The Tsunami Countdown

FIFTY-FOUR

12:28 p.m.

9 Minutes to Fourth Wave

Kai leaned against the wall and slowly shook his head. “It was my idea to land here,” he said.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Brad said. “It was a good idea.”

“What was I thinking, Brad?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t even save my own family. What made me think I could save everyone else?”

Brad started to speak, then stopped. His face had a puzzled look. “Did you really think you could save everyone? That that was your job?”

“Of course that was my job!”

“No. It wasn’t. Your job was to give everyone else a chance. To warn them. You did that. I saw you do it. You can’t save everyone. People have to save themselves. You gave them a chance to do that. After that, it’s up to the Big Man upstairs.”

Kai stared at Brad, truly surprised. He had never heard Brad mention any religious beliefs before. It just wasn’t something they talked about.

Brad saw the stunned look and said, “Hey, how do you think I got through that scuba diving bit? Now, enough with the pep talk. Let’s go figure out another way out of this mess.”

With that, Kai pulled himself together. If they were going to get out of this, gnawing self-doubt would not help them.

They climbed the debris back onto the roof and ran to the now-silent helicopter.

“So can we get up there?” Teresa asked. The others looked at Kai expectantly.

He shook his head. “It’s completely blocked. It’ll take too much time to try moving it.”

“Oh, this is just perfect!” Chuck exclaimed before Brad shot him a look and shut him up. Denise ignored him, as if she wanted nothing more to do with him.

Stan seemed to be having a conversation on his headset.

“Stan,” Kai said, “please tell us you found a helicopter.”

Stan wrapped up his discussion and removed the headset. He climbed out of the helicopter and looked up.

“No,” Stan said, “I still can’t find any. None will respond to my hails.”

“Then who were you talking to?”

“I have another pilot who says he might be able to get us.”

“You just said there weren’t any other helicopters,” Chuck said.

“There aren’t.” Stan pointed straight up. “Look there.”

At first, Kai didn’t see what Stan was talking about, mostly because he expected a helicopter. Then a glint of metal directly overhead flashed in the sun.

“That’s a plane,” Chuck said, master of the obvious.

“An Air Force C-130,” Stan said. “He’s got an alternative solution.”

Kai spun around. The runway next to the office building was pitted with holes where the concrete was torn up. The sections that were still intact were strewn with garbage and airplane parts.

“He’ll never be able to land here,” Kai said.

“He says that he can spot a section of the reef runway that is clear—at least, clear enough for him. Those babies can land on anything as long as it’s flat.”

The control tower and its office building stood in the center of the airport. The reef runway was reclaimed land built on a coral outcropping at the airport’s southernmost point.

“That’s got to be a mile away,” Kai said.

“Given where he said he’d have to land,” Stan said, “I’d say more like a mile and a half.”

Kai looked at his watch, which continued to tick despite all it had been through. Seven minutes left.

“We’ll never make it, even if we all run.”

“We’re not going to run,” Stan said. “We’re going to drive.”