Footprints of Thunder (45 page)

Arnie’s face was impassive, but his pupils dilated.

“I can’t promise—” he began.

“Just do your best.”

“Yes.”

The President picked up his report and then dropped it and reached for a new paper clip. Quickly absorbed, he never saw his friend leave.

43. Unfinished Business

This is what the sovereign Lord says: When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you, then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of long ago … You will be sought, but you will never again be found.

—
Ezekial 26:19-21

Washington, D.C.

PostQuilt: Tuesday, 11:15
A.M.
EST

S
peaking to the Security Council had terrified Terry. He considered himself a good counselor on a one-to-one basis, and good with small groups of parents or teachers, but he was never comfortable as a public speaker. And nothing in his experience had prepared him to speak to the movers and the shakers of government. Now he realized he’d made the last meaningful contribution he could make in Washington, It was time to call in Bill’s promise and get to his son.

As they left the White House in the van, Terry turned to Bill and said simply, “It’s time.” Bill turned his face to the window and watched the buildings race by, then leaned forward to whisper in the driver’s ear.

Terry sank back into his seat and reexamined his decisions. He had been only minimally helpful with Kenny Randall. Of course he couldn’t have known that when he decided to come, but in retrospect, Ellen had been right.

Nick was exchanging information on the PresNet when Elizabeth Hawthorne appeared at his door. It wasn’t like Elizabeth to show up without an appointment. She was carrying a bright blue file folder filled to overflowing and leaned against the doorway trying to act casual. Unfortunately, “casual” was not in her vocabulary of body language. However, she spoke with characteristic bluntness.

“They’re going to blame the Russians for this.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said that it takes bombs of a certain megatonnage to produce the effect. They’re putting together a press release claiming only the old Soviet Union detonated enough of these bombs often enough to produce the effect.”

Nick didn’t know how to respond. Politicians specialized in covering their asses, so why should this case be any different, and why would Elizabeth bring this piece of news to him? Did Elizabeth care who got blamed for the disaster? Did she think Nick could do something about it?

“It’s not true, Elizabeth. Either everyone involved in nuclear testing is to blame, or no one is.”

Elizabeth nodded and finally entered the room, walking closer to Nick and watching the messages scrolling across his computer screen.

After another full minute she stopped reading the messages and turned to leave.

“Oh, is that psychologist still around?”

“Dr. Roberts? No, he left with Colonel Conrad after the meeting.”

Elizabeth’s face showed just a hint of disappointment. Then she took the blue folder out from under her arm and handed it to Nick.

“These are the satellite photos you wanted.”

As she walked out the door Nick began to understand what had happened. The satellite photos normally would have been delivered by a staff member. Elizabeth, Nick realized, had actually come to ask about Dr. Roberts. Why would Elizabeth Hawthorne want a psychologist? It seemed so unlikely. Elizabeth Hawthorne’s life had focused on getting and exercising power. She thrived on crisis management. But if Elizabeth did not want to see the psychologist for herself, then who? The President? Nick thought back to the Security Council meeting. He had noted a change in the President. He still functioned, he ran the meeting, with Elizabeth’s whispered help, but he seemed uncharacteristically single-minded. He wanted to know what had happened and what could be done about it. Still, wouldn’t any President respond the same way?

Nick pushed his concerns about the President to the back of his mind and opened the folder. The top photo was from Landsat of the North American continent, zoomed in on the United States. The continent looked like a quilt. Contrasting topological colors were sprinkled from the East Coast to the West Coast, and the sprinkling continued into the sections of both Canada and Mexico that were visible on the photo. Other photos showed similar effects in both eastern and western Europe. There were no photos of the Southern Hemisphere, but Nick had no doubt the effect was worldwide.

Deeper into the pile of photos and analysis reports, he found a photo taken off the Florida coast. An attached report noted that a tidal wave had washed over part of Florida’s gulf coast. The photo of the ocean showed massive amounts of debris in the water. The water itself looked more like mud, and there were whole evergreen trees mixed in the muck, their roots and crowns jumbled together. Wherever this land had been displaced from, it had the bad luck of being displaced into the ocean. Whatever animal or human life it had held was lost now.

There were three sealed envelopes at the bottom of the pile marked SECRET and stamped with a red top-secret seal. One envelope was labeled New York City, the second Atlanta, and the third Montreal. Each envelope carried a label with the obligatory warning against unauthorized access to the information inside and the requisite listing of penalties. The first envelope included an aerial photo of New York City—a picture worth a thousand words, snowing what Nick had only read about. At first glance it looked normal, but scribed across one edge of the city was a neat line. On one side was a dense urban setting, on the other side, nothing. Nick had heard the devastation described as “prairie” in some reports, but from an aerial photo it looked like a void. A second photo showed more of the city and the surrounding urban area. The shape of the void approximated an oval. Pulling the Landsat photo out of the stack again, Nick held it close to his eyes. Most of the quilt pieces seemed to be oval.

The third photo confused him. It was the same photo of New York, but in this photo the section of missing city was there. He looked closely at it, noticing that part of the photo—where the quilt section had been—was fuzzy. There were time notations in the bottom corner of the photos, indicating that the third was taken after the photo with the void. Nick examined the photos again. The third photo showed the city in the center of the quilt section that became fuzzy toward the edges. Was the city coming back? Nick turned to the accompanying report and began to read. When he finished he immediately began composing a message for the PresNet, the top secret classification quickly forgotten. While he typed, a message appeared at the bottom of the screen. As it scrolled up Nick realized it was essentially the message he was about to send. It was from Dr. Gogh.

44. Ocean Ride

People of all ages will become prisoners of the unseen. Good times will become times of misfortune; bitterness will replace sweetness: The wealth of nations will float in the wind,

—
Zorastrus, Prophet of Babylon

Off Naples, Florida

PostQuilt: Tuesday, 12:00 noon EST

R
on woke at midday to find everyone else asleep on the back of the beast. He was thirsty, but the water had to be rationed. Even with a deep tan, the sun burned his back. He tried rolling over, but the sun was too bright. Sleep eluded him, and he found himself studying the baby.

It was a magnificent animal. It had a long neck like an elephant’s trunk. A triangular head was covered with slick gray-green skin, and it had large black eyes, with eyelids that blinked occasionally, clearing away the salt spray.

Ron was staring into the water looking for the legs when he realized the baby was moving toward him. It swam closer and fell a little behind the mother and then swung its head to look at Ron square on. His heart started to pound, but not from fear, from excitement. There was curiosity in those huge round eyes, maybe even intelligence. Ron slowly raised his head and smiled at the face, almost ready to talk to the baby, when the mother turned her head in a slow pendulous motion and made a bleating sound. The baby immediately returned to its position in the mother’s peripheral vision. Ron felt sad when it left.

They passed out water in the early afternoon, each taking a little. It couldn’t be more than eighty degrees, yet with so little to drink it seemed like a hundred. Ron hoped his estimate of distance was correct because if it took more than a couple of days, they would be dead of thirst.

As Ron took his turn at drinking he noticed the baby had dropped back again and was watching him. The baby’s face was nothing but taught gray-green skin, but Ron imagined he saw sadness in its eyes. Then he realized the baby and its mother had been churning through the ocean with nothing to drink. Was it as thirsty as he was? he wondered. Surely it had to be. Ron and his family had been riding while the dinosaurs worked, and they were very thirsty. Ron knew some animals could go long periods without water but doubted a dinosaur was like a camel.

Later that afternoon Ron was awakened from a light doze by Rosa talking to Chris, saying something about the dinosaurs eating. Ron sat up in time to see the mother’s head dip down into the ocean and up. Her back rolled gently when she did. A few seconds later the baby’s head dipped into the ocean and came up with seaweed hanging from its jaws. The baby chewed the seaweed slowly, working the drooping strands into its mouth. Ron worried about the salt content. He suspected they would last longer if they didn’t ingest the salt. Still, he found his concern about the dinosaurs ironic. They were all hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, but they also felt secure on the great animal’s back. In a few short hours the dinosaur had been transformed from a mere vehicle to their friend and savior.

By late afternoon they began to talk again, their fear of the animals forgotten. They named the big apatosaurus Patty and the little one, Pat. They all agreed Patty was a good mother. Somehow she had managed to save Pat from the sinking island and get him to sea. Ron speculated with Carmen and the kids about what it must have been like on the island. There had been a noise like a sonic boom, and then the island had just started sinking—relatively slowly, fortunately, because anything faster would have created a much bigger wave.

Patty and Pat must have found themselves in a landscape quickly flooding with water. The trees would have been pushed around or toppled by the rising sea. The animal life would have panicked, fighting for higher ground, ground that would become crowded with terrified animals, and then, in turn, flooded. Big animals like Patty could have kept their heads above water longer, but eventually they would have had to swim for their lives to solid ground that was miles away. Patty would have had a better chance of saving herself without Pat, but she stayed with him, like a good mother would.

“Dad,” Chris asked. “Do you think there were people on that island?”

“I don’t think so,” Ron said to reassure Chris, but there was no way to know. That island shouldn’t have been there at all. It just appeared; with animals like nothing Ron had ever seen on PBS or a National Geographic Special. If people knew about that island, it certainly would have made the news.

When Ron next passed water to the family, he noticed Carmen only wet her lips, so he did the same. When Ron had the water bottle back in its net bag he noticed Rosa staring at Pat.

“Hey,” Rosa said. “I think Pat is having trouble.”

Ron watched the baby for a while, but it seemed to be moving steadily, even after more than a day of swimming. Ron shrugged his shoulders at Rosa.

“Listen to it,” Rosa ordered.

Ron listened and realized he could hear its labored breathing. It was in trouble, and he wished there was something they could do to help it, but there wasn’t. No one talked after that, instead they spent the time watching Pat and listening to his breathing grow deeper and more ragged. Patty regularly swung her head around to look at Pat with one eye. At first that unnerved them, but Patty paid no attention to them, only to Pat. Patty also slowed her pace, but it didn’t seem to help.