Excerpt 1

Excerpt From Pages 3 & 4

     In a small office in the seismology department, Dr. Leilani

Sanches’s pulse picked up a beat as she studied the satellite image

on her computer screen. She stretched her small figure across the

desk to fine-tune the satellite resolution. A dense, whitish-gray

cloud rose from the sea directly over the Shark Fin undersea

mountain range in the mid-Pacific. She clicked it up to maximum

enlargement. “It’s broken the surface for the first time,” she said

to her lab assistant, Gus Belmondo.

     Gus adjusted his round glasses, propped a hand on Lani’s

desk, and stared at the monitor. “Wow! The water’s actually

boiling where the plume comes out. That’s one hell of a lot of

heat!”

      She brushed wisps of silky black hair away from her ears. A

few strands had tumbled free of the casual twist and jeweled dolphin

clip above the nape of her neck. She stretched again to retune the

satellite, the tail of her white boat-neck T-shirt pulling up over

her stone-washed jeans, revealing an inch of coffee-and cream

island skin. Her gold-brown eyes stayed riveted on the growing

ash plume. “Is this data going into the model? Automatic feed’s working?”

      “Like a charm.” Gus’s green eyes smiled behind his

glasses. “Data’s being fed into the model as it comes in. I hate to

ask, but is it time to worry?”

      “Let’s take a look.” Lani clicked the mouse and replaced the

satellite view with a full-color, real-time simulation of Seamount

Gilman, the undersea volcano. The equipment hummed while she

and Gus studied the computer-generated model of the volcano,

the ocean around it, and the ground beneath. Everything seemed

to be playing out as her hypothesis had predicted. The worst could

happen.

      New seams were opening up two kilometers below the

mountain as they watched. Scorching hot magma poured into the

volcano, the red color spreading and deepening.

Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other gasses from

deep within the earth, displayed in shades of green, grew denser

and packed into every corner of the mountain. Earthquakes

showed up as bright blue starbursts, rippling out in concentric

circles as the shock waves traveled.

     Gus leaned his tall frame down for another look. “This baby’s

rockin’ and rollin’.”