The Tsunami Countdown

FIVE

9:03 a.m.

The Grand Hawaiian was the newest and swankiest of the luxury hotels lining Waikiki Beach. Constructed over the razed remains of a 1940s apartment building, the 1,065-room hotel was the brainchild of a Las Vegas resort mogul looking for new locations to expand his empire. An airy pedestrian sky-bridge at the sixth-floor conference facility connected its two twenty-eight-story towers. Rachel strode onto the sky-bridge from her offices in the Akamai tower toward the main ballroom in the Moana tower, carefully reviewing the checklist for the disabled veterans brunch while she walked. The governor of Hawaii was scheduled to address the group and then accompany them to a remembrance ceremony at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery. It was the biggest event in the young hotel’s history, and she was on the hook to make sure everything went off without a hitch.

As she ran through the routine checklist, Rachel couldn’t help but think about her late-night conversation with Teresa. As a resident, Teresa was charged with saving patients on a daily basis, making a fundamental difference in their lives and those of their families. Rachel, on the other hand, was responsible for making sure that there were enough servings of mahi mahi at the brunch.

Her job as a hotel manager was comfortable and paid well, but being a doctor had to be infinitely more rewarding. Rachel had thought about going into medicine long ago, but for financial reasons she never seriously considered it. So when she met Teresa, it was Rachel’s opportunity to help someone else achieve her dream.

Teresa had been a nurse when she introduced herself to Kai and Rachel during Lamaze class. Teresa and Rachel had hit it off immediately, but the lout Teresa was married to at the time didn’t get along as well with Kai. The two women got even closer once Rachel, after years of working on Teresa, finally convinced her to pursue her passion and go to med school. Teresa’s husband, who wanted her to give up working altogether and become a stay-at-home mother with five children, filed for divorce. To make things worse, it also turned out that he’d been having serial affairs on his business trips. During that difficult period, Teresa had leaned on Rachel, and Lani and Mia spent every non-school hour together.

When Kai accepted his new job, Lani was devastated about leaving Mia. So as soon as Teresa had a week off from her third year of residency, she planned a trip to Hawaii, and the Tanakas happily agreed to host them.

With Teresa visiting, Rachel was reminded that she had abandoned her dreams for practicality, and she didn’t want her daughter to make the same mistake. If Lani wanted to become a scuba diving instructor or a professional soccer player or anything else, Rachel wanted her to have that opportunity.

Halfway across the bridge, Rachel was so deep in thought that she nearly ran into Bob Lateen, the chairman of the veterans conference. His frown told her she was about to have another problem.

She shook off her reverie. “Can I help you, Mr. Lateen?”

“Mrs. Tanaka,” Lateen said, keeping up with Rachel in his motorized wheelchair while she walked, “you assured us that we would have sufficient accommodations for our accessibility needs, but there is a serious situation in the ballroom that needs to be taken care of immediately.”

Rachel squinted from the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the skybridge but still maintained a polite smile.

“Mr. Lateen, I want you to know that we take your concerns very seriously, and we value your patronage. I will do anything I can to help. Now, what’s the problem?”

They exited the bridge and came into a lavish foyer. Some of the attendees were already milling about. Rachel and Lateen weaved their way through and entered the Kamehameha Ballroom, the largest in the hotel.

“The problem,” Lateen said, “is that we are supposed to start the brunch in less than an hour, and I can’t even get onto the dais.”

He pointed to the wide raised table at the back of the ballroom. On the right side, a standard staircase led up to the dais. On the left side, a short ramp had been constructed over the staircase. Now Rachel could see the problem.

As instructed, a ramp had been installed, but whoever oversaw the construction either hadn’t done it before or hadn’t thought about the needs of the person that would be using it. They had essentially laid the ramp directly over the stairs, canting it up at a slope impossible for anyone in a wheelchair to negotiate.

“If I use that ramp,” Lateen continued, “I will look like an idiot because I will have to have three people help me up. They might as well carry me up the stairs on the other side.”

“I understand the problem, sir. Let me contact the contractor. We’ll have this fixed before the brunch starts.” She pulled out her walkie-talkie.

“Max, is the dais contractor still in the hotel?”

Max Walsh, her assistant manager, picked up immediately.

“I’m just signing some papers with him,” Max said.

“Put him on the walkie-talkie. Now.”

A second of silence elapsed before John Chaver, the contractor, came on the line.

“This is John.”

“John, this is Rachel Tanaka. You and your men need to come back up here immediately. The ramp is installed improperly.”

“It’s built according to my specs.”

She edged away from Lateen so that she was out of earshot and explained the problem with the dais. This guy picked the wrong day to mess with her.

“The ramp is useless. Now, if you want to continue to do business at this hotel—a hotel that’s scheduled to have over a hundred and fifty conferences this year—you better get back up here and fix that ramp in the next twenty minutes.”

“Just a minute.”

Another few moments of silence. Then Chaver came back sounding much more contrite.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tanaka. I just checked with one of my guys. He installed the wrong ramp. We’ve got the right one in our truck. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Good.” Rachel walked back to Lateen. “A Mr. Lateen will be up here to describe exactly what he needs,” she told Chaver. “He is a very important guest, and I expect you to extend him every courtesy.”

“Of course. I’m on my way.”

She replaced the walkie-talkie on her belt.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tanaka,” Lateen said. “I appreciate your help.”

“Not at all. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I hope this won’t discourage you from using our hotel in the future.”

“If we get this fixed, you can consider me satisfied.” Chaver arrived, and Rachel left him with Lateen to get the ramp changed.

As she walked away, her cell phone rang. It was Teresa.

“Are you still awake?” she said.

“Are you kidding?” Teresa said. “Most nights I’d kill for five hours’ sleep.”

“Thanks for staying up late. You’ve got so many good stories about the hospital.”

“I just told you the glamorous stuff. Tonight I’ll tell you the things I normally deal with, like strung-out junkies, idiotic insurance forms, and every bodily fluid you can imagine. It’s not pretty.”

“I’m still proud of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m proud of you too.”

“For what?”

“For having such a great family. You’ve got something good going there.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Okay, I gotta go. The juice on my cell is running low.”

“Wait! The reason I wanted you to call was because I reserved you a spot in the Grand Hawaiian parking garage. Just tell them I sent you.”

“You kick ass, Rachel! I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.”

Rachel got only two steps back into the skybridge when her walkie-talkie crackled to life. It was Max.

“Rachel, we have a problem with the Russian tour group.”

“What’s the problem? Something with their rooms?”

“I don’t know. I can’t understand them. But they’re getting pretty irate.”

“There’s no interpreter?”

“Nope. And none of them speaks a word of English.”

“That may be the problem. Where are they?”

“Second-floor mezzanine.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Rachel stopped and leaned against the skybridge railing. She took a deep breath to gather herself as she watched thousands of carefree people enjoying their holiday on the beach. Then she headed to the elevators, ready to take on the day’s next emergency.