Upheaval a disaster thri.., p.1
Upheaval: A Disaster Thriller, page 1
UPHEAVAL
FAULT LINES
BOOK 1
HARLEY TATE
Copyright © 2023 by Harley Tate. Cover and internal design © by Harley Tate. Cover image copyright © Deposit Photos, 2023.
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
The use of stock photo images in this e-book in no way imply that the models depicted personally endorse, condone, or engage in the fictional conduct depicted herein, expressly or by implication. The person(s) depicted are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Mika
2. Clint
3. Daphne
4. Mika
5. Clint
6. Mika
7. Daphne
8. FEMA
9. Clint
10. Mika
11. Daphne
12. Clint
13. Mika
14. Task Force
15. Daphne
16. Clint
17. Mika
18. Clint
19. Daphne
20. Mika
21. Clint
22. Clint
23. Mika
24. Mika
25. Daphne
26. Clint
27. Mika
28. Clint
Also by Harley Tate
Acknowledgments
About Harley Tate
PROLOGUE
Andy blew across the surface of his coffee and risked a tentative sip before propping his feet on the edge of the closest desk. As soon as his heel hit the dented metal, pens scattered, rolling this way and that across the surface.
Sammie groaned beside him. “Can you not do that, Andy?” She reached out and shoved his feet to the floor. They landed with a thud. “I like to keep these in order.”
He hid a smile. Berkeley Seismology Lab might be one of the premier earthquake research institutions on the planet, but post-docs tended to act like children when stuck together for hours on end. He enjoyed giving Sammie a hard time occasionally. She was always too serious, too straight-laced. He rolled toward his own desk and used the back of his chair to crack his spine.
She shuddered. “Did I miss the memo? Is it annoy-your-fellow-researcher day?”
Andy feigned innocence. “What?”
“Your back trying out to be the next Rice Krispies mascot. It’s gross.”
His laughter floated through the lab. “You’re a scientist. Nothing should gross you out.”
“I’m a landslide scientist. Not an anatomy one,” Sammie shoved her glasses up her nose and scooted closer to her desk. “Don’t you have some data to analyze?”
Mark poked his head out from behind the square of his computer screen. “Can you guys keep the bickering to a minimum? It’s too early and I’m only on my first cup of coffee. You’re worse than siblings.”
“Can’t make promises.” Andy raised a coffee mug in his direction. “But I’ll do my best.”
Mark rolled his eyes before disappearing once again. Pinging around the grant-wheel roulette like a pill losing momentum, Mark had failed to land a lead investigator job in the years post-Ph.D. Being the oldest, and arguably most experienced researcher in the lab, he’d charitably been given senior researcher status. But it was a title without meaning. If the next round of grants failed to materialize, Mark might end up an adjunct professor at some community college up the coast.
They all might, eventually. Academic scientific research wasn’t a field rich in opportunity or glamor, but it mattered a heck of a lot more than most people realized.
Andy brought his mug up, brain still churning over the plight of post-docs these days, and slurped. Scalding liquid sloshed against the back of his throat. He spluttered out a curse. A stream of coffee dribbled down his chin and he boomeranged forward before it stained his only white dress shirt.
As he glanced up, his gaze fell on the lower right corner of his computer screen where a constant feed from seismologic readings across the country updated every fifteen minutes. “What the…” His seat snapped upright as he rolled closer, the burn forming across his throat and tongue forgotten.
Sammie perked up. “What is it?”
Andy glanced from her to Mark’s desk behind them. “Did you guys notice anything from the Pacific Northwest monitors this morning?”
“Nope.” Sammie shook her head. “What are you seeing?” She pushed away from her desk and joined him, hovering behind Andy as he clicked to enlarge the open window. A section of black hair slipped over her shoulder as she leaned closer. “Well, that’s new.”
“What’s going on?” The wheels of Mark’s chair squeaked as it rolled, now empty, behind him. His shadow loomed a second later.
Sammie pointed at the screen. “It’s coming from the Cascadia Subduction Zone.”
Stretching from the top of Northern Vancouver Island all the way to Cape Mendocino in California, the Cascadia Subduction Zone was one of the quietest convergent plate boundaries on the planet. Unlike other subduction zones, Cascadia maintained relatively low seismic activity. Any abnormal readings were cause for alarm.
Mark jabbed his thick, black-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t this just a tremor? They happen along the entire length every year and a half or so.”
“This is way bigger than a tremor.” Andy pulled up another screen. “Seismic activity is running the length of the fault at levels much higher than normal.” He swallowed and the back of his throat stung. “The readings are more consistent with the lead-up to a megathrust.”
“That can’t be possible.” Sammie shook her head in disbelief. “There hasn’t been a megathrust quake on that fault since 1700.”
“Researchers out of Oregon theorize there have been forty-one Cascadia megathrust quakes in the past ten thousand years.” Mark’s eyes never blinked, but his voice warbled on the last word.
Sammie did the math. “That’s one every 243 years.”
“Exactly.” Panic accentuated each syllable. “The whole area is overdue.”
Andy stared at the readings and poured over what he knew about the zone. Since they were in the Bay Area, the San Andreas fault received the most attention from the lab, but that didn’t mean they ignored other areas of activity like Cascadia and the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the Southeast.
All over the world, megathrust earthquakes occur at convergent tectonic plate boundaries. At the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the oceanic plate Juan de Fuca slides, or subducts, below the North American plate, creating a massive fault. Over time, sediment and debris build along the fault. The resulting increase in friction locks the plates together, creating tremendous force and strain. Eventually, the fault ruptures, causing a massive earthquake as it displaces the rock above the fault upwards relative to the rock below it.
It was a cycle, bound to repeat, forever. But no one knew how to predict the next one more than a few minutes in advance. It was part of the research the lab had been involved in for years, but Andy didn’t specialize in megathrusts themselves, only the aftereffects. Tsunamis. Monster quakes were more Mark’s area of expertise.
“If it’s a magnitude 9.0 or greater…” Sammie trailed off.
“The coasts of Washington, Oregon, and a good portion of California will be affected.” Mark rubbed the stubble across his chin. “We’re talking millions of people.”
Andy leaned back in his chair, thinking over the implications. “If it’s a 9.0, that’s what, four minutes of continuous tremors? The resulting tsunami will flood Seattle and Portland.”
“That’s what happened three hundred years ago.” Sammie wrapped an arm around her middle. “A dendrochronologist recently found a forest buried under Lake Washington. He theorized the entire coastline of Washington state fell into the ocean after a megathrust ruptured the fault and a tsunami hit the coast. It was one of the biggest landslides ever discovered.”
“The land plummeted up to two meters, didn’t it?” Mark asked.
Sammie nodded. “The topography of the coastline was radically changed. An entire Native American tribe was killed, their lands swallowed up by the ocean and turned to mud. Other tribes passed down oral history of the incident and told French fur traders in the early 1700s about it. It’s how researchers knew to look for physical evidence.”
A sour sensation swirled in Andy’s stomach. He remembered a detail from his tsunami research. “If that’s the same quake I’m thinking of, wasn’t the tsunami so large it swept across the ocean and caused destruction along the Pacific coast of Japan? If I remember right, the wave was 600 miles long. The Japanese called it an orphan tsunami because they felt no earthquake before it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Mark crossed his arms and stared at the screen. “If this isn’t merely increased background activity… If this thing actually ruptures…” He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish. Both Andy and Sammie already knew what the end of his sentence would be. An earthquake of this magnitude would be apocalyptic.
“Look at the fault motion readings in the Salish Sea.” Sammie pointed again to the center of the screen. “They can’t be right.”
“The software has never failed us before.”
Sammie ran her tongue over her lips, eyes locked on the horrifying data displayed in front
Mark glanced first at Sammie, then Andy. “We have to warn people. It’s still showing an estimated magnitude range as high as nine.”
“It makes my head spin,” Sammie whispered.
“Catastrophic.” Andy barely recognized the scratchy voice as his own. Gone were thoughts about permanent research positions, Mark’s tenuous status in the lab, even the puckered skin lining the back of his throat. The United States was about to experience the worst natural disaster in its history.
“There’s no mass early warning system in the Pacific Northwest.” Mark jogged back to his desk. “Emergency alerts won’t deploy until it’s too late.”
“What are you doing?” Sweat slicked Andy’s palm and the coffee mug almost slipped from his hand as he set it down.
Mark plucked his phone off his desk and began punching numbers into the pad. “I’m getting on the phone to the lead researcher for the M9 Project at the University of Washington. He might not have seen it yet.” Perspiration dotted his forehead in a glossy glitter.
The M9 Project was a consortium of researchers across disciplines who studied the Cascadia zone exclusively, focused on reducing catastrophic potential effects of a megathrust quake. Best positioned to reach news media quickly, Andy supposed. With any luck they were already on it—three steps ahead of Mark, blasting the airwaves with warning.
“Hello?” Mark’s voice jittered as the call connected. “This is Mark Jamison from the Berkeley Seismology Lab.” He paused, his eyes reaching Andy and Sammie’s. “Have you seen any abnormal readings coming out of Cascadia?”
He waited. “No, it’s not that. Look—” He wiped a hand across his forehead. “Our data is preliminary, but the readings… They’re consistent with precursor seismic activity of a megathrust quake—up to magnitude 9.0—occurring along the fault.”
He paused again as a tinny voice echoed across the line. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Andy’s stomach churned.
Mark spoke again. “Imminent. Seattle, Portland and frankly the entire Pacific Northwest is at severe risk. I can’t predict when, but the activity is off the charts. Usually, these small cluster quakes… I know you’re aware, but most people won’t even notice them. By the time they do, it might be too late.”
The person on the other line spoke again and Mark shook his head. “We could have ten minutes. We could have an hour. Our forecasting doesn’t give a timeline. All I know is, it’s coming.”
Andy stared at the computer screen as Mark continued to speak with someone at the M9 Project, debating the veracity of the data and what it meant. If the current readings were the lead up to a megathrust quake, then a huge chunk of the United States was about to experience something unimaginable.
He calculated the timing. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake would shake the ground for an unimaginable four minutes. Followed by a thirty-to-forty-minute reprieve wherein the ocean would be sucked away from the shore, exposing up to a mile of sand and marine life. That huge swell of water would then rebound, creating a tsunami so large, the wave would crush Seattle, Portland, and a hundred little communities in between.
Buildings not toppled in the quake would flood, homes not shaken apart would be swept inland, thousands of people who thought the worst was over would find themselves in a flash flood of epic proportions.
And as of now, no one knew it was coming.
CHAPTER ONE
MIKA
“What about a first aid kit?” Hampton asked.
“Got it,” Mika chimed in a proud voice, waving the zippered red pouch in front of the phone.
Both of Hampton’s eyebrows shot up on the screen. “Wow. I’m impressed.”
“Why?” Mika snorted out a laugh as she shook her head at her best friend. “Don’t look so shocked. I have a whole list of items to pack. The key to packing for a trip like this is to bring the necessities only. You don’t want to run out of steam two miles into a four-mile hike because your pack is too heavy.”
“You can probably carry a million pounds. You’ve been backpacking since you were three.”
“With all the plyometrics you do for volleyball, you’ve got this, Hampton. As long as you don’t bring the kitchen sink, you’re fine.”
“Jumping and hiking are not the same thing.”
Mika switched the camera view on her phone and panned her bed. “Here, just take a look at what I’m bringing.” The first aid kit was accompanied by a few bandanas, a head lamp, spare batteries, a solar charger, some emergency snacks, and a water bottle.
Hampton leaned closer, auburn curls falling across her camera. “I don’t see any skittles. The whole list is suspect.”
“You’re lucky I can’t poke you through the phone.” Mika plopped down on her bed and her hairbrush slid off the comforter, clanging onto the wood floor. She groaned as she reached to retrieve it and the toe of her unpacked hiking boots dug into her side. Although she’d already packed most of her gear, she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d forgotten something.
“You’re lucky I haven’t come down with the instamatic flu.”
“I thought you saved that for Mrs. Winshear’s biology exams.”
The freckles across the bridge of Hampton’s nose smushed together as she scrunched up her face to keep from laughing. Mika snorted and, in a moment, both girls were laughing so hard, tears leaked from the corners of their eyes. Having a friend—a real one, not one of those girls who hung out after school but ignored you in the hall—was something Mika never took for granted.
She wiped her face and propped her phone against a pillow before winding her long, unruly mane into a messy bun on top of her head. “It’s going to be fun; I promise.”
Hampton gave her a look. “I could think of better ways to spend a three-day weekend off from school.”
“You might be dreading it now but trust me. You’ll have a blast once you get there.” Hampton lacked experience with the great outdoors, but they lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world with a national park basically in their backyard. Once the troop reached the first scenic overlook, Hampton would understand why Mika loved backpacking. She was sure of it.
She brought the phone closer to her face and beamed a cheesy smile at the camera. “Besides, you have me, remember?”
“I’m sure you won’t let me forget.”
“We’ll bond and make memories.”
“Hanging out with a bunch of sweaty girls who are too into their feelings, gossiping around a campfire at night?” Hampton scowled like she smelled a rotten egg. “Those kinds of memories?”
Mika shrugged. “It won’t be as bad as you’re envisioning.”
“You’ll have a transformative experience that you’ll never forget, and I’ll just get poison ivy and a sprained ankle.”
“Think positive, Hamp. It’s going to be great.” She reached down and grabbed the beat-up spiral notebook off her bed and ran her eyes down the packing list. “I’ve got everything on my list, but I swear there’s something I’ve forgotten.”
“It’s called sanity.”
Mika laughed despite Hampton’s serious tone. “At least I’ve got a packing list. You probably threw everything in your backpack and crossed your fingers it wouldn’t explode.”
“Hey! Controlled chaos works.” Hampton’s chin jutted out in mock defiance.
“It might work for a night in Seattle, but this is backpacking. The more organized, the better.” Mika hoped her best friend had at least given a little thought to what to bring.
She’d twisted Hampton’s arm to join her on this trip by promising legendary views and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. But even that had failed until Hampton’s parents caught wind of it. They had moved to Port Angeles from Seattle almost a year ago and had yet to convince their only child to take advantage of the opportunities living on the Olympic Peninsula provided. Once Mika explained the details, Hampton’s dad practically forced her to go.
