Caldera

by Larry LaVoie

  “What’s just starting?” Jason demanded.

  “The war. What else?”

  “War! What war?” Jason was incredulous.

  “The war to end all wars,” Talant said. “Isn’t it ironic Nature is on our side this time?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “It is not by accident I chose to rescue you. This is your opportunity to join us as we make a new nation out of what is left of your United States of America.”

  Billy Carlson had never seen anything like it. He had ridden in a giant olive-colored helicopter with a team of soldiers to the place where he’d left the girls. He had seen Wendy struggling toward the clearing, holding Becky up. She was bleeding badly. Medics with stretchers were on the ground before the helicopter touched the ground. He had called his parents telling them that he was all right. They had wanted him to rush home, but the soldiers had told him he couldn’t go back. The area where his parents were was being evacuated. He had promised to join them in Portland. That was all he remembered.

  When Billy woke he was lying in a military hospital complex. He sat up. Doctors were talking to themselves behind a curtain next to him. In the other direction he saw Becky and Wendy on bunks. He imagined himself in a war zone. Hundreds of solders scurried about. Doctors and nurses some in uniforms, others in gowns, were tending to wounded civilians and soldiers alike. Something terrible had happened. Vaguely things came back to him, like a foggy dream. There had not been time to recover Terry’s body. He wondered if the voices he’d heard were true. Could Yellowstone have erupted?

  Still groggy, he gingerly put his feet on the cold floor and went to Wendy. He leaned over and took her hand. She stirred. Thank God she seemed to be all right.

  “Doctor,” he said, to a soldier in a gown hurrying past. The man turned for only a second and continued down the corridor of endless beds. He needed to know what was going on.

  “Wendy, it’s okay. I’m here.”

  She opened her eyes. “You almost got us all killed. Where were you?” Her words had a sharp edge. “Where are we?”

  “I heard someone say Yellowstone erupted. We’re someplace safe, I think.” He had lost track of time. A soldier in fatigues adjusted an IV on Becky on the bunk next to them. “Where are we?” Billy asked him.

  “Sorry sir,” that’s classified. “If you’re well enough we can sure use that bed.” He nodded toward the empty bed where Billy had been.

  Billy saw captain bars on his hat. A band with a red cross was on his sleeve. “Sure, I’ll be okay. Where are my clothes?”

  “Footlocker at the end of the bunk. Get dressed and report to the head nurse.”

  Billy turned back to Wendy. “What happened to Becky?”

  Wendy broke down in tears. “It was awful. It attacked. Came out of nowhere and jumped on Becky.”

  “My God!”

  He waited for her to stop sobbing.

  “Will she live?” Wendy asked.

  Billy glanced over at Becky. Her breathing was shallow. A machine was beeping beside the bed. Extensive bandages covered her arm. Her face was bruised and covered with stitches, but recognizable.

  “She’s right here. Was it a bear?”

  Wendy nodded.

  Two medics rushed past them to Billy’s bed. They didn’t bother to change the sheets. Immediately behind them were two more medics with a stretcher. The woman they placed on Billy’s bunk was covered with charred skin, like she’d been badly burned in a fire.

  “I’ll be back,” Billy said. He rushed to the footlocker and retrieved his muddy jeans and slipped them on. He didn’t know what he could do, but if he could help he would.

  South Eastern Nevada

  Jason was back sitting on his bunk in total darkness. It was impossible to rid his mind of the words of Joseph Talant. He had stayed long enough in the war room to see the immediate devastation of the Yellowstone eruption from weather satellite images. The ash cloud made its way into the jet stream and moved rapidly covering the southeastern United States. He knew it would take less than a day for the sulfur dioxide in the ionosphere to make its way around the globe reflecting sunlight back into space. The grim image of what the plunging temperatures would do to the northern hemisphere filled his mind. They may be witnessing the decline of civilization unparalleled in recorded history. Of course, it was impossible to fully contemplate the effect it would have for the United States of the world.

  He wondered about his mother and sister, Carlene’s family, though he had never met them. Thank God he and Carlene were safe for now, but they had to figure a way out of this mess. There must have been a good reason for them to have been kidnapped. The people who were holding them had planned for this and were somehow going to use the chaos in the aftermath of the eruption to attack the remaining portions of the United States. He felt the anger well up inside. What kind of sick mind would plan such a thing?

  There was a crack of light as the door opened. Jason lifted his head to see Carlene being shoved into the room.

  The door slammed shut and he heard the hollow clank as it was locked.

  “Carlene,” Jason said, “over here.”

  He could hear her breathing. The acoustics in the room were like being trapped inside a glass jar.

  “Jason?”

  He could hear the fear in her voice. “Keep talking, I’ll come to you. He got up and moved slowly in the direction where he last saw her. Suddenly they were together, locked in each other’s arms. She was trembling. “It’s all right,” he whispered.

  “I was worried that ....”

  “It’s okay now. We’re both okay.” He held her close not wanting to ever let her go, but knowing they had to take advantage of this opportunity to develop a plan. He guided her over to his cot and gently sat her down on the edge. “Thank God they brought you here.”

  “They needed the room,” Carlene said. I heard them talking. They are going to ... to kill us.

  “Something else is going on,” Jason said. “Talant wants to keep us around for some reason.”

  “I heard Mishenka.”

  “I know,” Jason said. “I’m going to get us out of here. These people are crazy enough to think they can take over the country.”

  “They’re going to kill us,” Carlene said again trembling.

  “They still need us.”

  “I think Mishenka takes pleasure in killing.”

  Jason had to get her off the thought. “Help me find a way out of here.”

  “How? We’re locked in a cave in the middle of a desert. Ash may be falling outside right now. We could never walk.”

  “The prevailing winds are to the southeast. I saw the weather patterns from the satellite before they put me back in here.”

  “I don’t see what we can do. There are at least a hundred of them. We don’t have any weapons, nothing.”

  “Did you see any exits?”

  “Only the one we came in.”

  “Good,” Jason said.

  “Good? We can’t even get out of our room.”

  Jason thought for a while then finally said, “Talant tried to recruit me. I’m going to go along with him. See if I can buy us some time. I need you to play along.”

  “I don’t see how that will help.”

  “Mishenka isn’t going to let up on his guard, but I might be able to create a diversion when we’re in the control room that will let us slip away.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know yet. First I have to get us back into the war room.”

  When the door opened Jason could only think it must be morning. His arm was numb and his shoulder sore. Carlene had used him as a pillow and he hadn’t wanted to wake her. Every time he turned his wound opened and he felt it bleeding. He had been afraid to remove the bandage for fear of what he might find.

  “Time to get up,” a voice said.

  In the light from the corridor he could see a silhouette with the unmis
takable outline of an automatic rifle. In the dim light Jason noticed a vent over the door. It hadn’t dawned on him they would need some sort of ventilation with all the people in the tunnel. He hadn’t paid attention, but the air smelled fresh, no musty odor like he would expect underground.

  “Give us a minute,” Jason said.

  The guard stood with the door wide open letting the light fill the room. He glanced up again as he made his way over to the sink. Carlene was close to him and he was able to see her face. A large bruise covered her cheek.

  “How did you get that?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing. Mishenka thought he’d have a little fun with me.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Jason muttered.

  “Let it go. We’re in enough trouble.”

  At gunpoint Jason and Carlene marched down the main corridor over a hundred yards toward the main entrance. The War Room was on the right. As they entered Jason turned and looked back at the opening. The room had no door, but was a huge room off the main corridor. It too had a large vent above the opening. From the location Jason guessed the vents were for fresh air. He glanced around the room to see if he could see any other venting.

  “To your station,” the guard said motioning with the rifle. Again they were sitting in front of computers. There were more people in the room than the day before. Many were gathered around a table, too far away to see what they were looking at. This isn’t going to be easy, he realized.

  From the table thirty feet away Joseph Talant rose and headed toward the bank of computers where Jason and Carlene were sitting. Look busy, act like you’re cooperating, he reminded himself. But he looked over at Carlene and grew angrier. In this light he could see the full extent of the bruise. She must be in pain. He vowed no matter what it took he’d get even.

  Joseph Talant looked upbeat. “May I call you by your given name?”

  “Fine,” Jason said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday ... about joining your organization.”

  Talant looked suspicious. “First you must prove your worth as a scientist. It seems the Yellowstone blast caused some turmoil with the Cascade Range. We need for you to assess the likelihood of Mount Rainier erupting.”

  “Rainier?” It wasn’t uncommon for huge seismic events to affect other fault-prone areas, but he had not heard of one volcano setting off another.

  “What’s happened so far?” Jason asked.

  “A number of sizable earthquakes along the Oregon and Washington coasts. Tsunami warnings have been posted from San Francisco to Vancouver Canada.”

  Carlene was staring at her screen. “I have the Cascade USGS site. The quakes have all been under seven.”

  Jason thought about his mother and sister in Portland. They lived high up in the west hills. Not likely a tsunami would affect them. He used his password to enter the USGS database. It dawned on him that all they needed was his password and anyone could get into the USGS site. He had had the same password for several years. “Co-spec reading normal. No increase in activity. Why the interest in Mount Rainier?”

  “Check out Mount Hood, and St. Helens, and Baker. I want to know about any activity along the Cascade Range.”

  Jason brought up each of the mountains one by one until he got to the South Sister, part of the Three Sisters in Central Oregon. It was showing an increase in seismic activity. It was the same with Mount Shasta. Nothing to be concerned about. “Nothing,” Jason said. “I guess the tsunami warnings are the biggest threat.”

  “Good. Keep watching them.”

  Talant went back to the table of people in uniform. Jason wished he could see what was so interesting.

  With Talant no longer behind him, Jason logged on to Yahoo. After a long pause a message came up, Website not found. He had to know what was going on outside. He tried another site and finally connected with the BBC website. What he saw caused him to wonder if the nation would survive.

  “Carlene,” Jason leaned toward her. “It doesn’t look good out there. Casualties are estimated to be in the millions.”

  “I know. I can’t even bring up Cheyenne.”

  He knew she was worried about her family. “They left. They’re okay.” He looked up just in time to see Mishenka headed his direction. “Here comes the devil,” Jason said. He exited the site and the USGS site was back on the screen.

  “Hey, Vladimir, look at this,” Jason said.

  Vladimir Mishenka was wearing a blue suit, a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. No tie. “You, keep your mouth shut.”

  He was a good six inches shorter than Jason, but solid. He was not someone Jason would normally like to tangle with, but the bastard had hit Carlene. “There’s going to be a tsunami along the Oregon coast. You suppose it will make it this far inland.”

  Mishenka thought for a moment. “We are in a secure location.”

  “Tell me, what is this place?”

  Mishenka pulled out his pistol and toyed with it. “You, Dr. Trask, are treading on thin ice. Telska will not tolerate a man with a smart ass.”

  “Who’s Telska?”

  Mishenka swiped his pistol across Jason’s face and he fell to the floor. Carlene rushed to him. “You bastard,” Carlene said looking up at Mishenka. “You like hitting defenseless people!”

  Mishenka raised the gun to hit her and she shied away. He grinned.

  Jason felt a warm stream of blood run down his cheek. He put his hand on his head. A knot the size of a golf ball was forming. He started to get up and put his hand on the floor. A cool breeze ran through his fingers. Floor vents. He stayed down trying to visualize how the array of tunnels was laid out. Finally he rose. Mishenka was standing over him.

  “You behave or the girl will get the next lesson. I hope you understand what I mean, Dr. Trask.”

  When they were returned to the room Jason glanced up and saw a light bulb high overhead. “How do we get light?” he asked the guard.

  “No light. We must conserve power.”

  “Great. We’ll get used to being moles then.” The door closed and Carlene and Jason were in darkness again.

  “What were you thinking back there,” Carlene said. “He could have killed you.”

  “He missed his chance. We’re leaving tonight.”

  “Right. How are we going to do that?”

  Chapter 29

  In the dark, sitting next to Carlene on the bed Jason explained his plan.

  “I don’t know. What if it doesn’t lead where you think it does?” Carlene said.

  “It’s a simple system. They can’t run ducts through solid rock forever. They have to have a main shaft and a positive way of exchanging the air.”

  “If you say so. Here’s my belt and buckle. You’re not going to hurt it are you?”

  “Donated to a good cause,” Jason said. The buckle was too large to go through the grating, but the hook on it was large and secure enough to catch. The floor vents were too small for a person to squeeze through but the overhead return was large enough for someone to crawl through with room to spare. If he was right it would be connected to a vertical shaft and have a cap like a big stove chimney. With the prevailing wind the system didn’t require any power. The wind flowing across the vent would provide a low pressure in the chimney causing an updraft powering the entire system. Pretty ingenious, he thought. Now all he had to do was get into the ventilation shaft a good fifteen feet off the floor.

  “Give me your bra,” Jason said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I need it to tie to the belt.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but no way is my bra that big.”

  Jason couldn’t hold back the chuckle. He ripped the blanket off the cot and waited for her to give him her bra. “Too bad the lights are out,” he chided.

  “You wish.” She handed it to him.

  Jason tied one of the straps to the belt and the other end to the tip of the blanket. “Keep back,” he said, making his way toward the door. It was impossible to see anything.
He couldn’t even see the target. He felt the door. “Are you clear?”

  “Over here.”

  “Here goes,” Jason said casting the makeshift line over his head. He heard the clink of the buckle when it hit the grate, but it fell back down. He tried again. Again it came down. He was reeling in the blanket again when Carlene startled him.

  “You’re supposed to be over there,” he said.

  “Let me try.”

  Go ahead. It’s your bra.” He felt for her and placed the blanket in her hands. “I’ll stand out of the way like a good boy.”

  He heard a clank.

  “Now what?” Carlene asked.

  “You didn’t.”

  “It didn’t come back down. What now?”

  “Where are you?” Jason asked.

  “Right where I was when you left me.”

  Jason honed in on her voice. It was amazing how easy it was to become disoriented in total darkness. He bumped into her. Her body gave off a warm glow. He wrapped his arms around her. “This is what we do next.”

  He found her lips. She dropped the blanket and returned the kiss. “Aren’t we supposed to be escaping,” she said gasping for air.

  “Yeah. I almost forgot.” He bent down and found the blanket. “Stay close. We may only get one shot at this.”

  He tested the strength of the catch pulling the blanket taut. “Get behind me.”

  Carlene moved behind him.

  “Here goes.”

  He reefed on the makeshift grappling hook. Nothing happened. “Damn. I didn’t expect it to be that tight.

  “It’s anchored into granite,” Carlene said.

  “Let’s try another angle.” He shifted sideways. “Okay let’s try again. You behind me?”

  He felt her tiny hands wrap around his midsection. “Not that close. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Give it all you got, Big Guy.”

  “Stop that. I can’t pull when I’m laughing.” Jason gave it all he had. A sharp pain shot through his side. When it came loose he fell backwards taking Carlene with him.

  They were still sprawled on the floor when the door opened.