“You’ll discover that we can do a lot, Jeff. There are many people in the world who think it’s time to link it all together. The Internet was the first step. Now we want the banking in order. You just get that brain of yours to perking on the problem.”
“One thing, though,”Cal Rutland interjected suddenly from his spectator position across the room. “Don’t mention to anyone that you’re working with the senator. If the press finds out, they will make an issue out of it.”
Hunt straightened to his feet, walked back around to his chair, and, looking at Cal with some disdain, he said, “If you had let me finish, I was going to talk to Jeff about that.”
Jeff thought he saw a glimmer of hatred in the aide’s dark eyes. He involuntarily rubbed his hands together. He recalled what he had heard his father say often when he was a child. “In the real world the big fish eat the little fish . . .” and then he would add, “unless the little fish is a piranha.” Jeff suspected that Cal Rutland was one of the piranhas.
Just then, Jeff thought of something else. “I’ve got a problem, Senator. I’ve still got classes to finish at Cal Tech. To say nothing of this earthquake research—”
“Jeff, when your predicted earthquake hits, I think I can guarantee you a Ph.D., based on your work. That is, if there is anything left of Cal Tech.”
Even as he spoke, Mark Hunt knew he had said too much. A glance at his aide’s face told him that the Society would not take his revealing, offhand remarks well. Stiffening a little at Rutland’s frown he thought, So what!I’m the only viable candidate they have.
“Then you actually believe the wave will hit California?” Jeff asked cautiously.
“I told you I believe in you, Jeff. So if you say it will, I believe it.” Even as he spoke, he remembered an earlier meeting with Kilborne in which he had assured the president that Jeff’s prediction was not credible. At the press meeting tonight with the Japanese he would dump the whole load on Kilborne.
“Why don’t you tell President Kilborne then?” Jeff blurted out with an unexpected surge of courage and emotion.
“Whoa! Just a minute, Jeff,”Hunt quickly replied as he looked over at Rutland, who by now was looking away. “I did tell the president, but no one wants to believe it.”
“But a million or more people may die,” insisted Jeff. “And what about the Japanese?”
“We’ll warn them again, Jeff, but right now everyone wants to believe the San Francisco quake was the ‘big one.’”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jeff said defensively. “My program clearly predicted a smaller quake approximately twelve days before the shift in the plates below Japan.”
“Twelve days!” Hunt snapped. “Did you tell anyone else about this?”
“Yes, of course I did. I told Dr. Eison at Livermore.”
“Well, then, I’m sure the president knows too,” the senator said, trying to appear calm. “Maybe they just don’t want to believe you, Jeff.” Inside, the senator’s heart had done a flip. If that quake had hit before the press meeting with the Japanese, he would have lost the edge. Then he realized that the meeting had been scheduled exactly ten days after the California quake. Somewhere inside he felt a tinge of uncertainty. He thought, They knew, but they didn’t tell me. They must have set the time for this evening’s meeting. They control Kilborne’s schedule too!
Cal Rutland was perceptive enough to know what was going through the senator’s mind, so he stood quickly and said to Jeff, “Well, we should get you back to your work.” Let Hunt wonder why he wasn’t told about the timing of the second earthquake, Rutland decided wordlessly. The Society has a few more surprises for this pompous idiot. After a hurried good-bye, Jeff was ushered out of the senator’s office, while the senator was slipping on his dinner jacket for Kilborne’s reception.
In the next morning’s newspaper, the press conference reported how the president’s science adviser, Dr. Robert Lowe, had publicly resigned after stating that he had warned President Kilborne that the west coast of California should be evacuated. The article also noted that Senator Mark Hunt had personally urged the president to act while there was still time to warn the people of California and also the Japanese.
The president denied that either his science adviser or Hunt had suggested that the program, created by Cal Tech student Jeff Wells, was believable. However, the reporters present were given documents bearing the president’s own initials, proving that Dr. Lowe had notified the president at least twice of the impending danger.
The report in one newspaper read: “President Kilborne was seen storming out of the meeting and has been unavailable for comment. Some members of Congress have suggested that if the predicted wave does strike the California coast the president should resign. The largest polls show that approximately 70 percent of American voters now believe the potential disaster is imminent. Both President Kilborne and Governor Crow now trail Senator Hunt by at least 20 percentage points.”
3
DISASTER STRIKES
It always amused Haru Ashimo, lead engineer at Nippon Industries in Tokyo, to observe foreigners visiting Japan for the first time—especially when earthquakes hit. Tremors that nearly gave Americans heart failure scarcely fazed the Japanese in multistory buildings. Western visitors would turn white with fear as the buildings swayed and would often gasp, “What’s happening?” Usually the Japanese would simply sit rigidly in their seats, waiting for the tremor to subside. A few of the more Westernized might joke by stating the obvious, “I don’t know. It might be an earthquake.” Then they would pretend to duck under their desks for protection, only to reappear immediately while their Western counterparts cowered beneath desks and tables. Far too polite to laugh, the smiles of the Japanese nonetheless betrayed their amusement. When the tremors subsided, the Western businessmen would crawl out from under tables red-faced, as they observed the Japanese going quietly about their work.
When the earthquake began on May 25th, most of Haru’s office mates sat placidly still, while others gathered loose items on their desks to keep them from crashing to the floor. They had ridden out tremors before and accepted them as a common occurrence. Usually the disturbance would last only a few seconds at most. The “earthquake-proof” buildings would sway on their huge roller foundations and then settle back into their normal positions.
On this particular Thursday morning, however, the building at the Nippon Industrial Complex seemed to sway more than usual. Instead of a normal five-second tremor that quickly subsided, this one began to build. The Nippon building, one of the safest in Tokyo, had been constructed to the highest earthquake standards only two years earlier, so the workers inside still felt reasonably safe.
Within ten seconds, the building was rocking and lurching like a wild bronco, and for the first time an expression of fear was evident on every Japanese worker’s face.
“My God, the building is going over!”Kimo Sarusso, one of the engineers, shouted over the rumble of the quake.
“Be quiet!” snapped Ashimo from his position at the lead engineer’s desk. “This building is designed to withstand earthquakes. It will not fail.”
The tremors were now coming with such intensity that the whole building felt as if it was being launched into space. Suddenly a crack appeared in the outer wall where the windows and support structures came together.
Ten seconds later the twenty-story building became a massive heap of rubble and broken bodies.
Outside in the streets, people were trying desperately to escape the falling debris from the collapsing structure. Unfortunately, there was no place to hide. Huge chunks of concrete came rocketing down among thousands of people running through the streets.
Upper story windows shattered, showering those below with shards of glass. Entire streets were lifted stories high and dashed to the ground, flinging cars and trucks as if they were children’s toys. At Tokyo International Airport, jumbo jets on the runway were tossed high into the air, as if thrown by some invisible
hand. The giant 797s crashed back onto the tarmac like birds crumpled by a hunter’s shotgun blast.
Delta Flight 44 was approaching Tokyo Airport when the first big shock wave hit. The flight controller, Mira Akai, seeing the scope she was watching go blank, had the presence of mind to key her mike and shout, “Delta 44, abort approach and turn to a heading of 213 immediately!”
John Grey, the captain of the 797 Boeing fan jet, immediately applied power to go around. It seemed like an eternity as the big engines spooled up to takeoff power. Out of his window, he saw the runway buckle and bulge toward his aircraft. It all seemed to move in slow motion as a mountain of asphalt rose to meet the floundering aircraft.
“Roger, retract the gear!” Captain Grey shouted to his copilot. The many hours in the simulator now paid off as the copilot reacted instantly to the captain’s command and pushed the landing gear control all the way in. The plane rose in response to the reduced drag and began to climb slowly.
“Max power!” Captain Grey ordered. “Firewall it!”
Again the copilot responded as directed and shoved the engine controls full forward to the emergency position.
The big turbo fan engines providing power to the descending aircraft had now spiked to 70 percent of their power curve and the plane wobbled skyward.
“Now if she’ll just hang together,”Grey shouted over the whine of the engines as he rolled the aircraft to the right in an effort to escape the rising mountain of runway.
The plane just cleared the edge of the runway when the ground erupted into a shower of dirt and debris. The mammoth jet plane vibrated as it was struck by the erupting ground, but it continued to rise above the turmoil.
“Thank God we weren’t hit by the pavement,” the captain said as the perspiration dripped off his forehead. “It would have been like flying through shrapnel.”He eased back on the wheel as the plane continued to climb, now well above the chaos below.
“Man, that’s as close as I ever want to see an earthquake,” his copilot said as he flexed his hands. He had been gripping the controls so tightly that he had a difficult time moving his fingers.
“Yeah,” agreed Gray, “but think about those poor devils down there.” He pointed out the window to the ground below. It looked as if a huge plow had cut its path right through the center of the world’s busiest airport.
Flying west over the city of Tokyo, the passengers and crew of Delta Flight 44 were witnesses to one of nature’s most savage displays of raw power. Every structure in downtown Tokyo was swaying, and hundreds of older buildings had crumbled into piles of debris, surrounded by plumes of dust that obscured the skyline in some areas. Bridges connecting Tokyo with its lifeline of highways had collapsed, throwing hundreds of vehicles into the sea. The tunnel connecting the main island to the outer islands, built at a cost of nearly $12 billion, had broken open, creating a huge siphon as the sea water rushed in.
“Poor devils,”Captain Grey said again, despondently. “What an awful way to die—trapped in an undersea tunnel!”
The quake lasted seven minutes, reaching a peak at the epicenter of 8.6. In that seven minutes, three million people were killed in and around Tokyo, and several million more were injured. Virtually all power and communications were cut off from the world’s financial center, causing chaos on the world’s markets.
Aftershocks would continue to strike the island for the next five days, causing more damage and complicating the rescue process. But in that first seven minutes, nearly $4 trillion worth of property had been destroyed. Many of the world’s largest and most sophisticated manufacturing plants dissolved into rubble.
Unknown at that time, an even greater disaster was developing under the Pacific Ocean. There had been earthquake-born waves before in history but never on the scale generated by the Tokyo quake. Historians reported a tsunami hitting the Philippine Islands in 1792 after the eruption of an underwater volcano in the Pacific Basin, north of the Philippine Trench. The wave was estimated to be three hundred feet high in the shallows of the China Sea and traveled at approximately two to three hundred miles an hour. Several ships at sea were lost and never heard from again, obviously victims of the huge wave. Only the sparse population in the Philippine Islands kept the death toll down to twenty thousand.
Two characteristics of the quake in Japan now combined to create disaster on the far side of the Pacific. First, the plate shift was so massive and violent that the underwater land mass displacement was estimated at six trillion cubic yards, or approximately equal to the size of the state of Georgia. That much mass shifting position pushed an incalculable amount of water ahead of it. Second, the land mass moved in exactly the plane Jeff’s program predicted: an easterly direction from the Japanese islands, toward the western United States.
As the volume of water pushed its way beneath the ocean only a slight swell appeared on the surface, but beneath the surface a rip tide some two thousand feet deep and four hundred miles wide was sweeping across the Pacific at a speed of several hundred miles an hour. Even though media services picked up the accounts of the earthquake in Tokyo from airborne observers, such as Flight 44, no hint of the impending disaster approaching the U.S. mainland was reported. An Enterprise-class nuclear submarine traveling four hundred feet below the surface on maneuvers reported the underwater shock wave, but the transmission lasted only twelve seconds before the sub broke into pieces. Underwater sonar detectors used to track Pacific traffic recorded the sounds of the crumpled hulk sinking to the ocean bottom. They also picked up the sounds of two other nearby subs splitting apart like model toys.
Once the underwater wave hit the shelf near the west coast of California, the water backed up and began to force its way to the surface. Billions of tons of water, propelled at more than four hundred miles an hour, became a full-fledged tsunami by the time the wave was three hundred miles from the coast.
In the weather radar tower at Point Magoo, California, Frances Akins was taking her hourly check of the Pacific weather conditions, prior to transmitting the marine report. The sky showed no appreciable accumulation of cumulonimbus, or thunder boomers, as Bill Frank, the local TV weather man, insisted on calling them. I wonder why they always seem to pick the buffoon types to do the weather on TV, Frances thought to herself as she checked weather scopes. I’m sure he flunked the third grade twice. Then, as she viewed the radar sweep one more time, something began to appear on her scope.
“What the . . . ?” she exclaimed as the image on the screen began to develop into what looked like a mountain to the west.
“What’s the trouble, Frances?” Andy Maury, the station supervisor, asked. Andy had taken over operation of the Magoo weather station after the Navy decided to shut the facility down as part of an economy move during the Kilborne administration. He had thirty years of forecasting experience, including his twenty-three-year stint with the navy, mostly aboard the big carriers. Not only was he the director, but he was also part owner of the now-private forecasting station, which sold information to the local television stations as well as various marine groups.
“You’d better look at this, Andy,” Frances said as she thumped the screen in a characteristic reaction left over from the days of CRT monitors. With LCD displays, thumping did little but serve to relieve frustrations. Refraining from a second thump, Frances said, “I think the Doppler must be conking out. It shows the ocean is growing a mountain.” Even as she spoke the image grew larger; it looked like Mount Rushmore had been transplanted to the Pacific and was headed toward the California coast.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Andy Maury said. “What do we have here?” As he spoke his mind signaled an alarm. He had seen a similar image somewhere in his past. “Have you recalibrated the scope image lately?” he asked, knowing that Frances would have done so earlier.
“Of course!” she answered indignantly. “I do it before every scan.”
“I knew you had, Frances, but I still had to ask,” Andy said. He knew she was a competent
meteorologist and was more than slightly sensitive about being the only woman in a crew of ten men.
“I know, Andy,” she said in a more contrite tone. “But everything was fine when I started the noon sweep.”
In addition to the normal array of meteorological radar gear, the Magoo station had the newest laser equipment, dubbed the Weather Wizard. Although still relatively new equipment, a trained operator, which Frances was, could track a Pacific storm to within a few feet as it approached the mainland. It was this equipment to which they now turned.
“Crank up the laser and point it at the mountain,”Maury suggested. “It’s probably just a false echo, but I’d like to be sure.”
Inside, the station director wasn’t nearly as calm as he appeared outside. I know I’ve seen this before, he thought as his mind raced, seeking the answer. Come on, bring it up, he chastened his struggling memory. I know this pattern from somewhere . . . Secretly he was praying it was just a simple equipment failure, but deep inside he felt uneasy.
Frances quickly cycled the laser “Weather Wizard” through its self-tests. The system was designed to verify squalls and other weather conditions containing solid or liquid particles, such as rain and hail. Its use in tracking rain storms, thunder clouds, tornadoes, and the like was unparalleled in meteorology.
“It’s calibrated and ready to go,” Frances announced as she flipped the scan indicator to long range.
Suddenly the display screen was filled with the same image that was showing on the Doppler. The automatic alarm on the laser system screeched out its warbling sound, indicating a major obstruction in a scanning field that should have been clear.
“It’s a tsunami!” Maury shouted as his mind clicked with the image that was now being displayed on both screens. “I saw one like this in the navy when an earthquake struck mainland China. Look at the size of that thing! It must be nearly three hundred feet high.”
The Illuminati Page 4