Speed the Dawn

by Philip Donlay

  “Adam, get to the point. What does my past have to do with this?”

  “He told me to trust you, and that your problem-solving abilities were considerable. He also confirmed that you’re with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Which brings me to my question: How familiar are you with Dresden, Germany, during World War II?”

  “Are you talking about the firebombing?” Lauren asked cautiously.

  “Yes, Churchill’s raid, which created the fire tornadoes that killed as many as two hundred fifty thousand people.”

  “I know the history. What does that have to do with the Monterey Peninsula?”

  “The computer models put the exact same conditions into play. We have the wind, mass ignition, plus the irregular terrain, which will cause the initial rotation. They’ll start small, less than a hundred feet tall, maybe ten feet across. But if the winds reach thirty knots, we could see rotating giants, a hundred yards across and a thousand feet tall. As you know, the wind near the center of the vortex reaches enormous speeds, drawing in and depleting the oxygen in all directions. Then, of course, there’s the heat. Like a giant bellows, the temperatures can reach fifteen hundred degrees centigrade.”

  From classified DIA files, Lauren knew far more about the history of the Dresden raid and the eventual bombing of Tokyo, Japan, than most. The Dresden raid, and subsequent fire whirls, were an experiment in destroying cities while using just enough incendiary bombs to put an organized system of fire tornadoes into motion. Armed with the knowledge of what took place in Germany, Japan was the next target. Incendiary bombs dropped from B-29s onto Tokyo created walls of spinning fire, which approached one hundred miles per hour. The temperatures were estimated to have reached well over a thousand degrees centigrade. Everything flammable was consumed, flesh ignited, or melted—piles of bodies were fused together in the aftermath. The carnage in Tokyo was worse than the combined effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Lauren shuddered at the reality of what a fire that size could do to an unprepared population.

  “Lauren, are you still there?” Adam asked.

  “Yes,” Lauren said as she once again looked at the data Ethan and Montero had collected and did more calculations in her head. “You need to call fire command and tell them what you’ve discovered. Tell them we spoke—and it’s not a question of if the winds are coming—they are coming. We’ll have twenty-five-knot winds within the hour.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  DONOVAN RAISED HIS hands as the second man kicked his way in through the front door, pistol at the ready. A broad smile broke out on his face as he spotted Shannon.

  “Search them!” the bald man called out as he switched on a flashlight and held the beam on Donovan. The shotgun pressed against his shoulder was aimed at Donavan’s forehead. “Who are you?”

  “We’re trapped by the fire, just like you,” Donovan said as rough hands patted him down and removed his wallet and gun. “I needed medical supplies for my friend. Take the drugs and go.”

  “I asked you who you are.”

  “I’m Donovan Nash. Who are you?”

  “That’s what his driver’s license says,” the second man said as he read from Donovan’s open wallet and then handed it to the bald man. “He’s from Virginia. This looks like Hector’s gun.”

  “Where are the keys to the truck?”

  “They’re in it,” Donovan said without breaking eye contact with the bald man. Beside him, the second man turned his attention to Shannon.

  “Who’s the old man?” the bald man asked. The beam of his flashlight lit up William’s face.

  “He’s my friend. He was injured in the tsunami.” Donovan spoke as he subtly shifted his weight to his right leg.

  “How about some light over here,” the man standing next to Shannon said.

  The instant the bald man broke eye contact and turned the flashlight toward Shannon, Donovan lunged forward, slapping aside the barrels of the shotgun. He shoved the bald man sideways, pushing him off balance.

  The shotgun roared and the muzzle flashed as a dozen holes appeared in the ceiling. Shannon screamed as Donovan turned, put his head down, and powered toward the second man who was swinging his pistol to shoot. Wrapping his arms around him, Donovan kept his momentum going until they both careened over the sofa and crashed through the picture window, hitting the ground outside.

  Donovan heard a groan as all the air was forced from the man’s lungs. With the biker breaking his fall, Donovan was able to pull the pistol from his hand and quickly rolled to face the shattered window, the pistol up and aimed, ready to return fire.

  “Donovan!” Shannon screamed from somewhere back in the house.

  Donovan jumped to his feet and felt a crack of pain from his left knee as he put weight on his foot. He staggered to his right, nearly falling, as he made his way toward the driveway that would take him around the house. He heard the engine of the Ford roar to life. Donovan limped toward the gate. The truck, headlights burning brightly, rounded the corner, and headed straight for him.

  A muzzle flash erupted from the passenger window, and Donovan realized the bald guy was on the passenger side. Another flash, and he felt his left leg begin to collapse beneath him. He lunged out of the way as the truck, still accelerating, passed only inches from his legs.

  Donovan hit the ground on his left side. He ignored the pain as he turned and took aim at the bald head just visible through the back window. The distinct flash from a weapon illuminated the inside of the truck, and the Ford swerved hard across the front lawn and went out of sight. Before Donovan could move, he heard the sound of a crash, and then the air was silent.

  Against an avalanche of pain, Donovan struggled to rise. His left pant leg was soaked with blood. He pulled himself up using his right leg and hopped, jumped, half-limped to the corner of the house. One glance told Donovan what had happened. The Ford had been driven into the trunk of a large tree in the front yard. The passenger door was open. Donovan raised his weapon. He was aware of the sound of footsteps, coming his way, moving in the shadows close to the house.

  The first shot Donovan fired hit the biker low in the abdomen, and in that fraction of a second, Donovan saw that it wasn’t the bald man, it was the other guy, the one he’d taken through the window. Donovan fired two more shots, the muzzle flashes acting like strobe lights, and Donovan watched as the man took both rounds in the center of the chest and crumpled forward from the waist, a knife slipping from his hand. A fourth and final flash, and the man stumbled and hit the ground face-first. As Donovan hopped closer, the man exhaled his last breath and lay motionless.

  “Donovan?” Shannon called out.

  He snapped his head toward the truck as Shannon stumbled from the driver’s side, before collapsing to the ground. Several houses away, a motorcycle engine popped to life and Donovan heard it fade rapidly in the distance as the bald man fled. Donovan rushed to the Ford. The driver’s-side door was open, and the interior light illuminated a semicircle on the lawn. Shannon was lying on her back. His fear spiked when he saw blood spattered on her face and shoulder. He dropped to his good knee and began to brush her hair from her face. “Shannon, I’m here. You’re bleeding. Where are you hurt? Talk to me.”

  She opened her eyes, pulled in a slow, careful breath, and spoke in a raspy whisper. “I don’t know. The airbag hit me,” Shannon said through a string of groans, interspersed with profanities. She reached up and touched the burns on her face.

  Donovan could see no other blood on her clothes. “I saw a gun go off inside the cab. What happened? Did he shoot you?”

  “I shot him.” Shannon rolled on her side and started to stand. “I remembered the gun you tucked above the sun visor, and it only took me about two seconds to remember everything Buck ever taught me at the range.”

  “I’m glad you changed your mind. Where did you hit him?”

  “Arm, I think. He cried out, grabbed for the gun, and then we hit the tree.” Shannon held out her hand
, waiting for Donovan to pull her to her feet.

  “I’ve been shot,” Donovan said. “Can you help me up?”

  “Donovan!” Shannon spotted his leg. She stood and leaned against the truck bed, reached out a hand, and pulled until Donovan, too, was up on both feet.

  “We need to get out of here. Does this thing still run?” Donovan asked.

  Shannon gingerly climbed behind the wheel, and seconds later, the engine fired and settled into its usual low rumble. Donovan hopped around to the rear and lowered the tailgate, and then pulled himself into the bed. “Back us up to the house.”

  Shannon eased the F-250 away from the tree and reversed slowly until the truck was back on the driveway, and then she shut off the engine.

  Donovan slid to the ground just as Shannon came around. She stopped to look at the body lying near the driveway.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes,” Donovan said.

  Shannon helped Donovan up the steps. Once inside, he sat heavily on the floor near William.

  “Is he okay?” Shannon asked Donovan.

  “I don’t know. I need some light.” Donovan collected a flashlight from the floor and switched it on. He felt William’s pulse. No change. He checked William’s ankle and his toes. Still warm and pink. As he turned the light toward Shannon, he could see reddish blotches on her face, burns from the rapidly expanding airbag. The skin around her eyes looked swollen as well. Blood splatter reached down from her neck to her shoulder.

  “Storming the house like they did, they’d been looking for us, hadn’t they? They were going to kill us.”

  “Yes.” Donovan remembered the leer in the second man’s eyes when he looked at Shannon; he guessed she wasn’t going to die quickly.

  “How did you know that going out the window would work?” Shannon asked as she gathered up their scattered medical supplies and piled them close to the backpack full of drugs.

  “I didn’t.” Donovan shrugged. “They spent a great deal of time and effort to find us. My guess is they wanted retribution for what we did to their friends. I’m so sorry I let you be taken. I was ready to kill the bald guy. I expected him to be standing in the window once I went through the glass and landed. Never once did I expect him to take you and run. Did he say anything to you?”

  “Once you went out into the darkness, he grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the kitchen. He said you were crazy, he’d deal with you later, and that he was taking me as insurance.”

  “Again, I put you at risk and I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. They were animals. We both know what they were going to do to me.” Shannon said the words with anger, but as she picked up a pair of scissors they’d taken from the emergency room, silent tears began to run down her cheeks. With shaking hands, she cut away the material of Donovan’s trousers. Wiping her eyes, she ripped open a package of gauze and cleaned the blood from his thigh.

  Donovan could see there was a long furrow on the side of his leg, a near miss. He was lucky. A direct hit from the sawed-off shotgun would have taken off his leg above the knee.

  Donovan grimaced as Shannon poured betadine straight from a bottle onto his open wound. She then applied antiseptic, gauze, tape, and finally wrapped his thigh with an elastic bandage.

  “How does it feel?” she asked as she finished.

  “Are there enough elastic bandages left to wrap the knee as well? I’m talking tight.”

  “Why?”

  “When I hit the ground outside the window, I landed wrong.”

  Shannon nodded and rummaged around the stash of supplies until she pulled out what she needed. She peeled off the paper and rolled the bandage around his knee.

  “Thanks.” Donovan tested the movement of his knee. “We need to get William into the truck and leave this place.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Anywhere but here. That guy could easily circle back and sneak up on us again.” Donovan clenched his teeth against the pain as he managed to stand. When he put weight on his left leg, the knee nearly buckled and the pain took his breath away.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, but I think I can function,” Donovan said as he limped into position to see if he could lift the chaise. It barely moved.

  “Well?” Shannon said as she began to gather up the remaining medical supplies.

  Donovan shook his head in frustration. With only one weight-bearing leg, he had little balance and practically zero leverage.

  “Let me take this end, and you take the end by his feet. Maybe the two of us can lift him off the ground.”

  Donovan had his back to the broken picture window and was in the process of repositioning himself when the entire living room filled with light. He turned to see an expanding fireball boil up into the sky and reach across the horizon before it flickered and faded. Several seconds later, a heavy boom carried through the trees and rattled the house.

  “What was that?” Shannon said as she stepped away from the window.

  Donovan turned on his good knee as smaller explosions seemed to reverberate through the house.

  “What in the hell is happening?” Shannon asked, her arms wrapped protectively across her chest, one hand covering her mouth.

  “Something big exploded in the general direction of Carmel.” Donovan confirmed his bearings against the still glowing horizon. “Whatever it was is still burning.”

  “I think we should go,” Shannon said.

  Donovan went to the shattered picture window and compared the height of the window to the bed of the truck. He turned away as the house and yard were showered with burning debris swirling down from above. Donovan heard something else, like something approaching. He looked upward as the limbs of the trees began to sway and the warm breeze touched his face. A significant wind was starting to blow, and it was as terrifying as anything he’d ever experienced. A moment later, the first gust reached them, and bone-dry leaves glowed brightly as they ignited and rose and fell in the growing wind. The smoke, illuminated by the massive fire, began to gather speed above the trees. Spurred with a fear spawned millions of years ago when man first learned to flee from fire, Donovan limped as fast as he could for the front door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “IT WAS CARMEL,” Ryan said as he handed the powerful binoculars to Lauren.

  Lauren had seen the flash and then waited as the sound and shock wave from the heavy explosion finally reached the Buckley. When it hit, she felt the vibrations shake her skeleton. Binoculars in hand, she stepped out of the bridge onto the walkway. She pressed her hip against the railing to compensate for the gentle rolling of the ship, and brought up the binoculars. In the highly magnified field of view, she watched as the flames reached higher into the night sky, as if pulling on an unlimited fuel source. She also took in the fact that it appeared as if the fire was oriented along a straight line, not unlike the gas main explosion they’d seen in Seaside. When the tendrils of the fire began to tilt and dance in the sky, and the thick smoke began to billow and tumble northward, Lauren knew that the wind had arrived.

  She remembered and hung onto Ernie’s earlier words, that nearly everyone in Carmel had been evacuated. She also reasoned that if Donovan had somehow reached Carmel, he would have evacuated as well. The logic was weak and unfounded, but it was all she had, so she held on tightly.

  Lauren saw the first gusts ruffle the water, and then the wind finally met the Buckley. She watched as the damaged helicopter blades began rising and falling in the breeze, and she also noted that the air was far warmer than she expected, and she frowned.

  “Lauren,” Ryan said as he stuck his head outside. “Ernie from Cal Fire is on the line.”

  Lauren took one last look at the fire ashore. She picked up the phone. “Ernie, it’s Lauren.”

  “What’s happened?” Ernie dispensed with any pleasantries. “I’ve got spotty reports about a major explosion.”

  “I think it was a gas main explosion in Carmel,” Lauren said. �
�From what we can see, the flames look to be in more or less a straight line, like what we saw in Seaside. And, Ernie, the winds have started picking up.”

  “How big is the fire?” Ernie asked.

  “We’re miles away, but it’s probably at least two miles long, as big as any of the other clusters. It’s also the first to be fanned by the escalating winds.”

  “So, the Carmel burn is our main fire now, the one that’s going to join the others and create the vortex situation Adam was telling me about?”

  “All of the fires are going to grow with the wind,” Lauren said. “Do you think there’s a different situation in play?”

  “Lauren, I’ve been out on the front lines. In all my years fighting fires, I’ve only seen small, momentary versions of fire tornadoes. I can’t even begin to process the magnitude of what he’s talking about. Adam is my friend, but he sits in a lab in a white coat, and his computer models have been wrong before.”

  “Ernie, I wear a lab coat,” Lauren said flatly. “We’re not wrong.”

  “Look, maybe if I had more information, I’d be on board with this. As it stands right now, I have very few facts to go on. What you’re asking me as a firefighter is to sit back and let this thing have its way with California. That goes against everything I stand for, and right this moment, I’m not prepared to give in.”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything but accept the possibilities of this fire and be prepared to retreat. Those of us on this side of the computer screen are in a position to connect some of the pertinent information so we can present you a worst-case scenario. Ernie, I’m serious, ignore us at great peril.”

  “Dr. McKenna, I appreciate your efforts, but I have a fire to put out. When you have more meteorological information, please be kind enough to pass it along.”

  “You know where to find me.” Lauren disconnected the call, perplexed that Ernie had completely shifted his attitude. She wondered about the change. Who or what had put enough pressure on him to turn his back on her? As she pondered the implications, she checked her e-mail. There was one new message from Calvin at the DIA, as well as another she didn’t recognize.