ELIZABETH HOLLERAN PEERED INTO THE BATHROOM mirror. Her light gray eyes looked red and puffy and she dabbed them with cold water. She’d had less than four hours’ sleep and looked as bad as she felt. It was nearly 3:00 before she’d found a motel, a Best Western five miles south of Memphis. Motel space was at a premium.
She turned on the television and caught the end of the news. With all the closed highways and detours, the morning commute was a disaster. Gridlock gripped the city and by 7:00 A.M. the mayor had gone on the radio asking people to stay home. A helicopter beamed back live video of the fires that were still burning.
The bathroom had a small hotplate for making coffee. After drinking a cup, Elizabeth called Walter Jacobs’ office. He wasn’t in so she left a voice mail message. By late morning, after getting good directions from the motel manager, she set out for the university. Instead of trying to drive through the city this time, she looped around the outskirts on I-240 and came up Perkins Road, which got her to within a couple blocks of the campus.
Police were keeping the news media away from the earthquake center. Elizabeth tried to explain who she was to one of the campus cops. She showed him her faculty ID from Cal Tech, but got nowhere.
Without proper identification, no one was allowed in the building. Period.
A wave of anxiety hit her. It had happened several times already, ever since she’d arrived in Memphis and seen the damage up close. The thought kept hammering at her that they were still approaching Prable’s date of maximum seismic stress. She knew that it was highly unlikely anything else would happen, that there’d be another earthquake. Prable’s methodology remained highly suspect and questionable in her opinion. But the fact remained he’d come eerily close with his prediction for a major quake on or about January 20. At the very least, she wanted to show Prable’s data to Jacobs.
If he’d let her.
She had her doubts about that. With a crisis on his hands, he wasn’t likely to be too open to hearing what she had to say.
Deep in thought, she barely felt the tap on her shoulder.
“Are you Elizabeth Holleran?” It was a slender young woman with freckles and braided hair. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder. She held out her hand sheepishly.
“I’m Amy Price. I heard you give your name to that cop. I’m a grad student here in the geology department. I just finished reading your paper in my earth seismology class. The one about the trenching you’re doing on the San Andreas Fault. It really sounds cool.”
Her words came out in an excited, self-conscious rush. Elizabeth was genuinely flattered that Amy was so obviously happy to meet her. The kid was even blushing. Then Elizabeth had a thought. She told her that she needed to get into the earthquake center’s building to see Walter Jacobs. That it was very important. She wanted to know if there was another entrance.
“No problem,” Amy said, happy to be of service. “Follow me.”
She led Elizabeth behind the two homes that served as offices for the earthquake center and the university’s geology department. The center occupied one house, which it shared with the USGS. The geology department the other. A driveway and narrow expanse of lawn separated them.
The geology building wasn’t guarded. Amy took Elizabeth through the back door and led her into the basement.
“I think half the department is already down here,” she said.
“Doing what?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled by the trip through the basement.
Amy smiled and said, “Trying to listen.”
The two homes, she explained, had once been the university’s student health center and were connected by a tunnel. As many as ten grad students were sitting on the narrow flight of steps that led up to a door that opened directly inside the earthquake center’s building. The door was closed, but not locked.
“They’re having a big meeting up there about the earthquake,” Amy said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “We’re trying to hear what they’re saying.”
“It just got started,” one of the students said, a heavyset kid with shoulder-length hair tied back. “They’re all in Walt Jacobs’ office.”