Deep Fire Rising - v4 (47 page)

Two men stepped to the ground. One was Chinese, a middle-aged man wearing a greatcoat and general’s stars on his cap. The other was a Westerner wearing a blue suit and polished loafers, as if he hadn’t been prepared for the flight. His only concession to the frigid temperature was a garish ski jacket festooned with colorful lift tickets.

The Gazelle’s turbine spooled down and relative quiet returned to the valley.

The general stepped ahead of the civilian until he was standing in front of the team. He looked each up and down as though they were soldiers on parade. He paid particular attention to Tisa, though his appraisal was more respectful than sexual. He finally got to Mercer.

“I suspect you are Dr. Philip Mercer?” The general’s English was passable. His voice grated from a lifetime of harsh unfiltered cigarettes, one of which he lit with a brass windproof lighter. The smoke blew back into his face, forcing him to squint.

Mercer kept his expression neutral. “That’s correct.”

“I am General Fan Ji. By order of the chairman of the politburo, I am placing you and your people under arrest for espionage. You have already been found guilty and your punishment has been determined. Immediate execution.”

Overhead, a hawk screamed.

“If the guy in the suit’s my lawyer, tell him I won’t take the plea bargain.”

The general’s smile revealed yellow uneven teeth. “A joke, yes? One of your American sarcasms?”

“It’s called gallows humor.”

“Ah, like from your western movies. The man is not your lawyer, Dr. Mercer. He is Hans Bremmer, the German chargé d’affaires from Katmandu, the highest-ranking diplomat we could find on short notice.”

“Is he here to make sure our blindfolds meet the specifications laid out in the Geneva Convention?”

“More sarcasm?”

“Impertinence.”

“No matter. He is here because the politburo has also decided that your sentence is to be commuted. You are to be flown to the border and released. However if you or any of the others return to the People’s Republic, your death sentence will be reinstated and you will be executed.”

“I don’t—”

Bremmer came forward. He was in his mid-thirties, with sandy blond hair and the healthy glow of someone who enjoyed the outdoors. He held his hand out to Mercer. “I apologize for this but to secure China’s cooperation, they insisted on your arrest before I was allowed to get you out. I’m sure you understand that diplomatic protocols must be maintained.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“The situation on the island of La Palma has changed. Your government has been in contact with the Chinese since shortly after you took off from Diego Garcia. I guess you were under radio blackout. I wasn’t cleared for those types of operational details.”

“What’s happening on La Palma?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I don’t know.” Behind the diplomat, the Chinese soldiers were transferring fuel from drums carried in the hold of the Hind gunship to the Gazelle. “My ambassador ordered me to meet General Ji at the border and accompany him to this location. I am to fly you and your team to Katmandu. An American aircraft will be waiting to take you from there to the Canary Islands. I understand there’s a plan being discussed that requires your expertise.”

Mercer, Tisa and Sykes exchanged an identical look of disbelief. A few minutes earlier they were facing a death sentence, before that a weeks-long hike to civilization, and before that the understanding that nothing could prevent the impending cataclysm. Mercer shook off his surprise and pumped Bremmer’s hand again, this time with much more feeling. “What the hell are we waiting for?”

They were airborne ten minutes later, leaving behind the smoldering remains of the monastery and a thousand hapless villagers who were being rounded up by the Chinese.

“What will happen to them?” Mercer asked Tisa as she stared out the Gazelle’s window long after they lifted out of the valley.

“They will kill some. Others will be jailed. The rest will be relocated, doubtlessly far from each other.” She looked at him with the same bottomless sorrow she’d shown him so many times before. “The people of Rinpoche-La avoided the Chinese occupation for more than half a century. I guess that’s something to be grateful for.”

“I’m sorry,” he said lamely.

“It’s not your fault.” She took his hand, then added so he couldn’t hear, “It is mine.”

T
he aircraft waiting for Mercer in Katmandu was a Citation executive jet on loan to the government from India’s defense ministry. The plane’s interior was as opulent as a rajah’s palace. The stains Mercer’s uniform left on the picked silk cushions were likely permanent. Unfortunately, the aircraft’s regular passengers were Sikhs and did not drink alcohol. The galley produced a hearty breakfast and aromatic coffee but not the shot of booze he was dying to lace it with.

Because the Citation was crammed with every conceivable communications device, he had very little time to enjoy his meal before he was on a video conference call with Ira Lasko and a team of scientists stationed in Washington and others already on La Palma. The Delta commandos were stretched in the plane’s rear bunks and Tisa was curled in the seat next to Mercer, asleep.

“I think we’re ready to get started,” Ira said as the last participants acknowledged they had video and audio feeds. “For those of you who don’t know him, I want to introduce Dr. Philip Mercer, the president’s special science advisor and the man who first alerted us to the potential eruption along the Cumbre Vieja.”

Mercer recognized a couple of the scientists, mostly geologists he’d met over the years, as well as Dr. Briana Marie. He greeted them by name, heard the names of the others and promptly forgot them.

“Mercer, first of all, bring me up to speed. Then I’ll fill you in on what’s been happening on our end.”

“The only pertinent fact we need to deal with is that the eruption will occur in five weeks, on the eighteenth to be exact.”

The eight faces on the split computer screen reacted to the news with a gamut of expressions, from disbelief to fear to anger. Then as one they began to talk and debate.

“Admiral Lasko,” one of them, a stentorian volcanologist from the Smithsonian, clamored over the swelling tide of objections. “You indicated we had months of buildup before the event. Five weeks is not enough time.”

“It’s going to take five weeks just to determine where to bore the blast holes,” another protested.

“We might as well issue the evacuation order now,” a third, wearing a paisley bow tie, sniveled.

“Ladies, gentlemen, please,” Lasko repeated until the scientists quieted. “Mercer, are you sure about the date?”

“As sure as I can be, Admiral.” Mercer maintained a professional distance from Ira until they could speak privately. “It came from the same source as the Santorini prediction.”

“Very well.” He drew a breath. “We had an idea how to counter the effects of a mega-tsunami, but we required at least four months, probably longer.”

“I assume your plan was to detonate a nuke on the eastern side of the mountain so the western flank would implode into the volcano rather than slip into the sea.”

Ira wasn’t the least surprised that Mercer had independently developed the same strategy as a team of the world’s top scientists. “That was the general idea, yes. The computer models we ran say the bomb needed to be buried at least eight hundred feet into the eastern slope to get the desired results.”

“And let me guess, the models can’t pinpoint the exact location until we drill some test holes.”

Ira nodded. “Which will take weeks we don’t have. Add in the time to bore eight hundred feet for the bomb and we’re way past the deadline.”

The bow-tied pessimist chimed in. “That’s why the evacuation should be ordered now. Nothing can be accomplished on La Palma in five weeks. It’s a waste of time to even try.”

Mercer ignored the comment and kept his focus on Ira Lasko. “You’ve modeled for a surface detonation?”

“We did,” Briana Marie answered. “Such a blast wouldn’t change the Cumbre detachment fault. It would still slip in its entirety, possibly as a result of the explosion. We ran dozens of locations and various yields up to one megaton.”

“No offense, Doctor, but take off the kid gloves and pump up your yields. Model a blast with fifty megatons and see what that does.”

“Besides irradiate southern Europe and western Africa?”

“Most of the people living there are going to die anyway,” he snapped back. “Shielding them from radiation then cleaning the fallout is the better, and cheaper, alternative to displacing them for the next two or three generations.”

Mercer wasn’t angry at her, but at himself. Since deciphering Tisa’s warning about La Palma, he thought he hadn’t limited his thinking when in fact he had. Even a minute ago he never would have considered setting off such a nuclear explosion. Now he knew that no option was too outlandish. Exposing two hundred thousand people to a hefty dose of radioactive contamination in order to save a hundred million was the kind of sacrifices they had to consider if they were to succeed.

“There has to be a better way,” a young volcanologist currently on La Palma said.

“I hope there is, but we have to explore every avenue. What did your models say about an underwater blast on either the western or eastern side of the island?”

Dr. Marie glanced away and admitted, “We didn’t run those scenarios.”

Although he’d been out of the loop with these scientists, Mercer took it for granted that as the president’s special science advisor he’d spearhead any effort to minimize the damage from the eruption. However, he would be relying on them for everything they could give over the next weeks. With that in mind he kept the recrimination from his voice. “Why don’t you look into that before we consider higher-yield nukes. We might get lucky.”

“I’ll get on it as soon as we’re done here.” It was clear she appreciated his conciliatory tone.

“To those of you on La Palma right now,” Mercer continued, “I’d like to see an underwater survey of the coastlines on either side of the Cumbre fault zone.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Vents. I’m just thinking out loud, bear with me. You were all in agreement earlier that you needed to drill eight hundred feet for the bomb to collapse the volcano.” On Mercer’s computer eight heads nodded in unison. “What if we can find an old vent that allows us to get even deeper into the mountain?”

Dr. Marie’s eyes lit up. “If we go deep enough, we don’t need to be so precise with the weapon’s placement. A kilometer or two in either direction might not matter. Rather than cutting open the volcano with a chisel, we can smash it with a sledgehammer.”

Her metaphor made Mercer wince. The handful of over-the-counter painkillers he’d found in the aft washroom did little to ease the fire in his back or the countless other aches and pains.

The young volcanologist on the island, Les Donnelley, typed notes onto a laptop computer mounted below his video camera. “I can hire a fishing boat, if there are any left here.”

The comment triggered Mercer’s next questions. “What is the situation on the island? What’s happened in the past twenty-four hours?”

“For one, the media picked up on the story,” Ira said with a mixture of irritation and relief. He would have liked more time to work without public scrutiny, but also appreciated that people could make their decisions about evacuating early. “It broke just as you took off from—” He stopped before divulging Mercer’s mission. “It broke early yesterday in New York. The networks have been preempting ever since. The panic hasn’t been as widespread as we first feared, but most people are still in shock. The president is going to address the—”

“No,” Mercer interrupted. As much as he cared about how the world was taking the news that a hundred million people might perish, he couldn’t let it distract him. “Tell me what’s happening on the island. From now on that is our focus. Let the politicians and disaster-relief people debate evacuation strategies and refugee issues. We stick with the science.”

“All right. Les, you want to fill him in? You’re in charge on La Palma.”

“You’re aware that the island is comprised of dozens of volcanoes, each one corresponding to La Palma’s history of tectonic activity. The one that concerns us is the San Juan volcano. It was the actual volcano on the Cumbre ridge that erupted in 1949 and caused the fault to slip.” Donnelley was covering familiar ground to the video-conference participants and moved on quickly. “Up until yesterday morning our time, the monitors placed around its summit and near some of its secondary vents and fumeroles were quiet considering the activity on the island’s extreme southern tip.”

“And that’s changed?”

“Yes, Dr. Mercer. Unlike previous eruptions here that were localized to one finite area, this one seems to be affecting others as well. San Juan shows every sign that it’s about to blow. We have some equipment lowered down a bore hole. We’re detecting a hundred microquakes an hour, and temperature and pressure are both up, leading us to believe that the magma chamber is beginning to fill.”

Mercer’s expression was grim. “This dovetails into the five-week prediction.”

“I have to agree, though I don’t understand how you can say that with any degree of confidence. It could take much longer.”

“Trust him on that,” Ira said. “It’ll be in five weeks.”

“What else is happening?” asked Mercer.

“The Spanish government has ordered a full evacuation of the island. The people here are taking it very seriously. Gas and ash levels are rising. Several elderly have already died and a previously unknown vent near the Teneguia volcano suddenly burst open under a school. Forty-three students and three teachers were asphyxiated. With Teneguia erupting at the southern tip of the island and San Juan showing signs in the middle of the island, people here recognize how the two are joined by the fragile Cumbre ridge. They don’t want to be anywhere near here if it goes.”

“There’s something we have all overlooked,” the twerp in the bow tie interjected. “No one has gone to the United Nations about this. I mean they know about the potential of a mega-tsunami, but don’t we need permission to detonate a nuclear device on another nation’s sovereign soil. Don’t forget they’re still smarting because we lost several bombs off of Spain’s south coast in the late 1960s. They won’t take too kindly to us intentionally blowing up one of their islands.”