The Tsunami Countdown (2 page)

8:51 a.m
.

T
he brochure was slick and professional, but Kai Tanaka still hated the idea of sending his thirteenyear-old daughter away
to a scuba diving camp. He sipped his coffee at the kitchen counter as he scanned the pamphlet and thought about how to let
Lani down gently. She and her best friend, Mia, sat close together at the dinette table, talking over a magazine in low, conspiratorial
tones. Then they erupted into shrill screams that dissolved into giggles while they pointed at a glossy photo.

Kai walked over to the table and made as if to get a better look at the magazine. “And what are you guys reading this morning?
Is it
Newsweek
or
Car and Driver
?”

Lani quickly flipped the magazine closed. It was
Seventeen
. Mia must have brought it with her. Like most fathers, Kai couldn’t help wonder at how fast they were growing up. They were
barely teenagers. To him, seventeen was far in the future.

Lani giggled at Mia, and then adopted a mock-serious tone. “We’re just doing some research for our trip this morning.” Mia
nodded in agreement.

“Uh-huh,” Kai said dubiously. “
Seventeen
has an article about boogie boarding, does it?”

“Not exactly,” Mia said. “But there are some tips about beachcombing.” At this, Lani and Mia erupted into another peal of
laughter. Kai assumed it was something having to do with how to meet boys, but he didn’t want to know.

“So, what do you think about the camp, Dad?” Lani said. “It looks awesome, doesn’t it?”

Bilbo, the family’s wheaten terrier, lapped noisily from his bowl, then dribbled water across the floor after he finished.
Avoiding Lani’s question, Kai busied himself wiping up the drool. While he threw the paper towel away, he glanced at the countertop
TV. It was tuned to a Honolulu newscast with a graphic that said Breaking News, but the volume was so low that all Kai could
hear was the indistinct mumbling of the anchorwoman.

“Hello? Dad? Can I go?”

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “When is this?”

“First week in August.”

“You two are pretty young to be diving.”

“I’ll be fourteen next month,” Lani said indignantly. That was true, although Lani didn’t look thirteen. She
looked sixteen. At five foot eight, she was now taller than her mother by a good two inches, and even more distressingly,
she had developed a womanly figure. Her hair was auburn, not the strawberry blond of Rachel’s Irish heritage, but she had
gotten her mother’s delicate facial structure and lean athletic body. From Kai, she inherited the olive complexion and almond-shaped
eyes of his Italian-Japanese background. To Kai’s chagrin, the effect made her not only beautiful but exotic. He was going
to have to plan for dates very soon, and he was terrified.

“And Teresa gave her okay?” Kai said.

Mia nodded. “I think Mom needs some alone time,” she said. She was Lani’s age but darker, shorter, and more petite. Kai couldn’t
imagine her lugging an oxygen tank around on her back.

“Where is she?” he said.

“Getting dressed,” Mia said.

“So, can I go?” Lani said.

After a pause, Kai said, “I’ll have to think about it.”

Lani looked at Mia in disgust. “That means no.”

Kai waved the brochure. “It means I have to check out this outfit, see what their safety record is. Scuba diving is a dangerous
sport.”

“You’ve been diving fifty times,” Lani said, pouting.

“So I know what I’m talking about. Plus, I have to talk about it with your mother.”

“She already said it was cool. We talked about it with her and Teresa while you were out jogging.”

“She was
cool
with it, huh? Maybe I should just confirm that with her.”

Usually Rachel’s Monday shift didn’t begin until ten a.m., but that morning she had to be at the Grand Hawaiian early for
the disabled vets’ brunch. As the hotel manager, she wanted to make sure everything was perfect, especially because the governor
would be addressing the veterans. Kai dialed her cell.

“Hello?” Rachel said above a truck horn honking in the background. She was still on the road. Even on a holiday, the commute
from Ewa Beach to Honolulu wasn’t fun.

“Traffic?” he said, moving into the family room to get a little privacy.

“As usual.”

“You sound tired.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night. Teresa and I were up late talking. It’s great to have her and Mia in town, but I’m going
to be exhausted by the end of the week. Is she there?”

“I think she’s getting into her swimsuit.”

“Ask her to give me a call on her way to the beach.”

“I will. So Lani had a surprise for me this morning.”

“About the scuba camp? I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because she’s thirteen. You can’t even get certified until you’re fifteen.”

“It sounds like a wonderful program. Master instructors, top-notch facilities, lots of fun activities. One of the mothers
in Lani’s class raved about it.”

Kai didn’t bother to ask which mother. He wouldn’t know her. Taking the post of assistant director at the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center had been a great career move for him, but he hadn’t counted on how demanding it would be. Including Kai, there
were only eight geophysicists on staff, and the PTWC had to be monitored by two of them twenty-four hours a day. That meant
they regularly had to pull twelve-hour shifts. Kai had been so busy that he’d participated in only one parent-teacher conference.

“Lani has to have something to look forward to,” Rachel said. “She’s been here nine months now and hasn’t made any friends
yet.”

“What do you mean? She hangs out with her soccer friends all the time.”

“Getting pizza after the game with her teammates doesn’t count. In the whole time we’ve been here, she hasn’t once brought
somebody back home. Now that she’s with Mia, I see how she used to be in Seattle. And being in that compound hasn’t helped.”

“Please don’t call it a compound.” Kai hated that word.

It was difficult to recruit geophysicists who were willing to spend that many hours on-site, so to sweeten the deal, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—better known as NOAA, the parent organization of the PTWC—built houses on the Center
grounds that some of the staff lived in for free. As assistant director, Kai had been given one of the houses. The biggest
perk was that it was only three blocks from the beach, but the run-down neighborhood around the complex wasn’t safe enough
for Lani to explore on her own.

“She feels isolated there,” Rachel said.

“Maybe we can do more family outings, like the luau tonight.”

“Kai, your heart’s in the right place, but she needs to learn some independence. She isn’t going to be your little girl forever.”

“Oh, yes she will.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Kai said with a sigh, “I know. But I still think she should wait to do this scuba camp until next year.”

“Listen, I’m about to go into the garage, so you’re going to lose me. Just think about it, and we’ll talk more this evening.
All right?”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

With a click, Rachel was gone.

“So you got the spiel, huh?” a voice behind him said.

Kai turned to see Teresa Gomez. Like the girls, she was already dressed in a tank top and sarong over her bikini.

“Oh yeah,” Kai said. “The hard sell.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“Still thinking about it.”

“Good luck with that. I lasted about five minutes.” She yawned and stretched her arms. “I need to mainline some more coffee.”

Kai followed her back into the kitchen. Lani and Mia stopped giggling and looked at him expectantly.

“Still thinking about it,” he said, eliciting a groan. He handed the coffeepot to Teresa. “I heard you stayed up late with
Rachel to continue our conversation after I went to bed.”

“She can’t hear enough about my residency program. Sometimes I think she’s the one who should have gone to med school.” As
she filled her mug, Teresa looked at the TV. A TransPac Airlines logo was next to the anchor-woman’s shoulder. “I hope to
God it’s sunny today. If I came all the way from Seattle for more rain, I’ll curl up into the fetal position.”

“Don’t worry. The report earlier said no rain is projected, so you and the girls should have great weather today.”

“If it’s your day off, grab your towel and come with us.”

“Day off? I wish. I’m on call today. I have to give a tour this morning, and there’s a paper I’m submitting to the
Science of Tsunami Hazards
next month that I’ve got to finish.”

Teresa appraised Kai’s outfit and began to laugh. “I forgot. We’re in Hawaii.”

He looked down at his clothes and realized why she was laughing. To a Seattleite like Teresa, the flowered shirt, khakis,
and tennis shoes he was wearing might seem like weekend wear, but it was perfectly normal office attire for him.

“This is formal wear for me,” he said with a laugh. “Where are you guys boarding?”

“Well,
I
wanted to go somewhere quiet, but no, I got vetoed!” She jabbed a finger at the girls. “So it’s Waikiki. While they’re swimming,
I plan to sit my butt down and do absolutely nothing.”

Kai winced. Because of the holiday, Waikiki would be packed not only with tourists but with locals as well. May was a big
month for travelers, and three-day weekends were always popular with American tourists from the mainland. Almost fifty thousand
visitors stayed in Honolulu at any one time, and Waikiki claimed most of them. Teresa would be hard pressed to find any peace
on the beach.

“I think they just want to check out the eye candy,” she said.

“We do not!” said Lani.

But Mia at the same time said “Yeah!” and Lani turned red.

Kai tried to help Teresa out. “Why don’t you go to Kahana Valley? There’s a great beach there.”

“It’s boring,” Lani said. “If I finally get to go to a beach, I want to go to a good one.”

“What do you mean? We go to our beach all the time.”

“Yeah, right. Only when you’re with me. What’s the use of living three blocks from the beach if I have to wait for you to
take me?”

“Here we go,” Kai said. To Teresa: “One time, I saw some kids smoking dope down at the little park that leads to the beach.
Now she’s mad that I won’t let her go on her own.”

“If I didn’t live in this compound, I might have someone to go with.”

“Why does everyone call it that?” Kai said.

“I’m sure it’s not because of the barbed wire and security gate,” Lani said, her sarcasm reaching new heights. “Come on, Mia.
Let’s get our stuff.”

They ran off to Lani’s bedroom.

“Good God,” Teresa said. “You know the attitudes are only going to get worse as the day goes on. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars
to switch places with me.”

Kai laughed and shook his head. “No way. I like having
the easy job.” Kai handed her the keys to his Jeep. “When do you think you’ll be back?”

“If I can endure it, I’m thinking around five. That way I’ll have plenty of time to recover before the luau tonight.”

“Perfect,” Kai said. “The boogie boards are in the garage.”

“We’ll get them!” yelled Lani from the other room.

As he and Teresa went outside, Kai paused to turn off the TV. Just before he clicked it off, he noticed a new graphic saying
AIRLINER MISSING OVER PACIFIC.

8:56 a.m
.

T
he rain had been falling constantly for two hours now, but that didn’t keep Yvonne Dunlap from her duties. In her three weeks
on the Palmyra Atoll, she had come to appreciate the damp weather, which gave the island a serene quality. Even with 175 inches
of rain per year watering the lush vegetation, she could think of worse places to do scientific research. She picked her way
across the beach looking for her quarry, avoiding the plastic garbage that marred the otherwise pristine habitat. Dark clouds
stretched to the horizon, broken only by an occasional flash of lightning in the distance. The breaking surf and soothing
patter of rain were her only companions.

None of Yvonne’s three colleagues on the island had joined her on this excursion. They were back at base camp, working on
their computers out of the rain, compiling figures about the nesting habits of sooty terns or
analyzing data about the impact of non-native species on the island’s flora.

Yvonne had come hunting much more interesting prey than birds and shrubbery. Her graduate studies in invertebrate biology
had brought her to this isolated outpost for one reason. And it didn’t take long for her to spot what she was looking for.
She took out her digital camera and approached slowly to add more photos to her collection.

An enormous blue coconut crab scurried up a thick palm tree looking for its favorite food. This rare example looked like it
measured three feet across and weighed close to ten pounds, a size that would put most Maine lobsters to shame.

The Nature Conservancy had purchased the Palmyra Atoll as a wildlife preserve. To minimize the impact of humans on the ecosystem,
they granted only a limited number of permits to researchers. Yvonne was one of the lucky few, and she reveled in exploring
the island’s natural wonders. Rainy mornings like this were especially good for her outings, giving her time to enjoy nature
as it was meant to be, alone and in silence. To her, the experience was spiritual.

Yvonne interrupted her photography to jot some notes in her journal. The crab in front of her was one of the finest specimens
she’d ever seen, and she wanted a full record of it. At the top of the tree, the crab grasped a
coconut in its claws and ripped it open like a ripe melon, tearing at the meat inside. Yvonne was setting her camera to video
mode to capture its eating ritual when a great boom echoed across the island. The sound was so loud that she dropped the camera.

The crab, also startled by the noise, dropped from the tree and scuttled back to the safety of its burrow. Yvonne stooped
to pick up the camera, waiting for the thunder to abate. She searched for the source of the noise, but the clouds looked uniformly
gray in all directions. Nothing suggested a major storm headed their way.

In a minute the sound dissipated, and Yvonne strode over to the hole the crab had disappeared into. She plopped herself on
a fallen log not far from it and waited for the crab to reemerge, aiming her camera in hopes of a close-up.

She continued staring at the burrow until a new noise intruded on the soft drizzle. A rumble from the island’s interior. At
its widest, the Palmyra Atoll was only a half mile across. For some reason, Yvonne thought the sound was reaching her from
the opposite side of the island.

She stood and peered into the thick foliage. The noise grew quickly, coming toward her. It sounded like a thousand elephants
stampeding, knocking down every tree as they charged. Yvonne stepped back involuntarily, stopping only when her boots were
splashed by the surf.

She spotted movement in the forest. It was indistinct at first, but within seconds it resolved into an image that took Yvonne
a moment to comprehend. A churning mass of water raged toward her, uprooting and splintering every tree in its path. She couldn’t
have been more shocked than if it had actually been elephants.

She froze, paralyzed, her voice choked by fear. The roar was so loud that it seemed to go through her, and the wind pushed
before the wall of water blew the hood of her windbreaker backward. Yvonne’s eyes locked in terror on the rushing mountain
of debris, and she hopelessly wished that she could find some kind of burrow to plunge into as the crab had done.

As the water reached the beach, the closest palm tree—the same one that had seemed so solid when the crab had climbed it—was
yanked out of the ground. Just before it crushed Yvonne, she finally screamed.