Seattle Quake 9.2 (A Jackie Harlan Mystery Book 1) Page 7

  And still the earth moved

  CHAPTER 6

  Right before his eyes the huge fissure on Sam's golf course closed, trapping the two men between tons of earth. Four feet from it, another quickly opened spitting mud, sand and water fifteen feet into the air. And on the top of the waterspout was Sam's rapidly spinning golf ball.

  His sudden island measured ten feet by sixty feet and repeatedly rolled with the convulsions of the ground. On both sides, a patchwork of broken green slabs twisted and turned, sank and rose. On the edge of the course, trees danced, tipping one way and then the other while water in the pond surged north, only to surge south again. In the distance, a man attempted to run. He fell, struggled to his feet and fell again. Stunned and still on his knees, Sam slowly lifted a hand and held on to his bright red golf cap.

  *

  During the initial earthquake, only forty seconds passed before the walls of the fault caught on another snag, once more binding the earth's unfathomable strength. Yet the quake sent out its violent waves for more than four minutes. Finally, its overpowering roar decreased, but then it was replaced by another, more frightening sound – the sound of a billion rusty nails being pulled from age-old wood, as rock against rock ground to a screeching halt.

  *

  In the control room of KMPR, the rumbling finally began to subside and the retching heaves of the earth tapered into kinder, gentler rolls. Wood, steel and concrete yielded its tortured anguish to less frightening rattles and clatter. Finally – it stopped.

  His whole body trembling, Max cautiously loosened his grip around Collin's neck and let his body relax. He reminded himself to breathe, closed his eyes and laid his head on the floor. Then he waited. He waited for the white dust to stop drifting downward, the earth's screech to become softer and for distant car alarms to grow louder. Somewhere outside, a window lost its final battle and shattered on a sidewalk.

  The top of the Winningham Blue Building was still in motion. Slowly, it too tapered off until finally, the forty-third floor came to a full standstill. Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, Jenna stopped screaming. Now her cheeks were stained with dried tears and she was seated on the buckled floor with one of her bruised and battered legs straight, and the other bent outward and back. For a long moment she did not move, listening instead to the hellish screech in the earth. When it began to fade, she rested her head against the wall and watched Seely's chest rise and fall.

  The older woman had somehow managed to move out of the doorway into the foyer and now she lay on her back with her head jammed against one wall and her feet against the other. Seely's face was gaunt and her eyes were closed. Still Jenna did not move. Little by little, the squeal in the earth grew softer and yielded to a sound not unlike that of a faraway train, moving slowly and patiently on its tracks.

  *

  A full minute after the shaking stopped, Collin's eyes still darted. His body remained tense and his breathing shallow. The room smelled of dirt and white plaster dust still filled the air. Somewhere, a book fell off a shelf causing him to jump. He too waited and watched until at last, he drew in a long, deep breath. His voice was unnaturally calm and quiet when he turned to look at Max, "Where did she go?"

  Max still had his eyes closed. A bruise from the banging door was already beginning to darken under his short-sleeved shirt. His tan pants were speckled with blood and his head ached, "Candy took her shopping. Tomorrow's your birthday and Beth wanted to surprise you."

  Collin hesitated, half afraid to ask the next question, "Where?"

  "South Center."

  "Where the hell is South Center?"

  Max struggled to sit up in his half of the cramped space. "I'll show you, if I can find the map. First we gotta get out of here." He turned and twisted his body until he could put his feet against the fallen transmitter. "Help me move this thing, will you?"

  But Collin didn't budge. Instead, he glared at Max. "How far, just tell me how far?"

  "I don't know, man. Ten, maybe fifteen miles."

  "Fifteen miles? It might as well be a hundred. Did Candy take the boys?"

  "Yes, but maybe it's not so bad down there."

  Collin rubbed his face with both hands, and then began to shift his weight until he too could put his feet against the transmitter. "Maybe. What about your Dad, where is he?"

  "Golf, probably."

  "Golf? That's good. Not much can fall on you on a golf course."

  In the back of the air crane high above West Seattle, Jackie was aghast. Her eyes shifted from monitor to monitor and her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. Four minutes before, a voice recorder hidden in the bouquet of flowers sent terrifying screams into her earphones just before the earth exploded. The chopper's first camera captured the sudden rise of the Southern half of the city and the abrupt drop of the Northern half, sending pictures to her screen of thousands of tons of earth sliding into the Bay. Commands from her keyboard instructed the second camera to zoom in on the tormented Winningham Blue Building just in time to watch the sixth and seventh floors collapse.

  And now, the third video recorder was aimed at a passenger ferry, a cargo ship and a multitude of smaller boats rising with the waters of Elliott Bay.

  Several miles north, the USS Carl Vincent slowly sailed down Puget Sound. Caught standing on the deck in dress whites when the quake hit, the confused and befuddled crew dashed below and were just now slowly reappearing.

  When the small red box flashed at the bottom of the screen indicating a call from Evan Cole, she ignored it. Instead, Jackie studied the graph on the upper monitor. Seely was alive but her heart rate was way too high. She took a deep breath, and then opened a line to Michael on the ground, "Michael, Seattle just had...”

  "You think I don't know? I saw it start on the monitor and ran outside. It's big Jackie, the whole place went nuts."

  "Even that far away? Are you alright?"

  Michael tried to calm himself. Standing in the middle of the landing pad, the only cleared land for miles, he held a satellite phone to his ear and watched the tops of the swaying pines finally come to a standstill. "Yes, I'm okay. You've got a couple of trees on your trailer though, and I don't know if we can get to the standby fuel tanks. Is she alive?"

  "Barely, but the building could go at any moment. Michael, we have to find a way to get her out. Let me call you right back." She disconnected him, and then connected the waiting call. "Mister Cole, we have a problem."

  "What kind of problem?"

  "Seattle just had a major earthquake."

  Seated in first class, Evan Cole instantly snapped out of his tired, listless state and sat up straight in his chair, "How major?"

  Jackie didn't quickly answer, her eyes held instead on her view of the rising tsunami, "It's very bad, sir. You wife is alive, but ...”

  *

  The gigantic wave in Elliott Bay crested and began to curl, sending frothy, white foam over its top edge toward West Seattle's beaches. On the backside, the fully loaded cargo ship's bow lifted completely out of the water. Terrified men jumped overboard, railroad cars on the deck began to slide and the passenger ferry rammed into its port side. Instantly the ferry's hull splintered into chunks of wood and metal. The rushing water hurled the damaged ferry and its precious human cargo over the top of the wave, forcing it toward West Seattle. The quick thinking captain of the transport ship turned hard to starboard and steered down the backside of the wave.

  At an unimaginable speed, the five hundred foot high crashing wave thrust the ferry, several small boats and tons of water onto the West Seattle beaches and up the side of the sloping hill. Instantly, the ferry broke apart hurling her human cargo into the violent water. The edge of the Tsunami gushed upward, and then it paused for several agonizing moments before it began a deadly withdrawal – sucking belongings out of houses, cars off of streets and barely alive people off of beaches. And now, the wave was headed back toward Seattle's waterfront.

  *

  His cap
in hand, Sam cautiously stood up in the middle of his sudden island. Slowly, he turned full circle. The golf course was a total disaster. Whole clumps of trees were tipped in opposite directions and the pond was empty. Car alarms blared in the far off parking lot and somewhere, a woman screamed.

  Timidly, Sam lifted his eyes to heaven. "Okay, so I lied about being a Prophet." Just then, he heard faint yelling in the distance. Normally hidden behind a large knoll, the clubhouse was oddly visible from the eighteenth hole, and a man stood near it waving his arms. Not far from the fifteenth hole, another man and a woman got to their feet. Sam watched as they disappeared into a ravine, and then reappeared on the other side.

  Suddenly, he heard more rumbling. Frightened, he quickly got back down on one knee and waited. But the earth didn't shake. Instead, a 757 passed overhead, lowered its landing gear and continued its gradual descent toward SeaTac Airport. Sam held his breath and watched until the plane flew out of sight. Painfully, the seconds ticked by until at last, he heard the urgent thrust of the plane's engines, and then caught a far off glimpse of it, a tiny speck climbing and turning east.

  Inside the 757, a stunned Evan Cole helplessly watched out the window as the jet flew over block after block of a devastated and shattered city.

  *

  Jenna still had not moved. Broken plaster, pieces of mirror, strips of insulation, shards of blue glass, splinters of wood, and ceiling tiles littered her lap and the floor around her. At length, she lifted her trembling hands and covered her face. The blare of a cargo ship horn seemed to be growing louder and now she could hear the odd sound of rushing water. Thoughtfully, she pondered the peculiar vibration and the disquieting noise.

  Four minutes earlier, the Winningham Blue Building sat high on a hill, three full city blocks away from the Bay. Now only the Federal Building stood between it and the tsunami. High above and unable to comprehend, Jenna listened to the rebounding wave crash against the land, its lapping foam spilling into broken windows on the Winningham Blue's demolished sub floors.

  Again the tsunami sucked the carnage away, taking a dropped bouquet of flowers with it and retracing its path back across the bay to West Seattle. Twice more it slammed against opposite shores before losing its strength and dissipating. At last, the bay settled into its new boundaries and the surface of the water became calm and smooth.

  Except for the strange "shhhh" of an elusive train, Jenna’s world grew silent. Slowly, she pushed the rubble off her lap, and then gently untwisted her leg. It wasn't broken. Blond hair lay matted against her forehead. She reached up, touched it, and then examined her fingertips. Whatever the liquid was, it wasn't blood. Finally, she turned her attention to the older woman. "Don't you die on me, I need you. …Seely?"

  Seely struggled to open her eyes and force breathless words from her lips, "I think...my heart…is going to explode."

  "I know what you mean, mine too. Did you break any bones?"

  Seely closed her eyes again, "I...don't know."

  Out of sight in the hallway, a chunk of plaster broke free and fell, sending more particles of brown dust into the air. Jenna let out a startled squeal. She waited, the terror welling up inside her, but nothing else moved. "We've got to get out of here, we're forty-three floors in the air." Abruptly, she started to rise.

  But before she could, Seely tightly grabbed her arm, "No...stay here."

  "Why?"

  "Aftershocks."

  Jenna's eyes steadily grew larger, and then her expression abruptly changed to fury, "You mean it's going to start again?"

  Seely nodded.

  "Oh, no!" In a panic, Jenna broke free of Seely's grasp, got to her feet and darted across the fallen door into the hallway.

  Too late, Seely grabbed for her again. But the sound of Jenna's movements were already fading down the debris filled hall. Seely allowed her arm to relax and concentrated instead on regulating her breathing. A little while later, she lifted her hand, wiped some of the blood away from her eye and then wiped her hand on her clothes. She thought she was going to make it through, but when she started to get up, she felt a sharp pain in her chest. She clutched it and quickly slumped back down.

  Seely's eyes darted in search of her purse, but it was gone – lost beneath mountains of rubble. Defeated, she slumped, closed her eyes and listened to her hurting, pounding heart. Then the building groaned and shifted and Seely's eyes shot wide open. Something in another room fell and crashed to the floor, but soon the world quieted again until nothing was left but the eerie, muffled sound of the phantom train. At length, Seely closed her eyes and tried to rest.

  Another two minutes passed – long, empty, quiet minutes with nothing rattling, breaking or moving. Seely took a cautious, deeper breath and opened her eyes. Dust still lingered in the air, tears began clouding her vision and her voice quivered, "Please God,... let my little family…be alive." She settled down again and was quietly lost in thought, but then she began breathlessly muttering to herself as if to fend off some unthinkable loneliness. "I never should have…let them send us to…Seattle." Again she was quiet, her mind spinning, her heart aching and her tears freely flowing. At last, she pulled her thoughts together enough to whisper, "Jenna, don't…get in the elevator."

  Jenna was long gone.

  *

  In the chopper, Jackie suddenly lost her temper, "Damn it Seely, you can't die now!" She intertwined her fingers and cupped her hands over her eyes. "Think, Jackie, think." For several long moments, she peeked through her fingers at the heart monitor, comparing the latest readings to the previous ones. Finally, she dropped her hands and took a forgotten breath. "Good girl, you've slowed your heart rate. Hang on, Seely. Just hang on."

  A good thirty miles from the epicenter, Michael couldn’t believe the destruction around him. The chopper pad had huge cracks, trees were slanted at odd angles and the leveling jacks on the back of the command center lay in the dirt, allowing the trailer to tilt.

  Even so, he gathered his courage, yanked open the door and got back to work. A few minutes later, he placed a call to Jackie, "I've got the equipment back up."

  "Good, what can you tell me about Seely's daughter?"

  "Michelle's house is totaled, but they're alive and out in the front yard. She's got a nasty cut on her arm, probably from flying glass and her husband is limping. The girls look scared, but uninjured. Both cars got buried in the garage.” Michael paused to catch his breath, “Good thing we put that hidden camera in the sprinkler head last week. You coming to get me?"

  "No. If the equipment is working, you'll be more help to us there. ...Uh oh."

  "What?"

  "The Bay is churning again. Get out, Michael! Run!"

  *

  The new snag held only six minutes and twenty-three seconds before the intense pressure crushed its outer perimeters and sent hairline fractures coursing through its mass. When it disintegrated, it created another resounding explosion. The opposing walls of the fault once more moved in their predetermined directions, sending forth a new round of appalling, ring-shaped shock waves across the surface of Washington State.

  From the bowels of the earth, the boom of breaking rocks again surged upward. Instantly, the windowless steel and concrete Winningham Blue skyscraper dropped another two feet while slipping three more feet toward the water. And again, already loosened land dropped into the bay. Just as before, the top floors of all the buildings snapped back, and then pitched, twisted, swayed, bulged, and loudly protested. Yet their anguished cries remained obscured by the gigantic rumble of the moving earth.

  The terror caused Seely to lose her breath. Instinctively, she clutched her chest and gasped for air, again finding herself powerless to prevent her body from sliding back and forth with the cruel sway of the top floors. The building's possessions took on new life, sliding, bouncing, falling and crashing.

  *

  The colossal aftershock hit a short two minutes after Max and Collin finally shoved the heavy transmitter aside and crawle
d out from under the control room console. Collin made it across the studio and yanked on the doorknob just half a second before the earth jolted again. Nearly the strength of the first quake, the new impact quickly caused him to lose his balance.

  Behind him, Max grabbed Collin's shoulders, and then he shoved until Collin was in the doorway. A second later, Collin had a hold of Max's shirt. Both men paused just long enough for the building to thrust upward again, and then Collin yanked Max into the doorway beside him. The thin door jamb offered little protection. More glass shattered, equipment bounced, nails popped out of walls, objects crashed and Collin's futile groans were drowned out by the clamor in the earth. Above them, more chunks of plaster peeled away and dropped to the floor, and then insulation fell, leaving bare rafters. In the walls, added steel I-beams suddenly became exposed.

  Intermittently, Max shifted his gaze from the studio ceiling to the smaller one over the stair landing. The smaller one had yet to lose all its plaster and seemed to be holding better. Still, Max kept an eye on both. High above the studio rafters, a crack appeared at the top seam of the "V" shaped roof. With each new wave, the crack widened -- inch-by-inch – until rays of hot July sunshine streamed down from above. Still, the earth continued to move. The gap in the roof steadily grew wider, causing shingles and boards on the northern side to slip further and further down. One whole half of the roof slid completely away, exposing KMPR's attic to sunshine and clear blue sky. Max listened, but the noise of the quake completely obliterated the crash.

  Next, he turned his eyes toward the southern half of the roof.

  *

  This time, Sam heard the explosion and hurled himself to the ground. His narrow strip of land surged still farther upward, and then once more followed the rapid roll of the earth. Face down with his arms spread wide, the constant movement offered different abstract views of the golf course. He watched in disbelief as the clubhouse collapsed, forcing a cloud of dirt high into the air. Large chunks of green grass began splitting into smaller ones and trees renewed their unnatural tilt forward and back. A woman several feet away fell and didn't get up again.