Chapter 40

Briggs made the first presentation, with occasional input from Iona.

The colonel spoke as plainly as he could; he seemed to be deathly afraid that Rivers wouldn't follow all the seismological data.

The basic army plan was to dig trenches perpendicular to the lava flow, dig containment pits and ponds downslope from the trenches, and erect walls beyond the ponds.

Colonel James Briggs described the man-made channels to be built in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, channels that would eventually guide the bulk of the lava around the town of Hilo, with more containment ponds built as close to the town as possible.

"We'll use drills for the basalt, which will be difficult for even our heaviest equipment to move," Briggs said. "That's mostly near the bottom of the volcano, where the slope is the shallowest."

He stopped talking, poured himself some water from a pitcher, and took a sip. "Questions before I resume?" Briggs asked.

"One," Mac said. "I've brought this up before: Do you really think you can accomplish all this in two days? Because I don't."

"With all due respect, Dr. MacGregor," Briggs said, his voice rising, "you have absolutely no idea what the U.S. Army can do once it sets its mind to something."

He leaned toward Mac, the veins in his forehead suddenly visible.

"Have you ever served?" Briggs asked.

"You know I haven't, Colonel," Mac said.

"Then please don't lecture me about what the army can and cannot do."

"Let's take it down a notch, Colonel," Rivers said quietly. "We are all on the same team here."

Mac let it go. Arguing with Briggs got him nowhere, particularly with Rivers in the mix. And he wanted Rivers on his side, because he knew in his heart, even before he heard what that self-serving asshat Oliver Cutler had to say, that his plan was the only one that could work.

"Will your plan protect the Military Reserve?" Rivers asked Briggs.

Mac understood that although Rivers was talking about protecting the facility, what he really wanted was to protect the canisters in the Ice Tube and avoid the doomsday consequences of a spill once the eruption occurred. Rivers and Briggs knew about those canisters. Briggs had trusted Mac with the information and was aware that Mac trusted Rebecca and Jenny enough to tell them. But Briggs knew that telling the Cutlers would be tantamount to hiring a skywriter to announce it over the summit. Same with a bigmouth like Henry Takayama.

They were here to solve the problem of the lava hitting Hilo. Those were high enough stakes, as far as Colonel Briggs was concerned.

"The rest of them don't need to know what they don't need to know," he'd told Mac more than once.

"How many crews will we need?" Rivers asked.

"Three crews," Briggs said. "Each one building a different line of defense: trenches, pits, wall. Always with the priority of the base first and, obviously, the town."

"I'm just curious, Colonel Briggs," Oliver Cutler said, "why is protecting the military base somehow more important in the eyes of the army than protecting the town?"

"I'll handle that one," Rivers said. "Because the army says so, that's why. The nonmilitary personnel on this team are here serving at the pleasure of the government of the United States. If anybody has a problem with that, feel free to leave now."

"I have no problem with it," Oliver Cutler said, then quickly added, "I'm sorry if you and Colonel Briggs took it that way."

Mac looked at Rivers admiringly. The general was refusing to defer to the Cutlers' celebrity. The couple had leveraged their fame to see plenty of volcanoes, but Mac knew that getting funding was the hardest part of science.

Briggs finally got around to describing the expensive, complicated, and risky process of building the trenches even as the lava made its way down the mountain; the crews would basically be racing to stay ahead of it until it was finally diverted away from Hilo.

"There are more details, of course," he said. "Sergeant Iona and our geologists can lay them out for you when you get back to base, sir. But we believe this is the best way to save the base, save the town, and save this island from unimaginable destruction."

Rivers said, "Anything you care to add, Dr. MacGregor?"

"Just this," Mac said. "It won't work."

"Because it's not your plan?" Briggs snapped.

"Because you're not factoring in the problems you'll face when you try to do this kind of construction work in the rainforests on that mountain," Mac said. "And that's provided the locals will even allow you to touch those areas. And then there's this: Just how long is this wall of yours going to be?"

"Seven miles," Briggs said.

"You're going to build a seven-mile wall in two days?" Mac said.

"Is that feasible, even for the army?" Rivers asked.

"We have no choice, sir," Briggs said. "There are two arms of Hilo. One is a mile wide, the other is about two and a half miles wide. We've talked about building walls to protect those two arms. But if either one of them splits, the lava could funnel right through it. It's why we think the longer wall is our best shot."

Rivers asked Briggs if he had anything else to add. Briggs said he did not. Oliver and Leah Cutler stood up to begin their own presentation; Mac had chosen to go last.

And then it was happening again.

This was the worst quake of the past few days, the worst Mac had ever felt in Hilo. The heavy table in front of them began to shake violently, as did the walls of HVO. Mac's people knew that this building had been built and then rebuilt to withstand earthquakes just like this, but nonetheless, they heard glass shattering.

For a brief moment, as crazy as the thought was, Mac imagined that Rebecca Cruz and her team had decided to blow up this building and it was about to collapse on top of them.

General Mark Rivers calmly instructed everybody in the room to get under the table. Most of them did, without another word. But Rivers stayed right where he was. So did Mac.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs grinned at Mac, almost as if they were sitting next to each other on an airplane and merely experiencing some turbulence.

"Force of habit, Dr. MacGregor," he said. "A variation of first in, last out, I guess you could say."

"I'm the same way with volcanoes," Mac said. "So I get it, General." He shrugged. "Even though I never served," he added.

"You're serving now," Rivers said.

When the world stopped moving, everybody came out from under the table and sat down again, although all of them, even the Cutlers, appeared much shakier than they had when they'd arrived.

Rivers said, "Now, where were we?"