Excerpt 2

Excerpt from Pages 14 & 15

Lani stood on the main deck near the bow, watching

the water change from dark blue to milky green.

A whitish-gray column of steam, smoke, and ash

rose out of a boiling sea and churned upward for two miles.

The overwhelming smell of sulfur and chlorine,

mixed with intense heat and 98 percent humidity,

made breathing hard and painful.

Richard Costello, the project manager from Ocean Research

suddenly appeared beside her, two surgical masks dangling

from one hand. Lani thought he looked like the scarecrow

in The Wizard of Oz. Tall, skinny as a stick, all arms and legs.

He was in his late thirties, thinning brown hair pulled back in a

ponytail, with eyes the aquamarine of reef water, now bloodshot

from the bad air. He handed her one of the masks. “Captain says we’re

pulling back a mile. Too much sulfur dioxide and CO2 in the air.”

She coughed. “Not enough oxygen for sure.”

“Let’s go below and take a look at the instruments. Air’s better

down there.”

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

He slipped on his mask and pointed to hers. “Then put that

on,” he said, his voice muffled. “It’ll filter out the larger particulates.

When you come down, expect scary instrument readings.  Swarms of

quakes along the fault line and under the mountain. Not too deep,

either. And we’re picking up a harmonic tremor for

the first time.”

She put on her mask and adjusted the strings. “The tremor

usually comes a few days ahead of a blowout. I need to go down

in the sub and check out the mountain while there’s still time.”

Costello studied the whitecaps. “Not today. Seas are too rough

for launching. Probably first thing tomorrow. By the way, you’ll

have a guest aboard.”

“You?”

“No, I’ll be controlling the operation from the ship. The

Coast Guard is sending someone.”