Wave (8 page)

“It’s just after nine o’clock over here,” she replied, not bothering to add that that meant it was just after six Seattle time. “I’m really sorry to call so early, but there’s a tsunami heading toward us.”

He sounded immediately alert. “What did you say?”

“There’s a tsunami coming. Right now!”

“You’re in New Jersey?”

“Yes!”

For a moment there was only silence. Collins became aware of the trip-hammer thumping of her heart, plus the fact that she had begun to perspire.

“How do you know this?” Kennard was stern now.

She sacrificed thirty seconds to recite the story.

“Oh God,” was his reply. There was a dreariness to it that made Collins’s stomach twist.

“There aren’t any advance warning systems out here, are there?” she asked. But it was more of a statement than a question.

“No, none.” Another pause, and then, “You’ll have to do it the hard way.”

With a calm that surprised even her, she said, “Okay.” She set the cell phone down, picked up the receiver on the Nixon-era desk phone, and dialed 911.

As the rest of the nation became slowly hypnotized by the story of the latest terrorist attack, Long Beach Township Mayor Donald J. Harper hid in his now-darkened office, voluntarily isolated. There was a time when he’d leave the shades open all day and admire the view of the Atlantic. Not today. This had turned into nothing more than a waiting game, a long and tantalizing delay until the ax fell. He had given the nod himself, not that there was any choice. He had never felt so useless in his life—there was simply nothing to do. No objectives, no focus.

He sat behind his desk in a slouch, a most uncharacteristic position for him. Until recently he had always made a point of sitting bolt-upright, regardless of where he was or what he was doing—at the office, at a restaurant, at home. You never wanted to give the impression of disinterest or dereliction. If you were in politics it was important to appear awake and alert at all times, ready for anything. Amazing how deeply the training had been rooted, the years spent preparing for a life of public service. And how easily all that could be thrown away….

He slouched because he felt like slouching, and he remained in that position for a while. The air-conditioner switched on and off at least a dozen times. The shades were drawn; the only light in the room coming from between them. At one point he wondered if this was what Howard Hughes’s world was like during his final days, in that hotel room in Acapulco where his withered, ninety-pound body lay under a layer of filthy bedsheets as his “aides” stood by with the next shot of codeine, one of which would eventually put an end to his surreal existence.

He took note of a small pile of papers Marie had left on his desk to sign. Well, it was something to do, he thought. He leaned forward, grabbed a pen, and began scribbling. He didn’t bother reading any of them; after all these years he only needed to glance to summarize the content. There was nothing of great substance here. Was that by circumstance or by design, he wondered? Had Marie, always one of his most faithful employees, already begun preparing for the regime change? Was she hiding a second, more substantial group of papers somewhere else?

He didn’t know and wouldn’t be able to find out, and this only augmented his depression. In his heart he didn’t want to believe it—she’d been loyal from the beginning, but who knew anymore. After recent events, even the deepest loyalties began to falter. Was there anyone left in his corner? Any believers left in the parish? He supposed not.

He finished, rose, and went out. Marie was at her desk in the next office, typing at her computer. She was small and aged, kind of wispy, but she had the constitution of a teenager and, at times, the tongue of a viper. Today she was wearing a blue polka-dot dress and a string of pearls. The paradox amused Harper—she always looked like the classic “little old lady,” but underneath lay the soul of a warrior.

“These are signed,” he said.

She looked up, startled. Or maybe she just pretended to be.

“Hmm? Oh, thank you, Donald.” She set them aside and turned to her notepad. “You also had two calls. One from Mickey Blake, and one from Allison Cauldwell.”

He nodded noncommittally. Blake owned an auto-repair shop on the mainland and was pushing for a second, in Spray Beach, but needed the zoning permits. He and Harper had gone to high school together. He was a nice enough guy and ran an honest business, so Harper had been planning to help him. Allison Cauldwell, on the other hand, was a little bitch who had taken over her late father’s three-office real-estate business and wanted to grow it to fifty. She was absolutely off her rocker, obsessed with becoming New Jersey’s next Diane Turton. Turton wasn’t any less driven or ambitious, but at least she had some finesse. Cauldwell had a set of lead-pipe sensibilities that would make a stampede of elephants look like a ballet recital.

“Okay, thanks.” He ran a hand through his hair and headed back to the cave.

He blanched when Marie’s phone rang again. This is how it was now—
Could this be The Call?
he wondered every time. He paused at the double oak doors, half-hoping for the worst just so this nightmare would come to an end.

“Donald?”

He tried to act as though he hadn’t been listening but it was an exercise in pointlessness; they both knew he had.

“Hmm?”

“A Major Gary Oberg for you. Says it’s urgent.”

What would Gary be calling me for? Harper wondered. To offer condolences?

A mild nausea came over him. Old friends and familiar faces would be emerging from every direction with wan smiles and words of tender reassurance.
This has to be the worst part of it
.

Oberg was a genuine friend, one of the few people he trusted implicitly. Small and thin, with dark, almost Mediterranean features, he was a career military man who believed in the sanctity and fundamental goodness of the United States of America. He was old school, a product of the Greatest Generation, and slightly at odds with modern times. Harper met him in 1974 when they were assigned to the same base in Virginia, and they’d kept in touch after Harper left the service following his four-year tour of duty. Oberg was reassigned to the National Guard base in Sea Girt, New Jersey, in the spring of 1992, and since then the two men got together fairly regularly.

Harper took the phone. “Hello, Gary.” He was aware of how tired he sounded but didn’t have the will to mask it.

“Don, have you heard about the tsunami?”

No preamble, no small talk, which was very unlike the man. Suddenly Harper felt uneasy.

“Tsunami? What tsunami?”

“Don, listen. You’ve got to get everyone off the island, and you’ve got to do it
now
. We just received an emergency call from Rutgers about a tidal wave that’s moving in your direction.”

“Come on, Gary.”

“No joke. You know that plane that went down this morning? The flight from the Netherlands?”

“Yeah, I heard about it on the radio.”

“There was a bomb on it. Part of some new terrorist plot. It was bound for DC, so they think that was the original target. But something went wrong and the plane went into the drink. The bomb exploded and somehow triggered this thing. I don’t know the details.”

Harper absorbed every word and calculated the scenario instantly. He knew a little bit about oceanography, having been as enamored with the shore as millions of his fellow residents.

“Jesus Christ. Are you certain, Gary? Absolutely
certain
?” The words sounded far away, as if they were coming from someone else’s mouth. Harper’s body had gone numb. Not cold, just…nothing. It was as if everything from his neck down was no more than a wooden prop for his head. A sufficiently surreal morning was developing into a trip through the Twilight Zone.

“Yes, I’m positive. Some Rutgers scientists in Tuckerton spotted it. They’ve checked and rechecked and there’s no doubt. It all adds up.”

“My God….”

“Don, I have to go. We’ve got a million things to do here. But I wanted to let you know because every second matters now. You’ve got to get everyone out of there, and fast. We’ll contact the Coast Guard from our end. They’ll clear out all the marine traffic.”

“Okay, how long do we have?” Harper asked.

There was a pause, and in that instant he knew the answer was going to be horrifying. He braced himself.

“About two hours.”

Inside Harper’s tall, broad-shouldered body—in fact, inside his very soul—every function paused.

“Two hours?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not enough,” Harper said in a whisper, more to himself than to his friend. “We’re almost into Memorial Day here. There are thousands of people on the island. I can’t guarantee we’ll get everyone off in just two hours!”

“Don, if you need me, call me. And remember—you’re still the mayor, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

“Good luck, pal,” Oberg said, clicking off.

What happened next took all of about fifteen seconds, although inside it seemed like hours. Harper’s mind downloaded an image of himself standing at the bisecting point where two long country roads met. It could’ve been someplace in the South, like the Carolinas or maybe Georgia. There were no road signs, no cars, no people around. Just him, standing at a crossroad in the middle of a sunny and otherwise undeveloped area.

He looked down each road, wondering which one was best. They all seemed about the same—that was the hard part. No real indication of which one he should take. For a flicker of an instant he felt angry, felt like he was being treated unfairly. There were no outward clues for him to follow. How could you be expected to make a decision without information?

Then it occurred to him—the decision was supposed to be purely instinctual, supposed to be based on what was inside, not outside. That was the whole point. Gary had said it perfectly—
Remember, you’re still the mayor
. At first Harper didn’t understand why he’d thrown that in, but now it made perfect sense. He had to make a choice. The right road would become obvious after he decided what he really wanted to do with himself. He thought he’d lost that right. He thought everything had been stripped away, but it hadn’t. He saw that now, saw what it meant in the big picture.

And he saw an opportunity, too.

At the Schooner’s Wharf in Beach Haven, Tom Wilson sat in a quiet corner of the Gazebo Restaurant with Elliot Davis and plotted Davis’s glorious political future.

“NJN began covering the story when it got too big to ignore,” Wilson said over a plate of neatly cut waffles. “I know the producer over there pretty well. He’s asked me a few times what I thought would happen once Harper is gone.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I was playing it cool at the time, but I’ll be calling him later today. The guy covering the story will want an update. That’s when I’ll mention you. They may want to talk to you at some point. In fact I’m sure they will. Now that Harper is on his way out, they’ll be looking for someone new to focus on. You should make yourself available. Can you do that?”

After a pause, Davis said, “I believe so.” This was technically only a half-truth—he had a packed schedule in the coming weeks and had already cancelled a sailing trip with his eldest son. How was he going to work in press appearances?