Page 48 of Eruption

“Yes, Rick.”

“Is this it? Just one?”

“That’s right,” Lono said. “Unless you want me to look farther back than—”

“No, no, it has to be recent.” Lono heard rustling papers, the soft murmur of other voices in the data room. Rick said to someone at his end, “Why don’t you show this to the army guys? Imean, they’re the ones that have to place the damn explosives.” Then he spoke directly into the intercom. “Hey, Lono? Good job.”

And clicked off.

They’re the ones that have to place the damn explosives. Had he actually heard that right?

Lono wanted to open the intercom channel again. He knew there was an intercom built into the computer system that connected all the workstations at the observatory. There was also a voice-recognition system that converted voice to text. It was old and outdated and not very good. Nobody used it much. But Lono knew it existed.

If he could just remember how to turn it on…

He poked around on the drive. Pretty soon he found it. A window came up; he typed in his password.

Rejected.

He glanced back at Betty. She was still going through her papers.

Lono typed in her name and password; he knew what it was because she always used the same one. The screen changed. It asked who to link to. He hesitated, then typed JK, for Jenny Kimura, figuring she would be with Mac and not at her monitor.

He heard voices speaking and immediately clicked the button forTEXT. His computer was silent. For a moment nothing happened, and then text began to flow.

KENSAY ***UP ***SO***

HAVE TO OPEN THE CHAMBERS IS THE POINT AND YOU NEED AN EFFICIENT WAY TO DO THAT

WE NEED FODAR MAPS TO DECIDE WHERE TO OPEN UP

WHY

HOW MUCH EXPLOSIVE GOES IN EECH PIT

AN ARRAY IS TWENTY THOUSAND KEELOS TIMES FOUR

THAT MUCH

ITS KNOT VERY MUCH WE WILL HAVE A MILL YEN POUNDS OF EXPLOSIVE ON THAT MOUNTUN IN THE NEXT TWO DAYS

BETTER YOU THAN ME

He signed off before Betty noticed what he had done, his mind racing as he tried to figure out why the army needed a million pounds of explosives to fix some bad roads.

As he was heading toward the main entrance to see if anything was going on outside, he heard a loud banging on the front door. One of the army guys opened it, and Lono saw a pretty, dark-haired woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt, hard hat under her arm, walk in like she owned the place. Two men, also carrying hard hats, were right behind her.

“Well, boys,” she said to the army guys, “looks like you got something you can’t handle and you had to ask for help.”

The army guys laughed and started shaking hands with the two men behind her. Everybody seemed to be old friends, acting like this was some kind of reunion.

This isn’t about roads,Lono thought.Definitely not about roads.

Then Lono heard the helicopter.

A few minutes later Lono saw Mac coming down the hall with an older, white-haired army man who looked like a commanding officer.

“Hey, Mac,” Lono said. “What the heck is going on?”

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