The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  The plane’s pilot, David Quinn, had flown through almost three hundred hurricanes over the past twenty-six years, piloting Orion planes and the larger DC-8 NASA flying labs. Quinn’s co-pilot on this mission was a newbie named Kristen Landy, an energetic, blond-haired south Floridian who had trained as a Navy pilot before joining the NOAA Corps last year. This was only her third flight into a hurricane and she was eager to learn what they would experience inside “the bad boy,” as she called Alexander. Quinn found her invigorating; she reminded him of the daughter he never had.

  The crew on board included a navigator, flight engineer, aerial reconnaissance officer, two meteorologists, and two dropsonde operators. Dropsondes were fifteen-inch-long electronic cylinders that would be released from the belly of the plane once they were inside the hurricane’s eye; each contained a GPS receiver and an array of other sensors that would deliver a steady stream of data to computer stations in the back of the plane and, via satellite, to the National Hurricane Center in Miami and other NOAA agencies. The satellite feed would also be transmitted to Dr. James Wu, who was monitoring the flight in real time from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street from the White House.

  The first time an airplane intentionally flew into a hurricane was in July 1943, when an Army Air Corps two-seater penetrated what became known as the Surprise Hurricane near Galveston, Texas. Despite the evolution of sophisticated hurricane tracking technology since then, the government still routinely sent “hurricane hunter” planes into the hearts of monster storms to learn what radar and satellites couldn’t tell them.

  “You ready for this?” Quinn said as the plane began to cut across a band of severe thunderstorms. His eyes darted to the color-enhanced radar screen, which was morphing from yellow—moderate rains—to red and magenta, heavy rains.

  “Ten-four,” said his co-pilot. In a calm moment, she added, “Bring on the bad boy.”

  David Quinn smiled to himself. “He’ll be a teddy bear once we get under his skin.”

  At 6:27, the sky was beginning to lighten. But it was dark ahead as they flew at a steady 200 knots into Alexander’s “skin”—the hurricane’s eye wall, a protective ring of violent convective clouds that surrounded the center of the storm.

  Quinn watched the monitor as the wind speeds ticked up: 43 knots … 67 … Suddenly the 116-foot plane was shaking violently, riding updrafts and downdrafts, rocking side to side. Then falling suddenly, causing a brief sensation of weightlessness. Mock screams came from the back of the plane. Landy let out several whoops and smiled once at the pilot. But David Quinn knew she was overcompensating.

  “Ever been on the Cyclone at Coney Island?” he asked when it momentarily calmed down.

  “What?”

  He repeated himself.

  “What, is that a roller coaster or something?”

  “One of the best. It was named for one of those guys,” he said, gesturing at the storm outside. “I have a feeling Alexander will be a much wilder ride.”

  He glanced over and saw that she was grinning distractedly. But not for long. The turbulence continued for another hour—bumps, sudden drops, and slow, rough rises. It was a bit like being on a roller coaster. A roller coaster ride that never seemed to end.

  But then, at last, it did. Wind speeds throttled down rapidly as they began to emerge from the eye wall, just as the winds had accelerated going in—66 knots, then 42, 31, 12. Then nothing. They pulled away from the convection-charged turbulence and everything changed. The air was suddenly perfectly calm. The sky was robin’s egg blue, the wind almost non-existent. Cottony clouds seemed to spread forever above them. It was as if they had flown into a perfect New England afternoon. A hundred miles of bliss lay ahead.

  “I think we may have just entered heaven,” Landy said.

  “Yeah. Something, isn’t it?” Quinn said, marveling at the calm skies outside the plane, as crew members prepared to release the electronic-packed dropsonde cylinders. The eye of a hurricane was a stunning oasis that still thrilled him even after all these missions. It felt as if they were floating through the sky, no longer propelled by engines. Only the distant surrounding black bands reminded him where they really were. Quinn looked up. Beautiful. Perfect blue-white sky.

  Then he looked down. And what he saw wasn’t so beautiful.

  “Oh my god,” he said.

  For several minutes, the pilot and co-pilot didn’t speak. The eye of a hurricane had always seemed like a wonderland to Quinn, the reward for the long tedious flight to the storm, and the turbulent, Mr. Toad’s wild ride through the surrounding winds and eye wall. Calm, surrounded by chaos.

  But this storm was clearly different; somehow the turbulence ahead looked far worse than what they had just come through.

  Quinn glanced down again. The sea appeared to be a violent cauldron of giant, colliding waves, which suggested the spewing lava from an erupting volcano.

  “Ever read Dante’s Inferno?” Quinn said to his co-pilot.

  “I don’t think so,” Landy said. “Who’s it by?”

  “Fellow named Dante.”

  “No. Why?”

  “If you want the CliffsNotes version, just look down.”

  But Quinn no longer wanted to look himself. The sight was starting to spook him a little. He’d never seen anything like it before. The raging turbulence of the waves was only growing worse, the water reaching higher, as if each wave were trying to break free of the holds that bound it to the sea. Weird. Then, as they began to near the outer eye wall, a sudden downdraft shuddered the plane, tilting it on its side.

  “Going to try to get us to a new altitude,” Quinn said, his voice sounding thin and unfamiliar to himself.

  He pulled back on the yoke and the nose of the plane rose at a forty-degree angle, then leveled out. They flew uneventfully for another twenty minutes, before hitting the first strong bands of rain and convection.

  The plane was jolted again as it entered the outer eye wall, and vibrated with a hard, steady side-to-side motion. Quinn watched the wind speed ratchet up again, from dead calm right back to hurricane strength. This wall was different, though. The air wasn’t just turbulent, it seemed charged, too, in all directions, with wild veins of kinetic electricity.

  Quinn glanced at the radar, steering to avoid the magenta splotches. But the plane jerked downward, inexplicably, then to the right and to the other side. Quinn glanced out, saw what appeared to be a giant wave of ocean water wallop the left wing and engine of the plane. But, of course, it couldn’t have been water. It must have just been a heavy gust of wind and rain. They weren’t anywhere near the ocean surface. Were they? He gazed down again and saw angry waves seeming to rise up just beneath them, bathed now in a dark, eerie green light, what almost looked to be giant translucent tentacles reaching up. Then he felt the plane shaking and saw another glowing wave of water, this time crashing over the nose of the plane.

  “What the hell’s happening?” Landy said, her voice shaking.

  “Hold on.”

  Another. And then a succession of waves—bursts of raging water, each crashing across the front of their plane, shaking the cockpit violently each time. No, Quinn thought. This isn’t possible. Were they really that close to the ocean surface? We can’t be. Quinn checked the altimeter again, saw that they were below the set limit of one thousand feet, but still nowhere near the surface. What in God’s name is happening? Were the instruments malfunctioning?

  He pulled back steeply on the yoke, but the force of the winds acted as a counter-balance, keeping the plane on a shuddering, slightly downward course. “Hold on,” he said again. Suddenly, a hive of lightning seemed to engulf the plane and Quinn saw sparks spitting from the right engine. The nose dipped sharply and began to plunge. The plane jerked side to side. He pulled back hard on the yoke. No change. One of the P-3’s four engines was suddenly coughing fire; Quinn tried vainly to pull them to higher altitude.

  “What’s happening?” Landy screamed. �
�What the fuck’s happening?”

  Quinn said nothing. He didn’t know. The plane was toppling and spinning, losing altitude, hammered by the winds, unresponsive to anything he tried to do in the cockpit.

  It was morning, but they were lost in a pitch-dark sky, falling through a vicious band of vertical clouds lit by wildly ricocheting veins of lightning. Several times the explosions of light stunned his eyes, like giant, too-bright bulbs. Then, for a moment, Quinn was able to regain control and pull the aircraft up … for a moment … before losing it again … because something was pulling them down, toward the water, toppling them upside down … strange, clashing forces of wind and rain and ocean currents …

  Quinn saw Kristen’s face in a burst of light and he didn’t recognize her. It’s not her. She was gone. The life had drained from her skin and she looked to him exactly like a corpse. A fury of new lightning burst over the front of the plane and then Quinn saw another face—out there, emerging from the webs of light. Then again. A giant bearded man, who appeared to be observing them through the glass. Quinn turned his eyes away, shaking his head. But each time the sky lit up, he saw it, saw the figure’s hand reaching toward them, its index finger touching the glass of the cockpit. Then he felt a whomp of water beating over the plane, slamming it downward again, toward the rising troughs of raging sea. The lightning was everywhere suddenly, a strobe light show, and right before he went blind, Quinn began to see other faces and figures and features—the water becoming hands, reaching up and grabbing the plane’s wings, shaking it like a toy. Preying vines of water coiling around the plane, bouncing it down into the waves. I’m hallucinating now. He had to be. He glanced at the corpse in the co-pilot’s seat, then looked through the cockpit glass, his heart pounding—and saw the bearded man, walking on the water, stepping backwards now, moon-walking away from him; and a succession of enormous, undulating figures following him, women in a conga line. Then darkness again engulfed the plane, which was twisting and plummeting toward the sea.

  Quinn managed to speak into the microphone as the water prepared to receive them: “Caught in a tornadic downdraft … not sure what we’re seeing … faces … figures … structural failure … something huge … waves … not getting out of this.”

  DR. JAMES WU listened to the final transmission from Captain David Quinn and he felt his arms break out in goose bumps. He’d been monitoring the stream of data coming in from the hurricane hunter plane every thirty seconds and had no idea what might have gone wrong.

  Dr. Wu knew and admired David Quinn. He had worked with him for two years at the University of Colorado. Later, he had flown with Quinn into two North Atlantic hurricanes. He’d felt comfortable calling him to ask a question or to share a story. Had even visited Quinn and his family at their home in North Carolina’s Outer Banks once for a weekend. Dr. Wu did not much believe in religion. But sometimes, he prayed anyway. This was one of those times.

  Afterward, Dr. Wu picked up his phone and called the Oval Office. “I need to talk to the President,” he said to Gabriel Herring. “Directly,” he added. “And as soon as possible. I’m sure he’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Wednesday, October 5, 7:34 A.M.

  PRETENDING NOT TO BE doing so, Charles Mallory took a quick inventory of Catherine Blaine as he approached the treadmills: hair up, clasped in back; high cheekbones; determined eyes; long legs in black tights.

  She turned, caught his eye and gave him a slow smile. Mallory waved. He was dressed in the only set of workout clothes he’d brought: cutoff sweat pants, a wrinkled charcoal gray T-shirt, and basketball shoes.

  “Taken?”

  “Nope.”

  He stepped onto the treadmill next to hers and began running. It took him a few strides to figure it out and a few more to find his rhythm.

  “I met you years ago, didn’t I?” she said.

  “You did.”

  “You remember.”

  “Of course.”

  Mallory looked at her again. He knew a little about Blaine. Her dad had been a military man, a general, her mother a teacher of some kind. She was not someone he imagined would ever want the job she now held. Not in a million years. She was smart, tough and self-protective, he could tell, driven by an altruistic sense of purpose—although he wondered what that purpose was, exactly.

  He noticed one other thing: she was in good shape, better than he was.

  Blaine’s Achilles heel, supposedly, was loyalty. Her father had been a three-star general who was retired now, living on the beach in South Carolina. Maybe North Carolina. She had set high standards for herself, but also nurtured a stubborn rebellious streak.

  Was it a coincidence that she would be contacting him now? Possibly. But Mallory had always been suspicious of coincidences.

  “You were part of a committee on cyber security,” he said. “You came to Langley to question a group of us. We were in a conference room on the sixth floor. It was 2006, I think. Our group was not terribly receptive. I was working for Richard Franklin then. Special Projects.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s in prison now.”

  “I know. You had something to do with that.”

  “Mmm hmm. You talked with me afterward.”

  “I did.” Blaine looked at him quickly. Occasionally, her green eyes took on a wild, impatient look, which he kind of liked.

  “I could tell you weren’t happy with your committee.”

  She said nothing.

  “Or with us.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  They ran for a while in silence, then Mallory said, “Why here, by the way?”

  “What?”

  “Why meet here?”

  “Oh.” Blaine laughed to herself. “I made a request when I took this job. I didn’t want security people with me around the clock. I asked that I be allowed two instances when I’m not watched—when I work out in the mornings and when I meet with my son. It makes him very nervous. To my surprise, they agreed.”

  “They’re outside, though.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. They park on the street outside my house, too, at night. All night long. It’s okay.” She looked at her distance on the monitor. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”

  “I think I need the workout, actually.”

  Blaine glanced over. “Aren’t you curious why I called??”

  “I guess I should be.” He waited, then said, “Am I supposed to ask a question now?”

  Blaine ran several beats in silence. “Any conversation we have has to be in confidence, though.”

  “What conversation?”

  She smiled and ran through another silence, Mallory trying to keep pace. “I guess I’m just sort of looking for an opinion on something at this point,” she said finally.

  “Okay,” he said. “Should I give you one now, or do you want to suggest a topic first?”

  “A topic,” she said. “A matter has come to my attention that I thought you might know something about.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’m leery, though, about getting involved in any conversation that contains the phrase ‘a matter has come to my attention.’ ”

  Blaine didn’t respond. She looked straight ahead, and seemed to run a little harder. “Sorry,” he said.

  “We’re trying to find someone.”

  “Okay. Someone I know?”

  “Someone you know about. Or knew about.”

  “Okay.”

  “A former Chinese military officer named Xiao-ping Chen.”

  “Oh.” He felt her looking at him. “Janus,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Mallory slowed his pace slightly. “Why would you want to find him now?”

  “Well, I can’t really go into details. But, hypothetically, based on what you know, where would you look if you wanted to find him?”

  “Where would I look?” Mallory gazed across the gym at the television monitor: a bumper-to-bumper stream of traffic leaving a barrier
island somewhere ahead of Hurricane Alexander. “I wouldn’t,” he said.

  “No? Why?”

  “I mean, there’d be no reason. He’s been inactive for many years, as you probably know.” He glanced at her, saw the steady expression. Added, “You’re implying he’s not inactive anymore?”

  “Would that surprise you?”

  “It would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. He wouldn’t have any reason to get back in it.”

  “Isn’t that what people do? They come back?”

  “Some do. The wiser ones move on. They find something else.”

  “And you’d put him in that category.”

  “I would.” For a while, Mallory thought that he had known Xiaoping Chen. A man who had betrayed the American intelligence community. One of the government’s mistakes, long since covered up. He had warned Richard Franklin about Janus and his boss had largely disregarded him. The Agency had been betting on Janus. Franklin in particular.

  “In the comic books,” Mallory added, “the bad guys always make comebacks. But not in real life. He’s a computer hacker, not a serial killer.”

  “What if he needed money?”

  “Not likely.”

  “You seem pretty certain.”

  “I am. I’m not thinking about what he did, I’m thinking about who he is. Frugal and socially uneasy. A man who did what he did because he planned to fade away. And to do so on his own terms. I kind of understand that, actually.”

  “He’s not someone who would have any interest in retaliation? Who might hold a vendetta against the United States government, let’s say?”

  “No.”

  “Or who might work for someone who did?”

  “No, not likely. But I’ll tell you what: I could give you much better information, and help you a lot more, if you told me why you’re asking about him.”

  “I’m sure you could,” Blaine said. A faint glaze of sweat shone on her face. “I wish I was able to tell you everything. But, unfortunately, I can’t.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Mallory knew that it would be a challenge getting her to open up. Blaine was loyal and careful. He decided not to say anything for a while. Besides, he was getting tired, and talking had become increasingly difficult.