Chapter 56

County of Hawai‘i Civil Defense Building, Hilo, Hawai‘i

The microphone stand was set up at the end of the long driveway that went from the main building down to Ululani Street.

Local television stations and newspapers had sent out email blasts about Rivers's press conference, not speculating as to why he would be out here this early in the morning, or what news he had to offer beyond what he had said at the auditorium the night before.

The TV trucks were lined up about a block away from where uniformed soldiers had set up crowd-control barriers in front of the media. A sizable crowd of onlookers were organizing themselves behind the reporters and photographers.

Mac and Rebecca were at Mauna Loa placing red flags where they planned to bury her explosives once they'd coordinated the locations with the army, but they stopped to watch on Rebecca's phone when Rivers stepped to the microphone.

Rivers spoke quickly, almost as if he didn't want the scope of what he was saying to sink in. He talked in broad strokes about ground explosives and aerial bombing and trenches and walls and the Army Corps of Engineers. If Mac hadn't known better, he would have sworn the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was reading from a teleprompter.

"These are extreme but necessary steps proposed by our team of experts," Rivers said. "Some of them, particularly aerial bombing, are unprecedented. But I want to stress to you: None of this would be undertaken if we didn't believe it would work."

There was a question shouted by a TV reporter, but neither Mac nor Rebecca could make it out.

Rivers put up a hand, like a crossing guard stopping traffic. "There will be time for questions later, because our work is about to begin in earnest," Rivers said. "Again, I am here today in the interest of transparency and to deliver the message that we're all in this together." He paused.

Mac said to Rebecca, "That can't be all of it."

"Wait for it," she said.

"These are extraordinary circumstances, I think everybody realizes that now," General Mark Rivers continued. "In so many ways, and I don't use this reference lightly, Hilo is about to be under attack the way Pearl Harbor was in 1941. The difference is that that time, we didn't know the attack was coming. This time, we are forewarned, and so we are going to be forearmed."

Rivers looked down, then back out at the crowd.

"For all of these reasons and others too numerous to list," Rivers said, "I have decided to place Hilo under martial law."

"Boom," the demolition woman next to Mac said.