Page 22 of South of Nowhere

“Dorion Shaw?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Sergeant Tamara Olsen, Army Corps of Engineers. I got this number from Police Chief Tolifson.”

“I’m looking at you now. From the hillside across the valley.”

A pause. “The tents. Got it.”

She saw a trim woman also in an OD uniform climb out of the passenger seat of the first SUV and walk around to the front of the vehicle and gaze at the levee. She said a few words to the two men, then returned to the call. “My corporals say the integrity of the levee’s good for now. I’ll drive over.”

Olsen returned to her vehicle and the Ford Expedition drove down the south hillside, crossed the bridge over the spillway and made its way through town. Then it wound up the switchback road to the city park that was the command post.

She climbed out. The woman with standout red hair had intense, focused green eyes and a firm handshake as she greeted Dorion first, then Tolifson. A brief nod at Debi Starr.

In a firm, low voice, she said, “I’m not promising anything, but we’ve got a battle plan. And I think we’re going to save your town.”

9.

Time Elapsed from Initial Collapse: 2 Hours

Olsen set up shop in the command post, opening a computer of her own—and powering up a jetpack. She was happy, though, to take advantage of the town’s generator.

Her phone hummed and she took a call. “Be a sec,” she whispered to Dorion and Tolifson and stepped aside.

Dorion regarded her own phone for texts. Nothing from Colter yet. Eduardo Gutiérrez reported that he had recruited twelve townspeople to root out residents from their homes. Per her instructions, he had given each of them her phone number with instructions to text with regular updates about the evacuation. The sweep was starting at the most dangerous area—directly under the levee, in front of the broad, flooding retention pond—and proceeding west.

She was troubled to learn that several scores of remainers were refusing to budge, ignoring or even firing snide comments toward the evac team. There was a bar near the levee, occupied even now, in this early hour, and people were making the monumentally bad choice to steel themselves up for disaster, rather than simply avoiding it.

TC McGuire’s text said he had threatened arrest, and a number of the patrons laughed at him.

She texted back:

Arrest the loudest. Use cuffs.

She judged he was not a smiley-face kind of guy. But the words “With Pleasure” were an equivalent.

Dorion eyed the levee and the soldiers across the valley on the south side of shattered Route 13. She knew a little about the Corps of Engineers, and had worked with them on several previous disasters. Their authority was far more extensive than most people thought. They supported troops in combat by building bridges and battlements and the like, but that was only a minor portion of their job. They also built and maintained all of the U.S. military installations around the world, and managed most of the country’s inland waterways and dams. The Corps was also one of the biggest providers of energy in the country, and the nation’s largest source of outdoor recreation, operating thousands of parks.

Given its jurisdiction over waterways, one of its specialties was flood control. A law from the 1930s gave them primacy over the subject. And she was encouraged that they were here. Their presence was far better than county responders who might be hardworking and diligent but who would have little, if any, expertise in water disasters.

Olsen disconnected and offered a smile to Dorion. “You’re civilian, I understand. Disaster response.”

“That’s right. Normally I’d have a full team on a situation like this. But it’s not an official job. I was nearby on a personal trip and our monitoring system picked up the incident. I got an alert from my office back home.”

“She’s doing it for free,” Tolifson said. “Bless her.”

Dorion was amused; there was a faintly uncertain element to his voice as if he wanted to remind her that that was the agreement.

Olsen lifted an impressed eyebrow. She would undoubtedly havehad plenty of experience with contractors in the disaster relief business who milked the situation for every penny they could.

“Any injuries?”

Debi Starr said grimly, “Probably. An SUV went into the river.” The woman had appeared behind Dorion. She kept forgetting about the police officer, who seemed timid to the point of being invisible. Dorion thought, entirely unfairly, of “bring your child to work” days—when her own daughters would sit in an unoccupied office, organizing papers to be copied and untangling comms cords.

Dorion said, “We had a lead on the SUV about fifteen minutes ago. Downstream. Somebody’s gone to check it out.”

Tolifson said, “It’s a family inside.”

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