Her Name Will Be Faith (34 page)

"You remember I told you, when hot air rises very
fast and very high
you have a hurricane. Now
obviously, the higher that wind can get into
the atmosphere, without
dissipating, the stronger the circulation around
the center of the depression is going to be. The jet stream plays an
important part in this. In fact, I am pretty sure
it's been responsible for
the fact that not one of those five storms
we've had so far this year have developed. It's been unusually far south, you
see, and coming out of the central Pacific, too. So those storms each started
their upward spiral, and
when they got above
110,000 feet, the jet stream blew them apart, and
they collapsed. But if
it's now moving north, this system could be left to develop as much as it
wants. And it has the time." He looked at the map again, and then at the
satellite photograph. "Ten knots, you say, Julian? Working on where the
center should be now, that means five days to Puerto Rico, on that course. Five
days over some of the warmest water we've had for ages."

"So you reckon this could be the big one,"
Jo said.

He shrugged. "After what's happened so far this
year, your guess is as good as mine. But it is one hell of a big system. If
that circulation does increase… we could have a problem."

"Your ultimate storm?"

He grinned. "Any system could become my ultimate
storm, if all the conditions were right."

"And you've just said they could be right,
now."

"Well… yes. But they've seemed to be right
before, and we haven't had that big one. The odds are against it happening this
time."

"If it does become a storm," she asked,
"what might it be called?"

"All the names are selected before the hurricane
season even begins."

Julian looked at the list pinned
up over his desk. "As it will be number
six for this year, it'll be a she, and her name will be Faith. Now, how
can a system with a name like Faith cause any damage?"

"Let's all have faith that you're right,"
Richard quipped, and held Jo's hand as he escorted her out of the office.

J. Calthrop White beamed at his telephone. "But
that is great news, Mr
Palmer. Great news!
Monday, you say, that's fine. Yes, sir, just fine. Say,
any words from
the boss?... Yeah, I guess he'll be in touch as soon as
communications are restored. I guess he had a little rain down there,
eh?
Haw, haw, haw. Anyway, you did it
without him. My congratulations,
Mr
Palmer." He replaced the phone, grinned at Kiley. "Palmer has
Kohler's
picking up seventy-five per cent of that issue. Now that is a
stockbroker. I'll tell you, Kiley, I have been
shitting blood this past
fortnight with that oaf Donnelly and his shitty
son away, but by Christ
their business runs
better without them. Now you listen to me: I
want our bid on the desk of the Licensing Authority in the UK first
thing
Monday morning. Get on to the bank and tell them we need a
guarantee of $100 million, and that it'll be
supported by Kohler's.
Got me?"

"Yes, sir, JC." Kiley hesitated. "I
have Connors outside."

"Well, send him in. Send him
in." White leaned back expansively,
grinned at Richard as he came in. "Richard!" he
said. "I saw your
forecast. You
really socked it to them. Yes, sir. Now everyone's talking
about this hurricane thing. What's the latest word
on it? Is it really as
big as you said?"

"She's a big system, JC."

"Bigger than Gloria?"

"She's about the same strength as Gloria right
now, but she covers a bigger area. And she could deepen further. In fact, I
think she will; she's still over warm water."

"And heading at us?"

"No, sir. Thank God! She's
moving slowly north by east, which is
presently
taking her parallel with the coast, at a distance of about two hundred
miles."

"Ah." White looked somewhat disappointed
that imminent and newsworthy catastrophe could not be expected. "But in
your forecast you said she could still come ashore on the mainland."

"It's a possibility."

"But you wouldn't rate it more than that. You
reckon there's no real danger to the mainland."

"I didn't say that, JC. We
won't be out of danger until that storm is
past
Newfoundland. She turned west once, she can do so again."

"It could present us with a tricky
situation," White mused. "As I say, this storm is causing a lot of
comment, so much so I have half a mind to slot you in for another of your
chats, slightly expanded, maybe, to talk about this storm in particular, and
what it could do."

"What she already has done, JC, in the
Bahamas."

"Yeah. But nobody cares what
happens down there. It's what
could happen up here that people want to know about. But we have
to be careful. If we start
hollering wolf, and nothing happens, well...
we lose viewers. There were adverse comments on
your talks for that
very
reason, remember, about how you were trying to be sensa
tional."

"I remember," Richard
said, grimly. "Everything I said was proven
fact."

"Maybe. But these ginks up
here have never seen a hurricane, and just
don't believe anything can be that fierce. What I am
getting at is, if we
go to town on this
one, she has to be a threat, at some time in the next
few days, or we are going to have egg all over our faces. How do you
reckon
the chances of that?"

"I think she's a potential threat now, JC. I
would like to see the mayor take some precautionary steps, tomorrow."

"You would? What kind of precautionary steps
could he take? How do you stop a hurricane?" White smiled at the concept
of Mayor Bill Naseby
holding up his hand
like some kind of latter day Canute and commanding
the winds to cease
blowing.

"Well, at least he could hold a comprehensive
review of his evacuation
plan, and publicize
it, so people would know when to leave and what
route to take."

"What do you mean, evacuation plan?"

"Just that, JC. A plan to
evacuate all low-lying areas of New York in
the
event Faith were to prove a serious threat."

"What kind of area are we talking about?"

"Well the whole coast and
Jamaica Bay area. And half of Manhattan
is
less than 50 feet above water level; that could all be flooded."

"You mean he has a plan to
evacuate Manhattan?" Kiley spoke for
the
first time.

"I have no idea. But he should have."

J. Calthrop White stroked his
chin, the light of battle in his eye; he
loved a political wrangle, and he was no friend of the
Mayor's party.
"That
could be interesting," he said. "And give us an angle. I tell you
what you do, Richard. First thing
tomorrow you round up some data.
Get one
of the regular news team..." He
looked at Kiley.

"What about Kimmelman? He's as sharp as a razor,
and he's been an investigative reporter for some time. In fact, he could handle
the whole thing while Richard got on with..."

"No," White said.
"This is Richard's baby. But I agree, send in
Kimmelman as a back up. Take him
off whatever he's doing now, and
send him with Richard to do a little sleuthing." He
pointed his gold pencil
at Richard. "Find out what plans there are, if any. Try the police
and
the fire department, and anywhere
else you can think of. And try the
Mayor's
Office, too. Then report back here, and we'll make one or two
plans of
our own."

"Yes, sir," Richard said enthusiastically.

The pencil continued to point.
"But just bear in mind that if we take
on City Hall and make this into an issue, such as
pointing up the
inadequacy
of their plans, we have to win. That means we have to be
sure of our facts. Don't let me down on this. And we
need that hurricane to come at least as close as Gloria did."

Or I'll be on the next plane down
to Miami, looking for my old job back,
Richard
thought. "I won't let you down, JC," he promised. Although how the
hell he was supposed to tell Faith what to do he had no idea. He frowned as he
gained the elevator: did JC really want Faith actually to strike the city, in
order to make a political killing?

"Hi," Richard said on the phone.

"I thought you were coming over," Jo said.

"Sorry, I can't tonight. I
have a lot on. JC is again looking on me with
a smile."

"Oh," Jo said. "Because of Faith?"

"Yes. Jo… I spoke with Mark. Jo,
I'm
most
terribly sorry about your brother-in-law."

"Yes," she said.

"But at least Tamsin is safe."

"Yes. I'm eternally grateful
to Mark for what he did. I want
you to tell him that, Richard. But right now, I don't
know whether to
laugh
or weep. I guess I've been doing a bit of both. So has Owen Michael
– I had to give him a sedative and put him to
bed."

"It's that kind of situation. I could drop by
tomorrow."

"No," she said.
"I'll be tied up tomorrow. They're coming up."

"Oh," he said. "It's going to be a
rough day."

"Yes," she agreed. "Look, I'll call you
when I can."

"Okay. Say, where's that husband of yours? Still
in Bermuda?"

"No. I guess he's left by now."

"Left to go where?"

"Return to Newport."

"Can you get in touch with him?"

"I suppose so..." Jo snapped her fingers;
she should have done so before, to let him know his folks were all right.

"Well, I would if I were
you, and tell him to stay put. At sea is no
place
to be with Faith about."

"I've already told him that. But as I told you
before, he makes up his own rules."

"Then he's a fool as well as a rat. But if you
don't want to be a widow,
I'd call him
again." He blew a kiss down the line, and was gone.

Jo sat gazing at the phone for
some seconds, then picked it up again
to
call Central Exchange for a shore to ship radio link.

"Evacuation plan? What do you mean, evacuation
plan?" asked the New
York Police
department spokesman, an Assistant Commissioner, to whom
the two
television reporters had been referred by the Mayor's Office.

"We would like to know," Richard repeated
patiently, "if there is a
filed plan for the
evacuation of Manhattan in the event of a serious emergency."

The Assistant Commissioner stared at him from under arched
eye
brows. "The evacuation of Manhattan?"
He looked at Rod Kimmelman, whom he obviously knew. "Who is this
guy?"

"Richard
Connors," Kimmelman explained. "He's into weather."

"That's
right," the Assistant Commissioner agreed. "I knew your face was
familiar. Thought at first I must've seen you in a mug shot. Now I remember,
you're the guy who's been scaring people half to death with your talk about an
ultimate storm. Well, welcome back to the real world,
Buster. How the hell do you expect us to evacuate Manhattan? Have you
any
idea how many people live in this city?"

"Maybe
ten million," Richard ventured.

"And
a hell of a lot of them are right here on this island. So where do you want us
to evacuate them to? And why?"

"Suppose
there was a six-second warning, or whatever," Kimmelman
put in. "That the Russians were sending ICBMs
over. What would
happen then?"

"The
sirens would go, and people would take to the fall-out shelters."

"And
everyone knows where they are?"

"They should do. We don't keep their locality a
secret, and it is the
duty
of every citizen to know where his nearest fall-out shelter is. Christ,
we've
been begging the public for years to be aware that something like that could
happen."

"Would
you say they have done that?"

"I wouldn't like to offer an opinion on that. But it
wouldn't matter. We have a highly trained Civil Service organization in this
city… in
this state. There'd be wardens telling the
people where to go."