The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  “And what does that mean?” asked Vice President Stanton, smiling skeptically.

  “Meaning, a self-assembly mechanism was generated first, and, from that, a mechanism to disassemble.”

  “You’re saying this storm was created artificially,” said Harold DeVries.

  “I think it’s possible, yes. Or enhanced and manipulated. And if it was done in the way that I suspect, this storm is, in effect, programmed to be self-sustaining. To have encoded in its structure the ability to continue replicating and growing.”

  “Don’t all storms have that?” asked DeVries.

  “To an extent, yes. But not like this. Storms gather strength by absorbing other systems, by feeding off of warm air and warm water. But eventually, they run into something that stops them. Incompatible winds, changes in temperatures or air pressures. That’s why we don’t get more deadly hurricanes than we do. This system seems somehow immune to the normal obstacle course that degrades a hurricane. It appears driven by something we have not seen before, which almost seems to resemble instinct.”

  “That’s hardly possible, though, is it?” said the Vice President.

  Blaine nodded, wanting him to get to the point.

  “Well, you tell me what’s possible and what’s not,” Dr. Clayton said, surprising everyone by his shift of tone. “It’s being studied. Nearly every aspect of the weather is being studied in some form or another. There is a research center in northern California that has been doing independent research of this nature for the past several years.”

  “Computer simulations, though, not actual weather events,” said DeVries.

  He nodded.

  “But you did use mitigation operations on those storms in the Pacific,” the President said.

  “Yes, that’s correct. But with two clear differences. First, the Pacific systems were much smaller than this. And the mitigation began early in the storm cycle. Under normal circumstances, you have the greatest chance of affecting the outcome if you can manipulate the eye early in its evolution.”

  “Under normal circumstances,” the President said.

  “Right. But in this particular case, there is reason to be optimistic.” Clayton clicked a new image onto the screen, showing the animated color-enhanced swirl of Alexander. Ragged bands of red, orange, magenta, blue, green.

  “What we’re seeing here is the potential disintegration of Alexander’s inner eye. That’s normal, and a rather good sign.” He used a red laser pointer to indicate a separate area of organization on the eastern-edge rain-bands. “And what we see here is the beginning of an outer eye wall, which will eventually move inside the system, stealing the inner eye wall of its moisture.”

  “Choking it,” the President said.

  “Choking it, yes.” The corners of Clayton’s mouth lifted. “It’s what is known as an eye wall replacement cycle. It happens in most major hurricanes when they reach Category Three. What will normally happen,” he continued, “is that this outer eye wall replaces the inner eye wall, forming a larger eye, and the hurricane re-intensifies.”

  “Say that again,” said the Vice President.

  “Yes.” Dr. Clayton nodded. “In large hurricanes, we often see a weakening of the inner eye. The storm, in effect, wants to grow larger, but the eye wall convection is not able to stay organized and the inner eye loses moisture and energy. In other words, one of the ways a major storm system gains strength is by replacing its eye wall. We didn’t know that fifty years ago. We do now. It’s adjusting, making room to grow bigger.”

  “And?” asked DeVries, frowning.

  “In the models we worked on last year, it was during the storm’s formative stages that we were able to bring about small but significant changes. When we were able to alter the structure of the storm as it was forming, and by doing so to alter its outcome.”

  “But this one’s so far along,” said the Vice President. “We’re not talking about the early stages here.”

  “No, we’re not. But that’s what the President means by opportunity. In effect, we will be in the formative stages of this storm as it goes through its eye wall replacement cycle. What it’s doing is preparing to start over again. But, you see, until then it’s giving us an unusual opportunity.”

  “Explain,” said the Vice President. “An opportunity for what?”

  “To do in real time what we’ve done with computer models,” he said. “And what we did in the Pacific last year. We look at the factors that cause the storm to become better organized and we alter those slightly. A small adjustment can sometimes result in a vastly different outcome. We could, for example, steer a potentially deadly storm slightly north, where it would then run into cooler waters or a cold air system and break apart.”

  There was silence in the room. To Blaine, it felt like skepticism. How could they be optimistic after what had happened with Weathervane? Blaine was beginning to wonder if the President might be losing his grip on reality.

  “Go ahead, tell them what you were telling me,” President Hall said to Clayton.

  “Well, what I’m recommending—and what the President and I have been discussing—is utilizing two additional mitigation processes.”

  Dr. Wu’s face was blank, Blaine noticed, his eyelids half-closed. The President nodded for Clayton to go on.

  “First, we send a series of solar radar pulses into the existing eye. That’s what the President is trying to arrange now. A private satellite company in California has in fact been aggressively developing this technology for about four years. The US military has worked with them on several projects. It’s experimental, but it’s something I believe could have an impact on the storm.”

  Blaine saw the Vice President shaking his head. “But if this thing has been programmed to sustain itself,” he said, “how in God’s creation are we going to stop it?”

  “You see, that’s the point,” said Dr. Clayton. “The eye wall replacement is part of its sustenance.”

  “So what would these pulses do?” asked DeVries.

  “What we hope is that they will alter some of the key defining factors in the storm’s eye wall.”

  “Key defining factors.”

  “Yes. Storm force, atmospheric pressures, the flow from high pressure to low pressure, wind speed and direction, convection. To slightly alter the equilibrium inside the storm.”

  “That’s the first part,” the President said.

  Dr. Clayton bit a corner of his lower lip. “Yes. The second process is something we told you about yesterday. Dropping synthetic, ion-charged bacteria clouds into the hurricane, using drone planes. These clouds could in effect feed off of the storm’s inner eye wall, disrupting the structure of the storm and ultimately causing it to become unstable. I have close contact with the two labs that are doing this research, and the President is making arrangements for that, as well.”

  “But isn’t this the same thing you just brought us with Weathervane?” asked the Vice President.

  “No. The difference,” Clayton said, “is the eyewall replacement cycle. That’s our window of opportunity.”

  There was another prolonged silence. DeVries broke it. “What are the odds of any of this actually working?” he asked.

  “Well. We don’t know,” Clayton said, frowning at the intelligence director.

  “Just to reiterate,” Dr. Wu said, his voice sounding rough and unfamiliar. “This sort of technology has never been tested on a storm of this size. So the chances of it working are not great. It’s important that we understand that going in.”

  “How long would it be before we know something?” asked the Vice President.

  “This eye wall replacement cycle is happening very rapidly,” Clayton said. “I imagine it will be finished in less than eight hours. The laser process, we are expecting, will begin almost immediately.”

  The President stood. “In the meantime,” he said, “I expect us all to go back to the first scenario. Which, to the outside world, is the only scenario. All r
ight? I want you all to make sure that your families are safe and that your homes are secured. And that we’re all on the same page in what we say, if anything, to the media.” He looked at Dr. Clayton and nodded. “Okay? Let’s do it.”

  Blaine felt anxious again. Where is my son?

  As the others stood, Clayton make eye contact with Blaine. He moved toward her in an awkward sideways motion around the table and thrust out his hand. “I just wanted to thank you,” he said, speaking softly. “For what you did.”

  “Oh.” Blaine shook his hand. His clothes were rumpled, his fingers calloused. She saw that he was about to say more, but the President was gesturing to her.

  A Secret Service agent slid a computer card across the magnetic reader and the electronic door opened.

  “You know, Cate, I never thought I’d say this,” the President told her, as they walked down the marble corridor to the elevator, his hand on her back. “But I’m afraid I don’t quite believe you.”

  “Sir?”

  “What you said before we started. I don’t believe it.”

  “Which part, sir?”

  “The part about you tripped.”

  “Oh.” Blaine smiled. It made her face hurt.

  “Want to tell me what really happened?”

  “Sure. Except I need to make a call first.”

  They walked together through the softly lit tunnel in silence, the President’s senatorial features raised by a subtle smile. On the other side, Blaine stepped outside under the awning to the West Wing, breathing the mist of the pouring rain, and she flipped open her phone.

  FIFTY-TWO

  CHARLES MALLORY DROVE THROUGH the hard gusting rains, along a two-lane rural road that was mostly empty, tree branches and debris scattered across the pavement in places, the traffic signals out, swinging wildly in the wind. Dark clouds had engulfed the suburban sky, making it seem like nighttime when it was still early afternoon. He listened to the static on the AM news stations: Reports of massive flooding in North Carolina, cutting off the Outer Banks; power lost to tens of thousands in Virginia; the damage to marinas, bay-front homes and businesses; tornadoes in Southern Maryland. Winds whipped across the fallow corn and soybean fields, at times pushing his car onto the shoulder, other times causing him to stop and wait it out. The emptiness of this countryside, the encroaching water and storm clouds, made Mallory feel very alone, headed toward something dark and unfamiliar, a feeling he hadn’t known in a while. It was as if this violent weather were waking him up, forcing a reassessment. In the past, the storms in this life had made him want to step back and detach, to seek out quieter harbors, and more individual patterns for his life. But in the midst of this storm, this very real storm, he felt himself desiring the opposite: to engage. To find something essential and hold on to it. As he sat parked beside the road, waiting out a wild downpour and bursts of lightning, he thought about his brother and how he had gotten here. And then he thought about Blaine again and imagined a life of greater meaning, shared with someone else. With Blaine. Twenty minutes later, he came to an intersection with a gas station and a Home Depot. The gas station was boarded up, but the Home Depot was open. People hurried across the parking lot through the sheets of rain. Mallory sat in the car, formulating a plan. He was about to go in when his phone vibrated.

  Blaine.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m glad I reached you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m about to go into a meeting with the President.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s much worse than we thought,” she said.

  “What’s worse?”

  “The storm. It’s coming right up Chesapeake Bay. It’s going to put Washington under ten to twenty feet of water.”

  “My god. What about the mitigation?

  “Not working,” she said. “It’s not going to happen. There’s going to be a National Weather Service bulletin soon that’ll put it all in very stark terms.”

  Mallory looked out at the rain slanting in gusts across the parking lot lights.

  “I need to see you. I need to talk.”

  “I feel approximately the same,” he said.

  “Also, I can’t find my son.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can’t find him. The last I heard from him was yesterday. He texted me last night, saying he might be going to the Shore to ‘ride it out.’ There’s no such thing as riding out this storm, Mallory. But he doesn’t know that. I can’t reach him. Cell phone service is going out all over the region. Also, I’ve been having this sort of terrible thought. For the past hour or so.” Her voice seemed to crack.

  “Tell me.”

  “That Rorbach did something to Kevin before he got to me.”

  Mallory took a breath. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because the last I heard from him was about an hour and a half before Rorbach attacked me.”

  “Don’t think that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it isn’t true.” He listened to the rain, but couldn’t think of anything else more reassuring to say. “You’re going to meet with the President?”

  “Yes. I’m going to ask him about Easton.”

  “Good.”

  Blaine was silent. Gusts of wind-driven rain slammed the car.

  “Call me when you get finished,” he said. “We’ll find Kevin.”

  MALLORY RAN SPLASHING across the parking lot to the Home Depot. Dripping wet, he pushed a shopping cart up and down the aisles. Bought two flashlights, an ice chest and four containers for gas and water. The lines stretched halfway down the aisles. When he finally got out, he drove on through the storm looking for a place to buy gas, water, ice. But the only convenience stores that were open had makeshift signs taped in the windows: NO WATER and NO GAS. Some, NO BEER. He bought what they had left, instead: nuts, chips, sodas, juice.

  He kept driving, back toward the Pike Motel, his emergency lights flashing as he tried to follow the lanes of the road, the blinding rain and still-darkening sky reducing visibility to the end of his headlight beams. He listened to news reports of deaths and damages. Thirteen fatalities already attributed to Alexander, even though the storm hadn’t actually arrived. He had been through a few deadly storms over the years, several on the East Coast and a couple in the Caribbean, but nothing as large or as potentially devastating as this one.

  The rains came in torrents, and the road seemed to disappear in front of him. He parked again and waited it out, turning the radio dial for updates. Mandatory evacuations, he heard, were being ordered throughout the region. “Everyone within a hundred miles of the coast needs to move. Now,” the FEMA director said, her sound-bite played repeatedly on every station he turned to.

  Several minutes later, his cell phone vibrated again. Chaplin.

  “How are you making out?” he said, in his chipper, lilting accent. Mallory heard music in the background. Madama Butterfly.

  “Not great. Trying to get back to the motel, but the rain won’t let me. Surprised you could reach me. Where are you?”

  “Me? I’m in Virginia. Two hundred miles from the coast. I’m working on Rorbach’s cell phone.”

  “Oh, okay. What are you finding?”

  “A whole series of emails and stored docs. But they’re all encrypted. Probably some good material. We’re working on it.”

  “How about my brother?”

  “Your brother? How about him?”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine, yes.”

  Mallory heard the trees whipping, the hail-like rain thumping harder on the car roof. “Can I talk with him?”

  “No. You asked me to protect him, Charlie,” he said. “For now, I’m recommending against him talking with you.”

  Mallory nodded to himself. Chaplin was doing his job. “Okay.” He thought about Blaine, going in to tell the President.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we break the encryption.”

  FIFTY-THREE


  CATHERINE BLAINE RETURNED TO the Oval Office accompanied by two White House police officers and a Secret Service agent. The President nodded a formal greeting. A new bottle of Evian was on a coaster in front of him.

  “I can’t find my son,” she said, standing in front of the Resolute desk.

  The President looked up but didn’t seem to see her. “We’ll find him, Cate. I’m sure he’s fine.” He gestured for her to sit. She did. “What else is on your mind? What happened to you, anyway?”

  Blaine took a deep breath. “Do you know that Thom Rorbach was killed in Rock Creek Park last night?”

  He shrugged, showing nothing.

  “Do you know who killed him? Or why?”

  The President shook his head. “Don’t even know why he was there, Cate. In the middle of this goddamned storm.”

  “But you have an idea.”

  “No. No idea. I was told the FBI was out there a few hours ago. Doing clean-up.”

  “Clean-up? What are you talking about?”

  The President shrugged again. “Cate, I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know anything about it. Just that none of it’s going to make the evening news. For obvious reasons. It’s too sensitive. And it’s going to take a while to sort through it. And with this storm, who really cares about anything else?”

  Priorities. She felt a stab of anger and recalled the foul animal scent of Rorbach as his wet, cold fingers probed her face and her chest and his hard penis jabbed into her face. All of this will be swept away by the storm, she thought. Say what you have to say.

  “Where’s Secretary Easton?”

  The President raised his eyebrows. Blaine waited. “I don’t know,” he said. “He hasn’t responded to our messages. His wife is at their home in Switzerland. I know that. She left a few days ago.”

  “Do you know what happened before Rorbach was killed?” Blaine said.