wet skin. Instead of seeing the building they were just in, all he could make out was a fog of dust and a pile of debris. The entire ten-story Seaside condominium tower was now a pancake of rubble twenty feet high.
Kai sat on the sand, surveying the now-unfamiliar surroundings. The landscape of Waikiki had been utterly changed in the thirty minutes since they had entered The Seaside. Shattered structures littered the streets like crumpled beer cans. Other buildings were nothing more than skeletons stripped bare of their innards. Massive piles of junk had been caught against the various mountains of wreckage that used to be hotels and condominiums.
But even without the landmarks, the outline of the mountains behind was familiar. Kai recognized the pattern where they had come ashore with the Jet Skis. Of course, the watercraft were nowhere to be seen.
“Nice job, Kai,” Brad said, squeezing the water from his filthy T-shirt. “We’re back where we started.”
FORTY-SIX
Jerry had fallen unconscious, his head wound more severe than Rachel had first thought. After spending a few minutes trying to wake him, they decided to carry him up the stairs. Even though he was skinny, it took all three of them—Rachel, Paige, and Sheila—to pull him down the hall and up the stairs. At each landing, they stopped for thirty seconds to catch their breath. They had only made it up one flight to the twelfth floor. As they carried him, Doris kept the children occupied and told them about herself and her kids. Their last name was Wendel, and Doris had been widowed two years earlier when her husband, Herbert, had been stricken with cancer. Neither of her children, Sheila and Jerry, were married, so they had all come out to Hawaii for a family vacation. When the tsunami warning was issued, they had returned to their room as they were initially instructed. When the warning changed, Jerry had thought it was best to stay put.
After the first tsunami, they realized that staying was a bad idea, so they got in the elevator to get up to the roof. That’s when the power went out, and they’d been left stranded. As Rachel listened to the story, it dawned on her that she was risking her life for people who had blatantly disregarded her warnings to leave. She wanted to shake these people and say,
Their progress climbing the stairs was slow; at the rate they were going, they wouldn’t be on the roof until the next tsunami hit. They needed help carrying Jerry.
As they took another breather, Rachel heard voices coming from the stairway above them The voices were getting louder: people headed down toward them.
“Hello!” Rachel called out.
The movement above froze. She saw two faces peer over the railing about sixty feet above her at the twentieth floor. One of the strangers waved. Then they began coming down the steps even quicker than before.
In less than a minute they had covered the distance. A thirty-something couple, obviously happy at finding other survivors, smiled at Rachel, their bright red faces burned from exposure to sun they weren’t accustomed to.
“Are you coming from the roof?” Rachel said.
The couple looked at each other and shrugged. The man in the couple then started speaking rapid-fire in a language that sounded Slavic.
“Oh, no,” Rachel said. “Are you with the Russian group? Russki?”
The man repeated the word “Russki” and pointed at him and the woman. He then started speaking in Russian again.
“Do you speak English?”
“
They were two more of the hotel guests who had failed to leave their rooms when the evacuation was taking place. Either that, or they had gotten separated from their group when they had been shuffled around the lobby. In any case, they were going the wrong way.
Rachel pointed down and said, “
At this, the smiles disappeared. The man’s voice became angry, even indignant. Perhaps he didn’t like being told what to do by a woman. Whatever the reason, he gesticulated and nodded vigorously as he pointed down.
Rachel motioned to her badge, which was still attached to her soggy suit. It said:
She pointed at Jerry’s inert form and tried to indicate that they needed help carrying him. The man, who was fairly burly, nodded and grabbed his arms.
“Good. He understands.” She turned to the Russian man. “Thank you.
Rachel grabbed one leg, and Sheila got the other. But instead of continuing up, the man rotated Jerry around and made as if to carry him down the stairs. Rachel immediately put his leg down and grabbed the man’s arm. She shook her head.
“
The Russian became furious and practically dropped Jerry onto the cement. He made a rude gesture and took his girlfriend, who had been watching all of this silently, by the shoulder. They continued down the stairs, the man muttering to himself.
“Where are they going?” Sheila said.
“They’re going to die,” Rachel said, the weariness evident in her voice. She was too tired to sugarcoat anything. “They don’t know another tsunami is coming, and that it’s going to be bigger than the last one.”
“Shouldn’t we try to stop them?” Doris said.
“How? That guy is bigger than any of us. And you heard all the Russian I know. If you can make them understand, be my guest. Our bigger problem is that this is taking too long.” She waved her hand at Jerry. “It would go a lot faster if we got some help.”
“From that guy? You just said—”
“No. From Max.”
“Who’s Max?”
“He’s my assistant manager. He’s up on the roof with the other guests.”
“But if one of us goes,” Paige said, “there’s no way two of us can carry him.”
“No, but we can still make progress if Wyatt goes. He can run up those stairs in just a few minutes.”
“Sure I can!” Wyatt said.
“What if something happens to him?” Paige said. “What if he gets lost?”
“There aren’t many choices. They’re either still in the restaurant or they’re on the roof. He just needs to tell Max to come down and help us.”
Paige pulled Wyatt close to her, sheltering him from some unseen enemy. She buried her face in his hair and then faced Rachel, her eyebrows arched in despair.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier. About you being responsible for Bill.”
“Don’t be.”
“When that building fell down, all I could think …” Paige broke down without finishing.
“It’s okay,” Rachel said, placing her hand gently on Paige’s shoulder.
“You saved our lives,” Paige said. Then she squared her shoulders in renewed determination and knelt beside Wyatt.
“This is very important, honey. Do you understand what we want you to do?”
“Go and get Max.”
“Or any other adult up there. But you come right back down as soon as you find him, you understand?”
