Page 103 of Eruption

He went back to the army jeep Rivers had assigned to him exclusively. He planned to meet Rebecca and her crew back at Mauna Loa—the volcano permitting, of course—so they could finish burying the rest of her explosives. After that they would meet with Brett and the Cutlers and review the latest map for the aerial bombing.

All of that bombing would be contingent on what Jenny and Rick observed once they arrived in the Galápagos Islands, havingtraveled there by what would probably feel to them like the speed of sound.

It was just another way, Mac thought, of trying to beat the big clock.

He sat behind the wheel, not yet putting the key in the ignition, thinking of his goodbye with Jenny and wondering if he should have said something more to her. But then, he spent a lot of time wondering if he should be saying more to her about his feelings.

Maybe he would when he understood them better. He hoped there would be plenty of time for that.

The buzzing of his phone brought him back.

The caller ID readNew York Times.

Mac wasn’t remotely surprised that the reporters had his number.Wait for it,he thought.

A minute later he heard the ping that meant he had a new voicemail message. It was the woman reporter.

“This is Imani Burgess. I hope you can return my call before Sam and I file our story so we can get a comment from you about a source who’s suggesting there’s some sort of toxic-waste dump on the island and some dead soldiers who might have been contaminated by it.”

There was a pause.

“We’re on deadline,” she said. “So the sooner you get back to us, the better. We’d really like to give you the chance to respond to what we have, especially if you know anything about the soldiers.”

Mac played the message again.

Then he pressed the Delete button, put the key in the ignition, and drove out of the parking lot.

Then he placed a call of his own, but it wasn’t to theNew York Times.

CHAPTER 76

Above the Galápagos Islands

The eruption had ended by the time they arrived, less than five hours after they’d taken off from Hilo International, even faster than J. P. Brett had promised, aided mightily by a powerful Pacific jet stream.

As they flew over Isabela Island, where Volcán Wolf was one of six shield volcanoes, Jenny saw one of the most amazing sunsets she had ever seen, as bright orange as a lava waterfall. It was still in full force and view as they began their descent.

“So they did exactly what they wanted to do,” Jenny said. She and Rick had watched the live stream of the event on her laptop.

“Turned the side of the volcano into a sieve,” Rick said.

“More like they did a geologic cesarean,” Jenny said. “They just took the baby early.”

What they’d done here over the past month, under advisement from some Japanese scientists the Ecuadoran governmenthad flown in, was depressurize magma chambers by guiding missiles deep into Volcán Wolf, as far down as ten kilometers. The passive degassing they’d implemented had relieved much of the pressure that had built up before the eruption, which they had pinpointed almost to the hour. The successful result had been a calculated, synchronized release of pressure through vents created by the short-range missiles.

The summit of Volcán Wolf disappeared as the pilot banked the Peregrine toward the airport.

“So our work here is basically done,” Rick said.

“Not quite,” Jenny said.

Lieutenant Abbott and his superior officer, Major Neibart, had plainly told Jenny there was no way, none, that they would allow them to fly to Isabela Island, even if the army had built an airstrip for its own use between the Wolf Volcano and one named after Charles Darwin.

“No way,” Lieutenant Abbott, a hard-ass, had said. “Not happening.”

But then Jenny had stepped outside Abbott’s office and called Mac. Mac had contacted General Mark Rivers, who outranked pretty much everybody except the president of the United States. Now here they were on the island, having been flown over there by a young army pilot who pulled the four-seater nearly up to the front door of a Quonset hut that served as a subbase.

There were a couple of jeeps parked outside it.