Chapter 89

Nā‘ālehu Police Station, Nā‘ālehu, Hawai‘i

Captain Sam Aukai, chief of police in Nā‘ālehu—Hawaiian for "the volcanic ashes"—was inside the station a little before eleven o'clock in the morning when he heard the sirens: 121 decibels of boom-box sound rocking the southernmost town in the United States and the island's sweetest, quietest garden spot.

The sound, Sam well knew, came from the All-Hazard Statewide Outdoor Warning Siren System that broadcast from ninety-two towers installed in communities around the Big Island. The sirens told him there was a threat, but not where or how bad. Mostly Sam wanted to know if his town was safe.

There was one person who would know for sure. His friend Pia Wilson was the point person over at HVO for the volcano alert levels that charted the time frame of volcanic threats.

"Thank you for calling, Chief Aukai," said the woman who answered HVO's main number and identified herself as Ms. Kilima, the librarian taking phone duty today.

When Sam and Pia had spoken a few days ago, Pia told him that the flow would primarily be to the north and east the way it had been in 2022.

"Can HVO verify what Ms. Wilson told me, that Nā‘ālehu, just east of South Point, is still safe from the lava flow?" Sam asked Ms. Kilima.

"Ms. Wilson no longer works here," the librarian said, her words clipped. "She quit a couple of days ago."

Sam didn't ask why and didn't care. "Who took over for her on volcano alert levels?"

There was a pause. "A young woman named Jenny Kimura."

"Is she there?"

"She's dead," Ms. Kilima said.

The television in Sam's office cut to an aerial shot of the summit of Mauna Loa. Lava was spilling out of it, a tremendous amount of lava, much more than Sam remembered from the eruption of 2022.

And not just to the north and east, he saw.

Due south as well.

Toward them.

The crawl at the bottom of the screen was about lava speeds already reaching fifty miles per hour. Or more.

Captain Sam Aukai felt as if a cold hand had suddenly gripped his heart.

He took one last shot with the librarian. "Can you tell us if our status is still yellow?"

There were four stages of volcano alert levels. Green was normal. Yellow was advisory. They had been yellow in Nā‘ālehu since last week.

Orange meant watch.

Red meant your area was in grave danger.

Ms. Kilima said she was putting him on hold. When she got back on the phone she said, "Nā‘ālehu is red, Captain. Didn't anybody from this office alert you?"

Sam ended the call without answering, ran outside, and looked up at the rolling hills that fed down from the long mountain and toward his town.

The grip on his heart got tighter. He could already see the streak of orange moving as fast as they said it was on television, already close to Nā‘ālehu. Sam knew the consequences if it kept coming this fast.

Even if the lava somehow bypassed the town, if it reached Route 11, the road that snaked its way around the southern tip of the island and all the way to Hilo, they would be trapped, as that road was their only way in or out.

He ran back into his squad room, shouting at the twelve men and women in his department about the imminent danger, telling them to get in their cars, turn on their sirens, and spread out.

"What do we tell people?" Sergeant Nick Hale asked.

"That they need to get out of here while they can," Sam Aukai said.

"What if they don't want to?"

"Tell them they can stay here and die," Sam said.

He ran back outside to where he'd parked his own car on Hawai‘i Belt Road and looked up again at the lava. The fire had come much closer just in the time he'd been inside, as if it were picking up steam. The streak looked red to him now. Like the threat level.

His ex-wife was long gone from Nā‘ālehu. His daughter was in her first year at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, outside Honolulu. He paused just long enough to call her. It went to voicemail. Probably in class.

He left a message that he loved her.

Then Sam Aukai got into his car and drove into town, telling himself he'd be the last man out if necessary. He had protected the people of the town in which he'd grown up. And he'd always felt protected here himself.

Not today.

He turned on his siren.

Somebody had dropped the ball at HVO and now the people on his watch could die.