“Oh, really? How many others have you had—?
“This is the first.”
“Then it’s also the best honeymoon you’ve ever been on.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Hu leaned his head on James’ shoulder. They were silent for a while. Just being together.
“Hey—” said Jesse, interrupting their silence.
“Yeah?”
“You guys are fags, aren’t you?”
James hadn’t heard that word in years. He was more surprised than offended. “Yeah, I am. I’m not so sure about my husband though. Is that a problem?”
Jesse pointed to James’ discarded facemask, as if looking for the lost regulator. “Yeah, man—! I had your—your thing in my mouth. Yuck—” He got up and moved away.
Hu and James looked at each other. Both started laughing.
“What an ungrateful little prick,” Hu said. “Why did you save him, anyway?”
James shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Swarms of helicopters filled the air over the seething brown water that used to be Los Angeles. They were clattering dragonflies, darting here and there, exploring, recording, reporting. The afternoon was bright but ugly.
Some of the newer buildings, the ones designed to resist a massive earthquake, had survived. They stuck up out of the water like broken stumps.
Where there had been neighborhoods, there was now only mud and water and debris, occasionally patterned by the gridwork of streets that had survived. Mostly the terrain below was a vast sea of desolation. What remained of the 405 was a scar. The Federal Building looked like a fractured tooth. The Veterans’ Health Care Center was gone, only a broken steel outline remained to mark its location.
Nevertheless, the choppers swarmed, relentlessly searching—and occasionally, improbably, also triumphantly rescuing. Here and there, despite impossible odds, some people had survived the onslaught of the tsunami. Soon or eventually, whenever they could get to safety, they would have the opportunity to tell their stories to the hungry cameras. Every survival was an improbable adventure—a delusion of luck and prayer, sometimes even a bit of good judgment and courage.
Several Air Force communications planes circled patiently overhead, coordinating the fleets of choppers. The army, the navy, the air force, the coast guard, and several civilian companies were patrolling, each in their assigned area. All other air traffic was forbidden. Even the news choppers were under military guidance now. The Goodyear and Fuji blimps as well.
Three navy choppers were assigned to an area formerly known as Little Korea. There were few landmarks left on the ground; they had to depend on GPS mapping to locate themselves.
“There—” said the copilot. “Two o’clock.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Over there. It’s a light, hard to see in the glare—”
The chopper pilot brought the machine around. “That green stump sticking out of the water—?”
“Yeah. See that flicker?”
“I see it.” As they approached, the pilot said, “Holy shit. That used to be the Wiltern!”
“You recognize it?”
“My grandmother used to live in this area.” He added, “Actually, it’s the Pellissier building, but everyone calls it the Wiltern.”
They came in lower for a closer view. The tsunami had ripped the top off the building. But it had left enough for several stories to remain sticking up out of the water. Open floor space was visible, enough for several people to gather. One was waving a light of some kind.
The copilot called to the divers in the back of the machine. “We’ve got survivors. More than a dozen.”
“Any injuries?”
“Maybe. Some of them are down.”
“We’ll take the worst. Blue Team can pick up the rest.”
“Copy that.”
The chopper came in low and the people on the top of the building stood up to wave at them. One of them was aiming the headlamps of a diver’s mask. He switched it off as the aircraft approached.
The heli hovered over the building, stirring up the waves in great rippling circles. Four lines dropped from the machine. Two figures in wetsuits came down two of the lines, two rescue stretchers came down the others.
“Who’s the worst injured?” asked Seal Team Commander Wright.
The survivors looked around, uncertain, but a young Chinese man pointed. “Take the little girl. She’s got hypothermia and maybe the bends.”
“The bends?”
“Long story,” said the man next to him. “And her mom too.”
The other Seal was already pulling the rescue stretchers over to Julia and her mother. “Anyone else with the bends?” asked Wright.
The Chinese man pointed to an African-American teenager, held his own hand up, then pointed to the man next to himself, who tried to wave them away. “I’m okay—” But his hand trembled.
“Bullshit, you are.” Commander Wright peered from one to the other. He spoke to his microphone. “Gonna need two more stretchers. No, make it three.” He turned to the other survivors. “We’ve got another bird coming in behind us. We’ll have you all out of here as quickly as we can.” Back to the microphone. “We’ll need water and blankets. And maybe some protein.”
The first two stretchers lifted away, one after the other, Julia and her mother wrapped in heating blankets. Three more stretchers, all tied together, hanging in a cluster, came down another line—and another Seal Team member as well.
When they came for James, dragging a rescue stretcher with them, he shook his head. “No,” he said, pointing. “Hu Son first.”
“What?” asked Wright.
“He’s on second,” said James. But they were already wrapping him, lifting him into the stretcher, fastening the Velcro straps.
As they secured Hu into his own rescue stretcher, he looked over to James, a bemused expression on his face. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
James said, “It’s been a long day—” and passed out.
Wright signaled the chopper; the first stretcher with James lifted away. A moment later, Hu followed. Then Jesse. Wright followed them up, leaving two Seals behind with the remaining survivors. Even as they clattered away, the second chopper was moving in for the pickup.
“Where we taking them?” Wright asked.
“Wait a minute—” Copilot called back. He was talking to someone on one of the communication planes. “Getty isn’t taking anymore. And Dodger Stadium is full. The parking lot is tent city now.” Abruptly, he paused, listening. “Okay, copy that.” To the pilot, he said. “Griffith Observatory.”
The pilot nodded. The copilot turned back to Wright. “Did you hear that? Griffith Observatory. They’ve got an aid station there—and they’re running shuttles down into Burbank. They want to shorten our turnaround time.” Turning back to the pilot, he added, “They’re bringing a fuel truck up too.”
The pilot nodded, his only acknowledgment.
The Hollywood Hills were directly ahead. But below them, muddy water still churned across the flooded city.
The center of Los Angeles was gone—and so was its heart.
Griffith Observatory stands on one of the highest hills on the southern edge of the basin. It overlooks the entire city. It is a familiar landmark for both tourists and filmmakers.
Today, its wide lawn and parking lot served as a rescue station, a place for helicopters to bring survivors and refuel, a place for ambulances and buses to take survivors down the northern side of the hills to Burbank and North Hollywood and other places safely beyond the reach of the churning ocean.
James and Hu stood at a western railing, one of the better viewing positions, and looked out over what was now called the Bay of L.A. Or Bayla for short. On the hills to their right, the Hollywood sign survived untouched. It still declared the fabled town, but of Hollywood there was nothing left. Only a sea of mud. Already a smell of wet decay was rising from below. Despite the lingering heat of the day, they were both wrapped in blankets.