Tarnished Image (5 page)

Rajiv could not speak; he just shook his head.

Higgins turned to his wife who was in the seat behind him in the four-passenger plane. “Wake up, dear. You don’t want to miss this. Something unusual is happening.”

Groggily, Mrs. Higgins opened her eyes. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Look out your window,” Higgins replied.

“Amazing,” she exclaimed, then she smacked her husband on the back of the head. “Why aren’t you taping this, Julius? That’s why you have the video camera in your hand.”

“Oh, right,” Higgins said. A moment later he was pointing the video camera out the window. “Try to hold the plane steady, chum.”

Rajiv just stared out the window and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. In a few more minutes they would be over land with the ocean behind them and unable to see the drama below. Slowly, Rajiv turned the Cessna and took a course parallel with the shore. To his left was the heavily populated coast; to his right, open ocean.

A gasp came from the back. Rajiv turned to see Mrs. Higgins with a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide in fright. Another gasp, this time from Mr. Higgins.

“What? What is it?” Rajiv blurted.

No one answered. His clients sat stonelike in their seats, gazing watchfully out their windows. The terror in the cabin was palpable. Julius Higgins rigidly held the video camera to his eye. Instinctively, Rajiv leaned to the side to see the monster that had horrified his passengers. The sight struck him hard, like a vicious punch to the stomach. His heart beat rapidly, pounding so hard that Rajiv thought it might burst from his chest.

A ribbon of white, sinuous as a snake, raced toward the coast. So long was the ribbon that Rajiv could not see its ends. The line of water tumbled and churned and grew. Without thought, Rajiv banked the plane hard and pushed on the yoke. The craft responded without hesitation, and the invisible hand of acceleration pressed everyone back into their seats.

“What are you doing?” Higgins cried out.

“I must see,” Rajiv said.

Higgins glanced at the altimeter in the instrument panel. The white indicator arm spun as the Cessna plummeted. “Are you trying to kill us?” he shouted above the now roaring engine. Rajiv did not respond.

Rajiv kept his eyes fixed on the surface of the glistening earth below and then, after an eternity of moments, pulled back on the yoke. Slowly the plane leveled in its flight. The craft cruised at 175 knots, one hundred meters above the newly barren ocean floor. Rajiv, consumed by the image before him, was only barely aware that Julius Higgins had resumed taping. He blinked, then blinked again, but it was still there and it appeared to be growing.

A wave. Rising. Building. Charging with locomotive speed. A wall of water. A cliff of ocean.

“Dear Lord,” Higgins said. “It’s a tidal wave.”

“It’s huge,” his wife added.

“I’ll say. That thing has got to be around twenty-five meters.”

Twenty-five meters
, Rajiv thought.
Twenty-five meters or better, and it’s growing.

Again, Rajiv banked the plane and raced for shore. This time he maintained his altitude. Urgently he snatched the microphone from his radio set and raised it to his mouth. He keyed the device and began to speak rapidly in Hindi. “Mayday, Mayday, N20355W with emergency traffic.”

“This is Bhubaneswar tower, 355W. State your emergency.”

“Wave. Tsunami headed your way.” Rajiv’s voice was breathy as he struggled to keep his emotions controlled.

“What?” came the surprised response of the air traffic controller.

“I’m forty kilometers southeast of Puri. I see a large wave—” Just then the watery monster raced beneath them. Rajiv checked his airspeed.

“How fast are we going?” Higgins asked.

“We’re going 165 knots,” Rajiv replied, “about three hundred kilometers per hour.”

Higgins shook his head. “Three hundred kilometers per hour and that thing is pulling away. It’ll hit the shore in less than five minutes.”

“Say again, 355W, please.” The air traffic controller’s voice was tense.

Five minutes
, Rajiv thought.
Five minutes wasn’t enough time to do anything. Not enough time to get into a car and drive to safety. Not enough time to seek shelter. Barely enough time to pray.

“Please repeat, 355W.”

Rajiv did not respond. What could the controller do? Instead he watched as the wave raced away from them, outdistancing them with each passing second. The wall of water was rising and racing toward the coast, toward Puri, toward his home. And there was nothing he could do about it.

But he would try.

Pushing the throttle to the stops, Rajiv made a vain attempt to catch the fluid behemoth. The engine roared, then screamed in protest. Rajiv did everything to speed the Cessna along—trimmed the propeller, eased all—but it did no good. Only a jet could catch the wave of destruction ahead of him. At the moment, the wave was the fastest thing on or above the ocean. Rajiv would arrive moments after the wave struck shore.

Squeezing the yoke until his knuckles turned white, Rajiv attempted to will the plane to fly faster. He even pointed the nose down to make full use of gravity. His airspeed rose to nearly 200 knots, but it was not enough. He could not descend forever. Soon he would have to level off or die. Maybe dying would not be so bad.

If only he could be there with his family, with his wife and his beautiful Jaya, then maybe he could help or at least hug them one last time. It was a foolish thought, but men are allowed foolish thoughts when their loved ones are in danger.

As the wave approached the shore, Rajiv saw it crest. A second later a spray of white rose high in the air and then quickly rained down. The plane flew over the shoreline a minute or two after the wave broke. Rubble bobbed around on the churning cauldron of cold seawater. What had once been houses were now little more than fragments, kindling. As quickly as the wave had arrived, its destructive tide receded, taking with it the debris of buildings, cars, boats, and bodies.

Rajiv was now flying a mere thirty meters above his hometown of Puri—close enough to see detail that would forever be branded in his mind. Next to him Higgins continued to tape. Rajiv felt an overwhelming sense of anger at the man for being so unmoved by what had just happened, but that dissolved when he saw a single tear stream down the Englishman’s cheek.

Below was utter carnage. The streets were littered with debris as though an atom bomb had been unleashed. The wave had not cared if it destroyed the wood huts of the poor or the fine homes of the rich. Little was left. Bodies of men, women, and children were strewn about; some of them lay naked, the wave having viciously ripped the clothing from their bodies.

Two minutes later, Rajiv circled a decimated stretch of ground. A missile attack would have left more structures intact. Homes, offices, schools, and people had been turned into the flotsam of fate.

“Why are we circling?” Higgins asked softly.

Rajiv did not answer. He stared out the side window.

Higgins sighed. “Is that where you lived?” he asked kindly.

Rajiv nodded slowly and continued to gaze at the wreckage of what had been his middle-class home. Gone were the white stucco house, the small courtyard, and his family. This was where he had lived. Now gone. All gone.

Below he could see a small yellow tricycle implanted next to a fractured stone wall—the birthday gift he had purchased for Jaya.

Tears came unhindered.

San Diego, California

T
HE
CAFETERIA
ON
THE
FORTY
-
SEVENTH
FLOOR
OF
Barringston Tower bustled with activity and was filled with sensuous aromas of finely prepared food. The cavernous room was much like any other cafeteria, except the quality of the fare was equal to that of the best restaurants. Here executives from Barringston Industries shared tables with workers from Barringston Relief.

David, Timmy, and Kristen LaCroix sat at a table next to a picture window that overlooked the bay. The San Diego skyline twinkled in the darkness. The moon, full and rich, hung above the water and cast soft, ivory light on the city below.

Kristen stared at the moon. David stared at Kristen. Timmy made gurgling noises with his straw as he attempted to free the last drops of a chocolate shake from the bottom of a large glass tumbler.

“Timmy,” David said, “that’s a little noisy, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” Timmy replied. “I like it.”

“Go easy on him, David,” Kristen said. “It
is
chocolate, after all.”

“Yeah,” Timmy echoed. “It
is
chocolate, after all.” The
three laughed, then Timmy asked, “Can I go back to the room? I wanna watch TV.”

“Sure,” David said.

“I’ll get your dishes,” Kristen said. “You run along.”

“Thanks,” Timmy replied. A moment later he was gone.

“You’re doing a fine job with him,” Kristen said. “Not everyone would be able to handle that kind of responsibility.”

“He’s a good kid. He’s really not that much trouble.”

“Is he still having nightmares about the attack?”

“Sometimes.” David shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

“I suppose. It’s not easy seeing someone gunned down like that. I wish Timmy hadn’t seen A.J. die. He loved him so much.”

David nodded. He wanted to avoid the subject. Watching his mentor and friend killed had cut him deeply. Sixteen months had not brought a full healing, and the wound still bled. David wondered if sixteen years could.

Kristen reached across the table and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. The simple gesture carried a message of strength, support, and love. David returned the tender squeeze and smiled.

“It’s a beautiful moon,” Kristen said. “It reminds me of something.”

“Would that be a warm night in Ethiopia as the two of us sat on a bench in front of a hotel in Addis Ababa gazing at the same moon? Would it remind you of our first kiss?”

Kristen smiled warmly and said, “Actually, it reminds me of a pancake.”

“What?” David laughed. “Oh, you do wax poetic, Miss LaCroix.”

“Just trying to lighten the moment.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Did the others get their readiness summaries to you as you asked?”

David nodded. “Every report on time. It looks good. All we need to do now is wait until we know where the hurricane will hit.”

“Osborn seemed pretty serious in the RRT meeting,” Kristen observed.

“He’s an earnest man and takes his work seriously. He thinks that this may be one of the larger hurricanes to hit the area.”

“But he doesn’t know?”

“He doesn’t know yet. He will. He’s the best there is at this sort of thing.”

“I don’t really know him,” Kristen admitted. “What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s one of the few intellectual giants in the world. I read an article he wrote for
Scientific American
about weather-related cataclysms and the efforts to monitor them. I picked up the issue because it contained an article about new drought conditions in Africa. It also started me thinking about how ill prepared we were for a sudden catastrophe.

“I had always assumed that the Red Cross and the Red Crescent could handle anything that came their way, but I found out how untrue that assumption is. Generally speaking, the Red Cross, the International Red Cross, and the Muslim-led Red Crescent are remarkably efficient, but like all organizations they are limited in what they can do. I wondered if Barringston Relief could supplement their efforts. I also wondered if we could predict some of these disasters.

“That’s where Osborn Scott came in. I did a little research
on him and discovered that he’s considered tops in his field. He’s earned two doctoral degrees, one in meteorology and one in geography. I approached him about leading a department that would monitor and catalog catastrophes so that we might be better able to respond. At the time he was with the California Institute of Technology and reluctant to leave. I told him about our research arm and gave him a tour of the labs on the forty-ninth floor. He was dutifully impressed, as was I when I first came here. Once I assured him that he could continue his research and pick his own team, he agreed. And that, dear Kristen, is how Dr. Scott became one of our own.”

“What do you know about him personally?”

“Personally? Not much. He’s single and devoted to his work. He passed the security check, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. What do you know about him as a person?”

David sat quietly. Finally he admitted, “Not much, I guess.”

“Men,” Kristen exclaimed. “I think he’s more than concerned about this hurricane, David. I think there’s some history there, probably painful history.”

“You picked this up from the RRT meeting?”

“I learned from the best.” She winked.

David was an authority on public and interpersonal communication. Before going to seminary in the San Francisco area, he had earned a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas. He was especially adept at reading body language. It was his skill as a speechwriter that had prompted A.J. Barringston to hire David in the first place. And David had needed the job.

Only a few people knew of David’s painful past, that
while he was the pastor of a growing church, his wife had left him for someone in the congregation. An unwanted yet uncontested divorce followed, along with depression and loss of confidence. He had regained his confidence and shed his depression during a heartrending, eye-opening trip through Ethiopia last year. Today he was a new man who, through adversity and sorrow, had regained his faith. Still, he kept his emotions to himself and was slow to form relationships. Only Timmy and Kristen had broken through. He loved them.

Because of his recent pain, he never pried into the lives of others.

“All right,” David conceded. “What should I have noticed?”

“His agonizing concern,” Kristen replied. “I know he didn’t say anything about it, but you could see it in his eyes. This thing has him scared. Now before you interrupt me, let me say this: We are all concerned about the hurricane and the lives it will affect. That’s why we work here. But his concern was different. There was fear in his eyes and his mannerisms. Surely you noticed.”