Deluge (The Best Thrillers Book 2) by James Best (top romance novels txt) 📗

and on the return trip, stop at the California Camp Store in Goleta to buy tents and lanterns. Big tents and lots of lanterns. All of it should be charged to the police department. Prentice emphasized to his sergeant that no new information prompted these orders. They were precautions only.

The Solvang police chief seemed relieved to have taken some positive action. Evarts thought it was too little, too late. Then he thought about his own jurisdiction. No risk of floods, but had he been remiss somewhere else? He called his own mayor and gave her a terse update. Then he scheduled a meeting with her, the city manager, and the fire chief for when he returned in the evening. He told her he would bring along the sheriff and his deputy, who ran search and rescue volunteers.

The short drive went quickly. Evarts noticed that the Santa Ynez River ran almost up to the banks. It was a wide, shallow river with a great band of brown churning water flowing down a normally dry riverbed. Trash flowed down the river as well. Day campers, off-roaders, and homeless people made use of the sandy riverbed, and their trash got swept along with the muddy water. Evarts hoped that no bodies floated beneath the surface.

As he pulled up the access road to the dam, water ran down the entire width of the street. The dam’s spillway directed water toward the riverbed, so where did this water come from? The Raptor barreled through the few inches of water as effortlessly as an expert skier carved a path through deep powder. When they got to the top of a small rise, he could see the dam. He gasped. It had overflowed. Water cascaded over the top of the spillway and the dam proper, flowing everywhere. Worse, debris was carried over the side by the pouring water. It appeared that the earthen dam was unraveling.

A workman in a yellow hardhat sprinted toward them, his boots slapping and splashing pooled water as he ran. He waved frantically and yelled at them to get out. When he got to the truck, he recognized the police chief as Prentice lowered the rear window.

“Bob, we just radioed your dispatcher and told her to warn the town. This dam’s gonna blow. Soon. Get people away from the river. As far as you can.”

Rolling down his window, Evarts asked, “What can you do up here?”

“God, I don’t know.” He looked at the dam over the roof of the truck. “Nothing. Nothing. Can I hitch a ride?”

“Jump in,” Evarts said. “Anyone else need a ride?”

“No. I’m all that’s left in the control room. Hank took his truck to warn campers.”

He jumped into the back as Evarts did a quick reverse K-turn to get going in the opposite direction. As he accelerated down the slight incline, a rush of brown water came blowing across the road in front of him. It looked like a dozen fire hoses all sprayed in unison. If he tried to stop, he’d slide into the torrent, maybe sideways because of the slick pavement, so he pushed the gas pedal to the floorboard. Everyone except Evarts yelled as they hit the water. He gritted his teeth as he focused on timing a hard turn into the horizontal waterfall. When the water hit the truck, he had already turned into it as they blasted through the gush, emerging on the other side, the truck’s rear end swinging back and forth. Then he lost control. The truck spun around two full turns and righted itself, pointed down the road in the direction they had been heading. Lucky. He looked at his speedometer. He was rolling downhill at fifteen miles an hour. To hell with that. He punched it and they sped toward town.

When the truck cab became quiet, he realized that they had all been yelling. Everyone took a deep breath, and Evarts traded a fleeting smile of relief with Lopez. He vowed that at the first opportunity, he would load up the back end of the truck with bags of gravel.

After another deep breath, the quiet ended.

Lopez started yelling at Prentice to call the school and the trailer park and the golf course, and order them all to evacuate, then call his sergeant and order him to take all the emergency actions they had just discussed.

Prentice appeared stunned, possibly in shock. His eyes stretched wide, he kept checking behind the truck as if some huge monster pursued them.

Lopez lost patience.

“Damn it, Bob, make those calls. Now! God damn it, now!”

Prentice shook his head and pulled out his cell phone. As he waited for the party to answer, he said, “Tom, I’m scared.”

“Well, join the fucking club, buddy, join the fucking club.”

Chapter 12

Their departure from the hotel had been frantic, but no one paid them any attention. In the covered hotel garage, Smith led them to a beat-up silver SUV with shrub scratches along both sides that attested to frequent off-road use. Besides big tires and wheels, the truck sported an array of lights on the roof, spotlights on the sides, and fog lamps above the bumper. Like a battering ram, a heavy-duty winch protruded from the front bumper. When they opened the rear hatch, Baldwin saw that Smith had provisioned his vehicle for treks into the wilderness. He had stores of packaged dried food, canned goods, first-aid kits, a sleeping bag, tools, and a five-gallon water container. With careful packing, they fit their gear around these supplies in the cargo area. Without a running board, Baldwin had difficulty climbing into the front passenger seat. Inside, she found an analog compass, a navigation system, and satellite radio receiver—all aftermarket. Smith’s dash looked cluttered and dusty, but the equipment appeared high-end and state-of-the-art. Baldwin wondered if this Land Cruiser resented pavement.

When they got going, Wilson said she believed issuing warnings by phone was better than a government evacuation order because word of mouth would regulate the exodus, at least until it