TSUNAMI STORM Page 6

  “What about all of the companies we run inside of China?” she asked, the economic ramifications running through her mind. “What happens to them?”

  “They might get nationalized. What most people don’t know is that the Chinese Military is a silent partner in every foreign company that operates in Mainland China.”

  “We import a half trillion dollars’ worth of goods from China every year. What’s going to happen with that?”

  He glanced out the window of his office, slowly returning his gaze to her. “We don’t know. Right now it’s just our people. So far no shipping has been affected, but that could change at any time.”

  “And our military ships?”

  “Nothing yet. Right now, we don’t have any U.S. military ships near Chinese waters, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

  “Holy crap,” she said, as she sat in one of his chairs, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. “Any explanation from China?”

  “Nope. Not a single word.”

  “Did they seem angry? Upset?”

  “With the Chinese, it’s often hard to tell, but no, no angry words – just an official notice to leave.”

  “And you don’t have any idea why this is happening?”

  “Not a clue. The CIA seems stumped, NSA is silent as usual. The President is coming unglued wanting to find out what happened.”

  “Do you think it has something to do with the earthquake?” she asked.

  Forrester shrugged. “The timing is curious, but so far we don’t have any evidence that it is connected to the order to leave.”

  “Damn, this is serious,” she said. “The Chinese don’t do anything without a solid reason behind it. The political ramifications are immense. You’ll keep me informed?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.”

  * * *

  “Alexa, get Bob Schwartz from Pollard Research on the phone,” Senator Bechtel ordered as she entered her office in the Hart Office Building. She stopped and looked out the window in the direction of the White House. “Something’s about to blow up in our face and I need to know what it is.”

  “Bob Schwartz, line two,” Alexa announced. Alexa was Senator Bechtel’s executive secretary.

  Bechtel picked up the phone. “Bob, can we meet in the usual place? Yeah, ten minutes? Thank you.”

  As Bechtel entered the small coffee shop located on H Street, she spotted Bob Schwartz at a small table. Bob was five-ten, sixty pounds overweight with heavy glasses, puffy cheeks and prematurely graying long hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled when she saw that he sat with his back to the front door. She always sat facing the door so she could see anyone that might approach. She looked around suspiciously before speaking.

  “So what do you need to know?” he asked.

  “I need some deep research on the recent Sichuan earthquake and how anything we have going on may be connected.”

  “What is it you suspect has happened?”

  “That’s just it. We have the earthquake in China, we send in a freighter full of relief supplies and our ship is the only one turned away. In addition, all visas for U.S. citizens in China have been cancelled. Everyone needs to leave in the next 48 hours.”

  Bob sat back in his chair. “So it’s personal.”

  “And serious,” she replied. “Dig into everything – not just the official side, look at the fringe stuff too. I need answers and I need them now.”

  “Sounds like you want this off-book.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll see that you get the regular back-channel funding for this. How long?”

  “The easy stuff I can get right away, but you probably already know what I will find. The deep stuff is going to take a week, maybe more, depending on what I find and what needs to be found under that. I’ll make it a priority.”

  She smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Dolphin Beach, Oregon

  Willa was talking with Betty in the Gift Shoppe when Jason strolled in.

  “Nice place,” Jason stated. “I like the color combinations. I’m Jason Roberts,” he said as he offered his hand to Betty. As she shook his hand he continued, “I’m here to revise the evacuation plan for Dolphin Beach in case of a tsunami. I noticed a second story set back from the front of the Gift Shoppe. You live upstairs?”

  Betty seemed taken aback by Jason’s question and took a step backwards.

  “I checked on him,” Willa explained. “Caltech, genius, honest, exceptionally good at mechanical systems.” Jason blushed and then smiled at Betty.

  “I didn’t see an outside stairway,” Jason said.

  Betty studied him for a moment. “It’s storage.”

  “Good,” Jason said. “No need for alternative egress.” He tapped on the screen of his tablet. “Thank you for helping. I apologize for the intrusion.” He turned and left.

  Willa followed him to the next building and watched as he used his laser measuring device to measure the width, length and height of the front of the building. He stepped back to look at the roofline and tapped several more times on his tablet. He entered the barber shop next. Willa followed him in.

  “Hi, I’m Jason Roberts. I’m here to revise the evacuation plan in case of a tsunami.” Jason shook hands with the barber. “I’ve got a few questions you can help me with.”

  Willa watched as Jason asked about the age of the building and checked the general interior layout. He thanked the barber and turned to leave.

  “I was thinking a presentation like you described would take months to prepare,” Willa said. Jason seemed surprised to see her standing there.

  “Normally, it would,” he replied, “if you did it from nothing. But I’ve spent a year and a half developing this program. I’ve got 827 different types of buildings programmed in with different types of construction. All I have to do is select the building type, the size, the age, the soil conditions, the spacing from other structures and roof type. I also input the surrounding geography. From there I can select the magnitude of the earthquake, the earthquake type, proximity to water, distance from the epicenter and depth of the quake. The program generates the graphics and effects based on the mathematical model I developed.”

  Willa felt overwhelmed with the scope of the information. “So, Saturday?”

  “Saturday’s good,” he said as he turned his attention to the next building.

  Over the next few days Willa saw Jason from time to time as she made her rounds talking with business owners about Saturday’s presentation. Jason spent Friday taking measurements of the streets, the side of the hill that surrounded Dolphin Beach and the sea shore. When he headed out on the wooden pier Willa followed him. She stopped and looked into the bucket next to one of the locals.

  “Henry, how is the crabbing today?” Willa asked.

  Henry turned. His face brightened as he saw Willa. Henry had retired two years ago. He was five ten with a small pot belly, a scruffy beard, and had an old pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth. He wore an old, worn, red and blue plaid flannel shirt, faded blue jeans and an ancient, army drab denim floppy hat. Pulling the pipe from his mouth with his right hand, he smiled.

  “Willa, how are you doin’ today?”

  “Good,” Willa replied. “You?”

  “Oh, fine, fine,” he replied. “Crabs are hungry today. Doin’ real good. I’ll have plenty for Carla’s Catch of the Day.” Carla’s was one of the more popular restaurants in Dolphin Beach, located on Main Street, half a block north of the Village Center, specializing in seafood. “With a catch like this, she’ll fix me a nice crab dinner for free.”

  “Oh, I think there’s more to her dinners than the crabs you catch.”

  He blushed and looked down at the crab bucket. “Maybe. I really like her.”

  “She likes you, too,” Willa replied. “You should ask her out.”

  Henry fussed a bit, looking nervous. “Yeah, maybe, but I couldn’t really take her out for dinner, now could I? I mean
she owns a restaurant and all.”

  “She just might enjoy a dinner she didn’t have to cook, Henry. Think about that.”

  Rather than wait for Henry to answer, Willa headed down the pier toward Jason.

  The pier was a popular place for both tourists and locals. Blue Crabs were in abundant supply and catching them was the most popular sport in Dolphin Beach. She passed several more people with Blue Crabs in their buckets. The local restaurants would cook and prepare the crabs anyone brought in for a small fee. It was one of the nice touches that made Dolphin Beach a favorite and drew people from Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

  “You have different pier types in your program?” Willa asked.

  Jason had been looking down into the water at the end of the pier and spun around in surprise.

  “Oh,” he replied. “Thirteen types of piers, 187 different types of bridges, which you don’t have, and 82 types of water towers, which you also don’t have.”

  “We have the Three Sentinels,” Willa said, pointing to the three large rocks that stood their silent vigil over Dolphin Beach. ”Would they break up a tsunami?”

  Jason looked at the three large rocks protruding out of the water. “Depends on the wave,” he said. He pointed the camera lens on his tablet toward the Three Sentinels and tapped the screen. “Do you happen to know how high they are?”

  “Sure, the center one is eighty feet high, the one on the right is sixty five and the one on the left is sixty feet. But that depends on the tide. Each one has navigational lights mounted on it and the center one has a radio navigational beacon on top.”

  “Okay, I can figure that in,” Jason said. “A small tsunami might be affected by them, but if we’re looking at the tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, then no, they wouldn’t make a difference.”

  “But they’re really large rocks,” Willa replied, wondering exactly what Jason was thinking.

  “Relative to a hundred foot tsunami, they’re not that big.”

  Willa looked at the Three Sentinels and tried to imagine a wave that was that much higher than the Sentinels were. It was a frightening thought. “So what does it look like?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “The Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup was focused more on rebuilding towns that have been destroyed. The working premise was that every town directly on the coast would be a total loss.”

  Willa suddenly felt her knees weaken. She reached out to the railing for support. “What about the people?”

  Jason turned to her. “That’s where I hope to make a difference.”

  * * *

  Saturday morning Willa checked her outfit in the mirror four times before deciding on the blue dress. She poured a cup of coffee that she couldn’t finish and skipped breakfast altogether. She felt like a nervous wreck. She held her hands out in front of her and watched her fingers to see how badly they were shaking. God, what are people going to think of all this?

  “You can do this,” she said to herself. She looked in the mirror one more time, turning slightly to the right and then to the left. God, why on my watch?

  People had arrived at the town movie theater early. Some had gone inside and taken seats. Some appeared to be too nervous to go inside at all. Willa watched their expressions, which ranged from worried to terrified. She felt encouraged by the number of people who looked only worried.

  “Look,” she said to the group of people standing outside the theater. “I’m very worried too, but we’re better off knowing what could really happen rather than letting our imagination run away with us, or worse yet, ignoring something that is life threatening.” She looked at their expressions, searching for some sign of agreement.

  “It’s a waste of time.” Frank Gillis said in a loud voice. “I looked it up. The Cascadia Fault ruptures only every 400 to 700 years. The last time was only 300 years ago. Nothing’s going to happen in our lifetime, so save your time and stop worrying. Go home.”

  “Everyone on the coast knows this is a threat,” Willa replied, facing Frank. “We need to know exactly how big that threat is and exactly what could happen.”

  “Could happen, but won’t,” Frank said.

  “You don’t know that,” Willa shot back.

  “You don’t know that it will,” Frank retorted.

  Willa and Frank stood nose to nose, fuming at one another.

  “Would it hurt to take a look?” Jason said calmly. Willa and Frank turned their angry expressions on Jason. “Come on,” Jason cajoled, “is a ten minute look going to kill anyone?”

  Willa softened her expression and looked around. “We need to see what Jason has.” She walked around Jason and into the theater. Frank simply scoffed, turned and walked away. Some of the people followed Willa into the movie theater and some turned away and went home.

  Jason waved Willa over toward him. “What Frank said is the popular notion of the time between major earthquakes of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, but if you go back over the last ten thousand years and look at the core samples from the most recent research, you’ll find there have been forty-one major earthquakes during that time. That averages out to two hundred thirty nine point nine years in between earthquakes. We’re currently at three hundred and thirteen years since the last major event, so we’re actually overdue for a major quake.”

  “So there really is some scientific basis for what you are doing.” Willa replied. “Not just the un-natural pattern you see?”

  “There is,” Jason said, “I just don’t want to turn this into a fear mongering session. I’d rather have people feel confident in their preparations than frozen in fear.”

  “Okay,” Willa said, realizing the danger Dolphin Beach faced. Now, she was more nervous than before. She just hoped she could get through this presentation without her feelings locking up inside of her and freezing her into inaction. Willa waited as Jason made some last-minute adjustments to his equipment. When he was ready, he looked at her and nodded. Willa stepped to the center of the small stage at the front of the theater.

  “Thank you for attending this presentation,” Willa began. “I know this is a contentious issue.” She looked around. To her surprise the theater was mostly full. “Jason Roberts is from the California Institute of Technology and is an expert on the Cascadia Subduction Zone that runs along the Pacific Northwest coastline. He is also an expert on buildings, their structure, and what happens to buildings during an earthquake. Will you please welcome Jason Roberts?”

  The applause was sparse and unenthusiastic. Jason calmly walked to the center of the stage and pressed a button on his remote. An image of Dolphin Beach appeared on the screen, viewed from the ocean. “During a rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, this is what will happen to Dolphin Beach.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Office of Covert Operations, the Pentagon

  Vice Admiral Billingsly watched Rod Schneider stride quickly into his office and toss a report on the desk.

  “We just received these images at the National Reconnaissance Office,” Schneider said. “Since it’s within your bailiwick, I thought you should see it right away.”

  Billingsly studied Schneider’s face as he slowly took the report and opened it. From Schneider’s expression, this was something serious. As Billingsly read the report and examined the images, he sat up straighter in his chair. “When did this happen?”

  “Within the last 48 hours,” Schneider replied.

  “Dammit,” Billingsly said forcefully. “This is right next to their HAARP facility.”

  “Yep,” Schneider replied. “That’s why I figured you needed to know right away.”

  “Any idea how big it’s going to be?”

  “Not yet. Right now they’re still working only at clearing two sides. We won’t know how big until they start on a third side.”

  “How many hours a day are they working?”

  “Around the clock. As you can see from the images they have 40 bull dozers clearing the grou
nd. We count 60 more in transit to the site. Whatever it is, they want it big, and they want it in a hurry.”

  “Shit,” Billingsly said. “This is serious.” He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his teeth.

  “That’s what I thought. But why have they taken a sudden interest in drastically expanding this HAARP technology? They’ve had this facility operating for the last decade without expanding it. Why now?”

  “Why doesn’t matter,” Billingsly replied, trying to cover what he had done. “The fact is this represents a clear danger to us. Something has to be done to stop them. We can’t allow this facility to be completed.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s out of my department. All I can do is monitor what’s happening.”

  “I want daily updates on this site: images, analysis, how much support is being activated – everything. Got it?”

  “You got it.”

  As Schneider was leaving, Billingsly pressed his intercom button. “Get me a face-to-face with SecDef, ASAP.”

  Billingsly paced back and forth in his office. “How in the hell did this happen. It was out in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t supposed to be happening.” How in hell am I going to explain this to the Secretary of Defense? The intercom beeped.

  “Ten minutes, his office.”

  He pressed the button. “Thanks, Judy.” Ten minutes. It took almost that long to walk there inside the Pentagon.

  * * *

  “Where is this, exactly?” the Secretary of Defense asked.

  “Northern edge of Manchuria, on a large plateau in the Greater Khingan Range.”

  “Do we know why the Chinese are building this new facility?”

  I think I know exactly why, Billingsly thought. But I can’t tell him. “No current intel on that at this point, Sir, but we’re looking into it.”

  “Estimated capability?”

  “No idea yet, but it looks like it may be on a par with our new facility, and you know what that is capable of doing.” He doesn’t appear to suspect anything. That’s a plus.

  “Hmm…” the Secretary of Defense replied. “Let me know as soon as you get a verified size of the facility.”