5 Days to Landfall

by Robert Roy Britt

  “I promise you I’ll talk to the forecaster in charge—Chen I think is his name. You’ve got nothing to do with this as I see it.”

  “I’ve got everything to do with it,” Amanda shouted. “It’s my goddamn storm!”

  “Ms. Cole. You folks warned me about Gert, too, and it didn’t come our way. Now. Haven’t we had our big hurricane for the year? Besides, the Hurricane Center hasn’t issued a warning. I’m not a fool. I’m not going to tell millions of New Yorkers to leave town just because you tell me to. Especially not because you tell me to. You’re not even at the Hurricane Center, for God’s sake.”

  “Look, Leonard.” She was calmer, but still with the edge in her voice. “I’m sifting through the data right now, as we speak. I’m certain that Harvey has a good shot at New York. I’m going to call Frank Delaney as soon as I pin down a couple of things. He’s going to issue a warning at eight o’clock, I’m sure of it. Now, it’ll take up to nine hours to clear Manhattan, fifteen for Brooklyn. Harvey could be here in ten or twelve hours. What the hell are you waiting for?”

  “Ms. Cole, I’m tiring of this conversation. Now. It’s time for you to run off and do whatever it is you do when you’re on vacation. I’ll worry about my job. “

  “You should worry.”

  ***

  Lassitor was pretty sure it was the LORAX that had Amanda so fired up. At any rate, he had just about all the information he needed. He wanted one last look at the computer model. He pointed his Internet browser to the site, typed in nhctest1 in the I.D. and password fields. A message flashed on his screen:

  The password “nhctest1” is not valid. Please try your password again.

  Lassitor understood. They’d locked him out. Now he was sure the LORAX was going to be the basis for the official forecast.

  CHAPTER 32

  Goddard Space Flight Center

  7:12 a.m.

  The technician was sweating. His wife had taken a turn for the worse last night.

  Possibly just another dip in the roller-coaster ride of a cancer patient. She would probably feel better by afternoon. But maybe not. Either way, she was still dying. He’d spent the night trying to put food in her. His daughter was staying at her grandmother’s, again.

  All that on his mind, the man in the perfect suit had called. The technician had raced to Goddard, slipped unnoticed into Building 28. His shift didn’t start for another two hours.

  The technician’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. He hesitated.

  A hundred thousand dollars.

  The commands were simple, though he’d had to rewrite them slightly for the LORAX. They would be buried deep within the computer model’s code. Nobody would find them for at least a couple days, wouldn’t even know what they were looking for. And they’d have no way to trace how they got there. The technician would act just as surprised as everyone else. In the meantime, the computer model would be inoperable. But what would that matter? The LORAX wasn’t in the official forecasting suite anyway. Still, he’d gotten that strange request from Frank Delaney to keep the program running.

  But surely they wouldn’t make an official forecast with a test model.

  The technician took a deep breath, thought about the evil cancer sucking the life out of his wife, thought about raising his daughter alone. He typed the commands and hit the enter button. He tried to swallow but found no saliva. He grabbed his coat and headed out of the building. He had a meeting with the man in the perfect suit in an hour. Pick up the money. Home free.

  CHAPTER 33

  Manhattan

  7:17 a.m.

  Amanda pored over the data, squinting. The latest measurements from the Hurricane Hunters, including a critical extrap that fixed the hurricane’s current center, completed a vital piece of the complicated puzzle she had in her head: Harvey was picking up speed faster than even Amanda expected.

  Other data showed her that the high-pressure area moving across the country, which she had hoped would kick Harvey out to sea, was weakening and slowing down. The LORAX understood the gravity of these measurements, taken far in front of the storm. The other models did not.

  It was decision time now. She knew what the LORAX was thinking. Harvey was expected to make a sharp dogleg to the west and squeeze between the two areas of high pressure, just as she’d explained on TV: like toothpaste out of a tube squashed between a child’s fists. She needed only to check it one last time and make sure that the LORAX’s forecast was in line with what she had deciphered. During the time it had taken her to comprehend the data, the LORAX should have moved its forecast in line with the one in Amanda’s brain. The red line ought to be pointing directly at Manhattan by now. She pointed her Internet browser to the LORAX’s site, entered her password.

  Once inside the non-public area, she clicked on a link to the forecasted track. A message flashed on her screen:

  Document contains no data.

  “What the hell? Not again!”

  She returned to the previous page, clicked on the link again. Same message. Oh, Jeez. Not now. Not the LORAX. Something was terribly wrong. Amanda called Frank Delaney. The director sounded tired and rushed.

  “Frank, what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Delaney said. “I went to look at the LORAX a while ago, and there was nothing there.”

  “You call Goddard?”

  “Yeah. They don’t have a clue,” he said. “Tried to get it back online but couldn’t. Said it might be a few hours.”

  “A few hours! We need it right this minute. I’ve been going over the data, and I think I know what’s going on. Jeez, I just wanted to confirm what I already suspected.”

  “Chen has to spit out the eight a.m. in a few minutes. He’s recommending we go with the GFDL, of course. I’m going to personally approve the bulletin. Christ, maybe I’ll write it myself.

  “That would be smart, Frank.” He’d know what she meant.

  “Regardless of what we decide, I’ll get on the horn to New York, call all the emergency officials I know there and tell them what’s going on. Chen has a couple of close friends up there, too. He can make a couple calls. But they’re so damn disorganized, you know? I don’t know who the hell is calling the shots. It’s really the public bulletin that will count.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Still trying to decide. The dogleg is a possibility, but…”

  “It’s a big storm,” Amanda said. “It’s running on adrenaline now. I’m not even sure the LORAX would understand it. When it ran the last data set, it seemed to think the trough has enough oomph to carry the storm due north. If I understand the model at all, it figures Harvey is going to bully right through the continental high. Right now the red line would be pointing at Manhattan. If it were running.”

  “Amanda. It’s your model. Your storm. You know them both better than anyone. And we know the dangers, either way. If I pick New York as the official track when none of our operational models do, it could be the end of my career. Yours too. We both know what happens if I’m wrong the other way. It’s time, Amanda. Decide. Your call.”

  “You can’t do that to me, Frank.”

  “I just did.”

  It was the one thing she was afraid of, though she’d never told Delaney. Tell me to guess where a storm’s going, and I’ll go out on a limb, make that educated guess, place my bet.

  She thought about the bet she’d placed on Harvey, the email she’d sent to herself back on Sunday. It had been a long shot, a small amount of science and experience mixed with big doses of intuition and guessing. But now it was looking like she might actually win that dinner from Frank Delaney. The idea of betting on the storm suddenly made her nauseous. Now she had to make a decision, and it wasn’t about winning or losing dinner. It was about people’s lives. We tell everybody that the storm’s coming to New York City, people could die trying to evacuate. We don’t issue the warning, more people could die.

  “Amanda?”

  Something in De
laney’s voice, the urgency, made her mind up for her.

  “Do it.”

  “Done,” Delaney said.

  CHAPTER 34

  OUTSIDE Santo Domingo,

  Dominican Republic

  7:55 a.m.

  Maximo was pacing around the pool, alone, clutching his cell phone. He was peeved. Terese had avoided him last night, but that was to be expected. He was surprised this morning, though, to learn she had left during the night. No one left the Perez estate without permission. And she’d taken her passport. She was fleeing. It was a transgression he could not allow. She would have to be punished, and that fact was responsible for his foul mood.

  He admitted to himself that he was in love with Terese. He was regretting the way he’d treated her yesterday, and now his show of power had escalated out of his control. One thing about power was certain: Once you made a show of it, you could not back down or you would lose it forever.

  He should have known the strong-willed girl might do this. He wished he’d thought to have someone watch her last night to keep her from running off. Given a day or two to sulk, she might have forgiven him and they might have continued their relationship. But not now.

  He had his two best men out looking for her, and he considered how they would treat her. One of his most effective tools for maintaining allegiance was that everyone in the organization feared being hunted down by Maximo’s men. Maximo let them do as they wished, and he never got involved in the details of punishment. It was one aspect of the organization about which he never asked.

  He kept pacing around the pool. In his mind, he pictured Terese standing in front of him yesterday, naked and dripping. Thoughts of what his men would do to her flashed through his mind, and he winced.

  Finally, the cell phone rang. “Nombre?”

  “Octopus.”

  “I’m getting nervous, my friend. A nervous Maximo is not a pleasant Maximo. Now, what do you have for me?”

  “Our technician friend at Goddard has done his job. Things are in a great state of confusion. Don’t pay attention to the news. The Hurricane Center knows this one is heading to New York.”

  “You wouldn’t think of deceiving me.”

  “Of course not, Maximo. Then you’d have to kill me.”

  Maximo didn’t laugh. “You learn well, my friend. Now, one last time. Do you see everything just as you’ve told me before? Is this PrimeCo the right company?”

  The Octopus’ reply was cold and certain. “Bet the farm, Maximo.”

  Maximo rounded a corner of the pool and faced his huge home. A compound, really. It was among the finest haciendas in the Dominican Republic, all built with the sweat of his own labor. Not physical labor, but the labor of calculated intimidation, the labor of organization, the labor of leadership. Only a few men were born leaders, and Maximo Perez had always considered himself one of them. Nobody had ever given him anything. He’d earned every dime he had made, no matter how illegally.

  But the political costs of the drug business took their financial toll. The payoffs were steep and had kept Maximo from his goal of being not just among the richest Dominicans, but the richest. At forty-seven, he figured he had only a few years’ worth of energy left to get there.

  The Perez compound sat atop the highest hill for miles, and afforded a splendid view of the mountains outside Santo Domingo. But there were others on the island that were bigger, more lavish, with more land and more servants and more women. Maximo wanted to buy them all.

  Betting a big chunk of the farm on Hurricane Harvey would be one large step toward that goal. Maximo steeled his mind, made his final decision.

  “I plan to do nearly that,” he finally replied. “And if we win, I’ll have a delightful young thing waiting here to give you more pleasure than you’ve ever imagined. Now, yesterday you told me that a lot of people would try to leave through the bridges and tunnels.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “What would be a good time for an accident or two to suddenly close these bridges and tunnels?”

  “Maximo. Are you taking out a little insurance against me?”

  “You ought to have known.”

  “Yes, I guess so. Well, if the storm speeds up as expected, I’d say around three or four o’clock would be good.”

  “Very well.” Maximo cleared the line without saying goodbye, then he dialed a number in New Jersey. He might trust an American to help plan a scheme, but to secure the outcome he chose an old Dominican friend.

  ***

  “The 7:42 flight to Miami is running a little late,” said the woman at the American Airlines ticket counter. “It’s boarding now. If we hurry, you can still catch it.”

  With nervous, shaking hands, Terese gave the ticket agent her American passport and a wad of cash. She looked around furtively while the agent processed the ticket. She hadn’t seen anyone she recognized yet.

  Terese had ridden half the way toward the northern coast of the island in the back of a truck loaded with sugar cane. The driver hadn’t even seen her hop aboard in the predawn darkness. As soon as Maximo realized she had fled, he would have sent his men looking for her. They would most likely check Las Americas airport in Santo Domingo, less than an hour’s drive southeast from the Perez estate. So she went north toward the more distant La Union airport in the resort town of Puerto Plata. She thumbed the final two hours, hitching two rides over rugged mountains and through lush valleys, then took a taxi for the final stretch. There wasn’t much traffic so early in the morning, and it had taken a while to catch the rides. It had all taken longer than she had hoped. For all she knew, Maximo’s men might be right on her heels.

  Her mind was spinning in an adrenaline overdrive. She needed to get on that plane. And she wanted to warn somebody.

  To hell with Maximo. The fucking slave owner.

  Maximo’s empire had always fed off the weak, the helpless, those who were least capable of scraping together the money needed to buy their next fix. Terese knew all about those kind of people. She’d been one of them.

  That was all after she left New York, after she left the only man who’d ever treated her like an equal. He was good to her. And he loved her. But he was so content living each day as it came. That worked for Terese for a while. But he was older, settled, a working man. Terese was young, and she wanted to hold the world in her hand, live the good life. She ran off to the Caribbean to look for it, left her man behind. Now she would give anything to be back in those warm, confident arms.

  Maximo never really loved her. Not the way she knew it could be. And now he was going to kill innocent people. Thousands of them.

  The agent smiled and handed the ticket over. Terese did her best to look composed, took the ticket, then turned and scanned the airport as she headed toward the gate.

  The flight was nearly finished boarding. Terese wanted desperately to tell someone about what she knew was going to happen. Not telling would make her an accomplice, she reasoned. But she could not think of anyone to call. Who would believe her? Who could do anything about it? There was only one person. She went to the pay phone and dialed the number in New York with shaky fingers.

  ***

  “Hello?”

  It was a woman’s voice on the other end of the crackly connection, and it threw Terese off balance. Her heart dropped. Her mind was still thinking in Spanish when she finally spoke.

  “Puedo hablar con Juan?”

  “What? Hello?”

  Terese realized the woman didn’t speak Spanish. “I’m sorry. Is Juan there?”

  “No,” the woman said. “I was hoping this was Juan calling. Do you know where he is?”

  “No,” Terese said, confused. “Who’s this?”

  “Amanda Cole,” the woman said. “Um, can I take a message?”

  Terese had heard of Amanda Cole. But was she Juan’s girlfriend now? In a deep recess of her mind she had held onto the romantic idea that he would always wait for her, even though she had left him so abruptly, so coldl
y. She had to know.

  “Amanda, are you his, his…” she couldn’t say it, and the question hung.

  “No. I’m just a friend,” Amanda said.

  Terese exhaled. She spoke cautiously: “Tell Juan I’m… I’m coming. That I’ll…”

  “Listen. I’m really busy right now. There’s a helluva storm coming this way and, well, I guess I’m in charge of it. But I can’t find Juan, and I’m worried about him. So if you hear from him, please tell him to let me know he’s OK.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about,” Terese said. “I wanted to tell Juan that, well, I don’t suppose you’ll believe me.”

  “Believe what?”

  Terese pulled the receiver away from her ear and strained to hear the airport loudspeaker. The flight to Miami was making its final boarding call. She glanced around. Far down a long hallway she saw two men walking briskly toward her. She couldn’t make out their faces, but it made her nervous. She thought for a second. Who was this woman? Was there any point in telling her? Did she have time?

  “You said you’re in charge of the storm?”

  “Yes, I’m a forecaster.”

  “Maybe it’s better to tell you, then. My name is Terese. I’m in the Dominican Republic. There’s a man there who’s going to try and ruin the evacuation.”

  “Who?”

  “The Octopus is all I know him by. He’s got help from some place called Goddard. And there’s going to be some accidents.”

  “Accidents?” Amanda said. “Where? What are you talking about?”

  The two men down the hallway were moving more quickly. Terese recognized them. “Shit,” she said into the phone. “I have to go.”

  “Wait! Who’s the Octopus, where does he work?”

  Terese didn’t hear Amanda. The phone swung from its cord as she rushed toward the gate.