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Still, they were not out of danger.
Past the balcony’s edge, the black tsunami swept around the clubhouse, climbing a story high. As it flooded across the golf course, the current carried shattered trees, floating cars, broken boats. The terrace trembled underfoot, then jolted harder as the fierce currents tore at the walls below. The front of the building started to sag, succumbing to the tidal forces that ripped through its foundations.
Gray got them all moving across the terrace. More and more of the clubhouse broke apart behind them, ripped down into the flood. The far side of the terrace started to collapse and fell into the churning maelstrom. The destruction ground its way inevitably toward them.
They all backed to the farthest edge, but they had nowhere else to go.
Monk shouted and pointed past the balcony rail. “A light!”
Gray turned and spotted a small glow against the black tide. It rode through the surge, dodging debris, tossed about by the currents.
The Zodiac...
Zhuang must have failed to clear the surge in time and had gotten caught in its tide. With no other choice, he had to surf the tsunami as it made landfall.
Gray hurried to the rail, tugging Kowalski with him. “Wave your flashlight high.”
The big man obeyed, recognizing the Zodiac was their only chance of rescue.
Zhuang, likely focused on his own survival, didn’t notice their signal. Gray freed his SIG and emptied the magazine into the air. Zhuang heard him. The Zodiac spun and fought toward them.
Gray continued to hold his breath as the clubhouse disintegrated toward their position. The surrounding water filled with an apron of debris. Even if Zhuang made it, they would have only seconds to leap aboard before the jagged maelstrom below tore the pontoon boat apart.
Zhuang struggled through the current. He dodged larger obstacles and bounced over others. Finally, once close enough, he opened the engine’s throttle and shot toward the clubhouse, riding across the debris field.
“Get ready!” Gray hollered to the others. “Leap once it’s under us.”
The Zodiac rode through the churning border of whitewater around the clubhouse. At the last moment, Zhuang swung the boat sideways and slammed broadside into the building.
“Now!” Gray bounded over the rail.
The others followed with him. They all plummeted in a tight knot and struck the Zodiac in a heavy tangle of limbs. The impact bounced them high. The lightest of them, Bolin, flew over the pontoon toward the grinding water.
Kowalski lunged out, grabbed the kid’s leg, and yanked him back aboard. “Quit trying to get away from me!”
Zhuang didn’t wait. Standing at the helm, he roared the engines and sped off. As he did, a section of the portside pontoon ripped, collapsing a section of it. It added drag to their maneuverability, but Zhuang compensated.
Behind them, the last of the clubhouse broke into the tide.
By now, the tsunami surge had bled away most of its momentum. The tide of water reversed, rushing the other way, returning to the bay.
Zhuang surfed along it again. He sped around a capsized sailboat that spun in a riptide. They passed between two of the golf course’s net pylons that were still standing, as if clearing a pair of goalposts.
Zhuang raced them across the street and over the flooded beach.
Gray should have felt joyous, but a drowned body bumped against the damaged pontoon and rolled away. There were likely thousands more across Hong Kong and its outlying islands.
As they reached the bay itself, a lone patch of light shone out on the water.
Guan-yin’s catamaran.
As Gray stared at it, he took solace where he could.
We survived—at least for now.
7
January 23, 2:02A.M.HKT
