The Tsunami Countdown

FORTY

11:45 a.m.

2 Minutes to Second Wave

On the skybridge between the Grand Hawaiian buildings, Ashley clung to Bill’s shoulders as they crossed from the Akamai tower to the Moana tower. They had been making good progress, suffering only one or two minor slips. However, the creaking of the walkway became more frequent, in part due to Bill’s two-hundred-fifty-pound frame. “You’re doing great, Ashley,” Paige said, trying to keep her daughter’s spirits up. She had to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep herself together. She could do nothing to help them other than provide encouragement. “Just keep holding tight.”

The decision to send her two children off with a stranger had been agonizing for her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ashley and her husband behind. The image of Wyatt nearly falling off the skybridge was burned into her memory. If anything like that happened to Ashley, she’d rather depend on herself to save her child.

As Bill was ready to take his final steps toward the safety of the building, Paige heard a commotion on the other side of the bridge.

Five college-aged men stumbled to a stop at the end of the bridge. Each of them talked in a sloppy midwestern twang fueled by at least a twelve-pack of beer apiece.

“Hey, look,” one of the guys said. “See, I told you I could see people crossing from our room.”

“Come on,” said another one. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Before Paige and Bill could shout more than “No!” all five of the drunken frat boys stepped onto the bridge. They hadn’t gotten more than a few feet before one fell, dragging two of the others down with him. The impact resonated on the already fragile skybridge. It started to bounce, snapping cables, swaying sickeningly over the courtyard below, now drained of water.

“Bill!” Paige shouted. “Jump!”

But Bill wasn’t going to be able to get to the Moana tower without falling, possibly losing Ashley, so he grabbed the child’s arm and pulled her off his back. He swung her around and hurled the small girl toward the waiting arms of Paige six feet away.

At that moment the center of the skybridge snapped from the added load. The two halves, still attached at the ends, swung toward their respective towers. All five of the drunken men slid off the deck and screamed until dull thuds marked their passing. Paige turned Ashley’s head away so that she didn’t see the resulting impacts. The opposite end of the walkway crashed against the building and then sheared off, collapsing into a pile of bent metal far below, burying the bodies.

Bill had wrapped both arms around the pillar he was holding. When his end of the bridge slammed into the tower, the floor of the walkway detached from the roof at its base, smashing into the courtyard below. But the roof, along with the vertical pillars, remained attached to the Moana tower, suspended by only two surviving steel rods.

Paige peered cautiously over the edge, fearing what she would see below. To her relief, she saw Bill still clinging to the pillar, but it was only a matter of minutes before he either lost his grip or was engulfed by the next massive wave.

Rachel, exhausted from running up and down the stairs and the ordeal at the skybridge, rested her head against the metal fire door of the sixteenth-floor stairwell. She had been trying to raise Kai on the walkie-talkie and was terrified because he wouldn’t answer.

“Kai, are you there? Kai, come in, please.”

“Who’s Kai?” Wyatt asked.

“He’s my husband. He’s with my daughter, Lani.”

“What happened to them?” Hannah asked.

“I don’t …” Rachel started to answer but a sob caught in her throat, and before she could stop herself, she began to cry.

She buried her face in her hands as it all came rushing out. The stress. The responsibility for all the hotel guests. Not knowing whether her family was safe or … She didn’t want to think about the possibility of the worst case, but it came anyway. And now she was responsible for someone else’s children.

Hannah hugged her. “It’ll be okay, Rachel. Lani and Kai will be okay.”

Rachel sobbed again and held the little girl to her tightly. How can a child keep it together while I’m such a mess, she thought. Teresa was right. There was nothing glamorous about saving lives, but the outcome was worth the toll.

After another moment Rachel caught her breath and calmed down.

“Thank you, Hannah,” she said, stroking Hannah’s hair. “I’m sure they’ll be okay too.”

Wyatt, who was standing behind Hannah, looked embarrassed by the emotional display.

“Can I try the walkie-talkie?” he said. “I have one like it at home. Maybe I can get him.”

Rachel smiled and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Sure, Wyatt.” She handed the walkie-talkie to him. “Just press the red button and talk.”

“Kai, are you there?” he said. He waited for a response. None came.

“Try again, and make sure …” Rachel stopped in mid-sentence and cocked her head.

“And make sure what?” Wyatt said.

Rachel raised her hands.

“Shhh!”

“What?” Hannah said.

“Be quiet for a second. I think I hear something.”

Rachel turned her head so that her ear pressed against the door. Wyatt and Hannah followed suit.

After a moment of silence, a thudding sound was distinctly audible. Normally the whirring of fans and the rush of air movement throughout the hotel’s ductwork masked low-level sounds. But with the power off, the hotel was bathed in an eerie stillness.

The noise repeated at regular intervals. One, two, three, four. Silence for four counts. Then again: one, two, three, four. The faint pounding reverberated through the metal door. The sound was definitely man-made.

“What is that?” Hannah asked.

“I don’t know,” said Rachel, “but it sounds like it’s coming from the hallway.”

She sprang to her feet and opened the door. The sound was louder now and more distinct. It seemed to be emanating from somewhere in the deserted corridor.

“You guys wait here,” Rachel said.

“Where are you going?” Hannah said.

“I need to find out what that sound is. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere unless your parents come back. And keep the door open.”

Rachel walked down the hall, stopping every few seconds to get her bearings on the noise. As she went farther into the building, the pounding got louder, until she was able to zero in on it without stopping. About halfway down the corridor, she rounded the corner to the elevator lobby. It was now obvious where the sound was coming from.

The sound of a voice accompanied the pounding.

“Help! Is anyone out there?”

Someone was trapped in the elevator.

Carrying all of the equipment slowed them down more than Kai thought it would. Time was short as they hurried out of The Seaside’s tenth-floor stairwell and into the condo.

“We were beginning to think you forgot about us,” Brad said. His voice had a façade of cheer, but Kai could sense the despair just underneath the surface. He was trying to keep up Mia’s spirits.

“Not a chance, haole,” Kai said. “We’re going to get you out of there.”

Teresa showed him the jack.

“That’s a beautiful sight,” Brad said.

“Let’s try it,” she said.

“Wait,” Kai said. “We don’t have time for that yet.”

“What are those for?” Brad said, noticing the scuba tanks.

“For us. All of us.”

“Why don’t you get us out first?”

“We have two minutes at most,” Kai said as he cut the rope into ten-foot segments with the dive knife. “We need to get ourselves tied down first.”

“Kai, you’re kidding, right?”

“No.” Kai didn’t have time to cushion the news. His mind flashed back to Brad trapped in that shipwreck and the panicked rapping at the door before Kai had been able to free him. Brad hadn’t dived since, his fear of the depths approaching phobia.

“I’m not staying here,” Brad said.

“Unfortunately, Brad, you’re going to have to.”

“Kai, get us out of here!” Brad began to struggle against the girder. “I can’t stay here.”

“Stop it!” Kai said, trying to calm Brad. He gave the ropes to Teresa. “Start tying yourselves to the girder. Tightly! It’s the strongest thing here. Don’t forget Brad and Mia.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brad yelled.

Kai leaned closer to speak softly into his ear. “Because I knew this is how you would react, and you’re scaring Mia.”

“But the water …!”

“Yes, we’re going to be under at least fifty feet of water. I know it’s not what you want, but it’s going to happen.”

“I can’t!”

“You can and you will, because there’s no other choice. Now, are you going to be quiet, or do I have to stick the regulator in your mouth right now?”

Brad’s weak nod did nothing to hide his terror.

“What’s his problem?” said Tom.

“He had a bad experience scuba diving one time.”

“What happened?”

“He got stuck in a shipwreck and almost drowned.”

Kai took some of the rope and lashed the tanks to the girder. Only now did it occur to him that they should have also brought buoyancy compensators—the vests that support scuba tanks during a dive—to strap the tanks to. He hadn’t thought about it while they were in the dive shop, even though he remembered seeing some. The nylon rope was certainly strong, but his technique for tying them down was lacking. He had never been in the Boy Scouts, so he was just winging it on the knots. He didn’t really care if they would be easy to untie. They could always use the knife to cut themselves free.

Kai was more concerned about the building’s structural integrity, but there was nothing he could do about that. Either it would withstand the wave or it wouldn’t. All he could do was make sure that if it did stay put, they would too.

“I’ve got Tom and Lani secured,” Teresa said.

Kai quickly inspected her work.

“Nice job,” he said. “Those should hold. Let’s get Mia and Brad tied up too.”

“Why? They’re already stuck there.”

“You don’t understand the power of water. The pressure alone might drag one of them out. If that happens, they’d be swept away.”

They rapidly tied the ropes around Brad and Mia together.

“Now it’s your turn,” Kai said.

He threw the rope around the girder and encircled her midsection with it.

“What about you?” she said.

“I’ll do my own. I want to be next to Lani.”

Tom had already screwed the regulator hoses onto each tank. Each unit had an octopus hose with a second breathing regulator attached to it. In scuba diving, you always had one regulator for yourself and a spare one that dragged along behind you to be used by your buddy if his air ran out.

In this case, that meant they only needed three tanks for the six of them: one for Brad and Mia, one for Teresa and Tom, and one for Kai and Lani.

“Test them out,” Kai said to all of them. “Make sure they work.”

If they didn’t, the only thing they could do was share a regulator, but buddy-breathing with the water pulling at them would be difficult, if not impossible. Fortunately, all of the regulators were delivering air.

Kai secured the dive light to his wrist and snaked the last of the rope around the girder and the life raft. Since they hadn’t had time to get Mia and Brad free, they wouldn’t have a chance to use the raft with the coming wave. He snapped the nylon strap from Reggie’s dry bag—which still held Brad’s cell phone, the walkietalkie, and the photo album—around one of the ropes.

As they finished tying themselves down, Kai heard a sound that was both uplifting and heartbreaking.

“Just in time,” Brad said.

Through the open windows came the sound of beating helicopter rotors hovering directly above them: the chopper Kai had requested from Reggie. He had come through for them, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Kai wouldn’t have left Brad or Mia anyway, even if the helicopter had come earlier, but he briefly considered sending Tom and Lani up. With all of them tied up, it would take them minutes to get untangled and attempt to climb the blast-shattered stairs to the roof. He dismissed the idea, no matter how tempting the helicopter sounded. They’d certainly be caught by the wave before they got to the roof.

After a few seconds the helicopter crew must have decided that no one was there to be rescued and went on to another building.

“They were so close,” Lani said.

As depressing as the situation was, there was no reason to dwell on it. They had more pressing issues.

“Okay, everyone,” Kai said. “The current is going to be stronger than anything you’ve ever felt. The important thing is to keep your regulator in your mouth. Keep it clenched tightly between your teeth, and use your hands to hold it on. We don’t have masks, so keep your eyes closed. There’s going to be a lot of debris flowing past us, so try to protect your head as much as you can. This is going to be tough, but it’s not impossible. We can do it.”

“And we’ll jack them out when the water recedes?” Teresa said.

“Absolutely.” Kai patted the jack, which he had lashed against the girder, just next to his tank.

Everyone grew silent as they sensed something change in the air. In the distance, Kai could make out the first inklings of the now-familiar roar they had heard only twenty minutes before.

He strained against his ropes and could barely see through the blown-out door of the condo on the other side of the hallway. The window frame twenty-five feet away perfectly framed the blue sky to the south. Normally, this far from the ocean-side window ledge, he’d be able to see the water only at the distant horizon. But even from his awkward vantage point, Kai could see that the crest of the second tsunami, rushing across Waikiki Bay at forty miles per hour, was already higher than they were. Although seeing a tsunami firsthand was no longer novel to him, it was breathtaking nonetheless.

Kai gripped Lani’s hand tightly.

“Here it comes!” he yelled. “Everybody brace yourselves!”

Then Kai clenched the regulator in his mouth and steeled himself for the impact of a billion gallons of water.