Heidi took a few minutes to type a fax to her husband, Harley, at the National Weather Service to alert him to the hurricane's latest numbers.
Harley, Hurricane Lizzie is moving due east and accelerating. As we suspected, she has already developed into a dangerous storm. Computer model predicts winds of 150 knots with 40 to 50-foot seas within a radius 350 miles. She's moving at an incredible 20 knots.
Will keep you informed. Heidi
She turned back to the images coming in from the satellites. Looking down on an enlarged image of the hurricane, Heidi never ceased to be impressed with the evil beauty of the thick, spiraling white clouds called the central dense overcast, the cirrus cloud shield that evolves from the thunderstorms in the surrounding walls of the eye. There was nothing up nature's sleeve that could match the horrendous energy of a full-blown hurricane. The eye had formed early, looking like a crater on a white planet. Hurricane eyes could range in size from five miles to over a hundred miles in diameter. Lizzie's eye was fifty miles across.
What gripped Heidi's concentration was the atmospheric pressure as measured in millibars. The lower the reading, the worse the storm. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992 registered 934 and 922, respectively. Lizzie was already at 945 and rapidly dropping, forming a vacuum in her center that was intensifying by the hour. Bit by bit, millibar by foreboding millibar, the atmospheric pressure fell down the barometric scale.
Lizzie was also moving at a record pace westward across the ocean.
Hurricanes move slowly, usually no more than twelve miles an hour, about the average speed of someone riding a bicycle. But Lizzie was not following the rules laid down by those storms that went before her. She was hurtling across the sea at a very respectable twenty miles an hour. And contrary to earlier hurricanes that zigged and zagged their way toward the Western Hemisphere, Lizzie was traveling in a straight line as if her mind was on a specific target.
Quite often, storms spin around and head in a totally different direction. Again, Lizzie wasn't going by the book. If ever a hurricane had a one-track mind, thought Heidi, it was this one.
Heidi never knew who on what island coined the term hurricane. But it was a Caribbean word that meant "Big Wind." Bursting with enough energy to match the largest nuclear bomb, Lizzie was running wild with thunder, lightning and driving rain.
Already, ships in that part of the ocean were feeling her wrath.
IT was noon now, a crazy, wild, insane noon. The seas had built from a relatively flat surface to thirty-foot waves in what seemed to the captain of the containership, the Nicaraguan-registered Mona Lisa, the blink of an eye. He felt as though he'd thrown open a door to the desert and had a tankful of water thrown at him. The seas had gone steep in a matter of minutes and the light breeze had turned into a full-blown gale. In all his years at sea, he'd never seen a storm come up so fast.
There was no nearby port to head toward for shelter, so he steered Mona Lisa directly into the teeth of the gale in the calculated gamble that the faster he steamed through the heart of the storm, the better his chances of coming through without damage to his cargo.
Thirty miles north, just over the horizon from the Mona Lisa, the Egyptian super oil tanker Rameses II found herself overtaken by the surging turbulence. Captain Warren Meade stood in horror as a ninety-foot wave traveling at an incredible speed surged up over his ship's stern, tearing off the railings and sending tons of water smashing through hatches and flooding the crew's quarters and storerooms. The crew in the pilothouse watched dumbstruck as the wave passed around the superstructure and swept over the huge seven-hundred-foot-long deck of the hull whose waterline was sixty feet below, mangling fittings and pipes before it passed over the bow.
An eighty-foot yacht owned by the founder of a computer software company, carrying ten passengers and five crew on a cruise to Dakar, simply vanished, overwhelmed by huge seas without time to send a Mayday.
Before night fell, a dozen other ships would suffer Lizzie's destructive violence.
Heidi and fellow meteorologists at the NUMA center began hovering in conferences and studying the data on the latest system sweeping in from the east. They saw no slackening of Lizzie as she swept past longitude 40 west in mid-Atlantic, still throwing all previous predictions out the window by running straight with barely a wobble.
At three o'clock, Heidi took a call from Harley. "How's it looking?" he asked.
"Our ground data processing system is disseminating the data to your center now," she answered. "Marine advisories began going out last night."
"What does Lizzie's path look like?"
"Believe it or not, she's running straight as an arrow."
There was a pause. "That's a new twist."
"She hasn't deviated as much as ten miles in the last twelve hours."
Harley was dubious. "That's unheard-of."
"You'll see when you get our data," said Heidi firmly. "Lizzie is a record breaker. Ships are already reporting ninety-foot waves."
"Good lord! What about your computer forecasts?"
"We throw them in the trash as soon as they're printed. Lizzie is not conforming to the modus operandi of her predecessors. Our computers can't project her path and ultimate power with any degree of accuracy."
"So this is the hundred-year event."
"I fear this is more like the one that comes every thousand."
"Can you give me any indication, anything at all, on where she might strike, so my center can began sending out advisories?" Harley's tone became serious.
"She can come ashore anywhere between Cuba and Puerto Rico. At the moment, I'm betting on the Dominican Republic. But there is no way of knowing for certain for another twenty-four hours."
"Then it's time to issue preliminary alerts and warnings."
"At the speed Lizzie is traveling it won't be too soon."
"My weather service coworkers and I will get right on it."
"Harley."
"Yes, love."
"I won't make it home for dinner tonight."
Heidi's mind could picture Harley's jovial smile over the phone as he replied, "Neither will I, love. Neither will I."
After she hung up, Heidi sat at her desk for a few moments, staring up at a giant chart of the North Atlantic active hurricane region. As she scanned the Caribbean islands closest to the approaching monster, something tugged at the back of her mind. She typed in a program on her computer that brought up a list depicting the name of the ships, a brief description and their position in a specific area of the North Atlantic. There were over twenty-two in position to suffer the full effects of the storm. Apprehensive that there might be a huge cruise ship with thousands of passengers and crew sailing in the path of the hurricane, she scanned the list. No cruise ships were shown near the worst of the tumult, but one name caught her eye. At first she thought it was a ship, then the old fact dawned on her. It was not a ship.
"Oh lord," she moaned.
Sam Moore, a bespectacled meteorologist working at a nearby desk, looked up. "Are you all right? Is anything wrong?"
Heidi sagged in her chair. "The Ocean Wanderer."
"Is that a cruise ship?"
Heidi shook her head. "No, it's a floating hotel that's moored directly in the path of the system. There is no way she can be moved in time. She's a sitting duck."
"That ship that reported a ninety-foot wave," said Moore. "If one that huge strikes the hotel..." His voice trailed off.
"We've got to warn their management to evacuate the hotel."
Heidi jumped to her feet and ran toward the communications room, hoping against hope that the hotel management would act without hesitation. If not, over a thousand guests and employees were facing an unspeakable death.
5
Never had such elegance, such grandeur, risen from the sea. Nothing remotely approaching its unique design and creative distinction had ever been built. The Ocean Wanderer underwater resort hotel was an adventure waiting to be experienced, an exci
ting opportunity for its guests to view the wonders beneath the sea. She rose above the waves in wondrous splendor two miles off the tip of Cabo Cabron peninsula that jutted from the southeastern shore of the Dominican Republic.
Acknowledged by the travel industry as the world's most extraordinary hotel, it was built in Sweden to exacting standards never before achieved. The highest degree of craftsmanship, using the ultimate in materials combined with a daring exploitation of lavish textures that illustrated life in the sea. Wild exuberant greens, blues and golds, all came together to create one lavish ensemble, magnificent outside, breathtaking inside. Above the surface, the outer structure was configured to resemble the soft, graceful lines of a low drifting cloud. Soaring over two hundred feet into the sky, the upper five stories housed the quarters and offices of the four hundred management staff and crew, the expansive storerooms, kitchen galleys, and hearing and air-conditioning systems.
Ocean Wanderer also offered endless upscale gourmet dining options. Five restaurants, run by five world-class chefs. Exotic seafood dishes only minutes fresh from the sea in superb settings. And then there was the sunset catamaran dinner cruise for intimate romance.
Three levels held two lounges featuring celebrity artists and entertainers, an opulent ballroom featuring a full orchestra, and unparalleled shopping with designer boutiques and variety shops filled with exciting and exquisite merchandise rarely found in the guests' malls at home. And it was all duty-free.
There was a movie theater featuring plush seating and satellite feeds of the latest motion pictures. The casino, though smaller in scale, surpassed anything Las Vegas had to offer. Fish swam in contoured aquariums that snaked in and around the gaming tables and slot machines. The glass ceilings also held a variety of sea life that glided lazily above the gambling action below.
The middle levels housed a world-class spa with complimentary professional trainers. A full menu of massages, facials and luxurious body treatments were available, as were saunas and steam rooms decorated like tropical jungle gardens filled with exotic plants and flowers. For the active set, the roof over the spa featured tennis courts and a mini golf course that wound around the deck, with a driving range where guests could drive balls far out into the sea at floating targets spaced at fifty-yard intervals.
For the more adventurous, there were several spectacular water slides with entries at different levels reached by elevators. One wild ride began at the roof of the hotel and spiraled down into the water from fifteen stories below. Other water sports were available that included windsurfing, jetskiing, waterskiing and of course a myriad of free scuba-diving activities directed by certified instructors. Guests could also experience submarine tours in and around the reefs and into the upper reaches of the deeper abyss, as well as a fish's-eye view of the underwater levels of the hotel. Fish identification classes and educational lectures on the sea were given by university teachers of the ocean sciences.
But the magic guests truly experienced was a liquid adventure in the huge pod-shaped structure beneath the surface. Like a man-made iceberg, the Ocean Wanderer did not have rooms; it had suites, four hundred and ten of them, all under the surface of the sea, with floor-to-ceiling viewing ports of thick pressurized glass with stunning views of life underwater. Artistic decor in hues of rich blues and greens filled the suites, while selectable colored mood lighting enhanced the feeling that guests were truly living under the sea.
Visually spectacular, guests could come face-to-face with the predators of the sea, the sharks and barracudas, as they moved through the fluid void. Colorful tropical angelfish, parrot fish and friendly dolphins schooled around outside the suites. Giant groupers and manta rays swam through graceful jellyfish as they frolicked amid the vividly colored coral. At night guests could lie in bed and watch the ballet of fish under an array of colored lights.
Unlike the opulent fleet of cruise ships that sailed the seven seas, Ocean Wanderer had no engines. It was a floating island moored into position by giant steel pins that were driven deep into the bottom sediment. Stretching from the pins, four heavy cables ran to links that could be automatically coupled or uncoupled.
But it was not a permanent mooring. Mindful of how the wealthy traveler seldom repeats vacations in the same spot, the designers of Ocean Wanderer cleverly built mooring facilities in more than a dozen scenic locations around the world. Five times a year, a pair of one-hundred-and-twenty-foot tugboats would rendezvous with the floating hotel. Giant buoyancy tanks were pumped dry, raising the hotel until only two levels remained underwater, the mooring cables were released and the tugs, each mounting three-thousand-horsepower Hunnewell diesel engines, would tow the floating hotel to a new tropical setting, where she would be remoored. Guests could depart for home or stay aboard for the voyage as they chose.
Life raft drills were mandatory for guests and crew alike every four days. Special elevators with their own energy source, in the event all generator power was lost, could evacuate the entire hotel to the deck running around the second level, where the latest state-of-the-art enclosed life rafts were mounted that could maintain buoyancy in extreme sea conditions.
Because of her unique experience and larger-than-life ambience, the Ocean Wanderer was booked solid two years in advance.
Today, however, was 'a special occasion. The man who was the driving force behind the creation of the Ocean Wanderer was arriving for a four-day stay for the first time since the floating hotel's lavish opening the month before. A man as mysterious as the sea itself. A man who was photographed only from a distance, and who never revealed lips and chin below the nose while the eyes remained hidden under dark glasses. His nationality was unknown. He was a man with no name, as enigmatic as a specter, Specter being the name given him by the news media. Reporters from newspapers and television news bureaus and stations had failed to penetrate even one layer of his anonymity. His age and history had yet to be revealed. All that was known about him for certain was that he headed and directed Odyssey, a giant scientific research and construction empire with tentacles in thirty countries that made him one of the richest and most powerful men in the civilized world.
There were no stockholders of Odyssey. There were no annual reports or profit-and-loss statements to be examined. The Odyssey empire and the man in control stood alone in cryptic secrecy.
AT four in the afternoon the silence of the aquamarine sea and azure sky was shattered by the shriek of an overhead jet aircraft. A large passenger plane painted in the trademark lavender color of Odyssey appeared from the west. Curious hotel guests gazed up at the unusual aircraft as its pilot gently banked the jet around the Ocean Wanderer to give his passengers a bird's-eye view of the floating spectacle.
The plane was unlike any of them had seen before. The Russian-built Beriev Be-200 was originally designed as an amphibious fire-lighting aircraft. But this one was built to carry eighteen passengers and a crew of four in regal luxury. It was powered by two BMW-Rolls-Royce turbofan engines mounted on the overhead wing. Capable of speeds of over four hundred miles an hour, the rugged craft could easily handle water takeoffs and landings in four-foot seas.
The pilot banked the high-performance amphibian and made his approach in front of the hotel. The big hull kissed the waves in unison with the outer pontoons and settled into the water like an overweight swan. Then it taxied up to a floating dock that extended from the main entrance of the hotel. Mooring lines were thrown and the aircraft was tied alongside the dock by its crew.
A welcoming party led by a bespectacled bald-headed man wearing a crisp blue blazer stood on the dock that was edged with golden velvet cords. Hobson Morton was the executive director of the Ocean Wanderer. A fastidious man totally dedicated to his job and employer, Morton stood six feet six inches tall and weighed only one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Morton had been personally lured away by Specter, whose philosophy was to surround himself with men who were smarter than he was. Behind Morton's back, his associates referred to the t
all man as "the stick." Distinguished, with graying temples below a thick mass of neatly brushed blond hair, he stood straight as a light post while a six-man team of attendants exited the aircraft's main hatch, followed by four security men in blue jumpsuits who stationed themselves at strategic locations along the dock.
Several minutes passed before Specter stepped off the plane. In contrast to Morton he might have reached a height of five feet five inches if he had stood up straight, but settled inside a grossly overweight body, standing rigid was an impossibility. As he walked--actually, more of a waddle--he looked like a pregnant bullfrog in search of a swamp. His enormous belly stretched a trademark white tailored suit far beyond its double-threaded limits. His head was swathed in a white silk turban whose lower sash covered his chin and mouth. There was no way to read the face, even the eyes were covered by the impenetrable lenses of heavily coated dark sunglasses. The men and women who were closely associated with Specter could never fathom how he was able to see through them, never knowing that the lenses were like a one-way mirror. The wearer could see perfectly from his side while his eyes remained impenetrable.