attention. 'Excuse me, Dr. Aspen?'
'I've never seen anything like it, really. All the birds on the island seemed to have taken flight simultaneously. I hope the pilot notices and steers clear of them.'
A yell in the background.
'Brent just noticed that the water is starting to come back. At an alarming pace, too, I'm afraid.'
In the distance, a frothy white line stretched across the horizon and out of the field of view of the camera. After a few seconds, the white froth had risen visibly and seemed to be racing for the camera.
Kai tried to keep a sense of panic out of his voice. 'Dr. Aspen, you need to find something to tie yourselves to. Anything permanently affixed to the structure.'
'We have no rope.'
'Use your belts, nylon from a backpack, anything.'
'I'm afraid the best we can do is to wrap our arms around a metal ladder bolted into the side of the building. Excuse me while we do so.'
The wave now approached the beach. The froth looked to be 30 feet high and still rising. A growing roar threatened to drown out Dr. Aspen's voice.
'As you can hear,' Dr. Aspen shouted, straining to make himself audible, 'we are listening to what sounds like 15 approaching freight trains. How big is this tsunami going to get, Dr. Tanaka?'
He deserved the truth. 'I don't know, Dr. Aspen. Maybe too big.'
A pause. He knew what Kai meant.
'Well, Dr. Tanaka,' Aspen yelled over the din, 'it seems Brent and I may not get to enjoy that cup of tea after all.'
As he said that, a wall of water smashed into the palm trees closest to the beach, completely engulfing them, and the wave finally showed signs that it was about to curl over. Kai could only watch in shock as the tsunami collapsed and drove itself into the first building it encountered, shattering it.
Whole trees and the debris from the building were driven forward by a wave that had to be at least 100 feet high. As it approached each building in its path, the structure was engulfed and disappeared. None were even half the height of the wave. It was as if the world's largest dam had burst.
The howl of crashing water coming from the phone now made it almost impossible to hear what Aspen was saying.
'My Lord! Hold on, Brent!' Then a scream from Brent in the background, and that was all Kai could make out before the phone went dead.
At the same time, the tsunami commanded the entire area of the screen. It looked like watching through the window of a washing machine, water boiling and churning, with indistinct bits of detritus writhing around within it.
The camera pitched backward, probably from the force of air pushed in front of it by the wave. For a fraction of a second, all Kai could see was blue sky. Then a shadow loomed over the lens, and the image was gone.
Kai, Brad, and Reggie all stood in stunned silence. Nobody could muster the words to comment on what they had just seen. But they knew the implications. In less than an hour, Hawaii was going to experience a catastrophe of epic proportions.
Chapter 19
The horror of watching the death of Dr. Aspen and Brent Featherstone confirmed Kai's nightmare scenario. He shivered involuntarily from the chill that ran up his spine.
'What the hell is going on?' Brad said. Then he pointed at Kai with an accusing finger. 'How did you know the tsunami would be so big?'
'I didn't know,' Kai said. 'It was just a guess. About an hour ago, I saw on Headline News that a TransPac jet went down somewhere over the Pacific. I didn't give it another thought. But ten minutes ago, I saw the same story. This time, they showed a graphic of the plane going down in the exact same location as the earthquake.'
'So?'
'Given what we just saw, I don't think that it's a coincidence. Brad, since it's just me and Reggie here, I'm going to need your help. Call the FAA and find out exactly what the latitude and longitude was where they lost contact. And see if there were any other planes in the area. And don't take no for an answer.'
'Why?'
'I'll explain when you're off the phone.'
'But who do I call? It's a holiday.'
'I don't know. There's got to be an emergency number. Here.' Kai gave him the number for Hawaii Civil Defense. 'Call Brian Renfro at HCD. Get the number from him. Tell him you're my brother.'
Brad looked dubious, but he saw that Kai was serious and went into the other room to make the call.
'Kai,' Reggie said, 'do you know what the chances are of this happening?'
'I don't know. A million to one? But Reggie, what if it did happen? We've got no scenarios for dealing with it.'
'If we're wrong about this and word gets out, we are going to be the laughingstock of the seismic community.'
'I know, Reggie, but…' Kai tapped his watch. He didn't have to tell Reggie the clock was ticking. 'I'm going to get on the phone to NASA and find out if they have any satellite data or photos from the site of our earthquake.'
'And me?'
'Start doing a search of relevant papers in the
'Gotcha.'
Kai dialed Hawaii Civil Defense. Although the PTWC notified many different organizations throughout the Pacific about tsunami hazards, NASA was not one of them. Kai had no emergency number for them.
Brian Renfro picked up the phone on the other end.
'Brian, it's Kai Tanaka.'
'Kai, what is going on? You're brother just called me asking for the number for the FAA.'
'You gave it to him, right?'
'Sure, but that's a little weird, don't you think?'
'It's going to get weirder. Who would we call to get emergency satellite imagery?'
'Satellite imagery. Why do you need that?'
'I think the situation may be worse than we first imagined.'
'Worse than a tsunami? Is there a hurricane coming, too?'
Brad came back in holding a slip of paper.
'Hold on, Brian' Kai said. To Brad, 'That was fast.'
'While I was on the phone, I looked at CNN's web site. They already had the latitude and longitude reported in the story.'
He gave Kai the slip of paper with the coordinates. Kai gave it to Reggie, who took a red dot from the container and stuck it on the map at the indicated coordinates. It overlapped with the dot of the earthquake.
'Jesus!' said Reggie. 'You've got to be kidding me.'
'What do you think?' Kai said.
'I think I'm wrong about the seamount.'
'Brian,' Kai said. 'It's worse than a hurricane.' He told Renfro about the video of the disaster at Johnston Island.
'And Christmas Island?' Renfro said.
'It's probably completely wiped out. Brian, the reason I wanted Brad to call the FAA was to see if that
