The Rift (37 page)

Jessica rang off. Her ear ached from the many hours she’d spent with her cellphone pressed against it. It was very possible that she’d give herself a cauliflower ear before this was all over.

Her dutiful staff had prepared the morning SITREP, a copy of which she carried in her pocket. The Situation Report duly noted everything they knew or did not know, from which flood control structures had failed to how many of their own personnel were injured or missing. The list of “unknowns” was much larger than the list of items of which the staff were certain.

Jessica’s stomach growled. She remembered she hadn’t eaten since the previous day’s lunch. And she hadn’t slept since before that.

She went to the mess tent. The tent echoed to the chatter of a large number of women and children. Many of Jessica’s returning subordinates had straggled onto base complete with their families and a fair selection of their possessions. Their houses and trailers had been wrecked, the district was in chaos, and Jessica could forgive them for figuring that if anyone in this situation was going to have food, shelter, and clothing, it would be the Army.

Jessica hadn’t the heart to turn these refugees away. Besides, from a strictly utilitarian point of view, she could hardly expect her subordinates, almost all of whom were civilians, to give their all for the Army while they were worried sick about their families.

But she had made rules.
Everyone works
was the first. Adults were to assist Corps personnel in pitching tents, setting up gear, policing the area, and cooking. Older children helped as well, or watched the younger children. The only people excused were those too young to have a job, and those injured in the quake, who were sent to the hospital tent.

Jessica tried not to think about liability issues. Could she be sued if one of her civilians was injured by a falling branch? If one of the children tripped over a tent line and broke a leg?

She put out orders that non-Corps personnel were not to enter the damaged buildings on any of the various ongoing salvage operations. She figured that might limit her liability in at least one direction.

The mess tent’s sides were rolled up to provide ventilation, and a few scavenged tables and chairs had been set up. Some young children in one corner were sitting in a circle and playing a game under the direction of an older child. The woman behind the improvised counter— a battered old folding table— looked at Jessica and smiled. “We’ve got oatmeal coming up, General,” she said. “Would you like a cup of coffee while you wait?”

Jessica hesitated. She hadn’t had coffee in eight years. Everyone said it made her too hyper.

Hell, she figured, the country
needed
hyper right now.

“I would absolutely love a cup of joe,” Jessica said. “Black, with two sugars.”

When Jessica was handed the white porcelain mug, she held it under her nose and breathed in the fragrance. Her mouth watered.

It tasted as wonderful as she remembered.

*

“It’s impossible,” said Mrs. Shawbutt, Charlie’s neighbor. She was strangely dressed in a caftan, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and large dark glasses with pale blue lenses. “The roads are too torn up, the bridges are all out— there’s no way you can drive downtown. And besides—” She looked significantly at the column of smoke rising on the horizon. “Downtown’s on fire. The radio is saying people shouldn’t try to leave their homes unless their lives are in danger.”

“I’ve got to get to a phone,” Charlie said. “Or a computer.”

Mrs. Shawbutt shook her head. “Phones are out. Even cellphones, I hear.” She looked at him through her hornrims. “Have you been drinking, Mr. Johns?”

Charlie shrugged. “No water, love. I drank what I could find.”

“You should be careful. You can get dehydrated if you drink alcohol.”

“I’ll get something later.”

He gave his neighbor a wave and walked out into the street. No one was cooperating with his plan to get to work— he’d asked everyone he knew, and they’d all given the same answer. He looked at the Breitling on his wrist, saw that the New York Exchange would open in less than an hour.

“Might as well walk,” Charlie muttered to himself. Surely he would find a cab somewhere. Or, if need be, a bus.

He remembered Mrs. Shawbutt in her big straw hat. “Be careful of the sun,” he reminded himself.

He went back to his house to get a cap from the front hall closet. It featured the logo of the St. Louis Cardinals, and it was the cap he wore when he lost at golf to Dearborne.

Charlie put the cap on his head. He buttoned his collar and straightened and tightened his tie. He looked at himself in the hall mirror that, surprisingly, had neither fallen nor cracked. Brushed scuffmarks off his shoes. He was ready for work.

He stepped over the gap between the house and the front portico— have to call his insurance people when he got to his office— and then he looked down at the half-empty bottle of Moet. He hesitated for a moment, then picked up the bottle.

The heat of the day was already rising. Charlie could feel sweat gathering under his cap. He started down the street, the bottle swinging at the end of his arm. His stiff leg eased as he walked. He waved at the people he saw, people who had slept in their cars or on their lawns.

He turned right at the corner, drank some champagne, and kept on walking. The huge pillar of smoke loomed right ahead of him.

This street was much the same as his own. All the houses had been damaged; all the chimneys had fallen; two houses had collapsed. One of the houses that still stood had been burnt out. The gutters were full of water— apparently a water main had broken.

Charlie looked ahead, saw something disturbing ahead, slowed. He approached the strange sight with a frown.

Right across his path was a crack in the earth, cutting left and right across the street, over curbs and through yards, and beneath one partially collapsed home. The crack was about three feet wide, and five or six feet down had filled with black, silent water. The ground had dropped three feet on Charlie’s side, or risen on the other, because Charlie faced a little cliff of raw earth topped by broken asphalt.

Charlie took a drink of the champagne and looked at the chasm. He paced uncertainly back and forth.

It wasn’t that wide, he thought. He could cross it in one jump.

Charlie’s inner ear gave a lurch, and the ground trembled, just a little. Bubbles rose to the surface in the black water at the bottom of the chasm.

Charlie’s heart thudded in his chest. Weakness shivered through his limbs. He took another drink of the champagne.

“I am Lord of the Jungle,” he said. But in his mind all he could see was Megan’s body lying in his bedroom.

Tears burned his eyes. The chasm had cut clean across his world.

He didn’t remember when he turned around and began the walk home. But some time later he found himself standing on the walk outside his house, the empty Moet bottle in his hands.

He sat behind the wheel of Megan’s car and picked up the cellphone that was lying on the seat and began to punch in numbers.

No one answered.

*

Prime Power.

Helicopters circled overhead, judging the correct approach to the helipad that Jessica’s people had chain-sawed and bulldozed across the road from the Post Exchange. Rotors flogged the air, beat at Jessica’s ears. She grinned.

She was in
charge
of this. It was glorious.

Things were coming together. Once the choppers discharged their cargo, which would include state-of-the-art field communications equipment, she could really take charge of her division.

“Finally got a meteorology report, General.” Her secretary, Nelda, had been working on this task, among others, ever since she’d finally walked on base at ten o’clock that morning in mud-streaked sweat pants and her most sensible shoes.

“Can you summarize?”

“A high-pressure system will start moving through early tomorrow morning. Forecast is cooler and gusty tomorrow, followed by several clear days.”

Jessica nodded. “Good,” she said. There would be a few good days for operations, at least, though she knew that there might be problems later on. A rotating high pressure front moving over the plains would, as it passed, pull a lot of hot, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico in its wake. When this air cooled it would dump a lot of rain on the western plains, which would increase the danger of flood.

But there would be at least a few days for the flooded areas to drain first. That was good news.

“Any luck getting ahold of CERI?” Jessica asked.

“Nope. None.” Nelda had to shout over the throbbing of the helicopters.

One of the aspects of the Corps’ earthquake plan involved coordination with the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis. CERI had not, however, been answering its phone.

Jessica suspected that the Center for Earthquake Research had been wiped out by earthquake. One of life’s little ironies.

“The city engineer’s office sent someone over to inquire about restoring Vicksburg’s electrical supply.”

Jessica shook her head. “We don’t have enough generating capacity to do that.”

“He meant helping to repair the
lines.
We mostly get our power from that nuclear plant south of here.”

Jessica stared at her. “From
where
?”
she said.

Nelda stared back, only now absorbing the horror that Jessica felt rolling through her heart.

“But,” Nelda said, “surely it’s somebody’s job to look after the power plants.” Her eyes widened. “Isn’t it?” she said.

*

On the morning of Monday last the 16th inst. several shocks were felt— four have been ascertained by an accurate observer to have been felt in this city. The principal one, as near as can be collected, was about ten minutes past two o’clock, a.m. There was no noise heard in the atmosphere but in a few instances in certain situations
—
The shock was attended by a tremulous motion of the earth and buildings
—
felt by some for about one and a half minutes; by others about five; and my own impression is, that I am conscious of its lasting at least three, having been awakened from my sleep. Several clocks were stopped at two or about ten minutes after. Several articles were thrown off the shelves; crockery was sent rolling about the floor; articles suspended from the ceiling of the stores vibrated rapidly without any air to disturb them, for about nine inches; the plastering in the rooms of some houses was cracked and injured; the river was much convulsed, so much that it induced some of the boatmen at the landing, who supposed the bank was falling in, to cut adrift. The shocks in the morning were at about six or half after, one of them considerable. The vibration of suspended articles was, whenever room would admit them, east to west. Accounts from Louisiana state, that the first shock was felt about ten minutes past 2, a.m. at Black river, thirty miles distant, and at different places on the road to Rapids, where the trees were violently agitated. It was also felt on the river at a considerable distance above and below Vidalia. The shock was also felt as far up as the Big Black, and at the different intervening towns; in the vicinity of Washington the trees were observed to be much convulsed, nodding their heads together as if coming to the ground.

Natchez Weekly Chronicle,
January 20,1812

The thing about helicopters was the way gravity kept moving around. G forces went up, down, sideways, and sometimes in circles. The shifts from one state to the next were often very sudden.

Jessica
loved
helicopters. But then she liked roller-coaster rides, too. She sat up front, in the copilot’s seat, where she could get a view of the world zooming past.

The pilot was happy to impress the general with a display of his skills. He skimmed his Bell Kiowa over the WES, banked, put the chopper’s nose down, and headed south. Adrenaline sang happily in Jessica’s veins.

Pity she’d never had time to learn how to fly one of these things.

“Just follow the river,” Jessica said. She watched with interest— this was the best view she’d had since the quake— as the Kiowa Warrior sped over the flat, tree-filled country below Vicksburg’s bluff. At least a third of the trees seem to have fallen. The roads were blocked with fallen timber and cut by crevasses or sudden uplifts. Of the few structures Jessica could see, most were heavily damaged, especially the larger buildings.

She clenched her teeth at the sight of the broken levees, the way the river continued to pour through the gaps. Those were USACE levees, damn it, and Corps levees hadn’t broken since the 1930s. And now when it happened, it was on Jessica’s watch.

She should have covered her ass. All it would have taken was a letter in her file, directed to her superiors, expressing concern about earthquake preparedness. “I was working on it from Day One,” she could have said, “but my superiors didn’t respond in time. And the record supports this.”

Still, there was small comfort to be drawn. Jessica saw no sign of massive failure in the levees, no huge mile-long crevasses. The levees didn’t look as if they’d broken all at once; they showed every sign of having been weakened, not destroyed, in the quake. And then river water, with the weight of the whole Mississippi behind it, pushed inexorably into the levees’ weak points, strained the structures, crawled underneath to undermine the levees from below, put more pressure on them until at last they gave way. The flooding wouldn’t have been catastrophically sudden, and Jessica hoped this meant people had a chance to get away from the rising water.

It also meant that once the floods subsided, repair would be that much easier.

The pilot’s voice grated on Jessica’s headphones. “There’s your power plant, General.” She looked up and saw the distinctive outline of a cooling tower rising above the trees, the graceful white double curves. But the grace was marred, she saw, part of it had peeled away like the rind of a fruit.

Her heart gave a lurch. She wasn’t sure she was ready for this.

The Kiowa sped past the tower, and the pilot banked to give Jessica a view of the plant. Poinsett Landing was a wreck, most of its buildings broken, the river streaming through the wreckage. There was evidence of fire. The big black cube that held the reactor was intact, though— no shattered roof and pillar of murderous radioactive smoke a la Chernobyl, thank God— but the two big buildings leaning against the reactor, which she assumed were control structures, had clearly suffered degrees of damage.