THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (24 page)

Captain
Abdullah Shamir was in his cabin when Hammel returned from the warehouse. He was relaxing, preparing to retire for the night. Hammel insisted on coming in and, after a moment’s hesitation, the Captain reluctantly agreed.

“I need you to transfer me to the
R
ê
ve de Chantal
,” Hammel informed him. “She came in from Marseilles this morning.”

Captain Abdullah walked over to his refrigerator and removed a Fanta. He popped the cap off using the handle of the fridge, and the orange soda fizzed and fizzled over the lip of the glass bottle. The cap rolled somewhere out of sight.

A small triumphant feeling overcame him. The Captain had been “asked” to add the mysterious Algerian to his active seamen’s roster, “asked” to ship the Venieri bulldozer, and “asked” to let the Algerian go ashore in Arrecife. As a faithful Muslim, he had taken the request most seriously. Captain Abdullah knew the fate of those who refused the Algerian Islamic fundamentalists.
But, now, he was more than
eager to get rid of Ali Hammel.

There was something terribly unnerving about the Berber.
He wasn’t particularly tall. He wasn’t particularly strong. He was, well . . . ordinary. Until you looked into his eyes. Then a palpable fear took hold.
It was difficult to describe. His eyes were vacuous, bereft of feeling, of the compassion that made one human. Soulless, somehow.

One time, years before, Captain Abdullah had taken his nephews to the zoo outside Algiers, and they had come across a large gorilla with the same discomforting expression. The animal had looked at them with understanding, with a sentient appraisal, but somehow empty, too
–
a spiritual castaway.

The Chief Steward called the Algerian bewitched, a
marabout
of the shadows. Yet he went out of his way to curry favor with him, cooking him special meals, and leaving them outside the Algerian’s fo’c’s’le every evening after Hammel got off his watch. Ali Hammel never ate with the other men. In fact, some wondered if he ate at all, for his plates seemed no less heaped with food the following morning. All this was known to Captain Abdullah. But how to get him off the ship? “It will not be easy,” he said at last.

“I didn’t think it would be,” Hammel replied.

The Captain took another swig of his Fanta and sat down at the table. “The only reason a man’s excused from duty is in the case of illness, or personal tragedy. Then, he might transfer to another ship, like the
R
ê
ve de Chantal
, in the hopes of reaching homeward passage. It is a courtesy, no matter what the shipping line. It’s understood. But isn’t the
R
ê
ve
bound for New York?”

“It will be easier for me to find passage there,” Hammel said. “Back to Algiers. What kind of illness?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Appendicitis. A case of fever, perhaps, but they would see right through that; you have no temperature. No. Something else,” the Captain said. “An injury. Some kind of incapacitating fall. A concussion, or a break.” He shrugged. “It is unfortunate you have to leave so soon. You’d like Brazil.”

Ali Hammel walked over to the Captain’s refrigerator, and slipped his foot into the crack between the metal siding and the scuffed Formica counter, as if he were rooting around for something that had fallen in between.

“Everybody does,” Captain Abdullah said. “The weather is beautiful this time of year. The food is wonderful, and cheap. And the women . . . ”

With a smile that lingered in the Captain’s head for weeks, the Algerian threw himself to the floor, across his own leg. There was a sickening
snap
as his knee popped out of place. The Captain leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over.

Hammel pushed himself slowly off the ground, using his forearms, trying to get up. He looked behind him. His right foot remained upright in the crack, while his body had turned completely over. He lay on his stomach. Pain contorted his face but he did not say a word. He did not utter a sound even as he twisted himself around, carefully, back onto his back, and removed his foot from between the refrigerator and the counter. It plopped out like a wounded fish onto the floor. The Captain looked down at the Algerian’s right knee. It was already swelling. It was already bubbling in his pants.

“An injury,” Hammel hissed through his front teeth, trying to control their chattering. He was going into shock. He pointed down. “Like this?”

Monday, January 31 – 9:27 AM

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

It took Decker a little over four hours to make the drive from New York to Falmouth, Massachusetts, on the Bruckner to I-95, and then east along 195 toward that little spit of land called Devil’s Foot, which juts out from the bottom of Cape Cod. As he approached the harbor, he noticed Martha’s Vineyard lying to the south, like a pearl gray shawl across the bright Atlantic. It was a beautiful winter day, cold and crisp, blown south and east from Manitoba and Ontario, from the arctic wastelands of the north.

By the time Decker entered Falmouth it was almost noon. He traveled south along the coast road until Clearview Avenue; until he saw the mailbox leaning inbetween a pair of stunted hemlocks to the left; the number six, in bright metallic tape; and, finally, turned and snaked his way along the long black gravel driveway leading to the bay.

A rambling white Cape Cod with pale blue shutters was perched on a rocky promontory overlooking the Atlantic and Falmouth Harbor, only two hundred yards from the shoreline. The lawn in front of the house was yellowed and studded with stone. The place looked deserted.

No one answered when Decker crossed the porch and rang the doorbell. Then he noticed the door. It was slightly ajar. He poked his head in, saying, “Hello. Hello, Dr. White?” He stepped inside. Someone else was in the house. He could hear them. “Hello?” he repeated. He had a sudden premonition that he was being watched. Then he saw a young woman in the next room – reflected in a pre-Revolutionary convex mirror – look up and catch his face, and stop, and slowly turn.

Despite the bulky sweatshirt, despite the way her long blond hair was pinned up in a frumpy bun, despite her apparent aversion to any sort of makeup, the woman was absolutely stunning. She had bright, cerulean eyes, full lips, high cheekbones and the most delicate of noses. As a rule, Decker didn’t find blondes particularly attractive, but he caught himself staring at her unconsciously. She had disarmed him. It was rare to see a woman who was both beautiful
and
sexy. She could have been a model. No, a movie star, or . . . “I’m sorry,” he said. He took another step, stopped, looked about self-consciously, and added, “I’m here to see Dr. James L. White.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

She wore a pair of light blue jeans, he noticed. Very tight. And what looked like off-white Converse sneakers. “My name is Decker. John Decker, Jr. I’m with the FBI.”

For a moment, the woman looked startled. Fear swept across her face, like a sudden squall at sea. Then she collected herself. “The FBI,” she repeated nonchalantly. “Is something wrong?”

Decker smiled. He was used to this reaction. People often overcompensated. “No, nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I just have a few questions for Dr. White. Know where I might find him?”

She shook her head. Her neck was long, like that of a Balanchine dancer, and she wore a pair of tiny gold studs in her ears that twinkled as she moved. She was at least five feet ten inches, or taller – almost as tall as he was. “I’m afraid not,” she said. Then she thrust her hand out. “Hi, I’m Emily Swenson. I’m afraid James – I mean, Dr. White – is on a leave of absence. I’m looking for him too.”

For a moment she didn’t reply. Then she looked down at the floor and said, “It’s cancer, I’m afraid. Terminal. What’s this about?”

“I understand Dr. White is a highly respected expert on tsunamis. World-renowned,” said Decker. “I have a few questions that I thought he might help me with. When I called his office, the department secretary told me I might find him here, at home, but . . . ” His voice trailed off.

Swenson stared impassively at his face. Then, after a moment, she said, “That’s my field of study too. Dr. White’s my thesis advisor. Maybe I can help you.”

Swenson raised an eyebrow. “Tides are moon-made, Agent Decker,” she replied. “Tsunamis are earth-generated. Mega-tsunamis are formed when an entire mountain – or mountain range – collapses into the sea, usually due to seismic activity. Unlike regular tsunamis, which may be ten to fifteen meters tall and a few dozen meters long, mega-tsunamis can be hundreds, up to five hundred meters tall – or more – and hundreds of kilometers in length.”

Decker did the calculation in his head. That was a wave taller than the Empire State Building. It was incredible. “I had no idea,” he said.

“Most people don’t,” said Swenson. “And why should they? Mega-tsunamis are rare, occurring naturally every few thousand years. Here, let me show you.” She motioned toward him and disappeared into another room at the far end of the living room. It appeared to be a library or study. A pair of large bay windows overlooked the open sea.

Swenson slipped behind an antique walnut desk in the far corner, and started to peck away at a PC. “This is a computer-generated simulation,” she continued, not even looking up. She moved the mouse. She clicked. “It’s based on a model Dr. White’s been working on, the same as the one on your paper. Take a look.” She swung the monitor around. Decker sat down by the desk.

The screen featured a top-down view of the Atlantic. The animated image gradually descended until it focused on a chain of islands off the coast of northwest Africa. Then, the perspective shifted. It fell to earth, swung low across the waves, like a sea bird, and approached a solitary island at a startling speed.

The island grew larger and larger until it took up the entire screen, and Decker could see volcanic peaks, smoking and spewing steam, when a rent materialized along the seaward side. The entire western flank of the island tore away. The mass of rock and stone and forest and meadow and town and road began to slither toward the sea. As the crustal layer ripped apart, the landmass picked up speed. The entire island seemed to split in half, with one side sliding with a mighty crash into the ocean.

The splash gathered momentum: a spike, then, rising higher, a bell-shaped dome, slate gray, blue, and finally frothy white. It rose and rose and rose, dwarfing the remaining peaks, still standing mist-enshrouded, still still, intact, and strangely static, perched on the footstool of the island.

The camera angle of the animation gradually ascended, drawing him higher and higher into the air, in tandem with the splash. The bell-shaped mass crowned like a flower, bloomed, then mushroomed skyward, only to turn at last, and fall back on itself. The water plunged. The dome collapsed, spreading out in all directions, rippling the surface of the ocean like the upturned edges of a giant saucer, growing ever larger by the second. The perspective kept ascending, until Decker was looking at the entire Atlantic once again, from Africa to the Americas. The wave was visible even from this vantage point above the planet’s atmosphere. The eastern edge slammed up against the coast of Africa. He watched the western flank arc out across the vast expanse, like the drawing of a great bow on the surface of the sea.

“This is obviously stop-action animation,” Swenson said. “A mega-tsunami of this magnitude would take between six and seven hours – at the speed of a jet plane – to sweep across the Atlantic.” As she spoke, Decker watched the wave overcome the Caribbean, then Maine and Massachusetts in the north, as far south as Sao Luis and Rio in Brazil.

“Even this far from the hypocenter,” Swenson continued, “the wave would be as much as twenty stories high, or higher. But it wouldn’t collapse at landfall. Unlike tsunamis, mega-tsunamis don’t shoal up when they encounter shallow waters. The wave would continue across the coastal plain, up river mouths, for twenty kilometers, or more.”

Decker watched the water wipe away the east coast of the USA.

“Everything within the flood zone would be utterly destroyed,” she added. “From Cape Breton to Key West, each town and every city. More than forty million people would perish, thirteen percent of the U.S. population. And hundreds of millions would be injured, one out of every three Americans. It would cause trillions of dollars in damage. The entire U.S. economy would be disrupted for years, if not permanently crippled.”

The animation concluded and the file closed automatically. Decker stared at the folder for a moment longer. He was having a hard time digesting the scope of such a cataclysm.
The mind turns off after a few hundred deaths
.
Forty million is simply inconceivable, unprocessable
. He turned and looked at Swenson. She was sitting calmly behind Dr. White’s desk.