Page 7 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

7.

In the command post, the canvas sides fluttering, the top aclatter with raindrops, Colter explained to Tolifson and Officer TC McGuire that he had been visiting his mother, along with Dorion and Eduardo Gutiérrez, who’d just finished up at a conference in the Bay Area. His sister had heard of the collapse from her employees and she and her coworker hurried here. Colter did not add that he probably would have come earlier but Dorion didn’t learn of the SUV washing into the river until she’d arrived. As soon as she’d heard she’d texted the Need help message.

Tolifson looked like he wanted to make up for the B-word faux pas but couldn’t find an entrée. He needn’t have worried. Colter wasn’t going to dime him out and he—like all the Shaw siblings—was not inclined to hold grudges.

Never waste time on revenge.

As the firefighters and other town employees were spreading the word about evacuation door-to-door, there was a meeting in the command post of the strategists: Hanlon Tolifson, the mayor/police chief, TC McGuire, Colter, Dorion and a short, sturdy blond woman officer. Debi Starr was not young—thirties—but clearly a newcomer to law enforcement. An apprentice, or intern, Colter could tell, from the way Tolifson and McGuire spoke to her—and from her agreeable nodding and scurrying off to do what she’d been assigned.

Efficient assistants ruled the world.

Ed Gutiérrez was presently on the ground, among the crew marshalling the evacuees. His wife and children were flying in from the East Coast tomorrow for some time hiking in the Sierra Nevadas, which were at their most beautiful this time of June, weather allowing. Well, that had been the plan. Now? Who knew?

Dorion said, “We’ve got the Army Corps of Engineers en route. Standard procedure is sandbagging. Let’s hope they’re bringing plenty.” She nodded to the crest of the levee over which tens of thousands of gallons were pouring every minute.

Colter found it curious that while the feds were sending the army engineers, there were no county or state responders. He asked about it, and Dorion muttered, “California Water Resources responds to floods. One of its main missions. But there’s a wrinkle.”

Her dark expression matched that of Tolifson’s and McGuire’s. The mayor explained that those resources had gone exclusively to the city of Fort Pleasant, the Olechu County seat. The supervisor himself, Prescott Moore, had been approached directly, and though he had personal and professional reasons to shift resources to Hinowah, he had declined to do so.

Tolifson said, “They’re treating us like the runt of the litter. We’re on our own. I don’t know why. The river’s wider in Fort Pleasant. Flooding’ll be gradual. Damage, sure, but no loss of life.”

Dorion nodded to the town and then glanced at her brother. “Evac’s moving slowly. Lot of remainers.” The word for those who because of obstinance, denial, laziness or political leaning were not inclined to do what the authorities told them to. Convincing people to leave their homes was one of the most difficult tasks of disaster response, Dorion had told Colter. Barring a massive wall of wildfire flames speeding toward your house at twenty miles per hour, when flight was the only option, owners vastly preferred to stay and fight to protect their homes, however improbable the odds of success. Family photographs and souvenirs and heirlooms? People just don’t want to give them up. She had once asked Colter to guess the number one thing in a house that kept people from evacuation in a forest fire.

When he said he had no idea, she’d answered, “Fish. You can get your dogs and cats into a car, you can grab a hamster cage. But aquariums you have to leave behind.”

Looking thoughtful, Tolifson sighed and said, “The family? In the Suburban. Hate to say it but, I mean, wouldn’t you think they’d be, you know, gone by now?”

“No,” Colter said. “Not at all.”

“But…” The mayor cast a glance toward the river.

“Late-model cars and SUVs are all sealed pretty well for sound and temperature. What’s the riverbed?”

“Dirt,” Starr said.

“Good. Now it’s mud. A natural sealant. A six-thousand-pound vehicle, with passengers, would settle into the bed fast and that’d seal most of the bottom vents and intakes. There’ll still be water coming in. No vehicle’s watertight. But the air pressure and window and door seals will keep most of the air inside. If they have anything else they can seal it with, that’d be a plus.”

“How long until they run out of air?” the mayor asked.

“The issue isn’t running out of air,” Colter said. “It’s running out of oxygen .”

“Aren’t they the same?” Tolifson asked.

“No. Air is a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, CO 2 , argon, neon and hydrogen. It’s the proportion of those gases that’s critical. What we breathe is mostly nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. CO 2 is only 0.03 to 0.05 percent. Exhaled air has a big jump in carbon dioxide—to about 4 percent. The oxygen in a closed space decreases while the carbon dioxide goes up. Suffocation isn’t lack of air. It’s poisoning by CO 2 . When it hits 8 to 10 percent, you die.”

Starr was frowning. “How much time?”

Colter said, “I looked it up—a Chevy Suburban has about a hundred and fifty cubic feet of cargo space. With the passenger compartment, call it another fifty. So two hundred. The time-to-limit-level of CO 2 —that 8 or so percent—is around six or seven minutes per cubic foot—for one person. There are four people inside?”

“That’s what Louis thought.”

“Assume small children—the younger the better—so three hours plus for the whole family. There are ways to extend that a bit. Wet carpet will dissolve some CO 2 . If you’re trapped, you can pee on the rugs. That helps. Though only temporarily. In this SUV the carpet’s sure to be plenty wet already.”

“If we can’t get to them in time,” Tolifson said grimly, “I guess at least they’ll go to sleep peacefully.”

“That’s only true if you pump the air out of a space altogether, both oxygen and carbon dioxide. CO 2 poisoning is not a good way to die. At 4 percent CO 2 , you start to get restless, have headaches, hallucinate—and the survival mechanism is to get the body out of there. So you start to have panic attacks. Bad ones. Then thrashing. By 6 percent you’re gagging uncontrollably.”

“Lord, I had no idea.” Starr whispered this.

Colter was looking at a map of the area on a large laptop, running off a generator. He located their position and studied the topography. “I’ll head south along Thirteen, so I’ll be closer to the drone if there’s a hit.”

He explained that for speed he would take the dirt bike. His backpack carried basic rescue equipment, including a glass-break tool, supplemental oxygen and respirators, hose, a diamond-tipped saw and a drill, first aid gear.

In his thoughts was a fact that went unstated. He also had six body bags in the camper.

Which he would not take with him.

Dorion said, “The town council president—he’s also the fire chief—is downstream, searching.”

Tolifson nodded. “Tomas Martinez.” He added, “Ms. Shaw pulled back the rest of the search party. Left him. By himself.”

The chill in his voice was obvious.

Dorion had no reaction, but said to McGuire, “If you could get back on evac detail. And remember to threaten to arrest anybody who doesn’t comply.”

Tolifson said, “Uhm, Ms. Shaw, I don’t know that we can. Isn’t it just a misdemeanor?”

“You can arrest them, sure,” Colter said. He was the one Shaw child who had considered law school. He could answer Tolifson’s question, though, not for that reason but because he himself had been arrested for misdemeanors on several occasions. It went with the reward-seeking territory.

Dorion pointed to the Public Safety building. “You’ve got a prisoner transport van. I can see it.”

Starr said, “We only use it to take DUIs to County. And meth cookers, once in a blue moon.”

Dorion said, “Just throw a couple of the more arrogant ones inside and make sure people see it. Word’ll spread fast. Then release ’em.”

Tolifson said, “Can’t they sue for wrongful arrest?”

Debi Starr said, “In this podcast I was listening to, somebody tried that, and the judge laughed the stinkers out of court.”

McGuire climbed into his pickup, three-pointed and descended quickly into town on the tight gravel switchback.

Colter said, “Dorion mentioned there was a witness who saw the SUV.”

“Louis Bell. That’s his pickup stuck at the other end.”

“Did he say if the Suburban was upside down or not?”

“Upside down, he thought, but it all happened fast. He just glanced in the mirror and saw it go in. He had to pay attention. There was a car in front of him.”

“What car?”

“We don’t know anything about it, except a blue sports car, woman driving. Driver made it off the levee and just kept going. She wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Colter asked, “You have no idea who the family is or about the tag on the SUV?”

Starr shook her head. “All we know is it’s not local. All the white Suburbans registered here’re accounted for.”

This was unfortunate. If they had a name he could contact other family members about the incident—and learn if they had any particular skills that might help in survival.

Colter consulted his phone. The drone and float were now several miles downstream. Dorion, scanning the evac progress, didn’t bother to glance his way. The two had worked together from time to time and they tended not to pepper their conversation with unnecessary queries like “See anything?” Or “You’re okay?” On the theory that if the other had seen something or was not okay, there’d be an announcement.

A flash of dark motion took their attention. Another trough opened at the crest of the levee and more water gushed downward, adding to the flood in the spillway, and sending a brown tidal wave over a large retention pond.

A huge flash filled the western portion of the town, near the spillway, then a crack like a gunshot, as the substation exploded.

“Lord,” Tolifson muttered.

Dorion’s voice was dark. “Wanted to blow the south side of the spillway but the copper mine here didn’t have any gel. Hate it when comms go down.”

At that moment, Shaw’s phone gave a trill. He looked down. A small red dot had appeared on video feed from the drone. “May have a hit.” The others turned quickly.

“About three miles downstream.” He looked at the screen. “Could be a vehicle roof just under the surface.”

He sprinted up the hill to the camper, pulled his backpack from beside the front seat and, running to the back, pulled the Yamaha bike off the rack. He climbed on and fired up the engine. He didn’t bother with the U-shaped switchback road that offered a gradual descent into town. He went straight down the north hillside into the village and toward the spillway bridge, feeling a faint chill down his back as above him the levee disgorged another massive wad of mud. It slid near but not into his path. The flow of water increased once more.

Then he was climbing up the opposite hill, catching air and landing on smooth asphalt.

Soon, he was heading south at seventy miles an hour, weaving through an obstacle course of branches and patches of leaves that would be slick as ice.