‘This is like pictures of the sea beside Japan after the tsunami in 2011,’ said Guerrero. ‘Could the flooding be that powerful? Like a tsunami?’
‘Looks like it,’ answered Richard shortly.
‘God help them.’
‘That’s what we’re here to do,’ said Richard. ‘Give the Almighty a hand.’
‘But what can we do?’ demanded Guerrero, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of what they appeared to be facing.
‘Make a start,’ said Richard. ‘Make a difference, no matter how slight. No matter what, it’s better that we’re here to help than the alternative, which looks like nobody here to help. For the moment, at least.’
‘I guess,’ said Guerrero, but he didn’t sound convinced.
And Richard could see his point. The rubbish on the water beneath them grew thicker. Prompted by Guerrero’s thoughts, Richard suddenly remembered a story Liberty Greenbaum had told him about something she had seen when sailing the North Pacific. She had come up against what appeared to be an uncharted island in the middle of the ocean, only to discover that it was several acres of floating rubbish from the Japanese tsunami on its way across to North America. Thinking of Liberty made him wonder about Katapult8 and how she could have made her way through this — if, indeed she had done so. And thinking of Katapult8 made him think of Maxima. And of Robin. Suddenly he found he was short of breath, with an actual ache in his chest.
‘You OK?’ asked Guerrera, seeing the change in his expression.
‘Yes. I was just wondering about Maxima.’
‘She’ll be in the harbour. That’s where the beacon is.’
Yes, thought Richard. But what if the beacon’s not on Maxima at all? What if we’ve been on a wild goose chase all along and she’s still out there in the deep ocean — on the top or at the bottom?
He gave voice to none of his fears. It was not in his nature to do so. Once a decision was made he stood by it. It was not his style of leadership to be constantly second-guessing himself and agonizing over what if? or what might have been. But he had never been this worried about Robin before; never felt that she was at so much risk. So, instead of continuing his conversation, he leaned over and pushed his face close to its pallid reflection in the glass, staring through his ghostly profile down at the debris and the almost pitch-black water on which it heaved sluggishly, as though its buoyancy was being overcome by the weight of the lashing rain.
‘There,’ shouted Guerrero, who had been looking shorewards rather than downwards. As he spoke, Biddy called, ‘Land-ho!’
Through the driving downpour, the coast looked at first like another low thunderhead sitting just above the sea, its normally vivid green seemingly washed out by the grey rain. The drab spectacle swung round as Biddy adjusted her course to run northwards towards Puerto Banderas itself. As she did, the Bell came over the main coastal highway and Richard was given a brief but vivid view of the tail-end of a slow-moving traffic jam being pounded by the downpour and blasted by the wind. ‘Looks like some people have managed to get out of town,’ he said. ‘Where does that road lead to?’
‘San Blas,’ answered the major. ‘Then Tepic and Guadalajara if they can get over the mountains; Vallarta and Acapulco if they can’t.’
‘If they can get ahead of the weather somehow, as long as the road holds out. I’d say there was a considerable outwash flooding down off the coastal mountains. The same here as there was on the Baja California.’
The Bell swung out over the water then, and Richard put the caravan of refugees out of his mind, returning to the matter in hand. The flotsam began to take on a pattern, spewing out in a widening fan from the still-distant mouth of the harbour. Its outer edge, to the left, formed that strange surf-line where it met the incoming rollers. Shorewards, on their right, it washed towards the long, grey-gold beaches. But they were themselves awash with run-off that spewed at first from the jungle and then — as they flew further northwards — from the tarmac and concrete acreages of the town’s roadways, yards, flat roofs and over-brimming swimming pools, pouring down with sufficient force to keep the beaches awash but clear of rubbish. At first glance, Richard felt heartened. The town looked to be in better condition than the junk in the ocean had led him to expect. ‘Biddy, can you take us closer in?’ he asked. She complied. The two men strained to see though the rain and to stay focused as the buffeting wind returned.
‘Where is everybody?’ asked Guerrero.
‘Indoors if they’ve got any sense. Or on their way to the government evacuation centres. Just look at that!’ A wide boulevard led straight downhill towards the beach and a line of tall hotels and apartments. A river of runoff was cascading down it, making rapids where anything stood in its way or where the sewers overflowed like geysers, throwing yellow foam high into the air.
‘That’s Avenue Sixteenth September,’ said Guerrero, awed. ‘It’s always packed with cars. It leads past the mercado market to the beach at Playa Camerones.’
‘Is that the market?’ asked Richard, pointing to a great square black lake which appeared to be still — until the chopper passed above a line of corrugated-iron roofs over which the water boiled like the reefs by Santa Isabel as it poured away downhill. ‘And there are your cars,’ Richard added as they skimmed just above the hotels standing behind Los Muertos beach and saw piles of vehicles forming dams and barriers across the bottom of the avenue and all the roadways running down parallel to it. It seemed incredible that there should be so many still left when they had just seen so many more heading south.
Biddy took matters into her own hands then, taking the Bell to the right, rising up the hillside until they were over the jungle immediately above and behind the town. Then, in spite of the buffeting of the gusty wind and the renewed intensity of the precipitation, she raced them over to the Rio Cortez. What had been a sedate stream falling in picturesque waterfalls and sluices from one pretty lake to another was now a non-stop torrent. The lakes had all spread along the hillside steps, as though even the speed at which the river was roaring down was not enough to keep them contained within their natural shorelines. ‘Mother of mercy!’ she whispered as she came over the last of the lakes, familiar from the film she had shot for Nic. Except that Dahlia Blanca was no longer there. The lake that had lapped so sedately near the beautiful building now filled its grounds, brimming over the tall wall that had edged the cliff at the end of the massive estate. And the house, like the market, was little more than a reef over which the water boiled in a cataract that would have been at home on the Nile or the Colorado as it rushed through the Grand Canyon. ‘Mr Greenbaum is going to be pissed when he sees this!’ said Biddy.
‘Right,’ said Richard, unable to bear the suspense of not knowing Maxima’s fate any longer. ‘Let’s go down and tell him. He’s in the outer harbour.’
They followed the rampaging river on down to the ocean, keeping low, especially when the buildings began to break up the brute force of the wind. But they paid for the protection by coming face-to-face with yet more destruction. Long before it reached the harbour — before it had reached the outskirts of the town proper — the river burst its banks once more. Riverside houses, hotels and condominiums became reefs, wrecks or islands in the foaming stream. Items of furniture joined the vehicles swirling in the flood. Chairs, sofas, tables, televisions, stereos, beds. But so far no bodies, living or dead.