Wave (11 page)

Brian took her by the shoulders. “Hey, hey. Shhhh…calm down, just calm down. Now, where is he? Didn’t I hear you say he was going to the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s not far. Let’s go.”

He had been frantic only moments earlier, but now he was calm—utterly and completely calm. His voice was comforting, reassuring. She felt a little better, felt like the situation was still under control. Crazy and scary, but still under control.

“Okay,” she said through a sniffle.

They ran to his car. Other cars were starting to accumulate on the Boulevard, heading toward the bridge.

They were going in the other direction.

Mark wasn’t having such a great day, photography-wise. He’d gone through only two rolls, and knew that most of those shots weren’t
SandPaper
cover material. He didn’t want to resort to stills—flowers, trees, shrubs, etc.—unless he had to. To him photos like that were dull and unchallenging. Wildlife shots were his thing.

The path he’d been following had narrowed considerably. He was well off the beaten track now, possibly on a trail used only by local wildlife. He had a sense that it would simply end at some point and he’d have to turn back. But he couldn’t be certain—this refuge was a dizzying array of twists and turns that, as far as he knew, had never been properly mapped. One moment you found yourself high on a ridge, able to see across the Atlantic to the horizon, and another you were in a damp, forested area with little sunlight and no clue how to get out. Natural hallways created by dense hedgerows closed in on all sides, mixed with vine tangles so thick you needed a machete to cut through them. For a diehard naturalist it was a heady experience.

Suddenly realizing how tired he was, he sat down to rest for a moment. He closed his eyes and tried to wipe his mind clean. Total relaxation, total refreshment. He still had a lot to do and wasn’t anywhere near ready to leave. If he went back to his boss with the pictures he had now, he wouldn’t be asked to do another cover shoot for a long time.

He checked his watch—9:30. Jennifer wouldn’t be here for awhile; plenty of time to get some good shots. He took stock of his general surroundings and observed that he was literally in the middle of nowhere, enveloped by walls of scraggly shrubs on all sides, solid earth underneath, and an endless blue sky overhead. There were no clouds today, per se—just a few vague brushstrokes. The only signs of civilization were the sound of a distant siren—typical LBI noise pollution—and the faint groan of what sounded like a small plane. He tuned the noise out. He felt the growing warmth of the sun on his face and smiled. He could stay here forever. It was so peaceful, so calm.

Nature had its own special order to it, in Mark’s view. His mother and stepfather could never understand that, could never enjoy and appreciate nature the way he did. He felt pity for them rather than anger or resentment. In some ways they were so empty and always would be.

When he felt rested enough, he got back up and continued along the narrow trail, willing it to terminate in a clearing rather than a wall of hedges or a tangle of thorns. He fished through the camera bag for the water bottle and took a long, greedy swig. As he replaced it, his fingers inadvertently rediscovered his cell phone. He had no regrets about leaving it off, but he wondered momentarily if he should check his messages. It would only take a second.

He took it out, turned it on. The rubber numerical pads adopted an eerie greenish glow, barely visible on such a bright morning.

Before the phone had a chance to lock onto a signal and check in with the voice mail system, Mark switched it off again. His reverence toward nature overrode his more modern desire to be “in touch.” It could wait, he decided. These opportunities were too rare. Once he got back to the real world he’d be in touch around the damn clock. Yes, it could wait.

He put the phone back in the darkened corner of the bag to which it had been assigned and moved on.

The plan fell together in Donald Harper’s mind with a neat click. It was one of those moments of divine inspiration. He saw every detail, every dimension. It was complete, devastatingly simple, and flawless. In his gut he knew it would work. He
knew
it.

“Donald, what’s hap—?”

“Marie,” he said, and his deep, resonating voice—what he called his “boom voice”—suddenly returned. It surprised him. It wasn’t a conscious effort on his part, it was just there, like a cat who’d run away and then turned up on the doorstep a week later. For the first time in weeks he felt like a leader again, in command. The balance of power had returned to its old and wonderful shape.

The mayor was back.

“There’s a tsunami coming. You know—a tidal wave. It’ll be here in about two hours. I’ll need your help getting the word out. We’ve got to get everyone off the island. Call Andy Truman over at WKRZ right now. Use my name. Meanwhile,” he took his cell phone from his pocket, “I’ll call the National Weather Service people down in Cape May and have them issue a warning over the television and the NOAA weather radio.”

“Holy Jesus. Um, okay.”

Harper retreated to his office. She continued watching him while she tapped in the number with a trembling hand. He left both doors open and pulled up the shades. The symbolism was impossible to miss. As he spoke into his cell phone, he picked up the desk phone and placed another call. Marie’s desire to drop everything and get the hell out of town was overwhelming, but she fought it. What struck her as strange was that Harper didn’t seem to be suffering the same battle of nerves. He was so outwardly calm it was intriguing. In fact he seemed to actually be…
enjoying
himself. The irony was almost a tangible thing—when it came to a scandal, he was so listless and dispirited that he seemed like a cadaver. But now, facing a natural disaster and the possibility of death, he seemed more alive than ever. The reality was that Donald Harper, plain and simple, thrived on challenges. Crises were the lifeblood of his soul. That came from a variety of factors, one being his naturally restless personality, another his years of military training.

As he got back behind his desk, this realization brushed across his mind like a loving hand. The one that immediately followed was,
If you’d only realized
that before Gus Riggins came along
. It wasn’t the temptations that Riggins carried with him that lured Harper from his integrity; it was boredom. Pure and basic, the same variety suffered by millions of people every minute of every day, some for countless years, some for most of their miserable lives. At the time Riggins entered his life nothing of great note was happening. There were the normal demands as the mayor of Long Beach Township, and of course certain challenges went along with that. But he’d been managing them for so long and was so overqualified for the position that they weren’t really challenges anymore. He could’ve phoned in his duties. He possessed the necessary skills to be a goddamn
senator
, after all. Whiling away the hours as a mayor in a place like this was downright painful.

He wiped these thoughts away; consciously cleared them from his mind like clearing off a table with one broad sweep of the arm. This was the first step in the focusing process, something else he’d picked up during his years of military training.

The current objective was clear—
Evacuate the island
.

At a convenience store in West Lafayette, Indiana, more than two-dozen customers had gathered around a television perched high in a corner to watch CNN’s report on the developing story. In Times Square, hundreds crowded the sidewalk to follow it on the giant 26′ by 34.5′ Panasonic Astrovision TV screen. And in Tupelo, Mississippi, two millworkers who were on strike and already half-drunk so early in the day started a betting pool where the winner would be the one who came closest to guessing the eventual number of fatalities. They would get nearly a dozen entries. CNN got hold of a recording of the final transmissions from the cockpit of the airliner that went down. Some kid in Virginia had picked it up on his ham radio, recorded it, and sold it to them for five thousand dollars. It would eventually come to be considered part of the “soundtrack” of this historic tragedy, like WLS Chicago reporter Herb Morrison’s quavering voice as he cried, “Oh the humanity!” when the
Hindenburg
fell, in flames, at Lakehurst’s Naval Air Station in 1937.

To calm a jittery public and an even more jittery Wall Street, the President of the United States made a statement just after nine o’clock. He told the country that the incident appeared to be isolated and not part of a broader terrorist attack. No other planes were grounded, much to the relief of the airline industry. He assured the nation that government forces were doing everything in their power to assist in the coastal evacuation. When asked specifically about Long Beach Island, he gave a wholly honest reply—he had never heard of it. He quickly added that he was deeply concerned for everyone who lived there.

All along coastal New Jersey, towns were being evacuated at a frenetic pace. Red lights swirled and sirens blared. Although teams of experts were certain the path of the tsunami would carry it to LBI first, surrounding communities such as Seaside Heights to the north and Margate to the south were emptying fast. Casino owners in Atlantic City cringed at the thought of losing all their customers, even if only for a few hours, but had little choice.

Back on the island, the first of the New Jersey National Guard troops began rolling in, their camouflage fleet forming a long, pulsing convoy along both sides of the Garden State Parkway and down Route 72. They brought all the large vehicles they had, the plan being that they would go onto the island and bring back as many people as each could carry. The designated dropoff spot was the enormous parking lot of Home Depot, on 72’s eastbound side. The commander of the operation prayed to God that it would be far enough inland. The Rutgers people said the tsunami’s waves would roll in and then draw back, so, theoretically, there would be very little flooding, especially since there was a bay on the other side of the island to act as a barrier to the mainland. But still…. Against the urgings of his advisors, he refused to bring the residents any further. Doing so would take more time, and in the end if it turned out he missed saving just one more truckload of people because he had taken the others farther than necessary he would have to carry that burden into eternity.

Traffic swamped the Causeway within minutes of the first public announcements. Local police stood in the roads frantically waving their orange batons and yelling for people to keep moving. Whenever some idiot would stop to ask a question, the cop, under strict orders, would shake his or her head and reply, “No questions, keep moving!” Every vehicle was ordered to carry as many passengers as possible, and those with children were always given the right of way. Strangers suddenly became close friends. If you had a car or a truck with an empty seat, you had the chance to be a hero.

Three of the four lanes on the bridge were designated outgoing—two on the westbound side, and one of the two on the eastbound side. The other eastbound lane was kept clear for incoming rescue transports, which had to be empty and ready to take another load at one of the designated pickup points along Ocean Boulevard. When they got down to the last fifteen minutes, this lane would revert to another outbound route. It was doubtful anyone would be willing to go in at that point anyway, under military orders or not.