Chapter 23

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Hawai‘i

Mac came into the data room at eight o'clock. The team was already there. Rick Ozaki was huddled with Kenny Wong at one monitor. Pia was working on the remote cameras with Tim Kapaana, who was out in the field, adjusting settings. From there, he'd deploy drones with thermal cameras to find the areas where lava was coming toward the surface.

Jenny fell into step beside Mac. "You might want to touch base with Tako Takayama," she said. "You know how he gets his panties in a wad when he feels like he's not in the loop."

"Later," Mac said. He lowered his voice and asked, "How soon I can get the latest satellite imagery?"

"What do you want?"

"Visible and infrared will do."

She went to a monitor and typed, her fingers flying across the keys as she called up the orbit schedules for the Terra satellite. Mac watched over her shoulder. The Terra satellite passed over the Big Island once every forty-eight hours, and HVO could access its MODIS data.

"The satellite passed over at two forty-three a.m.," Jenny said. "It probably hasn't been downloaded." She kept typing.

"How long is this going to take?" Mac said impatiently.

She gave him a look. "Would five minutes ago be soon enough, Your Excellency?"

"Not the right tone, I'm guessing?"

"Not even close."

But then she leaned over her screen, looked back up at him, and smiled.

"Actually, we're in luck," she said. "The data's already down. I can probably have it for you in ten minutes."

"Tell me when you do. And thanks, pal."

"Pal?"

Now he smiled. "Bosom buddy?"

"Beat it, smooth talker, and let me work."

Mac went over to Rick and Kenny. "Okay, boys," he said, taking a seat next to them. "Show me what you got."

Kenny did most of the talking. He explained that he'd run his program against all the data for each of the past five Mauna Loa eruptions, all the way back to 1949. They showed Mac how their data sets corresponded to a rotating three-dimensional display of the magma structures beneath the volcano. Additionally, there were sets about gas monitors and GPS three-axis inflation, thermal and satellite images. All of this was delivered rapid fire, as if the scientists didn't even need the information on their screens, as if they had it memorized, a flow of what Mac thought of as the inside baseball of their world.

The world that might be about to blow.

That one.

"Then we get to predictive output," Rick said, and there on the screen was data on eruption probability, eruption volume, various locations, coolants, and dikes.

Finally, this:

ESTIMATED TIME TO ERUPTION: 4 days plus or minus 11 hours

When they were finished, they looked at Mac. Rick said, "What do you think?"

"I think it's crap," Mac said.

"You're joking, right?" Rick asked.

Mac remembered Colonel Briggs saying the same thing. "Both of you, look at me," Mac said, "and then decide if you think that's a question you want to ask."

"But we've run and rerun the numbers," Kenny said, sounding defensive. "This is solid."

"If you torture data long enough," Mac said, "you can make it tell you whatever you want it to. What you guys are giving me is a false hard."

He wasn't actually sure that's what they were doing, but he always made them defend their findings with everything they had. He would make them do it now, and he was not worried about hurting anyone's feelings. In the past there had been room for error, lengthy back-and-forth debate, and even handholding. But not today.

"What happened when you ran the model against past data?" Mac said. Before they could answer, he added, "Did your program predict the 2022 eruption, for instance?"

"Yeah, Mac, it did, actually," Kenny said.

"How close?"

"Within two hours."

"How about the one in 1984?"

"Nine hours."

"I'm telling you, the program works, Mac," Rick said.

Mac said, "Can you predict ground temperature around the summit?"

Rick and Kenny looked at each other.

"We've never done it before," Rick said. "We'd need to do some calculating."

Mac said, "I've got the latest satellite infrared image, taken at two forty-three this morning. I need to see how closely your model matches it."

"Give me ten minutes," Kenny said.

"And you both think dikes can work?"

"I stand by my data," Kenny said.

"Same," Rick said.

"Shocker," Mac said. "You stand by the data on coolants too?"

"On all of it."

"Then you better be right," Mac said.

Mac walked away. When Kenny thought Mac was out of earshot he said, "Who shoved the stick up his ass?"

"Still here," Mac called.

He was glad they couldn't see him smiling.

It ended up taking Rick and Kenny fifteen minutes.

But now they all studied an image on the screen showing an aerial view of the island of Hawai‘i in false colors, with Mauna Loa in blues and browns, increasing to orange and yellow toward the summit. There was a line of bright orange spots, like a string of pearls, along the northeast rift. There were also some black patches around the summit.

To Mac, they were as ominous as storm clouds. He called out to Jenny across the room. "Give us the near-infrared, please."

"Coming up."

A moment later, in a corner of the screen, the satellite image taken earlier that day appeared. At first glance, it looked roughly similar to Rick and Kenny's image.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Kenny said, pumping his fist.

"Not so fast. Overlay it."

Kenny enlarged the satellite image, made it translucent, and moved it over their image.

"Now opaque it," Mac said. "And flip them."

Kenny flipped back and forth between the two images, the first computer-generated, the second taken by the satellite. He and Rick watched MacGregor hopefully, like kids waiting to see if they'd get a pat on the head.

"I gotta admit," Mac said, nodding in appreciation, "it's not half bad."

"Gee," Rick said. "Thanks, Dad."

Mac grinned. "The only difference I see is that the satellite is showing a hot spot in the ocean just off the west coast of the island, and you don't show that."

"Not our territory," Kenny said.

"Today it is, Sparky."

"You know we don't have sensors on the west coast, Mac," he said.

Mac ignored that. "Okay," he said, standing. "Pack it all up on a laptop and be ready in twenty minutes. There are some people who have to see this."