Kyle took a second sip, but there was no way he could drink the rest. Aizat had downed his own glass without fuss, and now snatched Kyle’s and drank it in three quick mouthfuls.
‘You’ll be drunk again,’ Wati said bitterly.
‘Who asked you?’ Aizat shouted back, and threw the plastic beaker at his sister. ‘Sitting on your arse all day, when the place is a pig sty.’
The girl poked her tongue at Aizat, then picked up her headphones from the floor and disappeared through a bead curtain into a side room. Kyle looked along a set of bookshelves and was surprised to find lots of very deep stuff: Marx, Freud, Kafka and other highbrow writers, mostly written in English.
‘These yours?’ Kyle asked.
Aizat nodded. ‘I like to read. I have lots of pen friends too. One in China, a girl in Italy, a boy in United States. He’s really cool. We’ve been writing each other since we were seven and he burns CDs with all the latest stuff on it. You like the Foo Fighters?’
‘I can take ‘em or leave ‘em,’ Kyle shrugged. He glanced at his watch, and imagined Large yelling at him for coming back late with booze breath.
‘A British pen friend would be good too,’ Aizat said. ‘But you always say no.’
‘Who says no?’
‘Mr Large comes here, once or twice every year,’ Aizat explained. ‘Each time he brings different kids for the jungle expedition. When I ask one of them to be my pen friend, they always say no.’
Kyle understood now. Cherubs are discouraged from speaking with any outsiders they meet during basic training and Large would go bananas if any trainee was found with a stranger’s address in their backpack during kit inspection.
But Kyle wasn’t a trainee, and he thought Aizat was cute. ‘I’ll be your pen friend,’ he said. ‘Can’t promise I’ll write very often, but I’ll try anything once.’
‘Nice one!’ Aizat smiled. He hunted for a pen and a notepad to exchange addresses. ‘The post isn’t great, so I use web cafés on the mainland.’
‘No problem,’ Kyle said, as he jotted his e-mail address on a piece of paper. ‘Now we’d better start getting these supplies on the trailer, or Large will go ballistic.’
*
The tide had gone out surprisingly fast, enabling Kyle to drive the quad and trailer quickly over a plane of flat, wet sand, without diverting on to the road as he’d done on the outward journey. As he approached the Starfish Hotel, he was surprised to see Iona charging out towards him.
‘Get moving,’ she shouted, as Kyle pulled up in front of the hotel. ‘There’s an emergency.’
‘What’s Large’s problem?’ Kyle moaned, stepping off the quad. ‘I came as quick as I could.’
‘It’s not Large,’ Iona said. ‘The water splashing out of the pool wasn’t just a normal earth tremor. We got a call from campus on Large’s satellite phone. What we felt was an aftershock from a huge earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. A massive tsunami has already hit their coast and now the wave might be heading towards us.’
A chill went down Kyle’s back as he looked around at the sea. He’d seen a video about tsunamis in the education block on campus and realised he’d have been defenceless if a giant wave had hit while he’d been out on the sand.
‘That’s why the tide went out so fast, I guess,’ Kyle said. ‘We did it in geography. The earthquake lifts up the entire sea, sucking all the water away from around the coast. Then the water comes back as a massive tidal wave, at over five hundred miles an hour.’
‘Are you sure?’ Iona asked thoughtfully. ‘The tide here always goes out really quickly.’
‘Well, I only got a C on that module,’ Kyle said, half smiling. ‘What about the locals? Is anyone warning them?’
‘We tried ringing while you were at the village,’ Iona explained.
‘One signal bar,’ Kyle said, as he pulled the phone from his pocket. ‘Probably none at all in the village.’
‘A couple of hotel staff have called their families, or rushed off to be with them. We’ve moved our bags and everything up to the roof.’
‘Kyle,’ Large shouted, leaning over the wall built along the hotel’s flat roof. For once his tone was purposeful rather than mean. ‘Get that food up here pronto, we might need it. Then come and speak to me.’
Kyle and Iona, along with her training partner Dante, grabbed the boxes of food and carried them up to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. Everyone was scared, but it didn’t play on their minds while they were occupied.
Large sat at a dining-table on the flat roof, with his laptop computer and the satellite phone on the slatted wooden table alongside him. Mrs Leung, the elderly lady who owned the hotel, sat nearby, staring anxiously out to sea.
Two trainees had been stationed on the corners of the roof with binoculars, looking for any sign of a large incoming wave, while the other pair sat on sun loungers, shattered after their workout on the tennis courts.
‘What do you know about tsunamis?’ Large asked Kyle, as he pointed towards a map of South East Asia on his laptop screen.
‘Only what I picked up in GCSE geography,’ Kyle replied.
Large tapped the western tip of Indonesia and spoke with uncharacteristic honesty. ‘Kyle, this is a serious situation. Every decision I take could be a matter of life and death. You’re the only trained agent here. Speaks is out in the jungle, so I need you as my second-in-command. I’m not infallible. I want you to speak frankly if you think I’m wrong about something.’
‘OK,’ Kyle nodded, then gulped at the sense of responsibility.
Paradise had turned to hell in the space of a few minutes. Kyle put his hands in the pockets of his shorts to stop them from trembling as Large continued the explanation.
‘According to the control room on campus, the earthquake hit two hours ago in the ocean around this spot here, north-west of Indonesia. The resulting tsunami reached the Indonesian mainland within thirty minutes. Early reports say it’s ripped up the entire coastline. God knows how many have been killed, but it’ll be hundreds, if not thousands.
‘The shockwave is now radiating outwards from the epicentre. There are tsunami warnings all along the western coast of Thailand. They’re expecting it to hit within the next twenty to forty minutes and we won’t be far behind. The waves that hit Indonesia were up to twenty-five metres high, but the shockwave gets weaker as it radiates outwards, so hopefully what hits us won’t be anywhere near as bad.’
Kyle squinted and touched the laptop screen. It was shielded under a large sunshade, but the LCD still wasn’t easy to view in the bright sunlight.
‘So the earthquake’s here and we’re on Langkawi here … Which means the Indonesian mainland lies between us and the epicentre of the quake.’
Large nodded. ‘Hopefully being out of the shockwave’s direct path will do us some good, but I can’t get clear information on that. The control room on campus is trying to contact the meteorological office in London to work out what we can expect, but I’ve not heard from them.’
‘But Norman!’ Mrs Leung blurted, as she pulled off a pair of giant sunglasses on a chain. ‘It may not be twenty-five metres like Indonesia, but even two or three metres of water coming up the beach will flood my pool, wreck my ground floor and do god knows what to the fishing villages.’
‘Is there higher ground inland?’ Kyle asked.
‘There is,’ Large nodded. ‘But it’s thickly forested once you go beyond the beach and the coast road. There’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to get to ground before the wave hits.’
‘But this building could wash away completely if the wave hits hard enough,’ Kyle said.
Large nodded seriously. ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But my gut’s telling me to stay here where the hotel building gives us some protection.’
Kyle saw there was no correct decision. ‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘But I don’t think we should be out in the open. I say we go back into the building and hide in the highest room without a window we can fin
d. That will minimise our chances of being washed away, or of getting hit by flying glass or debris.’
‘Good thinking,’ Large agreed, then looked at the owner. ‘What’s the highest room without a window?’
‘Food storeroom behind us,’ Mrs Leung said, and pointed towards the rooftop bar and kitchen behind them. ‘We’ll all fit in there.’
Large clapped his hands. ‘OK kids, follow Mrs Leung. Get yourselves into the back of the kitchen.’
‘Grab some foam sofa cushions or something,’ Kyle added. ‘They’ll protect you if you get knocked around and they’ll act as floats if the water comes over the top of the building.’
‘Good thinking, Kyle,’ Large said, looking impressed as he snatched the binoculars from one of the lookouts. ‘Everyone inside, I’ll take lookout.’
The trainees ripped foam cushions from the wicker sofas in the restaurant’s waiting area, and followed Mrs Leung into the back of the kitchen.
‘You too, Kyle,’ Large said, as he looked out to sea with the binoculars. ‘I’ll shout a warning if I see the wave coming.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Kyle said, as he started to walk away.
The storage room at the back of the kitchen was stiflingly hot, with a bare bulb swinging from the ceiling and sacks of rice and vegetables piled against the back wall. The trainees had gathered several cushions each, and made themselves comfortable, sitting on them and clutching them for comfort. Also present were Mrs Leung, along with the hotel’s only chamber maid, in her black dress and frilly apron.
As Kyle stepped in, sixteen eyeballs swivelled up to look at him. He was scared and kept picturing scenes from disaster movies, but everyone, including the adults, seemed to feel that he had some kind of authority after seeing Large ask his advice and agree with his suggestions.
‘Give us a cushion,’ Kyle said.
Dante passed a spare across and Kyle sat on the cushion with his back resting against tins of curry powder. The unventilated room was well over forty degrees and the trainees smelled ripe after their workout. The four girl trainees held hands, looking small and vulnerable as they tried not to think about the danger they were all in.
‘So,’ Dante said, with a slight grin on his face. ‘I guess this is where they’ll find our bloated drowned corpses in a couple of weeks’ time.’
Iona didn’t appreciate Dante’s black humour and slapped his bare leg. ‘Don’t say things like that,’ she snapped. ‘We’ve got to be positive.’
Another girl trainee agreed. ‘We could sing a song or something.’
Dante grimaced. ‘If you girls start singing, I’m outta here. Tsunami or no tsunami.’
‘Come on,’ Kyle said firmly. ‘We could be in here for a long time. Don’t start fighting.’
There were a few seconds of quiet before the chamber maid made an announcement in a mixture of Malay and English. ‘They just say it reach Phuket. Big wave, very bad.’
Kyle hadn’t noticed that she had the earpiece from her mobile phone in her ear, listening to the local radio station.
‘Is that far off?’ Iona asked.
‘Less than a hundred kilometres north,’ Mrs Leung said. ‘At these speeds, it should be here in a few minutes.’
‘Dun, dun dunnnn!’ Dante added.
11. CRASH
After ninety minutes in the dimly lit shelter, Kyle fought to open his eyes as he walked into the dazzling sunlight on the hotel roof. Large hadn’t moved, sitting at the dining-table with the binoculars around his neck.
‘The maid has a radio on her phone,’ Kyle announced, holding his hand over his brow to shield the light. ‘It hit the Thai coast more than an hour ago. If it was coming here, I think it would have happened already.’
‘Agreed,’ Large said, as he scratched his moustache thoughtfully. ‘News reports I’ve been reading on the laptop indicate that the Malaysian coast and the southernmost points of Thailand have been untouched. The Indonesian mainland acted like a giant breakwater, shielding us from the shockwave. I’m waiting on confirmation from the control room on campus before I give the all-clear.’
‘Right,’ Kyle nodded. ‘A couple of the girls are getting desperate for the bathroom. Shall I tell them they can go?’
‘Might as well,’ Large said, ‘but tell them to go back to the shelter for the time being.’
But by the time the girls had used the toilet, Large had received his call on the satellite phone. Everyone came out on to the roof and the trainees exchanged relieved hugs, smiles and high fives.
If there was one thing Mr Large disliked, it was seeing his trainees smiling and happy. He slammed down the lid of his laptop and spoke in a booming voice.
‘We’re now very late,’ Large shouted. ‘You should be setting off on the exercise about now. Instead you haven’t even started preparing your equipment or reading your mission briefings. Your first orders are to carry the equipment that we brought up here back downstairs where it belongs. Then I want you lined up on the tennis courts, with your gear laid out ready for kit inspection and a briefing on your final exercise. You have twenty minutes, so get moving.’
As the six trainees sprinted into action and began lugging food and luggage down to the ground floor, Kyle turned towards Large and smiled with relief.
‘Looks like we caught a break on that one.’
Large looked up at Kyle, made a huffing noise and then grunted. The nervous, almost human, character who’d valued Kyle’s opinion in the face of disaster was gone and the badass training instructor was back with a vengeance.
‘Why did you take so long bringing the food back, anyway?’ Large shouted. ‘There are six wooden canoes lashed to the back of a Land Cruiser in the car park behind the hotel. Drag them around to the tennis courts, along with the oars, safety vests and the rest of the equipment. I’ll be in the hotel office. I’ve got to print off six revised mission briefings for the brats.’
‘Gotcha, boss,’ Kyle said.
Large’s eyes bulged. ‘Pardon me?’ he roared.
Kyle looked mystified. ‘What?’
‘You may not be a trainee, Mr Blueman, but I still expect to be treated with respect at all times. If I ask you to do something, you respond with yes sir or yes Mr Large, not gotcha boss.
Kyle reckoned Mr Large was a complete arsehole and felt like reminding him that he’d voluntarily flown half way around the world on Christmas Day in order to help him. But Large was the kind of man who bore a grudge and Kyle knew he’d exact sadistic revenge the next time he had to go on a training exercise.
‘All right, sir!’ Kyle said, daring mild sarcasm in the form of a military salute, before spinning on his heels and marching off down the stairs.
The wooden canoes weren’t heavy over the hundred-metre walk between the car park and the tennis courts, but they would be for the ten-to twelve-year-old trainees who’d have to carry them on their backs over several kilometres of steep and overgrown terrain, along with backpacks containing rations and equipment.
Each time Kyle went past the pool, he got a smile from the young maid who’d been tasked with fishing out the plastic furniture that had fallen in during the last earth tremor. Once the six kid-sized canoes were lined up on the tennis courts, he made sure that Large was out of sight before giving the trainees a hand cleaning their kits and laying them out for inspection.
‘Stand to attention you idle shit-clusters,’ Large shouted, as he approached bearing six freshly laser-printed mission briefings. ‘Your four-day final exercise may have been cut down because of Mr Pike’s exploded appendix, but you can be sure that I’ve crammed in more than enough extra hardship and misery to make up for it.’
Kyle smiled at the blasé expressions on the youngsters’ faces. After surviving ninety-seven days of basic training they were largely immune to Large’s insults and threats.
The sun was bright, and as Large began briefing the trainees on their final exercise, Kyle realised that he’d left his sunglasses behind when he’d been shelterin
g behind the upstairs kitchen.
Mrs Leung gave Kyle a smile as he jogged towards the bottom of the staircase. ‘Norman likes to boss the kids,’ she grinned. ‘But he’s a very sweet man.’
Kyle grinned. ‘The man has a heart of gold,’ he lied.
As he bounded upstairs to the flat roof Kyle couldn’t help feeling that Mrs Leung was mainly fond of Large because he booked out her shabby twenty-room hotel for several days every year.
Kyle found the sunglasses where he’d expected, but as he headed out on to the flat roof he heard a roaring noise, more like the drone of a jet engine than the normal rolling of waves. When he looked out to sea, he saw a bulge in the still water half a kilometre out. It wasn’t tall, but it was closing at a spectacular speed.
‘Mr Large,’ Kyle shouted, as he leaned over the edge of the roof. ‘Get everyone—’
The wave hit the beach before Kyle finished his sentence. It peaked at less than one metre high, but the trainees down on the tennis court were bowled off their feet. The canoes and equipment laid out on the green rubber surface were thrown violently towards the hotel, as a wall of water ripped up fence posts.
There was a tremor and a deafening crash of glass as the wave hit the Starfish Hotel. Thousands of birds shot up out of the trees behind, as the sand-filled water crossed the coast road and rushed on into the jungle. Kyle leaned over the edge of the hotel, helpless and aghast.
After a minute the water slowed, then turned to a swirling pool thick with clouds of brown silt. After this pause it began rolling out more gently than it had arrived, powered by gravity rather than the colossal shockwave that had forced it up the beach.
Down on the tennis courts, Kyle was relieved to see all six trainees untangling themselves from the mangled fences and finding their feet. Large had stayed upright, clutching a buckled post. The only injury was to a girl who’d been whacked by a canoe and had a bloody graze across her shoulder and the back of her neck.
As Kyle looked back towards the building he noticed the maid floating face down in a tangle of plastic tables where the swimming pool had been. He bolted downstairs, jumping the lower half of each flight.