Rogue Wave

Chapter 36

The stairs leading to the roof of the flat-topped Moana tower in the Grand Hawaiian were steep but wide. Normally, the access was strictly limited to hotel employees who needed to maintain the rooftop air conditioning units. But Max Walsh was forced to herd the guests up the steps. There was no elevator to the roof, so the lack of power was irrelevant. Because many of the guests were disabled, with some of them in wheelchairs, the going was slow. The only good news was that they had just one floor to climb.

Max conferred with Bob Lateen before deciding that, one at a time, Max and Adrian would carry each of them. Some of the wives-none of them under 70-volunteered to help, but Max was afraid one of them would fall, and he didn't need any more problems than he had already. Max counted the disabled guests and saw that they would have to make eight trips to get them all up.

In the meantime, Max asked all of those with cell phones to try calling someone who could send a helicopter to rescue them. Of course, he could go up to the roof and try to flag one down, but that would delay the movement of the disabled guests. He asked three of the ladies to leave their husbands to signal for help by waving a tablecloth.

It took two minutes to get the first wheelchair-bound guest up and situated comfortably on the roof, much more time than Max expected. At that rate, it would take over 15 minutes to get them all up, so he decided to send the able-bodied people up the stairs first.

While Adrian finished helping guests walk up the stairs, Max went to the window to look at the devastation below.

The streets were unrecognizable. A steady stream of water flowed back toward the ocean, dragging all kinds of flotsam with it. It would be only a matter of minutes before the land was completely drained.

He could clearly see the skybridge now. A huge gash in the roof exposed part of the walkway to the bright sunlight. Max couldn't see the piece of debris responsible, but it must have been something big. Anything large enough to leave that mark could have easily torn the skybridge from its moorings. As it was, the bridge appeared to be hanging by the thinnest of threads. Anyone willing to cross that would have to be pretty desperate, he thought as he made his way back to the stairwell.

Twenty floors below Max, Rachel reached the sixth-floor conference center. The skybridge in front of her looked like it had been blasted by a truck bomb. Every shard of glass had been torn out of the windows, exposing the walkway to the ocean breeze from floor to ceiling. The skybridge itself was tilted at an extreme angle, with the beach side higher, as if the wave had pushed up one edge but couldn't wrest it from its steel cables.

The skybridge was unusually bright. The mid-day sun poured through the hole in the roof, illuminating the sorry state of the floor itself. Like every other surface the tsunami had touched, a fine layer of soupy silt coated the decking. In many places, holes had been punched through the floor as well as the ceiling. Fifty feet below, the outflow of water was now only ten feet deep. They were lucky the skybridge was still there at all. It certainly wouldn't stand up to another onslaught of water.

As Rachel approached the bridge, the family appeared on the other end of the 60-foot walkway. They heaved visibly from the exertion of racing down twenty flights of stairs. The father carried a small girl, while a 10-year-old boy and another girl several years younger than the boy leaned on their mother. All three kids had their mother's black hair and lean figure, but their light mocha skin was obviously a combination of their parents' complexions. The man, slightly jowly, towered over them. His shirt draped over a beer gut past its infancy.

Another couple was with them, people Rachel hadn't seen before. Both of them were in their fifties and appeared relatively fit. The man's curls were just succumbing to a salt-and-pepper transformation, providing a striking complement to the rugged tan lines marking the face of someone who worked outside. The woman, short-haired and elegant in her poise, held his hand tightly.

The group hadn't started across the skybridge yet, uneasy at the sad state of the structure. The railing along the beach side of the slanted walkway had been ripped off and rested atop the railing on the other side.

Rachel yelled down the hall. "I'm the hotel manager. My name is Rachel Tanaka. Are you all right?"

"Yes," the father said. "We met these people on our way down."

"What are your names?" In her line of work, Rachel found that it always made things go more smoothly if she knew the names of the people she was dealing with.

"I'm Nate Tinsley," said the older man. "And this is my wife Cora."

"I'm Bill Rogers," the father of the three children said. "My wife is Paige, and my kids are Tyler, Hannah, and the little one is Ashley."

"Is it safe to cross?" Cora asked.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "The incline is going to make it difficult to get across. Bill, can you get down the stairs in your tower?"

"No," Bill said. "I checked. It's totally blocked by that ship."

"Then you don't have a choice. You'll have to come over here."

"Maybe we should just stay here," Nate said. "That bridge looks pretty rickety."

"We're trying to get a helicopter to come to our roof top…"

Bill interrupted. "Then we can do the same thing in this tower."

"That won't work," Rachel said. "There's nowhere for a helicopter to land on your roof."

"Yeah, dad," Tyler said. "Remember that big spike on the top of the building?"

"Then we'll just go back up to the top floor and wait until this is over."

"Look," Rachel said, "I don't want to frighten you more than you already are. But there are more waves coming and they're going to be much bigger than the last one. Maybe even taller than this building. We need to get out of here."

They still hesitated.

"Come on! We don't have much time left."

Bill and Paige looked at each other and nodded. She spoke to their kids with a slight accent suggesting a Caribbean Island origin and told them to stay back until she was done crossing. She wanted to go first to make sure the skybridge was sturdy enough.

As she was about to step onto the skybridge, Nate stopped her.

"I'll go first. Just in case."

He kissed his wife and tentatively stepped onto the tilted deck of the walkway. Even though he was wearing sneakers, Nate's foot skidded on the slippery floor, and he almost fell. Cora screamed, and the rest of them gasped. Nate grabbed one of the floor-to-ceiling pillars that were spaced every five feet and steadied himself.

"The floor is pretty slick," Nate said without sarcasm. "Be careful."

His arm span was wide enough that he could keep hold of one pillar while he inched along to grab the next one. He made his way slowly. Brad had told her the time spacing between the waves when he had talked to her on the walkie-talkie. At this pace, they'd never make it across and to the roof in time.

"Hurry up!" yelled Rachel. "You have to go faster. We've only got ten minutes left."

Nate gingerly pulled himself across. When he was about halfway through, the skybridge creaked ominously. Nate stopped, and they all held their breath. The creaking subsided, and Nate continued to make his way. In another minute, he was to the end, and Rachel gave him a hand to help him into the Moana tower.

"Whew. Nice to meet you, Rachel," he said.

"How sturdy does it seem?" she asked.

Nate shrugged and shook his head. "It's pretty shaky. They should come one at a time, but I don't think those kids should come over on their own."

"There are three kids. We don't have time for the parents to go back and make a separate trip. Can your wife bring one of them with her?"

Nate nodded. "Cora can do it. She runs with me every day."

Rachel called back to the others. "We don't think the children should come alone, so Bill and Paige, you need to let Cora bring one of your kids with her."

Bill shook his head. "I'll come back and get them."

"That will take too long. You see that water going out? That means another wave is coming soon. We have ten minutes at most. You saw how long it took Nate to get across by himself."

Paige shook her head, but Bill turned to his son. "Tyler, I'm going to need you to be a big boy and help Cora here cross the bridge."

Tyler looked scared, but he nodded.

"OK, you guys go first. We'll be right behind you as soon as you get across." Bill and Paige hugged him. Cora took his hand.

"I have a son that looks a lot like you," she said. "Of course, he's in college, so he's a couple of years older. You ready to go?"

Tyler nodded again, and Cora tested the footing on the bridge. She was much shorter than Nate, so she had to stretch and then let go of one pillar before she could reach the next one. She had Tyler hold on to one pillar, and when she had safely grabbed the next, she pulled him with her. They paused when they heard another shriek of grinding metal. Paige covered her mouth in terror. There was nothing she could do to help them without endangering them further.

The grinding stopped, but it was a further reminder of how precarious the status of the walkway was.

As they came across, Cora and Tyler got into a steady rhythm and had gone three-fourths of the way when Tyler slipped on the muck as he was coming from one pillar to another. Both his feet flew out from under him, and he went down, pulling Cora down as well.

Shouts of "No!" came from both ends of the walkway.

Cora held on to the bottom of the pillar with a fierce grip. If they let go, nothing would keep them from sliding to the opposite side of the skybridge. Only the widely-spaced pillars on the other side would stand between them and a six-story fall to the water below.

"Nate!" Rachel yelled, but before she could stop him, Nate was rapidly pulling himself over to them. She didn't dare follow, afraid the bridge wouldn't take the weight. When she saw Bill start to come over, she put her hands up.

"No! Let Nate get him. The bridge might fall if you get on, too."

Bill saw that she was right and stayed on his side, wringing his hands in frustration.

Nate reached them.

"Grab Tyler," Cora said. "He's too heavy. I'm losing him."

Nate leaned over Cora and took Tyler by the other arm. Cora held his hand as Nate swung him around. But the motion threw her off balance and the hand holding on to the pillar came lose. She went sliding down the tilted walkway, desperately trying to find purchase on the slick tile floor.

"Cora!" Nate cried.

She slowed her slide by tapping her foot on the nearest pillar, but that didn't stop her. She went over the edge and lashed out at the pillar, finally stopping herself by hanging on with one hand.

"Nate!" she cried. "Help!"

"Hold on, honey!"

As quickly as he could, Nate pulled Tyler over to Rachel's end of the skybridge. When he was within reach, he slung Tyler over to her while holding on with the other hand. Rachel latched on to him and pulled Tyler into the building where he collapsed, stunned from the ordeal, but otherwise okay.

Nate saw that he was safe and inched back out until he was even with Cora. He carefully gauged where he was, and then seeing no other way to get down to her, let go. He slid down on his back and hit the pillar with both feet to stop himself. The skybridge swung slightly at the jolt, but it held.

With one hand on the pillar, he bent down to grab Cora's hand. She reached up with her free hand and missed once before finding Nate's waiting hand. She seized it.

When she did that, Nate's balance was thrown off. He had miscalculated the amount of weight and didn't have himself properly set to help her up. With a cry of surprise, Nate fell backward, letting go of Cora.

As the rest of them screamed, Nate and Cora Tinsley plummeted to the brown water swirling below.