Thirty miles north, just over the horizon from the Mona Lisa,the Egyptian super oil tanker Rameses IIfound 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 Wandererunderwater resort hotel was an adventure waiting to be experienced, an exciting 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 Wandereralso 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.