Rogue Wave
Boyd Morrison
ROGUE WAVE
(formerly The Palmyra Impact)
Honolulu, Hawaii. Tourist Paradise. Hell on Earth.
Over the remote central Pacific, an airliner halfway through its Memorial Day flight from Los Angeles to Sydney is suddenly rocked by a massive explosion. Despite the pilot’s valiant efforts, the blast sends it plummeting into the ocean, leaving no witnesses to the fireball.
Kai Tanaka, the new and untested director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, notes a minor seismic disturbance in that region but doesn’t make the connection with the lost airplane. There’s no reason to be worried about his wife, who is the manager of a luxury hotel, or his daughter, who is enjoying the sunny holiday morning at Waikiki with friends.
But when all contact with Christmas Island and its 3000 inhabitants is lost, Kai is the first to realize that Hawaii faces a catastrophe of epic proportions: in one hour, a series of massive waves will wipe out Honolulu. He has just sixty minutes to save the lives of a million people, including his wife and daughter…
I finished this thriller in 2006. But the idea for this book did not come from the Asia tsunami that devastated Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia in 2004. The story originated with the heroic deeds of the firefighters at the World Trade Center collapse. As I watched in horror, one thought that popped into my head was whether any of the firefighters had family members in the Twin Towers. If I were a firefighter, would I do my duty and trust someone else to save my children, or would I leave my post to save them myself? It’s a powerful dilemma and serves as Kai’s main conflict as the mega-tsunamis bear down on Honolulu.
In researching the scientific background for this story, I was given a tour of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center located just four miles from Honolulu. The tour was in March, 2003, almost two years before the Asia tsunami hit.
Boyd Morrison
Rogue Wave
Acknowledgements
I'd like to thank Dr. Chip McCreery and Dr. Stuart Weinstein at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for listening to my wild stories and showing me around the facility. Thanks also to Delores Clark of NOAA for assisting in setting up the tour.
Much appreciation to Dr. David Kriebel, professor of ocean engineering at the Naval Academy, for information about the effects of tsunamis on structures.
Thanks to Ray Lovell at Hawaii Civil Defense for talking to me about HCD response procedures in emergencies.
Thanks to my good friend, Dr. Erik Van Eaton, for his medical expertise.
It's great to have a brother who was an Air Force pilot, and I'd like to thank him-retired Lt. Col. Martin Westerfield-for his help with all things military and airborne.
Finally, thanks to my wife, Randi, for going on this journey with me.
Any errors in science, organizations, or geography, whether intentional or not, are mine alone. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Memorial Day
8:41 AM
Captain Michael Robb opened his eyes and found himself lying on the cockpit floor. Heat washed over him, like the airliner had been plunged into a blast furnace, and multiple warning horns blared. Blood trickled from his brow and stung his eye. For a second, he lay there, dazed, wondering what had happened. Then he remembered. The impact.
He had just returned to the cockpit, swearing himself off coffee for the rest of the trip. The flight from Los Angeles to Sydney wasn't even halfway over, and it had been his third trip to the lavatory. His copilot, Wendy Jacobs, a good 20 years younger than he was, had turned to smirk at him but said nothing. He had been about to climb back into his seat when a streak of light flashed by the airliner's starboard wing.
Robb thought it was a lightning strike from a storm they were flying above, but then the plane was thrown sideways, as if batted away by a giant hand. A sonic boom blasted the plane, and the aircraft rocked from multiple strikes. He smacked into the bulkhead, his head and shoulder taking most of the blow, which knocked him to the floor.
He must have been out for only a few seconds. Though his mind was still fuzzy, his vision quickly came back into focus. Robb sat up and wiped the blood from his eye. The instrument panel was intact. Jacobs had disengaged the autopilot and grabbed the yoke, which she now fought for control. Robb pulled himself to his feet. He had no idea how badly he was injured, but he was moving. That was enough.
As Robb clambered into his seat, he glanced at the cabin differential pressure gauge. Its needle was pegged at zero. Explosive decompression.
Reflexively, he reached for the mask hanging to his left, years of training taking over. His shoulder protested the motion, and he winced in pain.
"Oxygen masks on, 100 percent!" he shouted.
Robb pulled the mask over his head, and Jacobs did the same. The masks in the passenger compartment had already dropped automatically. He mentally raced through the possibilities for the blast. A terrorist bomb? Missile attack? Fuel tank explosion? To depressurize that fast, some of the passenger windows must have blown out, maybe an entire door. The aircraft was still flying, though, so that meant the fuselage was intact.
With his attention focused on getting the airliner under control, there was no time for Robb to talk to the passengers. The flight attendants would have to deal with them. The best thing he could do for the passengers was to get the plane down to 10,000 feet where there was breathable air.
He pushed the yoke forward and silenced the decompression horn, but another one continued to wail. The lights for the starboard engines flashed red, meaning they were both on fire.
"Pull number three engine T-handle!" Robb barked out. He suppressed the panic he could feel edging into his voice.
Jacobs pulled the handle and pressed the button beneath it, extinguishing the fire.
"Number three T-handle pulled!" she replied. They repeated the same for engine four. After running through the required checklists, Jacobs glanced out the starboard window to make a visual check.
"Fire's out on number three engine! Number four engine is completely gone!"
"Gone?"
"Sheared off from the pylon."
Robb cursed under his breath. His plane was a 747–400, a model with the latest in avionics, which was why he and Jacobs were the only flight crew. The need for a flight engineer had been eliminated in the upgrade, but now Robb yearned for the extra help. The airliner was certified to fly with only three engines, but with just the two port engines, they'd be lucky to stay in the air.
He turned to Jacobs. Her face was ashen, but otherwise professional.
"Issue the distress call," Robb said.
Jacobs nodded, understanding the implications. Even if someone heard the radio call, it would make little difference. The best they could hope for was to report their position in case they had to ditch. She keyed the radio.
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is TransPac 823. We are going down. We are going down. We've lost both number three and number four engines. Our position is 75 miles bearing 245 from Palmyra VOR."
No answer, just static.
"Activate the emergency transponder," Robb said. He knew activating it was a useless procedure. They were beyond the range of any radar units.
"Setting transponder to 7700 in squawk emergency," Jacobs replied.
As their rapid descent took the plane through 30,000 feet, an unearthly glow bloomed within the cloud cover ten miles to their right. At first the clouds softened it, but then the light pierced them, shooting toward the stratosphere, for a moment brighter than the sun.
"What the hell?" Jacobs said.
A fireball rolled upward in the distinctive mushroom shape Robb had seen in countless photos. He gaped,
mesmerized by the sight. Atomic weapons testing in the Pacific had been outlawed for years, and there were no volcanoes in this region of the ocean. What else could have caused such a massive explosion?
Whatever it was, the explanation didn't matter.
"Roll left!" he yelled. Stabilizing the plane should have been his highest priority, but they had to get away from the blast zone.
"Rolling left," came Jacobs' response after only a second's hesitation.
Robb just had to hope that he could ride out the shockwave and then figure out where he could put down. They had passed over the Palmyra Atoll only ten minutes before, but the runway built during World War II had been abandoned decades ago. Christmas Island had the closest operational runway, but it was 500 miles away. Still, it was their best shot. Even with all the damage it had sustained, the plane was still flying. They might make it.
"Come on, you bastard!" Robb grunted as he strained at the controls.
The nose of the enormous plane came around slowly. Too slowly.
The blast wave from the explosion caught up with them and slapped at the plane from behind, heaving its tail up. A colossal crack of thunder echoed through the cockpit. The windows shattered, and wind howled through the cockpit. Number one engine was wrenched from its mounts, shearing half the port wing from the plane and setting the fuel tanks aflame. The lift vanished from beneath the wings, and the plane plummeted like an elevator cut from its cable.
With two engines gone and another shut down, the airliner was mortally wounded. Thinking of the 373 men, women, and children in the plane-people that were his responsibility-Robb didn't give up, but he had no more hope of flying it than one of the passengers. He battled the controls trying to level the plane, but it was a dead stick. Despite his efforts, the plane spun downward in a death spiral. By the time the airliner plunged through the lowest cloud layer, the altimeter read 1000 feet. For the first time in an hour, Robb could see the blue water of the Pacific.
Realizing that their fate was inevitable, Michael Robb let go of the yoke and sat back. He didn't want to die alone, so he held out his hand to Wendy Jacobs, who grasped it tightly with her own. Never much for religion, Robb nonetheless closed his eyes and found himself reciting the Lord's Prayer. He was up to the words "Thy kingdom come" when the plane slammed into the ocean surface at over 500 miles per hour and disappeared beneath the waves.
Chapter 2
Ewa Beach, Hawaii
8:51 AM
Kai Tanaka finished with his shower, and Bilbo, the family's Wheaten Terrier, greeted him as he came out of the bedroom. The screams and laughter of two 13-year-old girls reverberated from the kitchen, making him smile. He finished dressing and exited the bedroom.
The smell of coffee was still strong, so Kai knew someone had already made a run to Starbucks. A lone grande latte sat on the counter, beckoning him. The TV in the kitchen was tuned to Headline News as usual, with the volume so low that all he could hear was the indistinct mumbling of the anchorwoman.
Lani and Mia sat close together at the dinette table, talking to each other over a magazine in low, conspiratorial tones. Then they erupted into shrill screams that dissolved into giggles while they pointed at the magazine. Lani saw Kai head for the coffee and shushed Mia to stop laughing, but they couldn't help continuing to snicker.
"Hi, Dad," Lani said.
"Hi, Uncle Kai," said Mia.
Even though Kai wasn't really Mia's uncle, she had called him that since she was able to talk. He still liked the sound of it, especially because he didn't have any nieces or nephews of his own.
Kai walked over to the table sipping his latte and made as if to get a better look at the magazine. "And what are you guys reading this morning? Is it Newsweek or Car and Driver?"
Lani quickly flipped the magazine closed. It was Seventeen. Mia must have brought it with her. Like most fathers, he couldn't help wonder at how fast they were growing up. They were barely teenagers. To him, Seventeen was far in the future.
Lani giggled at Mia, and then adopted a mock-serious tone. "We're just doing some research for our trip this morning." Mia nodded in agreement.
"Uh huh," Kai said dubiously. "Seventeen has an article about boogie boarding, does it?"
"Not exactly," Mia said. "But there are some tips about beach combing." At this Lani and Mia erupted into another peal of laughter. Kai assumed it was something about how to meet boys, but he didn't want to know, so he didn't ask.
"Where's your mom?"
"She left for work about 30 minutes ago. She said she, uh, overslept." Lani said it as if there was more to it than simply missing the alarm.
Usually Rachel's Monday shift didn't begin until 10 AM, but then he remembered the disabled vets brunch at the Grand Hawaiian. As the hotel manager, she would want to be there early to make sure everything was perfect, especially because the governor was speaking. Kai dialed her cell.
"Hello?" Rachel said, sounding annoyed. A truck horn honked in the background, signaling why she was peeved. She was still on the road. He put the call on speakerphone.
"Traffic?" Kai said.
"As usual."
"Didn't the alarm go off?" Kai was such a sound sleeper, he usually missed Rachel's alarm.
"Oh, it went off. I just missed it. Those two were gabbing away until two am last night. Three times I went into their room to tell them to knock it off. Are they there?"
"Uh oh," Kai mouthed to Lani, who grimaced.
Rachel spoke louder to be heard from the speakerphone. "Are you girls going to be quiet tonight, or does Mia need to sleep on the couch?"
"Mom," Lani whined, "Mia just got here. We've been catching up. What if we just whisper tonight?"
"She got here Saturday, and it's now Monday. All I'm saying is that if I have to come in there tonight, you're not going to be sleeping together for the rest of Mia's stay."
Lani pouted. She knew her mom meant it. Rachel wasn't one to make idle threats. She and Kai both believed in following through, and it seemed to be working. Lani was a good kid.
That didn't mean she didn't test her parents from time to time. Although she was a well-behaved and delightful child for the most part, she was also precocious. Kai wouldn't have been surprised to find her reading Cosmopolitan instead of Seventeen. He half expected her to announce at any moment that she was going to skip the next two years and simply turn 16 at her next birthday.
And the problem was that she looked 16. Still one month shy of turning 14, she had developed remarkably quickly. At 5'8'', she was now taller than her mother by a good two inches, and even more distressingly, she had developed a womanly figure. Her hair was auburn, not the strawberry blond of Rachel's Irish heritage, but she had gotten her mother's arresting green eyes, delicate facial structure, and athletic lean body. From Kai, she inherited the olive complexion and almond-shaped eyes of his Italian-Japanese background. To Kai's chagrin, the effect made her not only beautiful, but exotic. He was going to have to plan for dates very soon, and he was terrified.
"Hey Kai, remember to tell Teresa that they should be ready at seven for the luau tonight."
"Tonight? You mean tomorrow."
"You made the reservation for tomorrow?"
Oops, Kai thought. He knew there was something he was supposed to do.
"No," he said, trying to think of the right words to say. He failed. "Weren't you going to make the reservation?"
For a moment, there was nothing but silence.
"Uh oh," Lani said, wagging her finger at Kai. He shot her a dirty look, picked up the receiver, and turned off the speakerphone. He lowered the volume a couple of notches, knowing what was coming.
"Rachel, I'm sorry…"
"Kai! You promised to make the reservation. Tonight is the only time I'm not working evenings this week. If we don't have a reservation, we're never going to get in."
"The Royal Hawaiian, right?" Kai said, moving into the family room to get a little privacy.
"The Sheraton Waikiki
."
"I'm sure it's not too late to get a reservation."
Her annoyance turned to sarcasm. "Right. It'll be easy to get reservations on a holiday. Never mind. I'll do it."
"Look, I'm sorry I forgot about the reservation. If they're sold out, we'll find something else to do."
"Kai…," she started, about to erupt in anger. Then her voice quieted, which was even worse. "Kai, I've had to do practically everything to get ready for our house guests. I made our travel arrangements to the north shore this weekend. I got the house cleaned up. I picked them up at the airport. I even made sure there was enough gas in the car that they are going to use. Now I have to do the one thing I asked you to do."
"I said I'd do it, and I will."
"That's what you said last week when I asked you to do it."
"It's just…" He stopped himself. He was going to make an excuse about his job, but he knew that was the wrong way to go.
Taking the post of director at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was a great career move for him, but he hadn't counted on how demanding it would be. Including Kai, there were only eight geophysicists on staff, and the PTWC had to be monitored by two of them 24 hours a day. That meant they regularly had to pull 12-hour shifts. It was difficult to recruit geophysicists who were willing to spend that many hours on site, so to sweeten the deal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-better known as NOAA, the parent organization of the PTWC-built houses on the Center grounds that some of the staff lived in for free.
Not many people in Hawaii could afford a house three blocks from the beach, but it wasn't that much of a perk. Kai and his family lived in a gated complex next to a run-down, blue-collar neighborhood. The beach nearby wasn't even that good. His job as the director meant that he had to take care of not only his employees' work problems, but their home problems as well. Everything from disputes about late night noise to trouble with the plumbing. And being relatively new didn't help. It was literally a 24-hour job.
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