made constructions had not.
When she came across mangled bodies, she looked away. Many people had perished but many had also survived, albeit in terrible conditions. She noticed a middle-aged couple hugging a young girl who was in a state of shock, bleeding from a large gash in her forehead. She walked on. ‘Where are you Jack?’ she thought, as tears streamed down her battered face.
She finally arrived at the point where she thought she’d last seen Jack when he’d been washed out to sea. But he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, a deep rumbling sound engulfed her. It was much louder than the previous wave. She froze. Was it an earthquake? But as she turned to the shore she saw to her horror a second, huge wave returning with a vengeance. It was mightier than the first and was crushing anything that had been left standing. She frantically tried climbing up one of the trees, but her shoes kept slipping off the wet bark and then it hit, blue oblivion. It ripped Mina like a rag doll from the tree she was holding on to with her last strength, and swept her into the road.
The second wave had carried Jack like a cork back towards the shore, much farther this time, two blocks inland. He was unable to move left or right, pressed and paralysed by the ferocious current that was pinning him against the wall. Stricken with horror, he watched as a huge Coca-Cola lorry was washed away sideways like a matchbox toy and literally crushed on the hotel’s outside wall, just a few paces from where he was trapped.
Mustering his strength, he clawed his way back around the side of the building, inch by inch, to avoid being taken further inland by the current. He heard high-pitched screams nearby. As he turned the corner, he saw them: two boys, one about fifteen and the other around ten. They were stuck by the hotel entrance, screaming for help. Two mangled motorboats, which had been sucked in by the force of the tsunami were hurtling towards them. Jack calculated that if he could let go of the railing and let himself be taken by the current he might just get close enough to help the boys. A torn volleyball net was entangled in what was left of the entrance to the hotel. The free end of the net was thrashing about in the water. He jumped forward, and was immediately taken by the current with tremendous force. He had just a few seconds to reach out for the net. He caught it and pulled himself forwards to the hotel entrance. He felt one of his fingernails rip as he made one last lunge towards the boys and yelled at them to join him. The older one did but the younger was frozen in panic. Jack pulled the elder one around the corner and safely into the restaurant. ‘Climb the stairs and go as high as you can’ he barked at the terrified youth. He saw the smashed boats arriving at full throttle. He reached out, searching for the younger boy’s hand and yanked him towards him. They struggled around the corner together and the young boy managed to get in and run to the stairwell. Jack wasn’t so lucky. He had managed to avoid the thunderous crash of boats into the hotel lobby, but a huge splinter of carbon fibre from the smashed hull had pierced his right thigh.
The two boys huddled on the roof, watched their saviour’s body drop back into the waters as he passed out from the pain. That was the last they saw of him, as he was carried away by the wave. They could see other people vainly trying to swim in the debris but being cut to pieces by all manner of sharp objects and shards of glass from smashed car windscreens and hotel windows. The two boys looked at each other as surviving soldiers do after a raging battle, without feelings, but with the palpable relief that life was still pumping through their veins.
Chapter 34
December 26th, 2004. Noon. Patong Beach
Mina was being pulled up onto the top of a truck by two men. When she reached the top and looked around her, she counted four other people in their small group of survivors. One of the men said to her with a strong French accent, ‘This is my brother, and this is his wife and this is her two cousins.’ The wife was screaming relentlessly.
‘What happened to her?’ asked Mina.
‘The baby, she lost the baby,’ said her brother-in-law, tears running down his cheeks.
‘Oh my God,’ said Mina.
The truck was very heavy and was lying on its side, having been knocked over by the first wave. But now it was grinding slowly inland with the force of the new wave. They could all hear the screeching of the metal container against the ground and the sound filled them with dread.
Mina moved to the edge of the container to get a better look at their surroundings. She had never felt so helpless in her life. Although never a religious person, today, for the first time, she felt like a tiny speck in the fury of God’s path. If the authors of the tablet were right and this was just a foretaste of worse events to come, she could not begin to fathom what they might be.
Jack was barely alive, but had somehow managed to lift himself up onto some wooden planks. He examined the shard sticking out of his thigh. Thankfully, it hadn’t hit the artery but he was bleeding heavily. He clenched his teeth and took hold of the shard, trying to ignore the excruciating pain. He pulled it out and then, having torn his shirt, he bandaged his thigh as best he could. It was a very nasty wound. It would soon be infected and he needed urgent medical attention, but he had no idea where he was. He felt his life and strength ebbing away.
Jack slipped in and out of consciousness. He was lying on his back, staring at the vastness of the sky. His body was bruised and broken beyond anything he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t even remember how he’d landed on this pile of dirt. He hoped with all his heart that Mina was safe and wondered if he’d ever see her again. Images of the first time he met her came back to him, when Professor Almeini had left them together in her office. How much had happened since that day in Iraq. He thought of all his accumulated hatred towards Wheatley and Natasha. He had fantasised so often about how he would make them suffer. But in the end, Wheatley’s devious plans, his own bloodlust, Mina’s quest, the few truthful moments they had lived together, all of it had been washed away in one fell swoop. He couldn’t think anymore and felt the drowsiness creeping over him again.
Mina and the French survivors were air-lifted to safety. As the helicopter slowly rose into the air, the full horror of the scene unfurled before her eyes; ruined remains everywhere. Mina made a silent prayer for Jack, hoping against all odds he was still alive, somewhere on the beach. She saw the bloated, drowned bodies of men, women, children and babies, scattered all over the place. Apart from a few hotels, all that was left of this popular beach resort was a huge pile of wreckage.
It would only be later that evening and over the coming days that she would learn the full extent of the devastation caused by the tsunami in South India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to this cataclysmic event. As the helicopter flew over a row of swaying trees and left Patong beach, she couldn’t help but keep her eyes fixed on the ground far below in search of Jack, even though she knew it was hopeless. With a heavy heart, she raised her eyes to the sky.
It was bright blue and peaceful, as if nothing had happened. A majestic rainbow arched over the scene below. She followed the rainbow’s curve through the sky, and wondered how such beauty could emerge from so much devastation. In a flash she heard the words, the covenant between God and Noah, and a shiver ran down her spine.
Epilogue
