The Tsunami Countdown

by Boyd Morrison

  Eunice put a hand on Teresa’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll come back, dear, now that they’ve heard the sirens. We still have over an hour.”

  Teresa nodded in agreement. The best thing for her to do was stay calm and stay where she was. If she left in search of them, she would surely miss them. And if they returned while she was gone, they might do something stupid, like go in search of her.

  All she could do was pace back and forth along the sand, straining to see any sign of her daughter.

  FIFTEEN

  10:09 a.m.

  1 Hour and 13 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  Lani paddled her kayak next to Mia and the two boys who they had met only thirty minutes ago. By this time they had to be at least a half mile from shore. Lani was still bewildered at the sequence of events that had gotten her out there. After they had left Teresa to read her book, she and Mia had wandered along the beach, looking at the vast horde of sunbathers, the families playing in the water, the surfers paddling out to take on their first attempts at waves, the college students playing Frisbee, the vendors of all sorts hawking snacks and kitschy souvenirs. Lani loved it. She didn’t know anywhere else you could find such a cross section of humanity.

  The day was glorious. The strong smell of suntan lotion complemented the salty breeze coming off the ocean. As they walked, Lani noticed how Mia kept eyeing the boys who passed them. A raucous crowd of boys played beach volleyball, and Mia waved at one of them. Lani pulled Mia’s arm down and raced forward, giggling. But inside, Lani could only wish for that kind of confidence.

  Of the two of them, Lani had always been the tomboy, excellent at athletics, ready to try every sport. She played soccer and volleyball, surfed, loved any kind of water sport. She had even been star shortstop on the otherwise all-boy Little League baseball team, where some of her teammates would barely talk to her because they resented her athletic skills. And because Lani was shy, making friends with girls was even harder.

  Mia, on the other hand, was a girly girl. Other girls wanted to hang out with her because she was so cool and pretty and seemed to know the latest trends in fashion, even though her mom still didn’t have much money to spend on clothes. She danced on the drill team, took ballet lessons, and had even been out on a date. Her mom had driven her to the mall movie theater and back, but Mia found a secluded moment and made out with the boy. Lani felt like she was falling behind Mia.

  When she and Mia were about half a mile from Teresa, Mia pulled her to a stop.

  “Look.”

  Mia pointed at the two boys who had passed them earlier when they were looking for a spot on the beach with Teresa. Now that she had a better look at them, Lani thought she recognized one of them. He was taller than the other boy and seemed more sure of himself. His mocha-colored hair tousled in a mop, he sported the deep brown skin of a native islander, while the other boy, blond and three inches shorter, still had the remnants of a farmer’s tan. The boys were listening to iPods as they walked.

  “What about them?”

  “Let’s go say hi,” Mia said, pushing Lani forward. Lani dug her feet into the sand.

  “No. I don’t want to.”

  “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “But I know one of them.”

  “Really? Which one?”

  “The one on the left.”

  “The tall one? He’s cute. But not as cute as the other one. Introduce me.”

  “How?” Lani was no good at that kind of thing.

  “Say my name,” Mia said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you want, I’ll do the talking. Come on.”

  Lani reluctantly went along. They cut in front of the boys, who took out their earbuds when Mia practically stopped them in their tracks.

  “Hi!” the tall boy said in recognition. “Where are your boogie boards?”

  “We’re not boogie boarding right now,” Mia said. “We’re going shopping.”

  “Hey, don’t I know you?” he said, looking at Lani.

  “Me?” Lani said, gulping silently. He had actually noticed her!

  “Yeah, you go to my school, right? IPA?”

  The boy looked different out of his school uniform, but it was definitely him. He was a couple of grades ahead of her at Island Pacific Academy, so she never thought she’d actually meet him, that he’d never be more than a hallway crush.

  “Yes. I’m a freshman.”

  “Her name is Lani. I’m Mia.”

  “Cool. My name’s Tom. This is Jake. He’s visiting from Michigan.” Jake nodded at them. “Hey, we were thinking of heading out onto the water.”

  Lani felt herself uncharacteristically speaking up, perhaps in competition with Mia.

  “Surfing?”

  Jake jumped into the conversation. “We rented some sea kayaks for the week,” he said. “Have you ever been on a kayak?”

  “We both have,” Lani said, bluffing with increasing boldness. Lani had paddled sea kayaks six or seven times since moving to Hawaii, but as far as she knew, Mia had never even seen one.

  “Sweet,” said Tom. “You want to come with us?”

  Mia turned and shook her head at Lani. When Mia had suggested talking to the boys, Lani was sure that doing something athletic was the last thing on her mind. Lani beseeched her silently, and this time it was Mia who relented.

  “Yeah,” Mia said with little enthusiasm. “We’d love to.”

  “Awesome. The kayaks are just up the beach.” He started walking, and the girls and Jake followed.

  “You both from around here?” said Tom.

  “Mia’s just visiting from Seattle.”

  “Must be good to get out of the rain.”

  “Yeah,” Mia said, “it’s pretty cool here.” And for the first time since she’d moved there, Lani felt like it was cool. “Are the kayaks big enough to fit two people?”

  “They’re single-seaters, but we have four of them,” Tom said. “My parents are away for the day at some Memorial Day ceremony.”

  After a few minutes of walking, Tom stopped on the beach next to a large condominium.

  “Okay,” he said. “You wait here.”

  “I thought you said we were going to kayak,” Mia said.

  “The kayaks are back at our condo,” Tom said. “We were going to go this afternoon when my parents got back.”

  “They’re sit-on-tops,” Jake said. “And we’ve got life jackets and paddles.”

  “We’ll be back in a minute,” Tom said.

  While Tom and Jake sprinted across the street and disappeared into a parking garage, Lani gave Mia a crash course on the kayaks. Instead of enclosing the kayaker inside like a river kayak, the plastic shell of a sit-on-top kayak was molded so that the seat perched on top. Although sit-on-tops were better for warm weather because you didn’t get as hot, they were also less stable. Mia wasn’t happy to hear that, given her inexperience, but Lani tried to reassure her that paddling in them was easy.

  Tom and Jake came trotting back carrying one kayak each over their heads. The kayaks didn’t look that much different from the ones Lani had been on before: about eleven feet long and bright yellow, with black nylon around the seating area.

  “Maybe when we’re done kayaking,” Tom said, “we could go get some lunch somewhere. My mom left her credit card for us.”

  “In that case, definitely!” Mia said.

  The boys high-fived, then turned and ran back to get the other kayaks and gear.

  “What about your mom?” Lani said, awed at Mia’s brazen flirting.

  “I’ll think of something.”

  In another five minutes, all of them had their life vests on, and the kayaks were bobbing in the gentle surf. To the left were the enclosed waters of Kuhio Beach, protected by a breakwater. To the right, waves crashed into the beach, but the sea was mild where the kayaks floated.

  “Shouldn’t be too bad getting past the waves today,” Jake said.

  Lani saw that Mia was apprehensiv
e. She lowered her voice to give Mia some tips.

  “Just keep the kayak pointed straight out. There’s an undertow at this point, so the waves will be small.”

  Mia waded up to her knees and sat on the side of the kayak to get in. She slipped off and sank to her shoulders. Jake laughed but rushed over to pick her up. She tentatively balanced herself on his arm as she climbed in. After two more false starts, she finally perched primly on the kayak.

  “You sure you’ve done this before?” Jake said.

  Mia nodded. “It’s been a while since I did it the last time.”

  “We’ll head out past the breakers,” Tom said. “Then maybe we could turn and head up toward Diamond Head. I’ve heard there are some killer houses along the beach there, but they’re hard to see except from the ocean.”

  They started paddling. When the first waves broke over the front of their kayaks, Mia let out a little scream. Lani laughed. She was finally in her element.

  “Come on,” Lani said. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Remember to put the paddle sideways into the water, Mia!” Tom yelled. “Come on!”

  The boys pulled forward easily, and they looked a little surprised to see Lani keep up with them. Mia fell behind immediately, her paddling technique abysmal. But with a few more minutes of practice, and with the others slowing down, she was able to keep up. The trip out took longer than expected as they fought the stiffened breeze coming off the ocean. After twenty minutes they were about a half mile out and turned east toward the towering walls of Diamond Head.

  As they came around, Lani thought for a second that she heard a sound coming from the direction of the shore. But the wind picked up again, whistling as it whipped over the water, and she couldn’t even hear the roar of the surf.

  SIXTEEN

  10:10 a.m.

  1 Hour and 12 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  Reggie made contact with Dr. Niles Aspen, the lead scientist on Johnston Island. After Reggie explained the situation over the satellite link, the scientists scrambled to get as many people into the supply plane as they could. But two would have to stay behind, including Aspen. Kai just had to hope the biologist could find a building sturdy enough to withstand a potential tsunami. Aspen would call back when he was at a safer location. Brad had no more success getting in touch with Teresa and the kids, but the sirens would be impossible to ignore. Kai was confident that they’d follow the other tourists off the beach. Still, he’d feel better when he knew Lani was safe. He tried not to let his worries distract him from his work.

  “Let’s go over this again,” Kai said, turning his attention back to the problem at hand. “We’re still missing something.”

  Reggie leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as he thought out loud.

  “Okay, let’s see. There is virtually no chance that an under-sea earthquake that small could cause any kind of sizable tsunami, let alone one that could destroy Christmas Island.”

  “Why not?” asked Brad. Kai started to tell Brad to butt out from habit but changed his mind when he realized Brad’s questions might help them look at the situation in a new light.

  “No quake that small has ever generated an ocean-wide tsunami,” Kai said, “unless the earthquake triggered a landslide.”

  “Okay. So what about a landslide?”

  Reggie and Kai looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Maybe,” Kai said.

  “‘Maybe’?” Brad said. “All you have is ‘Maybe’?”

  “Look, we just don’t have any reason to suspect that that region of the Pacific would be prone to landslides. Underwater landslides usually occur near the edge of a continental shelf, but the region we’re talking about is nowhere near a continental shelf.”

  Reggie threw up his hands. “So we have an earthquake that’s too small to generate a tsunami, no known landslide risks, no sensor reading from Christmas Island, and no way to get in touch with anyone there.”

  “And,” Kai said, “the earthquake was in a location where no quake has ever been recorded before.”

  “So you’re saying the tsunami came out of nowhere?” Brad said.

  At that moment, Kai happened to look up at one of the TVs. CNN was running the story of the missing TransPacific flight, the TransPac logo prominent in the corner. Then the image shifted to a graphic of the Pacific Ocean. A line stretched from Los Angeles and abruptly ended in the middle of the ocean due south of Hawaii.

  “That’s funny,” Kai said. “It looks like the plane went down where the earthquake epicenter …”

  And that’s when it hit him. It was incredible, but it was the only explanation they hadn’t considered.

  “It can’t be,” he said.

  “What?” Reggie said.

  “We’ve completely ignored one possibility. It’s crazy, but everything fits. I hope to God I’m wrong—knock on wood.” Though not normally superstitious, Kai rapped the frame of the cork bulletin board on the wall. But it didn’t matter: he knew he was right.

  “What are you talking about?” Reggie said.

  “Okay,” Kai said, “here’s the deal. Remember that discussion we had about Crawford and Mader?”

  Reggie furrowed his brow for a second, then snapped his fingers and smiled. “Right! Yeah, I said their research was fun, but it was a waste of time. You said—”

  Reggie abruptly stopped, his smile vanishing. He looked at Kai incredulously, and Kai could tell he’d struck a nerve. Kai nodded toward the TV, which still showed the map. For a moment Reggie looked at the television, baffled at the connection. Then his expression changed to horror.

  In that instant, he knew too.

  Reggie launched himself out of his chair. “You’re not serious!”

  “We have to consider it.”

  “No! No, no, no, no, no!” Reggie said with a look of stunned disbelief. “I just finished remodeling my house last month. Took me close to two years.”

  Brad, who had been watching this exchange in confused silence, couldn’t take it any longer. “Not serious about what? Who are Crawford and Mader? What’s going on?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Reggie said.

  “Yes I do! What the hell does this have to do with Reggie’s house?”

  “In about an hour,” Kai said, “Reggie’s house won’t be there anymore.”

  SEVENTEEN

  10:15 a.m.

  1 Hour and 7 Minutes to Wave Arrival Time

  Since Renfro’s call with Kai, the Hawaii State Civil Defense staffer and his two colleagues on the holiday skeleton crew, Michelle Rankin and Ronald Deakins, had been on the phone nonstop. Renfro had the governor and the mayor of Honolulu on conference call. Both were on their way downtown to their offices.

  “What’s your ETA, Governor?” Renfro said.

  “I’ll be back at the Capitol in a few minutes. The holiday traffic was already bad, and more people are getting on the road every minute. My cabinet is spread out all over the city. We’ve been trying to get in touch with them since we left the hotel.”

  “And you, Mayor?”

  The smooth, patrician voice of Mayor Carl Rutledge came over the line. “I was over at Pearl, so it’s looking more like fifteen minutes if the traffic doesn’t get worse, even with the police escort.”

  “Who’s in charge there?” the governor asked.

  “Well, I am, Ma’am,” said Renfro. “Vice Director Dennis is on Kauai, and there’s no way he can get back in time.”

  “Renfro, what are we looking at here?” the mayor asked. “Is this going to be another false alarm?”

  “Sir, you know I can’t tell that for sure. What I do know is that we lost contact with Christmas Island, including the tide sensor, and the PTWC issued a tsunami warning.”

  “Better safe than sorry, Carl,” Governor Kalama said.

  “I suppose,” the mayor said, “but dammit, we’re already looking at a budget deficit. We can’t have this happen every year.”

 
; “Sir, we should know more in a few minutes when the wave is supposed to reach Johnston Island.”

  On the other side of the room, Rankin was talking to Pearl Harbor’s military liaison, an aide to the commander of U.S. Pacific Command. The leader of the USPACOM was responsible for all U.S. armed forces over half the world’s surface.

  “Lieutenant, we do have procedures for this—” Rankin began.

  “But the last drill was for a three-hour window. Now you’re telling me I have about an hour?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ma’am, do you know what it takes for a Navy ship to set sail? It ain’t like hopping in your Sea Ray and shooting out of the marina.”

  “How long would it take if you started right now?”

  “Two hours, minimum. The engines aren’t even hot.”

  “Look, I’m just telling you how much time you have. You can protest all you want: it’s not going to change. Plus, you need to get all of the aircraft out of the coastal air bases. We’re recommending moving them to Wheeler.”

  “Well, you see, that’s another problem: most of our pilots are out on leave or at ceremonies away from the bases. We can try to get them back to base, but the way the traffic is moving, we’ll be lucky to get a quarter of them up in the air.”

  Rankin scribbled a note about the military aircraft and handed it to Deakins, who had the responsibility for coordinating with the civilian airports and seaports. He was on the phone with the chief of operations at Honolulu International, which shared runways with Hickam Air Force Base.

  “That’s right, sir,” Deakins said. “You’ve got about an hour before the wave arrives.”

  “And the all-clear? When will that be?”

  “I can’t say for sure.”

  “Well, I can’t keep the planes circling forever.”

  “Believe me, sir, we will let you know as soon as the danger has passed.”

  “Flights are going to be backed up all day because of this, you know.”