Storm Front by Robert Conroy Read Free Book Online

stats were kept at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which was about fifty miles away. That far away the sun could be shining brightly and the birds singing. Up here, Wally joked, there was no sun and the birds were all dead.
    “What do you want to do?” Friedman asked, conceding the high ground to Wally.
    “What I don’t want is the Isaac Cline award for stupidity.”
    “Who and what are you talking about?”
    “Quick, what’s the worst disaster in U.S. history?”
    “Was it one of our syndicated reality shows?” Friedman asked cheerfully. “No? Okay, how about the San Francisco earthquake or the Johnstown flood?”
    “Neither, dingus. The worst disaster in American history was the Galveston hurricane of 1900. Somewhere between six and ten thousand people were killed. They never could figure out the exact number since so many families simply disappeared. Isaac Cline was the weatherman in Galveston, and, despite evidence to the contrary, he insisted that no hurricane was going to strike, and he kept on predicting that until it was too late. What happened was the worst hurricane on record.”
    “Okay, but a snowfall is not a major hurricane,” responded Friedman.
    “Right,” said Wally, “but there is still the potential for real problems if it snows and we’re not prepared for it.”
    “How much more do you think we’re going to get?”
    Wally shrugged, “At least another six inches in the next couple of hours. If it doesn’t slow down, then another six and then another six. For it to slow down, this front’s got to move in the first place and it’s barely budging. This could be the mother of all storms, to coin a phrase.”
    “Jesus!” someone exclaimed.
    “If he’s a friend of yours, call him,” Wally laughed harshly. “If we give a forecast of heavy snow, maybe some businesses and schools will close early, and maybe some people won’t go out shopping and get stuck. It’ll give people a fighting chance to get home before it gets really bad.”
    “Do it,” Freidman said, but without conviction. He could see the snow in the parking lot and wondered how anybody was going to get home even if they were released early. The traffic copter was down and the various television cameras situated throughout the metropolitan area were showing only a world of white. All flights either into or out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport in downriver Romulus had either been cancelled or were being delayed. How much longer would cars be able to move? Still, they had to make the announcement and let people decide what was best for them. As for closing schools, he wondered if that was even feasible. Would buses be able to move? Would parents try to pick up their kids?
    Wordlessly, they all began to wonder when the first people would begin to die.
    * * *
    Ted Baranski regularly attended the nine a.m. Mass at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church in Sheridan, even though he thought the young priest, Father Torelli, was a pompous twit who thought he knew it all and didn’t know when to shut up. At least he wasn’t diddling the altar boys like so many priests he’d read about. At first Ted thought some people had a vendetta against the Church, but had changed his mind when the number of accusations skyrocketed and included some priests he knew, and it only got worse when some of them pleaded guilty. It had disturbed him deeply, even sickened him. Priests were supposed to be above reproach. The breach of faith and trust had almost sent him away from the Church as it had so many. So far, Father Torelli had kept his hands to himself. He had a beard that the parishioners joked made him look like a portrait of Jesus, so maybe he actually took his job seriously.
    Ted also thought that the organist, an overweight woman in her forties, played with her feet and sang with her ass.
    Baranski was eighty and Torelli maybe thirty-five. So how did that give the young priest the right to lecture to an old man like him? Baranski had seen the