That didn't leave more than three minutes for Bill to come over and then for them all to climb the stairs to a safe level. The father put Ashley on his back piggyback-style and started to cross.
'Paige,' Rachel said, 'the kids should start climbing up the stairs. The next wave is supposed to be 150 feet high. We need to get at least to the fifteenth floor to be safe.'
Paige was obviously torn. Keeping the children with her meant a slower climb up those ten stories once Bill and Ashley were across. But she didn't want to leave her husband and other child either. And sending the children up alone wasn't an option. They were already scared, and having them by themselves was a recipe for confusion or worse.
In the end, the idea of having two of her children safe was more important than having them with her.
'Will you take them for me?' Paige said. 'I can't leave Ashley and Bill here. What if something happens?'
'I understand,' Rachel said. 'I have a daughter myself. I'd do the same.'
Paige hugged her two kids.
'Remember,' Rachel said, 'you've got three minutes at most. Besides, you'll know when it's time to head up. We'll wait for you on the 16th floor.'
'If you don't see me in ten minutes…' Paige's voice trailed off.
'I'll take care of them.'
'Thank you.'
Rachel led Tyler and Hannah to the stairwell.
'Where are we going?' said Hannah.
'We're going up the stairs so we can ride in a helicopter. Won't that be fun?'
'Aren't Mommy and Daddy coming?'
'They'll be following us soon, but we have to get up high before the next wave comes in.'
'OK,' she said, seeming to be a little reassured.
Rachel opened the door to the stairwell and the children hesitated at the gloom, with little more than a faint glow filtering down from above. Thankfully, the emergency lights in the stairwell above the eighth floor were still on, powered by the batteries in each unit as soon as the hotel power was lost. Below that level, all of the lights had been short-circuited by the water.
'It's spooky,' Tyler said.
'That's just the emergency lights. Do you know how they work?'
Tyler shook his head no.
Rachel explained it to him, keeping the children distracted with trivia about the hotel as they climbed.
Chapter 39
Given all of the impediments they had encountered up to this point, Kai had no reason to expect that their luck would improve. He was convinced that if they simply found a jack and pried Brad and Mia out from under the steel beam, there wouldn't be time to escape to a taller building. They would all be caught in the ten-story condominium when the next tsunami hit.
But seeing the scuba shop, he felt a rush of optimism. If he could find what he was looking for in the ruined shop, they might be able to buy themselves more time.
That was, of course, if the condo building could withstand another tsunami impact. Kai had no illusions about their chances, but the only other option was to leave Brad and Mia to their fates, and he wouldn't even contemplate that.
Lani, Teresa, and Tom went with Kai to search. He had considered sending Lani and Tom toward high ground on their own, but at this point, the thought of Lani fending for herself was frightening. Kai wanted her with him where he could keep an eye on her. And sending Tom off by himself, injured, seemed like a poor idea. Besides, Kai needed their help to gather supplies. They would have to survive with whatever they could carry in one trip; they wouldn't have time for a second. They couldn't spare anyone to stay with Brad and Mia, but at least the two of them had each other.
When they got outside, Kai divided up the group, dispatching Teresa on a search for as many car jacks as she could find. At least two, maybe three if she could carry them. Tom and Lani would accompany Kai to the scuba shop.
The street by the condo looked like Sarajevo during the worst years of the Balkan war. Pieces of wood, metal, concrete, vegetation, and, worst of all, human bodies littered the pavement and sidewalks. Cars and other vehicles had been thrown into every conceivable orientation, many of them smashed beyond recognition. One car, a Mini, defied gravity, hovering twenty feet above the ground, skewered like a kebob by a steel pole jutting out of the second story of a building.
But most surprisingly, several people wandered the streets unscathed. Kai supposed he shouldn't have been amazed that if he had survived, others would have as well, but the utter devastation made it difficult to believe anyone else had lived through it.
An Asian woman babbling in some language Kai didn't recognize led a boy of about ten toward a hotel and disappeared through the front door. Several teenagers emerged from another hotel and began running wildly in the direction of the mountains. Two people on a tenth-floor balcony about 200 yards away waved to them.
A man, sopping wet and completely naked except for a pair of running shoes, darted up to them and said, 'Where's Emily?'
'Who?' Kai said, dumbfounded.
The naked man grabbed Kai's shirt and yanked Kai toward him. 'Emily. Have you seen her?'
Kai looked at the others, who were as shocked as he was. He shook his head, and without another word, the man released him and kept going down the street, peering into every open doorway and window. Kai could only guess that he had been caught by the tsunami with his girlfriend or wife or daughter. The tragedy grew in Kai's mind all the time.
'Don't stop to talk to anyone else,' he said, and the rest of them understood what he meant.
They just didn't have time to help others. It was now the law of the jungle. Every man for himself. The thought that civilized behavior could degenerate so rapidly was sobering to Kai, but reasoning with panicked people or guiding them to safety would keep them from saving the people they loved. None of them was going to let that happen. No more needed to be said.
Leaving Teresa to rummage through the cars, Kai and the others sprinted to where he had seen Dive Kings. As they got closer, Kai could see more clearly the extensive damage to the building that housed the shop. He wasn't encouraged by its condition.
All of the windows below the eighth floor of the 150-foot-tall building were blown out. The street-level portion contained businesses of all kinds: an optometrist's office, a clothing store, the dive shop, and two other stores that were so obliterated Kai couldn't make out what they sold. Kai ran through the door under the Dive Kings sign and was greeted by exactly what he hoped he wouldn't see.
The interior of the store had been completely gutted. None of the store's original complement of supplies remained. Instead, it had been replaced by junk swept into the store by the wave. Chairs, garbage cans, and minor bits of scrap littered the floor. The only recognizable bit from the shop was a PADI plaque that had been nailed to the wall.
'No!' Kai cried in frustration. 'There's got to be something!'
He began to toss the refuse around, looking under it for the scuba tanks and other equipment that he had imagined would be their lifesavers. But with each piece he threw aside, his hope ebbed further.
Then Lani pointed at something Kai hadn't noticed in his frenzied search.
'Dad. There's another door.'
Along the back wall of the store, a large plywood sheet had been slammed against the wall, covering the door. Only a sliver of the door and the doorknob showed. Kai pulled the plywood, which had dug into the sheetrock, and it clattered to the floor, revealing an undamaged handle. He pushed the door open, and his hope was
