Atkins told her what he was going to try.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“A mile. Maybe a little more. Here we go.” He swung the wheel over and aimed for the shore. If he could keep the speed up and stay ahead of the current, he might be able to steer instead of being shoved along by the river.
Atkins kept heading toward a cluster of tall trees on the Missouri shore that he was using as a marker.
The sky was lighter. It was the hazy twilight before dawn. Atkins noticed how the quake had ripped long, gaping chunks out of the shoreline.
When they were four or five hundred yards from the falls, he got his first good look at it and almost froze up. It was the biggest thrust fault he’d ever seen, or ever read about. Far below the surface of the earth, there’d been a strong vertical displacement of the rock, driving one side of the fault upward, the hanging wall, while the other side, the footwall, dropped. The sharp upward movement had created the waterfall.
He thought it was forty feet high, maybe more.
“We’re coming up on it,” he shouted.
He kept the ferry angling toward the Missouri shore.
They were almost there. Another two hundred yards and they’d be right on top of it. Realizing they were going too fast, Atkins threw back the throttles and tried to straighten out the bow.
At the last moment, just as they were approaching the edge, he saw that the drop-off was at least ten feet. Better than forty, but still not a safe drop. They were going to take a hit.
“Here we go!” he yelled. “Hang on!”
The ferry nosed over and slammed down in the water in a tremendous burst of spray.
Afterward, he had only fragmented impressions: the stern up in the air, suspended. The jolting impact as the bow crashed down in the churning water. The way the ferry pitched dangerously on its side, almost capsizing. Mainly, Atkins remembered his shock when he looked down the length of that curving wall of water as it poured over the huge upthrust in the middle of the river.
But he had no time to do much more than glance at this spectacle—and at the wreckage of the towboat and barges that had gone over earlier and were capsized in the swirling water. He was fighting to control the steering wheel as the ferry rocked in the powerful eddies below the falls.
They made a complete circle, then another, the ferry pitching wildly, threatening to tip. Water crashed over the lower deck. Atkins worried they’d be sucked into the vortex of boiling water at the base of the waterfall. A great whirlpool had formed there at mid-river, where water pouring over the edge of the scarp collided with the downstream flow from the bridge. He threw the wheel hard to starboard and leaned on it until slowly, a few yards at a time it seemed, they were out of danger.
The Missouri shore was less than a hundred yards away. Atkins steered in that direction. Much of the shoreline around the ferry landing had collapsed. Only a few of the piers were still intact. There was no way to tie up there.
Elizabeth managed to rouse Marsden. “Where are we?” he asked, getting up groggily. “We’re hardly moving.” Then he saw the waterfall off to the right.
“We went over that?” he said, blinking his eyes.
“Can you get us into shore?” Atkins asked.
Marsden took the wheel and sized up the situation. A few minutes later he’d nosed the ferry into an overhanging section of riverbank that hadn’t collapsed. The current, even in that close, was exceptionally strong and he had to keep the engines running at full power to hold the bow into the shore so his deckhand could jump off and tie up to some trees. It took a few minutes before he had the bow and stern secured.
“Thanks for the ride,” Marsden said, smiling at Atkins. “Sorry I missed it.”
He followed them on unsteady legs down to the deck. The Explorer had come through the pounding with a four-foot dent along the passenger side, but it was essentially in good shape. Atkins was relieved when the engine started. He’d been worried about water getting under the hood and short-circuiting the electrical wiring.
The view of the waterfall from the pier was breathtaking. The roar of the water pouring over the edge made it hard to talk without shouting.
“Can we give you a lift somewhere?” Atkins asked.
Marsden shook his head. “I better stick with
He disappeared for a few moments. When he returned, he carried a pump-action Remington shotgun, which he handed to Atkins. He also gave him several boxes of shells.
“No arguments,” he said. “You take this with you. Someone might want to try to take that Explorer. A good four-wheel-drive vehicle is gold at a time like this. I wouldn’t let it out of your sight.”
Atkins started to refuse, but Marsden almost shoved the shotgun into his chest. “It’s loaded. Just flick the safety off, pump it, and fire.” He gave Elizabeth a plastic trash bag filled with a few loaves of bread, some canned food, and soda.
Atkins laid the weapon on the back seat. “Good luck, then,” he said, smiling at Marsden.
“And to you, friend.”
Using an electric winch, Marsden lowered the off-ramp. They’d be able to drive right onto solid ground. The ferry was tied up at the edge of a muddy soybean field about half a mile from the highway.
OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY
OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE
JANUARY 13
3:11 A.M.
FRED BOOKER WATCHED HOW THE STRONG WINDS blowing down from the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains affected the fires. Sheets of flame shot up whenever the wind stiffened. The earthquake had severed the gas lines, which were burning fiercely all over the Y-12 complex, probably ignited by sparks from fallen wires.
Electric cables and transmission wires were snapping all around him. Streams of white-red sparks were going off like rockets. Broken wires crackled on the ground.
Booker was alone. The two other men he’d been working with at the Shock Wave Lab had left the complex. Staying behind a line of fire trucks, he’d gotten as close as he could to Building D-4 at the western edge of the complex.
Dating from the Manhattan Project, D-4 had been used for end-stage enrichment of U-235 uranium. The biggest structure in the containment park, it was 640 feet long and 412 feet wide. Liquid mercury and the uranium and plutonium cores of mothballed nuclear weapons were stored there in special lead-lined bunkers. There was no danger of an explosion, but if they caught fire, the leaking radiation would be deadly.
It was definitely a hot zone. A firefighter’s nightmare.
The quake had knocked the hell out of D-4 and many of the other cavernous buildings that lined Carbon Avenue. A section of the front wall and roof had collapsed.
And to Booker’s amazement, the ground was still shaking.
This damn thing isn’t over, he realized.
Four fire engines had pulled to within fifty yards of D-4. Mechanical aerial ladders were spraying long, arcing jets of foam on the roof and walls.
“I want everyone evacuated within a one-mile perimeter of this building,” a fire captain said.
Booker recognized the man from the frequent safety meetings he’d attended before he retired. He was in charge of Y-12’s disaster response team. His name was Tim Duncan. Like the other firefighters who’d gathered around him, Duncan wore a white radiation suit. In his fifties, Duncan was a short, heavy-chested man with a walrus mustache. He looked stunned by the scope of the disaster and was trying his best not to show it.
“I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I could get a good layer of foam down on those mercury storage tanks,” Duncan said. He wasn’t about to send any men into the building, not with the ground still shaking and the risk of a mercury explosion or a radiation leak.
