Rogue Wave

Chapter 18

With two minutes before the tsunami was expected to arrive at Johnston Island, Niles Aspen was on speaker phone in the Ops Center. He and the other scientist to stay behind, Brent Featherstone, were both biologists from the University of London.

Kai had wanted them on the line to describe the tsunami in case they lost the feed from the tide gauge, which was real-time. But Dr. Aspen had a surprising source of information for them.

"Dr. Tanaka, to help educate our students, we have equipped ourselves with a video camera that has its own separate link to the satellite network to broadcast photos at 60-second intervals. But there is absolutely no reason that we couldn't change that to a real-time video broadcast." He gave Reggie the Internet address of the page where they would see the video feed.

Reggie typed it in, and they saw a picture of the Johnston Island runway, slightly disjointed because the frame rate through the various satellite and Internet networks was bogging down. The twin-engine supply plane carrying their five comrades was on its takeoff roll. In a few seconds, it lifted into the air and circled the island to wait until it was clear to land again.

Kai asked Reggie if he could record what they were seeing. In a blur of motion that was too fast for Kai to follow, Reggie started a recording application.

"Voila! This should provide for some interesting analysis later."

Kai had already told Aspen about the loss of contact with Christmas Island. The British scientist seemed remarkably composed.

"Well," came Aspen's voice through speaker, "we have Charlotte and the rest safely away. I have to say, Dr. Tanaka, this is all quite exciting for us. Just what we needed to punch up our normal routine." A muffled voice came through behind Aspen's. "And Brent reminds me, we even have a thermos of tea to help us weather the storm, as it were."

"Believe me, Dr. Aspen," Kai said, "I hope I'm wrong."

"I don't know what more we could do."

"You'll be our first confirmation as to whether were dealing with a true tsunami or not. You're on a concrete structure, correct?"

"It couldn't be more solid. You Yanks certainly don't mind wasting construction material. This is the safest place we can be within walking distance. I dare say it might be the strongest structure on the island by the look of it. We didn't bring any vehicles, of course."

"How high are you?"

"I would say we're 30 feet above the ground."

The camera panned around to show a wide flat roof, and then the jaunty figure of Dr. Aspen in a wide-brimmed hat, T-shirt, and shorts, holding a large phone to his ear as he waved to the camera. The voice came out slightly ahead of the image from the camera, so it looked like a badly dubbed foreign film.

"We are now moving the camera to the edge of the roof facing the ocean. As you mentioned, the tsunami should arrive from the southeast, so that is the direction that you will be looking."

After a few more seconds of nausea-inducing wobbles, the camera came to a stop atop a tripod, with Dr. Aspen now out of the picture. A narrow road led away from the building, passing several structures before it petered out at the beach. In the distance, breakers could be seen curling over the reef that encircled the island.

"To give you a sense of perspective," Dr. Aspen said, "the two buildings you see directly in front of us are single-story wooden structures roughly 15 feet in height. I would estimate that the shoreline is about 500 yards away. That is about as far as we could get from the ocean and still find a strong building. I'd be quite surprised if the water even got this far inland."

Another indistinct mumbling in the background.

"Brent thought he spotted a wave on the horizon, but it was just another big breaker on the reef."

"Dr. Aspen," Kai said, "it's likely that the first thing you'll see is the water receding from the shore."

"Right. We'll keep on the lookout… Wait a tic. I think I see what you're talking about."

A second later, Kai could see it. The ocean had started to noticeably recede from the beach, visible even with the poor video. He had seen similar video and pictures from other tsunamis, particularly the Asia tsunami, but seeing it in real time was literally breathtaking.

"It's a spectacular sight, really," Aspen said. "It's like no ebb tide I've ever seen."

Kai watched in wide-eyed wonder as the water went out. By the time it had withdrawn a couple of hundred yards, he expected the tide to start reversing and come back. But to his astonishment, it kept going out.

"Sweet Jesus," said Reggie. "It's happening."

Dr. Aspen continued to cheerfully report what he was observing.

"I'd guess the water has gone out 1000 yards by now. Is this the kind of behavior you were expecting, Dr. Tanaka?"

All Kai could croak was, "No." This was beyond his wildest nightmares. Until that point, he thought Dr. Aspen's retreat to the rooftop would provide all the protection he needed. Now Kai clearly saw that the situation was dire, but he didn't know what to tell Aspen. There was nowhere else for him to go.

"The water has stopped receding, I believe."

The video confirmed his words. The extreme ebb tide bubbled out past the reef. With better camera resolution, Kai would have expected to see thousands of fish flopping around on the newly exposed ocean bottom.

"My word, look at the birds."

That got Kai's attention. It seemed like an odd thing to say considering everything else clamoring for attention. "Excuse me, Dr. Aspen?"

"I've never seen anything like it, really. All the birds on the island seemed to have taken flight simultaneously. I hope the pilot notices and steers clear of them."

A yell in the background.

"Brent just noticed that the water is starting to come back. At an alarming pace, too, I'm afraid."

In the distance, a frothy white line stretched across the horizon and out of the field of view of the camera. After a few seconds, the white froth had risen visibly and seemed to be racing for the camera.

Kai tried to keep a sense of panic out of his voice. "Dr. Aspen, you need to find something to tie yourselves to. Anything permanently affixed to the structure."

"We have no rope."

"Use your belts, nylon from a backpack, anything."

"I'm afraid the best we can do is to wrap our arms around a metal ladder bolted into the side of the building. Excuse me while we do so."

The wave now approached the beach. The froth looked to be 30 feet high and still rising. A growing roar threatened to drown out Dr. Aspen's voice.

"As you can hear," Dr. Aspen shouted, straining to make himself audible, "we are listening to what sounds like 15 approaching freight trains. How big is this tsunami going to get, Dr. Tanaka?"

He deserved the truth. "I don't know, Dr. Aspen. Maybe too big."

A pause. He knew what Kai meant.

"Well, Dr. Tanaka," Aspen yelled over the din, "it seems Brent and I may not get to enjoy that cup of tea after all."

As he said that, a wall of water smashed into the palm trees closest to the beach, completely engulfing them, and the wave finally showed signs that it was about to curl over. Kai could only watch in shock as the tsunami collapsed and drove itself into the first building it encountered, shattering it.

Whole trees and the debris from the building were driven forward by a wave that had to be at least 100 feet high. As it approached each building in its path, the structure was engulfed and disappeared. None were even half the height of the wave. It was as if the world's largest dam had burst.

The howl of crashing water coming from the phone now made it almost impossible to hear what Aspen was saying.

"My Lord! Hold on, Brent!" Then a scream from Brent in the background, and that was all Kai could make out before the phone went dead.

At the same time, the tsunami commanded the entire area of the screen. It looked like watching through the window of a washing machine, water boiling and churning, with indistinct bits of detritus writhing around within it.

The camera pitched backward, probably from the force of air pushed in front of it by the wave. For a fraction of a second, all Kai could see was blue sky. Then a shadow loomed over the lens, and the image was gone.

Kai, Brad, and Reggie all stood in stunned silence. Nobody could muster the words to comment on what they had just seen. But they knew the implications. In less than an hour, Hawaii was going to experience a catastrophe of epic proportions.