Tarnished Image (4 page)

“But don’t let the low death toll confuse you,” Osborn said. He was now pacing in front of the looming image of the tropical storm. “These storms are still dangerous, far more so than most realize. November 1995 saw Typhoon Angela strike the northern Philippines with winds in excess of one hundred forty miles per hour. The devastation was unbelievable: more than six hundred dead and two hundred eighty thousand homeless.”

“Do we need to tell anyone about this?” David asked.

Osborn shook his head. “No, the experts already know, including the NCEP and other agencies. My concern is Mexico and Cuba.”

“NCEP?” Kristen inquired.

“National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Miami, Florida,” Osborn answered. “The National Hurricane
Center is associated with them. They already have a plan of action for such storms, and they will be monitoring it as well. I have a friend there who will share information with us. As I said, the real problem is Cuba and possibly Mexico.”

“How so?” David asked.

“Many parts of Mexico are populated by small, impoverished towns. There’s a good chance that thousands will not get advance warning, and even if they do, they will not be able to move out of harm’s way fast enough. That will only be a problem if the hurricane doesn’t veer north, as I expect it to do. Cuba is the concern. While Cubans are familiar with hurricanes because they deal with them every year, a hurricane of this size may be too much. Unlike Americans in the U.S. with large landmass, freeways, and surface streets, the people of Cuba have no place to go. Getting on a boat sure isn’t going to help. Those with access to hurricane shelters will be safe, but the others …” Osborn shrugged.

David stared at the image of the storm for a moment, then swung his chair around to face the others. Before him were the department heads of communications, medical relief, political analysis, volunteer facilitation, public relations, resource distribution, and transportation coordination, as well as the chief financial officer and the inner-agency liaison—all capable people, trained and dedicated to global relief. They were all experienced with long-term projects in famine and plague. Meeting catastrophe-related needs, however, was something new for them. For nearly six months, they had been working as a team to provide quick response to stricken areas while working in concert with other agencies and governments. This would be their first real test.

Turning back to Osborn, David said, “All right, Oz, break it down for us.”

“The following scenario is subject to change,” Oz prefaced. “Tomorrow morning, tropical storm Claudia will be upgraded to a hurricane. It will continue to gather strength over the warm waters north of Venezuela and move in a northwesterly direction. I believe it will veer north in time to hit Cuba and hit it hard. The storm will slow over land but will regain its power and intensity once north of Cuba. It will then continue on until it makes landfall on the southern coast of the U.S. The eye-wall will most likely hit Louisiana and Mississippi.”

“You sound very confident about your prediction,” Bob Connick said.

“Call it scientific intuition,” Oz responded. A moment later he said, “It’s not confidence you hear—it’s fear.”

David stood. “OK, folks that’s it. I would like to see brief summaries about your department’s readiness in two hours. Let’s get to work.” Turning to Osborn, David said, “Thanks, Oz, you made everything clear.”

“I hope so, David. I have a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.”

Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
7:47
A.M.
local time

Akram Kazi felt the loose sand under his feet give way with each step. Grains slipped between his bare feet and the sandals he wore. Pressing his chin down on the tall stack of newly washed white towels he carried, he struggled to make certain he didn’t spill his load. It was his job to carry towels from the
resort’s laundry to the small white shack in the middle of the beach where tourists and traveling business executives freely retrieved them after a swim in the ocean. It was just one of the many services that Holiday Resort offered its guests.

Akram hustled along the sandy beach that ran in front of the hotel. The August heat would soon have the guests lining the shore, sitting under umbrellas to protect them from the fierce sun. Akram hurried. He had many things to do, including wiping off the tables of the outdoor café. Already, guests were being seated and eating breakfast. Akram was running late.

Thirty hastily taken steps later Akram was at the three-meter-by-five-meter shed.
“Assalaa-mualaikum,”
he said, wishing peace to his coworker.

“Wallaikum assalaam.”
Zahid Hussein, the employee who tended the shed, returned the traditional greeting, but it was clear that he was upset. “It is about time, Akram. I have no towels to give, and already people are asking for them.”

“It is not my fault,” Akram protested. “The laundry was not done with them. I could not bring you wet towels, could I?”

“No excuses. You have made me look bad before our guests. I will not tolerate that.”

“The towels were not ready—”

“Enough,” Zahid interrupted. “Do you see that man over there? The one with the big belly?”

“Yes.” The man, portly with fish-white skin, reclined on a lounge chair.

“He wants a towel. Take him one and apologize for your actions.”

“But I have tables to—”

“Take him a towel and do it quickly.”

Akram acquiesced. Zahid was older and had seniority. Everyone had seniority over him. But that didn’t matter. In just two months he would move to Dhaka, the nation’s capital, to attend college. It was a fortunate opportunity from Allah, who had already blessed him many times. He could read, unlike 65 percent of other Bangladeshis, and he had a hunger for knowledge. So he worked, saving every taka and paisa, and looked forward to that day when he would study at the University of Dhaka. He longed to be a teacher, like his father before him. Education was the only way his tiny country could climb out of the pit of constant despair and depredation.

Approaching the white man with the big belly, Akram held out a clean white towel in his right hand. Since personal hygiene was done with the left hand, it would have been an insult to use it for something so personal as a towel.

“Thank you, young man,” the middle-aged guest said.

“I offer my apologies for not having your towel ready when you requested it.” Akram raised his right hand to his forehead, palm slightly cupped, offering a traditional salute.

“No problem, buddy,” the man said.

American
, Akram thought.
His accent is American.

“It’s just a towel. Everything is OK.”

The man touched his index finger to his thumb to form a circle. Instinctively, Akram looked away. It was an obscene gesture, highly offensive. Of course, the American didn’t know that. The gesture, Akram had learned, was common in the Western world and simply meant that things were all right. Still, the sign shocked him. Akram had learned many things about foreigners since coming to work at the Holiday Resort two years ago. They were always doing something
offensive: pointing with their index fingers, showing the bottoms of their feet, passing food with their left hands. It was simple ignorance on their part, and Akram had learned to endure it.

“Thank you for your kindness,” Akram said, his eyes diverted to show humility. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Nope. Nothing at …” The American’s voice trailed off. “What … what’s going on?”

“Sir?”

“Out there, boy, look!” The man pointed to the ocean. The offensive gesture was lost on Akram when he turned to see the ocean rapidly retreating from shore. “Don’t tell me that’s normal.” The man lumbered to his feet.

“I have never seen such a thing,” Akram said, his eyes wide. “The ocean is leaving.”

Slowly he and the American began to walk toward the tide line. Looking up and down the beach, Akram could see that other guests and employees, compelled by curiosity, were doing the same. The beach itself was unique, being the longest unbroken strand on the planet, but this was something before unseen.

“Look at this, will ya,” the guest offered. “Fish and crab for the taking.”

Akram had noticed it too. The now exposed ocean bottom was littered with crabs and other crustaceans. Fish flopped on the wet sand, slowly suffocating in a blanket of air.

“What do you suppose did this?” asked the pudgy man.

Akram shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I should tell my manager—”

“Wait! Do you hear something?”

Tilting his head slightly as if to line up his ears for better reception, Akram closed his eyes and listened. “Yes—a roar, a rumble.” He opened his eyes and looked at the guest. The man’s face was drained of all color, his mouth slack, and his eyes wide. Again he pointed out to sea, and then he crossed himself.

“Hail, Mary, full of grace …” the man began. He crossed himself again.

Akram turned to see what had so terrified the man. “Allah, have mercy,” was all he could say.

80 kilometers SE of Bhubaneswar, India
Altitude: 2,200 meters

The Cessna Skylane RG airplane bounced slightly as it passed through a thermal. The pilot, an East Indian named Rajiv Kapur, paid no notice to the bump—his mind was elsewhere. Below him the deep blue of the Bay of Bengal was turning a shade lighter as the plane flew over the shallower waters of the continental shelf. Above him the sky was a crystalline blue. It was a beautiful day for flying and even a more beautiful day to be home celebrating the birthday of his five-year-old daughter, Jaya. Normally, Rajiv would be happy to chart a leisurely course back to Bhubaneswar and then to his home in the town of Puri outside the city, but not today. He wanted nothing more than to be with his wife and child.

He checked his airspeed again: 156 knots—75 percent power, just what it should be. The craft was capable of over 160 knots, but that was pushing the engine harder than necessary, especially on a substantially long flight like the one he was taking from the Andaman Islands 735 miles behind him.

A devout family man, Rajiv was proud of the daughter his wife had given him. Jaya had stolen his heart, as had countless daughters across the world done to their fathers. He soon learned that his little girl knew the secret passages to her father’s soul. Jaya knew those avenues well and could melt her normally stern father with a simple glance and a flash from her obsidian eyes. She could manipulate him like no other, and Rajiv loved it. As he flew, his mind filled with the image of his little girl: smooth, brown skin, coal-black hair, shiny eyes, and a bright smile that beamed. She could laugh in such a contagious way that a roomful of adults would find themselves giggling like children.

Rajiv arched his back to stretch out the kinks of three and a half hours at the plane’s controls. He shifted in his seat and checked his navigation indicators. Not that he needed to. He had been making flights like this one for over ten years. He often bragged that he could fly to the Andaman Islands blindfolded as well as to any airport on the eastern coast of India. Still, he was a cautious pilot. Caution mixed with courtesy had made him one of the busiest charter pilots in the area. Next year he hoped to add another plane to his “fleet” of one.

“What’s that?”

The voice dragged Rajiv from his revelry. He turned to his passenger, Mr. Julius Higgins of London, a jovial man with shiny white hair and a broad mouth. He and his wife, a woman with hair as dark as her husband’s was white, were recently retired and were sightseeing in India. “I’m sorry, Mr. Higgins. What did you say?”

“That,” Higgins replied nodding out his window. “Looks quite odd, don’t you think?”

Rajiv peered across the small cabin and out Higgins’s
window, but couldn’t see anything. Instinctively he looked out his own side window. What he saw made his heart stutter. Even from an altitude of over two thousand meters he could see the ocean being drawn back like a blanket off a bed, leaving long streaks in the mud and sand of the ocean floor.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” Higgins asked. “I mean, does that happen all the time?”