NSA Command Center
“It’s here!” Branson yelled, pointing to the map. “Right here, at Parkfield! Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“What’s Parkfield?” Knuckles said.
“It’s the site of the drilling effort that began in 2004. The research observatory? Anybody following me?”
“No,” Jana said.
“The San Andreas Fault is the site of a massive effort to drill into the earth’s crust to investigate the fault at depth. It’s the only place in the world anything like this has ever been attempted. And it’s here at the town of Parkfield, California. The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, or SAFOD, they call it. The hole is nearly two miles deep, drilled straight into the fault line.”
“But Parkfield looks like it’s over two hundred miles from San Francisco. How could he damage the city from that distance?” Knuckles said.
“Maybe it’s not San Francisco he’s after,” Jana said.
Branson interrupted. “Whether or not the city of San Francisco is his primary objective, Parkfield is too perfect of a target not to hit. In geologist terms, it’s a no-brainer. And, wait a minute. A major earthquake in this region would be catastrophic to other areas as well. The more I think about it, San Francisco could be his target after all. Here, look at the map. Parkfield sits at the southern edge of the area of the fig plantations, right? And, there hasn’t been a major earthquake in the region for close to twenty years. The tension along the fault line in this region is building.”
“Like how much tension?” Knuckles said.
“Well, the fault line is divided into giant segments. The northern segment generally produces more powerful earthquakes. That’s because those areas of the fault line are locked, meaning the rock is stuck against itself. When it finally lets loose the results are catastrophic. There hasn’t been a major earthquake in that segment since the 1980s. Tension is enormous. But here, here at Parkfield, and stretching all the way up to the city of Hollister, that’s what we call the creeping segment. As the name implies, the creeping segment moves more slowly. The earth in this region is made up of slippery clays, talc-like minerals that make for less dramatic earthquakes when the earth does shift. The two opposing sections of the fault line slip across one another without much violence. But it’s these northern sections, the locked sections, that cause the worst damage.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Jana said. “Parkfield is in the creeping segment. You said the earthquakes there aren’t as severe. So how is that going to cause an earthquake in San Fran?”
“Look, if you put a nuclear device down here in the creeping segment, the shock wave from the blast would radiate up the fault line with relative ease. When those shock waves hit the locked section of the fault line, the effect would magnify itself.” Branson’s mouth hung open. “Catastrophic might not be the word for it. I think the word might be closer to apocalyptic.”
Inside the FBI field office, Cade leaned closer to Jana and said, “Maybe that’s the misdirection you were talking about. Maybe he wants us to think he’d hit the fault line as close to San Francisco as possible, when actually he intends to strike way down here at Parkfield.”
Jana shook her head. “Misdirection.”
Kyle walked toward her. “Well if we agree he’s going to use it,” he looked at the others, “you don’t think he’s going to use it here? Jana, come on. This is the perfect opportunity for him to inflict an incredible amount of damage up and down California. The nutjob probably thinks he’s going to cause half of California to slump off into the ocean.”
“Which is crap,” Branson said.
Jana stood. “What’s there? At Parkfield? How big of a town is it? What kind of facilities are we talking about?”
“At Parkfield itself? Well there’s not much there. I’ve never been myself, but it looks like a big oil-drilling rig. I don’t think there’s much there in terms of buildings, but I’m sure there’s a few laboratories. The town isn’t actually a town at all, more like a crossroads and maybe a red light.”
“No security?” Jana said.
“Security?” Branson said. “Security in case some nutjob decides he wants to drop a nuclear device down a mine shaft? Sorry, that’s not likely one of the things the US Geological Survey would have considered.”
“Wait a minute,” Kyle said. “I’ve been listening to this whole thing. There’s one part that doesn’t make any sense. Even if Jarrah wanted his device to detonate at the bottom of the mine shaft, how’s he going to get it down there? If this mine shaft looks like an oil-drilling rig, then the rig has a giant drillbit running all the way down the shaft. There wouldn’t be any room to drop an object of this size down it.”
“Good point,” Knuckles said. “With the massive drill auger in place, I don’t think anything over a few inches wide could slip past.”
Branson’s face washed clear of color and he slumped into a chair.
“Branson?” Jana said.
He looked at each person. “How would he be able to get the device to the bottom of the mine shaft, you ask? Drilling operations stopped sometime back. I think it was last January. The drill auger and the entire drilling rig were disassembled. We’re talking about a two-foot wide hole, two miles deep, straight to the base of the fault line itself. He would just drop it in.”