Wave (14 page)

“No, mom. I’m going to—”

“JENNIFER!”

This came out so shrill and harsh they both jumped, and Brian thought he was going to have a heart attack. He’d seen Mrs. King in the store dozens of times, had a pleasant if somewhat formal relationship with her. She was always well-dressed, and very proper, and carried an air of haughtiness—although he would never offer that opinion to her daughter. To witness this nasty, forceful side of her—which he had always suspected lurked below the surface—was frightening, even if only over a cell phone.

Jennifer began crying again, and she shook like she was having a mild seizure. Brian tried desperately to appear as though he wasn’t listening, was only paying attention to the road and the long line of cars flowing past them in the opposite lane—and wondering just where in hell that line ended, since that’s where they’d have to get on eventually.

“Mom, please….”

“Jennifer, if you don’t come home right now, you’ll be
very
sorry!”

There was a pause. Jennifer stared through the windshield, her eyes red and swollen. Clearly she wished she hadn’t made the call in the first place. Brian felt a twinge of guilt for suggesting it.

She set the phone on her knee, kept staring dumbly into space.

“
Jennifer!
Put your boss on! Put him on that goddamn phone right—”

Jennifer pressed a button to disconnect the call, then another to turn it off.

“And I want all the helicopters you’ve got…. Yes, that’s right, colonel. Every one. We’ll be getting back to you with some specific landing points but for now I don’t care where you land them—in the streets, parking lots, on the beaches. Anywhere your pilots see groups of people. Please get them moving now—we’re down to about an hour and a half here.”
And we’ve got more people than we can possibly evacuate in that time
, Harper thought as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

He rose and went back out. Marie was at her desk, flipping through a phone book.

“Did you hear from Frank?”

“He’s on the way. Said he’s on the Boulevard and should be here in about ten minutes.”

“It must be a parking lot.”

“According to Frank it’s slow going but it is moving. Putting all those extra officers out there to keep the traffic flowing was an excellent idea.”

Harper smiled and briefly considered how long it had been since he’d received a compliment for something he’d done as mayor. “I appreciate you staying and helping out, Marie. Most people would’ve hit the road by now.”

“I’m not staying any longer than necessary,” she said flatly.

“I don’t blame you.”

He turned to go back into his office, but stopped when she said, “Oh, here—a few more of these calls came in.”

She stood to hand him a paper-clipped pile of small pink sheets. The heading “PHONE MESSAGE” was printed across the top of a miniature form with fields for everything from when the call came in to a synopsis of the message. Harper had often opined that anyone who had the time to fill the damn things out had more free time than they knew what to do with. But Marie insisted on using them and while she didn’t fill in every space, she came close.

He returned to his chair and browsed through them. He only looked at the names, amazed—NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News.

It crossed his mind that if this had happened a year ago, it would’ve been his ticket to the top—his big break.

He would’ve been a hero, and everyone voted for heroes. George Washington became president almost entirely because he was a hero—he didn’t even want the job. Neither did Grant or Eisenhower. But when the public loves you, you have little choice but to heed the call. It was such a tantalizing line of thought that, for just a flicker of an instant, Harper felt that old ambitious glow in the hollow of his belly—he could legitimately run for the U.S. Senate, and probably cruise into the job. His party would back him all the way. He’d be remembered as the guy who’d saved LBI from the tidal wave—and voters wouldn’t forget it when they saw his name on the ballot.
That’s the guy who saved LBI, remember?
They’d recall his heroism, his brilliant handling of the situation, his calm and commanding manner, and the way those who looked to him for guidance and reassurance were not disappointed. This was the kind of man you wanted to represent you and your state. He had proved his devotion. He had
earned
the job.

Senator Donald J. Harper.

He could hear the masses cheering, could envisage them clapping as he rode out of town, waving, on his way to Washington. They’d have a ceremony, and the press would be there. Reporters would ask about this day, and he would take the modest route and downplay everything. He’d sign autographs and kiss babies. And then he’d be gone…gone from this little stretch of nowhere to a permanent place in American history.

“Here’s another one,” came the voice that snapped him from his daydream. Marie walked in, let the pink sheet drop from her fingers, and went back out. It seesawed gently to the blotter, and she never noticed the faraway look in his eyes.

He had a flash of panic—how many priceless minutes had he just blown on his little daydream? He looked to the gold-framed lucite clock on the desk and was relieved to find only a minute had passed. In that minute, however, the vision of what might’ve been was clearer than ever before.
This day
.
.
.this day would’ve done it. After this everything would’ve been different. You would’ve had your wish. But now.
…

The desire to cry, to let it all out at last, came over him, but he swallowed it and snatched up the latest message.

Adela Callendar
it said, and there was a number underneath. Under that Marie had written,
Personal cell phone.

Like most other Americans, he was familiar with Callendar, the MSNBC reporter with the high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. He had always liked her style, the way she balanced all the right elements—humanity, dignity, sincerity, toughness, and just enough humor to make you like her. She was clearly among the best of the new breed, and he wondered how many of her colleagues who carried the curse of mediocrity resented her.

He knew what she wanted, what they all wanted—the exclusive interview from the eye of the storm. By now they would’ve heard about his scandal, would know that he was on his way out. But that could be spun to add intrigue to the story.

He flipped open his cell phone, paused as a faint ripple of fear went through him, then tapped in the number. As the call went through, he got up and quietly closed the doors to his office.

Just before he got back to his chair, a voice said, “Hello, this is Adela.”

“Ms. Callendar?”

“Yes?”

“This is Donald Harper. The mayor of Long Beach Township?”

“Mr. Mayor. Thank you for returning my call. I know you’re very busy.”

“Yeah, this has been quite a day so far.”

“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

“Not at all. Are we on the air right now?”

“No, not yet. We will be in a few minutes if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s fine.” He paused. “Um, how many people will be hearing this, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Let’s see….” Harper heard what sounded like pages being flipped. “I’d say anywhere from two and a half to three million.”

That bit of information went into him like a lance. He couldn’t even picture three million people.

“I see.” This wasn’t a particularly intelligent thing to say, but it was better than saying nothing. If he did that, he might as well print the word amateur on his forehead.

“Now, the broadcast will be live, so don’t curse or anything.”

He laughed. “I’ll try to control myself.”

“We’ll be running a small head shot of you while you’re on the air.”

Another blade sliced into him.
Which one were they going to use?
he worried. He was generally photogenic, but certain angles were less flattering than others.

As if reading his mind, Callendar said, “Don’t worry, it’s a good shot.”

He laughed again; he couldn’t help it. Her gift for sensing and easing tension was remarkable. “Okay, if you say so.” The facade had crumbled so quickly—she knew he was green, but she also knew how to handle it. He wondered how much she really knew about the scandal, about how close he was to the end of his career. For some strange reason he didn’t want her to know. He wanted her to think he was still on his way up, still on his way to being a Somebody, a Player. He wanted to impress her. The stark reality was much colder.
If only this had happened a year ago
, he thought again with a mix of anger and sadness.

“Mr. Mayor, are you ready?”

He pushed his emotions aside and refocused. “I’m ready,” he said, surprised by the confidence and control in his voice.
You would’ve made a helluva senator
, came the bittersweet thought.

“Just a few more seconds,” she told him. “Okay, here we go….”

At
the Rutgers Marine Field Station, Sarah Collins remained glued to her seat, the ever-faithful Dave Dolan standing behind her. Fresh readings were fed from the instrument clusters via satellite every few minutes—as close to real time as anyone could desire. The problem was that the clusters lying out there on the sea floor were spread roughly fifty miles apart, so nothing of note would show up on the monitors until the wave passed over them.

The reading on the tide gauge jumped to four feet, then dropped to minus the same amount.

“You see that?”

“I did,” Dolan replied, writing it down. Then he did some quick math, which Collins had already finished in her head.

“It’s traveling at—”

“Roughly two hundred miles per hour,” she said.

“Yep. Damn.”

Collins nodded, waiting for the next reading, which would be in about ten minutes. And it wouldn’t come from the wave the instruments just “saw”—it would come from the one that followed.

She now had the unenviable task of telling the governor of New Jersey that the typical tsunami consisted of not one wave but many, the first four being the most destructive, with each more powerful than the one before it.

Karen reached the point of Route 72 where it went over Route 9. More people heading west honked helpfully, some with the added emphasis of their middle fingers. Someone had called her a “dipshit,” another a “dumb bitch.” She was developing a very thick skin. At least the tears had stopped. For now.

As the Causeway came into view, so did the military vehicles. They were clustered at the base, and Karen could see the men in their camouflage uniforms and jackboots directing traffic. These were not the local police, she knew—these were hard men, men in peak physical condition who kept their heads shaved and purposely forgot how to smile. They were not beer-bellied morons. They wouldn’t wave their hands and yell. They would resort to more effective methods. They were trained to Get Things Done.

As she drew closer, she noticed some of them were holding rifles. She didn’t know one model from the next, but they looked exactly like the ones the Secret Service brought out when they surrounded the White House during the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Those, she remembered from the news reports, were semi-automatics. Clearly it was the weapon of choice among the authorities. And that was very likely because, like the people who used it, it Got Things Done.

Would they really shoot a defenseless woman?

She decided not to find out. The first man to spot her stood in the center of the lane and came forward with his hand up. The butt of his rifle bore a hook that ran around his elbow. His face was devoid of expression, his eyes locking onto her through the windshield. His body language spoke volumes—there was no room for negotiation here. You were being ordered to stop, so you stopped. Veering off the road like Burt Reynolds in
Smokey and the Bandit
wasn’t an option this time.

She came to a halt a few feet from him, and he came around to the side. A fire truck, its lights swirling madly and its horns bellowing, zoomed by.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, no cars are allowed through except emergency vehicles and military transports. You’ll have to turn around.”