A Universal Storm: A Gripping Thriller Read online

  A Universal Strom / Gershon Shevach

  Copyright © 2017 Gershon Shevach

  All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Contact: [email protected]

  1.

  I was woken by street sounds at an earlier hour than usual, which was odd for a street in the Latin Quarter of Paris. I dragged myself out from under the blanket, and with the faltering steps of one who was intoxicated by sleep, I reached the window shutters.

  Amid my exhaustion, I noticed people gathering in the street, and the cacophony of their loud voices could be heard very clearly inside my room on the sixth floor.

  I staggered over to the refrigerator to drink some cold milk. This normally woke me up, especially during the hot days of a European summer. Something seemed strange; the light in the refrigerator didn’t come on. I tried shaking the bulb to get it to work, but nothing happened.

  I pulled the milk carton out of the refrigerator door in a broad sweeping movement toward my mouth, but the carton was not cold to the touch, and the milk that trickled down my throat was sour.

  I spat it out onto the floor, muttering serious curses at the mothers of the electric company and the manufacturers of the refrigerator.

  I walked over to the light switch next to the door and pressed it. There was an ominous click of the switch. The light did not come on. The anger I felt woke me up completely.

  After I got dressed quickly, I found in the darkness of the early morning that my cellphone had been left plugged into the charger and had not charged for several hours.

  Fortunately, I had a Russian friend who had developed a charger based on batteries and solar energy for charging cameras, recording devices, and cell phones. I had brought it with me to Paris in case I had any problems.

  As an avid music enthusiast, I had insisted that one of my cell phones would also function as a radio in every way, allowing me to listen to my favorite music and news highlights with earphones. While feeling around my suitcase, I managed to find the charger and the earphones. The hysterical voice of a broadcaster burst out from the radio as he tried to create a picture of the situation. From the little information he possessed, he said what had happened was a general collapse of the systems operating our everyday lives, exactly like the grim predictions of the millennium bug that was supposed to take over on January 1, 2000.

  With the broadcaster’s hysterical voice in the background, crowds could be seen gathering in the streets. I felt a vague urge to run out of the hotel and into the street that, for some reason, seemed safer than the building in which I was staying.

  I chose the emergency staircase, where the backup lights shone very weakly. They allowed me to feel around in the dark. I slowly walked down. On one of the floors, I opened the entrance door to that particular story, and I heard the faint sound of an alarm emanating from the elevator shaft. Apparently, people were trapped inside, but I knew I could not do anything for them.

  I continued to go down until I reached the partially lit exit sign. Then I went out into the street, which was illuminated by the first rays of the sun.

  I mingled with the large crowd in streets that were clogged with old cars loaded with equipment and mattresses. There seemed to be no new cars on the road.

  I joined one of the groups and heard one man describe his long walk along the metro tunnel after his train suddenly stopped. In the pitch darkness, people streamed like lines of ants from the exit of the metro station into the street.

  The man described the panic that, according to him, caused many casualties along the escape route as they either fainted or died in the dark tunnels.

  Another group gathered around a local police officer who described how he lost contact with his senior officers and the radio system. He felt powerless, and he admitted he had no idea what he was supposed to do. It was early, but the roads were full of vehicles packed with the belongings of those who thought they should flee from the city to the countryside.

  Of course, as this was Paris, all of the seats in the cafés along the Boulevard Saint-Germain were taken even though it was not possible to get a hot drink, only water. Other soft drinks and spirits had run out or had been hidden away by the café owners.

  Finding an available piece of railing, I sat down on it just as I used to when I was a teenager. I needed to compose myself in order to concentrate on the information I had gleaned until then and to decide what to do next.

  It was clear to me as an Israeli journalist visiting Paris that I would not receive priority when it came to evacuation or be able to join or help anyone in this emergency situation. The only thing I could do, or so I thought, was try to find the quickest and best way to get back to Israel.

  I tried calling my wife, the newspaper office, and my children, but all of the systems had crashed. There wasn’t even a dial tone.

  Through my earphones, I continued to listen to radio broadcasts from around the world. In fact, there had been a worldwide system failure, and all of the developed and partially developed countries were cut off. The only things that continued to work, at least partly, were the radio stations broadcasting from radios that were powered by batteries or from inside old cars that were not computerized. The radio stations ran on independent electrical supplies, and most of them managed to broadcast without a computerized system.

  My journalistic instincts told me this was a terror attack, and it could go on for a long time. There had to be a way out of this!

  A feeling of powerlessness spread through my body, and I began to feel despair give way to total apathy.

  “Wake up!” I told myself. “There’s always a way out of every situation.”

  Suddenly, I remembered Eran, the main reason for my visit to France. Eran drank whiskey with me the previous night, before going out with a local girl who had joined us in the bar. He apologized and said after nineteen days of celibacy, he deserved some satisfaction.

  Eran had sailed from Israel to Le Havre, a port to the west of Paris, in a wind- and solar-powered sailboat he had developed himself. I was sent to France to report on Eran’s entry into the port after a nineteen-day voyage. I accompanied him to many photo sessions and recorded interviews, and eventually I suggested that he join me in Paris to report on the day of weddings that were supposed to take place on the symmetrical date 02-02-2020—today.

  Eran joined me on my drive in a rental car, and we made our way to my hotel in the Latin Quarter, which had been my favorite district ever since my youth in Paris. He rented a room on the floor below mine, right underneath.

  I had a strong gut feeling the only hope lay with Eran the sailor. It was a small light at the end of the tunnel, and with his help, I could get back to my country and my family.

  I ran back to the hotel. I found the emergency stairs with the assistance of a hysterical bellboy, and I walked up to the fifth floor, hoping Eran would still be there.

  Fortunately, with the help of the emergency lighting that was still working, I reached his room. I knocked loudly on the door, and to my surprise, I heard a weak, sleepy voice trying to find out who would dare to wake him up so early.

  The door only opened after a long while. Eran shouted at me for disturbing him, and a frightened young girl, apparently the same one from yesterday, quickly ran outside.

  When I began explaining our current situation to Eran, I received a barrage of curses in resp
onse. He was sure I had made it all up and had come to bother him with silly stories. I dragged him to the window and showed him what was going on outside in the street—the traffic jams with overloaded cars, the large crowds that gathered, the electrical systems that were not working… But what finally convinced him were my earphones that I had handed to him so he could listen to the English radio station describing what was going on and the chaos and confusion throughout the western world.

  Eran soon recovered. Now he understood what was going on. As a reserve lieutenant colonel in the armored division, he immediately went on full alert. He listened to my theory of a mega terror attack and paid close attention when I warned him we had to do everything we could to get back to our families in Israel.

  In the early morning light, Eran wrote down a directive for himself.

  Objective: To get back to Israel

  Intelligence information: Total chaos

  Means: Car, sailboat, healthy legs, maps, and solar batteries

  Eran instructed me to hurry back to my room and organize the backpack used for the cameras. I had to empty it of its original contents, pack the most essential survival equipment for the next month, and make sure the straps were comfortable enough for a lot of walking.

  I went into my room, opened the curtains wide, and in the weak morning light, I packed a miniature video camera, the multipurpose cellular battery, some bars of chocolate, some fruit I had bought, several bottles of mineral water from the minibar, and some undershirts and underwear. I hid the rest of the cameras, disks, and other important equipment in the gap between the built-in closet and the board behind it in the hope that I could return one day to collect it.

  Several minutes later, when I had completed the mission, I presented myself again in Eran’s room. Eran reckoned that, in all the chaos, traveling on the roads would be very difficult. He claimed it would be faster and more efficient to cover the two hundred kilometers to the place where the sailboat was anchored on foot. In any case, he had already prepared the sailboat for the journey back to Israel, a voyage he had planned to make alone the following day.

  Eran even suggested we should go to my rental car and take the west way out. We took the roadmap of Paris along with the receipts from the stores where Eran had purchased the emergency food supplies he had packed on the sailboat. It was the right move, as he had only prepared enough supplies for one person, but there were going to be two of us on the sailboat.

  We put our rucksacks on our backs, and we left the hotel using the emergency staircase. We easily found the car. Like any other rental car, it was also computerized, and therefore, impossible to start. From the glove compartment, we removed the maps supplied by the rental company, and we began walking, full of energy, following Eran’s directions.

  It was a quick walk through the city. Although the streets were packed, we strode along the sidewalks of the wide Parisian boulevards where many people could walk without it getting too crowded. The actual roads were blocked. The traffic lights did not work, and the transport system was at a total standstill.

  Gradually, we noticed many people had abandoned their cars in the traffic jam and were following us, as if they understood the only solution was to walk. To my ears, even the curses and the French bad temper seemed like a song.

  It was a cool morning, and the walk was no less refreshing. I congratulated myself for having kept up with my regular morning walks along the beach, as this allowed me to trudge behind Eran, who was amazingly fit.

  Eran led the way, holding the map in his slightly outstretched hand. He walked confidently, with large strides and a straight back. He was an Israeli officer. Within two hours, we were walking along a dust track that ran among apple orchards loaded with perfect red apples that all looked exactly the same, as if they were made from plastic. We continued going west, toward the sea.

  Suddenly, we could hear the roar of a vehicle behind us. Turning our heads, we saw an old truck approaching. It was a real collector’s item, and it was driven confidently by a large elderly woman. She stopped next to us, and from the open window, she shouted at us in a French dialect to get off her private land.

  Approaching her, I raised my head toward the window where her face could be seen, and in broken French, I explained that we were walking toward the sea, because of the situation. She did not know anything, and she did not understand what I was talking about. I explained what I had heard in the news, but she, of course, did not believe a word of it.

  Deftly, she pulled out a transistor radio from somewhere and switched it on in a definite movement as if to show me she was not easily fooled.

  The hysterical voice of the broadcaster could be heard from inside the truck. The woman driver was shocked, and her face flushed and then turned white. She turned toward me and asked quietly where we had come from.

  “From Paris,” I replied.

  “And what exactly is going on there?” she asked.

  I told her about the terrible chaos, and gradually we shared our problems. She said she was on her way to a small town about twenty kilometers from our destination, and she offered us a ride to bring us closer to where we were going.

  Of course, we were very happy. We threw our rucksacks into the back of the truck and both sat down next to her.

  Despite our broken, basic French, the conversation flowed in the driver’s cabin. We talked about the advantage farmers had in this situation, as their work was not so dependent upon computerized systems. We told the driver about the sailboat and Eran’s voyage, and she told us about her beloved grandchildren, whom she was going to bring from the town next to Le Havre to her home in the village, in the middle of the divine apple orchards.

  She also told us her son and daughter-in-law tried to convince her to buy a newer truck, but since the old truck used to belong to her late husband, she did not want to get rid of it.

  “More luck than brains,” she said.

  The three of us laughed.

  The journey passed quickly and pleasantly along the dusty tracks, despite the creakiness of the truck. In the end, after driving along the almost empty roads, we reached the small town where the driver’s grandchildren lived. The chaos was also very noticeable over there. The residents gathered in the streets and stared enviously at the old dusty truck that doggedly made its way through. As we passed, they jumped back onto the sidewalks, spitting out musical French curses that were swallowed up by the sound of the engine.

  The farmer, who hurried off to her grandchildren, dropped us at the edge of the town and told us to walk at the side of the road, following the signs to Le Havre.

  This is what we did, even though Eran did not give up on the map, and he continued to hold it and check our steps. Within two hours, we were already at the port. We ran toward the sailboat, and to our surprise, we found it was still whole. Nothing had happened to it. Everything was in its place, including the reserves of food Eran had loaded it with before our trip to Paris.

  Eran jumped from the jetty onto the sailboat and began checking every single item and estimating the small craft’s fitness for the grueling journey ahead. Originally the sailboat was built for two sailors, but due to the amount of equipment, emergency apparatus, and food on it, there was not much room even for Eran. Now that I was also supposed to travel on the sailboat, he had to check if it could also take my weight and that of the additional food we had to put on there for me.

  I saw Eran deep in thought, and I felt rather uncomfortable. I turned my head away to avoid his worried expression. I noticed a small dinghy, rather like a child’s boat. Hesitantly, I asked Eran what would happen if the sailboat dragged the dinghy along with it and we loaded it with the extra equipment.

  Eran’s eyes lit up. “That’s an excellent solution!” he exclaimed with a smile.

  Now that we had solved the problem with carrying the equipment, how would we get hold of more food? Eran poi
nted toward a small store at the end of the street leading toward the port, where he had brought the concentrated, canned, and dried foods he had packed into the sailboat. The store was closed and shuttered. I stammered as I suggested we wait until the night, and then I would break into the store and take whatever we needed for the voyage.

  Looking me straight in the eye, Eran replied, “That goes against my conscience. However, the end justifies the means.”

  After we had settled our minds about this issue, Eran asked me to stay behind to watch the dinghy. In the meantime, he went out to search for knotting ropes and sealed plastic bags for wrapping the equipment that would be inside the dinghy so if it overturned, nothing would get damaged.

  I sat inside the narrow boat, wondering how we would manage to live like this. It wouldn’t be for just one day, but for a number of days, and maybe even weeks. Moreover, I did not feel comfortable in the sea, to say the least, and I had an innate fear of the water, the waves, and the various creatures that reside under the sea.

  I understood I was sliding into a real panic, and I had to shake myself out of it and convince myself this was the only way to survive and get home again. What didn’t make me feel better was the fact that the port was empty, and there didn’t seem to be a living soul around. The only sounds that could be heard were very faint and came from afar, from the dock where the boats were, where some movement was visible.

  Around an hour later, Eran finally came back with the necessary equipment he had collected from around the port, and particularly from the large trashcans there.

  Eran started organizing the dinghy, and he gave me instructions so I could help him. We tied the little dinghy to the sailboat and set up the storage bags so they would hold the supplies I would manage to get hold of later that night.

  Afterward, Eran prepared a list of things we should take from the store, as well as neat sketches of the area in the store where the various food items were kept according to what he remembered from the previous morning when he had bought provisions for himself.