Taking the Heat

by Paul McDermott

  “I’ll forward these figures for analysis,” Groth commented. “Has this data given you any ideas, suggestions for a possible course of action?”

  “We haven’t had time to discuss that yet, Sir. We only obtained the readings within the past hour. But the cliff damage on the south coast is as great a worry. From my analysis, I’d say it’s highly likely that it’s the result of aftershocks from the detonation in the Mariana Trench rather than local weather conditions.”

  He listed his preliminary findings based on the few facts he’d been able to verify from the samples they’d taken.

  “Good work, Doctor. I’ll inform you at once if anyone on our research team has anything useful to add.”

  The burr of an empty line confirmed the resumption of Groth’s habitual telephone habits.

  Sergeant Jackson was first to react. “None of you—with the possible exception of my colleagues—know the brig as well as I do, but I can tell you this. He’s impressed with what you’ve offered him based on very little data. He never even chewed us out for leaving the bunker.”

  “Which reminds me,” Joey said. “We did incinerate the suits, didn’t we? And has anyone checked stock levels in case we have to go outside again?”

  “Sorted, and that’s to both questions,” Dick confirmed. Nobody had noticed his return from the bathroom. Dave glanced at the squaddie’s hands, which had been subjected to a merciless scrubbing and were now a painful shade of red.

  Dave wondered if Dick would feel embarrassed or upset if he offered some sympathy but was spared the choice when one of the redundant monitors lit up with an incoming Skype call. Dave looked to Joey for permission to answer.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Pete.”

  “Hey, bro. Are you all hanging in there?” The call from New Zealand couldn’t have come from much further away, but it was as clear as if it had been made from the next room.

  The brothers briefly exchanged pleasantries and confirmed all was as well as could be expected on both sides, then Dave got down to business.

  “What you got for me? I assume you’ve spotted some weather data on your state-of-the-art computer systems?”

  “Jealousy will get you everywhere, our kid. Not my fault your government’s flat broke and won’t pay your leccy bills.”

  “Okay, you’ve had your dig. Now, let’s hear it.”

  Pete’s voice changed. He became businesslike, professional. “So far, we’ve been monitoring tides, tremors, earthquakes—essentially, subterranean problems.”

  “We’re doing the same here,” Joey said, which wasn’t strictly true, given the lack of access to equipment outside of the op centre, but he was already making good headway. “We’ve had precious little info to guide us, but we had to start somewhere. You sound as if you’ve found something?”

  “Maybe, Joey, but there’s no direct link, as such.”

  “Go ahead anyway.”

  “It’s forty-eight hours now since we tried to seal the trench. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, we’ve seen a definite temperature increase—up a full two degrees compared with the average for this time of year. And on the back of that, there are fires blazing out of control in Greece, Spain, Italy…not to mention the bush fires we’ve had in Oz for the last few weeks. I have a gut feeling there’s a connection.”

  “Hmm. I have someone who might be able to check your figures from a different angle.”

  “There’s more. I’ve kept this to last, not because it’s only just dropped on my desk but because it scares the crap out of me.”

  Joey’s grip tightened until the pencil he was holding creaked under the pressure. His fingertips turned white as the blood supply was effectively choked off from one heartbeat to the next.

  “I’m not gonna like this, am I? You’ve never been one for wild rumour and scaremongering. Go on, break it to me gently.”

  “I’ve got what appears to be solid data and evidence, tables and figures which back this up. I’ll forward them for you to look at and pass on. In short, a group of scientists have published the results of a survey, and the total loss of ice mass at the South Pole has trebled in the past ten years, equivalent to two thousand gigatonnes.”

  “In a decade? And nobody noticed until now?”

  Joey didn’t doubt Dave’s brother’s words for a second, but this bald statement took his breath away.

  “It wasn’t so much that nobody noticed. The Antarctic doesn’t have the same observable, year-on-year decline as the Arctic. Indeed, the variability of the annual minimum and maximum of Antarctic ice coverage is becoming increasingly extreme, which may also be a factor in recent climatic events.”

  “Pete, I need those figures asap. I have to forward them to our research team.”

  “Email’s on its way—I’ll clear the line. Keep me in the loop as much as you’re allowed.”

  “Will do. I wish I could say thanks, but I can’t see anything to cheer about.”

  “Good luck, Doctor Hart. Something tells me we’ll need as much as we can get.”

  As Pete’s call ended, the red direct line buzzed. Joey managed to lift the receiver a few nanoseconds before the second ring. “Receiving, Brigadier.”

  “I’ve had the last data you forwarded analysed, Doctor Hart. Continue to monitor the water quality in the river. I want hourly samples. There is no immediate risk to the public, but there will be no access to the foreshore until further notice.

  “The south coast has been designated an emergency zone, and everyone living less than three miles from the coast will be evacuated to temporary accommodation in army camps, church halls, schools and any other available buildings. This is purely for your information. It won’t have any direct influence here in the North West.”

  “Acknowledged, Brigadier. We have more data for you from further afield, received since we last spoke.”

  “Is it a reliable source, Doctor?”

  “I don’t know what criteria the army would use, Brigadier, but the information comes from a team of scientists reporting directly to the government of New Zealand. Their report is the result of a five-year project.”

  “How did you come by this data?”

  “Doctor Peter Whelan, Sir. The technical data is in a separate email. Permission to summarise the content of the findings?”

  “Granted, Doctor Hart.”

  “Thank you. Essentially, the scientific forum that has researched this topic over the past decade has established that the permanent ice at the southern pole has depleted significantly in the past ten years.” He repeated the bare bones of the report in the same simple, non-technical terms Pete had used. Groth listened without interrupting.

  “Your email arrived while you were speaking. I’ll forward it to our technical support team and flag it urgent. Is there any possibility this meltdown could have been caused by the volcanic activity in the Mariana Trench?”

  “It isn’t something which has happened overnight, Sir. The survey covers ten years of research. On the other hand, we don’t know how long the volcanic activity in the trench has been developing. But if you want my gut feeling…?”

  “It’s as valid as any other we have on the table at the moment.”

  “Depending on how deep the point of origin may be, the temperatures and pressures underground could have been rising steadily for ten, fifteen, twenty years before reaching the fissure on the seabed known as the Mariana Trench.

  “It’s certainly possible that a subterranean temperature increase could have influenced the temperatures south of the trench for many years undetected. It would be worth your team corresponding directly with the New Zealand scientists to look for any evidence which may confirm this theory. It might not lead us directly to a solution, but if we can be certain of the cause, at least we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

  “That sounds very sensible, Doctor Hart. I’ll speak to my team and suggest they liaise with their counterparts in New Zealand. You are to continue to monitor local weath
er conditions. Along with John Lennon Airport, your instruments are probably the most accurate in the North West. I’ll also expect your assessment of the data you’ve forwarded for my team as soon as you’ve had a chance to study it.”

  “Understood, Sir. I’ll have a prelim ready for you this evening.”

  “I’ll call you at 1800 hours. Groth out.”

  Joey stared at the handset for a moment before replacing it. Was the brigadier feeling the stress? This was the first time he’d signed off a call instead of leaving him listening to an empty ring tone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “This equipment isn’t what you’d call state-of-the-art, but it’s easy to use.”

  Brenda had linked a bank of phones to a central desk. Everyone else was now sitting in pairs at desks while she ran through what they needed to know to operate the telephone network.

  “You’ll have noticed that these phones are fitted with dials, not a keypad. Some were still in their original packing. They’ve never been used. Those which had been unpacked are in as near mint condition as makes no difference, and according to the Installation Handbook, they’re a government standard issue.”

  “Is there a publication date on the handbook?” Errol wanted to know.

  Brenda flicked open the front cover and scanned the copyright page. “This is a reprint from 1955. First published by HMSO in 1944.”

  She laid the manual to one side and waited until she had everyone’s full attention.

  “They will have been delivered in time to see some service in the final months of World War Two, and they were designed to be easy for non-specialists to use. I came across them when I worked with the TA as a signals op, and I found it easy to learn. I’m sure it’ll be just as easy for you.”

  “I’ve only ever seen these dial models on old black-and-white movies,” Errol remarked.

  “But they work,” Dave said. He picked up his handset and held it aloft. Everyone could hear the steady dial tone. He nodded and replaced it.

  “We can now make outgoing calls, so I’m going to make a few calls from the main switchboard to other observatories around the UK. When they start replying, I’ll relay them to one of you, and you’ll copy down the data they send. I expect a slow start, but it’s bound to get hectic after a while, so we’ll have to be on our toes once the info starts coming in.”

  “Sounds like this is my last opportunity to have a smoke,” Errol said with an exaggerated martyr’s grimace.

  “I don’t smoke, but I’ll join you for a breath of fresh air.” Dave pushed back his chair and followed Errol to the exit door.

  ***

  Opening the solid, hermetically sealed door which isolated the bunker from the outside world proved to be far more difficult than either Dave or Errol had expected it to be. The grooves in the floor and the roof were clear of any obstructions and adequately greased, but sliding the door to one side required a lot more muscle than they’d needed to apply on earlier occasions.

  “D’you think there’s something jammed against it?” Dave panted.

  “If there is, it’s something large and heavy,” Errol grunted, “But I think I felt it move that time…here we go.”

  The door began to slide to the left. By the time six inches of free space was showing, they were both drenched from shoulder to knee by a solid sheet of torrential rain driven straight off the river by a vicious wind. Even through the layers of clothing they wore, the raindrops were striking them hard enough to cause actual, physical pain.

  Dave was closer to the part-open door and staggered under the full brunt of nature’s unexpected blind fury. Errol was slightly behind him and not as badly exposed, but all thoughts of slipping out for a smoke disappeared in an instant. Instinctively, both men took three or four paces back to escape the thorough soaking they had received and looked at each other, scarcely able to believe the evidence of their own eyes as they stood and dripped onto the concrete floor.

  “I’ve joked about the weather in this godforsaken country o’ yourn, but this is something else. I never dreamed it could be this bad.”

  Errol pulled a super-economy-class kerchief out of his fairly dry left pocket and commenced mopping-up operations on his hair and face. Dave had nothing of the sort to use for running repairs and turned to look at the limited slice of the outside world visible beyond the part-open door, hoping Errol might think to offer him a corner of the cloth before it reached the limit of its capacity to absorb moisture.

  “I’ve lived here all my life—I’ve only been abroad on holiday once or twice—and I can assure you, I’ve never seen anything like this. Not even close. But at least the wind isn’t directly behind it—or rather, it’s not a direct headwind. Look. The rain’s coming from an angle. It’s only striking the first six inches or maybe a foot inside the gap.”

  “Guess we should be thankful for small favours then, Dave,” Errol muttered, sounding anything but grateful as he tried unsuccessfully to squeeze some moisture out of his denim jeans. Catching the hopeful look in Dave’s eye, he passed over the kerchief with an automatic but sincere apologetic shrug. There wasn’t a lot of drying potential left in it, despite its impressive size.

  “We have to risk another soaking.” Dave sighed. Clearly, he didn’t fancy the prospect. “If we go back and just say, ‘Hey, guys, guess what? It’s raining out there!’ I don’t think we’ll win any popularity contests. We need to ‘observe’, not just ‘look’. We’ve set up a whole bank of phones to collect data from around the country, and we need to report on local conditions when we go back in.”

  Errol tucked his tobacco tin into an inner pocket.

  “I don’t think I’ll be using that on this trip, but if we’ve got to go out there and have a mosey ’round, I say we’d best grab us a pair of them dinky coveralls we used last time. They’re stashed in this storeroom, aren’t they?”

  This time, they could leave the face masks open, making the HazMat suits slightly less claustrophobic, but they took a pair of protective goggles each to protect their eyes from the torrential downpour. Dave found a bucket, complete with snap-lid, and tossed a few tools into it.

  “The doc will no doubt be grateful for a few soil and water samples,” he said as they waddled their way back to the entry door. The pool of water around it had grown and spread rapidly but didn’t seem to have any significant effect on the concrete flooring.

  “Better bring a broom and sweep the worst of it out when we get back.” Errol was surprised to discover how much he’d had to raise his voice to make himself heard over the hiss of the rain, magnified in the confined space of the narrow corridor.

  Dave nodded his agreement and leant his shoulder against the corner of the door. “Come on, then. Let’s see how bad the weather has become out there.”

  With both pushing, the door slid smoothly if reluctantly to the fully open position.

  “We’d better check that before we go in again,” Dave said. “If something’s obstructing the tracks, we might not be able to open it at all next time we want to get out.”

  “Agreed. I saw a couple shovels in that storeroom, but if we want to get some samples before we go gardening, we need to work fast.”

  Dave had been concentrating on a possible explanation for the door being so difficult to open. Now he swung around to see what Errol had spotted. He almost dropped the bucket of tools in disbelief.

  The rain was a solid, almost vertical sheet, with little or no wind driving it. No storm blasts, no hurricane cutting a predictable path of destruction from one point of the compass to another. This deluge was governed solely by the immutable and inevitable laws of gravity, and its menace was its sheer volume.

  Visibility, if you could call it that, had been severely reduced. The car park Dave had used on arrival was a maximum of fifty metres to his left, but try as he might, he couldn’t even make out a dark patch or an unnaturally straight line marking the boundary between the grass lawn and the tarmac surface.

  A
similar distance immediately in front of the door, he knew with absolute certainty that he ought to be able to see the safety rail separating the riverbank from the promenade. As he strained his eyes in a futile attempt to make out the smallest detail, the tiniest of white surf caps appeared towards the edge of his field of vision. Turning his head slightly to the left, he refocused on roughly where he thought he might have seen something. He was rewarded when a wave crested, creating another mini-surf tip, then fell back, kinetic energy expended. For a brief second, the unmistakable shape of a cast-iron guard rail post was revealed, then was covered again as another wave rushed to take the place of its predecessor.

  With an approximate range to work from, Dave glanced to the right, upstream, and located more rail support posts by the telltale surf caps. Tracking left, downstream of the first sighting, proved inconclusive. Dave suspected the water might be deeper at that point, covering the height of the rails completely.

  He grabbed Errol’s elbow and had to bellow his words. “Can you see the top of the guard rails along the prom?” He pointed as he spoke to help Errol locate them. After a few seconds’ hard stare, he nodded. “Even if a high tide’s due at this time of day, it should never reach over the retaining wall and swamp the rails along the prom. That’s a good ten foot higher than the highest tides recorded during my lifetime.

  “We have to be practical.” Dave forced himself to focus on their reason for being outside. “We haven’t a lot of time. The river’s burst its banks. I suspect most of this surface water is from the river rather than the rainfall, and it’s already halfway up the hill. We have to get back inside and seal the door before the bunker’s compromised. We’ll just have to hope that the seal holds, and that we can find a way of exiting either through this door or another one—if there is another one—when the time comes. If you tramp down to the waterline and get a bucketful of water, I’ll get the soil samples and record the air temp, barometric pressure and whatever else these instruments and gizmos will allow me to test in two minutes or so. But hurry. We can’t hang around out here any longer than that.”