Ten miles out of Philadelphia, flashing lights filled the roadway a hundred yards ahead of Warfield. He stopped on the shoulder and watched for a minute. State police were turning all Atlantic City-bound traffic back! Cars in the southbound expressway lanes sat in line on the exit ramp to cross the bridge over the highway and merge into northbound lanes that were already jammed with drivers escaping the coast. Military vehicles idled under the bridge and in the road beyond the police cars. National guardsmen in rain gear milled around, some directing traffic. Warfield knew other troops had the harder job of locating and convincing people to leave their homes.
Warfield surveyed the scene, pulled the Redskins cap down over his eyes, left Paula’s car beside the road and jogged up the ramp to the crossover. A Humvee sat there with lights on, engine running and no driver. There were no soldiers nearby, as they were down at the expressway directing traffic. Warfield climbed in. Hummers were not new to him.
As he entered the ramp to the southbound lane toward Atlantic City, a soldier sitting beside the road in another Hummer threw up a hand in a casual gesture. Warfield waved back knowing recognition was not possible in this weather and moved onto the empty roadway south of the roadblock.
State troopers monitored the flow of traffic, moving at around thirty. Military vehicles roamed the side of the expressway and no one seemed to pay special notice to Warfield, just another guardsman on duty. He continued on the shoulder until he came to other idling military vehicles blocking the roadway and was forced to the ditch. Water rose to hood-level on the Hummer, but the Humvee was equipped with large-diameter wheels and a snorkel system that extended the air intake and exhaust above roof level enabling it to take the virtual river in stride until he could get back on the pavement.
Thirty-five was all Warfield could manage. Even if the wipers could handle the rain, he couldn’t see beyond the front end of the Humvee. He was hoping almost against hope now that he could beat the storm surge. And what if Quinn and Ana weren’t there? But he couldn’t worry about that. There was no other place to look. Phones were out. Same for transportation. But Quinn would be there. It was human nature to go to a familiar place in times of crisis.
As Warfield approached the crest of a rise, a sea of car lights greeted him. Police vehicles, blue roof-mounted lights flashing, lined up across both sides of the expressway from fence-to-fence, and dead-still traffic lined up behind them as far as Warfield could see. There was no way around the roadblock. Warfield realized they were waiting for him, the idiot who had stolen the Humvee. He locked the doors, pulled to a stop near one of the state troopers who was flashing a light at him and lowered the window slightly.
At least fifty New Jersey state troopers and national guardsmen surrounded Warfield’s Humvee. Some of the soldiers were talking among themselves and laughing at the absurdity of anyone stealing a Hummer, especially in this weather. Drivers who were lined up behind the row of police cars sat on their horns. A heavy state trooper captain with the name Haygood on his slicker focused a spotlight in Warfield’s eyes. His right hand was concealed somewhere inside his raincoat. “Step down out of the vehicle, sir!” he shouted.
Ana was in the kitchen trying to pull together a meal from a few things she found in Quinn’s personal suite at the Golden Touch. He hadn’t anticipated that Atlantic City — and all food service at the Golden Touch — would be shut down before they arrived.
Quinn found himself with time on his hands. He’d put the five ten-milligram Valium tablets from his medicine cabinet into his shirt pocket and slipped the little .38 Smith & Wesson revolver from his bed table into the pocket of his slacks. He went over to the window to check on the storm again but the glass breathed in and out so much now that he feared it would break. He closed the heavy drapes so they might slow down any flying glass and poured himself another Glenfiddich. The main building power had gone off an hour earlier but his suite was connected to the auxiliary generators that came on in a power failure and ran the elevators and other critical areas of the Golden Touch.
He returned to the den where the TV was on. A crew filming from the eighth floor of another building along the coastline showed waves lapping over the Boardwalk, crashing into the casinos and ripping out sections of the famous walkway that Sandy hadn’t already destroyed. His brow furrowed. Driving was no longer possible, but he hadn’t lost hope.
He turned off the television and went to the kitchen. While Ana was looking for something in the fridge, he dropped the five blue Valium pills into her glass of Pinot Noir that sat on the bar.
“Who’s the national guard officer in charge,” Warfield said through the crack above the Hummer’s window. He had to literally shout down to state patrol officer Captain Haygood to be heard over the weather and car horns.
“Military’s not running this show, buddy. Get out of the truck!” Haygood shouted.
“Soon as I see the ranking military officer standing there.” A couple of the soldiers started to take closer notice.
Haygood’s hand began to move about inside the slicker. “You’ll get out now, or we’ll take you out.”
Warfield closed the window. He didn’t think the enraged trooper would go so far as to shoot him. Haygood consulted with his men and spoke into a radio. Minutes later additional troopers began arriving on the shoulder. The symphony of horns rivaled the noise of the storm. One of the soldiers grabbed his radio and started talking. Warfield looked at his watch. His chances of getting to the Golden Touch ahead of the storm surge diminished by the second. Even the Humvee had its limits.
The standoff went on for fifteen minutes, by which time at least a hundred troopers and national guardsmen had congregated, all standing around Warfield’s Humvee in the rain and struggling at times to balance themselves against the gale. Another Humvee arrived on the shoulder and a general riding in the right seat got out and strode through the mass of troopers and guardsmen, who cleared a wide berth for him and threw their hands up in salute.
“What’s the problem here?” The general stood at least six-four and had some meat on his bones. His voice had no trouble overcoming the sound of the weather and the cars.
Warfield saw the star on his collar and started to emerge, but Haygood began to vent to the general about the disruption Warfield had caused, the number of troopers he’d tied up for too many precious minutes, and only God could know how many lives he’d cost by shutting down the evacuation. This thief had refused his order to get out of the vehicle and was under arrest.
The general looked around at one of his own men. “Know anything about this, Sergeant O’Hare?”
“Yes, sir, sounds ’bout right. The dude apparently stole the Hummer up the road. When the troopers stopped him here, he refused to get out ’til he could talk to you.”
The general looked up at Warfield and started to speak but Haygood started again. The general turned to him, saying, “Is this the biggest problem you got today, Haywood?”
“It’s Haygood. You see all these cars sitting here? Hear those horns blowin’?”
The general looked at the cars. “Who stopped ’em?”
“I did,” Haygood said. “Only way we could stop this thief.”
“That’d be a little hard for me to understand, but I’ll handle this man and you can take care of the traffic — unless you want us to take that over too.”