Caldera

by Larry LaVoie

  “We’ve got seismic reports, gas analysis, ground movement all indicating the area within the park is undergoing a change that could result in a catastrophic eruption. Have him call me on my cell phone.” Jason gave him the number and watched him write it down.

  On the way back Carlene said, “That went pretty well. I asked a ranger to see if they could find my brother.”

  Jason nodded. His mind was still on the disaster at hand. The senator who was dead, geysers exploding, a government that refused to listen; this was the first ray of hope they’d seen. “I wonder what the FBI will do once they see Bainbridge’s computer,” he said.

  “Over here,” Wendy yelled. She was staring down a ravine at a piece of fabric nearly hidden by the late afternoon shadows.

  Billy scrambled down the slope leaving a wake of rolling gravel. “Becky!” he yelled all the way down. At the bottom next to an uprooted tree he saw her. She wasn’t moving.

  He swallowed a lump in his throat and cautiously approached the figure dreading the possibility that haunted him. He reached out his hand and touched her forehead. There was a large bruise. He touched her arm and then rolled her over barely aware of Wendy calling from the trail at the top of the ravine.

  Her skin was cold, but he could feel a weak pulse. Thank God she was alive.

  “Becky,” he said patting her face.

  She slowly opened her eyes and stared at him. “Billy, you look terrible.”

  He grinned. “I was worried about you.”

  She tried to move but only managed a groan. He helped her to her feet. “Come on. We’ve got to take care of Terry.”

  An hour later, Billy mumbled what he remembered of The Lord’s Prayer and put the last rock on Terry’s grave. Wendy and Becky were both crying. He wanted to cry, too, but fought it.

  “Come on. Let’s find someplace to spend the night.” He debated which way to go. From the last check of the map they were closer to the north end of the trail, but he didn’t know what was ahead in that direction. He had never hiked the complete trail and knew they would have to forge a river before they reached the road again. He decided to stick with the area he knew and led them in the direction from which they had come. They walked in silence. An hour passed and, in the long shadows, they were having a hard time seeing the trail. Finally noting the slow progress Billy said, “I’m going to go ahead for help.”

  “No.” Wendy protested. “We should all stick together. You said that when we started.”

  Billy didn’t argue. They were wet and cold. If they didn’t find shelter they would all freeze in the cold night. They found a grove of pine that afforded some shelter. They huddle together. He wrapped his arms around the girls and they shivered waiting for morning.

  Back at the Lake headquarters, Jason e-mailed the FBI with the information he’d found on Milton Bainbridge’s computer. He could hear Carlene on the phone to her parents. She was hoping they had heard from Billy and when she learned they hadn’t she promised she’d go looking for them the next morning.

  When she hung up Jason said, “You didn’t tell them to go to Oregon.”

  “I know,” Carlene shrugged. “They’re so worried about Billy; I didn’t want to scare them anymore.”

  He could see she was worried. “Don’t you do anything stupid. The rangers will find him.”

  Carlene pushed away from her desk. “He’s my little brother. You think I’m going to leave him in the wilderness while we try and determine when this place is going to blow up? I need to find him.”

  “Give the rangers a chance. If they don’t find him, I’ll help you look.”

  Carlene went over to him. “Tell me the truth. Is Yellowstone going to erupt?”

  Jason looked at her. She was tougher than most. She had been through a lot. He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, nor could he tell her the other thing that was bothering him. If Bainbridge was killed because he was going public the same thing could happen to them. He hoped Peter Frank would come to his senses and back their request to get USGS to seriously look at the possibility of an eruption. Without the support of Sanders that didn’t look very likely. Then there was Joseph Talant. What the hell was he doing in the middle of all this?

  June came with a late spring storm; first rain then a dusting of snow that lay frozen on the early morning ground. It was as good a day as any to put the plan Jason had developed into action.

  Carlene found the stations that had websites and Jason drafted an e-mail that would be followed up by a personal visit. As much as Jason hated the media he needed them now. He only hoped they would listen and take him seriously. He purposefully played down the risk so his notice wouldn’t be met with complete skepticism. To keep everyone in the USGS informed he sent out the same notice to every USGS site they could find. He knew it would be useless to try to get Sanders to back him, but he hoped other scientists around the globe would lend some support. By the next morning his in-box was jammed with responses. It was mid-morning before he got to Sanders message. He printed it out and handed it to Carlene.

  “About what I expected,” he said watching the reaction on her face as she read.

  “Can he do that?” Carlene asked.

  “He just did.” Jason shrugged. “I never liked working for the man anyway.”

  “But where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves you here to continue monitoring while I see if I can give interviews to this stack of requests.”

  “You’re going to leave me here?”

  Carlene looked worried, but he wanted her to make up her own mind on what she was going to do. He didn’t want to influence her decision any more than he already had. As long as he didn’t work for USGS anymore he could do what he wanted and that was to get the word out by any means possible. “I’m going to push for closing the park as a minimum. If the activity continues I’ll go for a Red Zone that is at least 200 miles. It’s going to be tough with Sanders fighting me.”

  “Why only two-hundred miles?”

  “Strategy,” Jason said. “Let them warm up to the idea of evacuation.” He arched his eyebrows. “I hope we have enough time.”

  Chapter 21

  Jason drove the winding road north of the park before dawn on his way to Billings, Montana. One of the radio stations offered to interview him along with the local paper. At Motel Six he invited reporter Fred Granger, a short rumpled man with thinning gray hair, into his room for the interview.

  Jason pulled out graphs of the expected eruption site showing Billings would be directly in the path of even a minor eruption.

  Granger stared at Jason with intense brown eyes. Finally he interrupted. “Be honest, Dr. Trask. What’s the real likelihood of an eruption?”

  “To ignore this is taking a huge risk.”

  The reporter nodded, took some notes and politely asked if the Governor of Montana had been notified.

  “We had Senator Lake from Wyoming helping us, but his helicopter went down. The FBI is investigating.”

  The reporter nodded again. “You understand I’ll have to verify this information before I can publish. Don’t want to panic the public for nothing.”

  Jason brought up seismic graphs and a simulation of the event on his laptop computer. The reporter listened to a fifteen-minute monologue while Jason sipped from a can of Coke feeling things were going better than expected. Then Fred Granger said, “Isn’t it true that the USGS has fired you for insubordination? The U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management all say you are a disgruntled former employee trying to get back at the government for firing you. Why should our listeners believe you?”

  Jason felt the heat rise to his face. Right now he was glad this wasn’t a TV interview. He struggled to control his anger. “If I’m disgruntled it’s because the people who hired me to do a job won’t let me do it. The last time Yellowstone erupted it devastated the entire area we know as the Western United States. Rather than step up to the plate and evacuate the area they’
re sitting on their collective asses hoping nothing will happen.”

  Granger nodded and said almost under his breath, “Let’s hope they’re right.” He turned off his tape recorder.

  Granger left with a promise to air the broadcast in the news segment the following morning. Jason doubted he would get it past the program manager. He called Carlene to see how the monitoring was going. He could hear the relief in her voice.

  “You won’t believe this, but there have been no earthquakes above a magnitude two. Activity in the park has been absolutely quiet. Peter called and I gave him an update. He didn’t seem too happy. Said he’d fired you and not to listen to you.”

  Jason was silent on the phone.

  “What do you make of the quiet day?” Carlene asked. “It’s been three days of decreasing activity. You think she’s going to sleep again?”

  Jason answered the last question first. “Get ready to leave,” Jason said. “If she’s stopped gassing and the ground isn’t moving it means the pressure is building. What’s on the GPS?”

  “Steady,” Carlene said. “It’s like someone turned off the faucet.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine ... Jason, what if Sanders is right?”

  He considered the question. It was a possibility. It wouldn’t be the first time a volcano had made a fool out of a scientist. He had misjudged before as had most of the volcanologists in the world. If Sanders was right, Jason would never work again. Then again if Jason was right he may not survive anyway. “Look at the bright side,” Jason tried to reassure her, “if he’s right, thousands of people will wake up thinking I’m exactly what they are calling me today, ‘a disgruntled former employee.’”

  “I’ve got a Co-spec flight scheduled to collect gas readings this afternoon,” Carlene said. “When do we talk again?”

  “Try my cell if anything changes, otherwise I’ll call you from Pocatello tomorrow.” He hung up and pondered the conversation a moment, leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes, oblivious to the man outside his room sliding the semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster. He got up to answer a knock on his door.

  Jason woke feeling like his head would burst. He was lying on a narrow bed, his eyes staring straight up at a high arched ceiling. He saw a row of lights and a large vent, but both were at least ten feet above him. He sat up and rubbed his temples to coax the pain away. The walls were the same luminescent color of green as the ceiling. Decorations were sparse. There was the cot he was sitting on, a barred door, a small sink and a toilet. I’m in jail, he thought. He sensed he had traveled for a long time, checked his watch and saw that it was five in the morning; he had lost over ten hours.

  Outside the cell door a man sat tilted back in a chair. In a black suit, white shirt, shiny black shoes and a headpiece clipped over military cut dark hair; the man looked very much like Secret Service although his experience was limited to what he’d seen on TV or in the movies. The man glanced at Jason, rocked the legs of the chair to the floor and stood up. “Welcome back, Dr. Trask.”

  Jason grabbed the cell bars and peered at him. The suit was tailored perfectly. He had the solid frame of a football tackle with a head that seemed attached to his shoulders without a neck. Jason’s mind was fuzzy. He thought he should feel frightened, confused or angry, but didn’t feel anything and wondered why. He’d obviously been kidnapped, but couldn’t remember any of the details. Probably drugs, he concluded, rubbing his head again, wishing the throbbing pain away. It was a hangover without the cotton mouth. “You going to tell me what this is about?” he asked the man.

  “Don’t worry, Doctor. You won’t be detained long.”

  “Why am I locked up?”

  “I’m not the one you need to talk with.” The man turned away, said something into the tiny wrist mike, put his finger to his ear as if he was listening through the earpiece, then nodded and turned back to Jason. “Dr. Trask, if you will promise your cooperation we can forget the wrist restraints.” He held up a pair of handcuffs.

  “Fine,” Jason said. “Anything to get me out of here.”

  Jason heard the chink of the automatic lock and the door slid open. He stepped out and stared down an endless corridor. The walls were curved, the same color of green as the cell walls, void of any decoration. The floor was shiny gray concrete reflecting the glare from a single row of fluorescent tubes running for as far as he could see. There were no windows and Jason felt a tinge of claustrophobia. It was eerily quiet as they walked down the hallway, the footsteps from his escort clicking and Jason’s rubber soles squeaking, the only sounds.

  “Take the next left,” the man said.

  A heavy metal door that reminded Jason of a bank vault loomed a short distance from them blocking farther progress. Why the heavy door? Was this a prison, or a fortress? It had to be a government facility, who else would go to this expense? The door opened on silent hinges as they approached. Two U.S. Marines in dress uniform stood inside with their hands behind them resting in the small of their backs. Both carried pistols in holsters. Jason wondered why they needed weapons in such protected surroundings, but remained silent. It was too much like a dream to be real.

  They stepped into a room with the same green color. The high arched ceilings and the same soft sheen made him think of it as glass, no, obsidian, that was where he’d seen the color before. There were desks filled with computers and large flat panel screens high along one wall. A faint hum of hard drives and electrical equipment could be heard. The smell was completely neutral, no musty air or stuffy humidity, which in itself made Jason think the air had to be filtered. Though the place had the appearance of being underground there was no certainty of it. Nothing to give away the location. Clicking sounds like an old teletype or a ticker tape started and stopped intermittently. On the screens were images of the earth from space. Was this a control room of some sort? He was looking at high resolution plasma displays of topographical maps. The images changed, seemingly at random. Each new image was accompanied by a band of numbers scrolling across the bottom that Jason recognized as global positioning coordinates.

  They stopped in front of a long table surrounded by leather chairs. The top was inlayed with a smooth slab of white marble, very modern in appearance.

  “Take a seat, Dr. Trask,” his escort said.

  Jason pulled out a chair and noticed the floor was inlayed with gleaming white marble tile as ornate as one might find in a museum or perhaps a courthouse.

  “Where are we?” Jason asked again.

  “It’ll all be explained in a minute.”

  Jason sat down and tried to read the lettering tracking across one of the screens twenty feet away. He recognized the picture as a satellite image of Yellowstone Park, the distinctive shape of Yellowstone Lake a dead giveaway.

  Jason heard the soldiers snap to attention and turned to see a uniformed officer enter the room. “At ease,” the officer said, continuing toward Jason.

  The man was tall, his army uniform neatly tailored. His skin ebony, as was his closely cut hair. A single star ordained the collar of his khaki shirt. A brigadier general, Jason thought, if he remembered his military ranks.

  The general stopped at the end of the table staring down at Jason. “Dr. Trask, I’m an advisor to the President Turner who will be arriving any second. I might advise you that it is customary to stand when the President enters.” His voice was deep and authoritative.

  What the hell is going on? Jason stood up and glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Four men in black suits came through the door followed by President Turner.

  The President went directly to Jason, extending his hand as if they were old friends. “Mark Turner. I’m sorry we had to bring you here under such mysterious circumstances, but once you understand what we’re up against, I’m sure you’ll agree the precautions were necessary.”

  We’ll see about that, Jason thought, feeling the firmnes
s of the President’s hand.

  “Jason Trask,” Jason said, “but you already knew that.”

  The President smiled, turned to General Montgomery and nodded. The doors opened and three more officers entered the room.

  The President asked them all to be seated and took a seat at the opposite end from the general. He introduced the officers, all Army Corps of Engineers. There was General Montgomery at one end of the table, Col. Lancing, Col. Harden, and Maj. Bradford across from Jason. Maj. Bradford was a woman about Jason’s age.

  Jason felt alone, the sole occupant of one side of the long table. He nodded at each as they were introduced, all the while wondering what the President and the military wanted with him. The closest he’d ever been to this much brass was driving by a National Guard armory when the “Weekend Warriors” were on duty. He felt out of place.

  “It’s your show, General,” the President said.

  Montgomery nodded and as if on cue Major Bradford stood. She was about five-five, wore light makeup, blond hair cut shoulder length encircling an oval face. In spite of the uniform she had the appearance of the girl next door; though Jason was sure she was tough, having survived the army long enough to make the rank of major.

  She pulled a stack of manila envelopes from her briefcase and handed them out. Jason studied the lettering, his curiosity piqued.

  TOP SECRET, OPERATION CALDERA.

  So this is it, Jason thought. This is what Bainbridge was talking about. An effort to stop Yellowstone from erupting? What was inside startled him. It had been at least ten years since he’d seen the report. In fact he’d forgotten about it. He furrowed his brow, confused now more than ever. What was his discarded thesis titled Taming Yellowstone doing in the hands of the military? He’d thrown his copy out with an ancient desktop computer he’d used in college.