LITMIR.BIZ

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gut Southern California and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage, just as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had totaled that city and population.

      As the ground continued to shiver and shake like a horse wrinkling its skin to get rid of pesky flies, Wes slowly rolled over and got to his feet. All around him, people were crying and shouting in panic. There weren’t many buildings left standing on the plaza except for the old, solidly built B.O.Q. and about five others around the plaza. On the horizon, fires were lighting up the sky with frightening speed no matter which direction he looked. Most of them seemed to be beyond the base and for that he breathed a small sigh of relief. He hoped the damage at Camp Reed would be minimal compared to the destruction he saw before him. Wes knew there was a nuclear power plant located at San Onofre, at the western edge of Camp Reed and right on the Pacific Ocean. How badly had it been damaged? From an engineering standpoint, there wasn’t a question in Wes’s mind that it had been. The real question was had the concrete withstood the shattering impact of this killer quake, or was it leaking radiation?

      “We gotta get to H.Q.,” he told Russ, who was a lieutenant in the motor pool, which was their transportation department.

      Russ slowly got to his feet. He looked around, shock written on his face. “Yeah…. God, what’s happened, Wes? Was this the Big One?”

      Grimly, Wes wiped his freshly shaved jaw, which was smudged with dirt and grass stains. “Yeah, I think it was. Let’s get over there. It’s only a couple blocks away. I hope it’s still standing.” He looked around the square. The asphalt was buckled and crumbled every few feet, from what he could tell. Without light, he couldn’t see that far.

      Russ looked at the B.O.Q., awe written on his face. “Look at that, will you?” And he pointed up at it.

      Wes turned. “I’m glad it’s still standing. We’re going to need a place to get some rest after putting in fourteen-hour days of rescue and recovery after this quake.”

      Russ nodded. Pushing his thick fingers through his mussed blond hair, he muttered, “They’re gonna want every available officer over at H.Q. I know General Wilson will put the disaster plan into action.”

      Grimly, Wes nodded, his gaze roaming over the devastation before him. It was gonna be one helluva long night….

      January 1: 0030

      Callie stood among the hundreds of Marine Corps officers who had been squeezed into one of the largest rooms at Camp Reed Headquarters. Fortunately, the building had sustained only minimal damage. There was a crack running up one of the stucco walls, but otherwise, the room looked fine. At least the lights were on, courtesy of the gasoline generator outside the building.

      Callie saw General Jeb Wilson, the base commanding officer, standing up at the podium. A tall, gaunt-looking man in his midfifties with short black hair peppered with gray at his temples, the general was known around the base as “Bulldog Wilson” because his face was square, his jowls set and his thin mouth always drawn in a tight, downward curve. Tonight he looked even more grim than usual.

      The officers milling around in desert cammos or civilian clothes were like tall trees around her and because she was so short, Callie was jostled often. The murmuring voices were strained, and she saw stress and shock in the face of every man and woman in attendance. They were crowded together so tightly that Callie felt suffocated. Either her feet were being stepped on accidentally or someone’s elbow was jamming into her back, or she was being pushed because some officer wasn’t looking where he was going.

      It was now 0030, just a little past midnight, almost three hours after the killer earthquake had struck. The call for all officers to meet at H.Q. had gone out an hour ago over battery-fueled radios and cell phones. Because there was no electricity available at the moment, radios, the normal means of communication, weren’t available. Luckily, in this day and age, Callie thought, nearly everyone carried a cell phone.

      Many of the officers were in civilian clothes. Their faces were grim, strain and shock clearly etched in their expressions, their voices low and emotional. Callie was the only one in the room from the rescue dog unit, that she could see. Standing on tiptoes, she tried to see if she recognized anyone else in the milling assemblage. There were twenty-two dogs and handlers in her unit, but most of the personnel lived off base. She lived off base, too, but had been on duty along with Sergeant Irene Anson, who was manning their facility right now. Luckily, the quake had not harmed them and had only opened a crack in the corrugated roof above the kennels. They had checked every dog to make sure it was okay, and thankfully, they were all fine. As Callie craned her neck to get a better view, she saw an officer with short black hair, his eyes grim looking, hold up a set of blueprints before the general at the podium.

      Instantly, Callie was drawn to him and instantly she told herself he was far too handsome and would never even take a second look at her. She tried to ignore the officer’s gaze as it settled momentarily on hers.

      Talk surrounded Callie like the sound of bees buzzing, and she longed to know what was happening. When she heard General Wilson’s voice boom out, everyone stopped moving and talking. The room seemed to freeze, every officer’s breathing suspended in anticipation of what he might say.

      “At ease,” Wilson commanded in his deep, rolling tone. He gazed across the crowded room, his brow wrinkling deeply. “I’ve just gotten off sat com—satellite communications—with the Pentagon. According to the experts, we have just been hit with a massive earthquake here in Southern California—8.9 on the Richter scale. According to the experts, they’re calling it the Big One.” Grimly, he continued in a rasp, “It has knocked out all electricity, all water and all amenities—pretty much all modern conveniences that civilian communities from central Los Angeles, southward to San Juan Capistrano and west as far as Redlands. The San Andreas Fault has moved six feet in an easterly direction.” He rubbed his brow. “Ladies and gentlemen, for whatever reasons, Camp Reed has been relatively untouched, spared by this killer earthquake. As I understand it from my discussion with experts, a minor fault runs in a north-south direction under us. It saved us from major damage as a result. The Los Angeles International Airport is inoperable. All their runways have been destroyed. Nearly every airport, minor or major around it, has also been destroyed. According to the Pentagon, Camp Reed’s ten-thousand-foot runways are the only ones available to start bringing in cargo planes with supplies and help. We’re still receiving information via cell phone and battery-operated radios from local police and fire departments, but it looks like the entire southern Los Angeles area has been left without any way to get help to its citizens. We are sitting on top of a disaster of untold proportions.

      “Luckily, the Marine Corps has worked with the Disaster Preparedness Center, an extension of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose function is to restore order during just such an event.” Wilson held up a thick blue book. “Our S.O.P.—standard operating procedure—is clear. If we are operable, and we are, then what it boils down to in this worst-case scenario is that Camp Reed becomes the only entrance-exit point for medical, fuel, water and food resources for this region.”

      Callie gasped, as did several others. The magnitude of the general’s comments sent a cold chill through her. Camp Reed would become the focus point for all relief and emergency help.

      “General,” one officer called, raising his hand, “sir, what about the highways? The freeways? Can we—”

      Wilson shook his head tiredly. “Captain, every major road has been destroyed. Every freeway. Every bridge has buckled. There is no way for any vehicle to go very far. As soon as dawn arrives, we’re looking at going up in Huey helicopters to start assessing the damage. Right now, what I want to do is to break everyone into teams. Colonel Gray, here, has the disaster preparedness plan. Colonel?”

      Callie waited as the silver-haired colonel came up to the podium. The urgency of the situation, the shock and terror of the picture being painted, washed like a tidal wave through the room. She stood there knowing that her team of quake rescue dogs would be on the front lines of the military’s efforts.

      “First off, is there anyone here from our General Rescue?” the colonel asked,

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