Page 70 of Eruption

“Am I out ofmymind?” Cutler sputtered. “Get your hands off me, you bastard.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Ollie,” Mac said. “Where are all your media friends when you could really use them?” He gave Cutler another shove, then released him. Dr. John MacGregor couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a physical fight, or anything close to one. Maybe not since junior high school. But he was spoiling for one right now.

His face was still close to Cutler’s, which had turned crimson. But Mac could see in Oliver Cutler’s eyes that he wasn’t about to say or do anything to escalate the situation.

“Just what exactly did you think you were accomplishing in there?” Mac asked. “Other than maybe getting you and your wife fired, which is frankly kind of a dream of mine. I don’t know why you and Leah are here. Maybe Rivers thinks that somehow the two of you can humanize this whole situation. Or maybe by the time Takayama invited you to the party, it was too late for the general to do anything about it. I don’t give a shit either way. What Idogive a shit about isyoucausingmeproblems.”

“I was telling the truth,” Cutler said.

Mac snorted. “The truth?” he said. “Maybe those suckers in the media bought your garbage about ‘examining the subvolcanic structure.’” Mac raised his hands to put air quotes around the words, which made Cutler flinch. “But we both know better, don’t we? You and Leah are no seismologists, and I know you don’t employ any, because you’re just lava chasers. I happen to know every place you’ve been since you arrived on this island. And Mauna Loa wasn’t one of them. Neither was the HVO data room.”

“You’re having me followed, MacGregor?” Cutler asked.

“We try to keep an eye on loose cannons,” Mac said. “Even ones dressed like space-age cheerleaders.”

Cutler let that go. “People have a right to know what’s going on inside that mountain,” he said. “And by the way, I don’t take orders from you. I report to General Rivers, same as you.”

He slid along the wall to create some space between himself and Mac. It was still just the two of them behind the auditorium.

“You act like I volunteered for this,” Cutler said. “I didn’t. I was asked to come.”

“Yeah,” Mac said, “by that clerk Takayama, like I said. He decided you could be useful, except that all you did in there was act like a useful idiot.”

“You better figure out a way to work with me,” Cutler said, “because my wife and I aren’t going anywhere.”

Mac took a step toward him, but Cutler managed to stand his ground.

“No, Ollie, you’ve got it wrong,” Mac said. “You’re the one who needs to find a way to work with me. Or I will bury you.”

He let the words hang there in the night air, then got into his car, slammed the door shut, and drove off. He was so focused on getting far away from Cutler that he didn’t notice the pretty, dark-haired woman running across the lot from the other side of the building, frantically waving at him to stop.

CHAPTER 48

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Hawai‘i

Time to eruption: 60 hours

What’s Rivers going to do when he finds out what Cutler told the media?” Rebecca Cruz asked Mac when they got back to HVO.

“Hopefully riphima new trench,” Mac said.

The immediate task for Mac’s people and Cruz Demolition was to determine the steepest and safest descent path they could create for the lava, working off their original plan for targeted bombing on the ground. At daylight, Mac and Rebecca would head over to Mauna Loa to decide where to place the explosives that Rebecca would detonate remotely once the lava came.

“We’ll need the exact locations of as many lava tubes as we can find so we can use them effectively,” Mac told the group, who were once again seated around the long table inthe conference room. “We also need to find places in the rock where we can safely dig deep enough to plant our bombs. Obviously, the wisdom on that will come from our experts from Cruz Demolition.”

“We’ll need to fast-track putting bombs into heat-protected casings,” David Cruz said.

His sister grinned. “Premature detonation,” she said. “Never a good thing, right, guys?”

“If that happens, do we even want to know what’s next?” Jenny Kimura asked.

“Not so much,” Rebecca said. “But I’m sure you can guess.”

“Do I want to guess?” Jenny said.

“Not so much,” Rebecca said again.

No one spoke for a moment.