8.4

by Peter Hernon

  The pumper was just down the street. They headed in that direction, coughing in the smoke, holding handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. It was difficult to see, but Atkins thought something looked wrong. Then he saw that the front wall of the building had collapsed into the street, an avalanche of bricks and glass that had just missed the pumper.

  The truck’s red lights were still flashing. But there was no sign of the crew.

  The wind had shifted again. The heat from the burning building had slackened. Believing they could get by it and keep moving east, Atkins headed down the street. He noticed the yellow paint on the fire engine was scorched black on the side that faced the building.

  “Oh. God!” Elizabeth said. She’d found the firefighters.

  The four men lay crumpled in the street behind the pumper. All were dead, apparently killed instantly when the building exploded. The flames must have rolled over them before they had a chance to pull back. Two of them still had their gloved hands around the heavy brass nozzle of the fire hose.

  There was a strong uplift of hot air. The flames were being sucked skyward in ferocious wind gusts created by the fires. The velocity was peaking. Burning embers dipped and swirled over their heads.

  “We’ve got to find shelter,” Atkins shouted. “It’s going to overrun us.”

  NEAR KENTUCKY LAKE

  JANUARY 13

  9:12 P.M.

  “YOU FEEL OKAY?” LAUREN ASKED.

  “I guess so,” her grandson said. They’d just finished dinner—canned stew heated on a butane camping stove. Lauren was worried about Bobby’s appetite. He hadn’t been eating.

  His forehead was cool to the touch. No sign of fever. But the boy wasn’t himself.

  They’d arrived at their secluded home a few miles from Kentucky Lake to find out they’d been incredibly lucky. Except for broken windows and some cracks in the foundation, the house appeared structurally sound. Fresh water was a problem, but they still had about twenty gallons left in their water heater. They had plenty of wood for the fireplace and a good supply of canned goods. They were better off than she’d expected. A lot better off than many others who lived at the lake year-round. Many of the homes, especially those made of brick, had been shaken to pieces.

  “How long do you think we’ll keep having these aftershocks?” Bobby asked. That’s what was bothering him. Lauren knew the kid was strung out. Every time the ground trembled, she saw him grip a chair or table.

  She didn’t know what to tell him, how to make him feel better. She was doing the best she could, but it was hard. She hated the continual aftershocks. Even more, she hated how much they frightened her.

  The two of them slept in sleeping bags near the wood-burning stove in the family room. Before they went to bed, she made sure her husband’s .410 shotgun was close by. She also had the loaded .357 Magnum.

  She remembered Vera Goode and his wife. That scared her a lot more than the repeated tremors. The people who’d shot the Goodes were probably still in the area. Her guess was they were locals who knew the couple sold guns and ammunition.

  Lauren had tried to conceal her feelings from her grandson, but she almost couldn’t handle knowing cold-blooded killers were on the loose with no one to hunt them down. She felt vulnerable and alone, and it terrified her.

  She turned on a portable radio. Trying to conserve her supply of batteries, she listened only sparingly, just before they went to bed.

  The local station had been knocked off the air, but late at night she could pick up the big stations in Chicago and Philadelphia. The national news focused entirely on the earthquake. It had been felt in thirty-nine states—every one east of the Rockies except Maine. The hardest hit were Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Illinois, and parts of Mississippi and Alabama.

  The president had declared the entire Mississippi Valley a disaster area. The latest newscast said he was soon expected to tour the damage zone.

  A civil defense station broadcasting from Louisville warned people to stay home. There were reports throughout the quake zone of widespread lawlessness. In Memphis, St. Louis, and Little Rock—three of the most heavily damaged cities—law and order had completely broken down. Police were overwhelmed. With so much physical damage to streets, bridges, and overpasses, it was virtually impossible to patrol in a car, or even on foot. In all three cities. National Guard troops had fired on looters, who sometimes fired back.

  The reports left Lauren numb. If it was bad in the city, it was even worse out here in the country. When Bobby was asleep, she got a bottle of bourbon from a kitchen cupboard and filled half a glass. The warmth of the whiskey helped steady her nerves, if only temporarily. She let herself cry softly, then went into the cold back bedroom for a real cry so she wouldn’t wake her grandson.

  God, how she missed her husband. Missed him to death. And her parents. Not knowing what had happened to them back in Heath was unbearable. She wondered if they were still alive, whether they’d escaped that cloud of poison gas. She’d heard nothing.

  Unable to sleep, Lauren was still awake at two in the morning when she heard footsteps outside, the sound of gravel crunching on the driveway.

  She got the shotgun and pistol and crawled to a window. Outlined in the moonlight, two men were approaching the house. They both had rifles.

  “Bobby, wake up.” She gently nudged her grandson awake. “Get down to the basement.”

  They’d already gone over this. If there was trouble, he was to get to the basement and hide beneath an old desk.

  Lauren hugged the boy tightly. “I love you so much,” she said. “You stay down there until you hear from me.”

  Bobby obeyed instantly and crawled for the doorway to the basement stairs.

  Lauren waited in the family room, where she could see both the front and rear doors. Whoever was out there had to know the house was occupied. They would have smelled the wood smoke. The house was a quarter mile off the blacktop and hidden by trees. Not easy to find.

  Hell, they probably know who I am, Lauren thought. That’s why they’re here. A single woman living alone with her grandson. The lady who owned the boat dock. An easy target.

  Peeking out the window again, Lauren saw that the men had split up. One had moved around to the back.

  Suddenly, she flinched. Someone was knocking hard at the front door.

  “Let’s make this easy,” a loud voice said. “Either you open up, or we set fire to the place. You got a minute to make up your mind.”

  Lauren’s heart pounded. She moved to a window and tried to see who was out there.

  “We’ll burn it to the ground with you in there,” the man said. “Open the damn door.”

  Moving in a crouch, Lauren went down the steps to the basement.

  “Bobby, stay here,” she said. The boy was under the desk and hadn’t budged.

  Lauren opened a trap door to a crawl space that ran under the family room and pulled herself up on the cold ground. The man out front shouted something, which she couldn’t understand. Clutching the shotgun, she moved forward on her hands and knees until she was at the end of the crawl space. A car door opened. She saw one of the men looking in the Impala. He was on the far side of the house.

  Lauren slipped out of the crawl space and ran across the backyard to a row of blue spruce trees that offered good cover. Staying close to the trees, she worked her way around to the front of the house, trying not to make a sound, trying not to breathe.

  Two of them were out there. Not one. Counting the man at the car, that meant three in all.

  “Last chance,” one of them shouted.

  Even before she knew what she was doing, Lauren had left the trees. Walking quietly, quickly, she approached the men from behind. She wanted to get closer. So close she couldn’t miss with the .410.

  She silently counted off the paces. One… two… three… four.

  She raised the shotgun to her shoulder. It was already pumped.

  “Matt, behind you!”<
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  The man who’d been checking out the car had come around the side of the house and seen her.

  Lauren took two quick steps and fired from about twenty yards. She pulled the trigger twice, the shots booming in the cold, brittle air. One of the men staggered and clutched his side, but his friend grabbed him around the waist. They kept going, lurching into the woods. The other man also disappeared into the trees.

  “You come back here, I’ll kill you,” Lauren screamed. She didn’t want to go after them alone.

  Lauren figured they’d parked on her driveway near the blacktop. When she heard an engine kick over and the squeal of tires, she lowered the gun.

  She stood there, breathing heavily. There was a streak of blood on the gravel. Lauren let the feeling pass. It had taken possession of her. As she started to come out of it, she realized she would have done anything to keep them from her grandson. The boy was all she had, the only reason her life was worth living. The murderous feeling she’d experienced was overwhelming. She’d wanted to kill them all.

  MEMPHIS

  JANUARY 14

  2:50 P.M.

  THE FLAMES SEEMED TO LEAPFROG DOWN THE street. Atkins and Elizabeth had taken cover behind a low brick wall that extended from the side of a building. They felt a hot wind blast over them, a gale pulled along by the fire.

  All the buildings that lined the street were burning. Flames poured from windows and shot through roofs. These were mainly commercial buildings in this part of town. They were going to burn for a long time.

  Atkins could only shake his head in disbelief and gratitude. He grabbed Elizabeth and hugged her. It had been her idea to use the brick wall as a shield. It had saved their lives—and their equipment. He’d cradled the laptop and seismograph they’d used in Blytheville. Elizabeth had the computer disks and tapes from the building they’d just left.

  “I wasn’t sure it would work,” she said.

  “I wasn’t worried for a minute,” Atkins said, grinning.

  Fortunately, the flames hadn’t coalesced into a firestorm that would have kept burning until it consumed every scrap of combustible material. If it had, both of them knew they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  They quickly retraced their steps and were soon out of the worst of the smoke. It was easier to breathe. Atkins saw a street sign. Poplar Avenue. Somehow they’d worked their way back to the street that he hoped would take them near the University of Memphis.

  The streets were completely blocked with stranded cars. Many of the drivers had simply walked away, often leaving their keys in the ignition.

  Atkins and Elizabeth reached Overton Park. A large sign said: MEMPHIS ZOO AND AQUARIUM.

  “Listen,” Elizabeth said.

  They heard the howls of terrified animals trapped in their cages. Some of the trees in the park had ignited in the fire.

  An olive-colored Humvee with Tennessee National Guard markings pulled up next to them.

  “Better watch it around here,” the driver called out. “We’re using explosives.” Two soldiers had walked around to the rear of the vehicle and removed what looked like backpacks. Each man slung one of the packs over a shoulder and moved off into the neighborhood.

  Atkins and Elizabeth kept walking. They’d gone a couple more blocks when an explosion jarred them. It was followed in rapid succession by three more.

  They saw flames spurting into the sky.

  Elizabeth knew immediately what they were doing. She’d seen it once before in California when fires raced through the scrub hills surrounding Los Angeles and threatened to get out of control.

  “They’re dynamiting homes, trying to set up firebreaks,” she said. “Those fires must still be spreading.”

  Another military vehicle with a loudspeaker moved slowly down the street, often driving up on the sidewalk to get around the abandoned cars and trucks. A soldier warned residents to evacuate.

  This was an exclusive residential area with fine, old homes. Almost all of them appeared to have sustained major damage. Many had already been abandoned. Some people had pitched tents in their yards.

  The explosions continued. They were blasting the firebreak right along Poplar, hoping they could stop the fire before it spread too far into the mid-city area. People were rushing up to the soldiers, begging them not to destroy their houses, young and old, some of them in tears. Atkins saw a sergeant grab a man who’d swung at him and throw him to the ground.

  Elizabeth remembered reading accounts of how soldiers had fired on residents in San Francisco who tried to stop them from blowing up homes after the 1906 earthquake. They’d also used their bayonets on looters. Thieves had been shot on sight.

  The wind had changed again. Atkins noticed that it was blowing hard in their direction. The sky had the same reddish cast.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked Elizabeth.

  “Gas,” she said. The odor was very strong.

  “Think you can run?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  The smell of gas was almost overpowering. A single spark could ignite it. Atkins thought. Even one from a flashlight being turned on.

  They’d run about two hundred yards when the explosion ripped through the neighborhood. They’d managed to get about three blocks away from Poplar. Looking back, they saw flames shooting out of the sewers. A row of fine, half-timbered homes Atkins had admired moments earlier no longer existed.

  OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

  JANUARY 14

  10:20 A.M.

  “I’D GENERATE A SMALL QUAKE BY DETONATING A nuclear explosion,” Booker said. In his increasing excitement to show exactly what he had in mind, he rolled a green blackboard out of a closet and set it up in the center of the room. Booker often worked at a blackboard. It helped him think to see the ideas and calculations spread out in front of him in large letters and numbers.

  Ever since he’d heard Graves and Miller theorize about “defusing” an earthquake by setting off a series of smaller quakes, Booker had been thinking about his experiences at the Nevada Test Site back in the 1960s. An idea had quickly taken shape. It wouldn’t let go of him.

  “I can recall two shots that triggered pretty good quakes,” Booker said. Miller and Graves sat near the wood-burning stove in the living room of Booker’s spacious A-frame. Through the windows, they could see the distant smoke of the few fires still burning at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Y-12 plant. They’d both noticed how animated and excited Booker had become. He was normally more laid-back, professorial. Not now. It was almost a personality change.

  “Both were part of the Plowshare series,” Booker said as he began to sketch out the design of a nuclear weapon on the blackboard. “You remember those? It was back when we were trying to come up with peaceful uses for nuclear fission. One of the shots was called Benham. Don’t ask me why. We did them out in the Yucca Flats. I think the Benham shot triggered a Richter 4 or 5.”

  Miller and Graves stared at him. They knew Booker had spent nearly ten years as a control engineer at the NTS, the 1,350-square-mile area in southern Nevada where the United States and United Kingdom had done their primary nuclear testing. Before the test ban treaty shut it down, 828 nuclear explosions were detonated there, over half of them underground. Most of these took place in the Yucca Flats, a wide, twenty-mile-long valley that was the most bombed place on earth.

  Booker’s job was to supervise the firing sequence. He’d never talked much about his experiences in Nevada. And for a man who liked to talk, loved it, it was a noticeable omission that Miller and Graves assumed had to do with security issues.

  “But how would you control it?” Graves asked. He’d never considered the idea of deliberately using a nuclear bomb to trigger an earthquake.

  “Seems to me you could control it better than you could by injecting millions of gallons of contaminated water at a depth like the Army did out there near Denver in the sixties,” Booker said. He slapped a hand on the blackboard. “Talk about playing cowboy. You got
some poison you want to get rid of? No problem. You just shoot it deep into the ground and don’t worry if it starts setting off a whole flock of magnitude 5 earthquakes.”

  Booker shook his head derisively. “We can do better, a lot better. I know we can. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” It was as if his entire career, all of his professional experience designing and exploding weapons, suddenly made a difference that he could feel. He absolutely knew he was right about this. Understood it completely. Understood that he was the one person trained to do it and make it work. “You sink a drill shaft two or three thousand feet, set a bogey tower over it, and lower your bomb.” He smiled. “Then bingo! You explode it.” At the NTS, the six-story movable “bogey” tower was used to lower the bomb into place and to conduct preliminary tests of the firing and recording systems.

  Booker rapidly sketched out the shaft and bomb configuration on the blackboard. He wanted the other two men to follow him exactly.

  “What size would you use, how many kilotons?” Graves asked.

  “That would depend on the size of the quake you wanted. Benham was in the 2-or 3-megaton range. It was a beautiful shot.”

  “And how much radioactive debris did you blow into the atmosphere?” Miller asked, an edge of derision in his voice.

  Booker frowned. “I was there for maybe two hundred shots in the sixties. We never had any venting. Not once. After I left, they messed up the Baneberry shot. It was a 10-kiloton bomb. Two days after the detonation the pent-up gases blew a hole in the ground. Sent three million curies ten thousand feet into the sky.”

  “Hell, man. That’s what I was talking about,” Miller said.

  “That wasn’t much radiation at all. You should know that, Les,” Booker said. “It pretty well dissipated within twenty-four hours. But I’ll agree it shouldn’t have happened.” Venting was the most serious risk of exploding nuclear bombs underground. It happened when the blast produced more energy than expected and created a kind of chimney in the earth that literally blew its stack, spewing radioactive debris into the atmosphere. Ventings had been exceedingly rare.