December 26th, 2004. Phuket. Airport
Jack was a nervous wreck. What was Mina doing? He should have driven back to Patong beach to pick her up. His mother was asleep and Jen was stroking her head. Her eyes seemed vacant. They were still traumatised from their recent misadventures and Jack knew he’d have to find them some help when they got back to the States. Normal people don’t get over kidnappings in a matter of moments. He was still amazed at Mina’s resilience after all her ordeals at the hands of Wheatley. Maybe it was hatred for the man that kept her from collapsing. What was she doing? They couldn’t wait that much longer, it was almost 7:30 and they had already missed one flight to Bangkok. He’d called her mobile phone many times and she’d never answered. He hoped she’d forgotten it in their room and that nothing more sinister had happened. After switching off his phone for the the tenth time to avoid being traced, he turned it on again and this time noticed he had a text message. He opened it and immediately wished he hadn’t.
I have Mina. Same deal. Meet me 9am. Patong Beach. Chiang Mai Restaurant.
Don’t forget the photograph.
Jack wanted to hurl his phone against the wall.
‘I knew it,’ Jack said out loud. ‘I should’ve gone back to the bungalow.’
He looked at his mother and sister, and made up his mind in an instant.
‘Mum, Jen, I’m putting you on the first plane to Bangkok. I’ve also organised your connecting flight back home.’
‘But Jack, what are you going to do? Where’s Mina?’ asked Jen tearfully.
‘You have a two hour gap between the arrival in Bangkok and your departure for the US. I have to stay here until Mina arrives.’
‘We’ll wait with you Jack,’ she answered.
‘No Jen. You must go. It’s all arranged. You’ll land in Phili.
Uncle Frankie will pick you up. Mina and I will see you when we get back home. We’ll be fine.’
One look at her stubborn brother left her defeated. Jen took her mother’s arm and they walked briskly, passports in hand, to the departure zone. He stood there for a few more seconds, watching them go and then rushed out of the hall. On his way out he placed a few personal belongings, including his laptop, into a locker, but kept his small rucksack and the fake photograph of the tablet, which he placed in an envelope. He jumped into a cab and offered the driver triple the fare to get to Patong beach as fast as he could. He drove like a madman through the countryside and Jack arrived on Patong beach just before 8:00 a.m.
As he paid the driver the agreed fare, Jack heard his stomach growling. He realised he hadn’t eaten since dinner the day before. He noticed a Starbucks cafe on the beach and decided to grab coffee and some food, as he still had one hour to go. As Jack pushed the door open, he suddenly felt sick, as if all his insides had been turned upside down. A powerful tremor had shaken the cafe and the people sitting inside had felt the sharp rocking motion too.
They all looked at each other in surprise. Three American kids huddled around their parents, started screaming. The parents tried reassuring them, but they seemed as apprehensive as their children. They quickly ordered a few mango smoothies to distract their children, which seemed to work momentarily.
Two young Swedish men were having breakfast with an Israeli couple. The group’s diving gear was scattered all over the floor. Markus, one of the Swedes, a tall blond hulk with a bronze tan, turned to the others excitedly:
‘Did you feel that, guys?’
‘Yeah, that was a close one! Maybe we shouldn’t go diving after all?’ the Israeli girl wondered.
‘Don’t tell me you’re scared, Irit?’ her boyfriend asked her.
‘Irit? Scared of anything?’ Markus laughed.
‘What about you Stieg?’ she asked the Swede, ‘are you afraid?’
‘No, dude. I don’t feel anything anymore so it must’ve been pretty far away. Let’s go!’
Jack’s hands were trembling. He sat down, his hands on his thighs as he breathed in deeply. ‘It’s the earthquake!’ he thought. ‘It was true after all.’
But at least it meant that the earthquake was over now, and regardless of what it had caused in another country or island in the Indian Ocean, Thailand was now safe. ‘It’s over. Now I can focus on dealing with that Wheatley bastard.’
He thought about the restaurant, Chiang Mai. It was a swish restaurant on the sea front and not very far from where he was. It was a slightly elevated building, isolated from bungalows and guest houses by a dense row of coconut trees. It had a good view of the beach and the seafront. As Wheatley was obviously a megalomaniac, Jack guessed he’d probably have booked the entire restaurant to avoid any witnesses. He caught sight of a local boy he’d seen hanging around the hotel the other day. He called him over.
‘Hi! You remember me?’ asked Jack.
‘Yes Sir, I carried your luggage.’
‘Ah. Of course you did. What’s your name again?’
‘Noi, sir.’
‘Noi, I’m Jack. Could you do another small errand for me? I’ll pay you well.’
The boy’s eager eyes widened in anticipation, ‘Yes Sir, no problem, Sir!’
‘OK. I have a meeting at the Chiang Mai restaurant at nine, and I want you to wait for me here with this bag,’ Jack said, handing him his rucksack. ‘When I phone you, you come to the restaurant with the bag.’
‘That’s all sir?’
‘Yes. I’ll need your phone number and here’s half the cash,’ he said, giving him $40.
Patong Beach. Chiang Mai Restaurant
Oberon Wheatley and Natasha Mastrani were having tea on the outdoor terrace of the Chiang Mai restaurant. Oberon was reading a newspaper and Natasha was checking emails on her laptop when they felt the earthquake. Within minutes he had received fifteen emails on his blackberry from various researchers and his centre in Mumbai. But none of them satisfied his hunger for explanations.
‘Information,’ he thought, ‘I need accurate information.’
Something was nagging Wheatley, a splinter in the back of his brain; something he should be thinking of right now, but couldn’t recollect. The sky was blue and the sun was shining on his face. He stopped checking his blackberry and tried to remember this elusive fact. He placed his phone neatly on the table, at equal distance between his cup of tea and the bread basket. He had always liked space between objects to be exact; it helped him think properly. Natasha noticed, but did not comment; she liked his penchant for details and his exactitude in preparing his plans and business strategies. ‘Natasha, I’m glad we have the place for ourselves.’
‘I rented the entire restaurant for the day, Sir,’ she replied rather formally.
He smiled, seeming pleased with himself. ‘I presume, my dear, that our friend Jack didn’t sleep much last night?’
‘I guess. Waiting to contact him until the late morning was a nice idea,’ she replied.
He looked at her for a moment and could not decide if he enjoyed her flattery or found it irritating.
‘Is our lovely Miss Osman still asleep?’
‘Yes sir. I’m sorry.’
‘You had the Hillcliff women on board the yacht and you lost them. You had that little Iraqi bitch in your grasp and you drugged her up to her eyeballs!’
‘The important thing is that she didn’t have the photograph with her. She was on her way to meet Hillcliff, so it was obvious that he had it,’ she said to Oberon.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but that’s not the point. I wanted to question her about contacting NOAA. How much of the stuff did you inject her with?’
Natasha was about to answer when he suddenly felt he was on the brink of remembering the idea he was desperately searching for.
‘Sir?’ she said, breaking his chain of thought.
‘What? Damn you! I was about to remember a detail,’
‘My men have just told me that Jack Hillcliff is on his way.’
‘Ah,’ he replied, focusing his attention on the matter in hand and dismissing all other thoughts, ‘good. Go now Natasha. I’ll welcome the Major.’
Jack was in his element, now that the wheels of action had been set in motion. He looked at the boy, who returned his gaze with a reassuring air of confidence as he left the cafe. He took his time as he walked towards the meeting place, affecting an air of self-confident nonchalance. The beach crowd was a strange sight. 8:30 a.m. and the beach was already full of tourists from every country in the world; Belgians joking with Germans and Americans, the young Swedes checking their diving gear with the Israeli couple. He heard people speaking Spanish and French as he walked past the holiday-makers. Some were walking by the waterfront, others were laying down to get a back massage from a cute Thai girl. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t see many Thai people enjoying the beach. They were too busy taking care of business. He passed a few British men lying on the beach snoring. He couldn’t figure out if they were early risers who had just arrived and fallen asleep again, or if they had dropped dead drunk on the beach the night before after partying heavily.
He arrived at the Chiang Mai restaurant, a select establishment that catered for wealthy holiday-makers who enjoyed being cut off from the riffraff. Wheatley was sitting in the shade under a large parasol, flanked by two bodyguards. He saw Jack from a distance and waved to him to approach. Jack looked around the restaurant but didn’t notice any other goons. He walked straight up to the table.
‘Hello Major,’ said Oberon condescendingly, as he stood up to shake Jack’s hand ‘I’m Oberon Wheatley, but call me Oberon. I feel like we’ve known each other for years.’
‘Hi,’ replied a stone-faced Jack, keeping his hands firmly at his sides.
‘Not to worry,’ Oberon said with a large sweeping gesture of the hand, ‘there’s no-one here but us. Would you like a drink?’
‘Thanks, no. Where is Mina?’ asked Jack.
Oberon nodded to one of his bodyguards, who handed Jack a pair of binoculars.
‘If you look down the beach, right to the end, near the wall, you’ll see a small shack. She’s standing there.’
Jack took the binoculars and found the spot indicated by Oberon. He recognised Natasha standing next to Mina.
‘That’s not good enough. I want her here next to me when we do the deal,’ said Jack.
‘Hmm. Where’s the photograph? No, let me guess. You don’t have it on you but somewhere close by,’ said Oberon.
‘Correct. I’ll call someone to bring the photograph when I’m satisfied that Mina is OK.’
‘Fine,’ said Oberon.
He picked up his mobile phone and rang Natasha.
‘Bring Miss… bring Mina to the restaurant,’ then raised an eyebrow at an irritated Jack, ‘Satisfied?’
‘I’ll make the call when they’re here.’
‘Aren’t you being overly suspicious?’ asked Oberon.
Jack didn’t react to Oberon’s facetious tone. He chose to ignore him and remain businesslike. He watched Natasha and Mina walking down the beach, slowly approaching the restaurant. People on the beach weren’t paying much attention to them as they were too busy staring out to sea, watching flocks of birds seemingly gone mad, flying frantically towards the coast and then inland. Jack shuddered with a sense of foreboding but kept his thoughts to himself, especially as Wheatley and his men hadn’t noticed anything.
Hawai. NOAA, Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre
Dr Jim Carson had received the first seismic data from stations in Australia earlier in the morning. This data had immediately been forwarded to his fellow seismologists in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka with a warning of a potential tsunami. Each of them in turn had called him to confirm they’d received his tsunami warning. But he didn’t know more right now. There simply wasn’t enough data. There he was trying to coordinate information from various local centres, but it would take much more cooperation between them to be able to issue an actual tsunami warning in all confidence. He rushed down to the main desk and asked the secretary for the telephone number of the South Indian bureau, which hadn’t contacted him since he had first sent off the data. Bob Rear, the secretary, seemed very nervous and almost stuttered as he read him the number.
‘What’s wrong Bob? We’ve had other scares in the past,’ said Carson.
‘It… It… It’s not that Dr Carson.’
‘Well what is it?’
‘Someone called two days ago. I thought it was a crank call.
I’m still not sure what it was.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked impatiently.
‘A major in the US army told me he had classified information according to which an earthquake was going to occur today.’
‘Two days ago? That’s impossible.’
‘I know. I tried explaining this to him, but he hung up on me,’ Bob lied.
‘That’s a real shame. Did you get his name or his number?’ asked Carson.
‘No. He didn’t say.’
‘That’s not good enough. Bob, next time someone tells you a tsunami is about to occur, patch him through to me immediately. Maybe there is a classified military research project on earthquake detection that we are not aware of. We can’t afford to dismiss information out of hand, especially when it turns out to be correct.
‘With hindsight, I…’ Bob began.
‘Just do it next time,’ said Carson cutting him off mid-sentence.
‘I’m so sorry sir.’
Jim Carson was furious. Until five minutes ago he thought he was at the head of one the most advanced seismic detection centres in the world. But here was a secret military researcher who had somehow managed to detect an earthquake two days ahead of the event. As a seismologist he couldn’t understand how that was possible, but as a scientist he had to accept the evidence when it stared him in the face. He would make every effort to find out who had called the centre two days before and what he knew exactly.
Thailand. Patong beach. Chiang Mai restaurant.
Natasha stepped onto the terrace, pushing in front of her a dishevelled Mina, who seemed to hesitate with every step. Natasha hardly concealed her gun. Jack walked up to them.
‘Mina. Are you OK?’ he asked her.
She seemed dazed, and tearful as if she’d been drugged.
‘I’m not feeling very well,’ she murmured weakly.
He turned around to meet Oberon’s cold gaze and asked angrily, ‘What’s going on here? Did you drug her?’
Natasha took a step forward and answered for Oberon, ‘Be happy nothing worse happened to her. She’s been so out of it, I haven’t even had the opportunity to have her raped.’
Jack turned around to face Natasha, brimming with barely restrained anger.
‘I should’ve dealt with you on the yacht last night,’ he spat.
‘You should have, big boy,’ she answered, keeping a safe distance between her and Jack.
Oberon was enjoying this banter but he had more pressing things on his mind.
‘Don’t you have a call to make?’ asked Oberon.
Jack dialled Noi’s number.
‘Hi there.’
‘Hello sir. Do you want me to come now?’
‘Yes. Don’t forget the bag.’
‘I’m coming,’ the boy answered and hung up.
‘It’s on its way’ Jack said to Oberon.
‘Good,’ Oberon replied. He turned to Natasha. ‘What’s going on out there? What are all those people looking at?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ she answered looking through the binoculars, ‘the water’s edge, which is normally right up close to the promenade has receded far out to sea. There was some frothing and bubbling, but most people don’t seem to be particularly bothered. The locals seem to be focused on trying to catch fish trapped in the remaining pockets of water.’
‘How strange,’ said Oberon, feeling a shiver run down his spine.
Jack threw another cursory glance at the people on the shore, and turned pale as he realised what Natasha had just said. The frothing of the water and the sea suddenly receding had to be linked to an earthquake. Was it linked to the earlier tremor, or a sign of another one to come? They all looked at each other as the wind suddenly changed, and more birds, this time by the thousand flew inland. A rumbling sound like thunder seemed to roar from a distant place and the volume steadily grew. A number of people on the beach looked up for helicopters or airplanes, but the blue sky was as beautiful as it was empty.
The young boy Jack had called arrived at the restaurant. Oberon stood up to greet him. But Jack was quicker, and pulled him aside next to Mina. He stood in front of them. Before Wheatley had time to pull out his gun, Jack had kicked Natasha’s gun out of her hand, pulled a sharp knife from his pocket and grabbed Natasha by the throat from behind.
‘Leave that gun where it is,’ Jack ordered Wheatley.
Oberon looked at him with disdain. ‘You have what you want. Give me the photograph.’
‘Pass me the rucksack Noi,’ said Jack to the terrified boy.
Noi handed him the small rucksack. Jack threw it over to Wheatley, still holding Natasha at knifepoint. She knew better than to move a muscle, Jack was not a man to be trifled with. One of Wheatley’s men picked up the rucksack, opened it, and took out an envelope, which he handed to him.
Oberon feverishly opened the envelope and pulled out the photograph. He examined it and seemed satisfied. He put it back into the rucksack, which he slung over his shoulder.
‘I had planned a very different ending to this meeting. I don’t think you fully understand who you are dealing with, Major Hillcliff.’ Wheatley levelled his gun at Natasha’s head. ‘I’m sorry my dear,’ he said.
‘Mr W… Oberon, please!’ pleaded Natasha, all her usual composure gone.
Oberon hesitated for just an instant. He lowered his gun a fraction but then he aimed and fired. Natasha was hit straight between the eyes and crumpled to the floor.
‘She’s out of the picture now, so what are you going to do with your little steak knife?’ he taunted Jack, aiming his gun at Mina. He raised his gun, ready to shoot, but unexpectedly faltered. That nagging thought had finally struck him, it all made sense: Jack calling NOAA and warning about an earthquake, the tremors earlier on, the birds flying inland, the water receding far out at sea, the frothing and bubbling, the thundering noise that had steadily been increasing and was now deafening. Oberon spun around and saw it. His facial expression turned to one of absolute terror. A huge, grey wall of water was advancing at an unimaginable speed towards the shore. It changed appearance as it approached, seeming both to slow down and grow in strength, shiny green then deep blue. By then everyone had turned to face the shore and stood in frozen horror, at the sight of this awesome wave racing towards them. The tsunami was moving at almost 100 metres per second and although it was slowing down as it approached the coastline, its height was growing to something like ten metres.
By the time Jack screamed ‘tsunami!’ the wave had already hit the beach and enveloped hundreds of people. Nothing could slow down its progress. It devoured everything in its path; deck chairs, people, whatever stood in against it. Then the restaurant was hit. Windows exploded inwards under the terrible pressure of the wave and the chairs, tables, even the platform on which the restaurant was built, were swept up in a single whirl.
Jack and Mina were swallowed by the wave and dragged a block inland in a matter of seconds. Somehow they had managed to hang on to each other as the water hit and Jack grabbed hold of a metal railing set in a hotel’s concrete outdoor terrace, which they were now clinging on to desperately. He held fast, with every muscle in his body screaming from the effort. As they fought to keep their heads above the torrent, all sorts of floating debris passed in front of them in the current. It lasted less than fifteen minutes but it felt like an eternity. Jack had seen Wheatley and his men vanish in a tangle of tables and chairs, some of them smashing against a line of coconut trees. He looked for Noi in every direction but couldn’t see him, they’d been separated when the wave had first hit. Finally the wave seemed to have run its course. Jack felt his strength leaving him, he couldn’t hold on much longer. Suddenly he felt Mina’s grasp slacken, her head slipped beneath the water and her eyes were closed.
‘Mina! Please! Mina, wake up!’
In the distance, a young Asian man with a baby on his shoulders was frantically trying to tie himself to a palm tree. Closer to Jack, a German couple in their colourful shorts and monastic sandals, were helping one another scramble up to safety onto the balcony of a newly built hotel which, incredibly, had withstood the wave. The room was on the first floor, facing the beach. It was an absurd scene as the man stepped onto the nose of a speed boat which had somehow been thrown into the lounge area of the hotel, and was protruding from its side. His companion was pulling herself up to the balcony.
Mina stirred against Jack and looked at her lover’s face, covered in cuts and bruises. She tried standing on her own, as Jack seemed at the end of his tether. She had just found her footing when something smashed into them and pushed her under water again. She could feel an object pushing into her back as she pushed up to the surface, trying to catch her breath. She turned around and a scream bubbled up in her throat — a woman’s corpse, pressing into her. Her head was bent at a hideous angle and her long black hair floated on the water’s surface like an old rag. A sudden current wrenched the body to one side and Mina caught sight of the woman’s face. She had the most beautiful chiselled Eurasian features, high cheekbones and almost transparent skin. Faced with the wanton destruction of such beauty the scale of what had occurred hit her and Mina burst into tears. Jack was also horrified; the surrounding desolation was beyond comprehension but he would not, could not, break down. Would he have to carry Mina on his back? She was really struggling. He would have to keep life and limb together for them both. The beautiful corpse was finally swept away by the fast moving current.
Mina was sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Jack, I can’t go on. I’m sorry!’
‘You must, Mina, one last effort.’
‘It’s too much,’ she whispered.
‘Mina, we can’t stop now. I think the waters are receding but we still need to get to higher ground, fast.’
Sweeping the scene quickly, he noticed a few buildings not too far away. He suddenly recognised Noi, who was screaming to catch their attention. He waved to acknowledge he’d seen him and realised that the young boy had been lucky enough to land on a sturdily built hotel, with a high, flat concrete roof roughly forty metres away. If only they could reach it without losing their footing in the dark water they might just be out of danger, and would have time to assess their injuries.
They pushed hard, feeling submerged objects scratching and cutting their bodies under the water, as they moved through the path of the dissipating wave. The level of the water seemed to be dropping. They were almost there. Noi was on his knees and stretched out his hand for Mina to grasp. Just as their hands touched, Jack felt a sudden shift in the current of the water. By the time he realised what was happening it was too late. He gave Mina a shove in Noi’s direction and the boy caught her and pulled her clumsily onto the landing.
Mina had also felt the change in the water and turned back to grab Jack, but it was too late — with an immensely powerful sucking force the waters, receded all at once to the sea. Jack was wrenched from them with an irresistible force and dragged back. He screamed at Mina to stay put. She screamed his name. Noi tried to restrain her, but she had already jumped down into the puddles and mud left by the fast-receding wave. She thought she could see Jack’s head bobbing about, far away. She set off as fast as she could, trying to avoid the debris, upturned cars, smashed furniture with jagged edges that littered the way back to the shore. She barely noticed the snakes slithering rapidly down into the surrounding chaos.
‘It’s over,’ Mina thought to herself. ‘The wave has come and gone.’ She shivered and pressed forward, desperately looking for any sign of Jack. Her progress was slow but she managed to keep close to a row of trees that were still standing. It seemed hard to believe that the trees could withstand God’s wrath but so many man-made constructions had not.
When she came across mangled bodies, she looked away. Many people had perished but many had also survived, albeit in terrible conditions. She noticed a middle-aged couple hugging a young girl who was in a state of shock, bleeding from a large gash in her forehead. She walked on. ‘Where are you Jack?’ she thought, as tears streamed down her battered face.
She finally arrived at the point where she thought she’d last seen Jack when he’d been washed out to sea. But he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, a deep rumbling sound engulfed her. It was much louder than the previous wave. She froze. Was it an earthquake? But as she turned to the shore she saw to her horror a second, huge wave returning with a vengeance. It was mightier than the first and was crushing anything that had been left standing. She frantically tried climbing up one of the trees, but her shoes kept slipping off the wet bark and then it hit, blue oblivion. It ripped Mina like a rag doll from the tree she was holding on to with her last strength, and swept her into the road.
The second wave had carried Jack like a cork back towards the shore, much farther this time, two blocks inland. He was unable to move left or right, pressed and paralysed by the ferocious current that was pinning him against the wall. Stricken with horror, he watched as a huge Coca-Cola lorry was washed away sideways like a matchbox toy and literally crushed on the hotel’s outside wall, just a few paces from where he was trapped.
Mustering his strength, he clawed his way back around the side of the building, inch by inch, to avoid being taken further inland by the current. He heard high-pitched screams nearby. As he turned the corner, he saw them: two boys, one about fifteen and the other around ten. They were stuck by the hotel entrance, screaming for help. Two mangled motorboats, which had been sucked in by the force of the tsunami were hurtling towards them. Jack calculated that if he could let go of the railing and let himself be taken by the current he might just get close enough to help the boys. A torn volleyball net was entangled in what was left of the entrance to the hotel. The free end of the net was thrashing about in the water. He jumped forward, and was immediately taken by the current with tremendous force. He had just a few seconds to reach out for the net. He caught it and pulled himself forwards to the hotel entrance. He felt one of his fingernails rip as he made one last lunge towards the boys and yelled at them to join him. The older one did but the younger was frozen in panic. Jack pulled the elder one around the corner and safely into the restaurant. ‘Climb the stairs and go as high as you can’ he barked at the terrified youth. He saw the smashed boats arriving at full throttle. He reached out, searching for the younger boy’s hand and yanked him towards him. They struggled around the corner together and the young boy managed to get in and run to the stairwell. Jack wasn’t so lucky. He had managed to avoid the thunderous crash of boats into the hotel lobby, but a huge splinter of carbon fibre from the smashed hull had pierced his right thigh.
The two boys huddled on the roof, watched their saviour’s body drop back into the waters as he passed out from the pain. That was the last they saw of him, as he was carried away by the wave. They could see other people vainly trying to swim in the debris but being cut to pieces by all manner of sharp objects and shards of glass from smashed car windscreens and hotel windows. The two boys looked at each other as surviving soldiers do after a raging battle, without feelings, but with the palpable relief that life was still pumping through their veins.