Her Name Will Be Faith

by Christopher Nicole

  “I remember,” Richard said, grimly. “Everything I said was proven fact.”

  “Maybe. But these ginks up here have never seen a hurricane, and just don’t believe anything can be that fierce. What I am getting at is, if we go to town on this one, she has to be a threat, at some time in the next few days, or we are going to have egg all over our faces. How do you reckon the chances of that?”

  “I think she’s a potential threat now, JC. I would like to see the mayor take some precautionary steps, tomorrow.”

  “You would? What kind of precautionary steps could he take? How do you stop a hurricane?” White smiled at the concept of Mayor Bill Naseby holding up his hand like some kind of latter day Canute and commanding the winds to cease blowing.

  “Well, at least he could hold a comprehensive review of his evacuation plan, and publicize it, so people would know when to leave and what route to take.”

  “What do you mean, evacuation plan?”

  “Just that, JC. A plan to evacuate all low-lying areas of New York in the event Faith were to prove a serious threat.”

  “What kind of area are we talking about?”

  “Well the whole coast and Jamaica Bay area. And half of Manhattan is less than 50 feet above water level; that could all be flooded.”

  “You mean he has a plan to evacuate Manhattan?” Kiley spoke for the first time.

  “I have no idea. But he should have.”

  J. Calthrop White stroked his chin, the light of battle in his eye; he loved a political wrangle, and he was no friend of the Mayor’s party. “That could be interesting,” he said. “And give us an angle. I tell you what you do, Richard. First thing tomorrow you round up some data. Get one of the regular news team…” He looked at Kiley.

  “What about Kimmelman? He’s as sharp as a razor, and he’s been an investigative reporter for some time. In fact, he could handle the whole thing while Richard got on with…”

  “No,” White said. “This is Richard’s baby. But I agree, send in Kimmelman as a back up. Take him off whatever he’s doing now, and send him with Richard to do a little sleuthing.” He pointed his gold pencil at Richard. “Find out what plans there are, if any. Try the police and the fire department, and anywhere else you can think of. And try the Mayor’s Office, too. Then report back here, and we’ll make one or two plans of our own.”

  “Yes, sir,” Richard said enthusiastically.

  The pencil continued to point. “But just bear in mind that if we take on City Hall and make this into an issue, such as pointing up the inadequacy of their plans, we have to win. That means we have to be sure of our facts. Don’t let me down on this. And we need that hurricane to come at least as close as Gloria did.”

  Or I’ll be on the next plane down to Miami, looking for my old job back, Richard thought. “I won’t let you down, JC,” he promised. Although how the hell he was supposed to tell Faith what to do he had no idea. He frowned as he gained the elevator: did JC really want Faith actually to strike the city, in order to make a political killing?

  Park Avenue — 9.00 pm

  “Hi,” Richard said on the phone.

  “I thought you were coming over,” Jo said.

  “Sorry, I can’t tonight. I have a lot on. JC is again looking on me with a smile.”

  “Oh,” Jo said. “Because of Faith?”

  “Yes. Jo… I spoke with Mark. Jo, I’m most terribly sorry about your brother-in-law.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But at least Tamsin is safe.”

  “Yes. I’m eternally grateful to Mark for what he did. I want you to tell him that, Richard. But right now, I don’t know whether to laugh or weep. I guess I’ve been doing a bit of both. So has Owen Michael — I had to give him a sedative and put him to bed.”

  “It’s that kind of situation. I could drop by tomorrow.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll be tied up tomorrow. They’re coming up.”

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s going to be a rough day.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Look, I’ll call you when I can.”

  “Okay. Say, where’s that husband of yours? Still in Bermuda?”

  “No. I guess he’s left by now.”

  “Left to go where?”

  “Return to Newport.”

  “Can you get in touch with him?”

  “I suppose so…” Jo snapped her fingers; she should have done so before, to let him know his folks were all right.

  “Well, I would if I were you, and tell him to stay put. At sea is no place to be with Faith about.”

  “I’ve already told him that. But as I told you before, he makes up his own rules.”

  “Then he’s a fool as well as a rat. But if you don’t want to be a widow, I’d call him again.” He blew a kiss down the line, and was gone.

  Jo sat gazing at the phone for some seconds, then picked it up again to call Central Exchange for a shore to ship radio link.

  THURSDAY 27 JULY

  New York Police Department Headquarters, Park Row — 10.00 am

  “Evacuation plan? What do you mean, evacuation plan?” asked the New York Police department spokesman, an Assistant Commissioner, to whom the two television reporters had been referred by the Mayor’s Office.

  “We would like to know,” Richard repeated patiently, “if there is a filed plan for the evacuation of Manhattan in the event of a serious emergency.”

  The Assistant Commissioner stared at him from under arched eyebrows. “The evacuation of Manhattan?” He looked at Rod Kimmelman, whom he obviously knew. “Who is this guy?”

  “Richard Connors,” Kimmelman explained. “He’s into weather.”

  “That’s right,” the Assistant Commissioner agreed. “I knew your face was familiar. Thought at first I must’ve seen you in a mug shot. Now I remember, you’re the guy who’s been scaring people half to death with your talk about an ultimate storm. Well, welcome back to the real world, Buster. How the hell do you expect us to evacuate Manhattan? Have you any idea how many people live in this city?”

  “Maybe ten million,” Richard ventured.

  “And a hell of a lot of them are right here on this island. So where do you want us to evacuate them to? And why?”

  “Suppose there was a six-second warning, or whatever,” Kimmelman put in. “That the Russians were sending ICBMs over. What would happen then?”

  “The sirens would go, and people would take to the fall-out shelters.”

  “And everyone knows where they are?”

  “They should do. We don’t keep their locality a secret, and it is the duty of every citizen to know where his nearest fall-out shelter is. Christ, we’ve been begging the public for years to be aware that something like that could happen.”

  “Would you say they have done that?”

  “I wouldn’t like to offer an opinion on that. But it wouldn’t matter. We have a highly trained Civil Service organization in this city… in this state. There’d be wardens telling the people where to go.”

  “Ten million people flooding the streets, and wardens telling them where to go, with maybe only a few minutes in hand? How many wardens do you have? One million?”

  The Assistant Commissioner pointed. “You guys trying to be funny? Sure not everyone will make it. We all know that in the event of an atomic war there’s going to be casualties, maybe as high as sixty per cent. The Pentagon talks about mega deaths. Who am I to argue with the Pentagon? And what the hell has an atomic attack to do with the weather?”

  “Nothing,” Richard agreed. “Save that I’d like to ask, these fall-out shelters, where are they?”

  “Why don’t you go look them up on the map? They’re everywhere, and they’re adequate. No goddamned Commie is going to catch us napping.”

  “Well, would I be correct in assuming that they’re all in subways, cellars, and that kind of thing? In fact, underground.”

  “Well, Jesus,” the Assistant Commissioner remarked. “I’ve never heard of putting fall
-out shelters in penthouses.”

  “Would I be right in assuming that the entire area between 34th Street and the Battery is less than 50 feet above sea level?” Richard persisted, refusing to abandon his smile.

  “Don’t ask me, Mr Connors. I’m not the City Engineer.”

  “Well, I can tell you that according to the ordnance map, it is. So if a lot of people were to start going down into subways and cellars, you are talking about them going down to sea level or even beneath it. What would happen if you had a tidal surge of 25 or 30 feet coming through the Narrows, and your population had all taken refuge in the fall-out shelters?”

  The Assistant Commissioner looked at Kimmelman again. “Say, what the hell is this guy talking about? Atomic bombs or weather?”

  “In his book, they’re the same thing,” Kimmelman explained.

  “Thirty feet of water coming through the Narrows?” The Assistant Commissioner scratched his head in bewilderment.

  “Look,” Richard said. “All I want to know is this: does the NYPD have an emergency plan for the evacuation of the city of Manhattan in the event of a situation which might require such an evacuation, but not necessarily an enemy atomic attack? It could be an outbreak of plague, an incipient earthquake, or a major storm. Anything which might make the use of fall-out shelters irrelevant or even dangerous.”

  “Think maybe of a 24-hour warning of a Commie attack, rather than six minutes,” Kimmelman suggested brightly. “A whole Commie task force somehow spirited across the Atlantic and ready to invade.”

  That was a tactical error. The Assistant Commissioner gave him a withering look. “And you want me to tell you guys that, to blare over the networks? Next thing the Commies would be blowing all the bridges, and where would we be then?”

  12.00 noon

  J. Calthrop White glanced down the page of notes. “We could have a whole barrel of dynamite here, Richard,” he remarked. “So you’re pretty sure there is no evacuation plan?”

  “Pretty sure, JC. Partly because the only real emergency the authorities seem able to consider is an atomic attack, when there wouldn’t be time to evacuate the population anyway. There is no way anyone down at City Hall seems able to envisage the damage a major hurricane might do.”

  “But you can. And you’re sure of your facts.”

  Richard drew a long breath. “Yes, JC, I think I can envisage the probabilities.”

  “Don’t let me hear that word ‘think’ again.” He glanced at Kiley. “How much time can you give him without screwing the schedule up?”

  Kiley studied the chart he had brought into the office. “Three minutes at the end of the early evening forecast, by cutting two news items.”

  “Okay, Richard, use that time, and blast them this evening.” White pointed his pencil. “This storm isn’t going to fizzle, I hope.”

  “I don’t…” Hurriedly Richard changed what he was going to say. “No, JC, it isn’t going to fizzle,” he said, and fled down to the weather office. “When the hell,” he complained to Julian and Jayme, “will the average layman understand that pinpoint weather forecasting, with a system like Faith, is just not a practical proposition? And this set up, where I have virtually to guarantee that she’s a real threat to New York, is just ridiculous. We should all be praying for her to turn due east and lose herself out at sea. Where the hell is she now, anyway?”

  Julian showed him the latest chart.

  Richard frowned. “But for Christ’s sake, she hasn’t moved more than a couple of miles in six hours.”

  “That’s right,” Julian agreed. “She’s stalled.”

  “Two hundred miles south-east of Cape Hatteras,” Jayme added. “They’re reporting 70-mile-an-hour winds down there, and high seas. And that’s the navigable semi-circle.”

  “Stalled,” Richard said, and sat at his desk. Stalled, he thought. That would at least maintain interest in Faith for another couple of days, which would give JC time to launch his attack on the incompetency of City Hall. But stalled! The most dangerous storms in history were always those which had stalled, because then they could go anywhere. Sometimes they even turned back on themselves, like Betsy in 1965, which had stalled, then reversed itself after passing the Bahamas and gone back to hit the islands with renewed force just when everyone supposed the worst was over. And Faith’s present position was just over 500 miles from New York. He looked out of the window — it was raining, from a total overcast sky, but the wind was light; as Jayme had said, they were still to the west of the storm, the area of least danger, and they were beyond the gale limit. “What wind strengths?” he asked.

  “Oh, they’re big,” Julian said. “The last navy plane into the eye recorded 150 miles an hour.”

  “Just short of a Category Five. Shit!”

  “And the Hurricane Centre reckons she could still build,” Julian added. “They’re sending another plane out in a couple of hours.”

  “So… you going ahead with blasting City Hall?” Jayme asked.

  “If you do, and Faith does fizzle,” Julian said, “what do you reckon JC’s reaction would be to that?”

  Richard brooded for a few seconds longer. Then he said, “I don’t see that it matters if Faith fizzles or not. If she does, it may take the heat off the administration, and have everybody calling me a scaremonger — which they’re doing anyway — but that doesn’t alter the fact that she could hit here, and that even if she doesn’t, one day a major storm most certainly will, and therefore that the city should have a plan to deal with it.”

  “So you’re going ahead,” Julian said.

  “Yes.”

  “Attaboy,” Jayme shouted, and kissed him.

  Kennedy International Airport, Jamaica Bay — 2.30 pm

  “I can’t believe it.” Marcia twisted her fingers together. “The whole place, destroyed! Lawson… my God! I just can’t believe it.”

  “Well, pull yourself together,” Jo told her. “They’re on the ground.” She squeezed Owen Michael’s hand. “You okay?”

  “Sure, Mom,” he said. But he wasn’t; there were dark shadows under his eyes. Partly from lack of sleep, she knew. But also partly from shock. The family had been so secure in their ebullient togetherness. The biggest threat that had ever hung over them had been the possible separation of Michael and herself, and few of them had even been aware that it was there. How criminally irrelevant it seemed now. But Tamsin was only moments away.

  Passengers started streaming through the gate from the Miami flight, greeting friends and relatives, or hurrying straight through for the taxis. The reporters moved closer; Jo had no idea who had told them to be here — probably Cal Palmer; she had felt obliged to call him and let him know Big Mike was all right.

  “There they are!” Marcia ran forward, checked.

  Meg Robson was first off, helped by Neal. They wore obviously freshly bought clothes, and had no luggage. They glanced at Marcia as if she had been a stranger, ignored Jo and Owen Michael altogether, and hurried for the exit.

  “Say, were you on Eleuthera?” one of the reporters called, running behind them.

  “Go away,” Neal snapped. “Leave us alone.”

  The reporter hesitated, then rejoined his rivals, who were moving forward to block the corridor as the Donnellys came out. Jo and Owen Michael and Marcia were in front of them as the television cameras started to whirr.

  “Oh, Babs,” Marcia cried, taking her mother into her arms. “Oh, Babs.” Like the Robsons, the Donnellys were in new bought clothes.

  “Tamsin!” Jo swept the little girl from the floor, hugged her and kissed her, then held her away. “Are you okay, darling?”

  “Yes,” Tamsin said, in a small voice. “The whole house fell down. Oh, Mommy…” She burst into tears.

  Jo held her close again. “You’re okay now, honey. You’re home. Nothing can hurt you here. Dad!” Still holding Tamsin, Jo kissed Big Mike, looked into his eyes. “Oh, Dad!” She couldn’t think what to say.

  He hugged he
r tightly, then turned his attention to Owen Michael. Jo looked past him at Dale, who held Belle’s arm. How incredible, she thought, that Dale, the family lay about, had come through the ordeal better than anyone, while Belle… beautiful, statuesque, strong, indomitable, erotic, laughing, totally indestructible Belle… she might have been looking at Babs’ older sister.

  “Hi, Jo.” Dale kissed her.

  “Belle…” she put her arms around her sister-in-law.

  “They haven’t found him,” Belle said. “He could still be alive, you know. People survive.” Tears spilled from those gorgeous eyes and dribbled down her cheeks.

  “How bad was it, Mr Donnelly?” the reporters were asking. “Was the island really knocked flat?”

  “Do you have any idea of the loss of life?”

  “How strong would you estimate the winds were, Mr Donnelly?”

  “They’ve been talking about giant waves, Mr Donnelly? How high would you say the seas were?”

  “How’d your property make out, Mr Donnelly?”

  All the while the little group, the last off the aircraft, had been straggling towards the exit. Now Big Mike stopped, and turned, and faced the pack at their heels. The TV cameras zoomed in on his face. “Yes,” he said. “It was hell. The island was knocked flat. My property is destroyed. The waves were bigger than anything I have ever seen. And yes, there was loss of life. Now get off my fucking back.”

  They reached the automobiles. Marcia took Dale and Belle. Babs and Tamsin and Owen Michael got into the back of the Mercedes, Big Mike sat in front with Jo. “We’ve food at the apartment,” she said. “And Cal Palmer wants you to get in touch. He says it’s urgent.”

  “Just drive us out to Bognor,” Big Mike said. “We want to go home. Cal can wait until tomorrow.”

  “At the earliest,” Babs agreed.

  Jo hesitated, then hooted to attract Marcia’s attention, and made for the Whitestone Bridge and the New England Thruway. “Is there any chance…” she hesitated, unwilling to say his name for fear of setting Tamsin off again.