Buzz had no idea why they were making this trip. He’d gotten the impression that Buchanan had hoped he’d have a simple solution to her problems that only required a little practical support to see actioned. She’d turned out to be a lot sharper than he’d originally thought—quite the actor, as well as a politician of cunning and determination. Behind the friendly, middle-aged face lurked a smoldering anger, and Buzz wasn’t entirely sure where she was directing her rage. She didn’t like Lundberg, that much was obvious, or the organization she headed up, but he couldn’t help but wonder whether there was more to it. He wasn’t the most empathetic of men, so he often found people hard to read, but he thought he could detect, lurking under her patient questioning, a foundation of guilt. He felt as though she was looking for a way to deflect blame from herself even though she claimed never to have been involved with SaPIEnT in anything other than the most oblique way as a member of the president’s cabinet.
“So, Doctor Baxter,” Kessler said, twisting in his seat to focus his small eyes on Buzz. “This tiny scrap of land in Pennsylvania is most of what remains of the eastern United States.”
Buzz watched the countryside slip past as they headed south along a narrow road. “What about the Appalachians?” He remembered the map Jodi had made—the mountain range was the only significant land above water according to her, and Max’s version had confirmed this.
“The surface area of the eastern United States has decreased to around ten percent of the previous value. The Appalachians form what is effectively a large island in the east representing most of the dry land remaining. However, they are mountains. Hazleton is the largest city above water.”
Buzz leaned back in the seat as his mind fought against the enormity of the disaster. He thought he’d understood it when he’d been flying over the sea, but he’d been wrong.
“Approximately two thirds of the population of the United States' inhabited areas that are now underwater,” Kessler continued. "Over two hundred million people.”
“Jeez,” Jodi whispered.
Buzz turned his head to find Kessler looking at him, as a biologist might examine some crawling thing under a microscope slide.
“Where are we going?” Buzz asked again, suddenly feeling as weary as Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“To meet some of the survivors.”
#
It was the most pathetic thing he’d ever seen on American soil. They’d been waved through a checkpoint north of the airport on a stretch of flat ground covered mainly in grass with the occasional tree. At least, it had once been covered by grass. Now it looked like the world’s biggest rock festival after a torrential storm. Tents of all shapes, sizes and colors had been vomited over a formerly pristine landscape that was now a sea of mud. The place stank of sewage so much he could taste it in the air.
“Good God,” Buzz said. “How many?”
“Around ten thousand in this camp, and there are over a hundred camps of various sizes.”
“A million people?”
Kessler nodded. “The lucky ones. The first thousands were those who were near enough to be able to escape the waves in their cars. Since then, the Navy and Air Force have been picking up survivors wherever they find them.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
Kessler blinked as if to suggest that it wasn’t his personal problem, but then seemed to understand. “We are building more permanent settlements on the main island. There’s a strait between us and the Appalachians, and, as accommodation becomes available, the Navy is moving people from the temporary camps.”
“Where’s the food coming from?” Jodi asked as they got out of the car.
“FEMA’s emergency stockpile. Mostly from storage in the western states.”
Buzz watched as figures moved along the muddy paths between tents. They had the hopeless look of refugees everywhere: stuck in medieval conditions having left everything they knew behind them. “What happens when FEMA runs out? Good God, is there any agricultural land left?”
He could see the hopelessness on Kessler’s prematurely aged face. “Very little. Already, we’re having…difficulty persuading the western states to release enough aid as they come to terms with the fact that they rely on agricultural produce from the east that is now underwater.”
He turned to Buzz, and gestured at the tent city with his hands. “This is why we need a scientific answer.”
“What makes you think I can come up with one?”
Kessler shrugged. “The president believes in you, Doctor Baxter. You were, after all, the one who warned SaPIEnT of the danger in what they were doing. She thinks that if these xenobots caused this disaster then perhaps they can fix it. She has ordered a Minotaur to be made ready for use at short notice. It’s a rocket.”
It took Buzz a few seconds to recover. Of course, this was exactly what he hoped—though fix was too strong a word. The water-world wasn’t a pair of jeans with a rip he could sew together. Nothing could bring back the billions who’d died. But he was even more shocked that the president had gone as far as preparing for a launch. Even he didn’t have that much faith in his own abilities.
“Hey, buddy!”
A man in a mud-stained city suit was wading toward him, shoes squelching, arm raised. Kessler glanced at one of the guards standing beside the checkpoint who moved to intercept the man.
“No!” Buzz shouted. “Leave him alone.” And he accelerated to meet the man before the guard could get to him.
“Do you work for FEMA?” he asked.
Buzz reckoned this was a man who was used to the finer things in life, a man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted when he wanted it.
“No. I’m a scientist. Buzz Baxter,” he put out his hand and the man reluctantly took it, examining him with curious blue eyes that seemed all the brighter for the grime on his face.
“Clarke. Clarke Hovind. I work…I worked at Covie and Skunk. At the Trade Center.”
Buzz pictured in his mind’s eye the One World Trade Center standing proud over the water.
“And the Navy rescued you?”
He nodded. “After two weeks. Jeez, we were close to eating each other by then. Had to slide down a chute to get out. Been stuck here ever since, eating beans and getting no information.”
“You’re the lucky ones,” Freeman said, tugging on Buzz’s arm.
“You son of a bitch!” Hovind snapped, jabbing a finger in Kessler’s face. “Know where my wife and kids were while I was working sixty hours a week trying to keep rich people out of the courts? In New Jersey! As soon as I saw the wave come in, I knew they were dead. Do you even have anyone to care about?”
Buzz pulled his arm away from Kessler’s grip and turned to face the stricken man. “I’m sorry, Clarke, I really am. We’ve all lost people, even my…friend here.”
“You gotta do something,” Hovind pleaded. “This is no way to live,” he continued, gesturing at the muddy tents. “There has to be an answer. Or we’re finished.”
Buzz shook his hand again and nodded, then turned and followed the others back to the car.
Jodi, who’d watched from a distance, sidled up to him. “I take it all back, Uncle. Give it your best shot—whatever you do can’t make things worse than this.”
Chapter 13
Crossley
They weren’t killed in the night.
Ellie woke up and rolled over in her narrow bed as daylight leaked in behind the drapes, illuminating a wall containing a poster proclaiming Paris, here we come!
No, you won’t be going to Paris. It was currently under several hundred feet of water. She found herself wondering, as she yawned, whether the only evidence that Paris had ever existed was now the tip of the Eiffel Tower—a nineteenth century monument to hope that had never been surpassed.
She rolled over and sat up. Patrick’s underpants were on the floor, robbing her of the warm memory she’d been enjoying as she’d come around. Patrick had sn
uck into the room in the early hours and had remained until she’d kicked him out. She didn’t care how much she liked someone, she wasn’t sharing a single bed for any longer than necessary.
She padded into the living area and toward the smell of roasting coffee. No, it was the instant stuff, but it would do.
“Morning, love,” Patrick said, turning as she came in. Mercifully, he’d gotten dressed and had the air of a man who’d had a warm and satisfying post-passion shower.
She smiled and took the cup from him and a seat at the small breakfast bar.
“Porridge?” he asked. Then, with a sigh, “Oatmeal?”
“Sure.”
She sat and watched him as he competently managed not to burn her breakfast. He certainly seemed to be the complete package.
They were all up and dressed by the time the door lock clicked again and Masterson glanced inside, the relief obvious on her face.
She came inside and closed the door behind her. Hank was sitting on the sofa, trying to rub life into his legs. Sitting alongside him, Max looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink as he yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Did you find the German?” Ellie asked.
“No. We found where he’d tended himself, but even with half the department going door to door, we couldn’t find any more trace. I guess he’s ex-military. Certainly handles a gun like it.”
“So, what happens next? Another interview with your charming boss?”
A slight smile ghosted across her lips. “No. The city manager wants to see you.”
“What? Why?”
“Who knows? My guess is he wants to hear about Arkansas and the South. We haven’t had many visitors from that direction.”
“Will we be able to continue on our journey?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve got no idea. I’m just a cop. But I’d rather be in your shoes than mine. I’ve got to go see Nelson’s family today.”
An hour later, they were traveling northwest in a large BMW minivan with darkened windows.
“We’ll take you to the ferry,” the man in the front with the dark sunglasses said. “The city’s cut in two along the line of the river. Or where the river used to be.”
As they went north, they saw more and more movement through the toughened glass windows. Figures in Army uniforms manned checkpoints and Ellie could see others unloading what looked like boxes of supplies. They passed two schools whose recreational fields were now tent cities, people moving between tents and busily putting up more.
There was a sense of watchfulness over the streets, and it seemed to Ellie that most of the houses here were empty. When she looked closer, she could see that some of the houses and, in particular, larger buildings that might have been grocery stores, had burned to the ground. Had there been looting here?
The man in dark glasses turned from his seat in the front and seemed to think he knew what she was thinking. “Unless the water goes down, we’re probably gonna have to abandon this part of the city and move people to the west. There’s plenty of room out there, but not many places for folks to live without doing a ton of building.”
As he spoke, a huge truck with some sort of hose attachment lumbered to a halt and the street was instantly full of people carrying bottles, pitchers and buckets, forming a line beside the truck.
Ellie felt such a fool. Of course their water supply would have been at best contaminated and at worst overwhelmed by saltwater. How many people lived in the city? She had no idea, but it had to be hundreds of thousands. She realized, as she gazed around at the people patiently waiting in line, that this sense of order and a new normality she’d felt was a brittle facade. What would happen if the truck didn’t turn up?
“Here we are,” he said as the minivan slowed down and began running over grass.
Ellie looked out to see they were on a recreation ground that gently sloped down to meet the water. A red brick school building ran alongside and a wooden ramp had been built, at the end of which waited an open-top ferry. Two guards stood at the end of the ramp, waving them on. Beyond them, she could see a column of smoke billowing into the air across the river.
“Looks like it belongs in a museum,” Ellie muttered as the minivan moved slowly along the temporary jetty and onto the ferry’s aft deck.
Ellie climbed out and stood on the rusting metal deck looking out at the city. To either side, the taller buildings poked out of the water until, finally, the last of them dipped below.
“I used to work there,” the man in the sunglasses said. “The bridge across the river was down there. Do you think the water will ever go down again?”
Ellie shook her head. “No idea. Even if it does it’ll leave a hell of a mess behind, what with mud and…”
“Yeah. There’s no going back to the way it was, is there?”
“I don’t think so,” Ellie responded, looking at him through the corners of her eyes. A young man—in his twenties, perhaps—whose plans and dreams had been drowned in a single day.
She looked out to her left as a group of tower blocks rose out of the water. As they shifted perspective, she could see a smaller tower behind the tallest one. Smoke rose up, engulfing the other buildings before thinning in the air above.
“That’s Devon Tower,” the man said, pointing at the larger building.
“And the one on fire?”
The young man smiled for the first time. “That’s the IRS. The fire’s been going for days, but the fire department chief says it’s best to let it burn itself out. His people have enough to do.”
Ellie snorted. “So, there is such a thing as justice.”
It took half an hour for the ferry to reach the other side, and they had the bizarre experience of being taken down a ramp onto the roof of an arena, then on a long, gently descending series of ramps that went from roof to roof until, finally, they made it to dry land. Only just, however—the water was yards away.
They came down onto the road and, suddenly, they were in a normal city of concrete and brick buildings, For Lease signs and Do Not Enter notices. The traffic was light, but cars and trucks were moving, mixed in with military vehicles. Small groups of people moved back and forth, some of them in business suits.
“People are going to work?” Patrick said, staring out incredulously.
Their guide looked surprised. “Those who’ve got jobs want to hold onto them. And most of these people will be working for the government anyway.”
“But what government?” Ellie asked shrewdly.
She could tell she’d hit the mark by the expression on the young man’s face. “Most people are working for the city, whether they’re city, state or federal employees. Okie City is really all that matters here.”
“What about the federal government?”
He shook his head. “You’re gonna have to ask the city manager about that.”
“Look,” he added in a quiet voice as he leaned toward her, “you seem nice, but you need to be careful.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, disturbed by his sudden change of tone.
He glanced around as if deciding what it was safe to say. “Things might look pretty normal, but they’re not. A few days after the water came in, there was a…dispute between the city manager and the governor—the capitol is just up the hill, you’ll see it in a minute.”
Ellie glanced over his shoulder to see the dome of the capitol building and knew they had little time. “What happened?”
“The governor took control, brought in the National Guard. It all went to hell in a handbasket, and then the TAG—the commander of the guard—sided with Crossley, the city manager. The governor’s been locked up in the capitol since.”
“Why did the commander join Crossley?”
“That’s enough, Dan,” the driver said, one hand grabbing the jacket shoulder of the man in the sunglasses and pulling him away.
“Just be careful,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Ellie settled back and swapped a look with P
atrick, who seemed as shocked as she was. Disasters—natural or unnatural—were bad enough, but to upturn the government when they should surely be uniting against adversity? She felt as though she were stumbling into the middle of someone else’s battle with no idea whose side she should be on.
As she looked through the windshield, the dome appeared to veer off to the right as the minivan came to a halt outside a nondescript rectangular building. Groups of soldiers stood outside and on the steps leading up to the glass entrance doors.
The man in dark glasses jumped out and opened the car doors as Ellie and the others climbed down. As she shimmied along the seat, she glanced in the rear to see Max shoving his laptop in his bag.
“What have you been doing?” she hissed, keeping out of earshot of their minders.
Max merely shrugged.
“Hasn’t your meddling got us into enough trouble already? Do you want that terminator to find us?”
“I took precautions,” he muttered.
Ellie laughed. “Oh, I’ve heard that before!” And, again, she saw Bobby’s face. On the day he’d confessed. She’d revealed her pregnancy to him, expecting support in her devastation, even though she’d known that he wanted children. He hadn’t even bothered to hide his delight.
“Wait! Do not go into that den of iniquity!”
They were approaching the bottom of the short flight of steps leading into the building. Beside them, standing just in front of the soldiers, was a small group of men and women holding messages scrawled on cardboard.
An old man wearing a yellow baseball cap seemed to be their leader. “We have sinned!” he bellowed. “And this is God’s punishment visited upon us. We must cast out the evil among us and prostrate ourselves before our Lord. We must beg for His mercy lest He wreaks final vengeance upon us all!”
Patrick, who was nearest to the old man, clearly couldn’t contain himself. “Seriously? Have you been east? How much worse could it get?”
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