Page 104 of Eruption

“Does anybody live here?” Rick asked the pilot.

“Wolf Volcano giant tortoises,” the pilot said. “They’re pretty proud of the saddleback shells in these parts.” Then he added, “I was told to inform you that if you’re not back on this plane in an hour, you better hope you can get an Uber from here.”

Jenny had the map of the island in her lap. She insisted ondetermining exactly where the magma chambers had been and how close to them the vents were located—that way they could see for themselves how the bombing had controlled the lava flow so effectively. Rick drove the jeep up the steep 5,580-foot mountain, the elevation changing rapidly as they made their way to the summit.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this,” Rick said.

“Boots on the ground,” Jenny said.

“Great,” he said. “I’m riding around near an active volcano with GI Jane.”

They got as close to the eastern flank of Wolf Volcano as they safely could, close enough for them to see the lava streams. Even from here, they could tell that the streams were beginning to slow as they flowed toward the ocean.

“Damn, they figured out a way to make the lava go exactly where they wanted it to go,” Jenny said when they were out of the jeep. “If they can do it, so can we.”

“Ifwe can figure out how to do it the way they did,” Rick said. “In the day or so we’ve got left.”

“Can we get a little closer?” Jenny asked.

“No.”

“We’ve come this far.”

“Yeah,toofar,” he grumbled, but he parked the jeep and followed her up the mountain.

Eventually they reached a small but solid promontory that provided the best view they were going to get of the holes that had been blown in the Wolf Volcano, which was a quarter mile or so from where they now stood. The smaller streams of lava were still flowing out of them, south of where the most powerful stream flowed from the summit.

Rick had brought a Canon camera with a telephoto lens from the base, and he was shooting away. After a short time, he toldJenny they needed to wrap this up because he was about to run out of light and space on his memory card.

“Just a few more,” she said, “and then we’re out of here, I promise. You know this footage is going to help Mac a lot.”

“Oh, thank God,” Rick said.

He got down on one knee to get a better shot. Jenny stood next to him.

The earthquake, sudden and violent and unexpected, hit Isabela Island with a force unlike any quake Jenny had ever felt, even in the run-up to the eruption back in Hilo; it was as if the whole world had exploded.

They looked around for cover, but there was no place for them to hide, no place for them to run. The sky suddenly went dark, as if night had fallen that quickly.

They looked back just in time to see much of Wolf Volcano falling toward them like a building collapsing; at the same moment the cliff on which they had been standing disappeared.

Then they were the ones falling.

CHAPTER 77

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Hawai‘i

Mac left Rebecca Cruz in his office and reluctantly went outside the main building at HVO to have a face-to-face with the twoTimesreporters; they’d said they weren’t leaving until he came out to talk to them.

There was another woman with them; she introduced herself as Rachel Sherrill.

Imani Burgess got right to it. “You’ll be happy to know that the paper isn’t going to run our story,” she snapped. “Or maybe you knew that already.” She made no attempt to hide her anger.

Rachel Sherrill added, “So the U.S. Army strikes again.”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, Ms. Sherrill,” Mac said. “But who are you?”

“Someone hoping you might cut the shit,” she said.