wives.
“Melissa,” she said to the tall cashier, “come with me. I need you to help me.”
One of the Russian men, probably the leader, immediately started barking in Russian at Rachel and gesticulating wildly. She put up her hands to quiet them down. Speaking to them would be useless. She tried the one word she thought they might understand.
“Tsunami. Tsunami?”
They stared at her with blank expressions. She curled one arm over the other in a motion that she hoped would convey a wave crashing while saying “Boooosh!” Then a small woman in the back with an equally small voice said, “Tsunami.”
Rachel seized on that and repeated the word. The petite Russian woman spoke rapidly to the others, with the word “tsunami” sprinkled through it.
After a moment, the entire tour group realized that they were in danger and surrounded Rachel, screeching at her in panic. Rachel motioned them toward Melissa, who waved for them to come with her. Thankfully, that calmed them, and they followed her.
“Good luck,” Rachel said. “And, Melissa?”
Melissa turned back to see the deadly serious look on Rachel’s face.
“Run.”
Lani took a second from paddling to look up and saw Jake reach shore far ahead of her. He curled out of the kayak and splashed up to the beach. He fell to the sand for a moment, and Lani was afraid he would be too exhausted to go on. But he quickly clambered to his feet and jogged off in the direction of the Grand Hawaiian as his kayak floated along the shore.
“Hold on, Mia. Jake’s reached the shore. He’s running to the hotel for help.”
Mia could only sputter in response. The wake from Tom’s paddling continually got her in the face, and she heaved up salt water periodically. However, with the strap firmly tied to her life vest, she wasn’t in danger of being left behind.
“How did Jake get so far ahead?” Tom said, huffing and puffing, Mia’s drag requiring him to more than double his effort.
“What?” Lani said. “Towing Mia is slowing you down a lot.”
“No, that doesn’t explain it all. Sure, he should be ahead of us, but not that far. It seems like we’re standing still.”
Lani looked to where Jake had made landfall. To this point, it had looked like he was directly in front of them. But now she realized that he was at an angle to them, and she knew what was wrong.
“We’re in a riptide. That’s why we’re not making any headway.”
“A riptide? Here?”
“It may not be strong, but it might be enough to keep us from getting farther.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been boogie boarding a lot and got caught in a rip one time. We need to go parallel to the beach to get out of it.”
They began paddling westward, and in a minute Lani could feel a shift in the current.
“I think we’re out of it.”
“Thank God,” Tom said. “We’ve got a little more than ten minutes left.”
Lani willed her tired arms to pull as hard as they could. She didn’t want to say anything to discourage them, but judging from how far they were from the shore, ten minutes didn’t seem like nearly enough time to get there.
THIRTY-ONE
When Brad and Kai reached the exit for Waikiki, the roads were packed, with all lanes going in the direction of the mountains. Even using the shoulder, they got bogged down by the traffic as they neared downtown Honolulu; but thanks to Brad’s breakneck driving, they’d been able to make the trip in a record twenty minutes. Kai noted with surprise that they didn’t seem to be the only ones headed down to Waikiki. Some were misguided tourists intent on saving luggage or money that had been left behind on their day out, and others were locals heading to workplaces to save materials that they thought were vital. Like the man in the Lexus on TV, still others were trying to make it to the marina to get to boats they didn’t want destroyed by the wave.
The thought of all those people blatantly disregarding his warnings appalled Kai. The vast majority of them would not live to see the end of the day.
The traffic coming from the shore was at a standstill. Hundreds of abandoned cars lined the side of the road, but Kai saw plenty of other vehicles filled with people desperately trying to make headway through the gridlock: a family of four in an SUV crammed with suitcases and other bric-a-brac; a lone woman in a small Toyota, her two border collies jumping back and forth between the windows; a wizened hippie in a scuba shop van; the driver of a Coca-Cola truck shouting into his radio handset. Kai wished he could stop and tell each of them to get out of their vehicles, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good even if he had the time.
Throngs of people were on foot, and Brad had to slow to avoid hitting them. Most walked calmly but briskly on the sidewalk or the side of the road, but some in the horde were screaming or running or otherwise panicking. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it. Many called out names of those they’d been separated from. The scene reminded Kai of old photos showing refugees fleeing bomb-ravaged cities during World War II.
As they approached the hotel, Kai was relieved to see that the crowds thinned until there were just stragglers and the police who were trying to gather them up. One of the policemen tried to flag them down, but Brad simply passed him.
He screeched to a stop in front of the Grand Hawaiian lobby. Brad leapt off the bike and tossed his helmet onto the ground. Kai dropped his as well and ran with Brad to the front door.
Before Kai could go into the hotel, a clap of thunder ripped the air, visibly shaking the glass in the hotel’s window. It was so loud that the few people still around halted where they were, searching the clear blue sky for the source of the din. Brad stopped as well, and Kai looked toward the ocean with dread. The sound continued to peal like a battleship’s cannonade for more than ten seconds before it finally faded.
“What the hell was that?” Brad asked.
Kai had read stories about how islanders thousands of miles from Krakatoa had heard the blast of the eruption, so he knew what it was instantly.
“The asteroid impact. That’s the shock wave.”
“Jesus!”
Traveling twelve hundred miles, it had taken more than two hours for the sound of the explosion to reach them. But what really scared Kai was that in open ocean, tsunamis traveled only slightly slower than the speed of sound. The wave wouldn’t be far behind the sonic boom.
“Come on,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
They sprinted into the hotel. Kai yelled Rachel’s name as they entered the lobby. It was deserted, with the few TVs in the lobby showing either the EAS broadcast or video from the other islands, including Johnston Island. Then another picture came on the TV with the word live in the upper right corner and lahaina, maui at the bottom. Kai recognized the waterfront from several visits there. As he watched, every building—none bigger than five stories tall—was washed away by a gigantic tsunami. He sucked in his breath as he saw one of his favorite places destroyed. Their time was running out.
On the far end of the lobby, twenty people, some of them in wheelchairs, were making their way toward a bank of elevators. Kai recognized Rachel’s red hair cas-casing down the back of her business suit. He called her name again, and she turned. When she saw that it was Kai, her eyes went wide with surprise, and she ran to him.
