Chapter 31

Fagradalsfjall Volcano, Iceland

Time to eruption: 93 hours

Huge white clouds blasted upward with a continuous, deafening roar. Standing by the giant circular steel vents, Oliver Cutler looked up to watch the steam clouds boil in the sky; his wife, Leah, was next to him. The camera guy and sound guy who frequently traveled with them, Tyler and Gordon, were a few yards away.

But the Cutlers had never required much direction from them; they had an instinct about the best way to be framed when they were staring down at another volcano. They were there as highly paid consultants, though their critics said the Cutlers' real job was being famous.

Oliver and Leah Cutler were well aware that Bear Grylls had spun his Man vs. Wild TV show into international celebrity as an adventurer, and they were doing something similar—they were the husband-and-wife team chasing volcanoes, like the one in front of them.

"I'm ready for my close-up," Leah Cutler said to her husband.

"You've been ready for your close-up your whole life," Oliver said, eyeing Leah's long red hair that he liked to describe as being the color of lava when it began to heat. His own wavy gray hair fell over the collar of the bush jacket that was his fieldwork uniform, no matter where in the world they were.

The ground beneath their feet vibrated even more powerfully. A louder rumbling filled the air. And as dangerous as they knew all this was, feeling the power of the volcano was part of the essential thrill of what they did; they felt a rush of excitement every time they showed up at a place like this.

And this volcano, one of twenty in Iceland, was relatively peaceful, though it had erupted in 2021 and 2022, filling the valley with blue-tinged volcanic gas.

They were standing on a brown hill above the Meradalir Valley on the western end of Reykjanes Peninsula. All around them, a network of pipes carried steam over the hill to the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power plant.

Oliver needed to shout to be heard by Birkir Fanndal, a friend acting as guide for this trip: "Will you ever use it?" Oliver asked.

"The steam?" Birkir shouted back.

Oliver nodded.

"Oh, yes. Eventually."

But Oliver and Leah Cutler, trained volcanologists and acknowledged experts in their field despite being celebrities, knew full well that the vents were too powerful to be harnessed; that was why they were left open to release steam to the sky.

The young blond photographer from the Reykjavík newspaper circled them as they talked, working around the camera crew, taking pictures. As if on cue, Oliver Cutler flung his right arm skyward, pointing at the steam. He knew it would make a good picture. He was right, as usual.

"You like that one?" he asked, leaning close to his wife.

"You know I do," she said.

"I'm a giver."

The Cutlers had been invited by Iceland's government to tour the nation's geothermal sites. This country, including its capital city, Reykjavík, was powered almost entirely by geothermal energy; Iceland had exploited this resource more successfully than any other country in the world.

"Do you have enough?" Birkir called to the newspaper photographer.

The woman nodded.

"Then back to the car," Birkir said.

Oliver, Leah, and Birkir drove off in their Land Rover, leaving Tyler and Gordon to pack up and head out in their own rented car.

The Land Rover crossed a high earthwork dam overlooking the acres of black lava that marked the most recent eruption of Fagradalsfjall. The dam, the Cutlers saw, was man-made.

"Where'd this come from?" Leah asked.

"Built it for the last eruption," Birkir said. "We didn't want the lava to reach the power plant."

"And it worked?" Oliver said.

"Don't know if it would've or not," Birkir said. "The lava never got that far."

Oliver's cell phone rang. Even in the middle of the Icelandic countryside, cell phones worked. "Cutler."

"Please hold for Henry Takayama."

Now there's a name from the past,Oliver Cutler thought.

He and Leah had met Tako Takayama five years earlier on a consulting visit to Hilo; Takayama, the head of Civil Defense, had invited them. Oliver wondered if he still had the same job. As soon as he had that thought, he smiled. Of course Takayama still had the same job. He was the type. Oliver was sure of it—Tako Takayama would die in that job.

"Oliver, how the hell are you?" Takayama said when he came on the line.

"Very good, Tako."

Oliver saw curiosity register on his wife's face when she heard the name, obviously remembering him too.

Oliver raised his eyebrows and shrugged helplessly. But in that moment, a nearly forgotten phrase from the islands came back to him: "Long time, no smell."

He heard Takayama laugh. "Listen, I'm calling because I need your advice, Oliver. There's something going on at the observatory, and I think it could mean big trouble."

"Well, you know trouble's our business," Oliver Cutler said.

"I'm serious."

"Actually, Tako, so am I." Oliver winked at Leah.

"They're predicting an eruption at Mauna Loa," Takayama said.

"I figured that mountain was about due."

"Yes, but there is some big operation up there and the army is heavily involved. All sorts of heavy equipment, helicopters, and earthmovers."

"I'm listening."

"They say all they're doing is repairing the roads."

Cutler considered that. Finally he said, "You know, they could be. I remember those roads, actually. The jeep trails have been bad for years."

"So bad you need a hundred engineers and twenty helicopters up on the mountain? So bad you need to close the airspace for a week? Does that make any sense?"

"No, it does not."

Even from across the world, Oliver could hear the concern in Takayama's voice. And the irritation. Tako was a powerful civil servant in Hilo, but the army was apparently excluding him from whatever was going on. To someone like Takayama, less power was as bad as no power.

Clearly there was a problem, at least from where Takayama sat. Maybe a big one.

"Oliver," Takayama said. "You still there?"

"I'm here."

Cutler was trying to process what he'd been told and what he was intuiting. If Takayama was calling, he didn't just have a problem with the army; he had a problem with HVO. And that likely meant a problem with MacGregor, the guy running it. That hothead. He didn't know as much as he thought he did and, worse, didn't know what he didn't know. A loner and an all-around pain in the ass. It had taken only one day in Hilo for Oliver and Leah to figure that out.

Oliver had recently heard that MacGregor's wife had left him; the news made Oliver happy.

"So how can I help?" Cutler asked.

"I was wondering if maybe you could come for a visit."

"Tako, that sounds like a marvelous idea, given where we are at the moment. But where we are at the moment is Iceland."

"It wouldn't have to be a long visit."

"Just a long goddamn trip to get there," Cutler said.

"Oliver," Takayama said. "I wouldn't be calling you if this weren't important to me. The city of Hilo has an interest in what's going on. I'm afraid that interest is being neglected. There'll be an eruption in a few days, which gives our city a perfectly legitimate reason to invite you and Leah here as official advisers."

"I need to give you a heads-up on something before we go any further," Cutler said. "We haven't gotten any cheaper since we were last there."

"I'll pay the ransom," Takayama said.

Oliver Cutler saw his wife smiling as she listened to his half of the conversation. She mouthed the word Aloha.

"How soon do you need us there?"

"How about yesterday?" Takayama said.