FRACTURE – Chapter 1

“You know, now that you mention it, I do recall that meeting. I must have been distracted.”

Anne snorted. “I think my secretary distracted you. He’s not your type. Besides, he’s not in my employ any more. He was the runt I inherited from my predecessor.”

“Ah, yes, your predecessor, Marius Silvestri, the one originally accused of killing your mother. It was a curious twist that his wife killed both of them. Please accept my condolences for your loss. You can take comfort that justice was done.”

Anne shivered as if a ghost had touched her spine. “Thank you. Marius’ wife also murdered the detective we honor today. Please be sure to make special mention of him. I’m doing my best to put it behind me by putting it to good use. You helped me win the special election to fill the vacancy left by Marius. Because my district gets to be mayor of the executive committee, this is our time to shine. It’s like it was meant to be. I take help from wherever I can get it. With you putting in a good word with the Spirit, I have made a lot of progress—not that there aren’t people accusing me of things.” Anne glanced at the pastor to gauge his reaction. His bulk strained the button on his coat as he contemplated his armpits. He shifted the airflow from the vent again and grunted with satisfaction. The leather of the bench seat squeaked as he adjusted himself. Anne’s attention wandered to the cemetery outside, a frown on her winsome features.

“Anne, there are always detractors when the Spirit smiles on his chosen. You have shown remarkable restraint in the face of these baseless accusations. I will continue to pray for strength for you so that you can focus on your mission.” He raised an eyebrow. “Anne?” inquired the reverend. “Are you listening?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about my mother. We had our differences. I wonder if it could have been different—her death, I mean—if we’d been closer. Maybe it didn’t have to happen the way it did. I seem to think of her more now than when she was alive. Being here, now, I feel like she holds me responsible.”

“That’s only natural. When an important figure in your life passes under checkered circumstances, you regret not having been there. You feel you should have done more. Loss brings all the emotion to the surface, no matter how deeply buried. She was your mother. While you can’t replace her, you can focus on the present. From what I read, she enjoyed a robust love life. Your choices in that sphere limited the common ground between you. Two adults made reasoned choices, not knowing where they would lead. Thank your mother for the good she did in your life. She helped you get the job that put you in a position to win your current office. You have blossomed since your mother’s passing. Ask forgiveness for anything else. The Spirit is smiling on you. You couldn’t have planned a better outcome.”

“Thank you. I know I can count on you. My success is your success. You have great ideas for our community and vice versa. Working together, who knows what we can achieve?”

“The Spirit knows,” asserted Pastor Jennings. “The Spirit always knows.”

Anne peered out the tinted window. “It looks like all the necessaries are in place. Let’s get on with the show.”

With a wistful glance at the air vent, Reverend Jennings led Anne to the step-off point. They followed the honor guard, wearing expressions befitting the occasion. When they reached the stairs to the stage, Reverend Jennings bowed to Anne and extended his arm to indicate she should go ahead of him. She proceeded to the podium while he sat next to General Heath and the governor.

Anne acknowledged the mourners and waved to the crowd behind them. “Thank you all for coming today. On this solemn occasion, we recognize the sacrifices made by so many during Hurricane Bella by honoring those made by a few. For all of you watching at home or in temporary shelters, thank you for your patience and fortitude. Thank you to all the families and friends. Our condolences go out to those who lost loved ones. We are grateful to the people who made that greatest sacrifice of their last full measure. We persevered through the worst onslaught of nature’s fury in the history of our great state. It would be easy to say that we have gotten through the hard part. The storm is over. We survived. Yet, there is much to be done before we can return to normal. Tearing down happens quickly. Rebuilding takes time. Before we look forward to that important work, we must reflect and remember. We must renew our strength in the glow of fellowship and loving memory of the lost. Their end is our beginning. The full extent of the damage to property, measured in billions, may never be known. We can replace property. Those holes get filled. We can’t measure the impact of lost friends and family. They leave permanent holes in our lives. To preserve their memories for posterity, we will honor everyone lost to the storm by inscribing their names on a monument to be raised here. You’ll find the rendering on the county’s website. Today, we remember them all by eulogizing these four.”

Anne indicated the coffins in front of her, then gestured to each group of mourners as she announced the name of the person being honored. “These four symbolize the courage, vision, caring, and service that have always characterized our state: Ron Jones, who perished while providing live news coverage from the center of the maelstrom itself, Shi Yuen, a recent immigrant with high hopes for the future, Georgia Smiles, a darling of television living in the past, and Nomar Mora, decorated police veteran, first responder, and family man who gave his life in the line of duty. These people, who shared little in life, come together in their passing to allow us to take a moment to say farewell so that we may close this chapter of our lives.”

She raised her hand, palm out toward the audience, and bowed her head for a moment of silence. One of the honor guards raised a bugle and played “Taps.” As the last somber note faded, Anne continued, “These people represent all of us—fathers and mothers, leaders and the led, rich and poor, high and low. The storm’s indiscriminate fury could have taken any of us. It chose them. We are fortunate to be here to remember them. Reverend F. P. Jennings will eulogize them and lead us through today’s service. Reverend Jennings, if you please.”

As the reverend took his place at the podium, Anne returned to her seat. Anne turned her gaze to General Heath, who sat next to her. Sitting straighter than his subordinates, the general showed no weakness. She knew from talking to him in the weeks since the storm that years of discipline prevented him from seeing anything other than his duty. He valued that in himself and in those under his command. With that knowledge, she had manipulated him to use his martial powers to give her greater authority than the law intended. Because he was used to being obeyed, he saw no problem with a military-style chain of command during the ongoing state of emergency. Those who took his orders should be obeyed. That Anne had made permanent what was supposed to be temporary didn’t need to be brought to the general’s attention.

The turn of her head caught his notice. He glanced her way. She nodded a greeting and returned her attention to the audience. She dismissed Shi Yuen’s mourners. They fit a demographic with which Anne needed to gain credibility. When her gaze alit on the coffin of Ron Jones, she noticed a young man alone at the end of a row of chairs. Intent on his phone, he seemed oblivious to the ceremony. A wave inviting him closer from a blond woman nearby met with a shrug and a turn in the opposite direction. He wore disinterest like armor, his need for recognition a beacon to anyone who could see. Anne saw his need—his weakness—and the role he could play in her plan. She made a mental note to visit with the family after the ceremony. He was the weak link. Like a lioness, she selected the prey to be culled from the herd. Anne understood that prey never understood the danger until too late.

As she returned her attention to Pastor Jennings, she frowned at the presence of Detective Zalerian. He’s under control at the moment. Anne glossed over the rest of the sea of blue near Detective Mora’s coffin. The two soldiers sitting together near the coffin of Georgia Smiles caught her attention.

***

Lt. Col. Tony Simmonds sat at ease next to his once lost, now found, best friend—Brevet Major Lenny Smalls. Both men wore class A uniforms festooned with ribbons and medals—points of pride for the colonel and moments of spiritual ambiguity for the major. Their shoes, polished to mirror perfection, reflected the sun’s rays with blinding precision. Lenny sat at attention, back ramrod straight, knees at a ninety-degree angle, feet square on the ground. Lenny’s outward discipline belied his inner disquiet.

Lenny evaluated things the way a dog worried a bone. He gnawed on it until reduced to its component parts. If it could be poked, prodded, or pricked, he twisted, twirled, and tugged until the innards became a hopeless jumble of doo-dads. Delighted by the dismantling process, like the family dog left alone in the house for too long. The inevitable destruction brought comfort when life made little sense.

Pastor Smalls, Lenny’s father, had tried to interest Lenny in God. Lenny wanted to please his father in the way that children do and tried to be interested. Lenny wanted to like God the way his father did. But God could not be prodded, poked, pricked, twisted, twirled, or tugged—at least not by a small boy. When Lenny sat with his father and pretended interest in words meant for people from a different age and of a different age, his attention turned to whatever nearby thing could be prodded, poked, pricked, twisted, twirled, or tugged. The bit of leather that had pulled away from its backing cried out for permanent separation. An errant insect that ventured within view called for immediate inspection. The Bible’s pages, so thin that their ability to hold ink was a miracle demanded to have that secret divulged. Lenny shredded each fine sheet of paper with the care that such a delicate task deserved. The component parts were liberated in the same way that a dog strewed a pillow’s innards around a room. It looked like a marshmallow man had exploded. The inevitable punishment brought an equal measure of shocked misunderstanding to both punisher and punished. Lenny’s parents trained him early to limit such explorations to the outdoors.

As Reverend Jennings extolled the virtues of each coffin’s occupant, his voice resonated in Lenny’s mind. That voice opened Lenny’s thoughts for inspection as if it had Lenny’s passcode. When the reverend’s comments turned to Georgia Smiles, Lenny’s mind opened wide. The sonorous voice—sound turned to honey—and the gentle, loving words that flowed from him evoked Georgia’s image. Memories of the life they shared in homelessness returned. Each word fine-tuned the image until it became real. Georgia’s life flickered in his mind like a worn film reel. The years of Georgia’s despair spent hugging a polyurethane doppelgänger of the child she had lost to violent abuse; the sudden and inexplicable rejuvenation of her mind and body; her steadfast refusal to join him in the flight to safety before the hurricane’s surge engulfed their temporary home; and her choice to join her child in death, a glowing certainty that she would join the one she could not protect in life. The reverend’s words pulled from him the tears he had held back. Their stream became a flood. Georgia stood before him as she had in their last moments together, radiant and full of the life taken just minutes later. She smiled, beatific and knowing. Her mouth opened to speak the words he needed to hear to let her go. At last, he would learn the secret of her transformation. He leaned forward, the hope for an answer in his eyes. A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder.

“Lenny? Are you ok?” Tony asked as he proffered a handkerchief. “You’re a mess. I don’t remember ever seeing you cry…not even at your father’s funeral.”

Creeeaaaak.

Lenny snapped out of his trance, the spell broken. Georgia’s secret vanished with her image. Lenny wiped his eyes with the handkerchief and shook his head to clear it. “Thanks, Tony. I don’t know what came over me. The reverend’s voice…it hypnotized me.”

“Maybe it did. That preacher is pretty good. I’ve heard people talk about him. He must be something special. I’ve never really had much use for religious folk, so didn’t pay attention. I guess hearing is believing. You sure you’re ok?”

“Yup. With all that’s happened since the storm, I guess I didn’t have time to mourn Georgia. Must have caught up with me.”

Lenny peered up at the reverend as he tried to rub the wrongness he felt out of his head. He did not notice the county supervisor’s scrutiny.

The reverend continued in his honeyed voice. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust—”

The earth shook, at first a gentle rumble, the roll of a toddler’s rocking horse. Mourners and dignitaries looked around, uncertainty on their troubled faces. The roll became a heave. Behind the dais, a plume of earth shot into the air. A great sucking sound followed, then silence. Eerie silence.

Spang.

The discordant groan of the superstructure of Omar’s Prowess crescendoed to a spine-tingling shriek. A single spar fell earthward. Lenny shielded his eyes with his hand to get a better view. The ocean-going behemoth had changed position. The grating squeak of fingernails on a chalkboard announced the freighter’s awakening. Lenny jumped up onto Georgia’s coffin, ran its length, and leaped onto the dais.

Screeeeee.

“Everyone off now!” he roared. “The freighter’s rolling over!” He gesticulated to the stairs and pulled dignitaries from their seats to get them moving. Grabbing the microphone, he announced the danger to the assemblage. “Everyone move away from the dais. Get back quickly. The ship is rolling over.” Underscoring Lenny’s urging, the groans of Omar’s Prowess became keening howls as the structure twisted toward the crowd.

Lenny helped General Heath and Reverend Jennings clamber down the front of the dais. As the screeching threat of the rolling freighter took root, people fled. Anne Chambers stood transfixed by the imminent impact. The superstructure’s shadow covered the dais like a pall. Lenny confirmed the other dignitaries had cleared the platform.

“Time to go, Madame Supervisor.” Lenny scooped Anne up and jumped to the ground. He turned his head in time to see the leading edge of the superstructure crush the dais. The force of the impact blew over them. Lenny, knocked to his knees, sheltered Anne from the splintered platform. At last, the awful groans subsided.

“Are you ok, Ms. Chambers?” asked Lenny.

A stunned Anne Chambers extricated herself from Lenny’s grip, gaze locked on the ship. “I thought I saw my mother on the…” She shook herself, smoothed her suit, and brushed away the loose dirt. “Thank you, Major. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I’m glad you’re ok, ma’am. Emergency services will be here soon. Have them look you over for shock.”

Anne eyed Lenny. “I’ll think about it. You have a remarkable knack for being in the right place at the right time, Major.” Raised voices shouting questions reached them.

“I have to talk to the press.”

“God bless,” said Lenny as Anne made a beeline for the nearest reporter.

***

“This is Casey Tamanaka, on location at the Livingston Cemetery in Long Beach. The memorial service honoring the victims of Hurricane Bella ended with a bang. We’ll show you the shocking video of the earthquake and crushing intervention of a freighter in just a moment. With me is Anne Chambers, county supervisor from the fourth district and organizer of this event. Anne, thank you for taking the time to speak with us during this special occasion. I saw you were at ground zero when the vessel rolled. Are you ok?”

“Thank you for asking, Casey. I’m fine. Unlike our honorees, mine was only a brush with death. A special thanks to General Heath’s team for their timely intervention. And thank you to Channel Fifteen and all the news teams for coming out here today to help us recognize the sacrifices made by so many. I played a small role in this service. The media helped enormously with getting the word out during the storm. A lot more people moved to safety because of you. Media will play an even more important part in the rebuilding process.”

Casey jumped on those words. “If you don’t mind, I have a couple of questions about the rebuilding process. Before we get to those, I wanted to compliment you on having Reverend Jennings perform the eulogies. Before today, I had never seen a standing ovation at a funeral.”

Anne beamed. “Reverend Jennings is a wonderful speaker. He puts everything in terms you can understand. I became a believer on my first visit to his church. He is the one who convinced me to run for office. He told me that you have not because you ask not. I asked, and here I am. That standing ovation is testament to the spirit power in him. He will bring much needed spiritual guidance to our plans for rebuilding.”

“And speaking of rebuilding, can you tell our audience a bit more about the recreation camps you mentioned in your closing remarks?”

“I’d be happy to, Casey. As you know, the county, working with private interests, obtained a failed golf course last summer that now houses people without a place to go. Using state and county resources, the site provides a haven for LA’s homeless while they get their lives in order. In addition to housing, residents can take advantage of vocational training and medical services. We even have a formerly unhoused person running the camp now. You may have met him—Major Smalls.”

“Yes, I have met him. He’s the one who led everyone to safety when the freighter rolled. We have amazing footage of him carrying you to safety. In fact, we’ll roll it now. It’s just like a movie where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress, with a super freighter as a special effect.” Casey nodded to John, who switched the feed.

“Yes, well, I am grateful to Major Smalls.” A frown passed over Anne’s features, a dark cloud on a sunny day. “I guess he saved the best for last.” She chuckled at her joke. “Rest assured, I will have the cause of the rollover investigated. Now, back to the camps. The first recreation camp has been such a success that we have expanded the program across the area. With so much damage and debris everywhere—“ she waved at the capsized freighter behind her, ”—the need for temporary housing, clean up, and restoration is clear. The problem provides the opportunity to solve both homelessness and rebuilding. On behalf of General Heath, I am proud to announce we will build the next camp here. The residents will learn valuable skills they can use during the construction of the camp, building the monument, and clearing the debris on this site. This demonstrates better use of our resources, better outcomes, and better lives for all. The incremental sites have to be constructed. Help will come from the combined efforts of the Army’s Corps of Engineers, Department of Public Works, and the people themselves. The process offers opportunities for safe housing and training. We will see improvement in the lives of thousands of our residents, whether they lacked housing before or because of the storm.”

“Interesting name—recreation camps. Please tell us about that.”

“By removing the worry displaced people feel about not having a safe place to live, we remove a major cause of stress from their lives. As part of the orientation process, residents can acclimate to camp life. We start with recovery from the emotional exhaustion of homelessness. I can assure you it is not all fun and games, but recreation is a key part of helping people get back on their feet.”

“And the scout program you mentioned?”

“This is a new program built on the foundation of the recreation camps. Young people are our future. They will play a special role in the rebuilding process as part of the Youth Guard. The program combines the best of private scouting and military experience. Participants will build leadership, environmental stewardship, and other skills. They will facilitate the processing and orientation of people displaced by the storm. No one benefits from having nothing to do. Until schools reopen, the scout program assures everyone stays busy while we work together to rebuild our community. Everyone wins.”

“Anne, that’s all we have time for today. Thank you very much for sharing all this with us. I know I speak for everyone when I say I look forward to what these camps and scouts can do for LA.”

Anne gave a Cheshire Cat smile. “I do too, Casey. I do too.”