Speed the Dawn

by Philip Donlay

  “Thanks, Adam,” Ernie said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Lauren,” Adam said. “Can you explain how this happened? A single meteor hurtling through space has a single vector. Everything travels in a straight line. I’m unclear as to what actually took place. According to these images, there’s no natural explanation for the impact pattern.”

  “Have you ever heard of the Kessler effect?”

  “No, I don’t believe I have.”

  “It’s a theory that deals with the sheer number of objects in low Earth orbit. I think the meteor impacted dozens, if not hundreds, of satellites, came apart, and set off a domino effect. The man-made objects careened out of their orbits and were pulled to Earth, thus creating the chaos you’re referring to. We’re lucky it happened the way it did. Had the meteor remained intact, we could have been looking at an extinction-level event.”

  “Dear God,” Adam said. “I had no idea.”

  “We still have to stop what’s happened. Ernie, will you make sure we all have each other’s phone numbers? We have work to do. I’ll keep you in the loop.” Lauren ended the call and studied the map before her, and pictured the corridor from Monterey to San Jose. The lowlands to the west were bordered on the east side by higher terrain. It wasn’t difficult to visualize a wall of fire pushed by gale-force winds racing up the valley toward San Francisco Bay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  DONOVAN CONCENTRATED ON listening. In the distance, the distinctive sound of the motorcycles ebbed and flowed in the night. He wondered if the two remaining men were ransacking empty houses or focusing only on trying to find him and Shannon.

  Standing next to Donovan, Shannon made no effort to mask her fear. “It’s worse when they stop, and I don’t know where they are.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like this either. How about we roll William into the living room and wait there. It might be more comfortable, plus we can watch the street while we talk.”

  Together they rolled the chaise into the front room and positioned William where they could attend to him from either side of the makeshift gurney.

  “I like this better,” Shannon said as she checked that the front door was locked.

  “Sit.” Donovan motioned to a cushioned chair and took the one across from it. He leaned back and rubbed his tired eyes.

  Shannon sat, hands in her lap, thumbs making anxious circles around each other.

  “I’m not going to insult your intelligence and deny what we both heard in there,” Donovan said, deciding damage control was best served by the truth. “It’s been a long time, and I’m not interested in explaining the details of my past tonight.”

  “I agree. This isn’t the time or place, and you don’t need to explain anything,” Shannon said. “I do have to say, this is so surreal. When I was in graduate school, I wrote my thesis on clinical observations and treatments of delayed PTSD events. Boring, I know, but I used you—or Robert Huntington—as one of my subjects. I probably know more about Robert than I do Donovan Nash.”

  “You would have had to gather your data from the public record,” Donovan said, growing more uncomfortable with the conversation. “Much has been written by people who flat out got it wrong. Be careful with what you think you know.”

  “In my research, I refused to delve into your tabloid exploits. Instead, I focused on your first and greatest trauma—the death of your parents. I argued that event was like the lighting of a very long fuse. When you lost Meredith, and for the record, I never believed for a second you were involved in her murder, the earlier trauma caught up with you and ignited the long buried explosive stress. You, like so many others, committed suicide. Or, as I now understand, your version of suicide. My paper illuminated multiple examples of how small variables could serve to avert a catastrophic ending. For people with PTSD, it’s rarely a single event that ends them.”

  “I dealt with my issues in a way that made sense to me, and I survived.”

  “You’re one of the lucky ones.” Shannon lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go all therapist on you. I, of all people, understand the difficulties you’ve faced, and what you’ve accomplished is remarkable. Buck didn’t know about your past, but he was equally impressed with Eco-Watch, and especially you as a person. It’s why he joined your team. He felt strongly enough about what you were doing to give his life for the mission. That speaks volumes.”

  Donovan blinked at the surprise tears forming in his eyes, then wiped them away.

  “Am I right that Eco-Watch is your creation, a sort of living shrine to Meredith and her life as an environmentalist trying to save the planet?”

  Donovan nodded, not sure he could trust his voice.

  “I think that gives Buck’s death even more meaning.”

  “There are only a handful of people who know my secret,” Donovan said while clearing his throat. “I refer to all of them as a family. Through Buck, you’re already part of the family, and I hope you stay that way.”

  “That’s a discussion for later,” Shannon said.

  “I agree. Now, I need to go out and move the truck out of the bushes in the backyard. When it comes time to leave, I want it ready and pointed in the right direction. I’ll be right back.” Donovan was anxious to break away from the emotional conversation. He slid through the kitchen door and out onto the patio. This close to the cold Pacific Ocean, the nights were usually cool, but tonight the warm air seemed thick and cloying. The smoke particles instantly burned his eyes, and he could feel the harshness in his throat.

  The truck was where he had left it, and after he started the engine, he turned the wheel hard to the left and inched forward in the darkness. He maneuvered the Ford until it was parked just outside the sliding glass door. If they needed to leave, it was a quick turn through the wooden fence and down the driveway. He put the transmission into park and killed the engine. As an afterthought, he switched on the AM radio but found only static. He shut everything off, and as he walked toward the house, he stopped and felt the rough hole in the metal where the radio antenna should have been. It seemed at some point he’d managed to rip it off the truck.

  In the kitchen, Donovan slowed at the sound of Shannon’s voice. He rounded the hallway toward the living room, and as he drew closer, he realized Shannon was praying.

  “As always, Lord, we trust in you to protect us from danger, and in your wisdom, we pray that you’ll speed the dawn. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Donovan said quietly so as not to startle her. “That was nice.”

  “It was a prayer Buck taught me,” Shannon said as she brushed her hair back behind her ear. “I first heard it at a funeral for one of Buck’s friends. The family had asked Buck to say a few words, and he ended his eulogy with that prayer. He told me later that when he was a little boy, he was afraid of the dark. He wanted to be brave for his mom and dad, but when the lights went out at night, the sounds of the house would seize him. His mother taught him that prayer, and he told me it helped. I memorized it, thinking one day I might teach it to our children.”

  Donovan remained silent. Shannon was dealing with the death of a loved one. It was a loss he was familiar with, and there were no words.

  “Listen,” Shannon said as she snapped her head toward the street.

  Donovan, too, heard the motorcycle. From the sound, he could tell it was just one machine. The biker gunned the engine and accelerated straight up the driveway. Both Donovan and Shannon ducked away from the headlights as the motorcycle stopped just beyond the door. The rider revved the engine twice and then shut it down.

  “Put your hands above your head!” a deep voice called out from behind them.

  Startled, Donovan wheeled around and in the dim glow from the fires burning outside saw the bald man standing in the living room. He’d used his friend as a diversion and snuck in through the kitchen. His sawed-off shotgun was leveled at them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  LAUREN FELT AS if the walls of the bridge were pushing in
on her. She stood at the forward bridge windows and spotted Michael and the others still gathered around the damaged helicopter.

  “Good idea,” Ryan said as he turned toward Lauren. “You need to stretch, get some fresh air. You’ve been sitting there for a long time staring at those maps.”

  “I’m charging my phone,” Lauren said. “It’s almost dead.”

  “Leave your phone with me. I’ll see that it gets charged. Here, take a radio. I’ll call you if we need you.”

  Lauren nodded, checked the radio, and made her way to the elevator that would take her down to the helicopter pad. As she neared the bow, she was more aware of the pitching deck under her feet than earlier. She swung open a hatchway and squinted away the brightness from the halogen lights pointed down on the damaged rotor blades.

  “Lauren,” Michael called out. He peeled off his life jacket and helped Lauren put it on. “What about you?” Lauren asked as they walked toward Janie.

  “Someone will bring me one.”

  “Where’s Montero? I thought she was down here.”

  “She was.” Michael looked around the deck to no avail. “I saw her talking with the first mate, Ethan Wiley. They were discussing the need for current weather information, but I didn’t see them leave.”

  Lauren stepped to the side as a crewman handed Michael a life jacket. High above her, Janie and another crewman stood on separate ladders, measuring and discussing the twisted metal at the end of a rotor blade. She looked at Michael. “How bad is it?”

  “Not good,” Michael said. “I’ve been on the phone with a helicopter repair outfit in Oakland. They’re the nearest factory-approved repair shop. I sent pictures of the damage, and without hesitation, the engineer said all four blades needed to be replaced, and whatever we do, don’t start the engines as the vibration we experienced earlier could have stressed not only the blades, but the rotor mast, the mounts, and transmission as well.”

  “If we had the blades flown out here, could we make the swap at sea?”

  “No, the process is more complex than that. His suggestion was to sail to Oakland and have the helicopter lifted by crane from the deck of the Buckley. He offered to arrange transportation to their facility and calculated the downtime shouldn’t be more than a week, though it could be longer if they discovered additional damage. I said we’d get back with him. Oh, and I left out the part that there was a possibility that a massive fire was going to beat us to Oakland.”

  Lauren looked over and saw the smallest trace of a grin on his face. She found his sarcasm comforting. If Michael could kid around, then all wasn’t lost. “Okay, the helicopter is out of the picture. Let’s say we get a signal from Donovan, hell, a signal from anyone on the shore. Is there anything the Buckley can do to facilitate a rescue?”

  “No.” Michael motioned toward the disabled helicopter. “I mean we have a couple of runabouts aboard, but as sturdy as they are, they’re not equipped to pick their way through all of the junk left in the water after a tsunami. You need to impress on all your contacts that what’s needed are rescue helicopters. I’m hoping any survivors, Donovan included, will make themselves known at first light, and the helicopters can pull them out.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Lauren said. “Part of the problem is that as soon as there’s enough light, Cal Fire and the Forest Service are going to launch a small air force of aerial firefighters to suppress the fire. They need an empty sky to operate unencumbered. I’ll see if I can suggest a fixed corridor where helicopters can operate.”

  “I like that plan,” Michael said. “Have Cal Fire draw up multiple pathways, so if fire operations shut down one, they can open another.”

  “Good idea.” Lauren felt a surge of energy at the thought of doing something positive. “I’m still trying to put together a complete look at all the meteorological variables. Our weather gathering system took a real beating today.”

  “Heads up!” shouted a crewman standing near the helicopter.

  Lauren saw Janie lunge to the side to try to catch a dropped flashlight. Michael started toward her as Janie’s ladder began to tip. A crewman reached out and steadied her as the light shattered on the deck.

  “Janie,” Michael called out. “Get down from there—the rotor blades are junk.”

  Three crewmen were converging to help Janie climb down from her lofty perch. Once she was firmly on the deck, she walked to Lauren and Michael.

  “Janie, you’re acting like the damaged rotor blades are your fault. Quit taking it personally,” Michael said. “The last thing we need is for you, or anyone else, to get hurt.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Janie shook her head in exasperation. “You didn’t fly the bloody machine into a shipping container.”

  “I once crashed an Eco-Watch Gulfstream jet,” Michael said to Janie. “Then, if you remember, there was the time I destroyed a thirty-million-dollar experimental drone, on purpose. Now relax, these things happen.”

  “I just feel so helpless with my wings clipped,” Janie said. “I mean, what the hell am I good for if my damned chopper is busted?”

  “Speaking as another pilot with clipped wings, you help where you can,” Michael said. “We all do whatever it takes to help Lauren and the crew aboard the Buckley.”

  “Is that an order?” Janie asked. “I’d really like to focus on getting the helicopter flying.”

  “You know I hate orders,” Michael said. “I will, however, insist that Captain Pittman put you to work in the crew mess. You need to forget about the helicopter and do something constructive, like peel potatoes. Which is what you’ll be doing if you won’t give the dead helicopter a rest.”

  Lauren watched the tension momentarily leave Janie’s face, as if she were picturing Michael making good on his threat.

  “I’d like for you to take a break; sit down and do some planning,” Michael said. “Once the fire bombers start flying at first light, it would be nice to have some helicopter-friendly corridors for Cal Fire to consider. Hopefully they’ll allow nonmilitary air ambulance assets into the area. Reach out to Cal Fire flight operations and see if they need our help.”

  Lauren pointed toward the shore and the thick boiling smoke illuminated by the unseen flames below. “To bring you both up to date, there’s not much in the way of wind right now, so Cal Fire and the Forest Service are starting a series of backburns to try and rob the fire of fuel as it starts moving. The winds are going to pick up considerably, and once they start blowing, the fire is going to grow—we just don’t know by how much. If I were going to plan helicopter evacuation routes, I’d make them out over the water.”

  “That makes sense,” Janie said. “What assets will be joining us offshore? Are we going to have the Coast Guard or the Navy to assist?”

  “Eventually, though not in the time frame we need.” Lauren shook her head and bit her lip at the thought of the coming nightmare.

  “He’ll find a way to get out,” Michael said. “Donovan’s clever like that. He knows the Buckley is offshore. It’s maybe the only thing he knows for sure. We just have to pay attention and then react.”

  “Dr. McKenna.” Ryan’s voice crackled from the handheld radio. “Lauren, you have an urgent call. Repeat, you have an urgent call. Do you copy?”

  “On my way,” Lauren said into the radio as she looked up toward the darkened windows of the bridge. She ran down the passageway and stepped into the elevator. The second the doors opened on the bridge level, she hurried down the corridor. As she stepped onto the bridge, Ryan pointed to the chart table where her phone, plugged into a charger, waited.

  “Lauren, it’s Adam from the fire lab.”

  “Adam, I didn’t expect to hear from you so quickly.”

  “It’s Missoula, Montana, in the middle of the night. My commute was all of ten minutes,” Adam said. “So, I’ve plugged some of your preliminary data into the computer model. I need to talk with you before I report back to fire command.”

  “Okay,” Lauren sat dow
n. “What can I do?”

  “I ran the simulation three times. I used the wind direction and the theoretical velocities you gave me earlier. Have there been any changes or updates to that information?”

  “No, we’re still working on that,” Lauren said as Montero and Ethan burst onto the bridge. Montero came straight for Lauren, a sheet of paper in her hand. “Adam, hang on a second.”

  “Lauren, we have the current weather at six different points out to sea,” Montero said as she set the information in front of Lauren. “The list starts close to shore, and works westward from our position.”

  Lauren recognized seven sets of coordinates, followed with the wind direction, velocity, temperature, and sea state. Her eyes shot to the wind speed. Not a single reporting point showed less than twenty-five knots. “Where did this come from? Some of these coordinates are pretty far out to sea.”

  “It was Ethan’s idea,” Montero said. “He started calling ships with a request for the current weather. The Buckley’s radio only has so much range, but each ship we contacted, in turn, made the same outward request. We finally ran out of ships, but not before we reached a commercial vessel nearly three hundred miles offshore.”

  Lauren stood and pulled up a nautical chart of the Pacific Ocean. She quickly marked each ship’s coordinates, then penciled in the wind direction and velocity.

  “Adam, I’m sorry for the delay,” Lauren said. “I just received some real-time weather observations. The low-pressure area seems to be farther east than anticipated. Right now, less than fifty miles offshore of Monterey, we have reports of winds from one nine zero degrees at twenty-five knots. The direction holds fairly steady, though three hundred miles west of Monterey, the winds progressively build to forty-five knots.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Adam said. “You know, I made a phone call on the drive in, and spoke to an old friend of mine who lives in London. He went to MIT, same as you, and he knew of you and your work.”