David stared at the image of the storm for a moment, then swung his chair around to face the others. Before him were the department heads of Communications, Medical Relief, Political Analysis, Volunteer Facilitation, Public Relations, Resource Distribution, Transportation Coordination, and his Chief Financial Officer and Inner-agency Liaison. All capable people, each trained and dedicated to the cause of global relief. They were all experienced with heroic efforts for long-term projects: famine and plague. Meeting catastrophe-related needs was something new for them and Barringston Relief. For nearly six months they had been working as a team to provide quick response to stricken areas while working in concert with other agencies and governments. While they had coordinated on several small disasters, this would be their first real test.
Turning back to Osborn, David said, “All right, Oz, break it down for us.”
“The following scenario is subject to change,” Oz prefaced. “Tomorrow morning, Tropical Storm Claudia will be upgraded to Hurricane Claudia. It will continue to gather strength over the warm waters north of Venezuela and move in a northwesterly direction. I believe it will veer north in time to hit Cuba and hit it hard. The storm will slow over land but will regain its power and intensity once north of Cuba. It will then continue on until it makes landfall on the southern coast of the U.S. The eye wall will most likely hit Louisiana and Mississippi.”
“You sound very confident about your prediction,” Bob Connick said.
“Call it scientific intuition,” Oz answered. A moment later he said, “It’s not confidence you hear … it’s fear.”
David stood. “Okay, folks, that’s it. I would like to see brief summaries about your departments’ readiness in two hours. Let’s get to work.” Turning to Osborn, David said, “Thanks, Oz, you made everything clear.”
“I hope so, David. I have a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.”
Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh
7:47 A.M. local time.
Akram Kazi felt the loose sand under his feet give way with each step. Grains slipped between his bare feet and the sandals he wore. Pressing his chin down on the tall stack of newly washed white towels he carried, he struggled to make certain he didn’t spill his load. It was his job to carry towels from the resort’s laundry to the small white shack in the middle of the beach where tourists and traveling business executives freely retrieved them after a swim in the ocean. It was just one of the many services the Holiday Resort offered its guests.
Akram, nineteen, hustled along the sandy beach that ran in front of the hotel. The August heat would soon have the guests lining the shore, sitting under umbrellas to protect them from the fierce tropical sun. Akram hurried. He had many things yet to do, including wiping off the tables of the outdoor café. Already, guests were being seated and eating breakfast. Akram was running late.
Thirty hastily taken steps later, Akram was at the ten-by-fifteen-foot shed. “Assalaa-mualaikum,” he said, wishing peace on his coworker.
“Wallaikum assalaam.” Zahid Hussein, an employee who tended the shed, returned the traditional greeting, but it was clear he was upset. “It is about time, Akram. I have no towels to give, and already people are asking for them.”
“It is not my fault, Zahid,” Akram protested. “The laundry was not done with them. I could not bring you wet towels, could I?”
“No excuses. You have made me look bad before our guests. I will not tolerate that.”
“The towels were not ready …”
“Enough,” Zahid interrupted. “Do you see that man over there? The one with the big belly?”
“Yes.” The man, portly with fish-white skin, reclined on a lounge chair.
“He wants a towel. Take him one, and apologize for your actions.”
“But I have tables to …”
“Take him a towel, and do it quickly.”
Akram acquiesced. Zahid was older and had seniority. Everyone had seniority over him. But that didn’t matter. In just two months he would move to Dhaka, the nation’s capital, to attend college. It was a fortunate opportunity from Allah, who had already blessed him many times. He could read, unlike 65 percent of other Bangladeshis, and he had a hunger for knowledge. So he worked, saving every taka and paisa, and looked forward to that day when he would study at the University of Dhaka. He longed to be a teacher, like his father before him. Education was the only way his tiny country could climb out of the pit of constant despair and depredation.
Approaching the white man with the big belly, Akram held out a clean white towel in his right hand. Since personal hygiene was done with the left, it would have been an insult to have used it with something so personal as a towel.
“Thank you, young man,” the middle-aged man said.
“I offer my apologies for not having your towel ready when you requested it.” Akram raised his right hand to his forehead, palm slightly cupped, offering a traditional salute.
“No problem, buddy,” the man said.
American, Akram thought. His accent is American.
“It’s just a towel. Everything is okay.”
The man touched his index finger to his thumb to form a circle. Instinctively, Akram looked away. It was an obscene gesture, highly offensive. Of course the American didn’t know that. The gesture, Akram had learned, was common in the Western world and simply meant that things were all right. Still, the sign shocked him. Akram had had to learn many things about foreigners since coming to work at the Holiday Resort two years ago. They were always doing something offensive: pointing with their index fingers, showing the bottoms of their feet, passing food with their left hands. It was simple ignorance on their part, and Akram had learned to endure it.
“Thank you for your kindness,” Akram said, his eyes diverted to show humility before the guest. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“Nope. Nothing at …” The American’s voice trailed off. “What … what’s going on?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“Out there, boy, look!” The man pointed out to the ocean. The offensive gesture was lost on Akram when he turned to see the ocean rapidly retreating from shore. “Don’t tell me that’s normal.” The man lumbered to his feet.
“I have never seen such a thing,” Akram said, his eyes wide. “The ocean is leaving.”
Slowly he and the American began to walk toward the tide line. Looking up and down the beach, Akram could see that other guests and employees were doing the same thing. Curiosity was a powerful force. The beach itself was unique, being the longest unbroken stretch on the planet, but this was something unseen before.
“Look at this, will ya’,” the man offered. “Fish and crab for the taking.”
Akram had noticed it too. The now-exposed ocean bottom was littered with crabs and other crustaceans. Fish flopped on the wet sand, slowly suffocating in a blanket of air.
“What do you suppose did this?” asked the pudgy man.
Akram shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I should tell my manager …”
“Wait! Do you hear something?”
Tilting his head slightly as if to line up his ears for better reception, Akram closed his eyes and listened. “Yes, a roar, a rumble.” He opened his eyes and looked at the guest. The man’s face was drained of all color, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. Again he pointed out to sea and then crossed himself.
“Hail Mary, full of grace …” the man began. He crossed himself again.
Akram turned to see what had so terrified the man. “Allah have mercy,” was all he could say.
80 kilometers SE of Bhubameshwar, India
Altitude 2,200 meters
The Cessna Skylane RG airplane bounced slightly as it passed through a thermal. The pilot, an East Indian named Rajiv Kapur, paid no attention to the bump—his mind was elsewhere. Below him the dark blue of the Bay of Bengal was turning a shade lighter as the plane flew over the shallow waters of the continental shelf. Above him the sky was a crystalline blue. It was
a beautiful day for flying and even a more beautiful day to be home celebrating the birthday of his five-year-old daughter, Jaya. Normally, Rajiv would be happy to chart a leisurely course back to Bhubameshwar and then to his home outside the city, but not today. He wanted nothing more than to be with his family.
He checked his airspeed again: 156 knots—75 percent power, just what it should be. The craft was capable of over 160 knots, but that was pushing the engine harder than necessary, especially on a substantially long flight like the one he was taking from the Andaman Islands 735 miles behind him.
A devout family man, Rajiv was proud of the three boys his wife had given him, but Jaya had stolen his heart like countless daughters across the world had done to their fathers. It wasn’t that he loved his sons any less; it was that little girls knew the secret passages to a father’s soul. Jaya knew those passages well and could melt her normally stern father with a simple glance and a flash from her obsidian eyes. She could manipulate her father like no other, and Rajiv loved it. As he flew, his mind filled with the image of his little girl: smooth, brown skin; coal black hair; bright eyes and a beaming smile. She could laugh in such a contagious way that a room full of adults would find themselves giggling like children with her.
Rajiv arched his back to stretch out the kinks of three and a half hours at the plane’s controls. He shifted in his seat and checked his navigation indicators. Not that he needed to. He had been making flights like this one for over ten years. He often bragged that he could fly blindfolded to the Andaman Islands, as well as any airport on the eastern coast of India. Still he was a cautious pilot. Caution mixed with courtesy had made him one of the busiest charter pilots in the area. Next year he hoped to add another plane to his “fleet” of one.
“What’s that?”
The voice dragged Rajiv from his revelry. He turned to his passenger, Mr. Julius Higgins of London, a jovial man with shiny white hair and a broad mouth. He and his wife, a woman with hair as dark as her husband’s was white, were both recently retired and were sightseeing in India. “I’m sorry, Mr. Higgins. What did you say?”
“That,” Higgins replied, nodding out his window. “Looks quite odd, don’t you think?”
Rajiv peered across the small cabin and out Higgins’s window but couldn’t see anything. Instinctively he looked out his own side window. What he saw made his heart stutter. Even from an altitude of over 2000 meters he could see the ocean being drawn back like a blanket off a bed, leaving long streaks in the mud and sand of the ocean floor.
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” Higgins asked. “I mean, does that happen all the time?”
Rajiv could not speak; he just shook his head.
Higgins turned to his wife who was in the seat behind him in the four-passenger plane. “Wake up, dear. You don’t want to miss this. Something unusual is happening.”
Groggily Mrs. Higgins opened her eyes. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Look out your window,” Higgins replied.
“Amazing,” she exclaimed. Then she smacked her husband on the back of the head. “Why aren’t you taping this, Julius? That’s why you have the video camera in your hand.”
“Oh, right,” Higgins said. A moment later he was pointing the Sony camera out the window. “Try and hold the plane steady, chum.”
Rajiv just stared out the window and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. In a few more minutes they would be over land with the ocean behind them and unable to see the drama below. Slowly, Rajiv turned the Cessna and took a course parallel with the shore. To his left was the heavily populated coast, to his right, open ocean.
A gasp came from the back. Rajiv turned to see Mrs. Higgins with a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide in fright. Another gasp, this time from Mr. Higgins.
“What? What is it?” Rajiv blurted.
No one answered. Both of his passengers sat stonelike in their seats, gazing out their windows. The terror in the cabin was palpable. Julius Higgins rigidly held the video camera to his eye. Instinctively, Rajiv leaned to the side to see the monster that had terrified his passengers. The terror of realization struck him hard, like a vicious punch to the stomach. His heart beat rapidly, pounding so hard that Rajiv thought it might burst from his chest any second.
A ribbon of white, sinuous like a snake, raced toward the coast. So long was the ribbon that Rajiv could not see its ends. The line of white tumbled and churned and grew. Without thought, Rajiv banked the plane hard and pushed on the yoke. The craft responded without hesitation, and everyone was pressed back into their seats by the invisible hand of acceleration.
“What are you doing?” Higgins cried out.
“I must see,” Rajiv said.
Higgins glanced at the altimeter in the instrument panel. The white indicator arm spun as the Cessna plummeted down. “Are you trying to kill us?” he shouted above the now roaring engine. Rajiv did not respond.
Rajiv kept his eyes fixed on the surface of the glistening earth below and then, after an eternity of moments, pulled back on the yoke. Slowly the plane leveled in its flight. The craft cruised at 175 knots, 100 meters above the now barren ocean floor. Rajiv, consumed by the image before him, was only barely aware that Julius Higgins had resumed taping. He blinked, then blinked again, but it was still there and it appeared to be growing.
A wave. Rising. Building. Charging with locomotive speed. A wall of water. A cliff of ocean.
“Dear, Lord,” Higgins said. “It’s a bloody tidal wave.”
“It’s huge,” his wife added.
“I’ll say. That thing’s got to be around twenty-five meters.”
Twenty-five meters or better, Rajiv thought. And it was growing.
Again Rajiv banked the plane and raced for shore. This time he maintained his altitude. Urgently he snatched the microphone from his radio set and raised it to his mouth. He keyed the device and began to speak rapidly in Hindi. “Mayday, mayday, 55W with emergency traffic.”
“N20355W this is Bhubameshwar tower. State your emergency.”
“Wave. Tsunami headed your way.” Rajiv’s voice was breathy as he struggled to keep his emotions controlled.
“What?” came the response of the air traffic controller.
“I’m forty kilometers southeast of Puri. I see a large wave …” Just then the monster of water raced underneath them. Rajiv checked his air speed: 165 knots.
“How fast are we going?” Higgins asked.
Rajiv ignored him and spoke into his radio again. “It’s moving at about 300 kilometers per hour! Take emergency action!”
Higgins shook his head. “Three hundred kilometers per hour, and that thing is pulling away. It’ll hit the shore in less than five minutes.”
Five minutes, Rajiv thought. Five minutes wasn’t enough time to do anything. Not enough time to get into a car and drive to safety. Not enough time to seek shelter. Just enough time to pray.
Rajiv watched as the wave raced away from them, outdistancing them with each passing second. The wall of water was rising and racing toward the coast, toward Puri, toward his home. And there was nothing he could do about it.
But he would try.
Pushing the throttle to the stops, Rajiv made a vain attempt to catch the watery behemoth. The engine roared, then screamed in protest. Rajiv did everything to speed the Cessna along—trimming the propeller, easing all flaps—but it did no good. Only a jet could catch the wave of destruction ahead of him. At the moment, the wave was the fastest thing on or above the ocean. Rajiv would arrive moments after the wave struck shore.
Squeezing the yoke tight until his knuckles turned white, Rajiv attempted to will the plane to fly faster. He even pointed the nose down to make full use of gravity. His air speed rose to nearly 200 knots, but it was not enough. He could not descend forever. Soon he would have to level off or die. But maybe that wasn’t so bad.
If only he could be there with his family—with his wife and sons and his beautiful Jaya—then maybe he coul
d help or at least hug them one last time. He knew it was a foolish thought, but men were allowed foolish thoughts when their families were in danger.
As the wave approached the shore, Rajiv saw it crest. A second later a spray of white rose high in the air and then quickly rained down. The plane arrived a minute or two after the impact. Below it, rubble bobbed around on the churning caldron of cold seawater. What had once been houses were now little more than fragments, kindling. As quickly as the wave had arrived, its destructive tide receded, taking with it the debris of buildings, cars, boats, and bodies.
Rajiv was now flying a mere thirty meters above his hometown of Puri—close enough to see detail that would forever be branded in his mind. Next to him Higgins continued to tape. At first Rajiv felt a nearly overwhelming sense of anger at the man for being so unmoved by what had just happened, but that dissolved when he saw a single tear stream down the Englishman’s cheek.
Below was utter carnage. The streets were littered with debris as though an atom bomb had been unleashed. The wave had not cared if it destroyed the wood huts of the poor or the fine homes of the rich. Little was left. Bodies of men, women, and children were strewn about; some of them lay naked, the wave having viciously ripped the clothing from their bodies.
Two minutes later Rajiv began circling the plane over a decimated stretch of ground. A missile attack would have left more structures intact. Homes, offices, schools, people had been turned into the flotsam of fate.
“Why are we circling?” Higgins asked softly.
Rajiv did not answer. He stared out the side window.
Higgins sighed. “Is that where you lived?” he asked kindly.
Rajiv nodded slowly and continued to gaze at the wreckage of what had been his middle-class home. Gone was the white stucco house, the courtyard, his family. This was where he had lived. Now gone. All gone.
Terminal Justice Page 34
