Siberian Treasure

Siberian Treasure Page 2

She tripped over tree roots and stones, while the men around her walked smoothly and carefully. At last, they came to darkness that loomed in front of them. The base of a mountain.

Before she knew what was happening, Irina was shoved through a small crevice in the wake of the leader and found herself inside: safe from the elements, but in darkness and closeness and in the presence of strangers.

They hustled her between them deeper into the mountain, down into the darkness of the earth.

-1-

June 30, 2007

Allentown, Pennsylvania

Police Chief Vince Bruger launched his fishing line with a smooth, practiced stroke. He sent two more lines sailing into the water, then, after settling the last of the three rods in its propped holder, relaxed against a fallen log.

Other than the constant movement of the river water, and the occasional bird song, silence reigned. Just the way he liked it on a Friday afternoon. Maureen had the kids down to Philadelphia for the day, shopping and visiting with her mother, and Vince had been glad for the excuse of not joining them.

Not that he didn’t like his mother-in-law. She was fine as they went, but he’d wanted to finish staining the woodwork around the living room. It was a lot easier to do that when two kids and a wife weren’t underfoot, wanting to help and wondering when he was going to be done so she could find something else for him to do. On his day off.

It had taken all of thirty minutes for him to finish that task (not that he’d ever admit it to Maureen) and now he could kick back and relax.

It had been one hell of a week at police headquarters in Allentown. Not anything as bad as a homicide or even any major accidents or fires; but with the new computer system upgrade, and the move to a new building, and the Fourth of July coming up next week … .Vince’d had enough on his hands to just want a day of peace by the river.

After all, next week they’d be managing all kinds of amateurs with their fireworks, as well as bonfires and picnics and parades. Celebrating the independence of his country was important, but one hell of a lot of work went into it for him and his law enforcement team. And there was a full moon coming. He’d been in law enforcement for twenty years, give or take, and call him loony, but a full moon always meant more trouble, more fires, more accidents and injuries. More crazy things happening.

He reached for the cold beer nestled in the small cooler. And he felt the ground tremor.

One of his fishing poles fell from its perch, and a few leaves fell from the trees above. Then the earth was still again. Strange.

He gulped down a couple swigs of Rolling Rock, then set the green bottle back in the cooler. As he shifted forward to readjust the pole that had fallen over, the earth rumbled beneath him again.

What the hell? An earthquake in Allentown?

The shifting and trembling became stronger, and he could hear the heavy, deep roll of the earth moving beneath him. Or something.

All of his poles clattered to the stone-strewn beach, and the rumbling got louder, and stronger. Vince was on his feet by now, and good thing, too, for a large branch crashed to the ground where he’d been sitting.

The river water churned and sprayed, more branches fell, and, to his horror, Vince saw cracks appearing in the earth beneath his feet.

He bolted away from the crevices and dashed toward his black S-150 parked a hundred yards away, digging in his jeans pocket for its key. Forget the fishing poles, the cooler … he needed to get his ass into town and find out what damage was happening there.

So much for a relaxing Friday afternoon.

Sirens wailed and disaster warnings blared. The earthquake had ended, but left the town center buildings in shambles and people acting hysterical. Trees and buildings were ruined; rubble, branches, spikes of metal, and concrete littered the city center.

He didn’t even try to get to his office; instead, he headed for the city’s disaster command center that had been created in the wake of 9/11. It was underground near the outskirts of the city off Route 145.

Inside, the trained staff was calm and organized, hectic and determined. Since all appearances indicated it was an earthquake, they could at least rule out terrorists, and, despite the disaster and its consequences, an earthquake was preferable to believing the town was under attack by some suicidal terrorist group.

A quick meeting with Mayor Fullton, a touch-base with his team, and then Vince was back out into the center of the furor. He’d learned that the new chemical plant on the outskirts of town was completely leveled, and that was where most of the rescue efforts had of necessity been focused. Assistance was coming from Philadelphia and Princeton, and other places as well. Interestingly enough, no other communities had felt more than slight tremors during the disaster. It was all contained in the fulcrum of Allentown, and the epicenter appeared to be directly beneath that new chemical plant.

It was an odd-looking mess for an earthquake, Bruger thought. He’d seen pictures on television; never seen one in person before, of course, because they didn’t have earthquakes on the East Coast. It looked like a whole island of ground had erupted from the earth, as high as ten feet in some places. And in the perimeter around it, ground had sort of fallen away. Deep, rugged crevices and chunks of earth, some fifteen, sixteen feet deep. The buildings and vehicles around the area had tumbled to the ground, crashing on top of each other and into the deep pits and cracks, making more of a mess.

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-

June 30, 2007

Princeton University

“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.