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

difficult. Anyway, thanks. I gotta run. That water will reach us in less than ten, and I got a campsite to clear.”

“I’ll take care of your family. Get to it.”

They both hung up. While Evarts was talking to her husband, Mrs. Hernandez had leaned around to the backseat and reassured her children. With a mother’s knack, she got them to stop crying, and in the process, calmed herself. Evarts pulled back on the park access road and drove into massive disorder.

When Mrs. Hernandez flipped back around to settle into the front seat, she asked, “Will he be okay?”

Evarts understood that she meant her husband. “Yeah. They have more warning. Right now, let’s see if we can find a sheltered place for you and the kids.”

“They’re soaked,” she said, not in protest but in puzzlement. “How will I get them dry?”

Not too far into the park, he spotted Lopez giving instructions to two deputies. He pulled over to a spot mostly out of the way.

He turned to Mrs. Hernandez. “For now, stay in the truck. The heater will help dry you out. I need to talk to that man.”

“That man is the sheriff,” she said, as though she thought it might be new information to him.

“I know,” Evarts said, leaping out of the truck. “Tom!” he yelled.

Lopez wheeled around. “Oh, thank god. I feared that you had been washed away in the flood.”

They did a quick embrace and slapped each other on the back.

“Almost,” Evarts said. “Almost.”

“Glad you made it. But … I hate to tell you, we have more to do. We need you, and we need that truck of yours.”

“At your service, but I need to find a safe place for a family of evacuees.”

Lopez peered into his truck. “Is that Angie Hernandez? And her kids?”

“You know them?”

“Hell, yes. Her husband’s a firehouse captain.”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with him. They were stranded on foot with a megaton of water about to make this a very bad day for her. We made it out by the skin of our teeth.”

Lopez grabbed one of his deputies by the shoulder and told him to take the Hernandez family to a motel in the tourist section of town, and not to return until he found them a room. The deputy nodded and ran over to help the family out of the truck and into his cruiser.

“Okay, here’s the problem,” Lopez said. “Some people got clobbered by that wave of water. According to Pete—the guy we picked up at the dam—the water from a collapse acts a lot like an avalanche. Gravity pulls the whole load of water downhill, but after the slab of water passes, you don’t have a deep flooded area, only very wet ground. The rest of the water doesn’t hang around, it keeps rolling downhill. Like a big beach ball … or, I guess, more like a blob of mercury. He also said people have survived circumstances like we just witnessed. So, we need to search the edges of the flood path for anyone who might have survived.”

Lopez waited until Evarts nodded understanding, then continued, “Okay, this deputy is going to team you with one of his Search and Rescue guys. Grab a few first-aid kits, a case of water, several blankets, and whatever else the SAR guy suggests. Then you two search along the northern edge of the flood path toward Buellton. You okay with this?”

“Yes. What about to the east?” Evarts asked.

“Just dispatched a team in that direction … toward the dam. Again, on the northern edge. The bridge on Route 124 washed out, so getting to the south side presents problems.”

His deputy returned with a guy in an SAR jacket. The stitched name on his jacket read Jim, but Lopez introduced him as O’Brian. After briefly introducing the others, Lopez said, “Now, get out there. I need an assessment, so I know whether a greater search makes any sense. Call me every half hour.”

“Where’s your vehicle?” O’Brian asked.

Evarts pointed, and O’Brian made an affirmative grunt. He held a heavy satchel, and without comment, walked over and threw it between the front seats. Then they both went over to a haphazard stack of boxes and equipment. Evarts loaded his pockets with energy bars and then hefted a case of water onto his shoulder. He grabbed the straps of two first-aid kits with his free hand. O’Brian slid his hands under a stack of blankets and took so many that he could hardly see over the top.

“Do we need that many blankets?” Evarts asked as they walked to the Raptor. “Maybe someone will have a greater need for them here.”

“Tragic if we don’t need them,” O’Brian said flatly. “And not because someone else may have needed them more. Tragic because it’ll mean we failed to rescue anyone. If we find someone, they’ll be naked and hypothermic and probably injured. I’ll go back and grab a couple more first-aid kits.”

“I already have two in the truck,” Evarts said.

“Then let’s roll,” O’Brian deadpanned.

Evarts already liked Jim’s no-nonsense demeanor. Vehicles and people jammed the park, so there was no room to turn around. Evarts eased out backwards. On Mission, traffic barely moved. O’Brian jumped out of the truck to stop cars so Evarts could drive across the thoroughfare. Now he was back in the neighborhood where a dryland wave had tried to kill him. He turned on his high beams and flipped on an aftermarket curved LED light bar on the roof. The curve of the light bar spread the light wider than traditional straight bars. The illumination revealed a devastated community. It looked like a nuclear bomb had hit the mock-Scandinavian village. How could mere water do so much damage? Nothing remained unscathed. Houses were gone or reduced to rubble, no block walls remained standing, and he spotted a car wedged into a tree. These were curiosities. Debris in the streets represented his real concern. Large branches, complete trees, tipped over cars, blocks of concrete, toilets, appliances, stuffed