“Thanks for that,” said Jimmy. “You’ve been a real help.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll be right back on the line.”
Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe replaced the telephone thoughtfully. Had Tony Tilton actually heard a couple of low-flying cruise missiles heading for the fractured crater of Mount St. Helens?
It did not take long to find out. Five minutes later, State Trooper Ray Suplee was back. “Twenty minutes, sir. Mr. Tilton will be waiting on this line—”
Jimmy jotted down the number and decided to wait until he had completed his three-part investigation before he told Admiral Morris what he suspected. He took his watch off and propped it up in front of him — a habit he’d copied from his father — then carefully wrote up his notes.
At precisely 6:10 P.M., he punched in the number and was instantly connected to an ivory-colored telephone 2,800 miles away, in a spacious air-conditioned office tower in downtown Seattle, where it was only 3:10 in the afternoon.
“Tilton,” said a voice, at the end of a private line.
“G’day, Mr. Tilton. This is Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. I’m assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. I believe you were expecting my call…”
“I was. Heard from the State Police about twenty minutes ago. What can I tell you? — It has to be about the volcano; there’s never been so many people wanting to chat to me, all on the same subject.”
Then the Lieutenant Commander got down to the heart of the matter. “The state trooper told me you’d given a radio interview and you mentioned a high wind just before the blast?”
“Almost. What I heard, in sequence, was this strange, sudden whoosh of air, right above the lake, in the mist. It was the kind of sound you get in an old house in the middle of a rainstorm…You know, when a strong wind suddenly rises and makes that kinda creepy wailing noise. Except there was hardly a breath of wind on the lake that morning. Just that sudden rush of air.”
“Anyone else hear it?”
“No. I was the only one who heard it. I actually looked up, out over the water, it was such an unusual noise.”
“Then what?”
“Seconds later, I’m talking maybe ten seconds, there was this dull, muffled thumping sound from way up the mountain. That really got my attention, and Donnie’s. As you know, I’m jumpy about volcanoes, after Montserrat, and we got the other two out of the tents. Then I heard it again, ’bout a minute later…that wind. Followed by another more obvious explosion. Way high up.”
“Did you hear a fourth explosion?”
“No. But we sure felt it. The whole area kinda shuddered. And then the sky became overcast…and all this burning stuff was falling into the trees. The first fire we saw, out on the right, was way up ahead, maybe a half mile. That’s how far the debris was being blasted. We were on the road by then…I’d say a good six miles away from the mountain…”
“Mr. Tilton,” Jimmy said, “I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been a real help.”
“No problem, Lieutenant Commander,” replied the bank President. “But tell me, why is the National Security Agency interested in a plain act of God?”
“Oh, just a routine checkup. We always take a look at these things. You know, earthquakes, major fires, tidal waves…Thanks for your help, Mr. Tilton.”
President McBride, a slim, lanky man, with receding curly gray-brown hair, was irritated. A few moments earlier, he had been looking forward to his salad, and now this. A detailed three-page memorandum direct from Jurassic Park — copy to Cyrus Romney — outlining the possibility that a person or persons unknown had blown up Mount St. Helens from a submarine apparently parked several hundred miles away, on the bottom of the goddamned Pacific Ocean.
Absurd, and precisely the kind of harebrained, quasimilitary scare-mongering the President had vowed to eradicate.
President McBride’s views were well known. He considered the prospect of war, any war, unthinkable. He’d been known to say, “If we’ve got to fight in order to retain our place in the modern world, we ought to opt out and become isolationist.”
The President held up the memorandum he had just skimmed through, shook his head, and resisted the temptation to toss it in the bin. Cyrus had even told Fort Meade to waste no time on it. Of course they’d done the exact opposite, and now this. He hit the button requesting his National Security Adviser to come in and the discuss the matter. He always felt better when he was chatting with Cyrus. Old friends, they had marched shoulder to shoulder in Washington protesting Middle Eastern wars. They were both “enlightened,” not stuck in the gloomy, antagonistic past.
Cyrus tapped lightly on the door, and entered. “Hi, Mr. President,” he said, cheerfully. “And what awful turmoil has this uncaring world visited upon you today?” Cyrus wrote poetry in his spare time.
“This, old buddy,” replied the man in the Big Chair. “This deranged bullshit from Jurassic Park. They think there’s some kind of monster from
“To be honest, I’ve only just got to my mail. I assume they copied me?”
“Yes. They have. It’s based on that hoax letter about Mount St. Helens. Admiral Morris seems to think that there might be someone out there firing cruise missiles at Washington State.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Cyrus. “Those guys! They should’ve been novelists.”
“All I know is there are two gigantic U.S. Navy bases in Washington State, and now these clowns at Fort Meade are telling me that despite several trillion dollars of surveillance equipment sweeping Puget Sound and all points west — on the water, above the water, and under the water — there’s a damn great nuclear submarine prowling around underneath our ships, firing stuff at volcanoes. Now, am I missing something, or is this a load of horseshit on an almost unprecedented scale?”
“Well, I haven’t read it yet, Charlie. But it does sound kind of far-fetched.”
“The gist of the thing is that some terrorist organization snatched a volcanologist in the street in London last May, and then murdered him. They think he told Hamas how to erupt dormant volcanoes, and they may have done it a couple of weeks ago, right here in the U.S.A.”
“Did they catch the murderers? Any charges? Evidence?”
“Hell, no. The Brits never caught anyone. But Fort Meade seems to think that there was some Middle East connection.”
“Well, what do they want us to do about it?”
“They want the entire U.S. Navy on high alert, and they want their theories to be taken seriously. They want us to believe these guys are for real, and that they do know how to blow up volcanoes.”
“Those guys at Ford Meade are nuts. You do know that, don’t you? You want me to draft a reply to them?”
“That’s more or less what I had in mind. And, Cy…for Christ’s sake, tell them to avoid these rabble-rousing scare stories. They don’t do a lick of good to anyone.”
“Okay, Chief. I’ll read this and get it done.”
Cyrus left, and later that afternoon, Admiral George Morris received his sardonic reply to the threatening scenario he’d presented to them that morning.
Dear Admiral Morris — I am sorry you chose to ignore my advice about that hoax Hamas letter sent to Arnold Morgan. As you know, my judgment was then, and remains now, that it was simply a ludicrous declaration involving the power of God. I expect you have noticed, those who are truly deranged typically invoke the power of the Almighty, especially when laying claim to global disasters.
I have conferred with the President on this matter, and his view reflects mine, mainly that there is not one shred of hard evidence connecting any Middle Eastern Terrorist with those London murders. And it is difficult to see
