8.4 (2012)

by Peter Hernon

  Marshal shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “I didn’t ask what you know, doctor,” Ross snapped. He had a sharp, lashing voice and looked increasingly angry. “I asked you what you think, your opinion. There’s a difference.”

  Marshal didn’t respond. He sat back in his chair and shook his head.

  Atkins was struck again by how physically exhausted Ross looked. Only the eyes showed any life. They were animated, boring, intense.

  The president slowly surveyed the faces of those seated around him. “We’ve had one magnitude 8.4 earthquake and the ground, forgive me in this shrine to Elvis, keeps rocking and rolling. I’ve been informed about the three big quakes that occurred early in the last century. Does anyone here think we’re in for a repeat performance? Yes or no? I’ll settle for your best guess, anything.”

  No one raised a hand. Atkins wasn’t surprised. He understood that Weston wasn’t being an obstructionist on this issue. He was merely voicing the real concerns of the scientific majority. Offering an opinion that proved wrong in such dire circumstances would be a professional death sentence. You simply didn’t risk such a thing without a lot of careful thought and soul searching. But there was no time for any of that. The president wanted an answer. Now.

  Ross crumpled his empty coffee cup and angrily threw it against the wall. “You’re the goddamned experts. You’re supposed to weigh the pros and cons and offer an opinion. I need some kind of prediction, and if you don’t like that word, call it a risk assessment. The people who live here need it, deserve it. Is that too much to ask? Are we going to have another major earthquake?”

  Draper spoke up. He was standing behind the president taking detailed notes.

  “Doctor Atkins, what do you think?”

  It had been much easier to offer an opinion outside. Atkins decided to keep it short and simple. “From the data I’ve seen, the way the fault keeps expanding, yes, I think we’ve got to consider the likelihood of another high-magnitude earthquake. It would be negligence on our part not to.”

  Ross shot a glance at Steve Draper. Staring straight at Atkins, the president said, “Do you think another major quake is likely?”

  “I think we should assume so and try to prepare accordingly,” Atkins said. “My personal opinion is that the chances of a big quake sometime soon are a little better than fifty percent. And that’s just an opinion.”

  Weston and several other seismologists in the overheated room spoke up at once, objecting. As sweat rolled down his cheeks and soaked his shirt, Atkins knew what was happening. Now that he’d stuck his neck out, his esteemed colleagues were going to chop it off.

  “I’ve got to disagree with Doctor Atkins,” Weston said coolly. “I’ve seen nothing in the data we’ve been able to collect that shows conclusively another 8.4 event is likely. The issue of how much strain energy remains locked in the ground after an earthquake is fraught with difficulties of interpretation. No adequate measurement tool exists. We can check for strain in any number of ways. We can measure dilatancy, the degree of cracking, uplift. We’re trying to get some of that information by satellite. But the problem is you could get seismic measurements right now along certain gaps or segments of the San Andreas Fault that would indicate a big quake is imminent. There’s plenty of deformation, plenty of seismic energy in the ground, but nothing’s happening there. Everything’s been quiet for over a century. Mr. President, the truth is we don’t know what’s going to happen here. If we issue a public statement suggesting we think another major quake is likely, it’s my opinion we’d be criminally responsible for the panic it would cause.”

  “I second that,” said one of the USGS geologists, who was quickly supported by Stan Marshal.

  The president asked for a show of hands. Seven of the ten in attendance voted with Weston. Three highly respected USGS scientists were among the group.

  With Atkins were Holleran and Walt Jacobs.

  “I’d be more inclined to agree with Doctor Weston if it weren’t for the power of the aftershocks we’ve been experiencing and their locations,” Holleran said. “I’m not aware of anything comparable to what’s happening here. Certainly nothing in my experience in California. We know big earthquakes kick up lots of aftershocks, but nothing like this.”

  “Not to mention the existence of two new fault planes,” Jacobs said. “Both of them are larger than any other known segment in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. And we’ve also got the history, which you’ve already alluded to, Mister President.”

  “The history is meaningless,” Weston said. “All we know is that within the last two hundred years three powerful earthquakes occurred in sequence. We know nothing about the previous seismic record.”

  “Is there any way we could find that out?” Ross asked.

  Holleran said, “We could dig for it, Mister President.” She explained how they could do trenching to search for the geological record of previous earthquakes. Their imprint would be left in the layered subsoil. It was just a matter of finding the right location and going deep enough.

  Ross was intrigued and asked how it could be done.

  “I’d dig a trench along one of the fault segments and see if we could find any evidence of old earthquakes—things like sand blows, fissure scars. Then I’d try to find something we could radiocarbon date—peat, carbonized wood.”

  Weston shook his head. “That would be a costly diversion. It would take weeks to dig a trench even if we could find a suitable site and get backhoes out to it. Then more weeks to analyze the data. We don’t have the time or equipment to go on an archaeological fishing expedition.”

  “It seems to me what we need more than anything right now is additional seismic data,” Draper said. “You’ve said as much yourself. Doctor Weston.”

  Atkins had a suggestion, breaking the tense silence. “We could do some bore shaft explosions and tamping along that new fault.” He explained how they could capture computer-enhanced “images” of the fault by using sound waves generated by dynamite charges. Another technique was to use gas-powered tampers that resembled jackhammers. The results provided a seismic CAT scan. They used a sonogram technique, whereby the explosions produced sound waves harvested by special receivers. Low wave speeds indicated the presence of a fault and serious fracturing of the adjoining rock. These cracks, in turn, were evidence of strain building up. All of this could be transformed into two-dimensional computer images.

  It would give them a better idea of what they were dealing with—the shape and structure of the fault and how deep it extended. Atkins especially wanted to look at the place where the newly discovered Caruthersville Fault intersected with the New Madrid Seismic Zone. It was certain to be an area of severe stress.

  Jacobs and some of the other seismologists liked the idea.

  “So tell me what I can do to help,” the president asked.

  “Get us a helicopter,” Atkins said.

  MEMPHIS

  JANUARY 15

  9:20 A.M.

  MARSHAL WAITED UNTIL HE COULD APPROACH Weston alone in the library annex, then quietly suggested they take a short walk outside. The president’s helicopter had just taken off. When Weston started to object, Marshal took him by the elbow and firmly led him toward a door.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said when they were outside. He looked and sounded nervous. He handed a white envelope to Weston. They’d gone behind the annex building, where they could talk without being overheard.

  Weston opened the envelope, which contained four photographs.

  “Who gave you these?” he gasped.

  “One of the construction people up at the dam,” Marshal said. “You know him. Jensen. He’s lucky he’s alive. He got out about an hour before it washed out. Wanted to let us know about this. Of course, he also wants to be paid.”

  “How did he get here?” Weston was still staring at the photographs. The quality was grainy, but the images were remarkably clear.

  “Hitched a ride in
an Army helicopter from Fort Campbell,” Marshal said. “A squad was sent down to provide security for the president. He pulled some strings and got aboard. Said he had some important information about the earthquake.”

  The photographs that Weston was studying so intently showed John Atkins and Elizabeth Holleran inside the dam at Kentucky Lake. A security camera had taken the pictures when they were on one of the catwalks.

  “They know all about those cracks,” Marshal said, angrily. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “They were snooping around in there after you had that meeting with all those people in Mayfield. The one where you said the cracks weren’t serious.”

  A big man in a bulky, down-insulated overcoat, he towered over Weston. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “Absolutely nothing,” Weston said. “In case you forgot, the dam was destroyed in the quake. They can’t prove anything.”

  “They can start asking questions,” Marshal said, becoming agitated.

  “Calm down and forget this,” Weston said, carefully putting the photographs back in the envelope and placing it in his jacket pocket.

  “No fucking way,” Marshal snapped. “How many people died when that damn broke? A thousand? Two thousand?”

  “Keep … your … voice … down,” Weston said. “You need to get a grip on yourself. We’re not to blame for what happened at the dam.”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Marshal said, taking Weston by the arm again.

  Weston pulled away, squaring back his shoulders. He quickly looked around to see if anyone was watching.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” he hissed, turning away and striding back toward the building. “Meanwhile, doctor, you’re going to do what you’re told.”

  OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE

  JANUARY 15

  6:30 A.M.

  FRED BOOKER BOARDED THE SMALL, SINGLE ENGINE plane early in the morning. He’d been told the air was calmer at that time of day. That was important because for the first time in his life he was going to jump out of an airplane. He didn’t want to fight a strong wind, which might blow him off course.

  It was going to be difficult enough landing near the University of Memphis. News reports said many parts of the city were still burning. Booker didn’t want to get caught in the updraft from the fires—or drift down into them.

  That’s why he’d paid strict attention when his good friend from the ORNL, a former Army paratrooper, had explained how to operate a parachute. The day before, the friend had outfitted Booker with a brand-new parafoil chute. “You want to go left, pull on the left cords,” the friend told him. “You want to go right, pull on the right side. You want to drop straight, let up on the cords and just hang on. When you land, loosen up; take the jolt in your legs, keep them bent. You’ll hit nice and easy. Just like jumping off a ten-foot wall. No problem.”

  No problem for a forty- or even a fifty-year-old, Booker remembered thinking. He was nearly seventy with a bum left knee that needed cartilage surgery.

  The pilot looked like the recently retired air force major he was—lean, tanned, and wearing dark green aviator sunglasses. When he found out why Booker wanted to go to Memphis, he’d agreed to take him for free.

  “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  Booker nodded. He wanted to talk to some of the geologists in Memphis and explain his idea for using a nuclear explosion to try to turn off the cycle of earthquakes. The aftershocks, which had shown no evidence of slackening, were killers. His friends, the two geophysicists from the Shock Wave Lab, thought he was crazy, but had written him letters of introduction addressed to Walter Jacobs.

  The flight west to Memphis was short, less than two hours in a small plane. The pilot had to keep changing altitude because of all the emergency air traffic.

  “The hell of it is they can’t land there,” he explained. “The airport’s closed. All the navigationals were knocked out. Radar, light beacons, everything. The whole damn control tower went down.”

  “So where’s everybody going?” Booker said. They’d just dropped from ten thousand to eight thousand feet to make way for a C-140 military cargo plane. The huge gray jet seemed to move in slow motion yet rapidly pulled away from the Cessna.

  “They’re using Interstate 55 just north of Memphis on the Arkansas side of the river. Highway over there’s in pretty good shape. They’re flying in relief supplies. Cargo planes are stacked up all across the country, waiting to get in. That stretch of highway is the only place within four hundred miles where they can land. The airport in St. Louis is out of commission; so are the ones in Little Rock and Louisville.”

  The time to jump came with dramatic suddenness.

  “There’s Memphis and look at her burn!” the pilot said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Booker saw the smoke long before he saw the flames, so much smoke it was almost impossible to pick out any landmarks.

  The pilot dropped lower. He found an opening in the clouds of smoke and thought they were over the eastern part of the city. “This is as good as it’s gonna get,” he shouted to Booker, who’d worked up the nerve to move to the open doorway. “You ready?”

  Booker nodded. He was holding tightly to the doorframe, then he let go and leaned forward, closing his eyes as he fell into space. The wind slashed at his face and howled in his ears. It was incredibly loud and pulled at his trousers so hard he thought he was going to lose them.

  Pull the ring, he told himself. Pull the ring.

  Groping, eyes still closed, he clenched the metal ring and gave it a strong downward tug just as he’d been instructed.

  He immediately shot upward, a bone-jarring ascent, and felt his bladder start to go. He was falling more slowly now, swaying in his harness. He opened his eyes and stared up at the parafoil, a brilliant yellow rectangular canopy. It was swept back slightly along its rear edge. The puffed-out rip-stop fabric, all that was holding him up, was much smaller than he would have thought.

  Booker took a breath and looked down. The ground was coming up quickly. He pulled on the right cords and immediately moved right, away from a cloud of thick smoke. He was relieved to see how easily he could steer. He pulled on the left cords and veered in that direction.

  Beautiful.

  Now where the hell was he?

  It looked like a residential district. Through the drifting smoke he could make out the damage; many of the buildings were down. He figured he was about a thousand feet up. He twisted slightly in the harness, trying to pick out the university. It was impossible.

  The wind was screaming in his ears, and he was coming down a lot faster than he imagined.

  He saw specks moving on the ground, clusters of people. He was too high to make out faces. He steered straight for them, figuring it would be a good idea to have someone around in case he botched the landing and got hurt. A lot of telephone and electrical lines were down there. He hadn’t thought about that.

  He tugged on the right cords and heard a popping sound; it was distant, yet distinctive. He heard it again, more clearly this time, a series of sharp cracks. It sounded like firecrackers going off.

  They were shooting at him!

  He saw three or four men with raised guns; he could see the muzzle flashes.

  Booker pulled hard on the left cords; his whole body tilted in that direction. About seven hundred feet in the air, he pulled away from the shooters, moving out of range. He eased up on his grip and straightened out his course again. The ground was very close.

  He tried to remember what the instructor had told him about landing. Take the shock in the legs.

  He glimpsed the river behind him; that meant he was facing east. Good. At least he was going in the right direction.

  Power lines and trees were coming up. He was going to land in someone’s backyard. Or in a tree. Some people were running in his direction, pointing up at him, shouting. He wasn’t sure if they were the shooters. But he wasn’t going to stick around and find out.

&nbs
p; Booker tugged hard on the cords with his right hand, moving away from a tall tree. He was drifting through the air sideways, his body almost horizontal to the ground. A sudden gust of wind blew him up about a hundred feet. He looked down again and found himself over a large park. He saw an opening in the trees and pulled left, steering for it. He tried to prepare for the impact and then he hit. His legs bucked and he pitched forward on his stomach. The chute, still open, dragged him along the grass before he remembered to tug the harness release.

  He rolled over several times and lay on his back. He stared up at a blue sky streaked with dirty trails of smoke. He tested his arms and legs. Everything moved and seemed to work. He got his bearings and started walking east, toward the university.

  NEAR DEXTER, KENTUCKY

  JANUARY 15

  11:25 A.M.

  WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES OF THE PRESIDENT’S departure, an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, landed at the University of Memphis’ earthquake center. The president had personally ordered the aircraft diverted from rescue operations. The seismologists could use it as long as necessary.

  The first order of business was to try to get a better “picture” of the new fault. Their initial data showed it started just north of Caruthersville, Missouri, crossed the Mississippi and a sliver of Tennessee, and extended about 150 miles into Kentucky.

  Atkins and Jacobs were particularly interested in the area in extreme southwestern Kentucky and northwestern Tennessee where that fault intersected with one of the major segments of the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Due west of Kentucky Lake and the town of Mayfield, it was familiar ground for Atkins and Elizabeth Holleran.

  A five-member team flew up there—Atkins, Elizabeth, Walt Jacobs, and two of Weston’s geologists—Stan Marshal and Mark Wren.

  They’d brought two hundred pounds of water-gel explosives packed in plastic sticks. The electric blasting caps that detonated the charge were connected to a specially designed condenser. The explosion was set off by radio wave, using a 1,000-volt remote-control blasting machine.