The Tsunami Countdown Page 20

  Wheeler sprawled across the midsection of Oahu, at least five miles from the nearest shoreline. Already, the air base’s taxiways were jammed with Boeings and Airbuses from seventeen different airlines.

  Reggie shared space with countless other displaced government agencies, including other NOAA officials, the National Weather Service, FEMA, even the FBI, all of whose offices were located in the heart of downtown Honolulu. Most of those buildings had already been inundated, and the rest would be underwater in the next hour.

  The only working landline telephones were reserved for the U.S. military, and they were in short supply. The cell phone tower that Reggie’s service linked to was still operating, and his cell phone had provided his best news of the day so far.

  Reggie had listened to the message from Kai three times to make sure he had the correct information. He tried calling Brad’s cell phone back repeatedly, with no success. He had no way of knowing if the subsequent messages he left had been received, but it didn’t matter: unless he could get a helicopter to them, all the messages in the world wouldn’t save them.

  The number of helicopters available was not what it could have been. The sightseeing helicopters were ready to fly because they had been fully booked for the holiday, but many of the armed forces’ helicopters were overseas, lacked pilots, or had been destroyed by the first wave.

  The choppers that were left zipped over all the islands, not just Oahu. With thousands of square miles of shoreline and ocean to cover, even the combined forces of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, civilian, and tourist helicopters were stretched thin.

  The evacuation had happened so quickly that coordination was nonexistent at the outset. Only now was there some effort to deploy the available aircraft with some sort of organization. Even so, many pilots simply flew around, looking for survivors who were still in the path of the tsunamis.

  While he had been trying to find a helicopter for Kai, Reggie had also been hard at work in the midst of all this chaos. Not only did he have to keep the Hawaiian authorities informed of new tsunami activity, but he had to keep the rest of the Pacific apprised of the danger. During the emergency, confusion had reigned. Some agencies hadn’t gotten the updates from the West Coast/ Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, so Reggie had been serving as the local contact in Hawaii.

  The PTWC was responsible for warning nations on half the earth’s surface about the coming waves. It still wasn’t over for Hawaii, but it was just starting for twenty other countries and the mainland United States. Reggie assisted Palmer in communicating with every major branch of the government, preparing them for what was about to happen. And the person from the government who offered the best possibility for a helicopter was standing right in front of him.

  “What about islands like Wake?” asked Stuart Johnson, an Air National Guard colonel who was acting as the military liaison to all of the American territories in the Pacific for the duration of the disaster. “We’ve got two hundred contractor personnel stationed there.”

  “Look,” Reggie said, “Wake is way too flat for people to find any ground high enough to survive. The only thing they can do is get on a plane or a ship and get off the island.” He hoped that building whatever rapport he could with Colonel Johnson would help pave the way for his request.

  “We’re already doing that.”

  “They’d better be fast. The first wave will get there in about forty minutes.”

  “What about Guam?”

  “They’ve got a few hours left. If it has land that’s over two hundred feet above sea level, they’ll probably be okay.”

  “Probably?”

  “Colonel, we’re talking about a Pacific-wide mega-tsunami. It’s unprecedented in human history. This isn’t an exact science. We’re taking our best guesses with the data we have. But we estimate that the wave will substantially decrease in size as it gets farther from the impact zone.”

  “Why? I thought waves could cross the entire ocean without losing much of their energy. You said that on an old file tape they showed on CNN twenty minutes ago.”

  “Oh, man. If you’re confused, I can imagine what’s happening on the mainland right now. That’s for an earthquake-generated tsunami.” Reggie drew a crude representation of a fault on his notepad, showing waves issuing from it. “It only goes in one direction, in a line. It’s very focused. The waves from the meteor impact are in concentric circles, so the energy is spread out over the entire circumference of that circle. As the circle gets bigger, the same energy is spread out over a larger area, and the wave gets smaller.”

  “So it’ll be a lot smaller when it reaches the naval base at San Diego?”

  “I wouldn’t call a thirty-foot tsunami small. That’s still huge, but it’s nowhere near what we’re seeing on TV now. With the amount of time they have to evacuate, everyone should be able to get to safety before it hits.”

  “Dammit! What a mess.” The colonel shot Reggie a nasty look, as if this were all his fault. “I guess I have a lot of work to do.” He turned on his heel to leave, but before he got two steps toward the door, Reggie shoved his huge bulk in front of him.

  “Colonel,” Reggie said, “I need a favor.”

  “I don’t have time right now.”

  “You’ll make time. My friend is stuck on a building in Waikiki. I need a helicopter.”

  “Everybody needs a helicopter.”

  “This isn’t just anybody! He’s the assistant director of the PTWC!”

  “I’ve got orders from General Lambert at CINCPAC that says our highest priorities are the major population centers. Besides that, I’ve got to warn every single base in the Pacific to evacuate.”

  “But Waikiki is the biggest population center!”

  “Then the helicopters will get to them eventually.”

  “Eventually?”

  “Look, Mr. Pona, I’m sorry about your friend, but I’ve got my orders and so do my helicopter pilots. Excuse me.” He went around Reggie and into the next room, where he started talking with another officer.

  Fuming about being brushed off, Reggie made another phone call, this one to the HSCD. After less than a minute of discussion, he walked into the room with Colonel Johnson, interrupting his conversation.

  “Pardon me, Colonel, but luckily I had another person who owed me a favor.”

  “Look,” the colonel said, exasperated at Reggie’s persistence, “I already told you I can’t help you.”

  “I really think you’d better take this phone call.” Reggie thrust the cell phone toward the officer. Colonel Johnson eyed it suspiciously.

  “Why? Who is it?”

  “It’s the governor. She wants you to give me a helicopter.”

  Teresa practically dragged Kai to where Mia was trapped. Instead of finding refuge in one of the ocean-side rooms, Brad, Mia, and Teresa had hunkered down in the kitchen of condo 1004, on the north side of the building facing the explosion.

  Kai was stunned by the sight of the ravaged condo. The entire exterior wall was in tatters, and bits of furniture and metal had been propelled into every surface. Even though the kitchen had been shielded from the worst of the blast, it hadn’t come through unscathed.

  As Kai had covered Lani during the explosion, Brad had done the same for Mia. When the blast caused a piece of the ceiling to cave in, a steel girder slashed into the wall on one side and smashed the counter on the other, pinning Mia and Brad at their midsections. Although Teresa had been only five feet away, the falling girder had missed her.

  “Are you okay?” Kai said to Brad.

  “Except for the fact that I can’t move, I’m fine. I think Mia might have a broken leg.”

  “Let’s try pulling you.” Kai gripped Brad by both hands and pulled until his full weight was into it.

  “Stop!” Brad cried. “It’s not working. You’re going to pull my arms off.”

  Teresa bent over and caressed Mia’s hair.

  “You’re going to be all right, honey.”

>   Kai quickly inspected the foot-wide girder. The situation looked grim. The wall between the kitchen and the condo hallway had kept it from hitting the floor and crushing them, but that was about the only good news. Moving it was going to be a big job, and they only had a few minutes.

  “This thing must weigh a thousand pounds,” Brad said.

  “And,” Kai said, “it looks like the girder is wedged into that wall pretty solidly.” To Mia he said, “You can’t move at all, sweetie?”

  Mia shook her head. “My leg hurts. Please don’t leave us here.”

  “No one’s going to leave you,” Kai said. “We’re going to get you out.”

  He led Teresa back to the hallway.

  “I’ll be right back, Mia,” she said as they left.

  “I need you to go down and check out Jake. Let us know what you find.”

  “What about Mia?” Kai could see the desperation in her face.

  “I’ll stay and try to figure out something.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Not long. No more than ten minutes to the next wave. But that means we need to be out of here in five minutes so that we can get down and find another building to climb.” Kai pulled the fire ax off the wall. It had survived the explosion, although the protective glass was gone.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Teresa said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Teresa whispered to Kai. “You’re not thinking of amputation, are you?”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “Good.”

  “But we’ve got to figure out a way to get that girder off of them.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to lose her now, Kai.”

  Kai held her head in his hands. As gently as possible, he said, “I know. You are not going to lose her. But we need you to keep it together, okay?”

  She nodded. “You figure something out.”

  “I will.” He hugged her, and she hurried down the stairs. Kai headed back to Brad and Mia, ax in hand.

  *

  Teresa met Tom on the eighth-floor landing and quickly assessed his awkwardly dangling arm.

  “Jake was already into the hallway when I slipped on the stairs and fell,” he said. “Is it broken?”

  “No, it’s dislocated. Where’s Jake?”

  With his other arm, Tom pointed down the hall. It looked like a bomb had hit it, which was essentially what had happened.

  Other than the dislocation, Tom seemed uninjured, but Jake had not been so lucky.

  A jagged piece of metal about two feet in length had sliced through the wall like it was tissue. Jake sat against the opposite wall, the metal protruding from his chest, his hair filthy from rubbing against the muck coating everything. Blood covered the wall behind him and oozed from the wound. Teresa bent down to examine Jake. His breath was shallow, but it was there.

  “Can you help him?” Tom asked plaintively. “Is he dead?”

  Teresa was devastated at the sight of the injured boy. She had to make a decision, and her options were not good. It was a no-win situation. If she did nothing, he would die in minutes. If she moved him, the shock might kill him. He’d already lost a lot of blood, and any movement might cause further disruption of the wound. Ideally, paramedics would be brought in to stabilize him before he was taken away in an ambulance. But the likelihood of getting any kind of professional medics here in the next ten minutes was nil.

  That left her no choice. She had to try to get him out. But before she did that, she had to take care of Tom.

  “Tom, I’m going to have to put that arm back in place because I need your help.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. But do it quick.”

  “Lie down.”

  Tom lay down on the floor on his back. Teresa positioned herself behind him. She put her left hand on his shoulder and her right hand on his elbow.

  “I’ll count to three, and then I’m going to push your arm back into the socket. Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One … two … three.” With a fast rotation, she snapped the arm back into place. Tom screamed and then relaxed, the pain greatly reduced now that the arm was in its socket.

  Teresa heard Kai yell from upstairs. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t worry about us!” she shouted, then turned her attention back to Tom. “Better?”

  He nodded in relief.

  “You did well, Tom.”

  “What about Jake? Should we take that thing out?”

  Teresa knelt down, shaking her head at the hopelessness of the situation. “If we do, he’ll bleed to death.”

  As she said that, Jake’s eyes fluttered open. A hoarse whisper came out of his mouth.

  “Where am I?” He was in shock. He felt no pain, probably wasn’t even aware that he had been through an explosion.

  “You’re injured, Jake. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “I’m so tired.”

  “I know, sweetie. But you need to stay awake.”

  “So tired …”

  Jake closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and slipped into unconsciousness.

  “Jake!” Tom yelled. “Jake!” He grabbed Teresa’s shoulders. “Do something!”

  She wanted to, but she could see that Jake was too far gone. She put her ear quickly to each side of his chest and heard shallow gasps on only one side. The metal shard had collapsed his lung and nicked a major artery. Resuscitation wouldn’t work. If she had the proper instruments and a hospital staff, they might be able to remove the metal, control the bleeding, and re-expand the lung so that he could be revived. Without them, any attempt at saving him was futile.

  Jake let out a gurgling wheeze, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His body shuddered for a moment and then was still. Teresa checked for a pulse, but found none.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Tom. He’s gone.”

  “No! You can do CPR or something.”

  “Tom, I’m a doctor—”

  “Then help him!”

  “I can’t. The injury was too severe. I’m sorry.”

  As a teenage boy, Tom was probably unaccustomed to crying, but he sobbed uncontrollably at the sight of his dead friend. All Teresa could do was comfort him.

  “I know, honey,” she said, hugging Tom, who buried his head in her shoulder.

  “It’s my fault,” Tom said between sobs. “I convinced my mom and dad to let Jake visit us. He moved away two years ago …” He broke down again.

  “It’s not your fault. And I’m sure your mom and dad will be proud of what you did today. You saved the lives of my daughter and Lani. And so did Jake. You’re heroes. I owe you everything for that.”

  “Do you think my mom and dad are okay?”

  Teresa didn’t want to make any promises she couldn’t keep, but he needed some reassurance. Besides, his parents would have evacuated at the first sirens. She thought back to her own search for Mia and hoped they hadn’t tried to get to Waikiki to find him.

  “I’m sure they’re all right and worrying about you,” she said. “Now I need you to focus on seeing your parents again. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll try. What about Jake? Are we just going to leave him there?”

  “We have to,” Teresa said. There was no way that they could carry Jake’s body with them. She thought about covering him, but even that minor attempt at decency would be rendered moot when the next tsunami came through, washing him to a watery grave.

  Kai was in the hallway looking for something, anything, to help him pry Brad and Mia loose when Teresa and Tom emerged from the stairwell.

  Tom’s face was flushed and tear-stained. He winced as he leaned against her, but his arm no longer dangled awkwardly.

  Kai saw the bleak look on Teresa’s face.

  “Jake?” he said, knowing the awful answer.

  She simply shook her head.

  With that small movement, the real
ity of the situation solidified. Somebody Kai knew had died. A kid no more than fifteen years old. It hadn’t been Jake’s fault.

  In fact, if he hadn’t done so much to help them, Jake could have gotten to high ground and saved himself. Kai felt the blood drain from his face as guilt for his role in the boy’s death overtook him, but he fought to stifle the feeling. If he didn’t send it to the back of his mind, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. He needed to concentrate on the next task, which was saving his brother and Mia.

  “How is she?” Teresa asked.

  “She’s holding up like a trouper, but she’s in pain. I managed to clear off the lighter pieces of rubble, but I couldn’t budge the girder. The ax didn’t serve as much of a lever.”

  “Maybe the four of us can lift it.”

  Kai was dubious about that prospect. “It’s wedged in pretty good.”

  “We won’t know if we don’t try.”

  Kai nodded. “You’re right. Let’s give it a go.”

  “Me too,” Tom said. He didn’t look like he was in any condition to contribute much strength, but anything would help.

  They lined themselves up along the more exposed part of the beam: Teresa and Lani on one side, Tom and Kai on the other.

  “On three,” Kai said.

  On cue, they heaved with all their strength, which had by now been sapped by the rowing, running, and general stress of the situation. The girder didn’t move. They tried again, but the effort was pointless. They weren’t going to get Brad and Mia out this way.

  “It’s no use,” Kai said.

  “We need something stronger to jack it up,” Teresa said.

  When she mentioned the word “jack,” Kai and Teresa looked at each other and realized what the answer was.

  “Car jack!” they said simultaneously.

  They were going to have to make it quick. By this time the streets were empty of water. The large number of cars strewn everywhere outside meant that there would be plenty of places to look for a jack, but the search might be hampered by the debris. And they wouldn’t be able to get at a jack if a car was overturned, as many of them would be.