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Seichan heard a sharpthunkto her left. The hilt of a dagger vibrated two inches from her cheek, proving her mother’s deft skill with her throwing knives. Seichan snatched up the dagger, noting the serrated lower half to the eight-inch blade. She twisted around and sawed at the trapped line.
Her shoulder ached as she frantically worked. The tilt of the boat rushed blood into her head, pounding her ears. She got three-quarters of the way through when the line snapped free. Now untethered, the starboard side shoved high, tossing Seichan off the deck for a breathless moment.
When she landed, she rolled across to the portside cleat. She hacked and sawed at the second line. All the while, the water rose higher, swelling into a huge surge under the catamaran, rolling the boat sideways.
Guan-yin yelled, “Hurry!”
Seichan clenched her teeth and bit back a curse. Then the nylon line broke and ripped away. The portside hull bobbed up hard, throwing Seichan high. She tossed the knife and grabbed the railing with bothhands before she flew overboard. She struck the deck hard, knocking the wind from her.
The catamaran rocked wildly. Her mother throttled up the engines and got them moving. The forward motion settled the boat better in the water. Guan-yin piloted the catamaran away from shore and headed for deeper water, escaping the pending wake of the tsunami.
As the deck evened out, Seichan rolled to her knees and searched toward shore. She prayed the others had reached higher ground. With the rising water, the catamaran now sat above the town, but she saw no sign of Gray or the others. The boat reached the other side of the swell and rode down its far slope as the surge rushed toward shore.
As it did, Seichan realized another of their party was no longer in sight.
Zhuang and the pontoon boat had vanished.
12:52A.M.
Gray fled across the seaside promenade. It separated the beach from the spread of a dark golf course. He and the others hit a chain-link fence that ran down the street’s median. Gray mounted and leaped over it. Monk followed, while Kowalski practically tossed the teenager over, then the big man and triad deputy, Yeung, clambered after them.
A glance back revealed a huge band of churning whitewater, bright under the stars, rushing toward the beach and gaining speed, thirty to forty miles an hour, impossible to outrun.
With less than a minute before it struck the shore, they raced across the street and reached a towering, netted fence that kept golf balls from hitting passing cars.
“Where now?” Kowalski gasped.
The golf course stretched hundreds of yards in either direction. Towering apartment buildings climbed the surrounding cliffs, but they could never reach them in time. The only high ground nearby—and it wasn’t much—was the course’s clubhouse. It rose two stories, with a dining terrace on the upper level.
Gray pointed through the netted barrier at it. “There.”
The teenager, Bolin, leaped high and threw himself against the netting. He clutched a blade in both hands and jammed the point through the mesh. He used his falling weight to rip a hole through it—then held the gap open.
“Fai di, fai di,” he urged them.
They all burrowed through and sprinted across the manicured lawns. Water roared behind them as the tsunami’s surge crested toward the shoreline. The dark clubhouse, fifty yards away, was locked up tight for the night.
Luckily, they had brought keys.
As they closed the distance, Kowalski shouldered his rifle and fired at the row of tall windows across the first floor. The panes shattered under his barrage. Without slowing, they reached the building, crunched through the broken glass, and dashed into the dark interior. Kowalski’s weapon was fitted with a tactical flashlight. He switched it on and swept the beam around the interior.
Gray spotted steps leading up. “With me!”
A grinding roar erupted behind them. A glance back showed a huge surge tearing across the street, ripping down the golf course’s netting. It was moving at incredible speeds.
Gray sprinted to the stairway. He made it halfway up and reached the first landing, when a churning wall of water slammed through the broken windows behind them.
“Go!” Kowalski hollered.
Gray sped around the landing and climbed the turn of the stairs, taking them two at a time. Water chased them. It surged up the stairwell, churning with a meat grinder of debris. Gray dashed down a short hall that led to a set of glass doors out to the dining terrace.
Water flooded after them, swamping over his new boots, rising toward his shins.
Kowalski raised his rifle and fired past Gray’s shoulder. The deafening rounds splintered the door’s thick glass, but it failed to break. Gray sped faster and struck the weakened pane with his shoulder. He crashed through it to reach the terrace.
As he did, he tripped and struggled to regain his footing. The others barreled through—Monk grabbed Gray’s shoulder and got him moving.
They fled farther from the door, pursued by the flood, but its strength was already ebbing as the surge receded back down the throat of the stairwell.
