On Thompson’s map, projected on the screen, areas of high magnetic intensity showed up as hills. Low intensity as valleys. The hills, which were colored red, dominated the image.
Atkins was interested in these geomagnetic readings. He continued to wonder whether magnetic fields were responsible for the strange, green glow that had shimmered deep in Kentucky Lake.
There was another possible source. All that fracturing of the rock deep in the ground generated heat. The role of heat in earthquakes was little understood. Some laboratory experiments had demonstrated that rocks would melt under the extreme pressures of a major earthquake. Other tests showed this didn’t always happen. Scientists were nowhere near an explanation of the heat dilemma.
Atkins wondered if New Madrid was showing a phenomenon never seen before in earthquake country—the visible discharge of tremendous amounts of heat up through the crust. An action that was almost volcanic in power.
Ross interrupted Atkins’ train of thought. The president asked his national security adviser for a damage assessment.
Margaret Greenland stood and smoothed the hem of her rumpled skirt. She was a heavyset woman who didn’t care much about her appearance. She’d received her doctorate from the University of Chicago. Her rise through the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency was the result of talent, grit, and hard work. Ross liked and respected her.
“This is based on our most recent damage assessments,” she said, switching off the room’s overhead lights. “We’ll start first with cities on the periphery of the damage zone.”
She began with footage of Chicago. The towering skyline was unmistakable.
“That’s Lake Shore Drive,” Greenland said with her slow, Southern drawl. “Most of the buildings along the Magnificent Mile sustained moderate damage. Every aftershock sends more glass falling down on the streets.” Some of the shards were found embedded like daggers in the walls of buildings.
“Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have also reported damage,” Greenland said. “Some underground pipes have snapped.”
A map on the wall showed the Mercalli damage zones rippling out from the epicenter like rings on a bull’s- eye. The Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale ranked earthquakes on the basis of observed physical destruction.
The film switched to Columbus, Ohio—the area around the State Fair Grounds and German Village. Both had been hard hit.
Greenland followed with photos of the collapsed Hoosier Dome and the devastated White River Park district in Indianapolis. Both cities were closer to the epicenter. The images were always the same. Buildings in various stages of collapse, the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, crowds of people with dazed, shell-shocked expressions, weeping children.
“The total death toll in the country stands at 130,000 and climbing, but no one really knows,” Greenland said. “Disaster officials are sure of only one thing—that the numbers will go much higher. A big problem right now is finding the bodies.”
As he listened, Ross slowly massaged his temples, trying to alleviate a crushing headache. He knew there was no way to put human losses like that in perspective. They were unprecedented in the United States.
Continuing her grim assessment, Greenland said, “We’ve already talked about command and control in the damage zone. For all practical purposes, civil authority has collapsed. Army and National Guard units are providing what security exists under your previous declaration of martial law.”
Ross nodded. He’d recently boned up on President Lincoln’s decision to impose martial law during the Civil War and wondered if the man he considered the country’s greatest president had gone through as much agony before he sent federal troops into so many American cities. Ross had hated to do it, but felt he had no choice. Killing and looting had broken out on a mammoth scale. In a single neighborhood in Little Rock—Geyer Springs— federal troops had shot and killed nearly thirty people who’d been caught stealing items from smashed homes and stores. That’s what a shoot-to-kill order meant. And that awful body count was from just a single neighborhood.
Less than an hour earlier, Greenland had told Ross privately that the military, stretched dangerously thin, wouldn’t be able to respond to even a moderate international challenge.
Every available soldier on the East Coast and in the South had been pressed into earthquake duty. Unless the situation improved—and that appeared unlikely—they’d have to call in troops from the far West. They’d start with Fort Riley in Kansas. The 1st Infantry Division there had already been put on full alert. They could also bring in Marine units from Camp Pendleton.
“The basic necessities—food, water, medical care—are virtually nonexistent in the quake zones,” Greenland said.
The images from the cities that had sustained the heaviest damage all seemed to merge together into one overwhelming tableau of grief and destruction.
And you’re in charge, Ross kept telling himself. You’re supposed to know how to handle this. Tell people what to do. Suggest options. Keep their spirits up.
He knew he was failing badly on every front.
His national security adviser was talking about hospitals. In the heart of the earthquake zone, most of them had been destroyed. Ross looked at a close-up of Central Hospital in Little Rock and closed his eyes. It had the largest neonatal unit in the state. The building had split in two.
“Heating and fuel oil are already being rationed throughout the East Coast,” Greenland continued. “The situation there will be critical in three or four more days.”
Ross stopped her. “That’s enough, Margaret,” he said, gently touching her on the shoulder. She nodded and turned off the machine. She looked grateful to sit back down.
The president faced the gathered seismologists. “We’re going to have another quake, aren’t we?”
“Almost certainly,” Elizabeth Holleran said. The evidence she’d found in the fissure had removed any of her lingering doubts. “The only question is when and how big.”
“Anyone here agree with Doctor Holleran?”
John Atkins and Walt Jacobs raised their hands. Holleran had uncovered irrefutable evidence that couldn’t be denied. And Atkins was proud to go on record supporting her. They were taking a huge professional risk. He had few doubts they’d be proven right. But at what incredible cost?
It was an overpowering feeling of both intense excitement and fear. They were way out in front on this.
The five other seismologists in the room were hesitant to offer an opinion, much less a definite yes or no.
“What about you, Doctor Weston?” Ross asked.
“I’m sorry, Mister President,” Weston said, shaking his head. “I refuse to speculate.”
“After what you’ve just seen and heard, you’re not convinced?”
“No, sir. I’m not,” Weston said. “I’m still not sure the quakes we’re having aren’t part of a normal aftershock pattern.”
Ross was trying to be agreeable as he kept probing, pushing. “Then let me ask you this: what do you think will happen if we get another magnitude 8 quake on the New Madrid Fault?”
He read the look in Weston’s eyes and in the eyes of the others. He’d seen it often enough, the fear and uncertainty. He’d seen it in his wife’s eyes when the doctor met them in his office on that bright spring afternoon seven years ago and told them what they already knew. The tests were positive. She had breast cancer. He’d seen it in his own eyes earlier that morning when he looked at himself in the mirror.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Ross said, giving way to the nightmare that had kept him awake every night for the last four. “Another quake would pretty much finish the Mississippi Valley. It would push us back to World War II productivity levels. Our economy would be in shambles. In many ways that’s already happened. Millions of Americans would be left totally on their own, without schools, medical care, even food or water. Without police protection.” He leaned over the broad conference table, supporting himself heavily with both hands.
Up close, Atkins was struck again by how tired the man looked. And yet his voice remained firm, decisive.
“This is a great country,” Ross said. “Our people have courage and resiliency. They’ll bounce back eventually. But we wouldn’t be the same United States.”
He looked at everyone in the room, locking in on their eyes, staring hard.
