The Big One

by Harrison Arnston

  “But Tommy, he was crazy about her and wanted to marry her and then he did and look what happened. She found herself a boyfriend and took off. Still, he never seemed to get over it and when he never left her anything in the will, it made me wonder. He even changed his insurance over to me.”

  Ted tried very hard to keep his voice even. “Insurance?” he asked, innocently.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. That and some furniture. A few stocks. I don’t know what the hell he did with his money. Course, he didn’t make all that much to begin with. His savings was less’n a thousand dollars. Ain’t much after thirty-five years of livin’, is it? Course, he had to split everything with that bitch when she took off. They oughta change that law, you know? Woman takes off and the man has to split everything right down the middle. Ain’t right. They shouldn’t get a damn dime. I got his furniture out in the garage. Ain’t got no car. Guess I’ll give it to Goodwill.”

  She started to weep. Almost as if on cue, the cats started licking her face again.

  The cigarette in the ash tray had almost burned out, the still-smoldering filter casting off an acrid stink. She lit another and gulped down what was left of her drink.

  The feeling that something wasn’t quite right was growing in Ted Kowalczyk. He wanted to ask some more questions. He wanted to look at the furniture, on the off chance that there might be a stray paper or two. Almost as quickly as the thought occurred to him, it was discarded. If Tommy had been murdered, the furniture would yield no clues. These people, whoever they were, were professionals.

  At the moment, what he really wanted was to get out of this house and away from this woman who had lost everything that ever meant anything to her. He stood up, brushed some of the hair off his trousers and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wilson. Tommy was a good man. I’ll miss him. Thanks for your help.”

  She looked at him strangely. “Help? What help?”

  “I just meant,” he said, “that I appreciate you telling me what you’ve told me.”

  “If it makes you feel better,” she said.

  She let him find his own way out.

  In pleasant contrast to the house, the air outside smelled like expensive perfume. Ted brushed some more cat hair off his suit and climbed into the car. He headed towards the airport, found a Holiday Inn with a vacancy and checked in.

  Over a chopped steak dinner and a beer, which he had in his room, he made some notes to himself and then started to read again the report that Tommy had sent him. Maybe this time, it would make some sense.

  Four hours later, it was starting to.

  The report acknowledged that the large bulk of scientists in the field were convinced that earthquake prediction was a hopeless pursuit. It went on to describe, in considerable detail, why it was vital that research continue until a breakthrough was at hand. In fact, it was clear that Vance Gifford was convinced he had made just such a breakthrough. Gifford had developed a new system that seemed to work. It had, after all, accurately predicted four earthquakes in a row. That had to be more than coincidence.

  There were two main types of faults, the report stated. Some faults, called strike-slip faults, consisted of large masses of rock moving in two different horizontal directions, such as in the case of the San Andreas fault, where there was almost constant movement. On one side, the rock was moving north and on the other, south. Movement was usually several inches a year. Every year.

  Sometimes, the rock would become locked, as one jagged edge of solid rock hooked onto another moving in the opposite direction. Pressure, hundreds of billions of tons of pressure, would build up until finally the rock would break loose from its lock, and an earthquake would ensue.

  Another type of fault was the thrust fault, where two blocks of rock were pushing directly against each other, deep beneath the surface of the earth. Sometimes, one would force itself either above or below the other, causing the ground to shake. Millions of years ago, these faults had created mountains. The very same energy that had produced the mountains was still alive, deep in the earth.

  There were several theories on earthquake prediction. One was called the dilatancy theory. It held that bedrock, under pressure, developed microscopic cracks that caused the rock to swell. The swollen rock’s ability to conduct electricity was affected, and sound waves took longer to pass through. By constantly monitoring a section of a fault line, and measuring these changes, then matching deviation from the norm to quakes that had taken place, scientists could anticipate future quakes. The trick was in picking the right spot to monitor.

  The temperature theory explained that the friction of two massive rock formations moving in opposite directions created heat. A drop in temperature at a specified location along a fault line would indicate the formations were gridlocked.

  And the theory concerning seismic gaps, spots on the landscape where certain waves emitted by moving rock weren’t picked up by sensitive equipment, seemed to have been considerably significant to Tommy Wilson. According to Wilson, there were two types of waves emitted by moving plates of rock: P waves and S waves. Each wave had its own characteristics that could be measured. As well, the difference in the time it took for the different waves to reach sensitive equipment sometimes varied. Analysis of those differences had meant something to Vance Gifford.

  Vance Gifford had spent ten years of his life entering almost everything known about earthquakes into computer data banks. Information from hundreds of sources and literally thousands of earthquakes, inside and outside California, had been compiled and cross-referenced. Patterns had been drawn from the most recent ones and these patterns were analyzed and reanalyzed.

  Gifford had taken the raw data and used it to develop a complex formula based on as many as fifty different criteria. He’d taken these theories and put them to work in the field, using equipment of his own design. Equipment that probed beneath the earth’s surface, sometimes reaching as deep as three miles. Equipment that measured even the smallest movements or slightest pressure in the earth, even the moisture content of seemingly solid rock.

  Using his new formula, he’d made a number of predictions. So far, he’d been right on the first four.

  Tommy Wilson had studied Gifford’s methodology for two months and had not found it wanting. He’d taken the equipment into the field himself and conducted his own experiments. He was as convinced as Gifford that they had made a major breakthrough. The results of all of the experiments were included in the report. As far as Ted could tell, the probes were still in place and others were continuing with the work, which was still classified Top Secret.

  Scientifically, it was more than Ted could understand, but there were three facts that stood out.

  The two men had been right four times in a row.

  They had both died mysterious deaths.

  In the case of Tommy Wilson, life insurance benefits had been paid with incredible haste to two women.

  His eyes aching, he switched off the light and rested his head on the pillow, not bothering to change out of his clothes. He could hear the traffic as it roared by in a never-ending stream on the nearby freeway, even at this late hour.

  Traffic. People.

  He thought about Los Angeles and what might happen in three weeks if Tommy and his colleague were right. And they had to be right. And then he thought about the evacuation of Los Angeles.

  The largest American evacuation ever undertaken had been in Florida, Labor Day weekend, 1985. Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated from low-lying areas in the path of hurricane Elena. The costs had been staggering. The hurricane, after dancing around in the Gulf of Mexico for some thirty-five hours, had failed to come onshore in Florida, choosing instead to move up the gulf, weakening, and finally striking Louisiana. That movement had served to minimize the damage, but the evacuation itself had been looked upon by many, in the clear light of hindsight, as overkill. Many evacuees had complained that their uprooting was unnecessary, refusing to
recognize the capriciousness of hurricanes. Had Elena come onshore in central Florida and had the evacuation not taken place, many of the complainers surely would have died. The logistics of the evacuation had been examined and re-examined and pronounced successful in every way. A triumph, in fact.

  But … as successful as it was, the evacuation had involved hundreds of thousands, not ten million. Was it the sheer numbers that were daunting? Was it possible that the government was unable or unwilling to undertake the evacuation of Los Angeles because it was just too unwieldy? Or was it that they didn’t believe the prediction?

  In either case, how could he, Ted Kowalczyk, make a difference? If Tommy had been murdered and he could prove it, would that be enough? Was there time?

  He struggled to sort out his thoughts.

  For a moment, he thought of Mrs. Wilson with her cats and her parrot, her bitterness and hate. He wondered how a woman like her could produce such a brilliant man as Tommy.

  And then, as every night, his thoughts turned to a woman named Erica and a little girl named Grace. He could see their faces clearly, floating like ethereal guests at a seance.

  He pressed his fingers to his eyelids to make sure they were closed. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure they were just visions in his mind. The images would go away soon, he assured himself. They always did.

  And then he’d be alone once more.

  Alone …

  Almost desperately alone.

  Six

  * * *

  Michael Davis heard the key being inserted in the lock and immediately felt the adrenaline rush through his veins. The plan he’d been formulating in his mind for the last hour was about to be put into action. An almost hopeless plan. He knew that. But, he had to try, at the very least. To do nothing would, he was sure, drive him mad.

  He started shaking his arms and legs and rolled his head back and forth. At the same time, he emitted a series of grunts and moans. The reaction was just as he expected.

  The door to his hospital room opened and the nurse, a small tray in her hand, flicked on the light switch, bathing the room in bright light.

  “George!” she exclaimed, speaking to the beefy orderly who always accompanied her whenever she made her nocturnal “needle rounds,” “help me strap him down. He’s having a convulsion.”

  She placed the tray on a side table and the two approached the bed, taking positions on either side of the writhing Davis. As they reached for the straps affixed to the bed frame, Davis sprang upright and swung his right arm in a wide arc, the edge of his stiffened hand crashing against the neck of the orderly. In another fluid motion, the arm slashed in the opposite direction, smashing into the neck of the astonished nurse, her eyes already wide with shock.

  Both of them fell to the ground with a dull thud.

  Instantly, Davis was out of bed and on his feet. He removed a set of keys from the nurse’s belt and padded to the door of his room. He opened the door slowly and looked down the hall.

  No one was about.

  Tiptoeing on bare feet, he crept down the hall in the direction of the nurse’s station, his heart pounding, beads of sweat popping from his forehead. At the end of the hallway, a locked door with a small, reinforced window blocked entry to the nurse’s station, which was positioned much like the hub of a wheel. As he reached the door, he crouched down and peeked out the bottom of the window.

  From his position, he couldn’t see the entire area, but he could see that there was another nurse, sitting at a long desk, making entries in aluminum-cased medical charts.

  There were six keys on the ring. The fourth one unlocked the door.

  He peeked through the window again. The nurse was still engrossed.

  Carefully, he opened the door just enough to allow him to move through it, then kept his hand against it as it closed silently behind him.

  Moving in a crouch and holding his breath, he headed toward the long desk, hoping the nurse wouldn’t hear the pounding of his heart. With each step, he anticipated the sound of alarms or the shouts of someone who had seen him. Finally, he was standing behind her, his right arm in position. He covered her mouth with his left hand as his right smashed against the side of her neck. Then, he lowered her unconscious body to the ground.

  The object of his search was right in front of him. A telephone. Did it have an outside line? That was the question.

  Quickly, he looked at the unmarked line buttons. There were seven of them, all unlit. He pressed the one next to the hold button and brought the receiver to his ear. He almost shouted with joy as he heard the dial tone.

  He punched some buttons and waited as the phone rang at the other end.

  One … two …

  Come on, Mary!

  Three …

  God! Had she disconnected the phone?

  Four …

  He heard a click and then a muffled, “Yes?”

  “Mary, it’s me. Michael. Listen carefully, I don’t have much time.”

  “Michael? Michael?”

  “Mary!” He tried to keep his voice as low as possible. “Just listen. I’m in a private hospital. A prisoner. It’s called Harbor View. Get a lawyer and get me out. And get out of the house. You’ve got to get away from there.”

  “They said …”

  “Just listen! You remember Bill Price?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Listen! He’s in L.A. now. I don’t know what paper. I want you to call him. Tell him I said — off the record — that Los Angeles is going to have a terrible earthquake in three weeks. He’s got to warn the people. He can’t use my name. Got that?”

  There was a hesitation and then, “Michael! For God’s sake! What’s going on?”

  “Just do it. Remember! Get out of the house, call a lawyer and then call Bill. He can’t use my name. I gotta go! I love you!”

  He hung up the phone and moved quickly to the door leading to his hallway. Then he was through it, locking it behind him. Seconds later he was back in his relocked room, the keys were back on the nurse’s belt, and he was wiping her face with a wet towel.

  As she started to come to, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “What?” Her hand went to her neck. “You …”

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” he said. “I was having a nightmare. I guess I kinda went nuts there. I’m really sorry.”

  She struggled to her feet and, with unsteady legs, moved to the other side of the bed. George, the orderly, was still out. The nurse took the wet towel Davis had used on her and began wiping George’s face with it. Davis, trying to appear helpful, rubbed the man’s wrists. Then the door flew open and two burly, white-uniformed orderlies rushed in.

  “You all right in here?” one of them asked.

  “It’s all right,” the nurse answered. “We just had a little problem here. It’s fine now.”

  “A little problem? Like what?”

  George was coming around. “Mr. Davis was having a nightmare. He thought George and I were attacking him and he …”

  “Bullshit!” one of the orderlies yelled. “The bastard cold-cocked Patricia. He used the phone!”

  Michael Davis chewed on his lower lip as he felt the heat emanating from three sets of very hostile eyes.

  It seemed innocuous enough. A release from the Pentagon’s public relations department, low-keyed and understated, not unlike as many as a hundred that the newspaper would receive over the course of an average month from the same source.

  It was called “Operation Move.”

  At the top of the single page that had just come over the wire was the legend, “For Immediate Release.”

  The body of the announcement read, “The Pentagon today announced a special exercise dubbed ‘Operation Move,’ which will involve the temporary relocation of certain unspecified defense contractors.

  “The operation is designed to test the preparedness of critical defense contractors should the need arise because of possible attack or natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods,
brush fires or earthquakes. It will be combined with a similar operation to be carried out by all arms of the nation’s defense forces.

  “Because of the sensitive nature of the operation, details are classified. The operation is the first of its kind and will be concluded within four weeks.”

  Bill Price looked at the single yellow sheet and scratched his head with the eraser-end of the blue pencil in his hand.

  The release was one of six that had come over the wire at the same time. The other five had dealt with matters that seemed much more important. A new policy with regard to the operation of the Sixth Fleet in the Middle East; a report on the investigation into the latest crash of a B-1 bomber; a major personnel shuffle in the Marine Corps. Of particular interest was a very major story involving the Coast Guard. The biggest cocaine bust in their history had been achieved after a ferocious firefight with well-equipped drug runners. Eight men, all of them smugglers, had been killed and three ships sunk. The ever-increasing boldness of the drug runners had been stunted, at least on this run.

  And this story, “Operation Move.”

  Price, editor of the Los Angeles Globe, walked over to the wire-service machine and checked the copy. The story was there, but it had been given a bland, national slant. He wanted a local angle. He looked around the office, searching for a reporter, but they were all out of the building for the moment, so he decided to check it out himself. He returned to his desk, entered a key on his computer terminal and brought up an alphabetical list of names and telephone numbers of various defense contractors located in the Los Angeles area.

  The first six claimed to know nothing of the exercise. The seventh was more forthcoming. The man’s name was Lester Barnes and he was the public relations director for Exton Aviation, a subcontractor that produced small, electronically controlled motors for the “Stealth” fighter.