8.4 (2012)

by Peter Hernon

  Stan Marshal immediately objected. “We don’t have any physical evidence that these faults are connected,” he said. “And we’re in no position to suggest that an earthquake on one would trigger one on another. That’s way too speculative.”

  “The real issue is how much crustal shear strain is left in the ground,” said Mark Wren. “We don’t have enough data yet to run those kinds of projections.”

  Wren seldom spoke at these sessions. He seemed like a competent geologist but was overly deferential to Weston, Atkins thought. He had to admit Wren was right. It all came back to getting more satellite readings to measure any new deformation.

  Still, the data made him nervous. The new fault line was incredibly active.

  Walt Jacobs had been largely silent up to then. It looked as if he hadn’t changed his denim shirt in days. He was withdrawn, moody, which wasn’t like him. Atkins was starting to worry about him. He knew Jacobs was sick with fear about his wife and daughter. He’d heard nothing from them since the quake, and he was still waiting for word from the two graduate students he’d sent to look for them.

  “We need to consider the possibility we may be having a repetition of the 1811-1812 events,” Jacobs said. He spoke slowly, deliberately, and immediately drew a sharp response from Weston.

  “We don’t have the data to support that even as a serious hypothesis,” Weston said with a flash of anger. He was supported immediately by several other seismologists. They knew he was right, and all were uncomfortable with raising the specter of the big quakes from the last century. There were shouts that Jacobs was out of line.

  Continuing as though unaware of the interruption, Jacobs said, “It all happened before—the sudden emergence of new faults, lingering, violent aftershocks, a huge deformation over a vast region. The complicated pattern of ruptures, main shocks, and after shocks. The same thing that’s happening right now.”

  “The mainshock must have created the waterfall on the Mississippi,” Holleran said.

  “It’s still there,” Jacobs said. “We just downloaded some aerial footage from one of the television networks. The scarp looks thirty feet high.”

  “It was closer to forty the night before last,” Atkins said.

  “It could be eroding.” Jacobs said. “It happened in the 1811-1812 sequence.” He turned on the lights and pulled down a wall map that showed the Mississippi River, twisting like a snake with a dark line drawn across it just below New Madrid, Missouri.

  “That’s where the waterfall was reported after the 1811-1812 earthquakes. You’ll notice Caruthersville, where John and Elizabeth crossed the river. It’s about fifty miles downstream, the place where the new fault breaks off into Tennessee. The waterfall in 1812 was created by a thrust fault. It was probably the greatest mid-plate thrust earthquake we’ve ever had—until the one yesterday.”

  Holleran had never been so tired in her life. And yet she found herself wide awake, totally focused on the discussion. “What if that magnitude 7.1 event we had a few days ago wasn’t the first earthquake in the sequence?” she asked. “What if it was just a foreshock?”

  Atkins remembered they’d argued over that very point when they were huddled in the Explorer near Blytheville. He wasn’t about to argue with her this time. The GPS data had convinced him that what she was suggesting was a real possibility.

  Jacobs had already considered it. “I don’t think that’s likely,” he said, becoming more animated. “A magnitude 7.1 earthquake is one hell of a foreshock.”

  Unwilling to let go of the idea. Holleran said, “One of the toughest issues we deal with is trying to figure out if an earthquake is a foreshock or an aftershock. We don’t really know for sure until you get a major earthquake. The magnitude 7.1 event, it seems to me, could easily have been a foreshock to the big quake we had yesterday. But say I’m wrong and you’re right, Walt. It could mean we’re in for one more big one instead of two. Either way, it’s a disaster.”

  “I don’t want any more talk about a triple,” Weston said angrily. “You’re both bordering on irresponsibility.”

  Again, there were loud murmurs of support. Most of the seismologists in the room, like Weston, were convinced that definitive data was still lacking, that it would be folly to try to predict another massive quake. Weston was voicing the majority opinion. He’d done so with increasing support since the crisis had started.

  Holleran went on. “From what I’ve read, triples aren’t all that unusual in intraplate settings like the one here. There were triples as recently as 1990 in the Sudan. The largest was a magnitude 7.3. The smallest a 6.7. They hit over a five-day period. In 1988, a rural area in Australia recorded three in the magnitude 6 range over a twelve-hour period.”

  “We’ll have a panic on our hands if it leaks out we were even having this discussion,” Weston said. “We don’t need mass hysteria.”

  “I’d say we already have it,” said Holleran. “How can we scare people any more than they already are?”

  MEMPHIS

  JANUARY 15

  7:00 A.M.

  PRESIDENT NATHAN ROSS STARED AT HIMSELF IN the mirror in the closet-sized galley of Big Green, the VH-3D Sikorsky based at Camp David. He was a depressing sight. The dark puffy rings under his eyes had been there for days and seemed to get deeper with every additional hour he went without sleep.

  He’d never liked his five-o’clock shadow. It was too heavy, too much like Richard Nixon’s. And well into his second term, he sometimes thought he was almost as unpopular. His administration had been plagued by a series of domestic difficulties—worsening race relations, the increasing bipartisan sniping over affirmative action programs, yet another Medicare crisis, and the ever-present budget deficit. Very little of substance had been accomplished. Unable to find sound bites in the mire of such complex issues, the media had inevitably turned to his personal life. Much of the recent news coverage had dealt with the few women he’d invited to the White House for dinner or taken out for an evening to the National Gallery. A widower, he hadn’t dated for years and suddenly found himself fair game for the tabloids.

  The youngest governor in the history of Illinois, Ross was also the youngest president. He was fifty-two with two years to go in his second term. In some respects he’d been lucky, damn lucky. The economy had been robust for most of his presidency. There’d been no major international crises and his party still controlled Congress.

  No major problems—until this one.

  His national security adviser had called the disaster the gravest crisis the country had faced since the Civil War. Ross hadn’t believed him. Not even when he sat in the NSC operations office in the basement of the East Wing and watched the early television reports from the cities hardest hit. Filmed at night, the footage mainly showed fires burning. After a while, it all looked the same. There was no perspective, no focus.

  But after visiting these cities in daylight, Ross thought his adviser, a vituperative former marine, had nailed it with his Civil War analogy.

  They’d made three stops the day before: Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. He’d spent a couple of hours on the ground in each city. The extent of the devastation had made him physically sick, in St. Louis especially. He’d been there several times on fund-raisers. The famous Gateway Arch, the monument to westward expansion that had towered 660 feet over the Mississippi River, was twisted sideways and leaned toward the river at a forty-five-degree angle. Three of the city’s largest hospitals had been demolished. Forest Park and Tower Grove Park were being used as tent cities for the thousands who’d had to move out of their damaged homes.

  Ross remembered the bodies they’d removed from one of the hospitals. More than two hundred of them lined up along a sidewalk under blankets, sheets, newspapers—any covering the rescuers could find. Again, he thought of the Civil War. A photograph of the dead piled up at Gettysburg, lying shoulder to shoulder in the grass, blue and gray alike. There was no way they could reach all of the dead, much less the inju
red.

  The heart had been ripped out of the Mississippi Valley. Eleven major pipelines that carried oil and natural gas from the Texas and Oklahoma fields to the East Coast had been shattered. Nine of them crossed the Mississippi at Memphis or just south of it. Some of the pipes were still burning. The whole waterfront was on fire.

  The East Coast and frigid New England had enough petroleum reserves to last barely a week. Temperatures were well below freezing. In a few days, millions of people were going to be hurting in ways that couldn’t be imagined.

  There were other problems, all of them grievous:

  Grain shipments couldn’t flow down the Mississippi. Fallen bridges had closed the river to barge traffic in eight places.

  The financial and bond markets were a shambles. Wall Street had suspended trading indefinitely.

  The insurance industry had been all but wiped out. There was no way they could cover all the losses from the earthquake and related damage. They’d started calling in their bonds, which of course wiped out the bond market, which in turn financially ruined hundreds of municipalities that depended on bonds to fund all manner of public works.

  And yet all of these problems paled when Ross remembered those mangled bodies in St. Louis.

  He wondered what it would be like in Memphis. He’d been told to prepare for the worst.

  Ross splashed water on his face. He was a handsome man with light gray eyes, a strong jawline, and black hair graying at the temples. He was just over six feet tall, a little overweight, and prone to overeating. He’d swum thousands of laps in the White House pool to hold the line at a thirty-eight-inch waist. He had to admit, staring at himself one last time in the mirror, that he looked like hell.

  In a couple of minutes the chopper would be putting down in Memphis. He wanted to meet with the USGS and university people there. He’d brought along his national science adviser. Steve Draper.

  As Ross stepped out of the galley, he was confronted by his chief of security, Phil Belleau. Belleau had been with the Secret Service for twenty years. Ross liked to tell him he was the only man he’d ever met who didn’t have a neck, absolutely didn’t have one. The big head seemed to balance like a ball on his shoulders. He looked like an all-pro defensive back.

  Belleau was angry. Ross knew why.

  “Mister President, for the last time. We can’t guarantee your safety. We’ve got ten men with you and another fifteen already on the ground. It’s total chaos down there. Anybody could take a shot at you. There’s no police force to speak of. No security. You were a fool the way you walked into those crowds in St. Louis.”

  Ross let him get it out of his system. He probably deserved it. And Belleau was about the only man he’d let talk to him that way.

  “Better get used to it, Phil,” Ross said when the agent had finished venting. “I … have … got … to … be … seen. These people have got to know they’ve still got a federal government to turn to. It’s about all they do have right now.”

  Belleau, an emotional, spontaneous man, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He had to make him understand. “Mister President, a lot of people are damned mad,” he said, softening his tone. “Out of their heads with anger. They’ve lost everything. Some have lost their families. A lot of them have lost homes, their businesses, jobs. Some of them are going to blame the government, blame you personally. Blame you for not giving them any warning. Blame you for not having enough emergency supplies ready or for not getting their homes rebuilt overnight. Blame you for whatever the fuck they can think of. Any one of them could try to kill you. So for the record, I’m asking you again to meet with the people you’ve got to meet with in Memphis. Do it in private, not out in the open. Then get the hell out. Memphis isn’t a city anymore.”

  “I read you loud and clear, Phil,” Ross said. He put a hand on the agent’s shoulder. “Just do your best. And hell, you know anybody wants to shoot me, they ought to go for my ass. It’s a bigger target.”

  Belleau grinned in spite of himself. “We better get belted in,” he said, glancing at his watch. “We’ll be landing in less than a minute.”

  The Sikorsky circled the University of Memphis campus, banking so the president could get a look at the damage. Hundreds of people were on the ground, digging through the rubble. He saw the rows of dead bodies lined up along a sidewalk and closed his eyes. It was St. Louis all over again.

  Rage hammered at him, a blind rage directed against a natural force that he hated with every ounce of his being. He knew it was a foolish, draining expenditure of emotion, but couldn’t help himself. He needed to direct his anger at something, his sense of hopelessness.

  Then, suddenly, they were on the ground. Ross zipped up the brown leather bomber jacket that bore the presidential seal and stepped into the cold air.

  MEMPHIS

  JANUARY 15

  7:08 A.M.

  JOHN ATKINS AND ELIZABETH HOLLERAN WATCHED the big helicopter slowly touch down, nose up, on the lawn of the earthquake center. Every geologist there had gathered along with a contingent of Memphis officials, including the mayor, a short, middle-aged man in a mud-splattered overcoat, who looked completely devastated. A squad of National Guard soldiers and Secret Service agents had fanned out around the perimeter of the landing zone.

  It was the first time Atkins had seen the president in person. He was a bigger man than he’d expected and looked deadly serious as he stepped off the helicopter.

  He recognized the president’s national science adviser, Steve Draper. He knew Draper, a physicist, by reputation—a solid researcher, who’d written one of the definitive college texts on physics. He’d hosted a well-received PBS documentary on recent scientific breakthroughs.

  Draper broke away from the presidential entourage and approached Atkins and Elizabeth Holleran. He had longish sandy hair and looked younger than his age. He was nearly sixty and wore a thick parka with a hood.

  “Are you John Atkins?” he asked.

  Atkins nodded and introduced Holleran.

  “Bob Holly at USGS said I should look you up when I got here,” Draper said. Holly was Atkins’ boss, one of the agency’s top men.

  Draper asked Atkins whether they could talk privately for a few moments. He led him to the side of the library annex. He looked and sounded impatient.

  “Just how bad is it?”

  Atkins had anticipated the question as soon as he saw Draper start to head in his direction. He’d thought about how he should answer. In a matter-of-fact voice that surprised him, he heard himself say, “We could be heading for another big quake.”

  Draper looked at him hard. “You’re willing to say that for the record?”

  Atkins nodded. “At the very least, we’ve got to consider it as a possibility and run some scenarios.” He quickly briefed Draper on the new fault that had appeared in western Tennessee and Kentucky and the unusually strong aftershocks they were experiencing. “The way these new faults have opened up worries the hell out of me,” he said. “There’s got to be a lot of energy piled up down there.”

  “Good Lord,” Draper said slowly, trying to comprehend what he’d just been told. It was much worse than he’d imagined. “Would you tell that to the president?”

  “Yes,” Atkins said, knowing what he was doing, what he was risking.

  Draper, understanding, squeezed Atkins by both shoulders. Then he walked off quickly, clutching a battered leather briefcase as he hurried after Nathan Ross.

  Atkins explained to Holleran what had happened.

  “I’ll support you,” she said. She’d guessed what they’d been talking about and had noticed at one point in the brief conversation how Draper’s face had suddenly tightened. She knew what had happened: he’d just been told what they were up against.

  “Thanks, but no sense both of us sticking our necks out,” Atkins said, smiling gratefully. “Let’s just see how it goes.”

  They joined the other scientists in the annex library. There were no preliminaries. E
veryone was seated around tables that had been shoved together to form a U. The president sat near the front. Someone had given him a paper cup with steaming coffee.

  Atkins got his first up-close look at Nathan Ross. The man’s eyes were red, dark-rimmed, the cheeks sallow. He was slumped back, holding the cup with both hands. He appeared utterly exhausted.

  Paul Weston summarized what they knew—and what they didn’t. “We still need to gather a lot more data,” he said, concluding his brief presentation.

  The president, who’d listened quietly, asked a single question. “Do you think we’re going to have another major earthquake down here any time soon?”

  Taken aback by the president’s bluntness, Weston stammered, “That’s hard to say, Mister President. “We’re only starting to get—”

  Ross impatiently raised a hand to cut him off. “I want your personal opinion, doctor. Your best guess as an expert. What do you think’s going to happen on the New Madrid Seismic Zone?”

  Weston tried to hedge, but again Ross pressed him hard for his opinion. He was insistent and totally focused. Cornered, Weston finally said, “Mister President, I’m sorry. I can’t answer that. I don’t want to guess or speculate on something like this. I want to deal with facts, and we just don’t have enough of them to answer your question.”

  When the president pressed them for their views, most of the other seismologists agreed with Weston’s assessment. They were professionally loath to make any predictions. Several bluntly told the president it would be unethical for them to try to do so. Like Weston, they insisted they needed more data.

  Weston’s assistant. Stan Marshal, spoke about the need to set up more seismic instruments along the fault that had been discovered near Caruthersville. Missouri.

  Atkins noticed how the big man glanced at Weston as if looking for guidance.

  As he had with Weston, Ross interrupted Marshal in midsentence. “Let me ask you the same question I just put to Doctor Weston. Do you think we’re going to have another earthquake?”