Category Five

by Philip Donlay

  “To DIA headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base.”

  “Oh, perfect.” Michael leaned closer. “You’re with the DIA, right?”

  Lauren nodded and braced herself. The furious look in Michael’s eyes spoke volumes. She knew Michael was a force to be reckoned with when he was angry.

  “Then you call your bosses and tell them I’m not flying until they bring Donovan back.” Michael’s face was a picture of defiance. “Fix it or this airplane stays parked.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Lauren tried to keep her voice calm. She didn’t want to fight with Michael.

  “I don’t know how to make this any more simple. No Donovan…no flight.”

  “If there were ever a mission we needed to make, it’s this one. Donovan wanted you and Randy to take it.”

  “Give me a break!” Michael ran his hand back through his hair. “Your people come in, arrest the Director of Operations, who is also my friend. Then you want me to play nice and take the flight! I think that’s pretty ballsy, Lauren.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I can’t explain everything to you right now, but you’ll understand later.”

  “Make me understand right now,” Michael challenged, barely concealing a look of contempt.

  Lauren averted her gaze from Michael’s withering stare. It occurred to her that outside of her own team of scientists, she probably didn’t have a friend in the entire building.

  “You stay here.” Michael stormed off toward operations. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this!”

  Lauren stood in the middle of the hangar. Hopefully, after Michael made his phone calls, he’d calm down. She felt momentarily lost. To the east, Helena was tracking straight for New York. To the west, an Air Force B-1 bomber was loaded with a hydrogen bomb, ready to try to obliterate Helena. Lauren felt caught in the middle, squeezed by two forces she couldn’t stop. She checked her watch, thankful that her mother and Abigail would be well on their way to Chicago by now. She’d dropped them off at the Baltimore airport early this morning for their flight. But for everything else to work as planned, she and her team needed to be off the ground in the next twenty minutes.

  She couldn’t help but think of Donovan. Calvin’s words replayed over and over in her mind. He’d said they’d uncovered some new evidence, that they were questioning the reporter who’d visited her yesterday. But how could they think Donovan was still involved? Lauren felt her anger and frustration begin to well up inside of her. What had set Donovan off this morning? What information did he think she’d leaked? She tried to filter out his words and focus on his emotions. She’d never seen him so wounded and deflated…and the worst part was it was from something he thought she’d done. The part she did understand was the dramatic shift she’d seen in his demeanor as the agents were taking him away. Lauren knew she might be grasping at straws, but despite his angry words, she knew the caring look in his eyes wasn’t her imagination.

  “Damn it!” Lauren swore under her breath. She turned and looked at the Galileo, her team already aboard, waiting for her to start running the equipment checklists. She glanced in the other direction, at the door Michael had disappeared through. Finally, more pissed-off than anything else, Lauren headed across the hangar floor to find Michael.

  She saw him through a glass section in the door. He had a phone to his ear. She pushed through the door into the office, then stood motionless as she heard the tone of his voice.

  “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.” Michael didn’t look up at her entrance. He turned his back and glanced at his watch. “We can be airborne in fifteen minutes. Yes, sir. I’ll do everything I can.”

  Lauren stood silently as he lightly replaced the receiver. When he turned, the expression on his face was full of confusion.

  “Okay. You win.” Michael’s words were full of angry reluctance.

  “It wasn’t a contest,” Lauren said. “I wish I could tell you how important this mission is, Michael. But I can’t. You’ll understand before the day is over. I tried to get them to leave Donovan alone, but something bad has happened. I’m worried about him.”

  “Me too.” Michael’s voice softened. “I was just ordered to take this flight. I’m to do anything the DIA asks. William told me to cooperate fully, and make no statements regarding Donovan.”

  “Oh no.” Lauren’s hand flew to her mouth. The one time she’d met the chairman of Eco-Watch, she’d sensed Donovan had no bigger champion than William VanGelder. The two men seemed to have Eco-Watch’s pursuits as their mutual ambition.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Only that he’d handle Donovan’s problems, and for us to get into the air and complete the mission.”

  “Then that’s what we should do. The sooner we get going the faster we can get back.”

  “You know what this is all about, don’t you?” Michael’s eyes narrowed and he stared directly at Lauren. “What happened in Bermuda?”

  “I can’t talk about that.” Lauren changed the subject. “Here’s the weather Donovan pulled up, plus the flight profile. My people will be ready to go when you are.”

  “Fine.” Michael angrily snatched the papers from her hand. “My guess is when all the smoke clears, you’ll be at the heart of Donovan’s problems. It seems to be a particular talent of yours.”

  Lauren whirled around and stormed out into the hangar. Michael’s words stung, but she refused to allow him to make her the whipping boy for Donovan’s plight. Her emotions collided once again. In her heart she wanted to believe Donovan was innocent; he wasn’t the kind of man to steal anything, let alone DIA secrets. Lauren wiped away the trace of a tear. Right now all she wanted was to get this flight over with.

  She hurried to the Gulfstream, climbed the stairs, and went to join her team in the cabin.

  “I’m all booted up and ready, Dr. McKenna.” Carl Simmons looked up from his console. His jowls quivered as he spoke. The humidity had already produced damp stains on his shirt.

  “Good.” Lauren looked at the station across the aisle. She could see Brent was already strapped into his seat, pecking away furiously at his keyboard. A look of total concentration was etched on his young features.

  “Brent. How are you doing?” Lauren asked as she moved to her position directly behind Simmons.

  “I’m getting there. I keep losing the link with the DMSP-3 satellite. I wanted to get an early readout from Jonah, but right now I can’t.”

  “We’ve run into that before,” Lauren explained. “I think it has to do with the position of the antenna on the airplane, or to all the other antenna arrays on the airport. It will clear up as soon as we lift off.”

  “Oh,” Brent leaned back, a sheepish look on his face. “That makes sense. I guess I’ll take a little break then. I was sure hoping it wasn’t me doing something dumb.”

  “Just relax.” Lauren tried to smile at the young man. “There’s not much to do until we get close to the eye.”

  “I still can’t believe you volunteered for this flight,” Simmons quipped as he shook his head. “Do you have any idea how mind numbingly boring these can be?”

  Lauren tuned out their exchange. She sat down and switched on her equipment. No one on board knew the real intent of their mission. It wouldn’t be until much later that they would realize they were collecting targeting information for the largest hydrogen bomb detonation in history. Once they were orbiting high above Helena’s eye, Lauren would be able to sift through both the onboard data, and the readouts from Jonah. From that, she would calculate a point in space that would, she hoped, deliver a killing blow to Helena.

  One by one, Lauren ran through each system, checking integrity and continuity. Satisfied that everything was working properly, she sat back and looked out the large oval window. She saw that they’d just disconnected the fuel hose from the airplane. It wouldn’t be long until they started to taxi. She looked off into the distance at the low gray sky; a few drops of rain had streaked the thick acrylic window. If op
eration Thor’s Hammer didn’t work, there was no telling what they might create. Her thoughts shifted to Donovan, wondering what was happening to him. A steady stream of scenarios played through her mind and none of them bode well for the two of them. She feared he might be lost to her forever.

  “Everyone strap in,” Michael called out as the heavy door swung upward into place. “Check your intercoms. We’re getting out of here.”

  Lauren slid the small headset over her ear and found the push-to-talk button. She and her team established that they were connected. Michael checked in from the cockpit. His cold, sterile manner wasn’t lost on Lauren. He used the station numbers instead of their names. Behind her, she heard the low rumble as each of the big engines was started. She tried to relax as they began to taxi.

  A sharp ring sounded from her briefcase. Lauren immediately chastised herself for not switching off her cell phone when she’d entered the Gulfstream. In one swift motion she brought the instrument to her ear.

  “Lauren. I’m so glad I caught you.”

  “Mother,” Lauren said, sitting up straight in her chair, “where are you?”

  “Oh honey. This has been a nightmare. We’re in Newark, New Jersey. Our flight out of Baltimore was canceled. They promised me if I wanted to connect through Newark, Abigail and I could get to Chicago only forty-five minutes late. But we missed our connection. Now they don’t know when the next flight will be.”

  Lauren heard Abigail’s little voice in the background. Newark was only a few feet above sea level. If Helena wasn’t stopped, she’d easily wipe the airport from the map.

  “Mother, I’m in the Eco-Watch airplane. I’m not sure how long we’ll have this connection. Get on a flight. Any flight…I don’t care where you go, but get away from the coast.”

  “I’m trying. But the gate agent told me they’ve got delay problems all through the system. I’m sure it’ll be fine. They wouldn’t leave us here with the storm coming.”

  Lauren put her head back against the headrest. Her mother was being naïve. Lauren felt the self-recrimination coming in waves. She hadn’t been there to help them check in. Instead, she’d dropped them at the Baltimore airport and sped off. The guilt welled up inside and threatened to choke her.

  “Mother! We’re about to take off. I’m going to lose the connection. Please…do whatever it takes to get out of there.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Moments later, they took the runway and Lauren was pushed back in her seat as the Gulfstream accelerated down the concrete. They lifted off and began a steep climb, followed by a sweeping turn to the left.

  “Mother. Can you hear me?” Lauren listened for an answer, but was met with only silence.

  “Hello?” Lauren pulled the phone from her ear and saw that the signal had been lost. Her arm went limp and dropped into her lap. She suddenly wanted to be anywhere but headed out toward Helena. She should be on her way to Chicago with her mother and Abigail. She wouldn’t have allowed them to go to Newark. This was all her fault.

  Lauren tried to collect herself. If the next few hours went as planned, there wouldn’t be a hurricane anymore. Problem solved. But if they created something else, something more deadly…she pictured the intense, high-speed, hyper-cyclone she’d described to Calvin. Then she would have had a hand in killing not only thousands of people, but maybe her own mother and daughter.

  “Hey, Doctor,” Simmons transmitted through the intercom system. “You looking at what I’m looking at?”

  Brent turned around to look at her. His expression of excitement had vanished, replaced with a look of profound disbelief. Lauren glanced at her computer monitor as it began to fill with images. Her eyes jumped to the barometric pressure in Helena’s eye. It read 25.38 inches of mercury. It was the lowest pressure ever recorded. Helena had found a way to grow in the few hours since they’d last looked at the data. Straight in Helena’s path, the temperature of the ocean would steadily rise. The heat would be used to power the ferocious engine of Helena’s eye. She could intensify even more in her last remaining hours. Lauren wondered if anything on earth could stop such a powerful force.

  “I see it,” Lauren replied. “Let’s break into our specific areas. I’ll monitor Jonah. Brent, you keep an eye on each one of the communication interfaces. It’s critical we keep these wheels greased and the information headed to the lab. Carl, you’re in charge of collecting the upper wind data when we get closer. I want a detailed analysis starting at fifty miles from the eye.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Brent turned in his seat.

  “Lauren,” Simmons interjected. “It’ll be a while before we get there; do you mind if I connect to the mainframe? I’d like to plug this new data into our running model.”

  “Sure, have at it.” Lauren wished she could tell him not to bother with the time-consuming work, but she couldn’t.

  “Gives me something to do on the way out,” Carl replied.

  Lauren nodded absently and tried to focus on the task at hand. She knew she had to stop this hurricane. She began to click from one display to another as she continued to study the incoming data. Helena had far outstripped the minimum winds for a category five hurricane. Right this moment, spinning around the eye were winds in excess of 285 miles per hour. Lauren had no way to measure the height of the waves, but they had to be tremendous. She put the satellite image into motion and watched, transfixed at the violent rotation around the eye. She could tell from the scale that the tiny hole of calm placid air in the center of the storm was no more than fifteen to eighteen miles across. She expected that as the storm grew stronger, the eye could shrink by half. With a click of the mouse, she went back to the live Doppler image from Jonah. The intensity of the eye wall was beyond anything she’d ever seen. The mass of churning echoes spoke volumes about Helena’s fury. As she manually pivoted Jonah around 360 degrees, she cautiously noted that the greatest concentration of convective activity was along the southeastern quadrant. She didn’t expect that to change much in the next several hours. The bomb would have to be detonated in that area of the eye. The next, and more tricky of the calculations, would be to predict an altitude that would produce the maximum effect. She switched the image back again to the view from space. The curvature of the earth was clearly visible. She pondered the fact that if Mother Nature could produce a storm like this…she could also create a bigger one. The changing global climate would ensure that this same set of conditions could exist again. There wasn’t a city in the world that could withstand this kind of force. Lauren processed the numbers as they flashed on her screen. Right now, Helena was more tornado than hurricane—she was a two-hundred-mile-wide tornado. But instead of passing in a matter of seconds, as a true tornado would, Helena would be far more leisurely, taking hours as she ensured complete destruction of anything in her path.

  Lauren looked out at the clouds as they broke into the clear morning sky. She couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach about her mother and daughter. What was happening? Her mother didn’t have a cell phone, or Lauren would be trying to reach her on Galileo’s satellite phone. Perhaps she could relay a message through Calvin. Maybe he could find out if they were going to make it out of Newark.

  Abruptly, her thoughts shifted to Donovan. She couldn’t shake the look on his face, the betrayal in his eyes. What in the world had spawned such a total reversal from Saturday? Waves of regret washed over her as she thought of all the times she’d almost called him, the nights when she wanted nothing more than to go to him. Now he was in trouble, and he’d accused her of something she knew nothing about.

  “Dr. McKenna,” Carl’s voice sounded through her headset. “Lauren…we’re coming up on the first dropsonde point.”

  “So soon?” Lauren leaned forward as she checked the time. She chastised herself for letting her thoughts distract her. Their scientific work began in earnest once the first of many dropsondes were released from the Gulfstream. Suspended from a small parachute, the instruments in the dropso
ndes would relay barometric pressure, temperature, and wind flow. They would also measure the dew point and the GPS Doppler frequency shifts, which in turn would give her the best information about the horizontal and vertical wind components. The data would then be forwarded back to DIA for further analysis. In the end, the crew of the B-1 bomber would have what they needed to deliver their package.

  “We’re still fifteen minutes from the eye,” Carl reported. “But I’m going to start my telemetry readings.”

  Lauren’s eyes danced around her instruments. They were level at 45,000 feet. The clouds seemed to boil just beneath them. She guessed the tops were around 43,000 feet or so, far higher than most hurricanes.

  “Something is happening to Jonah,” Carl announced as he began furiously to type on his keyboard.

  Lauren’s practiced eye scanned her computer screen looking for the cause of the problem.

  “I’ve lost Jonah.” Carl held his hands out in disbelief.

  “Don’t move, Carl!” Brent threatened. “Raise your hands and put them behind your head.”

  Startled, Lauren looked up to see that Brent had a gun pointed at Carl.

  “Stay where you are, Lauren.” Brent moved from behind his console.

  “Brent, what’s the meaning of all this?” Lauren’s eyes went from the gun to the determined expression on Brent’s face. “What are you doing?”

  “Carl just shut down Jonah. I watched him send the commands.”

  Lauren looked at Carl. “Did you?”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “I’m with Internal Investigations.” Brent kept the gun trained on Carl’s chest. “I’ve been monitoring your actions since we left Dulles. I saw what you did, Carl. Now I need you to move slowly away from the console.”

  “Do it, Carl.” Lauren felt her anger began to rise. She knew him well enough to believe the flushed look on his face was one of guilt.

  “Fine!” Carl pulled his girth up from his chair. “But you’re both wrong! I wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t supposed to!”