Page 24 of Eruption

“Maybe.”

“Didn’t HVO get some funding from this?”

“Not sure. I’d have to check.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “There’s something we don’t know.” Still frowning, he flipped to the last page, the summary.

SUCCESS PROBABILITIES

Estimation of success for Project Vulcan is difficult given the degree of uncertainty surrounding major project variables. These cannot be weighted in the absence of an actual eruption. A succession of simulations using the STATSYL program for statistical analysis suggests a likelihood of success ranging from 7 percent to 11 percent.

However, based on the past 200 years of eruptions, the likelihood that lava will reach any given site is a function of distance from the eruptive region and is, on average, 9.3 percent. This suggests that Vulcan’s likelihood of success is no greater than chance—that is, it is entirely ineffective. In the absence of further technological advances, we recommend that attempts at vent deflection be abandoned.

We conclude that the only practical method to protect populations from flowing lava is to evacuate them before its advance.

MacGregor laughed.

“What is it?” Jenny said.

“Our boys didn’t give away the ending.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They didn’t tell me that the report concluded it wouldn’t work.”

“But they think it can?”

“It’s like they’re trying to talk themselves into it,” he said. “And talk me into it.”

“Have they?”

He grinned. “Have you ever seen them talk me into anything?”

“Always a first time,” Jenny said. She kissed him on the cheek quickly and left.

Mac spent an hour or so researching dikes and seawater cooling, trying to get to where Rick and Kenny wanted him to be. Surprisingly, the most compelling argument came from J. P. Brett, billionaire tech guy, in a long op-ed piece in theLos Angeles Times.Brett, Mac knew, was as obsessed with volcanoes as other rich billionaire types were with space travel. Rockets were rich-guy phallic symbols.

But Brett knew his stuff. One of the events he referenced was the 1973 eruption of Eldfell in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago in Iceland. Brett focused on seawater pumped in to cool the lava and a twenty-five-meter-high artificial dike built at the end of the lava tongue. A handful of scientists believed that pumping in seawater would significantly slow the lava and stop it from flowing into the town, but only if extremely powerful pumps were used and only if that equipment was there within one week. The pumping equipment was delivered, but not until two weeks later. As for the dike, although the lava traveled slowly at first, by thetime it reached the dike, it was more than twice its height and easily overtopped it. After the fact, scientists concluded that even if the seawater pumping equipment had been brought in much sooner, it still would not have stopped the powerful lava flow or saved the town.

Brett disagreed. Vehemently. He noted that now, half a century later, friends of his could build their own rockets, so Brett was certain that one of his companies could produce sophisticated and powerful pumping equipment and build a dike that would survive a nuclear attack.

Mac sat in the quiet of his den and reread the article, then printed it out. Now he would have that drink. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, raising his glass in a toast to the boys. “Maybe they can talk me into this.”

But he sure wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

CHAPTER 16

Later that night, MacGregor flipped through the channels on the TV, looking for local news. When he got to KHON, he heard the reporter say, “We’ll have updates on that pending eruption of Mauna Loa, so be sure to stay tuned. In the day’s sports news—”

MacGregor’s phone rang. Or, rather, phones—landline and cell simultaneously. He glanced at his watch as he answered it. The HVO had an automated telephone alert system that kicked in whenever there were significant changes in the field-monitoring devices. He half expected to hear the flat computer-generated voice calling him back to work, but instead a male voice said, “Dr. John MacGregor?”

“Yes. Speaking.”

“This is Lieutenant Leonard Craig. I’m a staff physician at the Kalani VA Hospital in Honolulu.”

“Yes?” His first thought was that this must be about Jake Rogers or the cameraman he had fished out of the crater. Orboth. Had they been so badly injured that they were taken to Honolulu? “Is this about the helicopter crash?”

“No, sir, it’s not. I’m calling about General Bennett.”

“Who?”