by Peter Hernon
The death toll had edged over 130,000.
As he finished reading the appalling list. Ross looked up at the cameras. He said that one, possibly two more quakes in the magnitude 8 range or greater were extremely likely.
There were more audible gasps from the news corps and from some of his own staff members who hadn’t been privy to these details.
Ross announced what they were going to do. Explode a nuclear bomb underground.
And why.
Some reporters dashed out of the press room and began calling their news desks. Ross went on to describe the evacuations.
“Even as I discuss these grave issues with you, efforts are under way in the state of Kentucky. I know the thought of a nuclear explosion can be frightening. The scientists say it’s the only way we can hope to defuse another earthquake, turn it off in the ground by releasing some of its energy.
“There is disagreement among the experts about whether this will work. I’d be lying to you if I said most of them supported this approach. The truth is otherwise. Most are opposed. I’ve decided to side with the minority who have argued—persuasively, in my opinion—that we have no other choice. There is sufficient evidence from ground surveys made by satellite that energy continues to build at a frightening rate in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, especially along a newly discovered fault, which slices through the heart of west-central Kentucky.”
He told them the kind of bomb they planned to explode and the anticipated yield. He didn’t give specifics on where it would be detonated. That would remain top secret for as long as possible.
“The truth is we already have experience with a nuclear explosion in the Mississippi Valley.” He mentioned a five-kiloton blast near the tiny Mississippi town of Salmon, about thirty-five miles from Hattiesburg. The shot in 1964 was a successful effort to hollow out a salt dome as a possible storage site for oil reserves. No radioactivity had vented from the explosion, which was done at a shallow depth of less than 400 feet.
“They barely felt it over in Hattiesburg,” the president said. “This explosion will be considerably larger. The geologists say it will have the short-range effect of a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. I have to tell you that this will probably cause some additional damage.”
Ross paused and in his firmest voice went on: “I believe the damage will be nothing compared with the consequences of another magnitude 8 earthquake. There will be risks, but I’m convinced we have to take them. I don’t think the Mississippi Valley could survive another major earthquake.”
Turning aside from his notes, Ross spoke to those who’d taken up arms against the government, quoting from President Lincoln’s second inaugural address. Carefully avoiding any mention of the governor of Kentucky, he repeated Lincoln’s words about people who stood on two sides of a national debate, those who “would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” He asked members of the Kentucky National Guard and any others “who have joined their ranks” to lay down their arms. He promised there would be no penalty if they did so within forty-eight hours.
Finishing, Ross said, “I want you all to know that I’ll be there when the bomb is detonated. We’ve got to try to turn off this monster in the ground. Kill it by whatever means possible. Then we can start the long and painful task—and it will be painful—of rebuilding our cities and our lives.
“I’m sure we’ll come through this and look back upon these awful times as one of our greatest moments. May our Heavenly Father guide and help us all. Good night.”
Ross sat at his desk, staring into the cameras as the television lights blinked off. He felt overwhelmed by what he’d just told the American people and was grateful his voice hadn’t cracked. He’d almost lost it as he read the casualty list.
Steve Draper approached. He had news.
The convoy from Texas had made better time than expected. It was nearing the Mississippi River.
WILSON CITY, MISSOURI
JANUARY 20
12:05 A.M.
THE TRANSPORT GROUP FROM THE PANTEX PLANT turned off Interstate 44 near St. James, Missouri, and took two-lane blacktop that rose, plunged, and twisted through rolling Ozark foothills. Several hours later, it picked up Interstate 55 near Sikeston, deep in the southern comer of the state. Demolition teams were blasting away the rubble from dozens of collapsed overpasses to open the highway, which had become a major lifeline for the stricken Mississippi Valley. With most airports knocked out, a hundred-mile stretch of I-55 running from the Missouri-Arkansas border to just north of Memphis had been transformed into a series of runways for cargo planes loaded with relief supplies.
Forty minutes after reaching Sikeston, the convoy arrived at their destination, Wilson City, Missouri. It was just after midnight.
The town had been converted into a staging area for Army engineers who’d thrown the pontoon bridge across the swollen Mississippi. The streets were filled with Humvees, troop trucks, earth movers, and other pieces of heavy equipment. The earthquake-ravaged town had been evacuated. Most of the frame and shingle homes were severely damaged, the residents moved to a tent city near Sikeston, one of hundreds that were being set up throughout the Mississippi Valley to house the homeless.
They were about forty miles due west from Paducah and fifty miles north of Caruthersville, where nearly six days earlier, Atkins had crossed the river with Elizabeth Holleran aboard the ferry.
It was pitch-dark. Atkins could smell the river’s pungent scent and felt a tingling up his back when he remembered the last time he’d had to cross it. He asked an Army major about the waterfall.
“It’s still there, but subsiding,” said the officer, who was with the Corps of Engineers. “The drop-off is down to about ten feet. The river’s still running backward in stretches. It was a bitch throwing a pontoon across it.”
“We lost two men,” another officer said curtly, a colonel. Like everyone else, he wore fatigues, flak jacket, and helmet.
The plan was quickly worked out. The bomb was unloaded from the tractor trailer into the back of a Humvee for the trip across the bridge. Two squads of paratroopers from Fort Campbell were already patrolling its three-mile length. A flotilla of small boats, fighting the current with powerful motors, was in position above and below the span. So were helicopter gunships. The darkness was filled with the staccato beat of rotor blades.
“I’ve got to tell you, this is going to be dicey,” said the colonel, the officer in charge. “We’ve had a couple nasty fire fights on the opposite shore. I wish we could hold this up until it was secure over there, but they want to get you across right away.”
The Humvee with the bomb was the third of six identical vehicles that would cross the river at spaced intervals. After Booker made sure the weapon was securely strapped down in back, they drove out to-the bridge, where they were given life jackets. The crossing was to be made in complete darkness. Only the taillights of the vehicles were lit.
“We’re going to drive over that?” Booker said in shock, staring at the narrow, single-lane roadway that floated on what looked like an interlocking chain of barges. The metal couplings creaked loudly as the sections rocked and banged together in the rough water. Atkins heard the waves slapping hard against the shore.
“We’ve got fifty paratroopers out there,” said their driver, a sergeant. “We’ll get you boys across.”
Accelerating slowly up the metal ramp, they drove out on the pitching span. There was less than a yard of freeboard on each side of the vehicle and no side railings to prevent a tire from slipping off.
“I guarantee this is one ride you’re gonna remember,” the driver said, grinning. He clenched an unlit cigar in his teeth. A soldier wearing a radio headset sat next to him. Booker and Atkins were in the backseat. The bomb was in the Humvee’s cargo bay.
They were about a quarter of the way across when the first explosion sent up a spray of water to the right of them. Atkins saw a flash of light and felt th
e bridge rock up and down. Another rocket hit the river thirty yards upstream. The first rocket had been fired from the Kentucky side. The second from the Missouri shore.
“They’ve got us bracketed,” said the sergeant.
Automatic weapons hammered away somewhere upstream. Two helicopters appeared suddenly, zoomed over the bridge at low altitude, and streaked upriver, their powerful spotlights angling down, probing the shoreline.
They were out about a mile. Not even to the middle of the river. Atkins saw two boats roaring upstream, leaving wakes that glistened in the misty gloom. There was another flash of light, much closer, followed by an explosion.
The driver slammed on the brakes.
“Motherfucker. They hit one of the Humvees,” he shouted.
Atkins saw the yellow flames ahead of them. He leaned out of the window and watched as soldiers hurriedly pushed the burning vehicle into the river. Then the sound of rapid, heavy gunfire erupted again. Coming from the Kentucky shore, red tracers arched across the water. The soldiers on the bridge were returning fire.
Leaning forward, Atkins said, “How much farther?”
The driver started to answer when the front windshield shattered. Hit in the shoulder, he pitched to the side. There was blood everywhere.
Reaching around the wounded man, Atkins grabbed the steering wheel. The other soldier, a corporal, managed to get a boot on the brake pedal. When they stopped the Humvee, Atkins helped him get the sergeant into the back.
“Can you drive this?” the corporal shouted, sliding into the front seat. He was returning fire with an M-16, the ejected brass casings clattering on the metal floorboards. He’d braced the barrel of the rifle on the door’s window frame.
Atkins inched along the side of the Humvee and slipped into the driver’s seat.
There were still two Humvees in front of them, the closest fifty yards ahead, its taillights rapidly receding in the darkness.
Another rocket slammed into the bridge from the Kentucky shoreline. The span lurched up and down.
“This man’s badly hurt,” Booker said. The sergeant lay slumped in his arms as he held a compress over the wound.
Atkins gave the Humvee the gas. He got the speed up to twenty and held it there. They were nearing the place where the rocket had slammed into the deck.
Two soldiers were waving for them to stop. They were out in the middle of the bridge.
The pontoon section in front of them was starting to come apart.
The rocket had severed some of the cables.
Atkins pumped on the brakes and the Humvee started to slide on the wet metal surface. He saw the black gap opening between two pontoon sections. They were coming up on it fast. He pushed down on the brakes for all he was worth, downshifting into first gear.
The Humvee came to a stop several yards from the edge.
Gunfire raked the bridge. Bullets ricocheted off the Humvee’s right fender. Tracers were arcing out at them from the black shoreline.
Soldiers were frantically pulling on two long chains, trying to draw the separated sections of the floating bridge back together. The opening between them was about five feet.
“Get it closer!” Atkins shouted to the soldiers. He threw the Humvee into reverse and started backing up.
“What the hell you think you’re doing?” the corporal said. “You gonna try to back all the way off this thing?”
Atkins stopped suddenly. He was about one hundred yards from the gap in the deck. He told the corporal and Booker to brace themselves and check the straps of their life jackets. Then he floored the gas pedal.
“Jeeeesus!” the soldier shouted, realizing what Atkins had in mind. “We’re never gonna make this.”
Atkins glanced at the speedometer as he fought to hold the heavy vehicle in a straight line on the wet deck.
They were doing thirty miles an hour when they reached the gap between the sections. They were airborne less than two seconds, slamming down hard on the pontoon deck with a few feet to spare. Atkins fought to keep from losing control as the Humvee slid sideways, then straightened out.
In another minute they reached the end of the span and banged down off the metal deck onto muddy ground. Atkins pulled into a clearing in the woods and parked. Soldiers ran up to them.
The corporal slumped back in his seat. Reaching across to shake Atkins’ hand, he said, “You can drive for me any time you want.”
After helping a team of medics get the wounded sergeant out of the backseat, Booker examined the bomb. He made a brief but careful inspection and pronounced it undamaged.
The colonel who’d led the convoy met them. There was more trouble. National Guard troops were dug in around the route they’d planned to take to the mine. Not many, but enough to risk a bloodbath if they tried to force their way through. The road was also clogged with people trying to get out of the evacuation zone.
“The president doesn’t want a confrontation,” the officer said. “We’ve got scouts out trying to find another way to the mine.”
Atkins heard gunfire in the distance, the spatting of small-arms fire. “I may know someone who could help,” he said. Someone who knew this country better than anyone else.
NEAR BARDWELL, KENTUCKY
JANUARY 20
1:35 A.M.
AN ARMY UH-60 LANDED IN THE CLEARING, ITS rotors kicking up dirt and fallen leaves. Coming in at low altitude from the Missouri side of the Mississippi, the big blue helicopter made its approach as four Cobra gunships hovered overhead.
Atkins watched as Elizabeth Holleran, Guy Thompson, and Walt Jacobs scrambled out, heads down, running to get away from the strong downdraft. Two other men he didn’t get a look at followed them in the darkness.
Atkins ran over to meet Elizabeth. She put her hands on his face and gave him a quick kiss.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, smiling when he started to ask about the “trouble” Guy Thompson had mentioned. “I’ll tell you later.”
Atkins had been worried about her ever since he’d left Texas with the bomb. Wondering what had happened, he wanted to talk to her, but there was no privacy and too much was happening. He was struck by the power of his emotions when he saw her after their brief separation. Her smile and the touch of her fingers on his face lifted his spirits. The strength of his feelings for her continued to surprise him.
“I was hoping you’d be here,” he said.
“Sorry I didn’t make it until you were already across the river,” she said.
He laughed out loud, and it felt good. “You planned it that way, right?”
“Absolutely.”
He was surprised to see Walt Jacobs with her. Jacobs looked totally exhausted. His bearded face and bright eyes peered out from under his hooded parka.
Guessing what was on Atkins’ mind, Jacobs put up his hands apologetically. “I know. I still think this is a bad decision and that we’re taking a tremendous risk, but I had to be here, John. I want to help, and anyway, I feel like I got you into this mess in the first place.” His smile was genuine. “If this works, I’ll make sure you get a nice promotion.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Atkins asked, taking his friend’s hand and shaking it hard in gratitude. It meant a lot to have Jacobs here. And it was good to see him smiling again.
“Then we’ll both enjoy an early retirement.”
Or a jail cell, Atkins thought, only half in jest. He wasn’t sure a nuclear explosion at depth would work either, not completely, but he knew it was their only chance to stop another earthquake. He agreed with the president. He wanted to kill the beast that was growing ever stronger in the ground, kill it any way he could by whatever means. There was no way he was going to back away from this. They were going to explode that bomb. For once, they were going to fight back. They weren’t just going to sit there and wait for the country to be shaken apart again. Not this time.
Atkins was convinced this was the right place to try to end the nightmare. The American heartland. The heart
and soul of the Mississippi Valley. It gave him an emotional boost just being there and knowing he was with the right people. Booker, Elizabeth, and now Jacobs.
And if it worked, if they actually pulled it off? What would that mean?
He didn’t want to try to think that far ahead. He tried to put those thoughts out of mind.
It was just after midnight. No stars were visible in the overcast sky. Lights were kept to a minimum. It wasn’t until they’d all jammed into the back of a windowless Army trailer to work out their plans that Atkins noticed the two men who’d also gotten off the helicopter with Walt and Elizabeth—Paul Weston and Mark Wren.
Not expecting them, he looked for Weston’s other assistant, Stan Marshal, the geologist who’d been operating the blaster when that unexpected explosion nearly killed Elizabeth and him a few days earlier.
He still hadn’t figured out what had happened. A freak radio signal might have triggered the premature detonation just as Marshal and Wren had suggested. That kind of thing happened often enough during highway blasting, often with tragic results. And yet Atkins still had his doubts and that bothered him.
One thing remained fixed in his mind: there was no way in hell he would have gone into a mine with Marshal. Weston must have realized that.
Looking well-groomed even in a dirty jumpsuit, Weston was clean shaven, something Atkins hadn’t managed for several days. He’d been wearing the same clothes for nearly a week—a pair of twill trousers, cotton sweater, and an insulated parka. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d changed or had a shower.
Weston started with the announcement that the Seismic Commission had broken all ties with the governor of Kentucky. “If I could make a personal comment,” he said. “I believe the course he’s taken is treasonable. I also believe it’s tragic. I liked the man.”
He then made a stunning comment. He said he’d come to agree with the minority viewpoint, believing that a deep explosion was their only viable chance to break the lethal cycle of earthquakes. He said he’d gone on record with this in a letter to the president.