The Tsunami Countdown (27 page)

“Kai’s fine.”

“He is? I mean, that’s fantastic—”

“We’re all in trouble. We’re still in Waikiki.”

“You’re together? Where?”

“No. I’m on the roof of the Grand Hawaiian. He’s on the roof of a white building about a mile northeast of me. I can reach
him by walkie-talkie. We need a helicopter. We don’t have time to run away on foot, and both buildings
are shaky. I don’t know if they’ll stand up to the next tsunami.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get something to you. What’s the name of the building Kai’s in?”

“He doesn’t know what the cross streets are or what the building is called, but he said there’s a boat sticking out of the
tenth floor.”

“God, I saw that on some news footage a few minutes ago. I’ll find out where it is.”

“Please hurry. We’ve only got a few minutes until the last tsunami, right?”

“I’ll hurry. But Rachel, the next tsunami isn’t the last one.”

“What?”

“I got word from Alaska about twenty minutes ago. Tell Kai the last tsunami will arrive at 12:37, and it’s going to be three
hundred feet high.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Rachel? Are you there?”

“Just get someone here now, Reggie.”

She hung up.

Reggie left the office to find Colonel Johnson. He was on his cell phone in the next room. He snapped it shut as Reggie approached.

“Colonel, I need your helicopter again.”

“Mr. Pona,” Johnson said, coming around his desk and putting on his jacket as if he were getting ready to leave.
“I’m sorry about your friend, but the building is gone. There are other people to evacuate—”

“He’s alive. I just got word.”

Johnson stopped. “What? Where?”

“Waikiki.”

He shook his head. “Mr. Pona, I can’t—”

“Look, if it weren’t for him, none of us would be standing here right now. You, me, your family, for God’s sake. We’d all
be dead.”

“It’s not that. That chopper is on the other side of Oahu. It’ll take at least fifteen minutes to get back to Wheeler and
unload.”

“Damn!”

“Do you have that kind of time?”

“No. Don’t you have anything else?”

“Look, I’ll send out an alert, but I can’t promise anything. It’s absolute chaos out there. Most of the choppers are running
low on gas, and Wheeler is overloaded trying to refuel them all.” When he saw the pleading look on Reggie’s face, Johnson
said, “I’ll see what I can do. But you might want to find another option.”

“Thanks,” Reggie said, looking around for ideas. He wasn’t going to give up now that he actually had a chance to save them.
Who besides the military would have access to a helicopter? Then he glanced through the office window and saw his solution.
He ran outside.

Lara Pimalo, the CBS reporter who had broadcast from the PTWC, was just outside the building where Reggie had his temporary
office. As thanks for evacuating him, Reggie had let Pimalo and her cameraman ride in the Humvee to Wheeler after they had
abandoned the station’s truck.

She looked like she had just wrapped up a report and was holding her microphone lazily at her side, but when she saw Reggie
she gestured to the cameraman to start rolling. Reggie put up his hands to stop her.

“I’m not here to be interviewed,” he said. “I need something.”

“You need something from
me
?”

“You have a CBS helicopter over Waikiki.”

“Well, we rented it from a sightseeing company. Cost a mint too.”

“Kai Tanaka is stranded on top of a building in Waikiki. Do you know the reporter in that helicopter?”

“There’s no reporter in it, just a camerawoman.”

“Kai found his wife and daughter.” Reggie had told her about Lani and Rachel on their ride to Wheeler.

“They’re all alive? That’s incredible.”

“But now they’re stranded, and the military won’t give me another helicopter.”

“I don’t know if I have that much pull.”

“He gave your station something no one else had. And
now he has one of the best stories to tell the world about this disaster.”

Pimalo exchanged glances with her cameraman. Reggie saw the hesitation, but he knew the phrase that would push her buttons.

“Ms. Pimalo,” Reggie said, “how would your network like another exclusive?”

12:12 p.m
.
Third Wave

A
few minutes after Rachel hung up with Reggie, a helicopter that had been flying along the coast angled over. “Your friend
is fast,” Paige said to Rachel. Rachel was surprised and impressed at Reggie’s feat. The sightseeing chopper, one of the AStars
popular with the tourists in her hotel, had
Wailea Tours
painted on the tail. It set down on the Grand Hawaiian roof, and Paige and Rachel ran over. Next to the pilot sat a fit woman
who aimed a professional video camera at them. Rachel knew she looked bedraggled after her swim in the elevator shaft, but
she didn’t care what the camerawoman shot as long as the helicopter took them off the building.

“Are we glad to see you!” Rachel said. “Reggie must have gotten through to you.”

“They did say something about a Reggie,” the pilot said. “The station that hired me called to tell me to pick
you up. You’re lucky. I was about to head over to Portlock when we got the call about you. Hop in.”

“Wait. There’s more of us.”

“How many more?”

“Five, including three kids.” Rachel looked at the helicopter’s cramped interior. “One of the adults is pretty heavy.”

“That would make ten altogether.”

“Can you get us all in?”

“This is only a seven-person chopper, including me. I might be able to squeeze more than that in, but one or two of you will
have to stay behind.”

Rachel didn’t like the sound of that, but she guessed that he was being conservative. They’d deal with that when they were
all on the roof.

“Fine,” she said.

The pilot looked around the empty rooftop. “Where are they?”

“We need you to come with us.”

“What? Where?”

“A man is injured. We can’t carry him up on our own.”

“Are you kidding?”

“What do you think?” Rachel said, wringing out the tail of her coat for effect.

“I can’t leave the helicopter here.”

“What about you?” Rachel said, pointing at the sinewy
camerawoman. “He’s too heavy for three of us to lift. He’s unconscious. With four of us, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

Up to this point, the camerawoman had been silent.

“Hey, I’m not a medic,” she said. “I’m supposed to be filming.”

“We just need help carrying him.”

The camerawoman turned to the pilot. “Nobody said anything about leaving the chopper when we got the call.”

“Please,” Rachel said. “He’ll die.”

“Do you know how many people have died already today?”

“Do you want there to be one more?” Rachel pointed at the ocean, already receding from shore. “We don’t have much time.”

The camerawoman paused, and then sighed and put the camera down on the seat.

“I better get some good shots out of this. Where is he?”

“Thank you. He’s this way.”

Rachel led her down the stairs.

As they walked, she called Kai back to tell him what Reggie had said about the three-hundred-foot wave that was heading their
way and that he had sent a helicopter for them.

“Are you boarding the chopper?” Kai said.

“No, we’ve got an injured man here. I asked someone to help us get him to the roof.”

“Who are you talking to?” the camerawoman asked.

“My husband. He’s on top of another building.”

“We don’t have room to take all of you, let alone another group.”

“I know. Are there more choppers coming?”

The camerawoman shook her head. “We’re it. Can you dial up other frequencies with that thing?” She nodded at the walkie-talkie.

“I don’t know. They preprogram it for me.” She keyed the button. “Hold on, Kai.” She handed it to the camerawoman, who examined
it for a moment and then returned it.

“Looks like you can. Just twist that knob on the side. You should be able to get the frequency the pilot’s using. You might
be able to reach someone who can get them.”

“Kai,” Rachel said, “there’s not enough room on this helicopter for you guys, so you’ll have to call another one.” She relayed
the frequency to him.

They arrived at the twenty-first floor, where Jerry still lay unconscious.

“Kai, we’ve got to start carrying Jerry now. I’ll call you back on the new frequency.”

“Okay. Rachel?” Kai said.

“What?”

“I see it. The tsunami. Get out of there as fast as you can.”

“I will. And you get Lani out of there.” She replaced the walkie-talkie on her belt.

The camerawoman took one of Jerry’s arms, Rachel the other, and Paige and Sheila each took a leg. The climb was still awkward
but proceeded much more rapidly.

When they reached the twenty-fourth floor, the tower shuddered as if it had been hit with a giant sledgehammer. For a moment
they all staggered, thrown off balance.

“Jesus!” yelled the camerawoman. “Was that what I think it was?”

Rachel nodded grimly, now familiar with the sensation.

“Hurry,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”

For the third time that day, Kai watched a giant tsunami tear into Honolulu. Only this time, he had a spectacular 360-degree
view from their perch three hundred feet above the ground.

The wave’s size was something only a handful of people in recorded history had ever seen. In 1958, a landslide at Lituya Bay,
Alaska, unleashed a wall of water that climbed a quarter mile up the side of a cliff directly opposite of it. A smaller but
still huge wave charged down the length of the bay. A father and son, fishing in their boat only a mile from the landslide
that day, were borne by the wave over
the tops of trees more than two hundred feet high and settled back in the bay upon the receding water. Two other people fishing
the bay were not so lucky. Their bodies were never found.

Up to that point, it had been the only mega-tsunami that witnesses had lived to tell about. Now Kai was watching an even bigger
one wipe out his home state.

The third wave swept in like a giant fist. The force of water topped ten tons per square foot. Many buildings, already weakened,
didn’t stand a chance. At 184 feet, the Aloha Tower had been for many years the tallest structure on the islands. The landmark
had miraculously withstood the first and second waves, and Kai could just make out the top of it between other buildings.
When the third wave hit, though, it folded like a straw. The Hyatt, the Waikiki Beachside, and the Hilton all collapsed into
rubble.

“Darryl and Eunice,” Teresa murmured. She and Brad propped Mia up, and Kai stood with his arm around Lani. Tom had joined
them at the rooftop edge, but Denise and Chuck kept their distance on the other end.

“Who?” Kai said.

“A couple I met on the beach. They were staying at the Hilton. I hope they got out.”

Kai waiting in agony to see what would happen when the wave struck the Grand Hawaiian. Just before the impact, Lani buried
her head in Kai’s chest.

The tsunami, its crest even with the fifteenth floor, exploded against the side of the hotel’s remaining tower, the water
spraying hundreds of feet in the air. For a moment it seemed like the top of the building tilted backward, and Kai held his
breath, expecting it to topple.

But it didn’t. The wave wrapped around it and continued on. Other buildings remained standing under the onslaught as well,
including many of the behemoths downtown. Most of those buildings had been shielded by others that took the brunt of the wave.

Then the water reached the boat building, and Kai hoped it would hold up to the impact. Even three hundred feet up, the sound
was like a dozen approaching tornados.

Two buildings stood directly in the path between the boat building and the full force of the wave. The first, the Moana Surfrider,
was blasted by the wave and instantly collapsed. But it had done its part to mitigate the blow. The second building met the
slowed wave and the debris from the first building. It was shorter than their building, but it was a stout apartment complex
of gleaming steel. The glass that hadn’t shattered during the previous impacts didn’t stand a chance.

The water shot all the way through the building and rocketed out the back windows. It joined the water sweeping around the
side and hit Kai’s building.

The impact was not as intense as it had been with the
other buildings, but it was still strong. Kai swayed sickeningly on his feet as the water sought to undermine the foundation
of the structure. But the foundation held, unlike that of the apartment complex in front of them. When the surge reached the
twentieth floor, just below the rooftop, the whole structure disappeared into the sea.

As the water continued to rush past, every few seconds another building would fall, its death signaled by a time-delayed roar,
like thunder cracking after the flash of distant lightning.

Kai knew it was simply a matter of time before his building joined them.

12:14 p.m.
23 Minutes to Fourth Wave

T
he mood on the roof of the Grand Hawaiian while they boarded the chopper didn’t register as panic, but Rachel could sense
the fear. To balance the load, the smallest people had to sit in the front, so Paige, Hannah, and Wyatt clambered in there
with Ashley on Paige’s lap. Stan, the pilot, helped Rachel, Sheila, and Paige load Jerry’s frame into the backseat. The camerawoman,
Deena, snatched up her video camera again as soon as Stan took Jerry’s arm and began filming the process. They propped Jerry
upright next to Doris, who sat in the rightmost seat.

Sheila climbed in next. Deena waited for Rachel, but Rachel shooed her in. As Deena climbed in, Stan said, “Lose the camera!”

“What?” Deena said. “Do you know how much this costs?”

“I don’t care. It weighs too much, and we’re overloaded. We need all the lift we can get.”

Deena grudgingly dropped the camera from her shoulder and removed the tape. She handed the camera to Rachel, who was standing
outside. Rachel set it gently on the roof.

“Get in!” Stan yelled to Rachel.

“I thought the weight was too much.”

“It’ll be close, but the kids are light, so we’re going to try for it. This building isn’t going to be here much longer.”

“But it’s jammed. Where should I sit?”

Stan pointed at Deena. “Get on her lap.”

Rachel scrambled on top of Deena awkwardly. Her hand slipped and dug into Deena’s leg. Deena flinched.

“Sorry.” There was no way for Rachel to fasten a seat belt around herself, so she grabbed the seat in front of her as tightly
as she could.

Stan secured himself in the pilot’s seat on the right, with Paige and the kids squeezed next to him. He brought the engine
up to speed.

“Okay,” Stan said. “We’re going to do this slowly.”

With the engine at full speed, he pulled back on the stick. For a second, nothing happened. They simply sat there, the helicopter
blades throbbing over their heads.

Stan pushed the throttle until the engine passed the
redline. The helicopter jumped a yard into the air. Stan struggled with the collective, trying to keep the chopper level.
But before he could get any more height, the aircraft skidded to the right, dangerously close to the huge rooftop air-conditioning
unit. The helicopter rotated awkwardly, and for a moment the sound of grinding metal buzzed behind them, sending a cascade
of sparks flying past them. Piercing screams filled the cabin.

Stan rotated the helicopter back around and dropped the stick. The helicopter thudded onto the roof, the main rotor blades
sweeping past the machinery with only a foot to spare.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “This isn’t going to work. Someone’s going to have to get out.”

“Only one of us?” Rachel said. “Will that make a difference?”

“I hope so. That sound you heard was our tail rotor brushing the air-conditioning unit. It seems okay, but I can’t take any
more chances of bumping it. Nine passengers is just too many. I’ll be lucky to take off with only eight of you.”

There was an uneasy silence for a second.

“If I drop these people at Tripler,” Stan said, “I can be back in five minutes. I’d volunteer to stay behind, but unless one
of you can fly a helicopter—”

“I’m staying,” Rachel said with a resigned tone.

“Maybe you should draw straws,” said Stan.

“No, this is my hotel. I’m responsible. I’m the one who should stay.”

Everyone else remained quiet. Even if they had argued, Rachel wouldn’t have let one of them stay behind while she was whisked
to safety.

Before Rachel could climb out, Paige grabbed her arm and hugged her fiercely.

“Thank you for giving my family a chance.”

“Thanks for helping me. Take care of those kids.”

Rachel backed away to give the helicopter room to maneuver.

Stan brought the helicopter up to speed again. Without Rachel’s added 120 pounds, the blades were able to claw more lift from
the air. The chopper slowly rose and angled away from the air-conditioning machinery.

After it was clear of the hotel, it circled once thirty feet above Rachel. They waved, and Rachel gave them a thumbs-up.

Then the helicopter swung away and headed in the direction of downtown Honolulu, leaving Rachel on the roof of the Grand Hawaiian,
alone.