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and forefinger invisibly apart. “But it was enough to requisition me a chopper. We’re goin’ storm chasin’.”
    He grinned back. “I knew it was a good idea calling you.”
    Sanjay McDonald said, “I take it you two know each other well.”
    Gary said,“We were at MIT together. I studied under Thandie, actually. I went off to work at Goddard, and Thandie drew the short straw and moved to NOAA.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” she shot back.
    “But we worked in the same area, climate modeling, with Thandie focusing on the interaction of the ocean and atmosphere—well, I guess you must know that. We worked together on some predictive modeling to aid the post-Katrina levee reconstruction project at New Orleans.”
    “Our world, the world of climate modelers, is small,” Sanjay said solemnly. He looked Asian to Gary, but his accent was as Scottish as his surname.
    “We missed you,” Thandie said to Gary. “I kept in touch with your mom. We signed the petitions, kept up the websites, nailed up the posters, tied the yellow ribbons on the trees on your birthday. Kept you in the public eye.”
    This sort of thing touched Gary deeply. During his captivity he had had no idea that people were making such a sustained effort on his behalf. “I appreciate that. I mean it. It must have played a part in getting me out of there. And I know Mom needed the support. I haven’t seen her yet, though we’ve spoken . . .”
    A few of the Barrier staff came through, all British, mostly men, looking harassed but excited.
    Thandie said dryly,“Today’s the kind of day that makes it worthwhile for the guys who work here. Validation Tuesday. We’re trying to keep out of the way. Officially we’re guests of the Met Office’s Storm Tide Forecasting Service. They have a big modeling center up in Liverpool—”
    “But the production models don’t work so well anymore,” Sanjay said.
    “So,” Thandie said, “here we are at the front line with our experimental models trying to patch together new solutions.”
    Gary said,“If the models don’t work, I guess the Met Office can’t say how this storm is going to play out.”
    “That’s about the size of it,” Sanjay said.“And that’s why no warnings were issued about this storm until just recently. Ideally they like twelve or twenty-four hours’ notice, so they can order the schools to stay closed in the morning, and keep the commuters out of the city, that sort of thing.”
    Thandie said,“And the models don’t work because the world is going awry. You’ve been missing all the fun, Gary Boyle.”
    A deep mechanical groan reverberated through the concrete structure. Gary imagined the tremendous weight of the rising river water, pressing against the Barrier gates.
    “So, you ready?” Thandie asked.

11

    T he chopper, run by the Environment Agency, was a modified Puma. It was fitted out with an instrument pod with temperature, pressure and windspeed gauges, and a neat little unit with radar and infrared monitors to measure the depth of the river water and other properties such as speed, surface roughness and temperature. A camera was mounted beneath the hull. There was even a sonde, a fish-shaped gadget attached to a winched cable that could be lowered into the water, though Sanjay insisted the sonde wouldn’t be used today; the water was too turbulent, the risk of snagging on some bit of flotsam too great.
    As Sanjay checked the gear,Thandie grinned at Gary with a glint in her eye, a look he recognized well. She had always had a streak of recklessness about her, a willingness to go chasing hurricanes and tsunamis, all in the name of science, always willing to go that bit further than anybody else. Disaster hunting, she called it, surfing the extreme weather.
    And it scared him to his bones when they got into the chopper and Thandie herself took the pilot’s seat. She pulled a radio cap over her head and started snapping switches. An engine roared into life and the rotors