CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
LAUREN STOOD ON the bridge as the freshening wind kicked up whitecaps. She could feel the ship begin to roll and pitch beneath her feet. Below her on the flight deck, crewmen were inspecting the chains that secured the helicopter to the deck, as well as clearing the ladders and lights from earlier.
“What in the hell?” Ryan slid out of his chair, hurried to where Lauren stood, and raised his binoculars.
She raised hers as well and scanned the horizon. Lauren glimpsed a tentacle of fire spiral upward in the distance and disappear, then another one appeared. The second one lasted twice as long.
“They’ve begun, haven’t they?” Ryan asked.
Lauren felt her stomach tighten with fear. The bursts were rotating spires of fire, building to the point that they reached above the layer of smoke and broke into the clear air above. The politicians in Sacramento sitting on their hands were about to witness a shocking change in the fire they were assigned to fight. Lauren had no idea what General Curtis had done with her suggestion, but the flares would soon have everyone’s attention. There wasn’t anyone left for her to reach out to for help. She hoped Donovan was aware of the shifting nature of the fire and was making his escape. As the spiraling monsters leapt higher into the sky, she faced the reality that he may already be lost to her, and her emotions began to undo her.
“Lauren,” Michael called out as he came onto the bridge. “What’s happening? I was just with Montero and Ethan down in the shop and headed up here when I heard someone on deck say there are flares of some kind on the horizon. What’s going on?”
“The flares we can see are from the fire,” Lauren said. “The wind is picking up and what we feared most is starting.”
“Ryan, with all due respect,” Lauren said. “Can we make this ship go any faster? Anyone who’s survived this long will be running for the shore.”
“Helm, make our speed fifteen knots,” Ryan said. “I want all lights forward, extra lookouts posted port and starboard.”
“Thank you,” Lauren said to Ryan with a respectful nod. She turned toward Michael. “Have you spoken with Janie? Last I heard she was talking with some Cal Fire people about helicopter rescue routes. If we have helicopters to pull out survivors, now is the time to get them in the air.”
“I’m on it,” Michael said as he spun and went in search of Janie.
Lauren’s phone rang. A glance at the screen identified the caller as General Curtis. She took a deep breath and answered. “Dr. McKenna.”
“Dr. McKenna, General Curtis here. I’ve been in contact with the Global Hawk Ground Control Station at Beale Air Force Base. Monterey Peninsula is just now at the far range of the drone’s sensor array, but I’m told the phenomena you spoke to me about earlier may have become a reality.”
“General, I can see the spires from the Buckley, and we’re twelve miles offshore. Can you tell me exactly what the drone is seeing?”
“Check your e-mail; I’ve sent you the link to connect directly to the Global Hawk sensor array. As the on-site liaison under my command, I’ve given you full authority on this. I’ve also sent you a secure phone line to Beale so you can communicate directly with the two men controlling the Global Hawk when you and I are finished. Everyone on the Global Hawk team at Beale has been instructed to follow your orders. What I want right this moment is your assessment of what I’m seeing on the live feed from the Global Hawk.”
Using her encrypted DIA passwords, she opened a secure link and clicked files until she was looking at a raw infrared image of Monterey Peninsula taken from a long way away. Lauren finally had a real-time view of everything happening around her. “General, stand by, I’m just now getting a visual feed from the Global Hawk.” Fully familiar with the sophisticated software, Lauren toggled and manipulated the controls to magnify the area of the screen she’d selected. Seconds later, the expanded area was as crisp as if she were seeing it from a mile away.
“Doctor,” General Curtis said. “What do you see?”
“At first glance, it looks like a boiling cluster of thunderstorms. I count as many as seven areas of rotation. They appear to be climbing and twisting as they grow. I can confirm that this is supported by what we’ve observed visually. The patterns of smoke surrounding each vortex clearly show the powerful suction within the rotation. Each vortex is pulling in massive amounts of oxygen.”
“Doctor, I need facts, and what you think is going to happen next.”
“The winds inside these firestorms are going to reach a hundred miles per hour. The temperature will probably climb to fifteen hundred degrees centigrade, so everything burns. It will keep going until it runs out of fuel. This fire is currently destroying the Monterey Peninsula. We’re seeing multiple funnels in a single burn area. My immediate concern is that with the wind, the burn areas could merge, and the rotation become one massive spinning super-fire. The largest tornado ever recorded was almost three miles in diameter. What we’re seeing now has the potential to develop into a similar-sized event. General, this could be our only chance to stop this fire. Once it reaches San Jose, it’s doubtful we can do anything to keep it from consuming San Francisco, and perhaps Oakland, as well.”
“Thank you, Dr. McKenna, I understand your sense of urgency. Has your boss, Calvin, seen any of this?”
“Unless he has the same Global Hawk feed I’m looking at, no,” Lauren answered. “He’s next on my list of people to call.”
“Don’t bother,” General Curtis said. “I’ll send him the images myself and then he and I will talk. I want you to move forward and discuss this enhanced backburn with your experts. Pull in everyone you need, but do it fast. I need one condition before I even consider asking the president for an order of martial law.”
“What’s that?”
“First, this needs to work, so pick this backburn area carefully. Second, as I said earlier, I need assurance that no American citizens are going to be killed in the process of Air Force jets delivering their ordinance. From experience, we both know it’s hard to drop bombs and not hurt anyone.”
“Yes, sir, General.” Lauren’s mind jump-started to everything she needed to do and the order in which it needed to be done. One more glance at the image from the Global Hawk confirmed she needed to work fast.
“I hope you’re wrong about needing to implement this solution,” General Curtis said, his voice retaining its firm edge. “Martial law, by definition, is order, implemented by men trained for chaos. It’s a demanding and uncomfortable scenario.”
“More uncomfortable than watching thousands of people burn?” Lauren replied and, without waiting for the general to answer, she disconnected the call and punched in the number he’d given her for Global Hawk Command at Beale Air Force Base.
“Operations, Colonel Martin speaking.”
“Colonel Martin, this is Dr. Lauren McKenna, Defense Intelligence Agency. I believe General Curtis has been in touch with you?”
“Dr. McKenna, yes. I’m transferring you to flight bay eight. You’ll be talking with Lieutenant Sebastian Ruiz, the aircraft commander.”
Lauren was encouraged by the swift action and glad her call was directed to the individuals in charge of the Global Hawk. She pictured the darkened room with an array of computer screens and flight information. There’d be the pilot; the other person would be a sensor operator. The Global Hawk itself orbited pilotless, at up to sixty thousand feet, and had the range to remain there for hours. Right now, she needed the matter-of-fact approach of a pilot.
“Dr. McKenna, Lieutenant Ruiz here. What can I do for you today?”
Lauren immediately liked his calm, easy manner. “First of all, please call me Lauren. I’m a senior analyst with the DIA, so I’m familiar with the specifications and capabilities of your sensor array, as well as your aircraft, so please, talk to me like one of the guys.”
“Okay, Lauren, my name is Sebastian. Let’s get to work. General Curtis asked us to give you whatever you want. Where
do we start?”
“I want to add the real-time data stream from the Global Hawk to two more recipients.”
“Sure, send me their e-mail.”
Lauren’s fingers quickly pulled up both Ernie’s and Adam’s contact pages, grouped their e-mail addresses together, and sent them to Sebastian. “Okay, I just sent them to you. The next thing I want to do is plot and project the fire’s progress. From what I saw earlier, I’m guessing the drone is still a ways offshore?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “We’re at fifty-five thousand feet, and we’ll be at optimum sensor position in twenty minutes. What do you need us to look for specifically?”
“People,” Lauren said bluntly. “How long before you’re able to locate individuals who might be in danger from the fire?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Sebastian said. “Though, I need you to understand that the conditions aren’t perfect for picking out specific individuals. With so many hot spots on the ground, we get intermittent images and false negatives. If there’s good contrast, as in cooler air surrounding the individuals, then we can spot them. If they’re inside a three-story building, and the roof or an upper floor of the building is on fire, sometimes all we’ll see is the structure. Also, we’ve learned that, at some point, if the air above the ground is superheated to a certain point, the sensors only show us heat, no details.”
“I understand,” Lauren said. “Do the best you can. The good news is I doubt there are very many people still hanging around.”
“From what I can see, I hope you’re right. Is there a particular area you need us to scan?”
Lauren bit her lip. She wanted to tell him Pebble Beach, but that wasn’t the area where the backburn was going to be launched. “You’ll be receiving the coordinates shortly from Cal Fire,” Lauren said and then closed her eyes and repeated to herself what she’d told Calvin earlier. If she concentrated on helping everyone she could, Donovan, Shannon, and William might be among them. Though at the moment, she ignored the fact that she was conspiring with the Pentagon to increase the burn area, which could close off any chance of escape they might still have.
“Okay, I just received e-mails from someone named Ernie, and someone else named Adam. They want to know who I am, and where I got the image of the fire.”
“Can I put you on hold while I talk to them? They have information we’ll need,” Lauren said.
“Let’s leave this link open,” Sebastian said. “Lauren, I’m sitting in a comfortable chair, safely on the ground at Beale Air Force Base. The Global Hawk is on autopilot, and my sensor operator, David, is next to me making sure everything runs smoothly. If you want, we can pick them up on a conference call and have a staff meeting.”
Lauren flipped through the charts until she saw where she’d jotted down the phone numbers earlier, and relayed them to Sebastian. First Ernie and then Adam came onto the line.
“Gentleman, you can call me Sebastian. I’m in command of a Global Hawk unmanned aerial platform that I’m bringing into position over the fire. Also with us is Dr. Lauren McKenna, and right this moment, the three of you have my undivided attention.”
“Lauren,” Ernie spoke first. “The images are terrifying—this thing is exploding faster than I imagined.”
“I agree,” Adam added. “I count seven separate clusters with distinct signs of rotation. If they join, hell, if even four of them join, we could have the equivalent of an F-3 tornado, only made of high-velocity flames, not clouds and rain.”
“Ernie,” Lauren said. “We talked about the backfires. You wanted more time, but that’s not an option. Do you remember what I told you I might be able to get?”
“A bigger backburn?”
“Exactly. The Pentagon is analyzing this. I need you to designate an area to ignite, one that will be big enough to slow this fire. We’ll use the Global Hawk to make sure the area you chose is big enough to work, and it also needs to be completely devoid of people. We can’t have any casualties from this plan. Can the two of you work up a map for the Pentagon that gives us a chance of stopping this thing?”
“Yes, well . . . maybe,” Adam replied. “It’s going to be a pretty big area, and the fire needs time to consume all available fuel.”
“Napalm is what we’ll be using as an accelerant,” Lauren said. “It should provide the coverage you’re asking for. In my mind, we start a huge backfire, nestle it up next to the inland flooding of the Salinas River caused by the tsunami, and hopefully stop this thing. I know that sparks can ride the wind, but if you positioned your ground and aerial units north of the backburn, you could be ready to jump on all of the tiny fires.”
“The scale is beyond anything we’ve ever dealt with before,” Ernie said. “Though, when you simplify it like that, it almost makes sense.”
“It does make sense,” Adam said excitedly. “I just plugged in some preliminary numbers into the computer. You’re right, Lauren, we need a huge backburn, but the program says we can create one that could reduce the main fire as much as eighty-five percent.”
“Can you send us the map of the projected backburn needed?” Lauren asked as the first rush of an actual solution gave her a chill.
“There,” Adam said. “It’s sent. I’ll admit it’s rough, and I will modify it as we get more information, but the initial numbers say if we burn two separate areas in front of the fire, we’ll starve it for lack of fuel.”
Lauren waited impatiently until the e-mail arrived, and she furiously clicked the icons until the map appeared on her screen. As she pulled in the details and grasped the boundaries of the two areas Adam had drawn, she felt her hopes waver. She saw an irregular rectangle nearly five miles long and a mile wide, as well as a smaller rectangle farther east near Salinas. “Adam, are you serious? This is what it takes?”
“Adam,” Ernie cried out. “I see it. This is brilliant. The fires and flooded area in Seaside already act as a block. Highway 68 was always our projected border. You’ve staggered the boxes around the areas flooded by the tsunami. I can see this working.”
“How much time do we have for all of this?” Lauren asked.
“I’ve only seen the one snapshot from the Global Hawk,” Adam said. “Are there sequential shots to predict the speed of the individual clusters?”
“Yes, they’re on their way,” Sebastian said.
Lauren pulled up the data, and after quickly comparing it to the earlier feeds, she estimated the movement of all of the fires.
“Oh wow,” Adam said. “I’ll plug all this into the computer in a second to confirm. But right now I estimate that we’d have to have the fuel consumed in the backburn area in one hour and twenty minutes, or it’ll be too late.”
“Sebastian,” Lauren asked. “Are we close enough to the burn area for the sensors to pick up any people who might be at risk?”
“The slant range makes it a little iffy, so the count is probably a little low until we get directly overhead. Right now the computer says there are at least two dozen people inside the boundaries.”
“Ernie, do whatever it takes to get those people out of there,” Lauren said. “I need to call the Pentagon and relay this information.”
“Lauren, you might also want to know that we’re picking up hundreds of infrared signatures of other people.”
“Where?” Lauren asked, though she already knew the answer.
“All over, but mostly between the main fire and the one you want to set.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SPEEDING DOWN THE roadway, Donovan glanced over his shoulder at Shannon and William, and saw hundreds of small burns in the fabric from the swirling embers that filled the air. Not far behind was a wall of flames—just glancing at it made the skin on his face grow hot. He turned his attention back to the road, and pulled up the leather collar to protect the exposed flesh on his neck.
Buffeted by swirling winds, the truck skidded and lurched down the winding roads as Donovan left Pebble Beach behind and raced through Pacific Grove. He p
assed a huge tree being whipped by the gusts. Moments after they passed, he saw the entire tree began to ignite, the burning branches sucked up into the sky toward the rotating inferno. He swerved up a driveway, powered through a yard to avoid downed power lines, then slammed back down to the asphalt as the truck came off of the curb.
Coming down the hill, the smoke was less thick. He pulled the mask away from his mouth and nose, and let it drop loosely around his neck. The engine temperature was slowly creeping upwards again. Highway 68 was straight ahead, and the route looked clear so far. Explosions boomed in the distance as propane tanks or automobile fuel tanks went off, sparked by the fire and intense heat.
Again he glanced over his shoulder at Shannon and William. “Shannon,” Donovan called out and waited for her face to appear from under the blanket. “How are you doing?”
“I think William is starting to come around,” Shannon said. “He started groaning and jerking and then kind of settled down again. He might need another injection.”
“Not unless you can do it while we’re driving,” Donovan said. “We put a little distance between us and the fire, but it feels like the wind is blowing harder. Highway 68 is up ahead. We’re going to try and take it out of the city.”
“Just hurry,” Shannon said.
Donovan threaded his way through the remains of a five-car pileup in the middle of an intersection. He made a right turn and breathed a small sigh of relief as he powered down Highway 68. The road was clear and he hit sixty miles per hour. When the pavement started to curve, Donovan was forced to slow. Then suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and the truck fishtailed to a halt. Behind him, Shannon popped up to see what was happening. A hundred yards down the road, advancing flames burst from the trees. The blaze quickly leaped all four lanes of the highway, and the truck shook in the growing winds. When the flames reached the opposite side of the road and moved through an open field, Donovan understood the entire wall was rotating.
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