'Kai! Get back!'
The man spun around to see who she was yelling at. He raised the gun even higher as if to threaten this new group with it. Kai and the others were nonplussed at what was going on. All they saw was a grubby looking man holding a gun in his hand. They stopped at the gesture.
The man, possibly unbalanced by his quick movement, possibly on purpose, triggered the gun. A crack ripped the air, and the bullet whizzed by Kai's head, pinging off a piece of metal behind him. The three of them hit the ground.
This man was obviously unhinged, and trying to reason with him would just make things worse. And any further discussion would eat into the precious time Teresa had to somehow pry Mia free. The man was a danger not just to her, but to her daughter. She didn't hesitate. With the man facing away from her, Teresa swung the heavy metal car jack with both hands and bashed him in the back of the head.
The effect was instant. The man dropped the gun and fell to his knees. He swayed groggily, and Teresa picked up the pistol, ejected the magazine onto the pavement, and threw the gun into a pile of debris. The man pitched forward and lay on the ground, still conscious but moaning.
'Bitch,' he slurred in a low rumble. 'You hit me.'
Teresa waved to Kai.
'Come on! I got a jack. Let's go.'
'What happened?' Kai said, rushing up to her. 'What the hell is going on? Who is that guy?'
Teresa, shaking from the rush of adrenaline, stared at the prone man, astonished at her own actions. She was a doctor, someone who was supposed to heal people, not injure them. She had never struck anyone before. But she didn't regret acting. The man had endangered her daughter.
'I'll tell you later,' she said. 'Let's go get Mia and Brad.'
Chapter 40
On the skybridge between the Grand Hawaiian buildings, Ashley clung to Bill's shoulders as they crossed from the Akamai tower to the Moana tower. They had been making good progress, suffering only one or two minor slips. The creaks from the walkway, however, started to occur more frequently, in part due to Bill's two-hundred-fifty- pound frame.
'You're doing great, Ashley,' Paige said, trying to keep her spirits up. She had to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep herself together. She could do nothing to help them other than to provide encouragement. 'Just keep holding tight.'
The decision to send her two children off with a stranger had been agonizing for her, but she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Ashley and her husband behind. The image of Tyler nearly falling off the skybridge was burned into her memory. If anything like that happened to Ashley, she'd rather depend on herself to save her.
As Bill was ready to take his final steps to the safety of the building, Paige heard a commotion on the other side of the bridge.
Five college-aged men stumbled to a stop at the end of the bridge. Each of them talked in a sloppy Midwestern twang fueled by at least a twelve-pack of beer apiece.
'Hey look,' one of the guys said. 'See, I told you I could see people crossing from our room.'
'Come on,' said another one. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'
Before Paige and Bill could shout more than a quick 'No!', all five of the drunken frat boys stepped onto the bridge. They hadn't gotten more than a few feet before one fell, dragging two of the others down with him. The impact set up a resonant motion in the already fragile skybridge. It bounced with the snapping of cables, swaying sickeningly over the courtyard below now drained of water.
'Bill!' Paige shouted. 'Jump!'
But he wasn't going to be able to get to the Moana tower without falling, possibly losing Ashley, so he grabbed the child's arm and pulled her off his back. He swung her around and hurled the small girl into the waiting arms of Paige six feet away.
At that moment, the center of the skybridge snapped from the added load. The two sides, still attached at the ends, fell toward their respective towers. All five of the drunken men slid off the deck and screamed until dull thuds marked their passing. Paige turned Ashley's head away so that she didn't see the resulting impacts. The opposite end of the walkway slammed against the building and then sheared off, collapsing into a pile of bent metal far below, burying the bodies.
Bill wrapped both arms around the pillar he was holding. When his end of the bridge slammed into the tower, the floor of the walkway detached from the roof at its base, smashing into the courtyard below. But the roof, along with the vertical pillars, remained attached to the Moana tower, held on by only two surviving steel rods.
Paige peered cautiously over the edge, fearing what she would see below. To her relief, she saw Bill still clinging to the pillar, but it was only a matter of minutes before he either lost his grip or was engulfed by the next massive tsunami.
Rachel had been sitting against the door of the 16th floor stairwell, trying to entertain the two children in her charge while she waited for Bill, Paige, and Ashley to join them. A check of her watch told her that they would have to be here soon or they wouldn't be coming.
As she listened to Hannah tell a story about the waterfall they had swum under the previous day, Rachel leaned her head against the metal fire door, fatigued from running up and down the stairs and the ordeal at the skybridge.
'…Then we jumped from this rock that was fifty feet high,' Hannah continued.
'It was not,' Tyler countered. 'It was only ten feet high.'
'It was too! Dad said it was.'
'He was joking.'
Rachel had been trying to raise Kai on the walkie-talkie and wasn't getting any response.
'Kai, are you there? Kai, come in.'
'Who's Kai?' Tyler asked.
'He's my husband. He's the one that warned everyone about the tsunami.'
'Where is he?'
'I don't know. He's with my daughter. I haven't heard from them in a while.'
'Can I try it?'
'Sure.' She handed the walkie-talkie to Tyler. 'Just press the red button and talk.'
'Kai, are you there?' he said. He waited for an answer. None came.
'Try again, and make sure…' Rachel stopped in mid-sentence and cocked her head.
'And make sure what?' Tyler said.
Rachel raised her hands.
'Shhh!'
'What?' Hannah said.
'Be quiet for a second. I think I hear something.'
Rachel turned her head so that her ear pressed against the door. Tyler and Hannah followed suit.
After a moment of silence, a thudding sound was distinctly audible. Normally, the whirring of fans and the rush of air movement throughout the hotel's ductwork masked most sounds. But with the power off, the hotel bathed in an eerie stillness.
The noise repeated at regular intervals. One, two, three, four. Silence for four seconds or so. One, two, three, four. The faint pounding rhythmically reverberated through the metal door. The sound was definitely man- made.
'What is that?' Hannah asked.
'I don't know,' said Rachel, 'but it sounds like it's coming from the hallway.'
