Taking the Heat

by Paul McDermott

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve mapped some records I have of seismic events in different parts of the world.” Joey gave a concise report of his findings, clipping his words in unconscious imitation of the unseen brigadier at the end of the line, finishing with, “I haven’t yet come up with any hard, scientific proof of this, Brigadier, but my gut feeling tells me the Mariana Trench will prove significant. We need to know what’s happening in the South Pacific zone.”

  “I’m in touch with New Zealand on another line. I’ll contact Australia when we end this call. Stand by.”

  The hum of a vacant line was magnified through the speaker unit as Groth, true to form, ended the call abruptly.

  “Damn. I’d just about manned myself up to tell him you’ve joined the happy crew, Eddie. I’ll probably get a right roasting next time I speak to him.”

  A stutter of ping tones announced a flurry of incoming email messages. Joey sprang into action and read swiftly through each of them.

  “Groth’s kicking ass elsewhere, by the looks of things. With any luck, he won’t have me transported to the colonies for dropping the ball and not telling him we have one extra man on our team.

  “Here’s New Zealand, first to react. He said he already had a line open to them. There’s an update from Australia too, but that looks like a general-state-of-play statement. They aren’t giving me any updated figures to work with. I’ll make a start by crunching the numbers New Zealand have sent—they appear to have been taken less than half an hour ago.”

  He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was talking to himself as he fell into a chair. His fingers danced across the keyboard seemingly with a life of their own. He certainly wasn’t looking at the computer screen.

  After several minutes of entering long strings of data, Joey looked around the room, crossed his fingers and hit enter. Columns of figures disappeared and were replaced by a revolving screensaver. As he stretched for the red phone, it shrilled. Groth had beaten him to the punch.

  “Sitrep, please.”

  “I’m processing the latest info from Australasia as we speak. NZ’s input seems more detailed than Australia’s. Stand by.”

  Graphs and charts flickered across the computer screen in rapid succession, while on a side table a printer began to run. The continuous roll of paper ran to at least nine or ten A4 pages of single-spaced text. Joey scanned the opening page without detaching it from the roll.

  “Results are just starting to come back. I can give you bullet points, but I’ll have to study them.”

  “Bullet points will do nicely for now.”

  “I tried loading the data sequentially, by date of occurrence. Then I set it up as if they’d all originated from the Mariana Trench and rippled away in a northerly or southerly direction. As I expected, I got readings of shock waves pulsing along the ocean bed at regular, predictable intervals.”

  “Doctor, why do I think I can hear a ‘but’ at the end of that little speech?”

  “Some of the waves don’t follow the pattern I expected of them,” Joey admitted. “They’re still regularly spaced but weaker than…I’ll call it the main beat for now, until I think of something better. There’s the same time difference between them. They appear on the graphs almost as if they’re an echo of some sort.”

  “Could they be an echo?” Errol asked. “From rolling over some hollow cavern beneath the seabed? We drilled into quite a few of them when we were testing in that sector.”

  “Hmm, possible, but it doesn’t feel quite right. But look at the timeline. The echo effect isn’t there at the start. It kicks in later.”

  “And it still has the same pulse as the stronger peaks,” Dave noted. “There has to be a connection. It must be the same shock waves.”

  “Perhaps it’s like radar,” Eddie speculated. “Not an echo but a reflection? If the shock wave comes up against something it can’t flatten or work around.” He’d been frustrated, unable to make any meaningful or helpful comments due to his very basic layman’s understanding of the technical issues involved.

  “That sounds plausible.”

  “It does, Doctor Hart,” Groth interrupted, his voice brittle with suspicion, “but I don’t recognise the voice. Who’s the speaker? Do you have an unauthorised extra person present?”

  Joey rolled his eyes and used fingers and a thumb to put an imaginary pistol at his head.

  “Brigadier, I haven’t had a chance to inform you yet, but I had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision. In the circumstances, I don’t think there’s any security risk, and Dave will vouch for his friend’s integrity.”

  In as few words as possible, Joey explained how Eddie had joined the team. Groth waited a few seconds before replying, and when he did, the tone of his voice suggested that Joey was not going to be shot at dawn.

  “For the moment, Doctor, I believe you’ve used your initiative and opted for the best practical solution to a difficult situation. Mr. Holmes—that’s H-O-L-M-E-S, I take it?—can remain with you as part of the group. Email me his date of birth, national insurance number and any other details he can provide. I’ll run a full security check. Until that comes back clear, he’s to be accompanied at all times and cannot be allowed to work on any task which I flag as classified. Is this acceptable? I assume you’ve got the speaker activated. I’ll need confirmations from both of you.”

  “Agreed.”

  Both spoke at the same time.

  Joey felt he’d used his get-out-of-jail-free card with the brigadier and sought to improve his chances of survival. “Sir, if the tremors are a rebound, so to speak, from the first shock wave meeting the bedrock of Australia, it would most likely ricochet in a northeasterly direction. That would explain it affecting the region around Christchurch, New Zealand, approaching from the south.”

  “Agreed, Doctor, but we need some corroboration. Would it fit with the timeline, the sequence of events so far?”

  “It’s sketchy, but yes. There’s nothing I’ve spotted that would make it impossible, but that isn’t the evidence you—we—need to work out what countermeasures to put in place. We only get one shot at this.”

  “So it has to be right. Point taken, Doctor Hart.”

  The brigadier paused. Joey was almost certain he could hear him take a deep breath before continuing.

  “Have you looked further north? How would the theory of the tremors originating from the Mariana Trench affect the problems along the east coast of Japan or—even further away—could it possibly have a bearing on the earthquakes in Haiti? Depending on where you stand, I’m guessing that might be a little too far away, and if we’re looking for cause and effect, too early in time?”

  “Not really, Sir. For two or more seismic events to originate in or near the same spot, I’d say the odds are in our favour. And if we take the trench as the centre of all the shocks—or more correctly the epicentre of whatever’s going on—then yes, the tremors could well be spreading in every direction at once, like ripples in a pond.”

  “So, events in Haiti and Japan could also be part of the overall picture. Thank you, Doctor. I’ll leave you to study the available data as thoroughly as you always do, but on this occasion, please remember that time is not on our side.”

  The monotone hum of an empty line replaced Groth’s final warning.

  Joey looked at the handset, shrugged, and replaced it. “No time like the present. Better get on with it, I suppose.”

  ***

  “I need the most recent data you can send me, Rob. What you’ve sent so far, I can work with, but I need to check these figures, see if there have been any significant changes.”

  “I’m getting up-to-the-minute reports now. I gather your brigadier has been kicking some serious ass. What’s your top priority?”

  “I have a gut feeling that the source of all the quakes and tidal problems being recorded in your neck of the woods could be the Mariana Trench…” Joey summarised for Rob Jones his theory about the ripple and echo shocks ru
mbling deep beneath the seabed. “…and it’s possible that the tsunami which destroyed the nuclear plant at Fukuyama also originated from the northern end of the trench. We’re going to have some serious repercussions there, no doubt about it.”

  “We could do with some readings from that part of the Pacific, but I don’t know of any ships out there. We get all our gen from unmanned weather stations or from GPS satellites. How ’bout your general? Has he got the clout to chivvy someone, twist a few arms?”

  “Brigadier, you mean. I’ve never actually met the man, only talked to him on the phone, but I can ask. He seems able to get things sorted. There’s one final item, some data I’ve just emailed to you.”

  “Just reading it, Joey.” Rob still sounded casual, unflappable, typically laid-back Australian. “Save me time. How do the results of seismic events in GB and various parts of Europe have any bearing on Oz and New Zealand?”

  “My calcs say the aftershock is heading for the same sector of the South Pacific, straight for the Mariana Trench. It could be the infamous final straw, Rob.”

  “The one that broke the…yowzah. You think that’s a possibility, Joey?”

  “As far as effective planning goes, we need a worst-case scenario to look at. The way I see it, this is one of several possible worst cases, but nowhere near the horror of a total meltdown in and around Fukuyama.”

  “What if you’re proved right? What if the trench is the underlying root of the problem?”

  “One thing at a time, Rob. If that happens, we’ll find a way of dealing with it. But I’m convinced the trench is somehow involved in the problems we’re having. Possibly the solution will also have a close connection to the trench.”

  “Okay, Joey. Listen, you must be rushed off your feet, and I know you’ve got none of your regular staff on duty, so I’ll do the chasing around by phone from this end. There’s some I can blag into giving me info they’d never dream of giving a Pom, God damn their scrawny red necks.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dave rolled over and managed to open one eye. It felt as if his eyelid was coated with coarse-grained sandpaper scraping the sensitive surface of his cornea. The computer across the room, which Joey had set up for Dave and Brenda to use, emitted another series of beeps. Who the hell would be calling him in the middle of the night? He paused and checked his watch before accepting the voice call, noting the time, 3:17.

  “Mmm, yeah? Hello?”

  “Dave, it’s Pete. Haven’t you been following the news?”

  Dave suddenly found himself on his feet, a jolt of adrenaline scouring the last vestiges of sleep from his system.

  “Au contraire, dear bruv. I’ve been worried sick about you since the quake in Christchurch.”

  “That’s quakes, Dave. We’ve had another major shock, not counting the aftershocks.”

  “All the same, I couldn’t ring to find out how you were coping, but I can give you a quick heads-up, and that’s probably more than I ought to be telling you. We’re under something called Condition Red security restrictions, which is only one step from being on an all-out-war footing. If the CO finds out I’ve spoken to anyone—even you—he’ll have my guts for garters.”

  “No worries, bro. He won’t find out anything from me.”

  “Anyway, Pete, as long as you’re okay, you can pay me back.”

  “How so?”

  “We’re isolated, and nobody is allowed in or out. We’re using every scrap of data we can find about the weather and the problems it’s throwing into the mix in your part of the world. Our problem is time lag. Everything we’re getting is a report on something which has already happened. The best we’ve had is an update less than three hours after the event, but it’s usually more like ten to twelve hours before it trickles down to us. You’re fairly high up in the natural sciences arena. Is there anyone you can lean on?”

  ***

  After the call, Dave left Brenda sleeping and headed for the ops room. Joey was still there surrounded by the tools of his trade.

  “Don’t you ever take a break?”

  “Not until I have another met officer or geologist to relieve me, and he’ll also have to be able to read my scribbles.” Joey grunted, without looking up. “What’s got you out of bed?”

  “Pete rang me.” Joey’s head snapped up. “I think you should hear what he has to say.”

  Joey’s facial expression was difficult to read, but Dave thought he saw the light of anger die away from his eyes. After a couple of seconds, which seemed to last forever, he nodded and moved aside so Dave could reach the computer and return the call.

  “Pete, I’m with Doctor Hart.” Remembering they hadn’t had time for formal introductions the last time Pete had called, Dave added, “Doctor Joey Hart, meteorologist and team leader. He’s also a geologist and has alphabet soup after his name.”

  “Doctor Hart of Liverpool Uni? The author of most of the readable books about weather and climate change which have been written in the last twenty years?”

  Joey had the grace to flush and offered a tired smile. “Nice to know someone other than me has read them—otherwise it would have been a total waste of my time.”

  “And we have a mutual friend in Australia, I believe,” Pete said. “Doctor Rob Jones at the Met Office?”

  “Yeah, Rob and I go way back…”

  Dave’s appreciation of Joey leapt several notches. To hold the position he had at the uni, of course, he had to know his subject, but until now, Dave hadn’t realised that he’d also earned his stripes as an expert in his chosen field. He tried to tune back into the Skype conversation, but Joey and Pete had progressed rapidly on to technical matters which were beyond his understanding.

  “Okay,” Joey said, “this is what I need from you, Doctor Whelan. Data on any more tidal problems in your region as soon as you get it. We’re looking for anomalies, unexpected readings, anything out of the ordinary. I know that’s a bit vague, but you must have some geologists and other weather experts you can, in your brother’s words, lean on.” Joey gave Dave a sideways glance, his remark confirming he was monitoring all communication.

  “I’ll call you, or more likely, Dave will, at 0800 our time. That’s 0700 Zulu, we’re on Daylight Saving now. I make that 1900 for you, okay? Our CO is a man of habit. He’s not due to ring me until an hour later, and if I’ve got some fresh ammo to surprise him with, it’ll make my job of telling him there’s someone else joining the team that much easier. You should also have a potted bio and your personal details to hand when we speak. He’s going to demand a security check. There won’t be any way to avoid that.”

  “Wilco, Doc. I have no problems with the security angle, I wouldn’t expect anything less. If my reprobate kid brother can pass for a human being, I’m sure your nameless CO will find my stats and info acceptable. Dave says you push yourself too hard. I suggest we all get some sack time and speak again four hours from now.”

  ***

  “Pete? For Christ’s sake, I said I’d call—”

  “You also said you wanted updates as soon as I had something.”

  The tension in Pete’s voice as he interrupted his brother spoke volumes. Dave snapped fully awake and glanced at the time. He’d collapsed back into bed less than two hours ago, and now Brenda was showing signs of waking. He kissed her cheek and padded out of the room, stretching the phone cord as far as it would go, so he could concentrate on whatever Pete had to add to the picture.

  “This is happening as we speak. Tremors recorded at Richter eight point five, Indian Ocean, about three hundred miles east of Sumatra. A tsunami warning has been issued—I’m sending an email with the prelim data we have so far.”

  “I understand why you jumped the gun. You’re excused. Pete, I’m going to get Joey out of bed—if he ever went to bed. Try to get what you can on this quake, and I’ll call you back as planned, two hours from now.”

  ***

  Brenda passed around coffees as Dave placed the call.


  “I hope Groth’s not been working through the night,” Joey muttered, immediately sipping the hot liquid. “I could really do with any advantage Pete’s info might give me…Pete.”

  “Good morning, Doctor Hart.” Pete’s voice floated out of the computer speakers.

  “Tell me you’ve got something concrete I can use.”

  “I have. Lots of remote sensors were installed on the QT after the last big quake in the area five years back. State-of-the-art stuff, too, some of it still at the testing stage, but that info is classified, so be careful who you tell. It all seems to be holding up, no malfunctions reported, and I’m sending you some data now.”

  The email inbox pinged: Joey went to another terminal and began reading.

  “The epicentre’s coppers short of three hundred miles east of Formosa. First indications place it twenty miles below the seabed.”

  “Twenty—that’s two-zero miles deep?” Dave queried. “That sounds incredible. You’re sure?”

  “Not so surprising,” Joey commented. “I’ve worked with forces buried at similar depths before. In a way, I’m relieved to hear it. At such depths, the tremors themselves are too deep to cause structural damage when they reach landfall, and we can discount any possibility of a tsunami or other tidal dangers. Ocean swells are only caused by much shallower disturbances.”

  “That’s what my boffins tell me too, Doctor,” Pete confirmed. “So I guess that’s one bit of good news for your boss.”

  “At the moment, we’ll take any crumbs that fall from the table,” Dave replied. “But I think it’s best I shut up and let Joey do the talking.”

  Joey had two charts laid out side by side: one was the familiar projection map of the world’s main landmasses; the other resembled a schematic of rounded arcs, reminding Dave of the layers of an onion chopped in half. This seemed to be far more interesting to Joey, and after a few seconds, Dave guessed it was some sort of schematic cross-section of the planet’s interior, showing the composition of the layers of different types of rock at different depths.