Deep Fire Rising

On the monitor they could see virtually nothing other than the glare from lights mounted directly above the cameras. The ROV was still falling, and Jim kept it well away from the island’s underwater basalt foundation.

“What’s the temp?” asked a Petromax technician.

“A bracing sixty-two degrees,” Jim answered. “No sign of volcanic heating.”

Mercer was relieved. The San Juan volcano loomed directly above their location. While lava had begun to jet from vents on the southern part of the island, San Juan, in the island’s middle, merely rumbled and occasionally belched ash.

Designed to probe the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, Conseil had no problems as Jim brought the ROV to a hover at one hundred eighty feet, a depth that even a scuba diver could work.

“The vent should be a hundred yards ahead of us and a bit to the left,” Jim intoned as he spooled up the nimble craft’s propulsors.

He eased the ROV forward, keeping one eye on the video feed and another on the sonar screen that was mapping the irregularities of the undersea cliff. An accidental brush with the rock, even this shallow, could damage the remotely operated vehicle.

“All right, I see the cliff.”

On the screen a murky shadow resolved itself into a jagged promontory of solidified lava. As he nosed the craft forward for a better look, the team could see the lava had formed in long ropes that had once shot from the vent like toothpaste. This pillow lava, as it was called, was what they all expected. To Mercer it looked like the ruins of a Greek temple, with the longer, straighter pieces of lava resembling fallen columns.

“Judging by the size of that lava,” he said, “I’d say our vent is big enough.” The shafts of rock were easily fifteen feet in diameter.

“We’re below the vent.” Jim brought Conseil up ten feet, then another thirty.

They lost sight of the pillow lava but didn’t spot the vent opening. He swiveled the ROV, searching along the dark cliff for the blacker spot of the volcanic vent. Nothing. He dropped Conseil back to their original starting point, moved ten feet to the left and allowed the robot to ascend. The dozen pairs of eyes watching the screen all thought they saw the vent, but it was their desire, not reality. Once the ROV had risen above the layer of pillow lava, Jim sank her again and started a new search lane another ten feet to the left.

They ran fifty vertical lanes before the area of lava ended entirely. Four painstaking hours had been wasted.

“No one said this was going to be easy,” Jim opined, undaunted by the job. He maneuvered Conseil to where they first encountered the lava and methodically started the next stripe ten feet to the right.

“I thought I put us right on the spot,” Les Donnelley said miserably.

“Don’t sweat it, man,” Charlie offered. “We learned a long time ago that you can’t find anything underwater until it wants to be found.” He turned to his wife. “Any dowsing tricks you can use to help?”

Spirit squeezed his hand. “Sorry, lover, that only works when you’re looking for water. How about you, Dr. Mercer? You always seem to have a bag of tricks up your sleeve.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

Mercer didn’t notice. “Not this time.”

“Oh, that’s right. You only perform miracles when your own ass is on the line.”

He shot her a look, but let it pass.

After another hour and ten more search lanes, the lava field petered out once again.

“Damn.” The mild expletive was the most emotion Jim McKenzie had shown since starting the search while the others were showing signs of their anger and frustration. “The vent that spewed this stuff must have been sealed sometime in the past. So now what?”

They’d covered a mere thirty-five hundred square feet, a tiny fraction of the cliff face. Without a more precise idea of the vent’s location, they could spend the next week scouring the undersea wall without finding it.

“I am so sorry, guys,” Les kept repeating. “The divers I talked to were certain there was a vent here.”

“Go back to our original starting point,” Mercer ordered, “and let Connie descend.”

“Why down and not up?” Spirit Williams challenged. “The vent could be above where we’ve searched just as easily as below.”

“It’s a guess,” Mercer admitted. “But an educated one. Charlie can back me on this. He’s a more experienced diver than I am. I think the answer is nitrogen narcosis, also called rapture of the deep. It’s a feeling that can overwhelm a diver working at depth not unlike drunkenness. You get impaired judgment, lack of motor coordination and feelings of euphoria. Now suppose the divers Les talked to had been affected by nitrogen narcosis when they discovered the vent. Chances are they would have been deeper than they thought, not shallower.”

C.W. nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

“And what if they were a mile south of here, or a mile north when they dove?” Spirit countered.

“They were on the surface when they fixed their position,” Charlie answered her challenge. “I’m sure they could read a handheld GPS.”

Spirit didn’t like that her husband defended Mercer and shook off the hand he had around her waist. She crossed her arms over her chest and stormed out of the control van.

Jim ignored her outburst. “I think Mercer’s on to something. I’ll let Connie sink down to three hundred and see what we see.”

“That’s way below how deep a diver can go on scuba gear.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Jim backed Conseil away from the cliff and let the ROV slowly drift deeper into the abyss. He kept the cameras pointed straight down so he could avoid any rock outcrops as the little robot sank.

At two hundred seventy feet they found another platform covered in ropes of pillow lava. “Bingo!”

The cell phone in the pocket of Mercer’s khakis vibrated. Rather than disturb the others, he stepped out of the control van. The air was crisp but heavily laden with fine ash particles. It had a metallic taste and Mercer couldn’t take deep breaths without the urge to cough.

The sun was setting beyond the Cumbre ridge. It silhouetted the volcanic formation, creating an undulating line of darkness and light. Because of the ash in the atmosphere, the color was more melon than yellow. To the south, where molten rock fountained from the Teneguia volcano, the sky’s glow was unworldly and hellish.

He fished the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. The caller-ID feature showed Ira Lasko’s number. They spoke at least ten times a day. “What’s the latest?” Mercer answered.

“I’ve got something for your file of the most ridiculous things you’ve ever heard. The North Korean delegation to the United Nations is willing to drop their objections to us using a nuke on La Palma if we give them permission to test one of their own. Get this — they say that a detonation on the island is a peaceful use of nuclear weapons and that their test would also have a beneficial purpose.”

“Yeah, beneficial in scaring the crap out of Japan and South Korea. What’s the UN’s reaction?”

“Publicly they don’t have much choice but to allow it. The way the resolution was drafted every nation has to agree for us to get permission. Privately, as soon as they run their test, the germane countries are going to sanction them even further into the Stone Age.”

Mercer snorted. “What else is going on?”

“The team at Lawrence Livermore have come up with the weapon you need. It’s an old W-54 SADM.”

“Saddam?”

“Small Atomic Demolition Munition. It was developed in the fifties to be fired from the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle. The engineers have modified its plutonium implosion core to push up the yield. Originally it was a one-kiloton warhead. They’ve brought it up to four and a half, which Dr. Marie says should be sufficient.”

“Provided we can find the vent,” Mercer said.

“No luck yet?”

“We’re closing in,” was all Mercer would give. “How big is the bomb?”

“Ah, hold on. About two feet square.”

“Sounds like the legendary suitcase bomb.”

“It is, or was. When they increased the yield they had to add shielding. It weighs in at two hundred sixty pounds.”