one.” She relayed the frequency to him.
They arrived at the twenty-first floor, where Jerry still lay unconscious.
“Kai, we’ve got to start carrying Jerry now. I’ll call you back on the new frequency.”
“Okay. Rachel?” Kai said.
“What?”
“I see it. The tsunami. Get out of there as fast as you can.”
“I will. And you get Lani out of there.” She replaced the walkie-talkie on her belt.
The camerawoman took one of Jerry’s arms, Rachel the other, and Paige and Sheila each took a leg. The climb was still awkward but proceeded much more rapidly.
When they reached the twenty-fourth floor, the tower shuddered as if it had been hit with a giant sledgehammer. For a moment they all staggered, thrown off balance.
“Jesus!” yelled the camerawoman. “Was that what I think it was?”
Rachel nodded grimly, now familiar with the sensation.
“Hurry,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”
For the third time that day, Kai watched a giant tsunami tear into Honolulu. Only this time, he had a spectacular 360-degree view from their perch three hundred feet above the ground.
The wave’s size was something only a handful of people in recorded history had ever seen. In 1958, a landslide at Lituya Bay, Alaska, unleashed a wall of water that climbed a quarter mile up the side of a cliff directly opposite of it. A smaller but still huge wave charged down the length of the bay. A father and son, fishing in their boat only a mile from the landslide that day, were borne by the wave over the tops of trees more than two hundred feet high and settled back in the bay upon the receding water. Two other people fishing the bay were not so lucky. Their bodies were never found.
Up to that point, it had been the only mega-tsunami that witnesses had lived to tell about. Now Kai was watching an even bigger one wipe out his home state.
The third wave swept in like a giant fist. The force of water topped ten tons per square foot. Many buildings, already weakened, didn’t stand a chance. At 184 feet, the Aloha Tower had been for many years the tallest structure on the islands. The landmark had miraculously withstood the first and second waves, and Kai could just make out the top of it between other buildings. When the third wave hit, though, it folded like a straw. The Hyatt, the Waikiki Beachside, and the Hilton all collapsed into rubble.
“Darryl and Eunice,” Teresa murmured. She and Brad propped Mia up, and Kai stood with his arm around Lani. Tom had joined them at the rooftop edge, but Denise and Chuck kept their distance on the other end.
“Who?” Kai said.
“A couple I met on the beach. They were staying at the Hilton. I hope they got out.”
Kai waiting in agony to see what would happen when the wave struck the Grand Hawaiian. Just before the impact, Lani buried her head in Kai’s chest.
The tsunami, its crest even with the fifteenth floor, exploded against the side of the hotel’s remaining tower, the water spraying hundreds of feet in the air. For a moment it seemed like the top of the building tilted backward, and Kai held his breath, expecting it to topple.
But it didn’t. The wave wrapped around it and continued on. Other buildings remained standing under the onslaught as well, including many of the behemoths downtown. Most of those buildings had been shielded by others that took the brunt of the wave.
Then the water reached the boat building, and Kai hoped it would hold up to the impact. Even three hundred feet up, the sound was like a dozen approaching tornados.
Two buildings stood directly in the path between the boat building and the full force of the wave. The first, the Moana Surfrider, was blasted by the wave and instantly collapsed. But it had done its part to mitigate the blow. The second building met the slowed wave and the debris from the first building. It was shorter than their building, but it was a stout apartment complex of gleaming steel. The glass that hadn’t shattered during the previous impacts didn’t stand a chance.
The water shot all the way through the building and rocketed out the back windows. It joined the water sweeping around the side and hit Kai’s building.
The impact was not as intense as it had been with the other buildings, but it was still strong. Kai swayed sickeningly on his feet as the water sought to undermine the foundation of the structure. But the foundation held, unlike that of the apartment complex in front of them. When the surge reached the twentieth floor, just below the rooftop, the whole structure disappeared into the sea.
As the water continued to rush past, every few seconds another building would fall, its death signaled by a time-delayed roar, like thunder cracking after the flash of distant lightning.
Kai knew it was simply a matter of time before his building joined them.
FORTY-NINE
The mood on the roof of the Grand Hawaiian while they boarded the chopper didn’t register as panic, but Rachel could sense the fear. To balance the load, the smallest people had to sit in the front, so Paige, Hannah, and Wyatt clambered in there with Ashley on Paige’s lap. Stan, the pilot, helped Rachel, Sheila, and Paige load Jerry’s frame into the backseat. The camerawoman, Deena, snatched up her video camera again as soon as Stan took Jerry’s arm and began filming the process. They propped Jerry upright next to Doris, who sat in the rightmost seat.
Sheila climbed in next. Deena waited for Rachel, but Rachel shooed her in. As Deena climbed in, Stan said, “Lose the camera!”
“What?” Deena said. “Do you know how much this costs?”
“I don’t care. It weighs too much, and we’re overloaded. We need all the lift we can get.”
Deena grudgingly dropped the camera from her shoulder and removed the tape. She handed the camera to Rachel, who was standing outside. Rachel set it gently on the roof.
“Get in!” Stan yelled to Rachel.
“I thought the weight was too much.”
“It’ll be close, but the kids are light, so we’re going to try for it. This building isn’t going to be here much longer.”
“But it’s jammed. Where should I sit?”
Stan pointed at Deena. “Get on her lap.”
Rachel scrambled on top of Deena awkwardly. Her hand slipped and dug into Deena’s leg. Deena flinched.
“Sorry.” There was no way for Rachel to fasten a seat belt around herself, so she grabbed the seat in front of her as tightly as she could.
Stan secured himself in the pilot’s seat on the right, with Paige and the kids squeezed next to him. He brought the engine up to speed.
“Okay,” Stan said. “We’re going to do this slowly.”
With the engine at full speed, he pulled back on the stick. For a second, nothing happened. They simply sat there, the helicopter blades throbbing over their heads.
Stan pushed the throttle until the engine passed the redline. The helicopter jumped a yard into the air. Stan struggled with the collective, trying to keep the chopper level. But before he could get any more height, the aircraft skidded to the right, dangerously close to the huge rooftop air-conditioning unit. The helicopter rotated awkwardly, and for a moment the sound of grinding metal buzzed behind them, sending a cascade of sparks flying past them. Piercing screams filled the cabin.
Stan rotated the helicopter back around and dropped the stick. The helicopter thudded onto the roof, the main rotor blades sweeping past the machinery with only a foot to spare.
