Footprints of Thunder (16 page)

“I’m still having trouble understanding this … a section of New York City is now devoid of buildings and streets … and people … and is now farmland, or something?”

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Winfield said, “and the rest of the city is blacked out. The reports are unofficial, but they do seem to he consistent. Inbound commercial flights to Kennedy International have been rerouted … and at least one aircraft has been lost. Kennedy International is gone—we’ve confirmed it with our own flyover.”

The President was lost in thought, thinking about what Colonel Winfield was saying. The paper clip in his hands slowed its twirl to a near stop. From experience Elizabeth and the colonel knew not to interrupt; the President processed slowly but thoroughly. Finally the paper clip picked up speed and the President looked up.

“You said ‘parts of the country’ and ‘disappearances.’ You used the plural, didn’t you?”

Elizabeth stood and walked over to the President’s desk.

“Mr. President, there are similar reports from other regions of the country. Blackouts, tornadoes, sonic booms, and sudden disappearances of roads and even whole towns. We don’t know how widespread it is, but it is not an isolated incident.”

“Colonel Winfield, I want flyovers of as many areas as possible and satellite reconnaissance if you can get it, I’ve got to see this for myself. If the military hasn’t gone to full alert then it should immediately. I want a full intelligence briefing at the staff meeting.”

Colonel Winfield nodded and left. Elizabeth turned .to leave, but the President stopped her.

“Elizabeth, I’ve lost track of Sandy’s schedule.”

“The first lady is in Atlanta, Mr. President. We have no word about Atlanta.”

“Thank you, Elizabeth.”

When Elizabeth left, the President was staring out the dark window and twisting the paper clip crank around and around.

17. Science Advisor

The morning I arrived in Singapore the heavens filled the street with fishes. When the fish stopped falling the Chinese and the Malays gathered them up, most returning home with an overflowing basket. A most unusual introduction to a most unusual country.

—
Francois de Castelnou, February 16,1861

Washington, D.C.

PostQuilt: Sunday, 5:13
A.M.
EST

T
here was a phone beeping in Nick Paulson’s ear. Nick’s head was paralyzed from fatigue but he managed to roll his eyes ninety degrees toward the clock radio. The numbers waved before his eyes for a few seconds and then coalesced into a fuzzy pattern that resembled 5:13. The two glowing globs in the corner were too blurry to read, but they had to say
A.M
. The phone beeped again and Nick began to wish for the good old days when phones jangled. A jangle can energize you and take you from stage four sleep all the way to consciousness. But a beep just doesn’t have the necessary power to blast you from delta waves to alpha waves.

On the second try, Nick palmed the receiver and heard a voice respond to his groggy hello, but it didn’t make any sense. Finally he recognized it as belonging to Elizabeth Hawthorne, the President’s chief of staff. Elizabeth Hawthorne was a human jangle.

“Elizabeth … Elizabeth … start over please. I’ve only been in bed a couple of hours.”

“I said, we’re calling an emergency Security Council meeting at seven this morning and you are to be there. It would help if you could come in as soon as possible and review some of the reports we have. The President will want your assessment.”

Nick was not sure he understood her. Nick had never sat with the Security Council, and he couldn’t imagine the kind of emergency that would require a science advisor. Emergencies usually need only two kinds of people, those who can negotiate and those who can kill. Nick was sure he couldn’t do the first, and pretty sure he couldn’t do the second.

“Elizabeth, can you tell me the nature of the emergency?”

“Not on this line. Dr. Paulson, be here within the hour.” Elizabeth hung up. Good-byes were superfluous to her. It was then he noticed his heart was pounding. Only two things made Nick’s heart pound; sex and fear. Since Kathy had moved out over two months ago, that left only fear.

Twenty minutes later he was directing his Volvo through the empty streets. The rain had stopped and the streets were shiny and slick. Nick ran an electric razor over his face as he drove, clearing away the stubble. He finished grooming by running his fingers through his thinning blond hair. He decided to check the radio for news, hoping to pick up some clue to what the Security Council was meeting to discuss. There was nothing but music on the FM stations, but on AM he picked up part of a news broadcast.

“Bill, how are the people of New York handling this latest blackout?”

“Well, so far, Maria, we have no reports of looting. As our listeners know from past blackouts, some people take advantage of unfortunate circumstances like these. We can only hope that the governor—”

Nick went back to twisting the dial.

The meeting could have something to do with the New York situation, but blackouts normally don’t require a meeting of the Security Council. Now if the blackout was caused by terrorist action you might call such a meeting. But why invite the science advisor? It couldn’t be a nuclear attack. Nick wasn’t on the nuclear response team. Besides, a nuclear blast would certainly have made the newscasts by now. Nick spun the dial looking for more details and rested briefly on a talk show.

“I’m telling you, Gene, this is what I saw. The road is gone, the trees are gone, the old candle factory is gone, everything is gone. Gone, gone, gone! Can’t you hear what I’m telling you?”

“Ken … Ken, I can hear fine. But do you hear what you’re saying? Do you? You want me … and my listeners … to believe that you turned your back for a second, just a second, and when you looked back everything was snowed in? Ken, it can’t snow that fast.”

“I didn’t say it snowed—”

“Ken … let me finish … suddenly, without warning, on a sixty-degree night, it snows thirty or forty feet… enough to cover a factory? I’m not buying it, Ken. Time to refill your prescription.”

“Well why don’t you come out here and I’ll take some of that imaginary snow and shove it—”

Nick was sorry the line went dead. Ken was about to tell the talk show host something Nick had always wanted to say to a talk show host.

“Naughty, naughty, Ken. We must please the FCC now, mustn’t we … you butthead. We’ve got Coop from Carlton, Oregon, on line three. Go ahead, Coop, you’re on
Night Talk
.”

“Gene, I got another improbable indecipherable for you. There was a supersonic percussion a couple of hours ago from the direction of Portland. I just got back from taking a little reconnaissance ride. I could only make about ten clicks.”

“And what did you see on your reconnoiter?”

“It’s what I didn’t see. Portland.”

“You didn’t see Portland? It’s a good thing you got lost, Coop. Once you’ve seen the big city you’d never be happy on your farm again.”

“I’m no agricultural entrepreneur, and I didn’t get lost. Portland did. It’s not there anymore and where it used to be there’s a forest.”

“Coop, what do they drink out there in Carlton, or should I say how much?”

Nick could not believe what he was hearing. Someone was on the radio reporting a missing city and sounding serious. The idea of a missing city was odd enough, but the caller made it seem even stranger. It was something in the way he spoke about it. For one thing the caller sounded excited, not depressed, not bewildered, not even sad. Certainly if a city full of people had disappeared it would be a disorienting experience. But the caller sounded downright enthused.

“I don’t imbibe while on duty, Gene, and I consider myself on duty until this emergency is over. I’m a reserve police officer and proud of it.”

“I have reservations about police officers too.”

‘That’s not all of it, Gene. When I was looking through my optical assistance device I spotted a dinosaur.”

“A dinosaur? You mean one of those extinct creatures that hasn’t existed on earth for a few million years or so?”

“What else could it be? It was either a dinosaur or the only ten-foot lizard I’ve ever seen. I’m getting ready now to head back and see if I can apprehend the trespassing lizard.”

“You do that, Coop, and be sure to call back and let us know when you catch it. Meanwhile I’ll alert my listeners to be on the lookout for a missing city.” The line was cut and then Gene added, “Bob, let’s start screening these calls. Is there a full moon tonight or what?”

Then Gene punched up line one from Sioux City, Iowa.

“Gene, I should of taken your advice.” The caller had clearly been drinking.

“What advice was that, Sioux City?”

“You told me to get rid of my wife. We was having trouble … she was cheating on me. You told me to take her stuff, throw it out of the house and her with it.”

“I remember, Sioux City. So what happened?”

“She took the farm.”

“The farm equipment?”

“No, damn it, she took the whole—
beeeeep
—farm.”

“Watch your language, Sioux City.”

“We had a big fight and I stomped out and jumped into my pickup to go get a beer. I got about halfway down the driveway when I got knocked off the road by a humpin’ big noise. I still can’t hear so good. When I looked back the place was gone. I got no house, no barn, no stock, no nothing. But I got plenty of nothing.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a relative living in Oregon would you?”

“I ain’t got nothing no where.”

“Well, that brings us to the news on the hour … thank God. I’m gonna turn it over to Jim Jenkins with all the latest on missing cities and farms, and when I come back let’s talk about something normal like flying saucers, or abortion, but not dinosaurs. I’m Gene Diamond and you’re listening to America’s nighttime favorite—
Night Talk.”

Nick kept turning the dial, but all the stations seemed to be getting their news from the same source and reported only on the New York blackout.

The security at the White House told Nick how serious the situation was. The guard at the gate had been replaced by marines in uniform with secret service agents mixed in, and Nick was going through his third ID check when Elizabeth Hawthorne took his arm and expedited the process. Nick couldn’t help but notice that no one asked for Elizabeth’s ID.

“The reports are on my desk. You can use my office.”

“Nice to see you too. What is going on?”

“Read the reports. I’m going to stay here and help the others through security. Nick, I think you should know that Dr. Gogh will be at the meeting.”

Nick wasn’t sure how to take that news. Arnold Gogh was the President’s first choice for Nick’s job. In fact he held the post for two years. The President had been friends with Gogh when they were both faculty at the University of Michigan. It was a strange friendship—Gogh the physicist and McIntyre the political scientist—a rapport based on compatible political beliefs. When McIntyre left academia for the state legislature Gogh stayed with the university, but he was never really out of touch or influence.

When the Democrats had splintered, McIntyre had coined the name Neodemocrat for the new party. When he ran for the Senate, Gogh took a leave of absence and managed his campaign. When McIntyre ran for the presidency as the Neodemocratic nominee, Gogh was an integral part of the successful campaign. To everyone’s surprise he turned down chief of staff; that position went to Elizabeth Hawthorne. Instead, Gogh sought the position of science advisor and then reshaped it in his own image.

He would still be science advisor if it hadn’t been for Gogh’s penchant for young girls, recorded on video. Gogh had to plea-bargain himself out of jail, and the position of science advisor fell to Nick.

Nick had a reputation as a popularizer of science. His award-winning public television productions brought the mysteries of the galaxy, the seas, and the animal world to everyday people in a way they could understand. Nick’s success made him popular with the public, and with politicians, but his reputation as a scientist had suffered. He was no longer a purist. He no longer published in obscure journals that even the specialists ignored. He’d dropped out of the great grant race.

But now he could pursue his first love—all sciences—and it was a trade he rarely regretted. So he produced the television specials, delivered the talks, and served as a liaison between the President and the sciences.

Nick knew that Gogh’s presence did not mean McIntyre’s lack of trust in Nick. Gogh was part of the President’s emotional support network, and with the first lady out of town, Nick assumed President McIntyre might be using Gogh as a surrogate partner. However, Gogh would diminish Nick’s influence.

Nick watched Elizabeth walk back to the door and take up an observation post. She was an unusual woman. Not that she wasn’t a fine-looking woman. Her hair was silky. Her skin was flawless. Her rarely used smile dazzled, and her figure was made for snuggling up to. But she never posted signs that she was willing or even interested. Elizabeth was carbon monoxide, odorless and colorless. Nick had no doubt she was just as deadly.