Wave (23 page)

He did need to make a call to Chief Garrett to see what was going on. This led him back into his office, where he picked up the phone and began dialing. Then he heard the front door open again. His first thought was that Marie had forgotten something, some personal item. Art would be pissed. Harper didn’t know him that well, but he knew the man had a short fuse. He was one of those bulky waterfront guys with the broad, three-step nose and sweaty crew cut.

He put the phone back in its cradle and went out. If he listed the one hundred people he thought were most likely to show up at this moment, Tom Wilson wouldn’t be on it. He wouldn’t be on any list of people Harper thought he was likely to see, except perhaps in court. Elliot Davis was trailing close behind him, looking sheepish and uncomfortable.

“What are you doing here, Tom?” Harper asked. It came out quite pleasantly considering the emotions behind it. It was the political training, he thought.

Wilson, as nervous as a fifth-grader giving an oral report, said, “We saw you on MSNBC.”

“How’d I do?”

Wilson jabbed his forefinger at him like a parent scolding a naughty child. “What I want to know is what the hell you think you’re doing.”

Harper acknowledged the finger and Wilson’s reddening face and couldn’t help but smile.

“The finger, Tom—what bad form.”

“This man right here,” Wilson went on, now pointing the finger at Davis, who jerked back as though it were a loaded handgun, “should have been there. He’s the one who should be speaking for LBI, not you. Your time is up.”

Harper put his hands in his pockets and began rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Oh, really? Well, that’s fine with me. In fact I have to call MSNBC’s Adela Callendar back in a little bit. Would you like to do it instead, Elliot? There shouldn’t be any more than, oh, two or three million people watching the broadcast. You’re more than welcome. How about it?”

“Well, I…I guess I could.”

“In fact, someone needs to call Chief Garrett, too. Would you care to do it?” He walked back to his desk, picked up the phone, and tapped in the number. In the meantime Davis checked his watch and glanced out the window.

“Len? It’s Don. Hi, hi. So what’s going on? Oh, okay…I see. Well, hang on a sec.”

He covered the mouthpiece and said, “Elliot, there’s a school bus broken down on Ocean Boulevard between Lillie and Texas. Twenty-nine kids on board. What do you suggest they do?”

Davis’s eyes moved around crazily as he searched for an answer. “Well, you could…I mean, I suppose what you could do is, um….”

“You can’t suppose at a time like this, Elliot. They need a decision.”

“Well….”

Harper leaned forward slightly, eyebrows raised, “Yes?”

Davis threw his hands up. “Christ, I have no idea. How the hell should I know?”

Harper brought the phone back to his ear. “Len, a group of military helicopters are due to land at one of the pickup points on the beach a few blocks down from there, by Louisiana Avenue. Have them begin taking those children out as soon as they get there. The kids get priority over the adults, on my order. If anyone tries to weasel their way ahead of them, forcibly remove them.”

He put the phone back in its cradle and slowly came forward. The smile was suddenly gone.

“This isn’t a game, Elliot. There are real people out there, trying to get off this island before a wall of water like nothing we’ve ever seen comes and wipes it clean. Some of them won’t make it, no matter how hard we try or how fast we move. People are going to die before the day is over. This isn’t a figure written into one of your bank ledgers that you can erase. This is real. If you can’t handle it—if you can’t handle that kind of pressure—then you’re the one who shouldn’t be here. You’re the one who shouldn’t be trying to get into this job, because it’s times like this when leadership matters the most. The phone call I just made was part of the routine. It wasn’t a big deal, just routine. Finding solutions, making decisions—that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about making speeches and shaking hands and getting the best tables in restaurants. It’s about rising to the occasion when things aren’t going well.”

He was no more than two feet from Davis, and the latter was flushed and sweaty, regarding Harper nervously.

“Now, do you want the job? If so, it’s all yours. This is your big chance.” He picked up the phone on Marie’s desk and held it out. “MSNBC is waiting for a call. They’ll want an update on what’s going on. After that you’ll need to talk to Garrett again, then the National Guard, the governor, and maybe the White House. How about it? Can you handle it?”

Wilson watched the exchange with wide-eyed fascination.

“I…I….”

“Come on, Elliot. You want to talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.” Suddenly, Harper smiled again. “Oh, and did I mention that a good captain always goes down with his ship?”

At first it looked like Davis had fallen off the edge of Marie’s desk because he was leaning back so far. But then he scrambled to his feet and rushed out without another word, pushing the glass door out of his way while his tie flapped crazily over his shoulder.

Harper straightened his posture, put his hands on his hips, and said, “That was the best guy you could find, Tom?” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

Wilson, who looked like his dog had just been run over, turned without a word and headed toward the same doors through which his protégé had just escaped. Before he reached them, however, Harper said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“What?”

“I’ve got no secretary, and I can’t do all this by myself. Get on a telephone.”

Wilson paused, looked away, then looked back. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m goddamned serious!” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the phone. “I need you to get Governor Mayfield on the line for me.”

“But I…I was going to—”

“I forgive you, okay? Now get to it!”

Harper unleashed that smile again—the smile that could charm a dying man out of his last heartbeat, the smile that could stop a child from crying. And, perhaps most importantly, the smile that had inspired thousands of voters to leave their homes, drive to the polls, and give this man their unswerving support. The last of Wilson’s defenses fell away.

“Anything I can do, Don.”

Karen was outside her car now, leaning against the door with her arms crossed.

Her neck was sore—sore from looking down at her watch. It was a cheap job she’d bought from a street vendor during her last jaunt to Manhattan. The “gold” would surely fade over time. She got it to wear at the office, nowhere else. Clothes, accessories, anything that went to work fell into the category of “good looking but cheap.” You didn’t go crazy spending money on work stuff because you weren’t being judged on your appearance. You didn’t get a raise or a promotion based on the manufacturer of your handbag or how much money was spent on your last haircut. At least not with her job. She was frankly surprised the watch still worked and even looked pretty decent. It couldn’t have been more than ten bucks.

She knew how much time was left. She probably knew better than anyone. The radio was on, tuned to NJN. They were giving the most sensible, most useful updates. They were in direct contact with the Rutgers people at the Tuckerton marine station and were getting up-to-the-minute reports on the tsunami’s progress.

She also knew exactly how much time had passed since Corporal Moreland had spoken to the Long Beach police dispatcher—twenty-four minutes. Almost a half hour. Time was being wasted here. There was only about an hour left, so why hadn’t they heard anything?
What the hell is going on?

She made a decision at that moment that she would stick to more firmly and with greater conviction than any other in her life—the time for bullshitting was over. She’d been more than patient. Much more. It was time to take the matter into her own hands.

It was time to go get her boys.

She marched over to where Moreland was standing, his back turned as he watched his sergeant continue his traffic-flow duties. By the order of Mayor Harper, every “traffic director” along the evac route held up a large sign that said, “DO NOT STOP FOR ANY REASON. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.” Moreland’s sergeant actually smiled when the order came over the radio. His nerves were as brittle as kindling, and he was sure he was going to shoot someone sooner or later. The combination of the sign and his naturally intimidating appearance—further enhanced by the addition of mirror sunglasses that looked like a prop from a Sylvester Stallone movie—seemed to be working. The traffic was moving more briskly than it had all day.

Karen tapped Moreland on the shoulder. He spun around instantly, as if spring-loaded.

“Yes?”

“It’s been almost a half hour,” she said, tapping her watch. “I need to know what’s happening.”

“Ma’am, I—”

“No more of that ‘ma’am’ shit, Corporal. Are you going to call again? Right now?”

Moreland glanced back at his sergeant briefly, hoping he might get involved and throw him a lifeline. No such luck.

He took the phone from his belt and said, “Yes, I’ll call them right now.”

He hit “REDIAL” and brought the phone to his head.

“Yes, is this the dispatcher? This is Corporal Moreland again, on the western side of the Causeway. I called about twenty-five minutes ago concer—what? Can you repeat that? Okay, I see. Thank you.” He returned the phone to his belt.

“Well?”

“They haven’t heard from the officer who was sent over there. They’ve tried his radio multiple times but received no res—”

Karen walked away from him, toward the car. Then she stopped, turned, and came back.

“I’m getting in my car and going over that bridge. I’m not wasting another second while my kids are over there.”

Moreland started to say something, but Karen cut him off before the first syllable by putting a hand up. “You want to try to stop me? Go ahead. But you’ll have to use force, because nothing short of that is going to stop me from finding my boys.”

She started to walk away again, then turned back one more time and looked him square in the eyes. “If you have any balls at all, you’ll radio your friends on the other side and tell them to let me pass.”

She pivoted for the last time, got into the car, and gunned the engine, spraying dirt and gravel into the nodding weeds. The tires hit the pavement with a squeal.

Moreland never took his eyes off her. He didn’t reach for his rifle, he didn’t call for his sergeant. He just watched her. And when she was just about to the top of the bridge, he got out his walkie-talkie and told his counterpart on the other side that a woman in a gray Maxima was headed his way, and that he should only stop her if he didn’t have enough trouble already.

For
awhile BethAnn thought Lady Luck was—for once—on her side. Was it possible, on this day of all days, that there was no traffic? Had they actually managed to get everyone off the island already? It was eerie, like a post-apocalyptic scenario—the clear blue sky, the wind blowing sand and bits of trash around the streets, but no signs of life. A few cars here and there, doors and windows left open, but no people. Not even a lone dog or cat. Very creepy.

Then, toward the northern end of Beach Haven where Bay Avenue becomes Long Beach Boulevard, the rear of the traffic line came into view. The brake lights of the very last car, a powder-blue Dodge Dart that was new when Nixon was President, were glowing like rubies.

She came up to it fast and stopped about three inches from the bumper. The driver was barely visible—just a cloud of hair and two sets of knobby knuckles on the steering wheel.

Another grandma.

She wondered briefly if this was God’s way of paying her back for leaving Ms. Foster behind.

“Come on. Come ON!”

She honked, mostly out of frustration, and wasn’t surprised when the old woman didn’t react. Probably used to being honked at. Probably been honked at every day for the last two decades.

She let a little space grow between them, then swerved out of the lane to get a look at what was ahead. Just a long line of cars and a few cops on the shoulder, waving them on. They were holding signs that she couldn’t read from this distance. “Will Work for Food,” maybe? Or how about “Contributions Welcome”? Good a time as any to be running the coin toss, where they set an empty recycling bucket on the side of the road so passing motorists could throw out their loose change. BethAnn never, ever contributed to the coin toss campaigns. The cops or the firemen would occasionally give her withering looks, but she pretended not to see them. She didn’t contribute to anything. No charities, no solicitors, not even a solitary dollar folded twice and slipped into the donation can of a Boy Scout standing outside the post office. She didn’t leave tips in restaurants, either. She thought people should contribute to her. Who did they think she was? Bill goddamn Gates?

They’ll all be out of work in a few hours anyway
, she thought with a nasty smile. Then it occurred to her that she’d very likely be out of work, too, and the smile vanished. Everyone would be looking for work. She shivered at the thought of having to go on interviews—dressing up, kissing ass, pretending you really wanted the job.