The Tsunami Countdown Read online

  Kai had hit the jackpot he desperately wanted to find. The room was a tangled mess of air tanks, hoses, buoyancy compensators, weight belts, and everything else needed for diving. Kai stole a look at his watch. Five minutes.

  “Okay. We’re going to be out of here in ninety seconds. We need three air tanks, three octopus air hoses, and some nylon rope. Make sure the hoses have two regulators on them. There are six of us.”

  “You mean we’re going to scuba dive?” Lani said.

  “Get to work,” Kai said, picking up the closest air tank and screwing a loose air hose onto it. “It’s Brad and Mia’s only chance. We can’t get them out and up to a safe height in another building in time. We’re going to have to ride out the next wave. That’s why we need the rope.”

  Kai saw Tom following his lead, screwing a hose onto another tank.

  “You’ve done this before?” Kai said.

  “I’m certified. Logged twenty hours.”

  “Good. Make sure it’s pressurized. We can’t come back if we find out the tank is empty.”

  Lani returned with a yellow nylon rope. Given the number of loops, Kai guessed it was about a hundred feet of line.

  “This is the only one I could find.”

  It would take too long to tie one long piece of rope.

  “See if you can find a dive knife and masks. And a flashlight or two would come in handy.”

  While Lani searched, Kai took a third tank and attached the last hose, activating the pressure gauge. Empty. Damn!

  He tossed it aside. Tom carried over another tank.

  “It’s the last one,” he said. “The valves on all the others are snapped or bent.”

  Kai screwed the hose on quickly, praying that the gauge wouldn’t be in the red.

  The gauge read two thousand pounds per square inch. Full. Thank God.

  “I got a knife!” Lani said with joy.

  “What about masks?”

  “They’re all smashed, but I did find a flashlight. It works.”

  “Good. We’ve got what we came for. Let’s go.”

  Kai picked up two of the tanks and staggered under the sixty-five-pound load, while Tom carried the third with his good arm.

  As Kai ushered Lani and Tom out, he spotted something else: a yellow package about the size of a large watermelon. It had a red handle on it and the words PULL HERE TO INFLATE. It was an old life raft.

  Despite the raft’s apparent age, the CO2 cartridge seemed to be new. If they couldn’t get a helicopter, maybe they could float out on one of the waves. It wasn’t a great idea, more of a last resort, but it was better than swimming. Kai pointed at it.

  “Lani, can you carry that too?”

  “I think so,” she said. She hoisted the raft into her arms, and they scrambled out of the store.

  *

  Teresa tried for a car jack in the first car she saw. The door was smashed in, so she reached into the open window and pulled on the trunk release.

  Nothing happened. She tried again, with the same result. She ran around to the back and kicked at the trunk a couple of times, but it wouldn’t budge.

  She didn’t have time to keep trying on one car, so she ran to the next one, an overturned Chevy with a crushed roof. This one looked even less encouraging. She skipped it.

  Finally, she found a car that seemed promising. A minivan lay on its side, the rear window gone. She wriggled through it and examined the floor that was now on its side. The third row of seating was still in place, so she had to get that out of the way. She found the release handle, and the bench seat dropped away, almost falling on her. She pushed it against the second row of seats, leaving enough room to get at the floor covering.

  Teresa pried the soaked covering off and saw what she was looking for. A gleaming copper-colored car jack was screwed into the floor pan next to the skinny spare tire.

  The jack was held in place by a wing nut that was normally easy to twist off. But while it was being tossed around, the minivan’s frame had bent, tightening the nut. Teresa tried with all her strength to turn it, but it wouldn’t move. She needed some leverage.

  She snaked back out of the van and looked around for anything that could be used as a lever. Ideally she would miraculously find a pair of pliers on the ground, but that was wishful thinking. Instead, she would have to make do with what she could scrounge from the area immediately around her. That happened to be a metal chair leg. The smooth round caster still dangled from one end of it. She twisted the caster until it popped out of the leg. She also picked up a heavy piece of broken concrete to hammer the chair leg with.

  When Teresa got back in the minivan, she carefully placed the chair leg on one side of the wing nut and braced herself against the vehicle. She made sure it was not on the bolt itself. One wrong hit, and it would bend hopelessly askew.

  Teresa reared back with the concrete block and whacked it against the end of the chair leg. She felt the nut give way. In two more taps, the nut was loose enough to unscrew by hand. When it finally came off, she fumbled the jack, and it fell to the ground.

  As she bent to pick it up, she heard movement outside the car. She assumed Kai had returned from the scuba shop.

  Teresa emerged from the minivan triumphantly holding the jack and jack handle above her head.

  “I got one!”

  But instead of Kai, she found a scruffy man with a patchy beard. The smell of alcohol wafted through teeth yellowed from years of smoking. His soiled T-shirt couldn’t hide the enormous gut protruding over his low-hanging shorts.

  “Damn looter!” he said, slurring his words. “I knew I’d find some out here.”

  Teresa lowered her hands to show she wasn’t dangerous. She had dealt with patients like him many times at the hospital.

  “I’m not a looter.”

  “You look like a looter to me. Tearing through someone’s car. Stealing their stuff.”

  “I need a car jack to help—”

  “Don’t give me that crap! I seen it on TV. I know what to do with people like you.”

  She hadn’t noticed what he was carrying in his right hand. He raised an automatic pistol and pointed it at her.

  “Sir,” she said, “listen to me—”

  “You come with me and we’ll find the police. They’ll sort you out.”

  “A tsunami is coming!”

  “Yeah, I bet you’re glad it came. That way, you can take whatever you want.”

  “Sir—”

  “Police!” the man began to yell. “Police! Looter! Police!”

  “Do you see any police around? There is another tsunami coming.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? Police!”

  As he continued to yell for the police, Teresa saw Kai, Tom, and Lani coming toward her from the scuba shop.

  “Kai! Get back!”

  The man spun around to see who she was yelling at. He raised the gun even higher as if to threaten this new group with it. Kai and the others were nonplussed at what was going on. All they saw was a grubby-looking man holding a gun in his hand. They stopped abruptly.

  The man, possibly unbalanced by his quick movement, possibly on purpose, pulled the trigger. A crack ripped the air, and the bullet whizzed by Kai’s head, pinging off a piece of metal behind him. The three of them hit the ground.

  This man was obviously unhinged. Trying to reason with him would just make things worse, and any further discussion would eat into the precious time Teresa had to somehow pry Mia free. The man was a danger not just to her but to her daughter. She didn’t hesitate; with the man facing away from her, Teresa swung the heavy metal car jack with both hands and bashed him in the back of the head.

  The effect was instant. The man dropped the gun and fell to his knees, where he swayed groggily. Teresa picked up the pistol, ejected the magazine onto the pavement, and threw the gun into a pile of debris. The man pitched forward and lay on the ground, still conscious but moaning.

  “Bitch,” he slurred in a low rumble. “You h
it me.”

  Teresa waved to Kai.

  “Come on! I got a jack. Let’s go.”

  “What happened?” Kai said, rushing up to her. “What the hell is going on? Who is that guy?”

  Teresa, shaking from the rush of adrenaline, stared at the prone man.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Let’s go get Mia and Brad.”

  FORTY

  11:45 a.m.

  2 Minutes to Second Wave

  On the skybridge between the Grand Hawaiian buildings, Ashley clung to Bill’s shoulders as they crossed from the Akamai tower to the Moana tower. They had been making good progress, suffering only one or two minor slips. However, the creaking of the walkway became more frequent, in part due to Bill’s two-hundred-fifty-pound frame. “You’re doing great, Ashley,” Paige said, trying to keep her daughter’s spirits up. She had to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep herself together. She could do nothing to help them other than provide encouragement. “Just keep holding tight.”

  The decision to send her two children off with a stranger had been agonizing for her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ashley and her husband behind. The image of Wyatt nearly falling off the skybridge was burned into her memory. If anything like that happened to Ashley, she’d rather depend on herself to save her child.

  As Bill was ready to take his final steps toward the safety of the building, Paige heard a commotion on the other side of the bridge.

  Five college-aged men stumbled to a stop at the end of the bridge. Each of them talked in a sloppy midwestern twang fueled by at least a twelve-pack of beer apiece.

  “Hey, look,” one of the guys said. “See, I told you I could see people crossing from our room.”

  “Come on,” said another one. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Before Paige and Bill could shout more than “No!” all five of the drunken frat boys stepped onto the bridge. They hadn’t gotten more than a few feet before one fell, dragging two of the others down with him. The impact resonated on the already fragile skybridge. It started to bounce, snapping cables, swaying sickeningly over the courtyard below, now drained of water.

  “Bill!” Paige shouted. “Jump!”

  But Bill wasn’t going to be able to get to the Moana tower without falling, possibly losing Ashley, so he grabbed the child’s arm and pulled her off his back. He swung her around and hurled the small girl toward the waiting arms of Paige six feet away.

  At that moment the center of the skybridge snapped from the added load. The two halves, still attached at the ends, swung toward their respective towers. All five of the drunken men slid off the deck and screamed until dull thuds marked their passing. Paige turned Ashley’s head away so that she didn’t see the resulting impacts. The opposite end of the walkway crashed against the building and then sheared off, collapsing into a pile of bent metal far below, burying the bodies.

  Bill had wrapped both arms around the pillar he was holding. When his end of the bridge slammed into the tower, the floor of the walkway detached from the roof at its base, smashing into the courtyard below. But the roof, along with the vertical pillars, remained attached to the Moana tower, suspended by only two surviving steel rods.

  Paige peered cautiously over the edge, fearing what she would see below. To her relief, she saw Bill still clinging to the pillar, but it was only a matter of minutes before he either lost his grip or was engulfed by the next massive wave.

  Rachel, exhausted from running up and down the stairs and the ordeal at the skybridge, rested her head against the metal fire door of the sixteenth-floor stairwell. She had been trying to raise Kai on the walkie-talkie and was terrified because he wouldn’t answer.

  “Kai, are you there? Kai, come in, please.”

  “Who’s Kai?” Wyatt asked.

  “He’s my husband. He’s with my daughter, Lani.”

  “What happened to them?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t …” Rachel started to answer but a sob caught in her throat, and before she could stop herself, she began to cry.

  She buried her face in her hands as it all came rushing out. The stress. The responsibility for all the hotel guests. Not knowing whether her family was safe or … She didn’t want to think about the possibility of the worst case, but it came anyway. And now she was responsible for someone else’s children.

  Hannah hugged her. “It’ll be okay, Rachel. Lani and Kai will be okay.”

  Rachel sobbed again and held the little girl to her tightly. How can a child keep it together while I’m such a mess, she thought. Teresa was right. There was nothing glamorous about saving lives, but the outcome was worth the toll.

  After another moment Rachel caught her breath and calmed down.

  “Thank you, Hannah,” she said, stroking Hannah’s hair. “I’m sure they’ll be okay too.”

  Wyatt, who was standing behind Hannah, looked embarrassed by the emotional display.

  “Can I try the walkie-talkie?” he said. “I have one like it at home. Maybe I can get him.”

  Rachel smiled and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Sure, Wyatt.” She handed the walkie-talkie to him. “Just press the red button and talk.”

  “Kai, are you there?” he said. He waited for a response. None came.

  “Try again, and make sure …” Rachel stopped in mid-sentence and cocked her head.

  “And make sure what?” Wyatt said.

  Rachel raised her hands.

  “Shhh!”

  “What?” Hannah said.

  “Be quiet for a second. I think I hear something.”

  Rachel turned her head so that her ear pressed against the door. Wyatt and Hannah followed suit.

  After a moment of silence, a thudding sound was distinctly audible. Normally the whirring of fans and the rush of air movement throughout the hotel’s ductwork masked low-level sounds. But with the power off, the hotel was bathed in an eerie stillness.

  The noise repeated at regular intervals. One, two, three, four. Silence for four counts. Then again: one, two, three, four. The faint pounding reverberated through the metal door. The sound was definitely man-made.

  “What is that?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Rachel, “but it sounds like it’s coming from the hallway.”

  She sprang to her feet and opened the door. The sound was louder now and more distinct. It seemed to be emanating from somewhere in the deserted corridor.

  “You guys wait here,” Rachel said.

  “Where are you going?” Hannah said.

  “I need to find out what that sound is. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere unless your parents come back. And keep the door open.”

  Rachel walked down the hall, stopping every few seconds to get her bearings on the noise. As she went farther into the building, the pounding got louder, until she was able to zero in on it without stopping. About halfway down the corridor, she rounded the corner to the elevator lobby. It was now obvious where the sound was coming from.

  The sound of a voice accompanied the pounding.

  “Help! Is anyone out there?”

  Someone was trapped in the elevator.

  Carrying all of the equipment slowed them down more than Kai thought it would. Time was short as they hurried out of The Seaside’s tenth-floor stairwell and into the condo.

  “We were beginning to think you forgot about us,” Brad said. His voice had a façade of cheer, but Kai could sense the despair just underneath the surface. He was trying to keep up Mia’s spirits.

  “Not a chance, haole,” Kai said. “We’re going to get you out of there.”

  Teresa showed him the jack.

  “That’s a beautiful sight,” Brad said.

  “Let’s try it,” she said.

  “Wait,” Kai said. “We don’t have time for that yet.”

  “What are those for?” Brad said, noticing the scuba tanks.

  “For us. All of us.”

  “Why don’t you get us out fir
st?”

  “We have two minutes at most,” Kai said as he cut the rope into ten-foot segments with the dive knife. “We need to get ourselves tied down first.”

  “Kai, you’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” Kai didn’t have time to cushion the news. His mind flashed back to Brad trapped in that shipwreck and the panicked rapping at the door before Kai had been able to free him. Brad hadn’t dived since, his fear of the depths approaching phobia.

  “I’m not staying here,” Brad said.

  “Unfortunately, Brad, you’re going to have to.”

  “Kai, get us out of here!” Brad began to struggle against the girder. “I can’t stay here.”

  “Stop it!” Kai said, trying to calm Brad. He gave the ropes to Teresa. “Start tying yourselves to the girder. Tightly! It’s the strongest thing here. Don’t forget Brad and Mia.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Brad yelled.

  Kai leaned closer to speak softly into his ear. “Because I knew this is how you would react, and you’re scaring Mia.”

  “But the water …!”

  “Yes, we’re going to be under at least fifty feet of water. I know it’s not what you want, but it’s going to happen.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You can and you will, because there’s no other choice. Now, are you going to be quiet, or do I have to stick the regulator in your mouth right now?”

  Brad’s weak nod did nothing to hide his terror.

  “What’s his problem?” said Tom.

  “He had a bad experience scuba diving one time.”

  “What happened?”

  “He got stuck in a shipwreck and almost drowned.”

  Kai took some of the rope and lashed the tanks to the girder. Only now did it occur to him that they should have also brought buoyancy compensators—the vests that support scuba tanks during a dive—to strap the tanks to. He hadn’t thought about it while they were in the dive shop, even though he remembered seeing some. The nylon rope was certainly strong, but his technique for tying them down was lacking. He had never been in the Boy Scouts, so he was just winging it on the knots. He didn’t really care if they would be easy to untie. They could always use the knife to cut themselves free.