Page 126 of Eruption

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Page 126 of Eruption

He gave her a long look. “Not to me, it doesn’t.”

He put her back over his shoulder.

They heard a plane and saw a fixed-wing turboprop appear suddenly out of the dark cloud and head south. Mac recognized it as an EO-5C, an army reconnaissance plane.

In the next moment, it was as if the sound had been turned off. They could no longer hear the engine.

The propellers were no longer spinning.

Mac and Rebecca watched in horror as the EO-5C descended too quickly toward the observatory.

CHAPTER 95

U.S. Military Reserve, Hawai‘i

The reconnaissance plane Rivers had put in the air to look for Mac and Rebecca seemed to be coming straight at him.

He watched the feed from the security camera situated at the northwest gate of the observatory. The last communication from the two pilots was a report that the cloud they’d tried to avoid had killed their engines, and the ash and glass particles had rendered the propellers useless.

It didn’t matter to Rivers how it had happened. Just that it had.

The plane disappeared briefly into the volcanic smog and then came back into view.

Rivers listened to the pilots on the speaker in his office feeling as if he were in the cockpit himself.

“I want to shoot for that helipad outside the compound!” the pilot said. “But I can barely make out where it is!”

Rivers checked the screen showing the view from the north camera and saw the different flows of lava were coalescing into one large flow, glowing red at the edges and increasing in speed as it moved toward the observatory.

“So much freaking lava!” the copilot yelled. “But it hasn’t reached—”

The pilot cut him off. “Wait, I think I see—”

“I can try to direct you,” the voice from the tower said. “Are you able to—”

“No time—”

“To the left, Ron!” the copilot yelled.

The speaker went silent.

Rivers continued to stare at the feed, helpless.

The plane didn’t veer away.

One hundred yards now.

Fifty.

Its nose was aimed directly at the camera until everything went dark.

CHAPTER 96

NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawai‘i

It was nighttime when Mac and Rebecca managed to make it to the observatory.

They’d witnessed the recon plane’s crash from about a mile up the mountain. As they continued down, they’d seen a series of small explosions, but these had finally begun to subside when they approached the main gate.




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