Footprints of Thunder (15 page)

Ron swam toward the piece of the hull that still held the raft, but it was sinking rapidly. The tree trunk that had shattered it was between Ron and the raft, and he dove to go under them. As he swam under he realized it still had many branches attached, and he dove deeper. As the hull sank it rolled and Ron easily reached the bow, but it was sinking quickly and pulling him down with it. He hung on to the loose strap and released the catch of the other strap, and the raft began to drift out. The raft was sinking fast. Deftly, Ron pulled the inflation ring and heard the compressed air flood the cells. Ballooning, the raft squirted out from under the remaining strap. He grabbed for it, but it shot out of his reach. His lungs burning again, he kicked for the surface pulling with his arms.

He was farther down than he realized, much farther. His lungs screamed for oxygen and he was flailing like a drowning man. But he surfaced.

When his panic died he looked around. To his relief he saw Carmen had the children organized and was moving them toward the raft. Exhausted, Ron rolled over to his back to float. The sea was too rough, however, and the debris-laden waves kept washing over his face. He gave up and rolled into a breast stroke, reaching the raft at the same time as the others.

“Rosa’s hurt, Ron,” Carmen said. “Help her into the raft.”

Ron swam around Carmen to Rosa and found her grimacing from pain.

“What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

“It’s my side. Something hit me. I think it was a tree.”

The raft was octagonal, with four inflated pillars that held the canopy four feet above. The sides were a double row of inflated cells. Ron tried to help Rosa up gently, while Carmen did the same thing with Chris. Finally, Ron gave up on gentle and shoved hard. With a gasp, she flopped into the raft and lay on the floor shuddering. Ron hung on to the edge of the raft, exhausted, then felt Carmen pulling him up. His weight pushed the raft down and a muddy wave washed in and over Rosa. Then he felt Carmen’s hands on his bottom and she pulled him up and over. He ended up on his back in the soup on the bottom with Rosa, his head in Carmen’s lap.

The raft was rocking and pitching, but still it seemed restful. Occasional waves broke over the raft, but the family was oblivious to them. They stayed like that for a long time.

15. Coop

There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

—
Exodus 19:16

Carlton, Oregon

Time Quilt: Sunday, 12:13
A.M.
PST

P
olice Chief Vincent Peters was eating a Mount Vesuvius in the Copper Skillet restaurant. The omelette filled his plate and was covered with chili and sour cream. He knew eating it this time of night meant he would pay in a couple of hours, but that was then and this was now, and he was going to enjoy every bite. That is, if Coop would let him. Reserve Officer Stanley Cooper was across the table working on a Godfather’s Special, his eggs covered with spaghetti sauce, olives, and sausage. “Coop,” as he liked to be called, was temporarily distracted by the waitress across the aisle, who bent over arranging forks and knives. Then she finished arranging the table, scooped a small pile of change into her palm, and left, Coop’s eyes trailing after her.

“As I was saying, Chief, before I got distracted”—Coop wiggled his eyebrows up and down and then continued—“at the rate we’re growing, it won’t be long before you’re going to have to expand the force. I mean we already got a fair amount of fiscal underachievers for a city our size, and I don’t have to tell you what that means. We also got ourselves a problem with transients and non-goal-oriented members of society. Just last weekend we ran six of them out of City Park.”

Peters was listening to Coop as well as anyone could, but wishing he wasn’t. A city the size of Carlton couldn’t afford a large permanent force of officers, so they used part-time reserve officers, like Coop, to fill in. Peters needed the reserves, so he took them to lunch occasionally, had them out to his house for barbecues, and was generally nice to them. It wasn’t always easy, especially with Coop. More than any of the other reserve officers, Coop wanted to work full-time, but it would never happen as long as Peters was chief.

Nearly everything Coop did irritated Chief Peters. For example, the way Coop talked. “Fiscal underachievers” were poor people, “non-goal-oriented members of society” were street people, and “transients” referred to anyone who ran into trouble with the law but didn’t live in the city. Coop once sent a letter to the editor of the local newspaper complaining of “fiscal advanced downward adjustments” in the police department and “downsizing personnel.” Peters wondered how many readers knew he was talking about budget cuts and layoffs. There was even an officer who swore on a Bible he heard Coop refer to a pencil as a “portable hand-held communications inscriber.” Peters doubted the story. Still, with Coop you never knew for sure.

“It is imperative, Chief, that we plan for such a contingent upsizing of personnel. We don’t want to make last-minute hasty decisions that might be regretted later. We need to do some thinking now, establish a line of ascension, and stick to it when the time comes.”

“Any ideas, Coop, on who should be on the hiring list?”

“Chief, you know I got more experience and know-how than any other reserve officer. I’ve paid my own way through three special training schools, done extra duty, why I even learned how to type. I’m not expecting anything in return for all this, you understand, I’m just pointing out my qualifications.”

Coop’s resume was interrupted with an ear-shattering noise that shook the restaurant, knocking the copper skillet on the wall behind the cashier’s counter to the floor. The windows rattled, and startled gasps came from the other two customers.

“What the hell?” Coop said, with a half-grin on his face. “I do believe we just experienced an unauthorized sonic excess.”

If it was a sonic boom, the jet must have broken the sound barrier right over the town. Chief Peters walked outside to look around, with Coop following. The sky was clear directly overhead and filled with stars. Any jet would have already disappeared, so he didn’t expect to see one. He looked up and down the main street to find nothing unusual except house lights blinking on here and there.

“Look at that, Chief,”

Peters turned to follow Coop’s pointing finger. West of town, there was a boiling mass of clouds shooting thousands of feet up into the air, as if buffeted by strong winds. Peters had never seen anything like it.. Something had whipped the sky into a frothing madness. As they watched, lightning flashes added to the show, quickly followed by the boom of thunder. Soon they moved back into the restaurant.

“What do you think caused that, Chief, a little ultimate high-intensity warfare?”

Peters knew “ultimate high-intensity warfare” meant nuclear war to Coop.

“I hope not,” Peters said.

Coop was clearly disappointed.

PostQuilt

16. The President

It is the ability to successfully draw on the experience of others, as well as their own, that distinguishes great leaders. However, once faced with something outside human experience, they become ordinary with surprising rapidity.

—
Carl Comstock,
Decision Makers

Washington, D.C.

PostQuilt: Sunday, 4:37
A.M.
EST

P
resident Scott McIntyre was shaken to consciousness by a secret service agent and his chief of staff. McIntyre knew instantly that it was serious. As chief of staff, Elizabeth Hawthorne had the authority to decide what needed the president’s immediate attention and what could wait. Elizabeth believed a rested President was the best kind to make important decisions, so for her no emergency required waking the President. Even when two terrorist bombs went off in New York City and the terrorists demanded the release of political prisoners, she let the President sleep and wake to a fully briefed staff ready for a crisis meeting. When a Russian bomber and an American chase plane collided off the coast of South Carolina, he again awoke to a meeting of an already summoned Security Council. So, if Elizabeth Hawthorne was waking him, it must he serious. He dressed quickly.

Elizabeth was in the Oval Office with Colonel Winfield, the President’s special military advisor. The President was amazed at how both of them looked well rested and well pressed. Colonel Winfield’s uniform was stiff and smooth, as if it had never been worn, his graying temples neatly combed, and his dark face shaved clean and smooth. Elizabeth was just as well groomed. How the two of them could wake in the middle of the night and pull themselves together so quickly the President couldn’t understand. Elizabeth at least had the advantage of age. She was still in her thirties, but Colonel Winfield was well into his fifties and managed the same trick. To look presidential, McIntyre pulled himself erect as he walked into the room.

All the lights were on, including the green shaded reading light on his desk. Still the room looked dark to the President, perhaps because of the dark windows behind the desk. Why is it, the President thought, that the dark of morning is different than the dark of night?

He sat behind his desk, picked up a paper clip and twisted it into a miniature crank, which he would fiddle with all through the meeting. The paper clip signaled he was ready and Elizabeth began.

“Something has happened … something strange.”

That was all she said. The President looked at her with surprise. Elizabeth Hawthorne at a loss for words? She and Colonel Winfield exchanged glances, but neither spoke.

“What has happened?” he prompted. “Have the Russians invaded the Baltic states? Did California shake into the sea? Have I been impeached?”

“Parts of the country have … are … experiencing communication disruptions, blackouts, and there have been some disappearances,” Elizabeth said.

“Disappearances? Who has disappeared?”

“It’s not a matter of who … well, I don’t mean to overlook the human dimension but … Mr. President, it appears that a large section of New York City has disappeared.”

President McIntyre was baffled.

“What do you mean ‘disappeared’? I can understand devastated, or vaporized, or flooded, but what the hell does
disappeared
mean?”

“It means, Mr. President, that where there were buildings, streets, cars, and people, there is now nothing,”

“Nothing? Nothing means an absence of anything … a void.”

“What Ms. Hawthorne means, sir,” Colonel Winfield cut in, “is where there was a city, there is now countryside.”

The President sat back in his desk chair, reclining. He was considering the possibility of a practical joke, but Elizabeth was humorless. President McIntyre had never heard her utter anything more than a polite courtesy chuckle now and then. But if this wasn’t a joke, then what? Cities don’t disappear, at least they never had.