Chapter 17

Kalani VA Hospital, Honolulu, Hawai‘i

Time to eruption: 108 hours

Rain drummed on the roof of the blue sedan as it drove through the stone gates and up the long drive. Through the sweep of windshield wipers, MacGregor saw the lights of the main building directly ahead. When the car pulled up under the canopy, three uniformed men stood waiting. They opened the door for MacGregor, and the senior man extended his hand.

For the second time that day, John MacGregor felt as if he were traveling into the unknown. Despite what he did for a living, he hated surprises. This, he thought, was a different kind of crater.

"Dr. MacGregor? I'm Major Jepson. This way, please."

Jepson was a short, trim man with an equally trim mustache that could have been military-issue. He walked briskly down the corridor, glancing at his watch.

When they reached a room at the end of the corridor, Jepson opened the door.

"General Bennett?" he said in a tone that suggested he was delivering the day's best news. "I have somebody special to see you, sir." He motioned for MacGregor to follow him in.

General Arthur Bennett looked as frail and slender as a leaf; he was deathly pale, propped up in bed on enormous pillows. An IV line was in his arm. His head hung down, and he stared at the floor; one side of his face was slack, and his mouth hung open. The room smelled of disinfectant. The TV was on but muted.

"General, I've brought Dr. MacGregor."

He sounds like he's telling a five-year-old that he's brought Santa Claus,Mac thought.

The old man raised his eyes slowly, as if it took all the strength he had.

"How are you, sir?" Mac asked.

Almost imperceptibly, Bennett shook his head. His gaze dropped down to the floor again.

"Do you recognize him?" Jepson asked.

"No," Mac said, terse. He was damp from the rain and tired from the flight and from trying to contain his annoyance at being brought to a room to see someone who was barely here himself.

Maybe Jepson sensed his annoyance, because he backed off.

"Well, Colonel Briggs is on his way in now. Let's see how General Bennett reacts to this."

"To what?"

"The eleven o'clock news." Jepson crossed the room to the television and turned up the volume. "Let's see if it happens again."

There was a musical fanfare, then an excited voice announcing the Eyewitness News team, all news all the time. MacGregor saw three newscasters at a curved table with a backdrop of Honolulu skyscrapers.

General Bennett remained motionless, his head drooping. Mac thought he might be asleep. Perhaps permanently.

"Tonight's top stories: The governor says no tax cut this year. Another woman is found murdered in Waikiki. Restaurant workers will not strike after all. And on the Big Island, reports of an impending eruption from the volcano Mauna Loa."

At last, General Bennett stirred. His right hand moved restlessly in the direction of the IV line.

Major Jepson said, "There it is."

There what is?Mac thought. Proof of life?

Mac saw his own picture flash up behind the newscasters. One of them said that Dr. John MacGregor, the chief volcanologist at Kīlauea, had held a news conference confirming the impending eruption of the volcano. As he continued, the general became more agitated. His arm moved in erratic jerks across the starched bedsheet.

"Maybe he recognizes you," Jepson said.

"Or maybe he's just processing the news," Mac said.

He was vaguely aware of the newscaster saying that scientists were predicting a new eruption in the next few days, but it was expected to take place on the uninhabited north slope, and there was no risk to any residents of the Big Island.

General Bennett gave a low moan, and his hand moved again, as if he were frantic to get the attention of the man delivering the news.

"The strange thing is," Jepson said, "he always moans at exactly the same point—whenever a reporter says there's no risk to local residents from the eruption." He turned back to General Bennett. "You want to write, General?"

A nurse who'd just come in lifted the general's left hand from the bedside table and slipped a sheet of paper under it. She put his hand back on the paper, placed a pencil in his hand, and closed his fingers around it.

"There he goes," Jepson said, nodding. "First letter is always an I…"

The nurse held the paper down. Slowly, the frail, elderly man scrawled.

"Then C… E…"

MacGregor got closer to the bed, but the writing was difficult to make out.

Jepson frowned. "It's a little different this time… I-C-E-T-O-B-B."

MacGregor, frowning himself, said, "Wait—is that an O or a U?"

"Hard to say."

The general seemed to be listening. He drew a large semicircle, running his pencil over it again and again.

"Looks like he's saying it's U."

"Icetubb?" MacGregor said.

"Does that mean anything to you?" Jepson asked.

"No."

With the heel of his hand, the general pushed away the paper. He seemed to be irritated. The nurse removed that paper and placed a fresh sheet on the table.

"Now let's see if he draws the symbol," Jepson said.

The general drew again: a lopsided circle surrounded by arc-shaped lines. Like a sort of halo, Mac thought.

"We can't figure that out either," Jepson said.

Again, the general pushed the paper away. He gave a long sigh and went limp. The pencil fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

"If this is frustrating for us," Jepson said, "imagine how frustrating it is for him."

The nurse picked up the pencil. With his head drooping to the side, almost as if it might roll off his shoulders, General Bennett watched her, eyes blank. But then his hand began to move in a restless motion, as if he were conducting an unseen orchestra.

"Ah, this is something new," Jepson said to Mac. "Usually, he's done." To Bennett he said, "General? You want to write more?"

The nurse gave the old man another sheet of paper and placed the pencil back in his hand.

"We're trying to understand, sir," Jepson said, leaning close to him.

General Bennett shook his head slightly and drew again. They all watched as the pencil began to move.

A circle.

Then straight lines coming out from the circle and looping back.

Three lines in all.

Jepson said, "Petals on a flower? Propeller blades? A fan?" Like this was some kind of quiz show.

It certainly looked like a fan, Mac thought. Blades of a fan sticking out from a central rotor. But the old man was shaking his head. And something was nagging at the back of John MacGregor's mind. Just three blades.

He was sure he knew what that image was…

General Bennett began to draw again. This time, his hand described big loops.

"This is new," Jepson said. "What is it? That's a lowercase a… and that's a capital B… and—what's that? It's just a loop… is it a d?"

In a flash of insight, Mac saw it. "No," he said. "It's Greek. It's a gamma."

The general gave a sigh, nodded, and slumped back against the pillow, exhausted.

MacGregor said, "He's drawn the first three letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma. But—"

"That is correct," said a voice behind them. MacGregor turned and saw a man in his sixties, white-haired, trim, and fit. He introduced himself as James Briggs. "I was General Bennett's adjutant for the last nine years of his command before he retired. Dr. MacGregor?"

"Call me Mac." They shook hands.

Briggs leaned over Bennett and placed his hand on his shoulder. "I know what you're trying to tell us," Briggs said. "And don't worry, we'll take care of it. You just rest now, sir."

Then he carefully collected all the pieces of paper the general had drawn on, folded them, and put them in his pocket.

He motioned for Jepson and MacGregor to step outside. In the hall, Briggs said, "Major, I want that nurse and everyone else who's had anything to do with General Bennett confined to the hospital grounds for the next two weeks. Call it a quarantine, call it whatever the hell you want, but keep 'em here. Clear?"

"Yes, sir, but—"

"They get no cell phones, no laptops, no email, no nothing. If they need to notify their families, you do it for them."

"Yes, sir."

"Military security will close the hospital tomorrow to all visitors at oh eight hundred hours and will shut down communications at that time. And let me remind you that everything you have seen and heard in that room is strictly confidential. Is that clear?"

Major Jepson blinked. "Sir, what exactly have I seen?"

"Nothing at all," Briggs said. He turned back to Mac. "Dr. MacGregor, please come with me." He left. Mac followed, noting that Jepson looked slightly bewildered.

When they were down the hall Briggs said to Mac, "You've obviously heard the term military secrets."

"Everybody has."

"Well, Dr. MacGregor, if you're in the military, keeping those secrets is a way of life. Revealing those secrets can result in the loss of life. In that way, they're more than secrets. They're part of our code."

Mac waited.

"You're in the military now," Briggs said. "You didn't enlist—you were drafted. Nonetheless, from now on, that code of silence is your code too. Understood?"

"Yes," Mac said.

"Have you had any sleep tonight?" Briggs asked after he'd led Mac back down the hall.

"Not yet," Mac said.

"I'll arrange for a bed here. You can get a few hours before it's time to leave."

"Leave for where?" McGregor said.