Her Name Will Be Faith (33 page)

"Lucky nobody lived there," Landry
commented.

"Somebody did," Mark
said quietly, his heart lurching. His glide down
had carried him ten miles south of the Point, and now he banked again,
over the airstrip – which had turned into a lake.

"Holy shitting Moses!" Mackenzie commented.

They looked down on Whaletown, or
what was left of it. The settlement
seemed
to have divided into two parts; a wall of raging sea had burst
through from the Atlantic side, just as at the
Point, carrying everything
in its path
into the calm waters of the bight enclosed by the curve
of Eleuthera.
The shattered remains of houses and cars could be seen in
the shallows, and as the plane dipped lower yet,
floating bodies could
also be
discerned. But there were also people on the land, waving to
attract
their attention.

"Tell Sparky to call
Nassau," Mark snapped. "Tell them there is a
major emergency at Whaletown and that Palm Island will
also need assistance. Relay that message to Key West as well. They'd better
send
some medical supplies just as fast as
they can. But they have to use
seaplanes
or amphibians – the airstrip is out of action." He flew lower
yet,
waggled his wings again to reassure the people that help was on its way, and
then turned back to the north and west.

Now they were only a thousand feet up, following the
remains of the road. Dolphin Point was cut off twice, for the bridge connecting
it to the mainland had also collapsed. Lower and lower Mark dropped the plane,
peering down into the wrecked foliage beneath him.

"Hey," Landry snapped. "There's someone
there."

"Eh?" They were out
over the bay. Mark put the plane into another
steep turn, dropping now to 200 feet and throttling back.

"There!" Landry pointed.

Something white was being waved,
a few hundred yards north of where
the
water had broken through. Mark turned again, studying the bay now; since the
eye had passed through, the wind had begun blowing from the
opposite direction, west, which meant that the
bulk of Eleuthera had been
between it and the sound, and the seas in
there had gone right down,
although it was
by no means calm. "Check the chart," he told Mackenzie.
"What
kind of depths can we expect?"

"Eight to ten feet on average. But… Christ,
you're not thinking of putting her down? There are sandbanks all over the
place."

"And you've no clearance," Landry pointed
out, deciding against reminding his skipper that he would also be breaking
every rule in the book.

"Fuck that," Mark said. "How long do
you think one or two people stranded there are going to survive? The help is
gonna go to places like
Whaletown first. And
I have an idea those folks are Americans. You guys
with me?"

Landry and Mackenzie looked at
each other. "You're the skipper,"
they
said together – even though all their careers were at risk should he pile
up.

"Okay," Mark said. "Let's dummy it
first time."

He took the amphibian down almost to water level while
they studied the changing colours beneath them. "That, looks best,"
Landry decided. "Nearly unbroken green for a good half mile."

"Kind of narrow," Mackenzie objected.

"It's the best we have," Mark said.
"Get your belt on."

He turned the plane yet again,
and now definitely set her down. Into
the wind, she almost skimmed the few remaining trees on
Dolphin Point,
then the floats touched
the water, sending huge spumes of spray away to either side, and the hull
bumped again and again on the shallow waves.
But
he held her on the narrow ribbon of green water – there were patches
of
white to either side – and she came to rest, rising and falling on the
gentle swell. Mark turned her, and motored back as close to the Point as
he dared, then closed the throttles. "Get that
anchor down," he told
Landry, "and let's prepare the
boat."

The inflatable was thrust through
the door, and the cord pulled; it
burst into rubber. Landry had already unclipped the
outboard, and
passed
it down to Mark, who was first in. "Okay, Bob," he said. "Mac
and I will go see. You and Sparky stay here."

The outboard chattered, he took
the tiller, and they moved towards
the
shore.

"What the hell is that?" Mackenzie asked as
they entered the shallows.

"Looks like an automobile," Mark said,
steering to avoid the upturned
vehicle, which
had been carried some thirty feet from the shore.
"You're damned
right. A blue Buick. How the hell did it get there?" "The sea, I guess.
And I'll tell you something, Mac: I have an idea it's gonna stay there."

"There's someone!"
Mackenzie pointed as they neared the beach, going
dead slow now, for here there was
all manner of debris, from house
timbers
to pieces of furniture, some with sharp enough edges to puncture even the thick
rubber.

Mark stared at the tree line, and the man who stood
there, waving his shirt. He was a very young man, although haggard and drawn.

"Thank God!" the man
said. "Oh, thank God," staggering down to
meet them.

The dinghy grounded, and Mark
stepped into the shallow water with
the
painter to drag it clear. "You alone?"

"No," Dale said. "No, there are
others."

"Where?"

Dale gestured at the trees, and Mark followed him,
Mackenzie at their
heels. They looked to their
right, at where the sea still flowed into the
bay; there had been a
house there once – they could still see part of the walls.

They climbed a shallow slope,
picking their way through tangled fallen
trees and branches, gazed at the wreckage of another house.
This one
had stood
up to the wind and sea better than the first, but was still
virtually collapsed, two walls and the roof down,
furniture scattered in every direction; a 24-foot Mako, its hull stoved in,
rested in the centre of
what had been the kitchen.
Farther off, towards the head of what had
once been a drive, a large generator rested on its side; there was no
evidence
that it had ever been enclosed in a shed.

"Over here," Dale said.

Mark parted the bushes, and looked
at the people, who were huddled
in the shelter of the two remaining walls. He guessed
they must have
been there for more than
twelve hours, and the rain had probably only cleared about four hours before.
There was a middle-aged man, heavily built, but somehow shrunken by his experiences;
another middle-aged
man, much smaller,
whose face was streaked with tragedy; a middle-aged
woman, eyes red with
weeping, clutching a little girl to her breast – the
girl stared at Mark with enormous eyes; another
middle-aged woman,
who did not seem
aware of his presence at all, just rocked back and forth,
while tears streamed from her eyes; and there was a
quite beautiful
younger woman, wearing the remnants of a torn kaftan and
nothing else,
who also seemed oblivious of
his presence – she wasn't weeping, and her
face was composed, but
it was also utterly closed, as if the world outside her tortured mind had no
meaning.

"Can they move?" Mark asked Dale in a low
voice.

"I think so."

"Well, let's get them down to
the beach. We can be in Miami in half
an
hour. Say, I sure am glad that you all survived."

Dale's shoulders sagged. "We didn't all
survive," he said.

Jo's hands trembled as she picked
up the phone; if the night had been
bad,
the long afternoon's wait had been worse.

"Jo?"

For a moment she didn't recognize his voice.
"Dale?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, Dale! Where are you?"

"Miami."

"Oh, thank God for that. Tamsin..."

"She's okay. A bit shocked, I guess. I guess we
all are."

Waves of relief made Jo quite
dizzy; she felt sick with joy, had to force
herself
to speak rationally. "But you got out. Are the planes flying?"
"No. We were brought out by a navy amphibian on weather patrol."

"Mark Hammond!" she shouted. "Oh, thank
God for Mark. Dale, was
there much
damage?"

He gave what might have been a bark of laughter.
"Yeah. You could say that."

"Tell me!"

"There's nothing left, Jo."

Jo frowned at the phone. "What do you mean,
nothing left?"

"I mean, nothing."
Dale's voice rose an octave, and she realized he
was quite close to hysteria. "Every goddamned, fucking thing has
been blown flat."

"The house?" She was still incredulous.

"Yeah. The sea just came over the point."

"Oh, my God. The Robsons...?"

"Even worse."

"But they're all right?"

"If you can call it that.
Meg's in hospital, under sedation. I reckon
Neal
should be there too."

"What about Babs and Dad?"

"They're not too good, either."

"But Tamsin's okay. Can I speak with her?"

"She's been put straight to
bed. I guess we're all suffering from
exposure.
And shock. Listen, we're coming up tomorrow morning. Can you meet us?"

"Sure. I'll let Marcia know, too. Oh, I can
hardly wait."

"Yeah. Listen, bring two cars. We'll have Belle
with us."

"Oh, great. Yes, I'll have Marcia bring her car
as well. Lawson's gone straight back to Nassau, is that it?"

There was a short silence. Then Dale said,
"Lawson didn't make it."
"He . ."

Jo swallowed. "You mean..."

"I mean he's dead. Drowned."

"But how? I mean..."

"He's dead!" Dale
shouted. "I don't know how it happened. Nobody
knows. One minute he was there, and the next he
wasn't. He must have fallen and been washed away by the sea. We just don't
know."

"Oh, God," Jo said. "Oh, God. Then
Belle..."

"Yeah," Dale said. "We'll see you
tomorrow."

The phone went dead, but it was several seconds before
Jo replaced it.

The studio was quiet. The
late-night news programs were finished,
and
now there was only a midnight chat show going out, to be followed by two old
movies. Richard took Jo into the weather room, where Julian was sifting through
various charts. "Well, hey, Richard," he remarked. "What kept
you?"

"I was dining out,"
Richard told him. "You remember Josephine
Donnelly, from
Profiles?"

"Hi, Jo," Julian said. "Don't tell me,
you want to look at that system." He laid an enlarged photograph on the
desk. "I'll tell you, it
is
a system."

Richard studied the print, and Jo
looked round his arm. She could
make out the coast of Africa, and the offshore islands;
they had been
inked in. Stretching from
immediately west of the Cape Verdes – which
were now clear of cloud – a considerable distance out into the
Atlantic
was a white mass, very like the whipped cream on the photograph
of hurricane Anita in Richard's office, with just the traces of a circulatory
movement.

"Your friend Mark Hammond called," Julian
said. "He just got back
from having a
closer look. Flew right into it, and couldn't find any clearly
defined
eye as yet, but he says it's tightening all the time."

"Course?" Richard asked.

"Oh, just north of west, and
moving real slow. Not more than ten
knots.
Mark says it still hasn't got winds of more than forty knots round the center.
But as I said, he reckons it's going to improve on that."

"It's enormous," Jo
whispered. She was realizing that if Anita had
seemed to cover the entire Gulf of Mexico, this system lay across a
good half of the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's the biggest I have ever seen," Richard
agreed. "Where's the jet stream?"

Julian pulled out the latest
weather chart, and pointed. "Moving north
all the time."

"Christ almighty!" Richard commented.

"Is that really so important?" Jo asked.

"Yes," he told her. "The jet stream is
one of those rivers of air I was talking about. It's the only one we can really
identify, as a matter of fact. It's very big, very high, and very fast; you
really are talking about
phenomenal speeds up
there, two hundred miles an hour plus. Usually
it has only a marginal
effect on surface weather; obviously, when it's blowing from the Arctic towards
the south you get cold upper altitude winds and a general drop in temperature,
and vice versa. It's also very important to high altitude flying, either for or
against – it can make quite
a
difference in time between here and London, for instance, depending
on
whether a pilot can use it or has to buck it. But it is also useful for
dispersing hurricanes.