'Now I have a little quiz for you, and I've got prizes for the person who can yell out the answer first. First, when you hear the tsunami warning siren at the beach and you can't get to a TV or radio to find out what's going on, what do you do?'
A girl to Kai's right blurted out an answer. 'You go to high ground!'
'That's correct,' he said. He turned and called out, 'Bilbo, bring the prize!'
Bilbo trotted out from the room behind him with a little bag dangling from his mouth. Kai pointed at the girl and the dog walked over and dropped the bag in front of her. The girl squealed with delight and gave Bilbo a pat before he walked back over to Kai. They had practiced that routine all year, and Bilbo was getting good at it.
'Very good,' Kai said. 'And remember to get an adult to help you whenever you can. Next question. When you feel an earthquake and you're at the beach, what do you do?'
Another girl at the back screamed out before the others, 'Get to high ground!'
'Exactly. Bilbo?'
While Bilbo took the next bag to the student, a voice that was definitely not a child whispered in Kai's ear.
'I can't believe you are still doing that cheesy trick with the dog,' Brad said. 'You are such a nerd.'
'Excuse me,' Kai said to the teacher, pushing Brad back into the reception area. 'What are you doing here?'
'The guys from Ma'alea must have found out about my mad golfing skills and bailed. Since I have the morning free now, I thought I'd come by and see what's up.'
'I'm not done yet. Can you just stay out of the way for a little while?'
'No problem.'
When Kai returned, the teacher, a pretty, petite woman in her thirties, raised her hand. 'Excuse me, Dr. Tanaka.' Out of the corner of his eye, Kai saw Brad still leaning on the door frame, smiling at her.
'Yes, Ms. Yamaguchi.'
'How high is high ground?'
'That's a very good question,' Kai said. 'We develop inundation maps that show us where the water would reach on dry land, usually about 30 feet above sea level. You can find them in all the phone books.' Kai held up the tsunami evacuation route sign he kept around for the tour. The blue pictograph depicted a series of small stylized white waves followed by a final large wave. 'And you should see this sign all over Hawaii and something very close to it in Japan. It will tell you where to go. Any other questions?'
Nobody raised a hand, so Kai continued. 'Now the last question. If you're at the beach and you see the water receding very quickly from the beach, what do you do?'
This time, all the kids yelled the answer simultaneously. 'Get to high ground!'
'Well, since you all answered, you all deserve a prize. But I don't want Bilbo to make that many trips, so I'll get them myself.' Kai thrust some bags into Brad's hands. 'Here. Make yourself useful.'
As they were handing out the gift bags, Reggie walked into the room. He had an odd look on his face, as if he had uncomfortable news to deliver.
'You done?' he said.
'Yes. In fact, I've probably already kept them longer than they planned.' Kai said his goodbyes to the teacher and kids. 'Brad, would you show Ms. Yamaguchi the way out?'
'My pleasure,' Brad said, leading her to the door.
Kai turned to Reggie. 'What's going on? You look like you just swallowed a bug.'
'It's Christmas Island. We were expecting a telemetry report from the tide gauge 10 minutes ago. It never came.'
'That's funny. Didn't we just get a reading from it an hour ago?'
'Sure did. Everything was fine.'
'Did you check the equipment on our end?' Kai said, a sudden chill creeping up his spine. He didn't like where this was going.
'Just finished. It's not us. That leaves two possibilities. Either the tide gauge is malfunctioning…'
Kai completed Reggie's sentence. 'Or it's not there any more.'
Chapter 8
The Grand Hawaiian was the newest and swankiest of the luxury hotels lining Waikiki beach. Constructed over the razed remains of a 1940s apartment building, the 1065-room hotel was the brainchild of a Las Vegas resort mogul looking for new locations to expand his empire. Two imposing towers stood 28 stories high and were connected by a pedestrian skybridge at the sixth floor to allow movement throughout the vast conference spaces at that level.
That morning, those conference spaces were going to host one of the most important events in the hotel's young existence. The governor of Hawaii was scheduled to address a disabled veteran's group during brunch and then accompany them to a remembrance ceremony at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery.
After spending less than two minutes in her office to confer with her assistant, Rachel Tanaka had headed straight to the sixth floor, still seething about Kai not doing the one thing she had asked him to do. Oversleeping and being late for work was bad enough, but finding out that Kai never made the reservation drove her mood into the ground. His dedication to his job was admirable, but it was starting to cut into their 'work/life balance' as the hotel called it. And now it seemed like he didn't even know what his own daughter was going through.
Her office was in the Akamai tower, but the ballrooms were in the Moana tower, so she used the sixth floor skybridge to get between buildings. She was so deep in thought about how to get Kai more involved with his daughter that she nearly ran into Bob Lateen, the chairman of the veteran's conference. The frown on his face was not what she wanted to see.
'Mrs. Tanaka,' Lateen said, keeping up with Rachel in his wheelchair while she walked, 'you assured us that we would have sufficient accommodations for our accessibility needs, but there is a serious situation in the ballroom that needs to be taken care of immediately.'
Rachel squinted from the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the skybridge but still maintained a polite smile.
'Mr. Lateen, I want you to know that we take your concerns very seriously, and we value your patronage. I will do anything I can to help. Now what's the problem?'
They exited the bridge and came into a lavish foyer. Some of the attendees were already milling about. Rachel and Lateen weaved their way through and entered the sixth-floor Kamehameha Ballroom, the largest in the hotel.
'The problem,' Lateen said, 'is that we are supposed to start the brunch in less than 30 minutes, and I can't even get onto the dais.'
He pointed to the wide raised table at the back of the ballroom. On the right side, a standard staircase led up to the dais. On the left side, a short ramp had been constructed over the staircase. Now Rachel could see the problem.
As instructed, a ramp had been installed, but whoever oversaw the construction either hadn't done it before or hadn't thought about the needs of the person that would be using it. They had essentially laid the ramp directly over the stairs, canting it up at a slope impossible for anyone in a wheelchair to navigate.
'If I use that ramp,' Lateen continued, 'I will look like an idiot because I will have to have three people help me up. They might as well carry me up the stairs on the other side.'
'I understand the problem, sir. Let me contact the contractor. We'll have this fixed before the brunch starts.' She pulled out her walkie-talkie.
'Marian, is the dais contractor still in the hotel?'
A voice on the other end picked up immediately.
'I'm just signing some papers with him,' Marian said.
