Without warning

Kipper caught himself obsessively twisting and wrenching one of the straps on his backpack as he tried to imagine what had happened, what bizarre correlation of physical forces might have done such a thing. He couldn’t think of a single explanation. He was a civil engineer, a good one, just quietly, but he maintained a professional interest in related fields, and indeed in most of the hard sciences. As a young boy he’d wanted to be an astronaut (who doesn’t?), but he wasn’t one for uniforms and taking orders and sucking up a lot of chickenshit nonsense. So he’d refused to go down the path his old man had been pushing him towards – a career in the air force. He loved building things, not blowing them up. He’d never quite got the bug out of his system though, and a lot of his down time consisted of reading the sort of scientific journals to which he might have contributed had he pulled on a space suit for real, instead of just in his dreams.

But nothing he’d ever read, learned or seen in his private or professional experience went one inch towards explaining what the hell had happened while he’d been off on his precious fucking nature walk.

Kipper shook himself out of his thoughts. The plane had touched down on a patch of concrete apron north of the control tower, affording him a good view of both runways and the terminal complex. He could see right away that things weren’t normal. There was an unusually large number of planes on the ground, and none taking off. In one glance he could make out the liveries of half-a-dozen stranded carriers. Midwest. Jetblue. Frontier. China Airlines. They all had flights parked by terminals they wouldn’t normally have used. A bunch of 737s and MD80s from Alaskan Airlines had huddled together, a bit like an old wagon train, down near the fire station, while a collection of jumbos and long-haulers from overseas had laagered up at the southern end of the airport. As his transport rumbled along the tarmac, a United Airlines Airbus aborted a landing with a scream of turbines and a building roar while it heaved itself back into the sky again. Kipper craned out of the cabin to see if he could spot whatever had gone wrong, but the Guardsmen were already popping harnesses and hurrying him out of the aircraft.

‘This way, sir,’ a woman in a Nomex flight suit yelled at him, pressing a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘Follow me.’

Kipper did as he was told, crouching slightly for no good reason. It just seemed appropriate. The airport was a thunderbowl of screaming engines, jet exhaust and speeding vehicles, all of it controlled in some vague chaotic way by hundreds of scurrying, shouting men and women in coveralls and headphones. There were a lot more military uniforms than he was used to seeing, as well. The engineer allowed himself to be led across to a waiting Ford pick-up with city markings, where Barney Tench, a huge shambolic figure in khaki drill pants and a faded blue shirt, was waiting for him, looking worried.

Tench came forward, holding out his hand and shaking his head. ‘Man, am I glad to see you, buddy,’ he called out over the background roar. ‘Thought we might have lost you up there, Kip. We lost a lot of people. I think Locke’s gone, Owen too. Nobody can find the mayor either, but Nickells wasn’t scheduled to be out of town, so maybe he’ll turn up. It’s chaos, man. Fucking chaos.’

His friend sounded unbalanced – which was one of the more disturbing developments of the morning. Barney Tench was usually as phlegmatic as a stone statue. Nothing upset him. It was why Kipper had insisted on hauling him in all the way from Pittsburgh when he’d taken the city engineer’s job. There’d been some grumbling about Kip hiring an old college beer buddy, but that had fallen away once Barn settled in to the job. You couldn’t ask for a better right-hand man. Except that, at this moment, his strong right hand was trembling and pale.

Kipper threw his gear into the back of the pick-up, yelled his thanks to the aircrew, and climbed up into the driver‘s-side seat, motioning for Barney to follow suit.

‘Okay, Barn, gimme the keys. I’ll drive, you chill the fuck out and we’ll deal with this like we would any problem. Step by step. First, has anyone spoken to Barbara since you got my number off her? She’ll be freaking out, wanting to know I’m okay.’

Tench had the good grace to look guilty. ‘I’m sorry, Kip. We tried. It’s just been a hell of a morning. And I… well…’

‘Okay. Give me your cell. I’ll call her now.’

‘No point, man,’ Barney said, shaking his head. ‘The nets are jammed. Your sat phone might work, though.’

He took a small, calming breath. ‘Okay. Two minutes.’