Her Name Will Be Faith (48 page)

He got inside, shook water from his thinning hair.
"You, you and you,"
he snapped. "Come
with me."

His aides fell in behind him, delighted to be under his
aegis at last; if
there
was one thing Bill Naseby possessed, it was the ability to make
decisions.

He
entered his office, where Police Commissioner Grundy and Assistant
Commissioner McGrath were already waiting, and sat
behind his desk.
Water ran out of his
hair and into the neck of his pullover; he wore an
anorak — which he did not bother to remove
— but no tie. He was a big
man,
and when sufficiently aroused, he could look formidable. He was
certainly sufficiently aroused this morning. He
pointed. "I've spoken with
the
Governor, and he's turning out the National Guard. Tom..." he
turned to Grundy. "We have to have every man
on the streets. Do you
know what's going on out there?"

"It's a solid traffic jam the length and breadth of
the city," Grundy
confessed.
"Heck, Bill, there's nothing my men can do without bulldozers.
And
you know what? They're getting nasty. The populace, I mean."

"I can believe that," Naseby agreed. "I
saw some of it as I flew in."

"It's all the fault of that mother fucker
Connors," growled Assistant
Commissioner
McGrath. "I sent a squad car out to bring him in, and
the bastards haven't got back yet. Christ, they must be
snarled up in the
traffic. But when I lay
hands on that asshole I am going to..."

"You'd better shake his hand and say, well done, boy,
at least you
tried to help."

McGrath scratched his head.

Naseby pointed. "Because that's what he did. Which
is more than any
of us, including myself,
has done so far."

"Well, hell, how were we to know this goddamned
thing was going
to keep coming straight at
us?" the Commissioner complained. "She should've veered off by now.
They always have in the past."

"The
past doesn't always indicate the future, Tom. Connors maybe
didn't go about it the
right way. He may even have made matters worse.
But at least he knew something had to be done. And Dr Eisener from
Coral
Gables confirms that it is going to be every bit as bad as Connors
has claimed. He's just had a radio report from a
navy plane flying into
the eye, and there are sustained winds of
180
miles an hour, with gusts
of over
200. You got that? 200 miles an hour. That storm is going to hit this city with
the effect of an atomic explosion. And it's quickening up.
It's now moving at 20 knots and it's only 200
miles away. That means
the eye could reach the mainland at two o'clock
this afternoon. And that
means we are going
to have hurricane force winds here in a couple of
hours, and the sea is going to start to rise
around nine this morning. And
you know something else? The tide is going
to start rising around then too."

The aides and the
policemen exchanged glances; they had never seen the Mayor so agitated.

"Now you guys listen
to me," Naseby went on. "I'm trying to persuade the Governor to
declare New York a disaster area and put in martial law,
right now. He's worried about doing this, because
it's before the event,
so to speak, so he's checking with his legal
department. However, he has agreed to mobilize the National Guard. And I'm
prepared to call the
President if I have to.
We'll get that martial law. But we can't wait for
it; we have only five
hours before all hell is going to bust loose. Tom, you and your men, and the
guardsmen as soon as they arrive, are going to
move straight in and clear those streets. Otherwise we could be looking
at a massacre. Use bulldozers if you have to, but
get people going: everyone who can, out of town. Everyone who can't, by noon at
the
outside, on to high ground. And
anyone who objects, we move him, or
his automobile, by force. You got
it?"

"The tunnels and
bridges are jammed solid," McGrath said gloomily.

"So
concentrate on them first. There's time, just, if we get moving right
away. It's the lower
levels that have to be got out first. That means, if necessary, putting a ring
of policemen and military round the areas safe from flooding, and keeping
people in them until we have those most in
danger
cleared. I make that like taking a big loop, down West End Avenue
to
about 34th Street and then back up Park Avenue to say 62nd Street, and then
right down to York Avenue. Anywhere south of that is liable to
be flooded. By my reckoning that includes the
Empire State Building,
Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, Greenwich
Village, Soho, Little Italy, and of course Wall Street and the UN
Building."

"You
really think that'll happen, Bill?" the Commissioner asked.
"Surely the Narrows..."

"I'm told by Dr
Eisener that the Narrows won't keep this dame out," Naseby said. "In
fact, they might just act as a funnel and increase the
volume and flow of water. With the rise of tide, he's talking about a
possible
40 feet of water coming through there, and racing across the harbor like a
tidal wave."

"Holy Jesus
Christ!" McGrath said.

The Mayor gave a brief
grin. "You guys will have noticed, I guess, that right here we'll also be
below the mark – well below it. And so is the
telephone exchange. In fact, situated where that is, right on the
waterfront,
that's going to be one of the first to go."

"Jesus,"
commented one of the City Hall aides. "What do we do?"

"We
evacuate, Mitch," Naseby told him. "After we have got every
civilian to safety."

"But the files, the
records, the computers..."

"They
go too, right away. Not the computers, just the discs. I've
arranged for a helicopter
fleet to lift them out. They should be here in another hour. So get packing.
But no human being leaves this building until I say so. And that will be when
Manhattan has been made safe."

"We'll
never do it in time," Grundy said. "You're talking about two
days' work."

"Sure we can."

"But where are we
gonna put all these people?"

"Requisition every
hotel that's above the 50-foot mark. And then use Central Park."

"You're gonna send
maybe a million people to Central Park, in a hurricane? In lightning, thunder,
rain, and 180-mile-an-hour winds..."

"So you come and tell
me when you have any better ideas," Naseby
snapped. "We've been caught with our pants down, but good. Now we
just
have to pull them up as best we can." He grabbed his phone as it buzzed.
"Governor? Oh, hell. Sorry, Joe, I was expecting the Governor.
Look, Joe, we have problems down here, as you know…
You what?
How the hell can you be running out of water when it's acting
like a
cloudburst out there? . . Oh, sure, I
know this rain can't help until it
gets through the system. But what the
hell are people using water for in such quantity right now? I understood
everyone was leaving town. You
must have a
massive mains fracture someplace… Filling bathtubs?
Jesus… Everyone in New York is filling a bathtub
at the same time?…
Yes… Yes, I see what you mean, but you can't turn
anything off. Let
them have it for as long
as possible… We'll worry about a shortage
later." He replaced the phone. "Joe Erskine wants immediate
authority
to institute water rationing. Would you believe it?" He
glanced at his
notepad. "Now, let's get
on with it. Kennedy! Kennedy is going to be
under water. Keep the planes
flying as long as you can, but only out. All incoming flights are to be
diverted. And by nine o'clock every last aircraft
must have gone and all personnel evacuated. Same thing for La Guardia;
it'll probably be flooded as well. The whole of
Brooklyn looks like
going..."

"That's
another solid jam," McGrath said. "I checked with Tommy
Burns, just to see if we
could route some of our problems through there. He's threatening to shoot
anyone coming over the bridge."

"But
they're already over the bridge," Grundy commented. "As for
Staten Island..."

Two aides hurried in.
"They're reporting over 150-mile-per-hour winds in Atlantic City,"
one gasped. "And 20-foot waves. The Boardwalk is just falling apart."

"There's
a guy on the phone from Prospect Park Zoo asking if he
should turn the animals
loose," said the other.

"Holy
Jesus! Is he mad?" the Commissioner shouted. "That's all we
need, a bunch of lions and
tigers running down the street."

"And snakes,"
McGrath put in dolefully. "They got some big ones in there."

Naseby
sighed. "I'm sorry, Lou, but people have to come before
animals.
Anyway, Prospect Park is way above the flood line. And why is
he calling me? Isn't there
anyone awake down in Brooklyn? Now, shipping. All small craft should head
up the rivers as far as possible."

"They're doing
it," McGrath said. "The Harbor Police report there's nearly as big a
crush on the water as on the street."

"The big stuff will
have to sit it out," Naseby said.

"Well… some of them
are already putting to sea."

"Out into that?"

"They
reckon they have more chance riding it out at sea. They could
be
right. Those big ships are sitting ducks in harbor. A 40-foot tidal
surge
pushed by a 200-mile-an-hour wind could just land one of them in
Times Square."

"Well…
we'll have to leave that to the judgment of individual
masters, but they have to
understand there's going to be no coastguard assistance if they get themselves
into trouble. Christ, I know we haven't thought of everything. But first, we
have to get those streets cleared, and get the evacuation under control. I want
a comprehensive plan to handle the situation placed on my desk just as quickly
as possible."

"You will have
it," promised Mitch. "By 8 am."

"8
am will be too late. I want it by 5.30. That gives you one hour."
The
phone buzzed again. "Yes? Oh, Governor, thank God… yes, from
all reports it's sheer
hell out there… Yes, everything you have… The
President?
Oh, that's great… Okay, we're moving into action, right
now." He
replaced the phone. "The President has authorized the impo
sition of martial law; it takes effect at 6 am.
The message is being put out
over all TV and radio stations now. The National
Guard is being assembled, and the army is being sent in to help. Seems there's
nothing legal about what we're doing, but we're
going to sort that one
out afterwards. Now we have to hustle." He
looked at his watch. "4.30. Mitch, arrange for me to make a broadcast at
6.00, telling people what we're trying to do. Fix coverage on all networks, and
on radio."

"How do we get them
here?"

"Use
the helicopter. Starting now." He pointed at the Commissioner
and McGrath. "I want
things under control when I go on the air."

The
bedroom faced south, but the buildings opposite blocked out the sea
view even without the rain,
which was streaming down the window. Just their luck, Florence Bennett thought,
to have weather like this for their annual Coney Island vacation.

"Looks pretty
horrible out there," Bert mumbled through empty gums.
"What're you out of bed for, anyway? Not
thinking of going for a swim,
are you?"

"It
was the thunder woke me. Thought I'd take a look," Florence
replied.
"I guess this is a bit of that hurricane that hit the Donnellys'
place in the Bahamas a few
days ago. I wonder if it'll come up here."