phone’s list before dialing it.
“Who are you calling?” Brad asked.
“Reggie,” Kai said. “Maybe he can send us a chopper.”
The call immediately went to voice mail.
“Quick,” Kai said to Brad, “what are the cross streets of this building?”
“It’s hard to tell with all the streets gone. I know we’re on Kalakaua.” He pointed in the direction of the mountains behind them. “Lemon is that way. I think this might be Laka‘laina running perpendicular.”
Lani came over, holding the walkie-talkie in front of her.
“Mom wants to talk to you.”
Kai motioned for Brad to take it. “Tell her what we’re doing and that we’re all right.” He didn’t have to add “For now.”
Reggie’s voice came on and Kai left the message.
“Reggie, this is Kai. If you get this in the next ten minutes, we are on top of a white ten-story condo building called The Seaside on the east end of Waikiki. We think the cross streets are Kalakaua and Laka‘laina. If you get this, send a helicopter to come get us. And call me. I lost my cell phone, so I’m on Brad’s.” Kai gave him the number and hung up.
“Do you think he’ll be able to send one?” Teresa said.
“I don’t know. But if he doesn’t, we’re going to have to try running for it.”
“‘Running for it’?”
Kai forgot that Teresa didn’t know anything about tsunamis.
“This wave will recede as the next trough in the series of tsunamis reaches us.”
“Series! You mean there are going to be more?”
Kai didn’t have time to cushion the news.
“We cannot stay on this building. We’ve got about twenty minutes before the next wave comes in and covers this condo.”
“How many more are there?”
“I don’t know.” If Kai had made sure Reggie was in touch with Palmer, maybe he would have known. “At least two. Maybe more. We’ve got to leave one way or another.”
“How?”
“If a helicopter flies near us, we need to try to wave it down. If not, we’ll go down the stairwell as the water ebbs. Once we reach the ground floor, we’ll have ten minutes before the next wave comes in.”
“How far can we get in ten minutes?”
Under the best of conditions, they could run maybe a mile in ten minutes. But given their exhaustion and the debris that would be littering the way, that estimate was way too optimistic. And with waves this size, the water would surely reach more than a mile inland.
Kai studied the buildings around him. About five blocks away from the beach was another apartment building that was about twice the height of The Seaside.
“That building is twenty stories tall. If we make it up that one, it’s a little farther inland. We can sort of leapfrog our way up to the Punchbowl as the next wave recedes. That’s the closest point that’s safe.”
It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had.
The smell of seawater was strong—much stronger than it should have been this high up. It reminded Kai that they were still in mortal danger.
He looked to the sky, trying to will one of those distant helicopters to come their way. He wanted to do something but couldn’t. Only twenty minutes until the next wave, and he was completely helpless.
THIRTY-FIVE
After Brad finished filling Rachel in on their situation, she had a last word with Kai and then signed off to deal with her latest problem. There was no way a helicopter could land on the pointed top of the Akamai tower to rescue the family across from Rachel and Max. The only way for the family to escape was to go down. But with the dredging barge embedded in the building, probably blocking the stairwell in the center of the structure, they might not be able to make it all the way to the ground.
“Do you think they can get out?” Max said. “There’s no way to know from here,” Rachel replied. “They’ll just have to try it.”
“Even if they get all the way down, can they get to safety? You said there’s another wave coming, and it’s even bigger than the last one.”
“There’s one other possibility,” she said. “They might be able to go across the skybridge.”
They searched for signs of the sixth-floor skybridge, but the water level was still well above it. The skybridge, designed like a suspension bridge, hung from cables that extended up to the eighth floor. Sixteen cables, eight anchored to each side of the bridge’s floor, held it in place, half the cables attached to the Moana tower and the other half attached to the Akamai tower. The cables were still intact, but it was impossible to tell whether they were still connected to anything substantial enough to walk across.
“The skybridge?” Max said. “Do you think it’s still there? That would be convenient.”
“Convenient? You think anything about this morning is convenient?”
Max dropped his head in embarrassment. “I just meant that it would be lucky for them,” he said sheepishly.
Rachel sighed. “I know, Max. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you. Look, we won’t know about the sky- bridge until the water recedes, but if it is still there, they might be able to get to it and get across. It’ll take them a few minutes to get down twenty stories.”
The family didn’t budge. They just looked at Rachel and waved frantically, not knowing what to do. They were in a panic.
“We have to tell them to move now.”
“But how?” Max said. “With the power out, we can’t use the hotel phones.”
“We’ll write it on something.” Rachel looked around, then realized what they needed was right in front of them. She ran over to the maitre d’s desk and grabbed the grease pencil he used to mark the seating plan. She took it to one of the dining tables, threw the glasses and utensils on the floor, and began scrawling on the white tablecloth in huge letters.
In a minute she completed the crude message.
“Help me,” she said to Max, and whipped the tablecloth off. They carried it over to the window. It said: GO TO SKYBRIDGE 6TH FLOOR.
“Wait a minute,” Rachel said, keeping the tablecloth out of view of the window.
“What?” Max said.
“We need to make sure the skybridge is actually there.”
The water had begun to flow back toward the ocean, carrying anything that floated. In another minute, the level was down to the sixth floor. They held their breath to see whether the skybridge was still intact.
As the water dropped farther, the debris started to get caught on something. When it began to pile up in a line between the buildings, Rachel knew the skybridge had survived.
“Okay, let’s put the sign up,” Rachel said. “And let’s hope they speak English.”
They held the tablecloth against the window so that the family could read it. After seeing it, both the man and woman nodded furiously and gave a thumbs-up. In a second, the whole family was gone.
“Looks like they got the message. Max, you need to get everyone here up to the roof. It won’t be easy because of the stairs. You’ll have to leave the wheelchairs behind. Keep calling for a helicopter. And take some of
