Chapter 46

Rivers and Brett, trailed by Colonel Briggs, left the stage in animated conversation.

Rivers's exit through the door behind the stage indicated that the press conference was over. Oliver and Leah Cutler, who had made only brief remarks earlier, stepped off the stage and into the auditorium, where, as Mac assumed they'd expected, they were immediately surrounded by reporters and cameras.

With Rivers and Brett gone, they now had the spotlight to themselves.

The object of the game,Mac thought. He leaned against the side of the stage, out of sight but close enough to hear what they were saying.

"Welcome to this week's episode of Volcano Chasers," Oliver Cutler said. "As usual, my lovely wife and I will be your hosts."

The line got a laugh, but it stopped abruptly when Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium was rocked by another quake, the kind that had been occurring on what felt like an hourly basis all week.

Then another quake.

And another.

The crowds had already been moving toward the exit doors at the other end of the hall. Now people began to push one another. Mac heard a woman scream and shouts for the people closest to the doors to get the hell out of the way.

The Cutlers and the members of the media around them stayed right where they were.

"I've heard of drumrolls," Cutler said, without missing a beat, "but this is ridiculous."

There was a ripple of nervous laughter. Some of the reporters looked up at the ceiling. Others looked over their shoulders at the exit. None of them left, clearly afraid they might miss something, now that another show was beginning.

At this point Oliver Cutler stopped smiling and said, "How about we all stop screwing around here and get to it?"

There were two TV cameramen a few feet in front of him. He played directly to them.

"General Rivers might not be happy when he hears what I'm about to say," Cutler continued. "But what we're really talking about at Mauna Loa is the Big One. Capital B, capital O. It's why Mr. Takayama of Civil Defense reached out to Leah and me and why we came all the way from Iceland as quickly as we could on the plane that J. P. Brett was generous enough to send for us."

You son of a bitch,Mac thought. You smug, self-serving son of a bitch. But trying to stop Cutler at this point, he knew, would be like trying to stop a volcano from erupting.

"I probably shouldn't be saying this either," Cutler went on, "but we believe that if the army and the people in charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory don't put our plan into effect, Hilo is in grave and imminent danger."

One of the few townspeople who hadn't left the building after the quake shouted, "That's not what the general said!"

"I have all the respect in the world for General Rivers, though I've known him only a short amount of time. But he is an army man. In fact, he is the army man. And because he is, he's practically duty bound not to tell you everything he knows. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately for Hilo—I'm not bound by the same rules."

Cutler stared directly into the cameras.

"You all need to know that Leah and I have had the opportunity to thoroughly examine the subvolcanic structure," he said.

Like hell you have,Mac thought, fighting the urge to get up and drag Cutler away from the cameras. He looked down and saw that he was clenching his fists.

But Mac knew that hauling Cutler away from the press would only make things worse for him and for the army—it would look like they had something to hide.

Cutler said, "At first I was hopeful that the Big Island was moving off what we call a magma plume. But it turns out that the plume, which is like the heartbeat of the volcano, has gotten much stronger over the past week, as we all just felt once again. It means that the magma is picking up the pace, and the volume of magma underneath Mauna Loa is moving into superplume territory, which explains why it continues to rock your world. And it's why Leah and I believe that we are now talking about more lava than any of us have ever seen before. And it's why there is a possibility, if we don't act quickly and decisively, that Hilo will not be the only area threatened."

Cutler took in a big breath and let it out.

"It's the entire island that's in harm's way," he said.

The reporters all shouted questions at him at once, and Cutler waved for quiet as Rivers had done from the podium several minutes before.

"That's all I've got for now," he said. "Leah and I will be working through the night as we continue to track these repeated and quite troubling seismic events. Quakes measuring at three-plus magnitude, which had been occurring every three days or so, are now occurring on a daily basis. And four- and five-plus quakes that had been occurring on a monthly basis are now coming weekly."

Leah took a step forward, her eyes directed at the cameras. "The magma that my husband described is not just ascending—it's ascending quite rapidly, forcing the ground around the volcano to swell to the point of bursting. It's why we have to act aggressively and act soon."

"Bottom line," Oliver Cutler said. "This might not be the Big One we're talking about here. It might be the Biggest One."

Once more, he paused for dramatic effect. Then:

"Maybe the biggest the world has ever seen."