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

said. “Until we talk to someone, nobody will bother with an email from us. We must get their attention.”

“Maybe we are making too big a deal out of this,” Ashley said. “Those actions were not that good. Kind of pedestrian. Who says no one else has thought of them? The water resource people probably have the situation well in hand.”

“Two failed dams belie your assumption,” Smith said. His grumpy tone conveyed that he had given up restoring a lighter mood. “But Patricia’s right. We first need to get their attention,”

“Let me try,” Ashley said.

“What makes—” Smith quit mid-sentence. “Yeah, give him your phone, Patricia. How can it hurt?”

Ashley accepted the phone and took several deep breaths before tapping the lieutenant governor’s stored number.

“Lieutenant Governor Gleason, please,” Ashley said after someone answered.

“Stop!” he said firmly. “Stop talking and listen. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake. This is Dr. Jonathan Ashley, and if you do not put me through immediately, I will call the news media instead. Make no mistake, if you do not put me through, people will die, and I’ll make sure the lieutenant governor and his boss take total blame. Now put me through.”

Ashley looked up from the phone, his expression a mix of elation and bewilderment. He smiled. “He said hold. The phone went to music.”

“Let’s not get excited yet,” Smith said. “Gleason may not take the call. So far, you only intimidated a lowly staffer.”

“Yes,” Baldwin said, “but it’s further than you or I got. Congratulations, Jon.”

“Thank you, but I have a problem. I am not the best person to talk to the LG. I will blow it. You and I both know it. Someone else take the phone. Please.”

He waved the phone around, but no one immediately grabbed it. Finally, Baldwin took it and put it to her ear to verify that music still played before saying, “I’m sort of friends with Paul. I’ll give it a try.”

Everyone made an affirmative grunt or noise, and she went back to listening to elevator music. The music stopped. She looked at the screen. It said, No Service.

“Oh, hell, we lost service,” Baldwin said.

“No internet either!” Wilson exclaimed. “Odd, this area has superb service. Hell, it’s an alleyway for politicians and business bigwigs.” She looked outside as if for an answer. “What happened to the coverage?”

Smith checked his phone, which used a different service and shook his head before flipping on the radio. Static. He punched preset buttons but got more of the same. No stations anywhere, on AM or FM. Sirius came in, but no local stations.

“What happened?” Baldwin asked. “If this was an Emergency Alert System warning, there would be someone on every station droning on about emergency actions.”

“Towers down?” Wilson mused to herself.

“What did you say?” Baldwin asked.

“Maybe cell towers and radio antennas were torn down,” she said, again almost to herself.

“How?” Smith said derisively. “Rain beat them to the earth?”

“No,” she answered. “Obviously not. But a flood could do it. First erode the base and then topple the tower. Or maybe electrical components at the base got wet.”

“Look outside,” Smith said. “Do you see any flooding?”

“Not here,” Baldwin said, catching up with Wilson’s thinking. “Behind us. At our current location, everything that comes through the air comes from Sacramento or Davis. We’re still too far from Oakland and San Francisco.”

“We’re not that far from San Francisco,” Smith said. He hand-tuned the radio but received only static. He went to satellite radio and punched up a national cable news channel. The subject was politics, not California weather. He tried another station. Nothing about the storms.

“Channel 247!” Wilson yelled “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration channel. It’s part of the Emergency Alert System.”

Before she finished speaking, Smith had the station dialed in. Finally, somebody talking about the weather. Unfortunately, the broadcaster talked in generalities. Mention of flooding all over the state, but nothing specific about their current location. The station seemed preoccupied with the Oroville Dam disaster, rather than about general flooding that resulted from rain.

“Maybe there is nothing to worry about?” Ashley said with a tremble in his voice.

“Seems like a false alarm,” Smith agreed. “There must be a different reason coverage has dropped. We’re still making progress, so we should be within radio and cell range of the San Francisco area soon.” He glanced back at Wilson. “Lucky you remembered the station number.”

“247 was assigned because it broadcasts 24/7,” Wilson said. “Hey, don’t you use it for your climbing treks?”

“I own a miniatureweather radio with wireless alert modules,” Smith said “I also use several apps on my phone. Never trust a single source for the weather.”

Smith turned down the sound on the weather station. Baldwin heard a sound outside the car and looked out the passenger window. She saw a wave of filthy water thrown up by the Land Cruiser’s wheels.

“Tom, are we in a depression?”

“Nooo … but the car feels draggy.” He looked out his window. “Oh hell, we’re fighting against water.”

“How deep?” Wilson asked.

“Three to four inches,” Smith answered “That makes no sense. It should drain off.”

“Unless that water’s just as deep beyond the highway,” Wilson said.

Baldwin couldn’t see to the side of the road because of the curtain of spray from the tires. She felt a pang of fear.

“If the valley floods, how would it appear to us?” she asked.

Nobody responded at first, but then Ashley said, “Not as a groundswell of water. This is not a sudden release of thousands of acre-feet of water in one fell swoop.” He hesitated, as if thinking. “No … more like filling a bathtub … and we would be at the opposite end from the faucet. It would just gradually keep getting deeper.”

“Like outside … like right now?” Baldwin asked.

Ashley looked out his window as if he could discern something.

“Traffic’s slowing,” Smith said.

Everyone looked out the windshield at the red kaleidoscope caused by the reflection of brake lights on the wet surface. Water sprayed from every spinning wheel, and horns honked in irritation