The tall officer looked Mercer in the eye. “I want to know why. Why would they do it? We’re trying to save the world. Why would someone want to stop us. No one gains.”
“It’s not about gain.” Mercer set his cup next to the coffeemaker and turned to the door. “I think it’s about maximizing loss.” He hadn’t forgotten that Tisa’s brother, Luc, hadn’t been at Rinpoche-La and was still at large.
Mercer found his way to the deck. The air felt heavier than before and charged with static. Lightning licked along the distant Cumbre ridge, caused by the ash and gas erupting from the southern part of the island. Mercer watched strike after strike. On the far side of the ridge he had teams drilling into the mountain trying to stabilize the slope. The drill trucks were well grounded, but it was only a matter of time before one of the men was struck.
With just one week left he considered evacuating them. The extra support pipes they were pinning into the rock wasn’t worth the risk of one or more being killed. He knew from the beginning that the whole scheme had been a long shot at best. His hopes had always lain with the nuke.
But what if each pipe prevented one ton of debris from slamming into the ocean? And what if that one ton meant saving a family trapped on the Bahamas, or in the Belgian lowlands?
On his numerous inspection tours he’d talked to enough of the roughnecks to know that they’d probably ignore his evacuation order anyway. He was pretty sure a few of the tougher ones would even continue to drill as the Cumbre Vieja split and slid down to the sea.
He turned his back on the atmospheric discharges and looked to the east. Dawn was hours away, but the glow from the erupting Teneguia volcano painted the sky in oranges and flickering reds. The light danced like the mindless rage of an artillery barrage. Cracks of thunder added to the illusion.
It would be ten o’clock on Saturday night back home, he realized. Harry would be slouched on his stool at Tiny’s. Paul would be in his cramped office getting tomorrow’s odds for his sports book. Doobie Lapoint would be behind the bar, the crisp towel over his shoulder the cleanest item in the place. Mercer desperately wanted to be a part of that normalcy, not here making decisions that affected the lives of millions of people.
He pulled the phone from his pocket and started to dial the Arlington number when he realized he didn’t have a signal. The lightning, he guessed, and turned back to appraise the island.
Mercer had a second to realize the sky had been shredded — the burst of ash had already climbed to five thousand feet — before the wall of sound rocked the
San Juan was erupting.
Lit from below by its own fiery heart, the top of the volcano had been blown skyward, a seething, billowing column of ash and rock that spread as it rose, a bruised purple mushroom cloud that cleaved the darkness.
The ship was a mile from shore, and the volcano was another eleven miles inland, and yet the shock wave slammed the
His head was filled with the ceaseless bellow of the explosion, a sound that seemed to shake his flesh loose from his bones. When the concussion finally dissipated, he felt like a dried husk. His fingers were bent into claws from his grip on the metal stanchion.
He staggered to his feet, his first concern for the crews working to pin the side of the mountain. He had to find a working phone or radio. He had to know how many he’d lost. At least five drill trucks were working the lower flank of San Juan. Fifty men had been within three miles of the blast, more when he considered the tanker drivers and relief workers, who rarely ventured far from their machines.
A door into the superstructure flew open. Spirit Williams was backlit against the interior lights. Her T-shirt was cropped so high that the bottom of her breasts were visible, two heavy crescents of white skin. Her panties were little more than a triangle of silk. Mercer brushed past her without a glance.
“What happened?” she cried and raced to keep pace.
“It blew. The son-of-a-bitching mountain blew.” Crewmen and scientists tumbled from their cabins in various states of undress.
Mercer climbed for the bridge. Third Officer Rourke stood at the windscreen, binoculars pressed to his eyes. “Get on the radio, Seamus. See if you can get a signal. We need to know what’s going on.” Mercer tried his cell again but there was no signal.
“Your little girlfriend said we had two more weeks,” Spirit accused.
“Go find Jim,” Mercer ordered. “And your husband. We have to push up the dive.”
“Dr. Mercer, I have someone onshore.” The watch stander handed him the radiophone handset.
“This is Philip Mercer. Who is this and where are you?”
“Bill Farley, Doctor. I’m an assistant supervisor for the drilling crews. I’m about eight miles south of the volcano.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Chaos. I don’t know what’s happening. There were three crews up near the summit and another two farther down. I haven’t heard from them and from what I can see here I don’t think they made it.”
That news wasn’t unexpected but still hit like a body blow. “What about the fault?” Mercer asked. “Has it slipped?”
“If it had I wouldn’t be here. I’m standing on it now.”
“Bill, I want you to reach as many of your people as you can. Evacuate everyone. I don’t know why San Juan erupted early, but you need to get everyone off the island any way you can.” Mercer’s cell vibrated. The atmospheric disturbances must have abated enough for the signal to reach him from the towers on the island. “Keep this line open.” He passed the phone to the officer and flipped open the little Nokia. “Mercer.”
“It’s Ira. What the hell happened? I just got a call from the USGS. They’re recording a massive eruption on La Palma.”
“The San Juan volcano just lit off. I just talked to a guy in the field. He says the fault hasn’t slipped so we may have time.”
“It doesn’t matter. As soon as the president hears about this he’s going to order the evacuation.”
Mercer was forced to agree. “I would too.”
How had Tisa been so wrong? That question had hidden in his subconscious since the first instant of the eruption and now stood at the forefront of his mind. On Santorini she’d predicted the earthquake to the minute. How could she miss this by three weeks?
“Where’s the warhead?” he asked the admiral.
“Still at Livermore Labs.”
“How fast can you get it here?”
“Four hours.”
Even the SR-71 Blackbird couldn’t travel the thousands of miles from California to Spain that fast. Mercer suspected that the world was about to get their first look at the SR-1 Wraith, the secret hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft mistakenly called Aurora.
“Get me that bomb, Ira. There’s still a chance.”
“Mercer, if that mountain goes it won’t matter that you’re on the other side of the island. The wave’s going to nail you. Maybe you should get out of there.”
“I’ve ordered everyone off La Palma, but we’re not running. I have to make a try with the nuke.”
“If you’re wrong, that’s a death sentence for the crew with you.”
“I don’t need you telling me the obvious.” Mercer tried to calm himself. Snapping at his friend wasn’t going to help. “Ira, can you buy me twelve hours with the president? We both know if that evacuation order comes, thousands are going to die in the panic.”
“And millions would be saved if the island collapses. There’s no way he’s going to take the chance.”
“What if this wasn’t the main eruption? What if we still have time? Tisa hasn’t been wrong before. I don’t think she’s wrong now.”
