Rogue Wave

by Boyd Morrison

  Kai nodded in appreciation for how fast Reggie moved. "Good work. You should also do some data analysis on the seafloor in that region. Make sure the earthquake didn't trigger a landslide. After Christmas Island, our next tide reading won't be until the wave reaches Johnston Island."

  Then Kai remembered something and snapped his fingers.

  "Hey, isn't the Miller Freeman testing a new DART buoy about 1000 kilometers southeast of here?" The Miller Freeman was a NOAA research vessel responsible for maintaining their ocean-going equipment.

  Reggie tapped on his computer. "Yeah, they started setting it up two days ago. They should be there for another week." He overlaid the ship's location on the earthquake map. Before the Asia tsunami, there were only six operational DART buoys: three off the Alaskan coast, two between Hawaii and the west coast of the US, and one about 2000 miles away from Chile. But more were scheduled to be activated around the Pacific, one of the few positive outcomes of the Southeast Asia disaster. The buoy they were currently testing was intended for the coastline of Russia.

  "Is the buoy active?"

  "The buoy itself is operational, but the satellite uplink wasn't scheduled to be tested for another couple of days. There's no reason that we couldn't radio them to switch on the uplink."

  "This might be a good test for them. At their location, they should be getting a wave reading just about the same time Johnston Island does."

  "I'll call NOAA and have them radio the ship."

  "What do you need from me?"

  "You need to handle the tour group," Reggie said, pointing toward the reception area.

  The buzzer for the front gate sounded. The tour group was here.

  "Looks like it's show time. Come find me when we get the tide readings from Christmas Island."

  Kai took a deep breath and steeled himself for the tour. It looked like it was going to be a busy day after all.

  Chapter 6

  9:23 AM

  Only a couple of miles from Waikiki, Teresa and the girls sat in the Jeep, frustrated by an accident ahead of them on the H1 that had slowed traffic to a crawl. It looked like everyone who wasn't working that day was heading down to Waikiki.

  The whole purpose of Teresa and Mia's visit was to see the Tanakas, so when Teresa had found out how far the Grand Hawaiian was from their house, she asked to bunk at their place even though Rachel could have gotten them a room at the hotel. Teresa thought it was a small price to pay for staying with Kai and Rachel. Still, she could have done without the traffic on her vacation. She got enough of it in Seattle.

  Teresa had been a nurse when she met Kai and Rachel during Lamaze class. She had hit it off immediately with Rachel, but the lout she was married to at the time didn't get along as well with Kai. However, since he traveled constantly for his sales job, leaving Teresa at home alone all the time once Mia was born, she and Rachel became inseparable.

  They got even closer once Rachel, after years of whittling away, finally convinced Teresa to follow her dream and go to med school. Teresa's husband, who wanted her to give up nursing and medicine altogether and become a stay-at-home mother with five children, filed for divorce. Of course, it turned out that he'd been having serial affairs on his business trips. Teresa had been humiliated and left virtually penniless. The only consolation had been full custody of Mia. During that difficult period, Rachel had been a rock, and Lani and Mia spent a lot of time together.

  When Kai decided to take the post of Director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Lani was devastated at the thought of leaving Mia. So as soon as Teresa had a week off from her third year of residency, she planned a trip to Hawaii, and the Tanakas happily agreed to host them. Now it looked like the visit was causing some friction.

  Teresa remembered the look on Kai's face before she had left earlier. She hoped Rachel and Kai weren't having problems themselves. Probably just a little spat. She couldn't imagine Kai doing anything like her husband did. He was always so supportive of Rachel's career. Teresa would remind Rachel at the luau how lucky she was to have a guy like Kai.

  "When are we going to get there?" whined Mia, who fidgeted in the back seat.

  "What are you, six years old?" Teresa said.

  "That was rhetorical."

  "That's good. Next, I thought you were going to say we had to stop so you could go tinkle."

  "Yeah right, Mom!"

  "It looks like a pretty bad accident up ahead." Teresa turned to Lani. "Do you know a better way to the beach?"

  Lani shook her head. "We don't go to Waikiki much. We don't go anywhere much."

  Teresa could hear the resigned disappointment in Lani's voice. She tried to lift her spirits.

  "Well, we have lots planned this week," Teresa said. "But first, Waikiki. Maybe your dad knows a different route."

  As she continued to creep forward at little more than five miles an hour, Teresa took her cell phone out of her purse and flipped it open to dial Kai's cell. The battery power indicator was nearly empty.

  "Oh, great!" Teresa blurted out.

  "What?" both girls said simultaneously.

  "My phone's almost dead. I guess I forgot to charge it last night."

  "See, Mom. I told you I should have a cell phone."

  "One situation where it might be useful does not constitute a need for you to have a phone. Besides, I probably have a couple of minutes of talk time left. Lani, what's your dad's cell phone number?" Teresa dialed Kai's number as Lani rattled it off.

  The phone rang once before it went through to voice mail.

  "His phone must be off," she said as Kai's greeting played. "He's giving that tour." The tone beeped.

  "Hi Kai, it's Teresa. We're still in the car. There's some kind of backup on the H1, and I was just calling to see if you knew an alternate route. Unfortunately, you won't be able to call me back because my cell phone battery is dying. I'm going to turn it off to save what's left. But we're still on target for tonight. Hope you're having a good day. See you later."

  As Teresa powered her phone off, Mia leaned forward in the back seat.

  "Mom, can Brad come scuba diving with us on Thursday?"

  Teresa furrowed her brow at Mia through the rear-view mirror.

  "Don't you think he has work to do?"

  "He seemed interested in coming with us today." She grinned at her mom. Teresa knew when somebody was setting her up.

  "We'll see."

  "I don't think he'll go," Lani said. "He had a scuba diving accident a long time ago."

  "Did he get the bends?" Teresa asked. "By the way he was driving that bike, it looks like he wasn't permanently injured."

  "Well, maybe not an accident. He didn't get hurt. He was diving with my dad somewhere in the Caribbean. He got locked inside a shipwreck, and his oxygen got really low before they could get him out."

  "I'm not sure I want to go now," Teresa said. She had never been diving before. The thought of being stuck underwater was not pleasant.

  "Me neither," Mia said.

  "I've been plenty of times," Lani said. "It's really safe. I just think Uncle Brad is claustrophobic. He'll still go out on boats with us, but he said he's never going underwater again."

  Teresa gave Mia a shrug. "Oh well, I guess he won't go. Sorry."

  As Mia sat back in her seat to pout, Teresa saw flashing lights ahead. The smoking burned-out hulk of a car lay on the right shoulder of the highway. Obviously the ambulance had already come and gone, but she'd be surprised if any survivors had been pulled out of the mass of twisted metal. Policemen directed the traffic through one lane around the fire trucks still hosing down the car.

  Within another few minutes, they were around the wreck and back up to full speed. Then it was only another ten minutes to the beach.

  * * *

  Harold Franklin could only seethe quietly as the catamaran cruised through the water three miles west of Christmas Island. He had been looking forward to this vacation for months, primarily because of the world-renowned beac
hside bonefishing that Christmas Island was famous for. Standing in the surf, casting a line, and hauling in some bonefish, that was why he was here. Not to sit on some boat with seven other people he didn't know. Besides, he hated snorkeling.

  "How long are we going to be out here?" Harold said.

  His wife, Gina, who was sunning on the canvas stretched between the catamaran's hulls and nursing a PiA+-a Colada, narrowed her eyes at him. "Listen, buddy. I let you plan this trip because you said we could spend some time doing things other than fishing. I'm not sitting in the hotel room every day by myself while you and your friends are down at the beach. I should have talked you into going to Hawaii. At least there they have shopping and a decent cup of coffee."

  "But come on. Snorkeling? Do you really need me here for this?"

  "At the hotel, they said this is the best reef in the area. And I don't know anyone else here, so I don't want to hear another word about it. You'll get to fish plenty this week."

  "If we're going snorkeling, then I wish we'd get it over with."

  "The captain said he got a report of some whales out here. Don't you want to see them?"

  "Whales live underwater. We won't see anything." It had taken Harold and Gina twelve hours to get from Sacramento to Honolulu, then catch the one weekly flight that traveled the 1300 miles due south to Christmas Island. He didn't come all that way to watch a bump in the ocean. Harold looked up at the azure sky.

  "At least it's not raining," he said. Just as they had set sail, they had heard a huge boom, like a gigantic thunder clap. But there hadn't been a cloud in the sky, so the cruise left as scheduled.

  "Have a drink," Gina said. "Get comfortable like everyone else…"

  Harold put his hand on her shoulder and stood up, looking back toward Christmas Island where they had come from.

  "What's the matter?" Gina said.

  "I don't know. Something's going on with the birds."

  The island was small and sparsely populated with only 3200 residents who survived primarily as subsistence farmers and on whatever tourist dollars they could bring in. But it was so expensive and inconvenient to get there that few tourists-mostly Americans like Harold and Gina-vacationed there.

  Harold had come because the world's largest atoll, an expanse of crushed coral sand only 12 feet above sea level at its highest point, had some of the best fishing on earth. The island's reefs, lagoons, and marshes also provided a home for hundreds of bird species and colorful underwater life.

  Because Harold was an avid hunter as well as fisherman, the birds had caught his attention. It seemed like every bird on the island, thousands of them, had suddenly taken flight.

  "What do you make of that?" Harold said to no one in particular.

  By this time, everyone on board was looking at the island, including the dive master and captain. Both of them were Americans who had moved to Christmas Island to start their small dive business. Captain Pete and Dive Master Dave, they called themselves, which Harold had thought a bit corny. Captain Pete cut the motor to a crawl.

  "Hey Pete," Dave said, "you see any smoke?"

  "Nope," Pete said. "Looks like they got spooked by something, though."

  "What about an earthquake?" Harold said. He knew from his lifetime in California that dogs and other animals could detect natural disasters before people could.

  "Nope," Pete said again. "This isn't an earthquake zone. No volcanoes either."

  Harold pulled out the binoculars he kept in his bag.

  "We better radio in and see what's going on," Dave said.

  As Pete called in to the shop, Harold got a closer look at the island. From this distance, even with the binoculars, the birds looked like a swarm of bees circling the island. But something else grabbed his attention.

  "That's weird," he said.

  "What?" said Gina.

  "The beach is getting bigger."

  "What do you mean the beach is getting bigger?" Gina said, her voice rising in volume. Dave must have heard her.

  "What about the beach?" Dave said to Harold.

  Harold described what he could see. The beach, which had extended about 100 yards from the ocean to the trees only a minute before, grew by what seemed like the same amount every few seconds. After another moment, he could see exposed reef around the entire island. Several beachgoers ran down to the newly uncovered sand, while others simply stood and watched.

  "Oh no!" said Dave. He ran over to Pete, who had just reached the dive base on the radio and asked what was happening there. Before they could reply, Dave yanked the transmitter out of Pete's hand.

  "Get the boat as far away from the island as fast as you can! Right now!" he yelled at Pete. Confused and not used to taking orders on his own boat, Pete nevertheless saw the alarm in Dave's eyes and told everyone to hang on. He gunned the engine until they were doing 20 knots.

  Dave clicked on the transmitter. "Base, this is Seabiscuit, do you read?"

  A woman on the other end answered. Harold remembered her as Tasha, the girl who had checked them in for the dive. Before they'd left on the trip, Dave and Tasha's canoodling in the shop had been practically pornographic.

  "I read you Seabiscuit. I just looked out the window. The tide is going way out."

  "Tasha, that's not the tide! A tsunami is coming! Get out of there!"

  "Oh my God! What should I do?"

  "Get to the highest point you can."

  "What about you?"

  "We're okay. We're in deep water. Tsunamis only get big in shallow water."

  Tasha's panicked voice came back. "But there's nowhere to go!"

  Harold knew she was right. Not only was the highest point on the island only 12 feet above sea level, there were only a smattering of two-story buildings on the island, none near the dive shop.

  "Then climb a tree!"

  "It's too late!" Harold said and pointed.

  Gina screamed. "Look!"

  Even faster than it had rushed out, the water began pouring back toward the beach. The small figures Harold could see with the binoculars ran back toward the island. Some of them were caught by the incoming wave even before they reached the trees.

  But the image between him and the island grew more terrifying. The water rose until it completely obscured even the tallest tree. Harold realized it would be only seconds before the mammoth wave covered the island.

  A hiss of static issued from the radio. Tasha was gone.

  Harold, wide-eyed, could only shake his head and mutter to himself.

  "I guess we should have gone to Hawaii."

  Chapter 7

  9:31 AM

  The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was tiny, so the walking portion of the Japanese school tour went quickly. Kai took them back in the conference room where the children could sit. The sixth-graders had been listening quietly, the teacher translating while Kai spoke. Kai knew the Japanese language of his father's ancestry about as well as he knew the Italian language of his mother's, which meant that he could order sushi or rigatoni in a restaurant and that was about it.

  Despite the translation, the children politely paid attention to him. Japan had always been particularly susceptible to tsunamis, and the videos from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand showing the tsunami carrying away people, buildings, and cars had only added to the students' curiosity. Kai capitalized on their interest by telling stories about tsunamis that had hit Hawaii in the past.

  "Do you remember me telling you about the tsunami that struck Hilo in 1946?" he said.

  A couple of kids nodded. Kai always started the tour off by telling them how the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was founded. On April 1, 1946, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale was generated in the Aleutian Islands. No one in Hawaii knew that it had happened, except for a few seismologists. Five hours later, the first of a series of waves hit the northern shore of the Big Island. Hilo, on the northeast side of the island, was the only large city facing that direction. Even when people got word that a tsun
ami had struck, many thought it was an April Fool's Day prank. But it wasn't a joke. Over 150 Hawaiians perished that day.

  One of the common misconceptions about tsunamis is that they consist of one huge wave. In fact, tsunamis typically come in a series of waves, created by the earthquake-displaced water rebounding up and down, with the third or fourth wave in the series usually the biggest. The waves alternate with troughs that are just as low as the waves are high, which is why the water recedes from the beach before every wave. The energy of each wave extends to the bottom of the ocean, accounting for the long periods between waves. Because people aren't aware of these tsunami behaviors, they often put themselves in unnecessary danger.

  The first wave of the 1946 tsunami had been small, only a few feet high. To the people who saw it, it looked merely like a rogue tide that lifted the boats in the harbor higher in their moorings than normal. Then the water started receding from the harbor at an unprecedented rate until it was practically empty. Adults and children alike rushed into the harbor to gather up fish that were left stranded on the rocks. But a few minutes later they ran for their lives from a 20-foot wave that rushed back into the harbor. Boats were ripped from their moorings and dashed against the pilings along the waterfront. The wave blasted the buildings lining the waterfront, smashing some to bits and tearing others from their foundations and pulling them back out to sea.

  Kai went on with the story. "There was a school in a town called Laupahoehoe to the northwest of Hilo. In fact, the kids at the school were just about your age, and they saw an actual tsunami."

  That brought a gasp from the kids.

  "I'll even show you a couple of pictures from the event." Kai clicked on a projector at the back of the conference room that was linked to his laptop where he stored photos and videos. The first photo showed the schoolhouse as it looked before the tsunami, perched only 100 feet from the shore on a beautiful beach with swaying palm trees. Several smaller houses surrounded it.