Scimitar SL-2

Yes, there had been steam and even some gases leaking from the crater on the summit in recent weeks. Yes, there had been signs of fire, ashes, and black smoke bursting into the atmosphere. And no, it would not have been a tremendous surprise if Mount St. Helens had erupted in the next five years. The giant carbuncle was indeed a significant factor.

What baffled the professors was the sheer speed of the eruption, so sudden, so unexpected, so utterly without warning. This was a new concept for volcanologists all over the world. No angry early blasts, no torrents of high sparks and sinister rumbles, not even the sight of molten lava creeping out over the rim of the crater. Nothing. This was the Whispering Death of Mount St. Helens. Unseen. Unsuspected. Unannounced.

CNN rustled up a young volcanologist from the University of California in Santa Cruz. He had never even seen Mount St. Helens, and had not been born when it erupted in 1980. His father was not born when Lassen Peak, the only other comparable volcanic eruption in the U.S., let fly in 1914. But the recently qualified Simon Lyons from Orange County spoke with the unwavering authority of those sufficiently youthful still to have the answers to everything.

“Any halfway decent student of geohazardous situations must have known this volcano could have erupted at any time,” he said. “That carbuncle was growing at a very fast rate, maybe a half-mile across in the last two years. That’s the sign we’re all looking for. That’s the sign of the encroaching magma, surging up from the core of the earth. You see a carbuncle being force-fed with lava from below, right there, you’re looking at a volcano fixing to blow.”

“Then you blame those study groups based on mountain, supposedly monitoring it for the benefit of us all… using Federal funds?”

“Yes, sir. I most certainly do. Incompetence. Ignorance of the value of the data. Ought to be anathema to a real scientist.”

Professor Charles Delmar, of the University of Colorado, was older, more experienced, and more circumspect. Fox News got ahold of him, and he was the first to admit he could throw little light on the eruption.

He said the photographs he had been shown suggested the Sunday morning blowout on the summit of the mountain had been aimed to the north, which suggested the carbuncle itself had given way to the pressure of the magma below. Professor Delmar found that “most unusual” simply because there were no other reported symptoms of eruptions from that precise location. There had been evidence of steam gouts and some smoke, but that was reportedly emanating from the mountain peak, not from cracks in the carbuncle, which would have been an indication of pressure underneath the dome of lava rock.

Therefore, Professor Delmar considered it “most odd” that it should suddenly have obliterated itself, and “even more odd” that it should have given way so comprehensively, so quickly, that the third biggest volcano eruption in the U.S.A. in a hundred years should have happened, literally, within moments.

The Barracuda II moved slowly south down the Pacific, following the 127th western line of longitude for another 100 miles. It was almost 0300 when the great submarine moved stealthily to the surface, ran up an ESM mast, and transmitted a one-word message to their command headquarters, via the satellite, to faraway Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz.

Saladin was the word. And the transmission was forwarded on by E-mail to a computer based on Via Dolorosa, in the Muslim section of Jerusalem, the very street down which Jesus is said to have carried his cross en route to Calvary.

Within moments, a stamped, sealed letter with airmail stamps already affixed was in the hands of a messenger, running swiftly through the old city to the central post office on Schlomzion Street.

It was addressed to Vice Admiral Arnold Morgan, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, U.S.A. PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL. General Rashood knew the Admiral no longer worked in the West Wing, but he was confident the U.S. Administration’s gigantic 50,000-letters-a-week mail room would find a way to forward the letter to the Admiral’s private home address.

5

Friday, August 14

Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Harry, Chief Security Agent to Admiral Arnold Morgan, signed for the four letters delivered by the White House courier. Then he walked to the mailbox especially fitted inside the porch, emptied it, and walked around to the high gate that guarded the entrance to the swimming pool area of the house, the large dark-blue rectangular body of water.

Three of the high surrounding stone walls were in a light Spanish-style salmon pink. Giant terra-cotta pots overflowing with green shrubs were planted all around. The fourth wall was a high wooden fence into which was set a small cabana with a polished teakwood bar and four stools.

“Sir!” Harry called. “Would you like me to bring the mail through?”

“I guess if you must persist in ruining my entire day with goddamned trivia, then you better do it,” came the rasping voice over the top of the fence.

“Yes, sir,” said Harry, who let himself in and walked across to the wide glass-topped table, where Admiral Morgan sat in a director’s chair, frowning, as he mostly did, at the political views of the New York Times. As were many of America’s daily publications, the paper was currently enjoying a gleeful period, congratulating the wonderful new Democratic President Charles McBride.

“Jesus Christ,” growled Arnold. “I didn’t realize you could get that many total assholes under one editorial roof. Except possibly in the Washington Post…which I haven’t read yet, since I’m trying to keep my blood pressure steady.”

“Yes, sir,” said Harry, putting the Admiral’s mail on his table next to the coffeepot. “See the Orioles won again last night?”

“I did,” replied the Admiral. “And they made two errors. Same spot as usual. Straight up the goddamned middle. I’m telling you, they’ve needed a top shortstop ever since Bordick retired. And until they get one, they’ll never make the play-offs…”

“You watch the game, sir?”

“Just the last coupla innings, after dinner. Missed all the runs, though. Only saw the errors. For a minute, I thought the Yanks might catch us.”

“Yeah. So did I. Good closer, though, that kid from Japan. Saved our ass, right, sir?”

“He did too…now, what’s all this bullshit you’ve brought me? Hop inside and bring me out a plastic bag, will you? I’ve a feeling this consignment is about 99 percent rubbish.”

“Okay, sir…be right back.”

The Admiral looked at the top four letters, the ones from the White House. One was from the pensions department, two were invitations, the fourth was from someone in the Middle East, judging from the portrait of a sheikh on the stamp.

Arnold rarely looked at a photograph or painting of an elderly Arabian without remembering, automatically, the towers of the World Trade Center eight years previously. He took the letter and tore open the cream-colored envelope impatiently. The single sheet of writing paper inside was not headed by a printed address. It was plain. No date. Across the middle were three typed lines, plus a one-word printed signature. Nothing personal.

Admiral Morgan, you do not suppose for one moment that the eruption of Mount St. Helens was an accident, do you?

— Hamas.

Arnold gaped. He turned the sheet over, checked the envelope. There was not another clue, anywhere. Just this barefaced inquiry, full of menace. Could it be a hoax?

In the old days, he would have instantly summoned Admiral Morris, and then gone straight to the Oval Office, without knocking.

Today, however, sitting by the pool at eleven o’clock on a warm morning, a civilian in every sense of the