Chapter 79
Outside the Ice Tube, Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i
Time to eruption: 16 hours
Mac drove to the Military Reserve as if running from the night; he parked his jeep there and walked up to where Rivers was waiting for him.
Thinking the whole way about how little time they had left and how, if their projections were correct, the Big Island might be a different place by noon tomorrow.
We’re moving up on high noon,Mac thought, imagining what was happening inside Mauna Loa, how fast and how powerfully the magma was rising toward the summit, operating on the only timetable that mattered to the volcano—its own.
The magma moving toward what Jenny had insisted on calling “the big bang.”
Jenny.
After Rivers called him, he had started to hit Jenny’s number on speed dial, by reflex.
Jenny, who’d been brave.
When Mac was finally standing next to Rivers, a hundred yards or so from the entrance to the Ice Tube, he saw more flatbed trucks stacked with more titanium sheets. More lights all around them. More men working to protect this fortress with the canisters inside, some unloading the titanium, some putting another layer of it in place.
More noise than ever up here,he thought, more urgency, if such a thing is possible.
No uniform for Rivers tonight. Hard hat and fatigues again. He seemed delighted to look like a grunt, even if he was the one barking out orders.
“I want to tell you again how sorry I am about the casualties,” Rivers said, his words clipped.
Casualties—the language of war. But he can’t help himself.“I know you are, sir,” Mac said.
“You were right,” Rivers said. “They were brave.”
Then he said, “Another layer of titanium can’t possibly hurt.”
“Agreed,” Mac said. “And who knows? It might make all the difference in the end. We should definitely go for it.”
Mac pointed in the general direction of Mauna Loa as more soldiers and more townspeople appeared above them and began unloading the titanium.
“It’s twenty miles, give or take, from here to there,” Mac said. “If our diversion works, we won’t need to shield the cave any more than we already have. And if it doesn’t?” Mac shrugged. “We just have to hope that what you call our side-walling buys us time until the lava flames itself out.”
They heard what sounded like gunfire from where the first dike was being built, on another part of the mountain.
A minute later a soldier came running up, waving his phone at General Rivers.
“There’s trouble, sir,” the young guy said.
“Were those shots I just heard?” Rivers asked.
“Warning shots, sir,” the soldier said. “Because of the protesters.”
“Protesting what, for fuck’s sake?” Rivers yelled.
“Somehow they found out we’ve been digging up some of their burial sites.”
“I have to take care of this,” Rivers said to Mac.
Mac nodded. “You’re way better at crowd control than I am. I’ve got a few things to do myself.”
Rivers ran down to his jeep, got behind the wheel, and sped off.
Mac was behind the wheel of his own jeep when he got the call from Lono.
“I need to see you bad, Mac man,” the boy said.
“Where?”
“Meet me at our beach.”
Mac drove even faster than usual.