. Luke liked it because it looked like the inside of a bridge on a spaceship.

  “Let me see about Theo.” Adam pushed the intercom button and spoke into it. A few minutes later one of the agents on the presidential detail opened the door to let them all in. Everyone was staring at the television screen on the wall. Luke maneuvered around until he was close enough to see. A newscaster who’d interviewed his dad at the White House was on screen standing in front of a map of the United States.

  “A major earthquake hit Missouri a few minutes ago, at five forty-one a.m., central time. The damage reports are already coming in from all over the state. Buildings in St. Louis and other towns have collapsed and several fires have broken out. Here’s an eyewitness video just in from a resident of Burlington, Missouri.”

  The video showed piles of bricks and debris along a road, with parts of cars sticking up from beneath the rubble. The view jumped to a twisted sign that read, ANGIE’S CAFÉ. It took Luke a second to realize he was seeing a small-town main street. Police and ambulance sirens blared in the background, and a woman with blood pouring down the side of her face ran across the screen. She was screaming and crying at the same time. Luke turned away, feeling shaky.

  “We’ll have to get back to the White House,” Luke’s dad said, and immediately people began to move about.

  Luke stepped up to him quickly. “Dad, can Theo and I stay here?” If his dad made them go with him, they’d just sit around in the residence quarters at the White House with nothing to do while his dad was in endless meetings.

  “What? Mark, I want to do a flyover as soon as possible, if it won’t disrupt rescue efforts.”

  “Can Theo and I stay here?” Luke tried to get his father’s attention again. “When you and Mom are on trips I stay at the White House without you, so can we stay here?”

  Pierce Brockett’s chief of staff came over. “Mr. President, the governor of Missouri is calling.”

  Luke’s dad took the phone. “Fine, Luke, you can stay as long as George and Sal okay it. Get Adam to clear it.” Luke’s hopes sank. George Michelson was the head of the whole White House Secret Service detail, and Salvatorio Rossi was in charge of Luke’s detail. Both of them said no to most things Luke wanted to do.

  If anyone could convince them, though, it would be Adam. Surely Adam would much rather stay at Camp David than go back to the White House. If they went back, Adam would just have to stand around inside too. When they were at Camp David and Adam was on duty, Luke could tinker around in the grounds maintenance garage, where the tools and trucks and golf carts and lawn mowers were kept. Adam wasn’t allowed to help Luke take apart or put together anything, because agents were supposed to keep their hands free, but he could offer advice and explain things, and Luke could get as dirty and greasy as he wanted. Some days Luke even got to drive the golf carts. Luke hoped Theo would like working in the garage too. He worried it wouldn’t seem so great to a kid who got to do normal stuff.

  “Adam, do you think you can convince Sal and George to let us stay?” Luke said, going over to Adam. Adam stood next to Theo by the back wall, both of them absorbed by the TV.

  “What?” It took Adam a moment to take his eyes off the screen.

  “My dad says Theo and I can stay if Sal and George okay it. Can you talk to them? I really want to stay.”

  “I’ll give it a shot. Why don’t we go to the dining room, and while you two have some breakfast I’ll talk to Sal.”

  Now that Adam had mentioned breakfast again, Luke realized he was hungry. He felt like he shouldn’t be thinking about food in the middle of a disaster, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Theo, are you hungry?” Luke asked.

  “I’m starving,” Theo said.

  “Sir, reports coming in indicate the earthquake was so large, multiple states are affected,” another aide said.

  Luke looked back at the television, the screen now showing a huge building on fire. He turned to go, hoping everyone had gotten out safely.

  8

  Cabin Four

  CAMP MISTY MOUNT, CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN PARK

  The fire took its time at first, flaring in spots with heavy underbrush, burning twigs and leaves and dead plants. In other spots it almost died out, in areas swept bare by human traffic. The first cabin to catch, strangely, was not cabin number three. The fire couldn’t find anything to consume in the bare earth in front of the building, so it headed in another direction. The wind carried it forward.


  Cabin four caught first. A pile of sticks left behind provided the fuel, and the fire burned them greedily. Sparks flew up, catching on some of the rough siding of the cabin. As the sparks started tiny individual fires on the siding, each looked like a glowing star in a miniature universe. Soon, though, the whole side of the building was aflame, and as it burned, new sparks flew off in the gusting wind, seeking fresh sources of fuel.

  Minutes later, the doe, still running, burst upon three more of her kind who were milling about, unsure what to do. The three could already smell the smoke. Seeing the flight of one of their own, they knew the fire was close. When the doe ran by, they followed.

  9

  Hagerstown Motel

  MARYLAND, FIFTEEN MILES WEST OF CAMP DAVID

  “Dad, you don’t even have to start work until tomorrow. Why do we have to get there so early today?” Only minutes after the earthquake, Callie’s dad had rushed her down to the motel parking lot to wait for their ride to Camp David.

  “I want us to have the whole day to get settled, and ease my way in with the Navy chef. I don’t know how he will feel about my taking over his kitchen for the next week.”

  Callie knew her dad was excited. Back at the President’s ranch in Colorado, his chef talents went mostly unused. The President and his family didn’t get there much anymore, just once or twice a year. The new job as the President’s assistant chef was such a big promotion, her dad said he would be crazy not to take it.

  When he told her about it, Callie was mad enough to scream. She didn’t want to leave her horse, Hania, or her dog, Kele, and the ranch where she had lived all her life, for a city and a school full of kids she didn’t know. After days of arguing, they settled on a compromise: Callie would go to Camp David for the week, and then start school in Washington, D.C. If she hated it, and she knew she would, her dad had promised she could go back to the ranch and stay with her aunt Kate, the President’s housekeeper.