The New Madrid Run (2 page)

His clients were both engineers from Miami, working on a project in Key West. They needed two hours in Marathon to meet with an attorney. From there they were to go on to Key West, then back to Miami by the end of the day. It was a lot of bouncing around, but they were paying for it, and paying well.

Travis figured he would touch base with his secretary in the cubicle he called an office, and then have a little lunch. By that time, the engineers would be back and it would be off to Key West.

Travis was putting the chocks under the wheels of his plane when he felt a strange sense of uneasiness come over him. He stood up for a second and looked around. The feeling rushed over him like that first gust of cool air that heralds an oncoming storm. It passed, but it left something in his gut, a foreboding that said
pay attention . . .
Most people would have shrugged it off and gone about their business, but Travis and the feeling were old friends. He didn’t understand, but he knew it was the reason he was alive today. He had experienced the sensation a number of times in Vietnam. The first time he hadn’t paid much attention to it—that day he was shot down behind enemy lines and came as close to being killed as he had during his entire tour. He learned to listen, to rely on it, and the feeling had saved his life and the lives of his crew a number of times.

Now, after all this time, standing on an airstrip in an innocuous little town in the Keys, here it was again—and it was bad. He looked around again, still unable to find anything out of the ordinary. Finally, with a last glance at the plane, he walked through the gate and into the building where his mini-office was.

As he entered the office, his part-time girlfriend/full-time secretary looked up and smiled. “Hi, flyboy. How’s it going?”

Travis attempted a smile, still occupied with his ominous vibration. “Okay. I’m okay, but it looks like it’s going to be a long day. I don’t expect to be back from Miami until about eight tonight.”

Linda studied him for a moment—the soft lines etched into his rugged but handsome face, the touch of agitation in his bright, hazel eyes, the set of his jaw. “You all right?” she asked. “You look like you just found a finger in your jelly donut.”

Travis stifled a laugh. God, she could read him well. He gave a short, uneasy sigh. “Yeah, I’m all right. Everything’s fine. Anybody need flying anywhere?”

She glanced at her notes, “You’ve got three for Fort Lauderdale tomorrow at eight a.m., and if you’re willing to hang around up there until about two, I think we’re going to get another triple for Key West on the return. They’re going to confirm this afternoon.”

“Great. So switch on the answering machine and let’s go have lunch.”

“Okay,” Linda replied. “A quick lunch, then I’ve got to run over to my mom’s for half an hour. She’s been really sick with the flu that’s been going around and I promised I’d check in on her.”

“Not a problem. Come on.”

With the prospect of a good week ahead, they decided to splurge and do Mexican at the Faro Blanco. Linda had a Margarita with lunch while Travis settled, reluctantly, for an iced tea. They had a relatively quick but enjoyable meal, discussing business and pleasure equally. Linda was always fun, and she had a good business head, which was a hard combination to find. Looking at her from across the small table he was reminded how attractive she was. Her hair was sandy-blonde, lightened by the sun and the sea, and her eyes were as soft and dark as a newborn fawn’s. She had a perpetual, honey-colored Caribbean tan, and an economical little figure that reminded Travis of a college cheerleader. She was very close to what he wanted, and he cared for her a great deal, but he wasn’t sure he was
in love
. She was well aware of his struggle with commitment, but she was banking on him coming around.

When they had finished lunch, she took her car to her mother’s and Travis drove back to the airport. He noticed, as he drove, that the nagging feeling of unease had not abated in the least. He decided that he would pay special attention to flying today. He also sensed something unusual about the air, almost as if there were an increase in the static electricity. It was difficult to describe, but he felt like the hairs on his arms were constantly prickling.

He was stopped at one of the few traffic lights in Marathon when he felt the tremor. It was distinct enough to sense while sitting in his car. Then it happened again—but stronger.
What in hell is that
?
An earthquake in the Florida Keys
? That was unheard of. There were no local faults. “Maybe someone’s blasting a channel somewhere,” he muttered to himself. In fact, it felt a lot like a couple of thousand-pounders the ’52s used to drop in ’Nam, and it felt like they had dropped them somewhere close.

He switched on the radio, and caught the announcer’s frantic voice in mid-sentence. ” . . . unconfirmed reports of additional major quakes in Europe and Asia as well as in the South Pacific. There have also been reports of a large landmass rising out of the sea in the vicinity of Bermuda and heavy volcanic activity from the Windward Islands through Central and South America. The big news, however, is that a quake of epic proportions took place in California at approximately seven-thirty Pacific Standard Time this morning—less than a half hour ago. Everything is mass confusion from Portland, Oregon, to the border of Mexico. There are no hard facts at this point, but it is believed that the majority of California, or at least, with relative certainty, the California coast, has disappeared into the sea! There are further reports of massive quakes on the eastern seaboard, but at this time we have no idea of actual damage. The President, from Air Force One, already in the air, is calling for an emergency session of Congress to evaluate the situation here and abroad, and to determine appropriate action. Stay tuned to KSEA Radio as we continue to broadcast news on these and other events throughout the day . . .”

Travis had returned to the airport while listening to the news. He parked his car in front of the building that served as the Unicom station and the FBO offices for several flight-line businesses, and got out. As he put his feet on the ground, he sensed a vibration—an almost imperceptible movement of the ground beneath his feet. He started toward the building when he heard the plaintive meowing, almost a crying. At first he couldn’t place the direction of the sound, but as he looked up at the roof, he saw the kitten high above him on the rain gutter. The small orange-and-white cat was perched there looking down and complaining loudly. The kitten had been a birthday present for Linda only weeks before, to keep her company while Travis was gone on overnighters. Travis glanced over at the big Poinciana tree next to the building—the obvious route the errant kitten had taken—but now, unable to find its way down, it was frightened and vocal.

Travis looked up again and shrugged. “What the hell, it’s not like I’m in a hurry.”

Travis knew where the access door to the roof was, so up the stairs he went. He found the hatch, pulled down the foldout stairs and climbed up and out onto the roof. There, twenty feet away, still near the edge, was the kitten. He walked over slowly, speaking softly to the frightened animal. Then he stooped down and gently picked it up. As he stood and turned, he saw it.

There on the horizon, barely distinguishable at that distance, was a wall of water—a tidal wave at least a hundred feet high and running the entire length of his vision. This colossal wall containing thousands of tons of water was bearing down on the Keys with the speed and intensity of a runaway freight train. As the wave gathered momentum and rose to its full height, cresting in an awesome display of raw energy, it greedily sucked the waters from the offshore channels, then the flats, adding to its already enormous strength. Roaring in a thunderous cacophony, sheets of diaphanous white foam peeling off its back and soaring hundreds of feet into the air, the leviathan ripped mile-long rows of lobster traps from the sea floor in a maelstrom of boiling water and sent them whirling into the sky. It engulfed reef lighthouses and crushed fishing and pleasure craft with vicious indifference, as it surged inexorably toward the small string of islands. In a matter of minutes, the Keys would face not just destruction, but complete annihilation.

In a heartbeat, Travis was bolting across the roof and through the hatch. As he raced down the stairs and out of the building, the cat, frightened by the rapid movement, tore at his arm and broke loose. There was no time to worry about it. He only had seconds.

Knowing it was a futile effort, he ran to his office, yanked open the door, and yelled for Linda. She was still at her mother’s, five miles away. She might as well have been in China; there was no helping her.

When Travis saw the wall of water racing toward the Keys, he knew his only chance was the plane. After checking for Linda, he raced out onto the tarmac. The ground was rumbling. People were stumbling out of the terminal and the FBO, confused and frightened. As he headed for the aircraft, the earth began to shake. The roar of the wave was audible now, like the bellow of a great, terrible creature— the sound of death. Travis opened his mouth to shout a warning, but he realized it was useless—the people were already panicking, shouting and screaming, running for their cars. A young woman carrying a small child raced by him and in desperation he reached out, grabbing her arm. “It’s a tidal wave!” he shouted. “C’mon! I have a plane!”

Wild-eyed and frightened, she broke away from him and ran for the parking lot. Travis took one last look as the confusion became pandemonium. There was no point in shouting warnings. It didn’t matter. Everyone on the island was as good as dead. He knew it, and he ran.

As he reached the plane, the rumbling in the ground was much stronger. Black clouds swept across a darkening sky, the surface of the earth was trembling, and a wind had come up out of nowhere. It was a hell of a wind, whipping at his clothes and throwing dust and dirt into the air hard enough to blind him.
Thank God this
damned wind’s coming
down
the runway,
he thought as he shielded his face and pulled the chocks away. He jumped onto the wing, ripped open the door, and threw himself into the left seat. “No pre-flight today,” he whispered tensely, as he rushed through the pre-start procedure. He hit the starter and was rewarded as the port engine fired into life. The shaking was growing stronger still—the tarmac behind the plane cracked and split like a fifty-foot run in a nylon hose. He almost screamed with relief when the starboard engine cranked over and started. He had been having trouble with that engine lately.

There was no time to taxi down to the runway threshold. The wave would be on him long before he reached it. He realized, as he frantically turned the plane’s nose down the taxiway into the wind, that his chances of being alive ten minutes from now were slim.

He hammered down the throttles and gave himself ten degrees of flaps. The 310 leapt in response. As Travis concentrated on keeping her on the narrow taxiway in the gale-force winds, he glanced at the horizon for a second and gasped. The giant wall of water was aimed right at him, less than half a mile away. It was easily a hundred and twenty feet high, and as it crashed into Marathon, buildings exploded and disappeared. Instinctively he pushed the throttles tighter against the panel but there was no more power to be had, and he still needed another hundred yards to be airborne. Then he had to clear the wave.

Everything went into slow motion. He was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to make it, but he wasn’t frightened anymore. Life had been reduced to a contest between himself and the wave. If he won, he lived. If he lost, well, he’d damn sure go out kicking.

The plane broke free of the ground as the churning, foaming avalanche crashed across the last hundred yards to the airstrip. The Cessna was arching upward, gaining altitude despite being buffeted by fierce winds, but the barrier of water loomed before him, nearly towering over the aircraft. He slammed back the yoke and threw the airplane up, almost vertically, toward the top of the wave. His first thought—natural instinct for a pilot—was,
I’m going to stall this son of a bitch
. In the midst of it all he laughed fiercely. If he didn’t make it over the water, he was dead anyway, so what the hell.

The monstrous wave reared up and curled over him, debris from crushed houses, destroyed boats, and uprooted trees cascading down its face. Spray and foam slapped the fuselage and windshield with fat, blinding pellets.

Suddenly it was as if he was back in ’Nam, slashing through the sky and dodging tracers; the roar of fifty-calibers and the yells of soldiers numbing his senses. He felt as though he’d just mainlined a quart of adrenaline. The streaming, frothing fingers of the top of the wave reached out for the tiny insect that was trying to escape its grasp. The engines strained and whined as the wave struck the plane. The stall warning buzzed in his head like an angry giant insect and Travis screamed a challenge, a cry of defiance, an acceptance of whatever fate held for him.

The deafening roar of the water drowned his scream in his ears, and the sky went dark. Sheets of spray blocked the sun and the top of the wave smacked the underside of the plane like a hammer, tossing him fifty feet higher into the air. Suddenly, when Travis was certain he was dead, the aircraft broke through. He was losing what precious little altitude he had, and barely in control of the airplane, but he was on the back side of the wave—and alive. There was little time, however, to take satisfaction in this tenuous piece of fortune. He had major problems.

Besides being buffeted by winds of tropical storm strength, his starboard engine was sputtering and vibrating badly, probably from the impact of the water. He climbed, using both engines at half power. As the vibrations increased to a dangerous level, he applied opposite rudder, feathered the prop, and shut down the bad engine. The plane plummeted toward the water, tossed like a gum wrapper in a gale, as he attempted to stabilize.

Sweat poured from his face, stinging his eyes. His shirt was soaked as he struggled with the controls and fought off panic as the shuddering aircraft fell toward the sea. Finally, only fifty feet from the tumultuous surface of the water, he manhandled the 310 into straight and level flight. Slowly, inexorably, he climbed to a safe altitude of a few thousand feet. He would need the height to buy him time in a crash landing, if the other engine went. Then he glanced down at the surrounding waters—the sight took his breath away.