TSUNAMI STORM

TSUNAMI STORM

A novel

By

D F Capps

ISBN: 978-0-9774198-6-9

Copyright 2015

All Rights Reserved

Clearwater Valley Press, LLC

Under License

This book is dedicated to all those

who selflessly put their life on the line

so that others might live.

Thank you.

TSUNAMI STORM

Eastern Sichuan Province, China

Guang Xi sat with his legs dangling into the concrete box that housed the new generation earthquake sensors.
Meili.
He sighed and then smiled, his mind drifting through the memories of her beautiful face, her gentle touch and the softness of her skin. She was initially opposed to him taking this assignment in the remote region of Sichuan Province since he would be away from her for two months. Once he explained that his successful completion of this task would guarantee a teaching position at the prestigious Peking University in Beijing and a substantial bump in pay and social status, she had become excited at the prospects for their future.

Guang Xi was a little shorter than average but he was good looking and just a bit thinner than average for men in China. He dressed well and attracted many admiring glances from the young women at the University. He imagined himself as the center of attention at his first faculty party with his gorgeous fiancé at his side. Meili was very attractive with long black hair pulled back in a long braid. She was very graceful and quite adept in social situations.

He reveled in the envy he imagined the other instructors would be feeling as they looked upon him and Meili, the new social stars of the University.
I deserve the notoriety and respect of the faculty,
he thought.
The day will come when I take the place of my mentor, Dr. Huang, as the head of the Earth Sciences Department. One day, even the Premier will know my name. Fame and fortune will both be mine.

Guang Xi shook the vision of Meili from his mind and stood up. He slid the metal lid that covered the concrete box into place and secured it with screws. The satellite antenna and the solar panel protruded from the top of the metal cover. He looked around to fix the memory of this part of his life in his mind. Far from the halls of academia, this remote location was his gateway into the coveted faculty of Peking University.

The Longmenshan fault ran through a low mountain pass that was commonly used by goat herders to get their flocks to more fertile grazing pastures on the other side of the mountain ridge. The ground sloped gently up to the pass and down the other side. Guang Xi had placed 24 sensors, each a mile apart, twelve on each side of the pass. The altitude was over 9,000 feet, so the air was still easily breathable, but the foliage was limited to shrubs, grass and moss in most places. There were some trees in the area, but they tended to thrive more in the small recesses where water collected, rather than out on the slopes where the sun dried out the generally rocky soil.

His professor and mentor, Dr. Huang, believed a substantial amount of tension had built up along the fault line running through Sichuan Province. Dr. Huang believed that electromagnetic emissions from the fault line could be used as a predictor of major earthquakes. The emissions would appear several days before the actual quake and increase in strength as the earthquake built up even more tension along the fault line. The new sensors would monitor both ground movement and electromagnetic emissions, sending the recorded data by satellite link directly to the University in Beijing on ten minute intervals to conserve power. Each sensor had its own solar panel to recharge the Lithium-ion batteries that powered the sensors and the radio burst transmitters that sent the data back to the Earth Sciences Lab. The new sensors were all functioning properly and communicating with the server at Peking University.

It was mid-May and Guang Xi’s last day on the fault line. Just an hour and a half walk back to the small village where he would catch the afternoon train to Beijing and his time away from Meili would be over. He smiled, remembering her beautiful face, as he packed his remaining equipment into a canvas bag.

Suddenly, without warning, an intense burning flared on his right cheek and right ear. Guang Xi instinctively ran to his left, trying to escape the intense heat and pain. As he glanced back he stumbled and fell, landing on his left side, and rolling onto his back. Above him a shimmering curtain of bluish-green light formed above the fault line undulating and intensifying. Guang Xi screamed in pain as the searing heat spread across his face and chest. He scrambled to his feet and tried to run, only to stumble and fall to his hands and knees. He rose again and hobbled away as his back began to burn, his skin sticking to his clothes. He glanced once more at the curtain of light, which had now turned reddish-orange.

Guang Xi heard the low rumble from the earth just before the ground trembled beneath his feet. The ground split along the fault line. The side opposite the crack in the earth erupted vertically thirty feet and sent a wave of dirt and rocks surging around him, sweeping him up in the flow of the tumbling stones and soil. He screamed as he was twisted and pushed backwards by the flow of earth. His right foot became crushed between several large rocks moving in the debris. When the surge of soil slowed and came to a stop, Guang Xi was buried up to his chest, with only his shoulders, arms and head poking out of the ground.

The shimmering curtain of reddish-orange light extended up over a thousand feet into the sky above him, the heat searing the flesh of his face and hands. Just as suddenly as it had all started, the curtain of light vanished and the rumbling slowed until it finally stopped. Deathly quiet remained. All Guang Xi could hear was the overpowering ringing in his ears and the pounding of his own heart. He looked around and tried to wriggle free of the dirt, but his legs wouldn’t move.

“That’s it?” he screamed at the thirty-foot high rock wall. “That’s all you can do?” He waved his arms in the air. “I’m right here! All that power, and still you can’t kill me. I will beat you. I will conquer you. You can’t win against me!” He folded his arms across his chest and angrily stared at the wall of stone. Hours passed and his energy waned, causing his mind to wander and lose focus.

An aftershock roused him from his daze. A few more tremors and then darkness gradually shrouded him as night settled in, the throbbing pain in his right foot his only companion. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the parade of stars slowly marched across the cloudless sky. The night air was cold, but the ground that covered his body held its heat and kept him from freezing. He was awakened several times during the night by additional aftershocks that shook the ground.

I am an important visitor to the village in the valley,
Guang Xi thought to himself.
Such a small village rarely saw anyone from a large city, let alone Beijing.
Several people had followed him out to the fault line in the early days of his project and helped him dig the holes and build the forms for the concrete boxes that would house the sensitive electronic equipment.
People know I’m out here. Soon they will come for me.

Dolphin Beach, Oregon

Willa McBride stood with her right hand raised and repeated the oath of office for Mayor of Dolphin Beach, Oregon in front of the local magistrate, the police chief, her locally famous sister, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Bechtel, her daughter, Chelsea, and fourteen-year-old granddaughter Dakota, plus a few admiring friends.

Willa was 52 years old, slightly overweight, but not fat.
Certainly not fat,
she reminded herself. Her medium length auburn hair had been turning gray slowly over the last few years. She had resisted getting her hair dyed, but now that she was mayor, maybe it was time to change that. Maybe put a little curl back in her hair, like it was when she and her husband raised their family. He had died from a sudden heart attack eight years ago. Her children had already been raised and on their own. Her husband’s life insurance had been enough that she could live comfortably, just no cruises or long vacations.

Willa still blamed the City Council for forcing her husband to lose his Lock and Key business with their excessive rules, taxes and endless inspections and unnecessary repairs. She particularly blamed them for the stress that precipitated his sudden heart attack. Even after eight years the sting of losing him stuck with her. After his death she had formed the Small Business Coalition to change the policies of the City Council. The council members proved to be resistant to change, so, during the last year, the coalition had refocused on replacing the mayor and the city council members in November.

The previous mayor of eighteen years, Ed Edwards, was forced into retirement after a massive stroke left him paralyzed and unable to talk. Frank Gillis, as the ranking member of the small financially elite clique in Dolphin Beach, was the heir apparent to Mayor Edwards.

The special election in late May had given Willa the opportunity to run for mayor before the regular November election and left the small ocean-side town both shocked and divided as Willa and Frank had squared off in a no-holds-barred fight for a political office that paid a whopping $600 a month.

Frank Gillis was also on hand but he wasn’t smiling. He glowered at Willa after a close and vicious race waged against her. She thought of Frank as a chiseled faced little weasel with a brush cut. He wore expensive clothes and drove a fancy car, but he would always be a weasel in Willa’s eyes.

Willa smiled and shook hands with the magistrate and Police Chief, Chuck Dolan, upon completion of her oath of office. She appreciated the beaming smile on her sister’s face and the obvious pride Elizabeth had for her.
I wouldn’t have done this at all without her encouragement and support,
she thought.
Having a United States Senator in the family certainly has its advantages.

“You did great, sis,” Elizabeth said, giving Willa a strong hug. “This was a tough election with which to start into public service. I don’t think I could have won a first election like this.”

“Sure you could,” Willa replied.
You would have done whatever you had to do to win.

“No,” Elizabeth replied. “I’m the pro here, remember? This took a huge amount of courage and tenacity to get through, let alone win. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, can you stay for a bit or do you have to get back to Washington?”

Elizabeth glanced at her watch. “Got a three-thirty flight out of Portland to Dulles, so I’ve got to go, but I just couldn’t miss your swearing in today.”

Of course,
Willa thought. “Thank you for being here; it really meant a lot to me.”

“You bet, sweetie, see you next time.”

Willa watched as her sister left and climbed into the black town car waiting for her.
She’s always so busy. No wonder she never married and had a family. No time. Her career and political power were the only things that really mattered to her. She’s a lot like dad in that respect: Votes were always more important to him than his wife and his children. I wonder if she knows how much happiness and love she sacrificed to be like him.

She also saw Frank quickly exit the small City Hall building and light up a cigarette on the front porch. Frank took a long slow drag, blew the smoke up into the air and promptly walked off. Willa sighed, knowing the fight wasn’t over, since the regular election cycle would put her up against Frank again in November, barely five months away.

Tourists were arriving already as Memorial Day approached, marking the first breath of economic life of the season for the small town. Willa and Police Chief Dolan walked out of the city office and into the Village Center, where the bulk of the businesses were located.

“As Police Chief, it’s my duty to inform you of the crimes taking place here in Dolphin Beach,” he said somberly.

Willa looked at him with surprise. “I thought we didn’t have a crime problem here,” she replied.

“Well, we do,” Chief Dolan said. “We caught a young teenage girl shoplifting in Betty’s Gift Shoppe last week. Her parents paid for the item, a ceramic Pacific White-sided Dolphin, and promised to keep a close eye on her. Mrs. Wilkins’ cat attacked her neighbor’s Chihuahua again. The vet bill came to $112, which Mrs. Wilkins paid,
again
. I don’t see that one going away any time soon. And last night Ken Gruber’s dog got into Miss Jenkins trash can, again. Every time her trash gets dumped over, I tell her trash day is Wednesday, so she has to put it out on Tuesday night, not Sunday night, like she has been doing for the last two years. She doesn’t remember that we changed trash day two years ago. I guess at 82 she’s entitled to a little leeway.”

“Anything else?” Willa asked.

“Nope.”

“No littering on the beach?” she asked.

“A little early for that,” he replied.

They strolled over to the fountain, the focal point of Village Center, and sat on the ledge surrounding the fountain. The ledge formed a twenty-foot-diameter circle that enclosed the spraying fountain which cascaded over rocks in the center. Mounted above the fountain was a twelve-foot, stainless steel sculpture representing a pacific white-sided dolphin, for which the small town of 1,628 people had been named. The Village Center was open only to pedestrians.

Dolphin Beach was located in a small cove forty miles south of where the Columbia River emptied into the Pacific Ocean. During tourist season the population typically swelled to 4,500, and on a good year, to 5,000. Nearly every home doubled as a Bed and Breakfast for tourists.

“Next week I’ve got the two college students we hired last year coming in to start work as deputies for the summer,” Chief Dolan said. “Joe’s a Criminal Justice student from the Oregon Coast Community College in Newport and Mack is pre-law at Lewis and Clark in Portland. They’re dependable and understand the importance of tourists.”

Willa’s mind drifted to the November election, wondering just where Chief Dolan’s loyalty would be.

“Look,” Chief Dolan said. “I know this is a bit overwhelming, and I know you’re concerned about facing Frank again in November. You’re going to do fine. Just remember, this town is all about the money it makes from tourists during the summer. We have a good turnout, our people make their money, and November won’t be a problem. You’ll be in for the next four years, I promise.”

“Yes, but Frank owns the Ocean Grand Hotel,” Willa replied. “He’s the wealthiest person in Dolphin Beach. He influences a lot of people here.” The Ocean Grand Hotel was at the north end of the main beach at the end of Oceanside Drive with 862 rooms, 556 of which had an ocean view. It was built on the rise of the hill with two stories on the high section of the hill, three stories to the main hotel, and a third two-story section of rooms lower down, in front of the main structure. Behind the Ocean Grand Hotel on the north side rose Promontory Point, a single piece of rock that jutted out into the Pacific Ocean. The top of Promontory Point was flat, came to a sharp corner over the ocean, and provided a spectacular view of not only the seaside, but Dolphin Beach as well. Promontory Point’s flat area widened considerably as it neared Highway 101 and had been turned into a parking lot, providing easy access for the tourists. For those adventurous souls, a stairway had been carved into the side of Promontory Point over a hundred years ago. The steps showed signs of wear and the pipe railing had to be repaired from time to time, but the stairway was still used almost every day by both locals and tourists, especially due to its close proximity to the Ocean Grand Hotel. For people who lived on the north end of Dolphin Beach, it was either the stone stairs or a mile and a half drive through town, up to Highway 101 and over to Promontory Point.

“Don’t worry about Frank,” Chief Dolan said. “All his money and influence didn’t get him elected as mayor, now, did it?”

“No, I guess it didn’t,” she had to admit.

“Willa, you and your Small Business Coalition are good for this town,” Chief Dolan said. “You have a good heart and you care about the people of Dolphin Beach. That’s why they elected you as mayor. Frank cares only about himself and what his money can buy. People know that. Trust me. We have a good summer, and you and the people you back for city council will be in for the next four years.”

Willa looked around at the brightly colored businesses in the most picturesque setting she could imagine. Dolphin Beach captured that small town atmosphere and friendliness that seemed to have disappeared from the American landscape some fifty years ago. Dolphin Beach had all the modern luxuries: a theater, Wi-Fi hot spots all over town, and cell phone service, yet the feel of the town was homey and quaint. “It seems so simple when you look at it that way,” she said. “But it’s a big responsibility being mayor. If something goes wrong, I get the blame for it.”