'Put him on the walkie-talkie. Now.'
A second of silence elapsed before John Chaver, the contractor, came on the line.
'This is John.'
'John, this is Rachel Tanaka. You and your men need to come back up here immediately.'
'Hey, they just told me to put in a ramp. You've got a ramp.'
She edged away from Lateen so that she was out of earshot and explained the problem with the dais. This guy picked the wrong day to mess with her.
'The ramp is useless. Now, if you want to continue to do business at this hotel, a hotel that's scheduled to have over 150 conferences this year, you better get your butt back up here and fix that ramp in the next twenty minutes.'
'Just a minute.'
Another few moments of silence. Then Chaver came back sounding much more contrite.
'I just spoke with one of my guys. He installed the wrong ramp. We've got the right one in our truck. I'll be there in a minute.'
'Good.' She walked back to Lateen. 'A Mr. Lateen will be up here to describe exactly what he needs. He is a very important guest, and I expect you to extend him every courtesy.'
'Of course. I'm on my way.'
She replaced the walkie-talkie on her belt.
'Thank you, Mrs. Tanaka,' Lateen said. 'I appreciate your help.'
'Not at all. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and as an apology from the hotel, I'm going to take 5 % off the cost of today's event. I hope this won't discourage you from using our hotel in the future.'
'If we get this fixed, you can consider me satisfied.'
Chaver arrived, and Rachel left him with Lateen to get the ramp changed.
She headed directly down to the lobby where she found Max Walsh, the head concierge.
'Max, how are you doing today?'
'I am doing extremely well, Milady,' he said, feigning a terrible British accent. Then his voice returned to its bland Midwestern tone. 'You need something, don't you?'
'Boy, I'm easy to read.'
'Not at all. You just have a determined look that's slightly different from your normal determined look. What can I do for you?'
'My husband was supposed to book a luau for us tonight, but he forgot. I have some friends visiting from out of town, and I really wanted to show them a great time. Is there any way you could get us into the Sheraton Waikiki for their luau tonight?'
Max waved his hand. 'Is that all you wanted? Piece of angel food. Besides, you're the manager of the Grand Hawaiian. I could get you in anywhere.'
Rachel hadn't gotten used to her new status. She forgot that her title carried a lot of weight in Honolulu.
'How many?' Max asked.
'Six.'
'You really don't want to challenge me, do you? OK, six for 8pm?'
'Max, you're a lifesaver. Specifically, Kai's.'
'Absolutely no problem. But you don't want to go to the Sheraton Waikiki. Germaine's has the best luau on the island, and it's right on the beach. You'll love it.'
'Thanks, Max. I owe you.'
As she walked away, her walkie-talkie crackled to life.
'Rachel, we have a problem with the Russian tour group.'
'What's the problem? Something with their rooms?'
'I don't know. I can't understand them. But they're getting pretty irate.'
'There's no interpreter?'
'Nope. And none of them speaks a word of English.'
'That may be the problem. Where are they?'
'Second floor mezzanine.'
'I'll be right there.'
She headed at a brisk pace to the elegant flowered escalators leading up from the lobby, ready to take on the day's next emergency.
Chapter 9
As the Japanese students filed out to their van, Kai followed Reggie back into the warning center's telemetry room. Reggie's calm was now replaced by an edginess Kai had only seen a few times.
'Kind of an odd fluke,' Reggie said. 'Don't you think?'
'What's happening?' said Brad, entering the room. He saw the tension, and his eyes lit up. 'Is it a tsunami?'
'Look, Brad,' Kai said. 'I don't mind if you want to hang around. But we could get very busy. If you're going to get in the way, you'll have to leave.'
Brad put up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. 'No problem. I just want to watch. This is fun. Usually, your job is so dull.' He retreated to the other side of the room and took a seat.
Kai leaned over Reggie as he typed into his computer.
'You think the busted tide gauge is too coincidental?' Kai asked.
'I don't know,' Reggie said. 'We detect a seismic disturbance in the general vicinity, and that's the exact time for the tide gauge to go on the fritz?'
'It hasn't failed since I've been here, but you said it has in the past?'
'Well, it has broken down two times in the past three years. Once from a short circuit and once from a storm that knocked over the satellite uplink antenna.'
'Is there a storm in the area?'
'I just checked. There is one, but the storm is centered 500 miles northwest of Christmas Island. Shouldn't be affecting it.'
'How big would the tsunami have to be to take out that tide gauge? Is it a mark seven?'
'Yeah. The wave would have to be at least eight meters high to take out a mark seven gauge.'
Over twenty feet high. High enough to cover the entire island.
'Who's our contact on Christmas Island? His name is Steve something, isn't it?' Even after nine months, Kai was still learning who worked with them. He was terrible with names.
'Steve Bryant. He does a little maintenance on the gauge from time to time. No answer, either at his home or his office. In fact, I can't even get his voice mail. It won't ring through. All I get is a fast busy signal.'
'Let's try again. The phones down there aren't very reliable. You keep trying to get Steve, and I'll call the operator.'
The operator didn't have any better luck getting through, so Kai had her attempt several different numbers they had in the Rolodex for Christmas Island. None of them went through.
'Can you get the main island operator for me?' Kai said.
She tried without success. Just that fast busy signal again.
'All I'm getting is an out-of-order tone, sir,' she said.
'Is that unusual?'
'The power goes out down there on a regular basis. It always shuts everything down, including communications. Comms also failed once when there was a fire at the switching station on the island, but we haven't had any problems lately. It's probably just a power outage. Would you like me to continue trying?'
'Yes, please.' Kai told her who he was and asked her to call him back when she got through. Their inability to get through to anyone was troubling, and Kai couldn't help feel like there was pattern to all of this that he was
