Page 110 of Eruption

“Not just good,” Mac said again. “The best.”

“I’ve got a big mouth,” Lono said.

“You always have.” Mac punched his arm lightly. “But this is your island, not ours.”

The sun was rising. They could see the big morning waves beginning to build in the distance. Without another word, they ran to the water, got on their boards, and paddled out.

Being in the water only made the world more beautiful, Mac thought. The light seemed to be coming from the ocean as well as the sky.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Mac said.

Lono said, “You’re the one who always told me that you had to make time for the things you love.”

“Then let’s ride, cowboy.”

Mac wondered, briefly, if this might be the last ride for both of them.

A few minutes later they were up on their boards, the two of them maybe fifty yards apart, maybe more, the water as warm as bathwater, both of them catching the first great wave at the same moment.

Mac heard Lono whoop and laugh with joy as they both glided toward the beach.

Mac took in the whole scene, the boy and the water and the morning sky, and thought again:This is what we’re trying to save.

CHAPTER 81

U.S. Military Reserve, Hawai‘i

Time to eruption: 6 hours

They still hadn’t found the Kane girl, the one who’d been with Sergeant Noa Mahoe at the bar the night of the leak at the Ice Tube. The girl or girlfriend.

General Mark Rivers didn’t want to hear any more excuses from Briggs. It wasn’t as if they were trying to find a missing person in New York City, he’d said.

“Find her!” Rivers roared, then dismissed Briggs with an irritated wave of his hand.

The girl was a loose end. He hated loose ends.

Sergeant Mahoe, that dumb-ass, was still in quarantine. In quarantine and under twenty-four-hour armed guard and possibly recovering from exposure to the radiation, although in the pictures Rivers had seen Mahoe looked like a napalm victim. The doctors wouldn’t say that he was definitely going to make it,just that he had a chance. They wanted to know more about his exposure.

All Rivers cared about was that this dumb-ass horny kid had taken his exposure with him off the base that night and without permission.

He needed to know if the girl was infected and whom she might have infected.

Goddamn, he hated loose ends.

Mark Rivers rubbed his forehead so hard he was afraid he’d break the skin. He wondered if the girl even knew Mahoe was sick, wondered if she might be some sort of carrier even if her skin wasn’t starting to fall off her in black flakes.

What if we all survive the eruption, what if we control the lava in the end at the same time a different kind of black death starts to seep across the island like a plague, all because of a sergeant under my command?Rivers thought.

On how many fronts was he expected to fight this war?

What if something just as deadly made its way across the Big Island before the lava began to flow like a tidal wave from the top of the mountain about which they were all obsessing?

God, he needed sleep.

Or a stiff drink.

Maybe both.