Goodbye California (16 page)

‘There was one classical exception – again, oddly enough, in November of nineteen-seventy-six. Seismology stations in both Sweden and
Finland detected an earthquake – not major, on the four-something Richter scale – off the coast of Estonia. Other scientists disputed this, figuring that the Soviets have been responsible, accidentally or otherwise, for a nuclear detonation on the floor of the Baltic. They have been disputing the matter ever since. The Soviets, naturally, have not seen fit to give any enlightenment on the matter.’

Barrow said: ‘But earthquakes do not occur in that region of the world.’

‘I would not seek, Mr Barrow, to advise you in the matter of law enforcement. It’s a minor area, but it’s there.’

Barrow’s smile was at its most genial. ‘The FBI stands corrected.’

‘So whether this man Morro detonated a small nuclear device there or not I can’t tell you.’ He looked at Hardwick. ‘You think any reputable seismologist in the State would venture a definite opinion one way or another on this, Arthur?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s the answer to one question, unsatisfactory though it may be. But that, of course, is not the question you really want to ask. You wanted to know whether we – I, if you like – was entirely accurate in locating the epicentre of the shock in the White Wolf Fault instead of, as Morro claims, in the Garlock Fault. Gentlemen, I was lying in my teeth.’

There was a predictable silence.

‘Why?’ Crichton was not a man noted for his loquacity.

‘Because in the circumstances it seemed the best thing to do. In retrospect, it still seems the best thing.’ Benson shook his head in regret. ‘Pity this fellow Morro had to come along and spoil things.’

‘Why?’ Crichton was also noted for his persistency.

‘I’ll try to explain so that Mr Sassoon, Major Dunne and the two policemen here – sorry, ex-policemen – will understand. For you and Mr Barrow it may not be so easy.’

‘Why?’

It seemed to Alec Benson that Crichton was a man of remarkably limited vocabulary, but he refrained from comment. ‘Because those four are Californians. You two are not.’

Barrow smiled. ‘A State apart. I always knew it. Secession next, is that it?’

‘It is a State apart, but not in that sense. It’s apart because it’s the only State in the Union where, in the back – and maybe not so far back – of the mind of any reasonably intelligent person lies the thought of tomorrow. Not when tomorrow comes, gentlemen.
If
tomorrow comes.

‘Californians live in a state of fear or fearful resignation or just pure resignation. There has always been the vague thought, the entertainment of the vague possibility, that one day the big one is going to hit us.’

Barrow said: ‘The big one. Earthquake?’

‘Of devastating proportions. This fear never really crystallized until as late as nineteen-seventy-six
– third time I’ve mentioned that year this morning, isn’t it? Nineteen-seventy-six was the bad year, the year that made the minds of people in this State turn to thoughts they’d rather not think about.’ Benson lifted a sheet of paper. ‘February four, Guatemala. Seven-point-five on the Richter scale. Tens of thousands died. May six, North Italy. Six-point-five. Hundreds dead, widespread devastation, and later on in the same year another ‘quake came back to wipe out the few buildings that were still left standing after the first earthquake. May sixteen, Soviet Central Asia. Seven-point-two. Death-rate and damage unknown – the Soviets are reluctant to discuss those things. July twenty-seven, Tangshan. Eight-point-two, in which two-thirds of a million died and three-quarters of a million were injured: as this occurred in a densely-populated area, large cities like Peking and Tientsin were involved. Then in the following month the far south of the Philippines. Eight-point-zero. Widespread devastation, exact deaths unknown but running into tens of thousands – this partly due to the earthquake, partly due to the giant
tsunamai –
tidal wave – that followed because the earthquake had occurred under the sea. They had a lesser earthquake in the Philippines some way further north on November nine. Six-point-eight. No precise figures released. In fact, November of that year was quite a month, with yet another earthquake in the Philippines, one in Iran, one in Northern
Greece, five in China and two in Japan. Worst of all Turkey. Five thousand dead.

‘And all those earthquakes, with the exception of the ones in Greece and Italy, were related to the movement of what they call the Pacific plate, which causes the so-called ring of fire around the Pacific. The section that mainly concerns us, as everyone knows, is the San Andreas Fault where the north-east-moving Pacific plate rubs against the westward-pressing American plate. In fact, gentlemen, where we are now is, geologically speaking, not really part of America at all but part of the Pacific plate, and it hardly requires an educated guess to know that in the not-too-distant future we won’t physically be part of America either. Some day the Pacific plate is going to carry the western seaboard of California into the oceanic equivalent of the wild blue yonder, for where we’re sitting at the moment lies to the
west
of the San Andreas Fault – only a few miles, mind you, it passes under San Bernadino, just a hop, skip and jump to the east. For good measure, we’re only about the same distance from the Newport-Inglewood Fault to the west – that’s what caused the Long Beach ‘quake of nineteen-thirty-three – and not all that much further from the San Fernando Fault to the north, which caused, as you may recall, that very nasty business back in February ‘seventy-two. Seismologically speaking, only a lunatic would choose to live in the county of Los Angeles. A comforting thought, isn’t it, gentlemen?’

Benson looked around him. No one seemed to find it a comforting thought at all.

‘Little wonder, then, that people’s thoughts started turning inwards. Little wonder that they increasingly wondered, “When’s our time going to come?” We’re sitting fair and square astride the ring of fire and our turn might be any time now. It is not a happy thought to live with. And they’re not thinking in terms of earthquakes in the past. We’ve only had four major earthquakes in our known past, two of them really big ones on the order of eight-point-three on the Richter scale, Owens Valley in eighteen-seventy-two and San Francisco in nineteen-o-six. But, I say, it’s not those they’re thinking of. Not in the terms of major earthquakes but of monster earthquakes, of which there have been only two recorded in history, both of the Richter order of eight-point-nine, or about six times the destructive force of the San Francisco one.’ Benson shook his head. ‘An earthquake up to ten on the Richter scale – or even twelve – is theoretically possible but not even the scientific mind cares to contemplate the awfulness of it.

‘Those two monster ‘quakes occurred also, perhaps not coincidentally, in the first place in nineteen-o-six and nineteen-thirty-three, the first in Ecuador, the second in Japan. I won’t describe the effects to you two gentlemen from Washington or you’d be taking the plane back east – if, that is to say, you managed to get to LA
airport before the ground opened up beneath you. Both Ecuador and Japan sit astride the Pacific ring of fire. So does California. Why shouldn’t it be our turn next?’

Barrow said: ‘That idea about a plane is beginning to sound good to me. What
would
happen if one of those struck?’

‘Assuming a properly sombre tone of voice, I must admit I’ve given a great deal of thought to this. Say it struck where we’re sitting now. You’d wake up in the morning – only of course the dead don’t wake – and find the Pacific where Los Angeles is and Los Angeles buried in what used to be Santa Monica Bay and the San Pedro Channel. The San Gabriel Mountains might well have fallen down smack on top of where we are now. If it happened at sea –’

‘How could it happen at sea?’ Barrow was a degree less jovial than he had been. ‘The fault runs through California.’

‘Easterner. It runs out into the Pacific south of San Francisco, by-passes the Golden Gate, then rejoins the mainland to the north. A monster ‘quake of the Golden Gate would be of interest. For starters, San Francisco would be a goner. Probably the whole of the San Francisco peninsula, Marin County would go the same way. But the real damage –’

‘The
real
damage?’ Crichton said.

‘Yes. The real damage would come from the immense ocean of water that would sweep into
the San Francisco Bay. When I say “immense” I mean just that. Up in Alaska – we have proof – earthquakes have generated water levels three and four hundred feet above normal. Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, all the way down through Palo Alto to San Jose would be drowned. The Santa Cruz Mountains would become an island. And even worse – to anticipate, Mr Crichton, there
is
worse – the agricultural heart of California, the two great valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, would be flooded, and the vast part of those valleys lie under an altitude of three hundred feet.’ Benson became thoughtful. ‘I hadn’t really thought of it before but, come to that, I don’t think I’d much care to be living in the capital either at that time for it would be dead in line of the first great wall of water rushing up the Sacramento river valley. Perhaps you are beginning to understand why I and my colleagues prefer to keep people’s minds off such things?’

‘I think I’m beginning to.’ Barrow looking at Dunne. ‘How do you – as a Californian, of course – feel about this?’

‘Unhappy.’

‘You go along with this way of thinking?’

‘Go along with it? If anything, I’m even ahead of it. I have the unpleasant feeling that Professor Benson is not only catching me up in my thinking but passing me by.’

Benson said: ‘That’s as maybe. There are, I must admit, another couple of factors. In the past year
or so people have begun delving into records and then wishing they hadn’t delved. Take the northern part of the San Andreas Fault. It is known that a great earthquake struck there in eighteen-thirty-three although, at the time, there was no way of calibrating its strength. The great San Francisco ‘quake of nineteen-o-six struck there sixty-eight years later. There was one in Daly City in nineteen-fifty-seven but at a magnitude of five-point-three it was geologically insignificant. There hasn’t been, if I may use the term, a “proper” earthquake up north for seventy-one years. It may well be overdue.

‘In the southern San Andreas there has been no major ‘quake since eighteen-fifty-seven. One hundred and twenty years ago. Now, triangulation surveys have shown that the Pacific plate, in relation to the American plate, is moving northeast at two inches a year. When an earthquake occurs one plate jerks forward in relation to the other – this is called a lateral slip. In nineteen-o-six slips of between fifteen and eighteen feet have been measured. On the two inches a year basis, one hundred and twenty years could mean an accumulated pressure potential amounting to twenty feet. If we accept this basis – not everyone does – a major earthquake in the Los Angeles area is considerably overdue.

‘As for the central area of the San Andreas, no major ‘quake has ever been recorded. Lord only knows how long that one may be overdue. And,
of course, the big one may occur in any of the other faults, such as the Garlock, the next biggest in the State, which has been quiet for centuries.’ Benson smiled. ‘Now, that would be something, gentlemen. A monster lurking in the Garlock Fault.

‘The third thing that rather tends to preoccupy people’s minds is that reputable scientists have begun to talk out loud – in print, radio and television – about the prospects that lie ahead of us. Whether they should talk out loud or not is a matter for their own principles and consciences: I prefer not to, but I’m not necessarily correct.

‘A physicist, and a highly regarded one, Peter Franken, expects the next earthquake to be of a giant size, and he has openly predicted death toll figures between twenty thousand and a million. He has also predicted that if it happens in the long-quiescent central section of the San Andreas the severity of the shock waves would rock both Los Angeles and San Francisco – in his own words, “quite possibly wiping them out”: it is perhaps not surprising that, per head of population, California consumes more tranquillizers and sleeping tablets than any place on earth.

‘Or take the San Francisco emergency plan. It is known that no fewer than sixteen hospitals in “kit” form are stored in various places around the city ready to be set up when disaster strikes. A leading scientist commented somewhat gloomily that most of those, should a major earthquake occur, would probably be destroyed anyway, and
if the city was inundated or the peninsula cut off the whole lot would be useless. San Franciscans must find this kind of statement vastly heartening.

‘Other scientists settle on a maximum of five years’ existence for both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Some say two. One seismologist gives Los Angeles less than a year to live. A crackpot? A Cassandra? No. The one person they should listen to. A James H. Whitcomb of CalTech, the best earthquake forecaster in the business. He has predicted before with an almost uncanny degree of accuracy. Won’t necessarily be located in the San Andreas Fault, but it’s coming very soon.’

Barrow said: ‘Believe him?’

‘Let me put it this way. If the roof fell in on us while we’re sitting here I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow – provided, that is, I had time to raise an eyebrow. I personally do not doubt that, sooner rather than later, Los Angeles will be razed to the ground.’

‘What were the reactions to this forecast?’

‘Well, he terrified a lot of people. Some scientists just shrugged their shoulders and walked away – earthquake prediction is still in its infancy or, at best, an inexact science. Most significantly, he was immediately threatened with a law suit by a Los Angeles city official on the grounds that such reports undermined property values. This is on record.’ Benson sighed. ‘All part of the “Jaws Syndrome” as it has come to be
called. Greed, I’d call it. Recall the film – no one who had commercial interests at stake wanted to believe in this killer shark. Or take a dozen years ago in Japan, a place called Matsushiro. Local scientists predicted an earthquake there, of such and such a magnitude at such and such a time. Local hoteliers were furious, threatened them with God knows what. But, at the predicted place, magnitude and time, along came the earthquake.’