Supercell

by H W Buzz Bernard

  Metcalf, finished with his phone conversation, joined Chuck and Gabi. “So, great white hunter, where’s our prey?”

  Chuck tapped the computer screen. “Down there.”

  “Texas?”

  Chuck nodded.

  “Perhaps we should be tear-assing south then?” Metcalf leaned close to Chuck. His words seemed more of a command than a question. Overhead, a fleeting cloudlet from a decaying cumulus briefly dimmed the sun.

  “It’s too far. By the time we got there, the show would be over.”

  “Well, that’s just fine and Jim fucking Dandy, fearless leader.” Metcalf looked at Gabi. “Sorry, miss. But, I’m a little torqued. Here we sit with our thumbs up our butt, a couple of million bucks of equipment idle, and the clock ticking while things go wild in West Texas.” He turned to go, but then looked back and glared at Chuck. “Strike one, Chuckie!” He snapped his right arm into the air like a home plate umpire. “You managed to piss me off on our first day out.”

  “Second,” corrected Chuck.

  “Yeah, smart ass, second.” Metcalf stalked off. Sotto voce he said, “Lesson learned. Don’t hire over-the-hill chasers working as janitors and living in Third World apartments.”

  Gabi studied the radar imagery on Chuck’s laptop. “Nasty storms?” she asked.

  He pointed at one west of Lubbock. “That one has a tornado signature.”

  “You think my bad guys could be down there?”

  He shrugged. “From what you told me, they always seem to be in the right position at the right time.”

  Gabi expelled a long, slow breath.

  “Look, I know, I know,” Chuck said. “I blew it. We shoulda been in Texas. But even if a twister forms, if it doesn’t smack a ranch or a farm or a town, then, well, it’s like it never happened, right?” Pathetic. Now I’m groping for the silver lining of a shitty forecast.

  “Right.” The word came out flat, emotionless.

  Chuck looked away, studying the limp-dick cumulus. Unbelievable. Right out of the blocks, I’ve managed to piss off the guy with the money and lose credibility with an FBI agent.

  AT FIRST, THE STORM appeared as if it would be something less than a godlike Zeus, relegated to coughing up sporadic bolts of lightning and spittles of rain. Run-of-the-mill for the High Plains of West Texas. But now, as Clarence and Raleigh stood monitoring the tempest near the small town of Levelland, west of Lubbock, Clarence realized they were about to witness something special: the transformation of an ordinary thunderstorm into a full blown supercell. It was as if they were voyeurs, watching the innermost—almost miraculous—workings of life developing within a woman’s womb.

  A ragged snippet of scud, like an orphaned spermatozoon, materialized beneath the base of the storm. Then, other clouds, larger, blacker, joined the tiny tatter of grayness and pirouetted counterclockwise beneath the base of the cell but remained separate from it. But not for long. In a quick umbilical effort, they attached themselves to the parent, assembling into a spinning, circular wall, dark and angry.

  The storm’s inflow strengthened, making it difficult for the brothers to stand. Gale-force gusts slammed into their backs. Marking the powerful inflow, a “tail cloud” materialized, a dark appendage on the rotating wall.

  Abruptly, the gusts ceased. “Holy shit,” Clarence said, “this thing’s going right over us.” He and Raleigh found themselves directly beneath the storm’s powerful updraft. In essence, the winds had switched from horizontal to vertical. The spinning, low-hanging cloud deck lumbered overhead.

  Seconds later, dirt and dust whipped across the khaki landscape near the rear flank of the storm. Raleigh saw it first and pointed. “Downdraft,” he said.

  “Yeah, this thing’s crankin’ up,” Clarence responded.

  A spear of lightning and a simultaneous explosion ripped over them.

  “Car,” Clarence yelled.

  They dived into the GMC as more bolts lanced into the ground around them. Raleigh slammed the Terrain into gear just as a downdraft-driven pall of grit and debris swirled over the vehicle, obscuring the road on whose shoulder it was parked. Raleigh held his foot on the brake, waiting for the localized haboob to pass. Once it had, he accelerated southward, away from the strengthening supercell. At Clarence’s command, he turned east and ran parallel to the obsidian darkness barreling toward Lubbock.

  They stalked the storm from a mile or so south, Clarence monitoring the radar imagery of the storm on his laptop computer. “This thing’s got a hell of a hail core,” he said. “Somebody’s getting hammered with softball-sized stones.”

  “How fast is it moving?” Raleigh asked.

  “About 30 mph.”

  “We aren’t,” Raleigh noted. A traffic jam of sightseers and other chasers packed the highway leading toward Lubbock.

  “Friggin’ chasers,” Clarence said. “Too damn many amateurs out here. We gotta get off this road.”

  “Tell me what to do. You’re navigating.”

  Clarence bent to his laptop. “There’s a county road coming up. Take a left in about a tenth of a mile.”

  Raleigh looked at his brother. “That’ll put us right in the storm’s path.”

  “I know. But there’s a cross road we can turn right on and get ahead of the storm and this mob of idiots. Then we’ll duck back south to the main highway and be in position to make our move if there’s a tornado.”

  “We’ll have to break speed limits.”

  “The cops aren’t gonna be looking for speeders with a supercell bearing down on Lubbock.”

  Raleigh turned left and pointed the vehicle into the roiling blackness churning toward the city. He stepped on the accelerator and the SUV leapt forward, racing toward the maw of a monster.

  Lightning, like a myriad of lizard tongues, licked from the storm and sent crescendos of thunder tumbling over the flat land. A powerful wind, the cell’s inflow, shook the vehicle as though it were a toy car in the grip of a hyperactive child. Raleigh fought the steering wheel to hold the SUV on the road.

  “Gotta turn, bro’,” Raleigh said, “gotta turn. We’re too damn close to the storm.”

  “Coming up.” Clarence fell silent and squinted through the dust being kicked up by the powerful gusts. “There, there.” He pointed at an intersection a hundred yards ahead. “Turn right.”

  Raleigh whipped the SUV through the turn and pushed the accelerator to the floor. Clarence tensed, hoping there were no other cars on the narrow lane. The vehicle hit a bump and went briefly airborne. Focusing on the computer became next to impossible as the laptop jiggled and jumped in Clarence’s hands. He barely had a grip on it.

  He thought he glimpsed something on the display, but wasn’t sure: a tiny circular icon, a rotating whirl on the radar overlay, indicating the possible presence of a tornado. Clarence twisted in his seat and looked behind the vehicle at the pursuing storm. Visual confirmation was always best. “Oh shit, it’s there.”

  Raleigh glanced into the rearview mirror, saw what his brother saw—a black funnel on the ground a quarter mile behind them—and leaned forward against the steering wheel, grasping it in a white-knuckle strangulation hold. “How far to the next intersection?” he yelled, his voice edged in panic.

  Clarence tried to focus on the computer display. “Maybe a half mile. We’ll make it.” I hope.

  Raleigh braked hard as the vehicle blasted into a T-intersection. The GMC slewed sideways and slid into the crossroad narrowly missing a mail delivery truck racing southward, away from the storm. Raleigh got on the truck’s tail, passed it, and tore back toward the main highway.

  There he turned east again, ahead of the main phalanx of chasers and TV trucks pursuing the massive supercell. He sped past the southern end of the shuttered Reese AFB.

  “Okay, slow down, pull off here,” Claren
ce said. “This is a good spot to wait.”

  Raleigh steered onto a quiet side road leading to a small mobile home development. He parked the vehicle facing north, toward the storm, and he and Clarence watched as the tornado, broader and blacker now, twisted across dryland farms and ranches. Suddenly, it lifted, skipping over the northern end of Reese’s old runway. Past Reese, it dropped once more and resumed its scorched-earth assault on the outskirts of Lubbock. Shards of sheet metal, shingles, and shredded insulation tumbled from the sky, confetti from the storm’s violence.

  Clarence studied the map overlay. “Get ready to move,” he said. “There’re some residential areas in its path. It’s gonna rip into one of them. Maybe more.”

  Raleigh, without being commanded, stepped from the SUV and once again retrieved several magnetic signs from its rear. Not EMT-Rescue this time—they’d overplayed their hand on that masquerade—but Interagency Disaster Response Team. Phony, like their counterfeit IDs and embroidered names on their white denim shirts.

  Checking to make certain no one was watching, Raleigh placed a sign on each front door and the rear lift gate. The banshee yowl of tornado warning sirens—an eerie counterpoint to the low roar of the tornado—filled the late afternoon.

  The brothers waited until the tornado swept past, then accelerated into its wake, a path marked by downed power poles, fallen utility lines, and severed trees. They entered what appeared to have been a small subdivision of neat brick ranches. Now, along one street, only shattered sections of walls remained standing. Broken bits of furniture, parts of roofs, and battered automobiles littered yards and driveways. Residents stood dazed, trying to gauge why some homes had survived and others hadn’t. The area looked as though a suicide bomber had hit it.

  A woman, her dress in tatters, blood streaming from a scalp wound, tried to flag down the brothers, but they kept going, ignoring her need, intent only on their own: finding a target of opportunity. Prey.

  Clarence saw it at the end of a cul-de-sac. A house, its roof ripped away, tattered curtains flapping in glassless frames, and a partially collapsed brick wall. “Pull up here,” he said.

  Raleigh steered the SUV into the home’s driveway and stopped. The brothers waited. The wind quieted but continued to gust fitfully, sending bits of paper and pieces of debris tumbling through the shell-shocked residential area. A discordant chorus of sirens, first responders—EMTs, firemen, police—replaced the rolling thunder of the departing storm.

  The brothers watched the home for almost five minutes. No one emerged from it. No neighbors approached. No cars sat in the driveway. Clarence nodded at Raleigh. Raleigh exited the GMC and walked to the home’s relatively undamaged garage and peered in. “No vehicles,” he announced. No one home.

  Clarence joined Raleigh and together they entered the home by clambering over the partially destroyed brick wall. They moved down a hallway, well lit since the roof had disappeared, and pushed open a bent door, entering what they assumed was a bedroom. “Always jewelry boxes,” Clarence said.

  Raleigh pointed at a dresser that had fallen over, littering the floor with carved wooden boxes of various sizes, photographs, and perfume bottles. Clarence knelt and sorted through the boxes, opening and closing lids. Raleigh rifled through the dresser drawers. “Hey,” he said. He reached into one of the drawers, pulled out a small leather bag, and tossed it to his brother.

  Clarence opened it, whistled softly, and poured its contents onto the bedroom rug. Dozens of gold coins rattled onto the carpet. “The real deal,” Clarence said, and scooped the treasure back into the bag.

  “Yes, may I help you?”

  Clarence stood and whirled. A middle-aged woman—brunette, slightly overweight, designer glasses, business suit—hands on hips, stood at the entrance to the bedroom.

  Raleigh stepped beside Clarence and smiled at the lady.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Clarence said. “We didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Carl McDeel. This is Ralph Lederson.” He gestured at Raleigh. “We’re with the Interagency Disaster Response Team. We’ve been dispatched by your insurance company to survey the damage to your home.” He extended his ID badge to the woman. Raleigh did the same. “We climbed in over the broken bricks. We thought there might be someone hurt in here.”

  “And hiding in the dresser drawers?” the lady said, an edge to her words. She examined their IDs.

  “The coins had spilled out. We were just picking them up,” Clarence explained. He handed the bag of coins to the lady. Where was this bitch when we arrived?

  “Interagency Disaster Response,” the woman said. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s something new. An effort to get help to home and business owners faster in the wake of disasters. If you’d rather, we could come back later.” Clarence edged toward the door. Raleigh followed. Come on, bitch. Drop it. Let it go. We walk. You walk.

  “You were sent by my insurance company?” the lady asked. “Funny they didn’t call me. I’ve had my cell on ever since I left work after I heard about the tornado.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be in touch with you shortly, ma’am.” He flicked his head toward the bedroom door as he looked at his brother. Let’s get out of here.

  “Then you know the name of my insurance company,” the woman said, blocking their way. “And my name. And the address here.”

  Neither brother answered.

  “No?” she said. She reached into her purse and withdrew a cell phone.

  Raleigh swatted it from her hands.

  Chapter Nine

  TUESDAY, APRIL 30

  AFTER MONDAY’S defeat, Chuck had moved the team east to position it for what he saw as a future threat. They ended up in a cheap motel in the small town of Niren, west of Wichita. The fiasco of the previous day—his failure, quite frankly—nagged at him like an annoying puppy nipping at his heels. He tossed and turned in a too-soft bed into the wee hours of the morning.

  Finally, he surrendered to his sleeplessness, arose, and walked a quarter of a mile through a chilly dawn to a weather-beaten roadside diner. He sat there now sipping slightly burnt coffee as a handful of regular customers—farmhands mostly, it appeared—drifted in for breakfast.

  The aroma of scrambled eggs, grilled breakfast steaks, and baked biscuits filled the small establishment. An ancient radio sitting on a shelf behind the counter, where most of the clientele perched, crackled with static-infused farm and weather reports.

  Chuck stared out the dusty front window of the diner into the brightness of a rising sun. It didn’t take a meteorologist to figure out there would be no storms to chase today and probably tomorrow, too.

  He’d blown it yesterday, positioned the team too far north. Big thunderstorms had erupted in West Texas, well south of where his team had maintained a vigil in Kansas. A supercell had blossomed near Levelland and dropped a brief, violent tornado on the outskirts of Lubbock. Preliminary guess: an EF-3 or maybe even a four. Early reports indicated two residents had been killed. Plenty of chasers had been in the area. But not Chuck’s team.

  What had happened was easy to see in hindsight. The Texas storms had interdicted a rich stream of moisture flowing northward over the Plains, in essence gobbling up the energy needed for thunderstorm development farther north where the Global-American crew had sat and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. He should have recognized what was going to happen before the fact, not after. When he was on top of his game, a decade ago, he would have.

  Had he lost his groove, his mojo, his touch, whatever it is people lose when they’re out of the loop? He had to admit that was a possibility. He’d gambled on placing the team where he thought the greatest wind shear and instability would set up. He was right about that, but hadn’t counted on the moisture-robbing storms in Texas. Half right in this game doesn’t cut it. He’d squandered not only yesterday’s opportunity but now
two more days in which the team would have to stand down. That left only ten days in which to grab the million-dollar ring off the supercell merry-go-round. He figured his odds might be better playing Powerball.

  More so than on previous mornings, he craved a beer to kick-start his day, to erase the defeat of the previous afternoon, to shatter the hope-numbing miasma that had retreated but now returned. But this being a small-town diner, a family place, alcohol was verboten.

  Chuck opened his laptop computer and studied the meteorological models—the numerically-driven depictions of weather patterns—for the coming days. It looked as though there might be a chance of a few tornadoes on Thursday in the eastern portions of Kansas and Oklahoma. Maybe not the EF-4 or -5 monsters he was hunting, but he had learned over the years that nature’s supply of surprises is endless. He confirmed his analysis by clicking onto the Storm Prediction Center’s Website. The forecasters there had outlined a threat area very similar to the one he envisioned.

  Gabi straggled into the diner. Chuck motioned to her and she walked toward him, unsmiling. She settled into the booth where he sat. He signaled for the waitress.

  “Bad news,” Gabi said, her voice raspy and low.

  Chuck had a pretty good idea what was coming.

  “Another apparent robbery-homicide yesterday where the twister hit. A woman in her home. They’re doing an autopsy tomorrow.”

  Chuck stared into his half-empty coffee mug as Gabi gave her order to the waitress.

  “Anything for you, sir?” the waitress asked.

  “No, not hungry,” Chuck said without looking up.

  The waitress departed.

  Gabi reached over and patted Chuck’s hand. “I’ve heard it said that Babe Ruth struck out almost twice as many times as he hit home runs.”