The Tsunami Countdown

FORTY-EIGHT

12:12 p.m.

Third Wave

A few minutes after Rachel hung up with Reggie, a helicopter that had been flying along the coast angled over. “Your friend is fast,” Paige said to Rachel. Rachel was surprised and impressed at Reggie’s feat. The sightseeing chopper, one of the AStars popular with the tourists in her hotel, had Wailea Tours painted on the tail. It set down on the Grand Hawaiian roof, and Paige and Rachel ran over. Next to the pilot sat a fit woman who aimed a professional video camera at them. Rachel knew she looked bedraggled after her swim in the elevator shaft, but she didn’t care what the camerawoman shot as long as the helicopter took them off the building.

“Are we glad to see you!” Rachel said. “Reggie must have gotten through to you.”

“They did say something about a Reggie,” the pilot said. “The station that hired me called to tell me to pick you up. You’re lucky. I was about to head over to Portlock when we got the call about you. Hop in.”

“Wait. There’s more of us.”

“How many more?”

“Five, including three kids.” Rachel looked at the helicopter’s cramped interior. “One of the adults is pretty heavy.”

“That would make ten altogether.”

“Can you get us all in?”

“This is only a seven-person chopper, including me. I might be able to squeeze more than that in, but one or two of you will have to stay behind.”

Rachel didn’t like the sound of that, but she guessed that he was being conservative. They’d deal with that when they were all on the roof.

“Fine,” she said.

The pilot looked around the empty rooftop. “Where are they?”

“We need you to come with us.”

“What? Where?”

“A man is injured. We can’t carry him up on our own.”

“Are you kidding?”

“What do you think?” Rachel said, wringing out the tail of her coat for effect.

“I can’t leave the helicopter here.”

“What about you?” Rachel said, pointing at the sinewy camerawoman. “He’s too heavy for three of us to lift. He’s unconscious. With four of us, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

Up to this point, the camerawoman had been silent.

“Hey, I’m not a medic,” she said. “I’m supposed to be filming.”

“We just need help carrying him.”

The camerawoman turned to the pilot. “Nobody said anything about leaving the chopper when we got the call.”

“Please,” Rachel said. “He’ll die.”

“Do you know how many people have died already today?”

“Do you want there to be one more?” Rachel pointed at the ocean, already receding from shore. “We don’t have much time.”

The camerawoman paused, and then sighed and put the camera down on the seat.

“I better get some good shots out of this. Where is he?”

“Thank you. He’s this way.”

Rachel led her down the stairs.

As they walked, she called Kai back to tell him what Reggie had said about the three-hundred-foot wave that was heading their way and that he had sent a helicopter for them.

“Are you boarding the chopper?” Kai said.

“No, we’ve got an injured man here. I asked someone to help us get him to the roof.”

“Who are you talking to?” the camerawoman asked.

“My husband. He’s on top of another building.”

“We don’t have room to take all of you, let alone another group.”

“I know. Are there more choppers coming?”

The camerawoman shook her head. “We’re it. Can you dial up other frequencies with that thing?” She nodded at the walkie-talkie.

“I don’t know. They preprogram it for me.” She keyed the button. “Hold on, Kai.” She handed it to the camerawoman, who examined it for a moment and then returned it.

“Looks like you can. Just twist that knob on the side. You should be able to get the frequency the pilot’s using. You might be able to reach someone who can get them.”

“Kai,” Rachel said, “there’s not enough room on this helicopter for you guys, so you’ll have to call another one.” She relayed the frequency to him.

They arrived at the twenty-first floor, where Jerry still lay unconscious.

“Kai, we’ve got to start carrying Jerry now. I’ll call you back on the new frequency.”

“Okay. Rachel?” Kai said.

“What?”

“I see it. The tsunami. Get out of there as fast as you can.”

“I will. And you get Lani out of there.” She replaced the walkie-talkie on her belt.

The camerawoman took one of Jerry’s arms, Rachel the other, and Paige and Sheila each took a leg. The climb was still awkward but proceeded much more rapidly.

When they reached the twenty-fourth floor, the tower shuddered as if it had been hit with a giant sledgehammer. For a moment they all staggered, thrown off balance.

“Jesus!” yelled the camerawoman. “Was that what I think it was?”

Rachel nodded grimly, now familiar with the sensation.

“Hurry,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”

For the third time that day, Kai watched a giant tsunami tear into Honolulu. Only this time, he had a spectacular 360-degree view from their perch three hundred feet above the ground.

The wave’s size was something only a handful of people in recorded history had ever seen. In 1958, a landslide at Lituya Bay, Alaska, unleashed a wall of water that climbed a quarter mile up the side of a cliff directly opposite of it. A smaller but still huge wave charged down the length of the bay. A father and son, fishing in their boat only a mile from the landslide that day, were borne by the wave over the tops of trees more than two hundred feet high and settled back in the bay upon the receding water. Two other people fishing the bay were not so lucky. Their bodies were never found.

Up to that point, it had been the only mega-tsunami that witnesses had lived to tell about. Now Kai was watching an even bigger one wipe out his home state.

The third wave swept in like a giant fist. The force of water topped ten tons per square foot. Many buildings, already weakened, didn’t stand a chance. At 184 feet, the Aloha Tower had been for many years the tallest structure on the islands. The landmark had miraculously withstood the first and second waves, and Kai could just make out the top of it between other buildings. When the third wave hit, though, it folded like a straw. The Hyatt, the Waikiki Beachside, and the Hilton all collapsed into rubble.

“Darryl and Eunice,” Teresa murmured. She and Brad propped Mia up, and Kai stood with his arm around Lani. Tom had joined them at the rooftop edge, but Denise and Chuck kept their distance on the other end.

“Who?” Kai said.

“A couple I met on the beach. They were staying at the Hilton. I hope they got out.”

Kai waiting in agony to see what would happen when the wave struck the Grand Hawaiian. Just before the impact, Lani buried her head in Kai’s chest.

The tsunami, its crest even with the fifteenth floor, exploded against the side of the hotel’s remaining tower, the water spraying hundreds of feet in the air. For a moment it seemed like the top of the building tilted backward, and Kai held his breath, expecting it to topple.

But it didn’t. The wave wrapped around it and continued on. Other buildings remained standing under the onslaught as well, including many of the behemoths downtown. Most of those buildings had been shielded by others that took the brunt of the wave.

Then the water reached the boat building, and Kai hoped it would hold up to the impact. Even three hundred feet up, the sound was like a dozen approaching tornados.

Two buildings stood directly in the path between the boat building and the full force of the wave. The first, the Moana Surfrider, was blasted by the wave and instantly collapsed. But it had done its part to mitigate the blow. The second building met the slowed wave and the debris from the first building. It was shorter than their building, but it was a stout apartment complex of gleaming steel. The glass that hadn’t shattered during the previous impacts didn’t stand a chance.

The water shot all the way through the building and rocketed out the back windows. It joined the water sweeping around the side and hit Kai’s building.

The impact was not as intense as it had been with the other buildings, but it was still strong. Kai swayed sickeningly on his feet as the water sought to undermine the foundation of the structure. But the foundation held, unlike that of the apartment complex in front of them. When the surge reached the twentieth floor, just below the rooftop, the whole structure disappeared into the sea.

As the water continued to rush past, every few seconds another building would fall, its death signaled by a time-delayed roar, like thunder cracking after the flash of distant lightning.

Kai knew it was simply a matter of time before his building joined them.