5 Days to Landfall

by Robert Roy Britt

  CHAPTER 35

  Aboard Hugo

  8:01 a.m.

  Jack used his sleeve to wipe the puke from his computer. The ride was getting worse. Hugo pitched and tossed so violently that Jack wondered why the wings didn’t just fall off. He tried to focus his eyes on something, the endless colored wires and tubes running along the ceiling of the fuselage, the galaxy of flashing lights from computers and airplane controls and radar screens, the bulky silver fuel tank in front of him. Each time he blinked his vision shuddered, the inside of the plane rippled like the reflection in a pond disturbed by a pebble. If he closed his eyes he felt dizzy and sick again. There was nothing left in his stomach, which was sore from heaving, so he kept his eyes open and waited for the WC-130 to become the first casualty of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron.

  Jack should have been writing a story, but he couldn’t see the point. His computer still rested on his lap, the screen folded open, but he’d stopped taking notes. He didn’t want to be here anyway, didn’t want to write this story. Hugo jerked, seemed to stop flying, suspending its forward speed. The shoulder harness grabbed him as his head was thrown forward. The plane rocked to the left, dipped and shook. Jack took a deep breath, closed his eyes and squeezed the armrests until his fingernails bled.

  Hugo made one last hard shudder before it surged forward into a smooth pocket of air. The four engines relaxed. They were in the eye.

  “Free time,” came Barnes’ voice over the intercom. “Stretch your legs, have a look. Sorry for the rocky ride. Hope everybody is OK.”

  “Fuck you,” Jack muttered under his breath. He undid his seat belt and shoulder harness, made his way slowly, shakily, to a window.

  He looked up at the towering, circular wall of clouds that seemed to converge over the top of the plane as if in a photo taken through a wide-angle lens. Blue circle at the top. It reminded Jack of the Colosseum in Rome. The air inside the plane grew gradually warmer with the increased temperature in the eye. The smell of vomit grew with it.

  Five-thousand feet below, the sea could be mistaken for the Swiss Alps. Winds swirling inward from all points on the compass pushed waves in every direction, sending them crashing into each other, a war of clashing whitecaps.

  The weather officer studied the waves, too. “There’s the center,” he said. “Calm spot on the water at two o’clock.”

  The plane banked slightly, leveled off. In the back, the dropsonde operator loaded a canister into the launch tube.

  “Winds are dying down,” the weather officer said. “Shifting… shifting… Fix it!”

  Jack heard a loud clink-chunk.

  “Sonde away,” announced the dropsonde operator. The navigator noted Hugo’s position and the exact center of the storm had been fixed. The dropsonde would return important data to the plane as it fell, then the small metal canister would hit the water and send up a precise measurement of atmospheric pressure at sea level, the most vital statistic indicating the storm’s strength.

  Jack looked over the weather officer’s shoulder. His screen was crowded with meaningless numbers. “High-density data,” he explained. “Computer is collecting position and weather information every thirty seconds and encoding it for transmission.”

  For the first time during the flight, Jack felt calm. He almost smiled at all he’d gone through in the past five days. Seeing Amanda Cole again and falling in love so fast. Facing Gert. Amanda saving his life. Kissing him. Talking obliquely about a life together. A life together. What the hell am I doing up here?

  Jack wanted nothing now except to get his feet on the ground and find Amanda.

  ***

  Barnes looked at Duggan. “We got everything we need?”

  “Yep,” said the copilot. “Let’s go home. I’m not having any fun today.”

  “Which way?”

  “Wall of lightning ahead,” Duggan said. “I vote we backtrack.”

  “Wasn’t exactly a party back that way,” Barnes said.

  “Known evil versus the unknown.”

  Barnes considered the options. There was one narrow hole in the southeast quadrant, but it was unclear if it was any better than the spot they penetrated in the north. The rest of the eyewall was rampant with thunderstorms. There was no good way out.

  Barnes flicked a switch to broadcast on the intercom: “OK, folks. Take your seats. We’re going to do a one-eighty and exit the eye back where we came in. Looks like it’s the only soft spot. Hold tight and count your blessings.”

  “Whaddya think?” Duggan asked. “Record barf-bag count today?”

  “Not now,” Barnes said sternly. It was no time to play the copilot’s game of speculation on how the newsies would fare. Hugo swung a ponderous arc and headed back toward the eyewall. Duggan became uncharacteristically quiet. Barnes chewed his gum, now a tough, flavorless ball of hard rubber. He double-checked the gauges.

  “Oh, my. Oil pressure’s low on three.”

  “Shit,” Duggan said. “Kill it?”

  “Not yet. Watch it, see if it moves. Hang on.”

  Hugo was seconds from the eyewall. Barnes couldn’t avoid entering it now if he wanted to. There was nothing to hang around for anyway. Many times he had witnessed birds taking refuge in the eye, following the storm until it made landfall or dissipated. A parrot might end up in Boston. Hugo didn’t have enough fuel to consider that option.

  “Still dropping,” Duggan said.

  “Shit. Hugo, you bastard.” Barnes spit his gum at the sea of instruments in front of him, glanced at the oil-pressure gauge. It was sinking, slowly but steadily. “Shut it down.”

  ***

  Jack barely noticed the difference when four engines became three. But in the brief instant before hitting the eyewall, the drop in sound level was unmistakable. The plane shuddered with the initial impact, as winds suddenly changed from nothing to the strongest in the storm. Jack’s computer, not yet a week old, rose from his lap as though suspended by an invisible wire, then fell to the hard metal floor and broke into two pieces.

  He struggled against his shoulder harness to see if the props were turning, but he couldn’t see far enough out the wing. Sheets of lightning illuminated the scud of clouds. Visibility was zero. A strange feeling welled up, something that must have been claustrophobia, though Jack had never felt it before. The plane was over the sea, wrapped up in a storm made mostly of water. And now, down an engine, Hugo was being kicked around like a tin can on a playground. Jack Corbin suddenly felt that the airplane he was riding in was nothing more than a huge metallic coffin.

  CHAPTER 36

  TriBeCa

  8:13 a.m.

  The tunnel was twice as creepy without Juan Rico to hold her hand. She wished she could have got a hold of Rico so he could do this. Somebody had to. She wrote Rico a quick note about Terese, that she was coming. Amanda had known of Terese, but on the phone there hadn’t been time to say so. She was still trying to make sense of the phone call.

  Now she was beginning to question her decision to come into the tunnels. She hadn’t heard the rats yet, but it felt like they were there. She was a hundred yards down the abandoned tunnel, wondering if she could even find the small hole in the wall. The stench was worse than it had been before, and she had on only a thin t-shirt with a low-cut neckline—nothing to pull over her nose. She felt vulnerable, walking through a pitch-black abandoned subway tunnel filled with rats and human waste.

  As she got nearer to where she thought the opening should be, she felt the same eerie unease that she was being watched.

  Her flashlight barely reached the dismal opposite wall, but Amanda found the opening. She crossed the tracks, careful of the third rail. It was surely disconnected, she thought, but she couldn’t remember if Juan had said so or not. She clambered up the opposite side onto the thin platform and was about to pull the fresh plywood cover off when she heard a voice in the darkness.

  “What you want, scientist lady?”

  There was fear in the
voice, but also a menacing streak that sent a chill through her.

  “Who’s there?” She had meant to sound mean or confident, but her voice was feeble and frightened.

  Louder, the voice said again: “What you want?”

  “I came to warn Sleepy.”

  “‘Bout what?”

  “There’s a hurricane coming.”

  “Fuck you, scientist lady. We got bigger problems.”

  “Can I at least talk to him?” Who is this man? Where is he?

  There was a long pause. Amanda listened. Her flashlight was absorbed in the grease. She could not see the wall in front of her, and she had the sensation that it was very near to her face and getting closer. Finally the man spoke: “You move to the side, lady.”

  She moved about ten feet away from the entrance, along the wall. She was afraid for her life. Jeez, a hurricane is going to destroy the City and I’m going to die down here before it even hits.

  The plywood was pushed out from the inside. The man in the darkness spoke again: “Is the scientist lady. Says a hurricane is coming. Should I pipe her?”

  Amanda had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. She mustered what little courage she could find and spoke toward the head in the hole. “Sleepy, it’s me, Amanda Cole. I came to warn you.”

  “PJ, back off. Amanda, come on in. Sorry.”

  ***

  Sleepy waited impatiently for Amanda to come down the ladder. Just what I need today.

  “What’s this about a hurricane?” he asked. Jonathan stood behind him, quiet.

  “It’s coming this way, I’m nearly positive.”

  “How big?”

  “Huge.”

  Sleepy had his hands full today. He had just started his shift down in the escape hole. They hadn’t broken through the brick wall yet. His whole plan hinged on that. He really didn’t have time for this. But what if she was right? What if a hurricane really did come this way, and what if the room flooded? They might all die while they were trying to dig deeper into the earth. But Hammer was coming soon, he could feel it, and they had to have a way out.

  Sleepy was still working on exactly how to fight Hammer and then the idea hit him. “Jesus Christ,” he said aloud. “When?”

  “This evening sometime.”

  “When exactly?”

  “I can’t say for sure.”

  “How close can you be?”

  “Look,” she said, “I came down here to warn you. I risked my life doing it. Your friend out there scared the daylights out of me. Now I know as much as anyone about this storm, but not even I can tell you its exact arrival time. You’re smart, you ought to know that. My best guess is around six, but I could be off by an hour.”

  “I’m sorry. I only hoped you might be able to predict the time. I’m very grateful that you came down here. You’ve probably saved all our lives.” He looked back up at Amanda and let his eyes apologize, too, then he thought of his plan and how it was beginning to mingle with Amanda’s work. A dreadful thought flashed into his mind. He blurted out, “You going to be able to save the City?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “What if you had to do it without anyone in charge?”

  Amanda looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  Sleepy decided he’d said too much. Who knew if he could really trust Amanda? Though he wanted to, he’d always survived by not trusting people.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’m just babbling. Anyway, thanks for coming down.”

  “It’s OK,” she said, the confusion still written across her face. “I’m just glad you listened.”

  Amanda studied him. She bit her lip, glanced around the room. “You know where Juan Rico lives?”

  “Above Chez Henri,” he said. “We eat there all the time.”

  “Sixteenth floor, first door on the right,” she said. “Entrance is on Washington. You go there.”

  Sleepy couldn’t imagine accepting the offer. They’d find some safe place to evacuate to without imposing on anyone. “Thank you,” he said, “but we’ll be fine.”

  “But you’ll leave,” Amanda persisted.

  “We’ll be fine. PJ will follow you out, make sure you’re safe. Don’t be afraid of him, by the way.”

  “A little late for that,” Amanda said, smiling. Then her face seemed suddenly consumed with other worries and she hurried up the ladder.

  A rush of elation ran through Sleepy. It was a crazy thought, really, an outside chance. But at least he had a plan, and the escape tunnel would be his backup.

  To Jonathan he said: “I’m going out for a while. You stay here. When PJ gets back, tell him to find a crowbar, quickly, and start in on the bricks.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Subway train

  near Grand Central Station

  9:02 a.m.

  Sleepy hid his face behind a newspaper, but he was close enough to hear.

  “Ice worked,” his brother said to Hammer as the train pulled out of the station. “Package is cold. Will arrive today at five.”

  Hammer said nothing, which meant he understood. He got up and walked to the other end of the car and disappeared through the doors into the next car.

  Sleepy lowered the newspaper to peer over the top and watched Hammer disappear. He was sitting right across from his brother.

  He probably wouldn’t be recognized—it had been twenty-five years—but he didn’t want to take chances. He pulled the newspaper back up and waited for the right subway stop.

  CHAPTER 38

  TriBeCa

  9:08 a.m.

  Amanda’s mind felt like a captured fugitive being quartered by horses. Though the other models still showed Hurricane Harvey going out to sea, she was certain it was going to run smack through Manhattan. But things were happening quickly, and could change in the blink of an eye, perhaps requiring at any moment a change in the forecast. And the LORAX was still down, so she was doing her best to get into Harvey’s mind, to think for the LORAX and speak for the storm.

  The mother in her worried about Sarah. She’d called Joe Springer’s number and gotten no answer. That was good, meant he’d evacuated ahead of the rush. She left a message, just in case.

  The daughter in her worried about her father. She planned to go and get her father if necessary, at least get him back to Manhattan, to Rico’s apartment, where they’d be relatively safe.

  Some other part of her brain—a part she wished she could ignore—worried about the whole city. There still had been no evacuation order, in spite of the warning issued by the Hurricane Center.

  It almost seemed as if somebody were trying to stall the evacuation. But she had no clue who, or why. She ran what she knew through her mind.

  First, the LORAX had gone down. After the blip in the GFDL program earlier in the week, she was pretty sure that was no accident. Somebody hacked into the program. Then there was the odd question from Sleepy about saving the City without anyone in charge. In charge of what? She tried to connect the two thoughts, but couldn’t.

  She thought back over the jumbled conversation with Terese, who’d said she was in the Dominican Republic, and that someone there was trying to ruin the evacuation. Someone where? In the Dominican Republic? In the United States? In New York?

  And why?

  Amanda felt her brain about to burst. It was already full of Hurricane Harvey data, and now she was trying to use it for something for which it wasn’t trained. She was no private investigator. She decided to focus on what she did best. Forecast the storm and issue warnings. It was time to talk to the mayor.

  She dialed the Office of Emergency Management. She learned that the Hurricane Center’s warning had had at least one effect: The phone lines were being taxed. After three failed tries to get through she gave up, threw a stack of backup data and scribblings in her leather briefcase, and headed out.

  ***

  Amanda had learned long ago that if you wanted to get into a government building, you could usually do it
by simply acting as though you belonged there. So long as security wasn’t passing visitors single file through a metal detector, it usually worked. She strode into 7 World Trade Center with resolute purpose and headed for the elevators.

  A security guard wandered lazily toward her while she waited for the elevator.

  Damn. Not now. Not today.

  “Ma’am? You supposed to be here?”

  Amanda suspected the building had been busier than normal all morning. One more weather person wouldn’t be a surprise. She gave the security guard a bored look, careful not to be condescending. It was a look any government employee would recognize: I don’t want to be here; I have to be here. She reached into her bag and pulled out her security card from the NHC, flashed it. “Hurricane Center. Mayor called me in. Looks like it’s going to be a doozie out there, huh?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Let’s hope not.” The guard smiled and wandered off. The elevator doors opened, and Amanda stepped in, pushed the button for the twenty-third floor. The doors closed. Amanda smiled. The mayor had spent $20 million on the 46,000-square-foot operations center. He’d stocked it with enough food and water to house thirty people for a week. He’d supposedly made it bomb-proof and hurricane-proof, and he’d even put a heliport on top to allow stealth entry and exit. Yet anyone with a good story and an official-looking card could just walk in.

  The elevator doors opened, and Amanda stepped into a vast room buzzing with activity. Fifty or so people sat hunched over computers, talking on the phone, or shouting at each other. She spotted the mayor across the room. His face was red, his sleeves rolled up, his tie loosened. He was on the phone, but he slammed it down and looked around the room as though something important were missing. Amanda threaded her way through the maze of desks and walked up to him, stuck her hand out.