Quake (20 page)

“Is that it?” Frank Mendoza asked his wife, pointing to a large building still standing with some lights on. Neither of them had ever been to Columbia University's research hospital. With the destruction of the quake, it would take some effort to recognize in the darkness. Most of the road signs were laid flat.

“I think so,” Jana said, looking at the pancaked landscape ahead. “The main campus was off to our left not long after we came out of the park, and it's a couple of miles north of that, so . . . do you think we've gone that far yet?”

Mendoza frowned. For the length of time they'd been traveling, they should have been much farther than two miles from the park. But when you were picking your way in the dark through mounds of scattered debris and monumental drifts of wreckage, normal walking speed was far from guaranteed. “I think that's about right. Let's take a look.”

They walked toward the upright structure. Around them everywhere were cars abandoned in the roadway, many of them wrecked. They passed a silver tanker truck that appeared to be left behind, for it looked to be perfectly drivable.

“This is it!” Jana exclaimed as they neared the building.

“They've actually got working ambulances out front,” Mendoza noted. It was a good sign. There were entrance lights, too, and as they watched, a group of people exited, none of them running or screaming. Compared to Jana's place of work, this hospital seemed like it could be almost operational.

They hurried to the entrance, where an ambulance had pulled up and a paramedic crew was unloading a patient on a stretcher. The siren and lights on another ambulance came to life and the emergency vehicle took to the streets.

“Looks promising,” Jana said. They pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby and were greeted with a semblance of order, compared to St. Luke's-Roosevelt. A multitude of patients and their families and friends still jammed the lobby beyond normal capacity, but several hospital employees were present and working to maintain order. Power was on.

“Sort of looks like a hospital,” Mendoza quipped.

“Instead of a war zone, right?” Jana said as she homed in on a man holding a clipboard near the front of the lobby. She held her own hospital ID badge out as she approached. She explained that she'd walked here all the way from St. Luke's-Roosevelt and needed to speak with someone about obtaining assistance. “We desperately need supplies, ambulances, doctors—whatever you can spare,” she finished. The man told her to wait and retreated out of sight back into the reception desk area. Another couple who'd been waiting off to the side approached the Mendozas.

“I heard you say you came from St. Luke's,” the woman said. “Is it really bad? We're looking for our son—working our way south. If he's not here we might try St. Luke's next.” Mendoza was in the process of explaining to them that even if their son was there, he didn't see how they would be able to locate him with all the power problems and general chaos they were experiencing when an older man in a rumpled suit and tie emerged from the admin section with the employee Jana had just spoken with.

“You came from St. Luke's-Roosevelt?” he said, eyeing the couple.

“She works there, I'm her husband and just escorted her here for safety reasons,” Mendoza clarified.

The businessman nodded and extended a hand to Jana. “I'm Greg Randall, director of managed care operations.” He paused to shake Mendoza's hand before continuing. “I'm glad you were able to make your way to us. We have some outside communications, but they're spotty. It'd be great to get some firsthand reports from our community level colleagues. Come on with me up to the third floor and we'll see what we can do to help the good folks over at St. Luke's. You know I used to work there? Over two decades ago now, I'm afraid, but I met some great people there and enjoyed it immensely. I think Dr. Henderson's still there. If you please, this way.”

They followed him back into the employees-only area and were pleasantly surprised to see that the elevator was working. They rode it to the third floor and followed Randall to a closed door. He knocked and then opened it without waiting for a response, sticking his head inside.

“Dr. Jackson?” he called. “Could you come out here, please?” A man in a white lab coat appeared at the doorway. Randall introduced the Mendozas and gave a brief summary of the purpose of their visit, ending with, “Do you think you could take them around to see if there's anything we could do to help the good folks over at St. Luke's-Roosevelt?”

“Happy to, let's start over by the lounge. If there's a physician on break, I'll nominate him to go.” Dr. Jackson laughed. “Seriously, though, I do think we should be able to spare some resources. . . .”

He began explaining to Jana the different ways in which they might be able to help St. Luke's-Roosevelt. As they walked down the hall, Mendoza noticed a closed door with a placard reading
COMMUNICATION ROOM
. He asked Randall what that was.

“It's our amateur radio room. It's got ham radios for emergencies. Overall, it's been our best source of information. Unfortunately it's run by volunteers, and only one of them has been able to make it by, but he left a while ago, and none of the rest of us know how to really operate the stuff. Still, we've been pretty lucky so far just to be able to continue operating relatively normally.”

“Actually, I know how to operate those types of radios,” Mendoza said. “Would you mind if I had a listen? I'd really like to hear some status reports from around the city, see what's going on. Maybe listen in on the police and fire bands to see how the rescue efforts are developing. I don't think Jana needs me to follow her around in here,” he finished.

Randall stopped. “Absolutely. You can update all of us. We haven't had a chance to even listen lately. Hold up, Dr. Jackson, Jana?” They interrupted their conversation about which medical supplies were most critical in order to look back at Randall and Mendoza.

Mendoza pointed at the radio room, which Randall opened. “Honey, I'm going to be in here while you're getting things together. I want to see if I can hear some news. As soon as you're ready to go, just come and get me, okay?”

Jana gave him a kiss and left with Dr. Jackson and Mr. Randall. Mendoza entered the communications room. It wasn't much larger than a broom closet, he guessed, judging by the narrow confines, but it did have a window out of which snaked an antenna cable. Like Randall had said, there was no one in the room. He looked at the shelves on the wall and saw a couple of radio units, their backlit displays indicating that they had power. Mendoza took a seat in a swivel chair facing one of the units, which he recognized as a shortwave radio set that would have a longer range than higher frequency walkie-talkie and police units, which depended on external infrastructure like antenna towers to increase transmitting range. He'd already seen firsthand what it was like within a few miles. He wanted to get a feel for the scope of the earthquake's effects.

He adjusted the volume on the unit while turning the dial to make sure it was working. Mostly static, but then the dial caught on a frequency with some clear chatter. They were speaking French, though, and Mendoza figured they were probably French-Canadians north of the border, so he continued scanning the dial. He heard one report from a ranger station upstate, saying that a forest fire had started as a result of a downed power line. There was nothing Mendoza could do to help with that and it was far away, so he went on with his tour of the dial. He was about to give up on shortwave and see what was happening on the AM broadcast band when an LED on the receiver lit up green and a strong signal came through. It carried a male voice fraught with worry along with a cacophony of sirens in the background.

“. . . Indian Point . . . I repeat . . . Attention, truck drivers and transportation companies: My name is Jasper Howard. I am a maintenance supervisor at the Indian Point nuclear power facility twenty-five miles north of New York City. We are in imminent danger of having a radioactive fire here in spent fuel pool number two. We need large amounts of cold water right now in order to prevent this from happening. If you can hear me, please acknowledge.”

Jasper started repeating his message but Mendoza picked up the microphone, wondering if it was live. He keyed the transmitter and broke into Jasper's transmission.

“Acknowledge your transmission, Indian Point. This is Columbia Research Hospital, do you read me?” He repeated his own message and then heard the airwave go silent. At first, he thought his transmission was being received on the other end only as garbled static, the distance too long, or the interference too great, but then Jasper's voice emanated from the speaker once more.

“I read you, Columbia! I read you! Can you hear me, copy?”

“Yes, I hear you. My name is Frank Mendoza.”

“Frank, real glad we were able to reach you. Listen, we're in a tough situation here. We need lots of cold water, as soon as possible. Stat, like you'd say in a hospital right?”

Mendoza found himself smiling along with Jasper's quick little laugh. “I don't know what your job is there, buddy, but if there's anything you can do to get the word out, believe me when I say that the entire City of New York needs us to get that water.”

“Jasper, I'll help. I don't even work here, my wife does. I just came with her from St. Luke's-Roosevelt to make sure she got here okay. Tell me more about what you need and I promise I'll do my utmost to make it happen.”

Jasper described the situation in more detail and how their best bet was probably tanker trucks that could be filled with cold water and driven to the nuclear plant. Mendoza flashed on the silver truck sitting in the road he and Jana had walked by on the way over here. He had some connections with the police and fire departments—they had to have some trucks that were still functioning.
I've got to help with this!

He gripped the microphone. “Okay, Jasper, you got it. I don't know exactly how I'm gonna pull this off yet, but I am going to do my damnedest. You hold tight, okay?”

“The state of New York thanks you,” Jasper said. “Once you get within range you can use a regular walkie—channel eighteen—if you have one. Please hurry!”

“Copy that. Over and out.”

Mendoza eyeballed the radio table. He spotted what he was looking for on the far end—a handheld radio sitting in a charging stand. He grabbed it and half-ran, half-limped from the radio shack, turning into the hallway in the direction he'd last seen Jana going. No way could he just leave her here without telling her where he was going, not after all they'd been through today. He ran down the long hallway, skidding to a halt when he came to an intersection, looking around, and then sprinting off again like a track racer.

He heard her before he saw her, laughing that cute little laugh of hers, somehow managing to find something humorous even in this dire situation. That was his Jana. He'd found her, she was okay, and she knew that he was all right. But now his city needed him. It was his turn to act. He just had to make sure Jana would stay safe while he was out.

She spotted him running toward her and froze in mid-sentence. He reached her and a group of MDs she'd been talking to, including Jackson. Quickly, he summarized the situation at the nuclear plant. Upon hearing the news, one of the doctors muttered something under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache.

“I'll be okay, Frank. If you want to go, then go.”

“I don't want you to leave this hospital,” Mendoza said. “Is there a way you can help your hospital without leaving here until I get back?”

Jana looked at Dr. Jackson, who nodded. He said, “We were just discussing that. Jana's going to coordinate one of our EMT teams to take an ambulance to St. Luke's-Roosevelt. She'll oversee the loading of supplies and personnel, and send the ambulance on its way while she stays here.” He looked at both Jana and Mendoza to see if this was agreeable.

“I'll be back as soon as I can. I've got to make some calls and I'm going back to that tanker truck we saw. Leave the shortwave radio in the communications room on the same station. That's the channel they're using from Indian Point.”

With that he leaned in and kissed his wife.

“Be careful,” she said.

Mendoza ran toward the elevator.

“Hold on, let me think about this,” Sam said. Jasper watched the reactor technician furrow his brow in concentration while he gawked at a complex water flow schematic on a computer monitor. They were back inside the reactor building's cubicle workstation, where they had retreated after making the radio call. Sam had already made a couple of physical adjustments to pipe valves and flow regulators on the work floor. Now he was checking the schematic to be as certain as possible that if and when they did receive new water, it would be routed properly in order to save the spent fuel pool.

The ongoing din of systems alarms had long since given Jasper a headache, and they both knew that there was no margin for error. If the man from the hospital—Frank Mendoza (he had to remember his name)—was able to deliver on his end, Jasper could think of nothing more disappointing than having that water not be able to do the job.

And the truth was that he felt helpless at this point. He could see now that these reactor workers whom he'd always assumed were some kind of technical and scientific gods were in fact just people—well-trained people, but people nonetheless, doing a job with ups and downs like anyone else. They weren't perfect. They made mistakes and they didn't know everything. And right now Sam was being perfectly honest with him. He had jerry-rigged a solution for how to deliver the water to where it was most needed, but at this point it was still all theoretical. He'd never actually had to do anything like that before, so there was no guarantee it would actually work.

And that was his reality, Jasper thought, watching the flow lines on Sam's schematic change color in response to his keyboard input. Everyone else had either fled in fear or been killed, and so the fate of millions of people all came down to what Sam and Jasper—and hopefully Frank Mendoza—were able to do, right here, right now.

“I think this'll work,” Sam declared in a flat voice.

Jasper bit back a sarcastic remark about
thinking
it would work. Sam was it. He had to believe in him. The City of New York had to believe in him. It occurred to Jasper that he didn't even know Sam's last name. He'd seen the guy for years, every now and then, walking into work or leaving for the day. Not much more than
Hi, how ya doin',
or
Almost Friday!
That kind of thing. Yet now they needed to work together on the highest level possible.

“Anything else we can do, Sam, to prepare?”

“Let me run one more sim.” He tapped some keys and traced his finger ahead of the water flow simulation on screen, a moving blue line on screen depicting where the water would move with the current control settings. He gave a shrug.

“All we need is the water,” he said, turning away from the monitor to look at Jasper, who eyed the handheld radio on the desk in front of him.

“I can't use this thing through the suit. But we need to be on a regular walkie channel, eighteen, I told Frank Mendoza.”

“I can patch us onto eighteen,” Sam said, moving to a different computer setup. “But it'll be an open channel where anyone can hear us.”

“At this point I want people to hear us.”

Sam made some adjustments on the computer's radio application and then turned to Jasper. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We're on channel eighteen. Inside the reactor building we can only hear each other. There's no way it'll transmit through the lead walls. But outside of here, it should work for a couple miles.”

“Good, so we'll hear Mendoza if he calls us from the gate.” Then Jasper asked, “So you're sure that the fill point will be reachable to a truck coming in here?”

Sam threw up his hands. “If it hasn't been damaged in the quake to the point that the fitting was compromised, then it should work. Last I saw it was okay. It leads to the same place as the river intake eventually goes to. It'll just be lower volume, but we can direct one hundred percent of it to the spent fuel pool, bypassing the reactor core and the whole Reactor Number One complex.”

“How do you think Reactor One is doing, anyway?” Sam had just reminded Jasper that there were two functional reactors at Indian Point, and they had only been dealing with one of them. Could a drama similar to theirs be playing out within the other containment building, a few yards away outside? The thought made him nauseous.

But Sam shook his head definitively. “It's no problem. I saw it earlier after the last big aftershock. Didn't sustain much damage, and besides, the big thing is that it was shut down a week ago in preparation for the NRC visit, and its spent fuel pool was emptied out, the rods transferred to concrete casings and taken off-site for disposal.”

Jasper nodded and said, “That's some consolation, at least. What kind of damage do you think the guy who killed Jeffries could be doing up there, assuming he can't get down here?”

Sam glanced at his simulation for a moment before answering. “Impossible for me to say for sure, but I don't think they can do too much. Most of that stuff up there is for monitoring what goes on down here, not for control. The main thing I'd worry about is that they don't find a way in here. We already know they figured out how to swim in through the intake. Hopefully, whoever's up there doesn't try that, also.”

Jasper looked up at the containment ceiling far above. “We should get out and patrol the floor. Watch for any signs that they did find a way to screw things up. Don't want to miss a radio call, either.”

Sam stood. “Okay. I set my program such that we'll hear an alarm if the optimal settings change too much.”

“Great, another alarm, just what we need.”

Sam laughed a little. “Yeah, well in this case it would be a good thing if we want to be in two places at once. Let's go.”

They made their way out of the cubicle area and back through the doorway Jasper had cleared earlier with the forklift. The dimly lit work floor looked the same as it had when they'd last left it.

Jasper pointed to the radio transmitter behind his faceplate. “Now that we're clear of the reactor containment, let me try my guys one more time.” Jasper had been disappointed that he was unable to raise any of his employees on the walkie-talkie earlier when he'd wanted to tell them to get water. He tried again now, hoping that they were scanning the walkie channels and would hear him.

But no reply came.

He hoped that they'd left the perimeter gate open when they'd left so that the trucks (if they came) could get in. If not, like he and his workers had discussed on occasion over the years, it would be no big deal for a large truck to just ram through it, if it came to that. If something happened to this radio link, though, he didn't see how this was going to work. They had to be able to communicate in order to direct them to the pipe fitting area.

“They took off, huh?” Sam asked.

“Looks like it. Can't say as I blame them.”

“Too bad, we could use their help now, though.”

“We'll just have to work it, out, Sam. And then maybe after we get through this, I'll have a good justification to give my guys a raise.”

Sam laughed. “The techs could use a raise, too. The ones who are left, anyway,” he added dourly.

And that was when they felt it. At first Jasper thought he was getting dizzy; he was unsteady on his feet. But then he watched Sam nearly fall, too, and he knew.

“Aftershock!”