The plant hadn’t had a chance.
Three fire trucks, four ambulances, and five cop cars crowded the rubble; intermingled with the vehicles of the over-time shift workers. At least it was late Friday, and not as many employees were within the plant. Still.
“Thirty-five people missing,” Officer Melanie Grant told Vince as he rushed up to the property guard’s office, which had been turned into a temporary command post. “Lots of them had left for the long weekend by the time this hit, thank God. We’ve had a couple calls from cell phones — several trapped under the rubble, but as for the rest … it’s going to be a long haul.”
“We’ve got rescue teams coming up from Philly,” Vince told her, strapping on a protective helmet and lifting a radio to his ear to listen to a broadcast from Command Central. “Another team coming from Jersey. They should be in here in an hour or so.” He shook his head. “We’re gonna need dogs, and more heavy equipment to move this shit.”
“Not to mention a lot of prayers,” Grant told him. “If one of those drums with the chemicals collapses, it could ignite and add explosions to our mess here.”
“Holy shit.” He snapped his attention to Grant, a tall blond woman who, from the look of the streaks on her face, had already been digging through the rubble. “What’s the chances of that?”
“The plant manager, who was off-site today, says the nitro tuolene is highly flammable and compressed in the drums. If the area of those metal drums is compromised, or the area compresses any further, they will ignite. We were able to find three under some concrete and steel beams. So far, they seem to be holding up … but if anything shifts, we’re dead meat.”
Vince swore. “We’ll just have to work fast and easy.” As he spoke, a paper fluttered across the empty parking lot and tumbled at his feet. He would have kicked it away, but Grant bent down to pick it up.
“Another one,” she murmured, and stared at it for a moment.
“What?” Vince snatched it from her hand. “What do you mean another one?” He looked at the plain white paper with the strange image printed on it.
“There’re a bunch of these papers, blowing around,” she told him, resting her hands on her hips. “Do you have any idea what it is?”
Vince shook his head. “Probably some kid’s drawing for a club or something. Or maybe a new icon for a gang. That’s the least of my worries right now.” He crumpled the paper and pitched it toward a heavy metal trash can. “Let’s get to work.”
2
“The United States Geological Survey records over 50 earthquakes a day in an average year.” Professor Paul Everett brushed chalk-dusty hands over the seat of his dark trousers before he realized what he was doing. “Most of them can’t even be felt by the average human. About 18 earthquakes a year measure in at 7.0 on the Richter scale, and perhaps one or two at 8.0 or higher. Those are the ones we hear about in places like Bam, Iran.”
Darlene was going to read him the riot act if he came home with powdery streaks on his dark pants again. He could never remember to use his handkerchief when he was in the middle of a lecture. Maybe he ought to just wear white pants.
“At this time, there isn’t any accurate way to predict earthquakes,” he continued, glancing at the clock at the back of the classroom. Five minutes and he was on vacation with Darlene … heading to the Shore.
And if he so much as stopped for a cup of coffee on the way home, delaying their Friday afternoon start-time, she’d know — and he would hear about it. Focusing back on the lecture, Paul continued. “We can anticipate that one will strike in places like Hawaii, where the magma moving underground causes some extra activity prior to a quake, but in other areas where the earth shift is caused by pressure along fault lines, there is no accurate prediction method. Which is why I don’t live in California.” A soft murmur of laughter acknowledged his comment, but he knew they were about ready to check out.
“Scientists are collecting data using Global Positioning Systems to find where the major faults and fault lines are and combining that with statistical analysis. They hope to use that data to try and predict quakes.
“And recently, there was a study in Iceland that measured water chemistry — the levels of certain chemicals in the water before and after a large quake there. Scientists hope to be able to use that information to begin a data warehouse, which may also help predict future quakes.”
About three minutes left, and then the class would slam their laptops, Alpha Smarts, or notebooks closed and shove them into their backpacks while streaming out of the geology lab. They were just as eager to start their weekend as he was.
Paul gestured to the university’s seismograph mounted directly on the ground outside of the lab. “Many people confuse the purpose of the seismograph and believe it can be used to help predict earthquakes. And while this machine can record even the most sensitive of ground movements, it can only do so after the fact.
“As you can see, it’s placed directly on the ground, and if the earth shifts, the needle will record even the slightest of the earth’s movement. We’ll talk more about what normal seismic activity looks like next week.”
Most of them had little real interest in the studies; they elected the class during the summer term as a last-ditch effort to fulfill a science credit in the liberal arts program at Princeton. He tried not to let the apathy bother him; after all, he taught three other, more advanced classes for geology or biology majors. They not only looked at the seismograph readings; they had a clue what the readings meant.
“I’ll cover Chapter Ten in next week’s lecture. Come with questions because that will be the last class before the exam.” His last few words were lost as they rose fairly en masse to sling backpacks over shoulders and stampede out of the room.
He turned to switch off his laptop, hoping to get out and on the road in time to beat the weekend traffic, and noticed one of his students standing next to the seismograph. The young woman was actually looking at it.
“Professor Everett, what is that?” she pointed to the paper roll that showed a series of red markings. Etched with gentle peaks and valleys was the activity in a fifty-mile radius around Princeton.
And there, on the seismograph, were big spikes coming from an area in the middle of low hills and valleys.
Big damn red spikes.
Paul swallowed the words he’d planned to give: a quick answer, before he’d seen what she was pointing at. He looked at it again.
Big damn spikes right in the middle of nowhere.
Paul frowned and peered at the little needle radiating up and down with its etchings. It appeared to be working.
“Shouldn’t there have been some kind of warning before such big spikes? And what would cause something like that? There aren’t any earthquakes around here, are there?”
Apparently someone had been listening, even though she’d spent half the class flirting with a young man across the room.
Paul adjusted his trifocals. Damn glasses; couldn’t trust them to see when he needed to without having to move them around to get the right lens.
But, yes, the spikes were still there, like upside-down icicles. And as he watched, several smaller peaks jumped up— little aftershocks, they would be, if indeed it was an earthquake.