“All of that is well and good, girls,” Jeremy said. “However, there’s a more compelling reason to try to ride out another night. It will be dark in a couple of hours. It was hairy enough pulling the camper over the mountains in broad daylight. The thought of doing it at night scares the bejesus out of me. Especially after seeing some of those dropoffs.”
Courtesy of the rearview mirror, Jeremy saw the girls high-five in the back seat.
“So here’s the plan,” he continued. “When we get back to our campsite, we hook up the Airstream and get everything packed and ready to roll. Then we have dinner. Your mom and I’ll study the map and determine our route.” He glanced at Judy. “How does that sound, Sweet Tea?”
“I don’t have a better idea. And the girls are right: it’s been one heck of a day. We’re all tired and hungry, and like you said, I don’t relish the idea of dragging the Airstream through the mountains in the dark. So we have a plan.”
The exit was clogged with cars, but tour bus traffic thinned out as they drove south on 191.
Jeremy had no way of knowing that to his right, between the F-250 and Shoshone Lake, was the forty-five-mile-wide Yellowstone Caldera—the cause of the quakes and geothermal activity.
Sometimes ignorance was indeed bliss.
Still more than fifty minutes away from Colter Bay, the Richards family passed the West Thumb branch of Yellowstone Lake on the northeast side of the highway. Another group of geysers bordered the West Thumb branch. They were not nearly as famous or spectacular as Old Faithful, but frequently just as active. Jeremy and Judy couldn’t see the geysers as they drove—they were traveling along a road about a mile from the edge of the lake—but for the past hour, the geysers had been erupting almost continuously with ever-increasing volumes of superheated water.
The sediment areas around the Overhanging and King Geysers had tripled in size over the last hour, and the concentration of hydrogen sulfide had risen too, as evidenced by the gagging smell of rotten eggs. Most of the volcanic springs and pools in Yellowstone gave off insignificant amounts of the smelly gas. It was never enough to make a person sick, but the concentration was different for a hundred yards surrounding the West Thumb Geyser Basin. There, it was enough to make a person dead.
Heavier than air, hydrogen sulfide became explosive when combined with oxygen. It was developing into a massive, low-hanging vapor cloud that suffocated all of the ground-dwelling wildlife in the area near the West Thumb Basin. It was also converting into a naturally formed thermobaric bomb—or what the military would refer to as a fuel-air weapon, the type of violent, destructive weapon developed and used by the United States in Vietnam and later by the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The F-250 zoomed past a stone-and-wood sign next to the highway that indicated they were crossing the Continental Divide. Just before they reached another sign marking the Riddle Lake Trailhead, a small herd of about twenty or thirty buffalo burst out of the trees on the east side of the road in full gallop, charging across the highway, oblivious to oncoming traffic. Jeremy hit the brakes and pulled to the side of the road to let them pass. The twins clapped gleefully.
“Way cool! It’s a stampede!” Fiona shouted.
“This is worse than what we saw earlier,” Judy said, fear edging her voice. “Something’s spooking them.”
Jeremy tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pulled back onto the highway, his heart thudding against his ribcage. He followed US 191 out of the Yellowstone South Entrance, crossed the Snake River, and continued south along Jackson Lake.
Two other quakes shook them, one as they neared Steamboat Mountain and the other at the Jackson Lake Overlook. They were not nearly as violent as the one that sent them flying at Old Faithful, but they were starting to have a cumulative adverse effect on everyone. The twins wore tight expressions and sat quietly in the back seat, holding hands. Judy, usually cool, calm, and collected, clutched her hands together tightly in her lap, frequently glancing back at Ellis and Fiona.
Thanks to several other wildlife encounters and an increasingly heavy concentration of tourists fleeing the park, it took over two hours to reach the road leading into the Colter Bay Campground. It was seven thirty when Jeremy pulled into the convenience store located at the campground entrance. A hand-lettered sign taped to the double glass doors told would-be customers the store was “Closed Until Further Notice.” Fortunately, the gas pumps were on and available for credit card purchases.
The vehicle lineup grew steadily on each side of four rows of pumps. Jeremy jockeyed the F-250 into what appeared to be the fastest-moving line. The driver of the Jeep Cherokee in front of him finished filling up his tank. He put the hose back and walked to Jeremy’s window.
“There’s no more E eighty-five,” he said apologetically.
“No problem,” Jeremy said. “I’ve got a flex-fuel engine.”
As Jeremy raised his window, Judy chuckled. “That would usually piss you off.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just glad I can fill up with anything.”
After topping off his tank with regular gasoline, Jeremy wound down Campground Road until he reached site 72. By this time of year, every RV site was typically occupied, but many were now empty, indicating the initial stages of an exodus. For the most part, the campground staff was long gone even though no official word to evacuate had gone out, and this was the height of the tourist season.
For the second time in two days, Jeremy backed the truck toward the bow of the Airstream. Following Judy’s hand signals and the image on his backup camera, he positioned the truck to connect the trailer hitch. As he hooked the camper to the F-250’s towing assembly, Judy and the twins began packing up everything else. Three more moderate tremors shook the area while they worked. The intervals between quakes were getting shorter now.
It was almost 21:00 by the time they were “deployment ready”—an old army term Jeremy had picked up from some Tom Clancy novel. After everyone finished a spartan, verging-on-junk-food meal of sandwiches, chips, and diet Dew, the twins took care of what little kitchen cleanup remained. They put away food trays, stashed paper plates, napkins, and empty soda cans in a trash bag, and then argued about who would take it out to the bear-proof dumpster next to the campground showers.
After Ellis, who lost the “take out the trash” argument, returned, Jeremy motioned for everyone to sit on or in front of the folding couch in the Airstream’s main living area.
“OK, ladies, let’s powwow about tomorrow. We will do pretty much the same thing as this morning; we’ll get up at first light—”
The earth shook for several seconds, and they all grabbed hands. The refrigerator door popped open, and Judy leaped to close it before its contents came flying out. Pots and pans and dishes inside the travel-ready cabinets banged against one another.
When the shaking stopped, the twins’ shoulders relaxed, but they still clung to each other.
Jeremy continued: “I’ll unhook the water and electricity, raise the stabilizers, and we pull out of here. We have fruit, so if you two monkeys get hungry, you can eat a banana on the way.”
Ellis rolled her eyes. Jeremy tousled her hair. “I hate that we have to cut our Yellowstone visit short,” he said, “but things are getting a little shaky around here, and my imagination about what else Mother Nature might have in store for this place is running wild.”
Judy sat between the twins. “I’m with your dad. All those buffalo we saw running, they were scared. They didn’t know where to go or how to get there. But we didn’t get to the top of the food chain by running around like a bunch of, well, like a bunch of mad cows in fur coats. We’ve got a plan.” She turned to Jeremy. “So what is the plan, Base Hit?”
Jeremy smiled. Judy alternated between Foul Ball and Base Hit when around the twins, depending on her mood and the gravity of a given situation. She used a couple of much more descriptive monikers when th
ey were alone. Clearly, Judy was just as spooked as the buffalo but putting on a nonchalant mask for Ellis and Fiona. He knew she had full confidence in whatever he planned to do. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t hesitate to privately tell him so.
He put his arm around Judy’s shoulders and gave her as playful a hug as he could muster under the circumstances. “As I said, we pull out of here at zero dark thirty. We’ll drive through Jackson and then head south on Highway One Ninety-One. We’ll have to go through one mountain pass, but once we pass Hoback Junction and start heading southeast, the route will be mostly flat. We’ll make much better time and get a helluva lot farther on a tank of gas. I figure if push comes to shove, we can get about three hundred miles from here before we run out of gas. But we’ll fill up as soon as we get down to half a tank, at least once we get out of this earthquake zone.”
Worries and concerns bubbled inside Jeremy like volcanic springs. He silently resolved to buy a spare gas can or two the first time they stopped to refuel. And he was glad he had topped off the Airstream’s thirty-gallon freshwater tank. Things would be OK, but you couldn’t be too careful, especially when looking out for your family.
“All right, ladies, let’s go gaze at those Grand Teton stars one more time and then hit the hay. I’m getting tired, and it will be daybreak before you know it.”
“You know, Dad,” Ellis chirped, “you’re starting to sound like one of those cowboys.”
Fiona sniggered nervously, and all four of them piled out the door.
Jeremy led his family toward their campsite picnic table.
Five steps in, bright orange and red light burst into the northern horizon, and a searing flash lit up the entire sky. At the same instant, the ground shook violently—the strongest and most prolonged quake yet—and they stumbled forward.
A split second later, a blast of pressurized air slammed all four of them to the ground. It rocked the Airstream and whipped the trees in the surrounding forest, snapping some clean in two.
Judy, realizing the flash in the sky was a volcanic eruption, jumped to her feet and barked, “Get back in the Airstream. Now!”
At the same time, she started counting. “One Mississippi . . . two Mississippi . . . three Mississippi . . .” She ticked off seconds as everyone scrambled through the still-open door of the RV.
“Mom, why are you counting?” Fiona wailed.
Judy held her finger to her lips and continued to count until she reached fifty-five, the distance it would take sound to travel from the caldera to the campsite since they first saw the eruption flash. Then she shouted, “Put your hands over your ears and open your mouth! Hold that pose until I say otherwise!”
Usually, a command so absurd would have drawn snickers from the twins and a doubtful look from Jeremy. Not today, and especially not now. Judy’s no-bullshit expression coupled with the still-resonating blast of super-pressurized air squelched any argument.
Roughly twelve seconds later, at what would be officially documented as 22:48, the loudest explosion ever heard by any living creature rocked the Airstream and everything around it.
10
The Farm
Two years before the day of
Sheppard won’t be around for another term. The silence in the Farm dining room was deafening. David felt all eyes on him, as if they were awaiting his response to Judson’s jolting statement.
For the second time that day, David was floored.
In many ways, he and Matt Sheppard were like brothers. Or at least David felt that way. Out of professional courtesy and respect for the rigors of the president’s bewildering schedule, David never burdened Sheppard with his own issues, but the POTUS often confided in him. On occasion, he would ask David’s advice on personal matters. David knew that Sheppard felt he could tell David anything and that it would be held in total confidence. Surely his good friend would have told him if he didn’t plan to run for another term.
Judson’s voice lowered. “It should go without saying, David, that everything I’m telling you is ultraconfidential. Only the people in this room, Sheppard’s wife, and one other person—his personal physician—know the details.” Judson pulled out his chair and sat down again. “You see, David, the president has been diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. He has at most twelve weeks to live.”
Sadness, shock, and disbelief washed over David in nauseating waves. He leaned back. “How . . . how can that be, Judson? I met with the president last week. He was in a great mood, as effervescent as ever, and from all appearances, in perfect health. Hell, he even joked about ‘pulling a Kennedy’ in the White House pool with that smoking-hot press secretary of his.”
Judson shook his head sadly. “He didn’t know, David. He only found out the day before I called you. You know how phobic he is about the details of his private life. He doesn’t trust the staff at Walter Reed, especially after the fiasco with the blatantly fake results from his predecessor’s mental health exam getting splashed on the front page of the Post. Even that guy’s staunchest supporters and his wife—especially his wife—knew he was batshit crazy. Still, he gets a glowing report from some navy O6 psychiatrist who wanted to kiss-ass his way into a flag officer promotion.
“Anyway, as I’m pretty sure you know, ever since taking office, the president has only allowed examinations by his longtime friend and personal physician, Eli Rosen, who lives in Austin, Texas.” Judson reached for the pitcher of iced tea Lucas had placed in the center of the table and drained it into his glass.
“What I’m going to tell you now came directly from POTUS. He confided the details to me directly because, as you know, we, too, are good friends. More importantly, because he agrees with the things Envision-2100 stands for, the changes we are trying to bring about, and that it’s time to make those changes. He also knows that, with the brief time he has remaining, we have to maximize his backing and support for our plans, or our cause will be set back for decades.”
Judson went on to summarize the salient events that had unfolded during the previous several days. The president appeared to be losing weight; he had no appetite and was in near-constant back pain. Then his wife noticed, almost overnight, his eyes were starting to yellow and convinced him to call his doctor. Dr. Rosen flew into Ronald Reagan the following day, where he was picked up by the Secret Service and whisked to the White House via the secret H Street entrance. A series of quietly carried-out tests revealed an advanced stage of pancreatic cancer that had already metastasized beyond realistic treatment options.
“Rather than drag this out, I’ll just cut to the chase. Sheppard learned his days were numbered, and that number was barely two digits long.” Judson folded his hands and shook his head. “The president made the decision right then and there to forgo any treatment. He also decided to avoid pain medication for as long as possible so he could work out a succession plan, one that didn’t include the vice president beyond the end of his current term.”
He met David’s gaze squarely. “He trusts the guy even less than you do—if that’s possible.” Judson sipped his tea. The ice was starting to melt, and the top of the glass was now mostly brownish water.
David welcomed the pause and the chance to untangle the questions whirling inside his brain. As Judson continued to sip his tea, David snatched the Montblanc pen from his shirt pocket. He jotted questions down on his napkin—until it occurred to him that it was linen, not paper. Realizing his mistake, he tucked the pen back in his pocket and looked around the table with embarrassment. No one said a word, but Elton Kirby waved his hand dismissively and mouthed, “Don’t worry about it.”
Oblivious to David’s faux pas, Judson continued: “It was almost two in the morning before the president headed back to the White House in an armored Secret Service Tahoe. In that short trip—about ten minutes—he decided to announce the date and circumstances of his resignation within the coming week and spend th
e remainder of his time in office arranging the constitutionally mandated transition of power to ‘that son of a bitch VP.’ POTUS plans to discuss this and a lot more with you the instant you return to Washington. Don’t worry, the meetings you had scheduled for tomorrow have all been rescheduled.”
David raised an eyebrow. Damn, how do they do that?
“You’ll be in the Oval Office at ten.” Judson pushed his empty glass away. “As we alluded to earlier, David, we think President Sheppard is doing about as good a job as he can do within the parameters of the existing United States political system. It’s that environment, parts of our constitutional infrastructure, that needs to change. We thought we could ride things out for another four years before we started the wheels turning to make those changes, but we can’t. We, as Envision-2100, have to act now. I hate for this to sound the way I know it’s going to come out, but the president’s cancer presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of this country.”
As before, Judson’s passion was evident in the pitch and tone of his voice and his fierce, unbroken eye contact. But it wasn’t just Judson. David felt the same intensity, something akin to a static charge, emanating from everyone in the room. Melissa’s eyes narrowed, forming tiny crow’s feet above her cheeks, and Nelson’s ramrod posture became even straighter.
Judson seemed to be on the verge of pleading now. His right hand clenched into a fist, and he pounded the air above the table. “David, we can’t let everything President Sheppard has worked for all his life die on the vine. Decent healthcare for our working citizens. Getting military-grade weapons off the street. Making peace with our North American neighbors, for Christ’s sake.”
Tagging on to Judson’s sense of urgency, Nelson Teal interjected another sports analogy: “David, it may sound a bit macabre, but this is the pitch we’ve been waiting for. If we don’t swing at this, and swing for the fence, we could well miss our turn at bat and leave yet another mess for our grandchildren.”
Out of Crisis Page 7