DRILL SITE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Ibrahim Hussain Azhar heard the explosion and saw the green Marrakech Air Transport helicopter suddenly begin to rotate and fall. An instant later, another explosion rocked the crater as the aircraft crashed and burned.
He’d expected as much; the American forces on the crater rim wouldn’t allow a helicopter to escape the trap, not when it might be carrying a nuclear weapon off the island. He had to assume that they knew about the suitcase bombs by now.
That either bombs or U.S. Marines were now on the way was a certainty. Gunfire continued to bark and crackle across the crater floor as high-exposive rounds dropped among his men one after another. As oily black smoke rose from the helicopter crash on the higher part of the crater floor, he knew he might now have only minutes left. There was no time to evacuate the crater, no time to attach the bomb to a cable and lower it into the laboriously excavated borehole.
He’d deliberately given Feng a remote control without batteries, knowing that he would have fired the bombs as soon as he came under enemy fire. Maybe that would have been the best possible alternative, but Azhar still hoped the plan would work as originally designed. Shah and Chatel were up at Taburiente now, and as soon as they realized that the volcanos were under attack, they would trigger the bombs from there.
This one wasn’t connected to a receiver yet, though, and couldn’t be triggered down here, where the rock walls of the crater blocked incoming radio signals. But there was another way.
Scooping up the nearly completed weapon, he rose and dashed toward the lava tube entrance.
CALDERA TABURIENTE
NORTH END OF LA PALMA
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
As Castelano talked with the policeman, CJ took a couple of steps forward, staring at the group of men on the tourist viewing platform. They seemed intent on something on the ridge to the south.
A moment ago, there’d been a wisp of white cloud above one of the craters visible in the blue haze in the distance. Now a black pillar of smoke hung like a storm cloud above one of the peaks. The men were arguing, one gesturing with what looked like a television remote.
Reaching behind her back, CJ pulled out the P226, raised it braced in both hands, and began squeezing the trigger. The guard in front of the police tape twisted and fell.
Advancing step by step, she continued firing. Behind her, the policeman reached for his holstered sidearm, pushing past Castelano, yelling at her in Spanish to stop. Castelano reached out and grabbed the officer, using his foot to lash out and trip the man into a headlong sprawl.
CJ kept firing.
FIRESTORM FORCE PACKAGES
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Ten bombs whistled softly through the afternoon sky, spreading out slightly as each vectored in on its assigned, illuminated target. They guided on beams of reflected laser energy, each beam set at a different frequency to avoid targeting confusion, their tail control surfaces adjusting moment to moment to keep the falling weapon centered on its target.
The first strikes were at the cluster of three northernmost peaks, at Volcán de San Juan and Birigoyo almost simultaneously, with a bomb striking the third crater seconds later. Gouts of smoke and cinders were hurled into the sky, as drilling derricks toppled and collapsed, as fuel stores erupted, as JeM personnel tried to take cover … and died.
The next two in line were Hoyo Negro and Duraznero. The explosions seemed to walk south along the crest of the Cumbre Viaja, explosion following explosion in thundering promenade as drilling rigs were torn apart, boreholes sealed, and radio receivers and electrical cables flung about and shredded by the blasts.
One bomb, the second released by Firestorm Five, lost its lock on its illuminated target when clouds of smoke blocked the laser light from the Marine position nearby. Operating now on GPS data as backup, it howled in low above the northeastern rim of the crater, missed the drilling rig by scant yards, and slammed into the upper portion of the crater floor.
The blast was akin to the crack of Armageddon.
NORTHEAST RIM
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Akulinin saw the detonations of the other bombs off to the north. “Get down!” he screamed. Lunging forward, he knocked Lia to the ground, throwing himself over her.
An instant later, they heard the bomb shriek over the crater and strike among the tents close by the burning wreckage of the helicopter.
The explosion felt like a volcano going off, a heavy, massive whoom that literally shook the earth and slammed Akulinin’s chest and belly with what felt like a hard kick. They were plunged into shadow as a vast column of black smoke and debris lofted itself above the crater rim; then, slowly and with a measure of grace, it began to collapse back into the pit.
It began to rain rock fragments and cinders, and all the two could do was cover their heads and necks with their arms and ride it out.
The ridge top was suddenly, inexplicably, and oddly silent. Akulinin could see Lia shouting something … but he couldn’t hear her words.
INNER SLOPE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Dean had just made it to the top of the crater rim when the blast caught him from behind, lifting him up, flinging him forward, slamming him down. Lying flat, he covered his head with his arms as rock pelted him. As the cascade subsided, he rolled over and looked back at the crater.
The drilling derrick still stood. He couldn’t see any signs of life, but the crater floor was filled with smoke and swirling dust from the explosion. The tent farm, the wrecked helicopter, the landing pad — all had vanished, replaced by a steaming crater fifteen yards across.
CALDERA TABURIENTE
NORTH END OF LA PALMA
MONDAY, 1548 HOURS LOCAL TIME
CJ’s SIG SAUER clicked empty, the slide snapping back on an open chamber. She’d reached the yellow tape, now, stepping past the body of the Tango in the guardia uniform.
On the observation platform, Shah lay on his back, dead, the remote control device just beyond his outstretched hand. The other two were wounded, one clutching his belly in grimacing anguish, the other, Chatel, clutching his leg. With one hand, the Frenchman reached for the remote. CJ stepped up to him, the P226 still gripped two-handed, and aimed it at his face, point blank. “Don’t,” she said.
Chatel rolled back, his hands held up, palms out. His expression was one of glassy-eyed shock, and he didn’t seem to notice that CJ’s pistol was empty.
Castelano reached her a moment later, followed closely by an angry and confused Spanish police officer.
“These are the ones,” Castelano told the officer in Spanish. “You’ll need to take them into custody, keep them under heavy guard.”
To the south, pillars of black smoke were rising above the line of volcanic craters.
WESTERN SLOPE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1550 HOURS LOCAL TIME
His ears were ringing loudly, but Dean could still hear. “Art Room!” he called. His own voice sounded distant, almost muffled, and it cracked as he spoke. His mouth was parched and felt like it was coated with dust.
“We copy, Charlie,” Jeff Rockman said.
“The strike went down. I don’t know about the other targets, but this one missed. The derrick is still standing. I can’t see it, but I think the borehole must still be open.”
“That’s okay, Charlie.” Rockman’s voice, too, sounded distant. Dean had to work to pick the words out from behind the auditory ringing. “Marines from the Iwo Jima are on their way in. You may be able to see them now.”
Dean was standing on the northwestern slope of the crater, a good 280 yards from the top of the gully where Ilya and Lia were sheltering. He couldn’t see them, and hoped they’d found cover on the outside slope of the cone. They were close over there to the spot where the bomb had str
uck.
Turning, he looked northwest and saw the helicopters coming in.
The helo in the lead was an MH-60S Knighthawk, painted pale gray and sporting Navy markings.
“The Recon Marines will be in soon to secure the area,” Rockman was telling him. “That lead helicopter is there to pick up you and the Green Amber Marines.”
“Roger that.”
He could see Ilya and Lia now across the crater, standing side by side, waving. He saw Rodriguez and Dulaney as well, farther south, their forms barely glimpsed, shimmering, through the haze of smoke filling the caldera. The helicopter flew past Ilya and Lia, vectoring in on the Marines.
Dean was feeling a bit exposed on the crest of the ridge, so he moved over the top and started down the western flank. A bike path was there, winding its way from crater to crater along the top of the ridge.
The rifle shot ricocheted off a boulder two feet to his left, and Dean hit the ground. Lia’s report had mentioned Tangos manning roadblocks along those bike paths; some of the bad guys must still be out there.
Crawling around behind the boulder, he tried to see where the enemy fire was coming from.
Another shot struck the rock close by his face, close enough that fragments stung his cheek.
LAVA TUBE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1550 HOURS LOCAL TIME
The massive explosion had thrown Azhar to the floor of the lava tube and showered him with rock breaking loose from the ceiling, but he was still alive. He’d dropped his flashlight, saw it yet gleaming in the dusty air nearby.
The bomb was intact, thanks be to Allah.
This, he thought, was deep enough. The Cumbre Vieja, he knew, was riddled with lava tubes like this, some of them winding through the depths of these mountains for miles. He didn’t know how deep this one ran, wasn’t even sure how far down he’d come. At one point during the planning for Wrath of God, they’d considered using this lava tube, and others, rather than drilling boreholes. The far more costly expedient of drilling wells into the throats of these volcanos had been adopted in the end for the simple reason that doing so guaranteed placement of the bombs as deep beneath the mountains as possible, to lift the maximum mass of rock from the flanks of the Cumbre Vieja and hurl it into the sea.
This would do, though. The explosion moments earlier might have been the other nukes all going off together … but he didn’t think so. He hoped he was wrong, hoped the bombs had detonated, but if they had, they should have taken this section of rock along with them on the long slide to the sea. More likely, the blast had been an American bomb, and that meant that the plan had almost certainly failed.
There was still a chance, however. One bomb was not ten, and a lava tube some hundreds of meters in length was not a borehole sunk four hundred meters directly down into solid rock, but it was something. He would detonate the weapon, and the resultant landslide might be enough.
At the very least, he would blow the top off of this mountain and wreak a measure of revenge against the enemy forces that had brought his plan for Islamic unity to ruin.
He still needed to connect the battery. Holding the flashlight between his teeth, he began working on the final steps to arm the device.
NORTHEAST RIM
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1555 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Lia watched as the Navy helicopter came closer. It had picked up the two Marines on the west flank of the crater, and now the aircraft was coming after her and Akulinin. Four more Marines from the FORECON Green Amber team were arriving as well from nearby craters. As the helicopter touched down, rotors still turning, they formed up in an orderly line and began filing aboard, clambering into the side cargo hatch.
The Marines were brisk and businesslike; Lia had expected that they would have been jubilant at their success, bringing in nine out of ten blockbuster bombs to annihilate the terrorist threat on La Palma. A nuclear holocaust had been averted, as had a potential doomsday threat to the U.S. East Coast. She’d have thought they’d all be whooping it up.
Maybe they were as numb as she was.
Maybe the celebrations would come later.
Ilya helped her up into the helicopter. “Is that all of you?” a crewman yelled at her over the clatter of the rotors as the last Marine came on board.
Her hearing had been gone for a moment or two there, but the ringing in her ears had been steadily growing louder over the past couple of minutes. She realized she could hear again, though the ringing made it touch and go.
She shook her head and pointed west. “One more!” she yelled. “Other side of the mountain somewhere!”
The roar of the rotors increased, and the helicopter lifted off again.
LAVA TUBE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1558 HOURS LOCAL TIME
In the darkness far below, Ibrahim Azhar looked up toward the ceiling of the tunnel.
He believed in Allah, the merciful, the compassionate. He believed that God had spoken through His Prophet, bless his name, and that God would judge the universe. That belief, of course, was as much a part of the image of radical fundamentalist Islam as was hating the Jews and demanding an end to the Jewish state. Yet … sometimes the faith wavered, something he rarely admitted even to himself. What just and merciful God would allow the injustice and poverty of so many people, while their rulers enjoyed such opulence?
Though God alone was what united a billion Muslims, He seemed curiously unwilling to assist His people in regaining their rightful place in this world.
So, if God refused to show Himself, what remained was only … politics, his passionate yearning to see his people united under a single leader from Morocco to Indonesia and the Philippines, from central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. To see the western oppressors humiliated and overthrown.
Especially to see America brought low.
Operation Wrath of God yet might work.
It was possible. God might act after all. Azhar could yet be that God’s avenging right arm. Perhaps God had brought him here to this darkness for exactly that purpose.
“Allahu akbar!” he cried. “God is great!”
He brought the bare end of one wire down on a battery contact.
And darkness turned to Light …
WESTERN SLOPE
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1558 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Dean saw a Tango leap up from cover and dash forward up the hill, racing toward his position. He raised his rifle, but the man dropped again behind cover before Dean could squeeze off a round. There were several bad guys down there among the pine trees and boulders, and they had him pinned here, unable to move. That helicopter wasn’t going to be able to come in to dust him off if hostiles were firing at it from a hot LZ.
Then the earth moved.
It started as a vast and powerful, deep rumble, an eruption from far, far below the surface that became louder and more powerful moment by thunderous moment. The boulder was actually trembling, and loose stones and cinders on the ground were dancing about wildly as the earthquake grew in strength.
The side of the mountain was lifting, rising toward the sky …
NAVY HELICOPTER
NORTH OF THE SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1558 HOURS LOCAL TIME
The helicopter lurched suddenly as though swatted by a giant hand, tipping wildly to starboard. Lia clung to a handhold as several of the Marines around her cursed, some of them pitched to the deck.
“What the hell is going on?” one demanded.
Sparks burst from a bundle of electrical wiring attached to the overhead, spilling foul-smelling smoke into the compartment. The Navy crewman yanked a fire extinguisher from a wall bracket and doused the fire with CO2.
Below, half of the mountain appeared to be rising, pushing upward atop a pillar of black debris, rising and falling outward, toward the west.
“Hang on, everyone!” the pilot yelled above ongoing thunder and shouting Marines.
WESTERN SLOPE,
SAN MARTIN VOLCANO
MONDAY, 1558 HOURS LOCAL TIME
He tried to stand up but couldn’t. The boulder that had been his cover shifted suddenly, then began rolling and bouncing down the hill. The Tangos, fortunately, were too busy hanging on to take advantage of Dean’s sudden exposure.
All he could do was hang on. Above and behind, the top of the mountain appeared to be exploding into the sky, a pillar of smoke and blackness that must have been a mile high, perhaps higher, and still it continued to grow.
The side of the mountain to which Charlie Dean was clinging continued to rise … and then it was falling, dropping back again, slaming against the ground, but the ground itself was no longer solid but a fast-flowing avalanche of rock and gravel and dirt.
Dean guessed that he was riding a single block of stone, a chunk of mountainside perhaps a hundred yards long and fifty wide. The nearest edge, toward the north, was crumbling away as he watched, bringing the edge closer and yet closer. Beyond, the ground was a hellish churning of tumbling rock and debris, an avalanche hurtling down the western side of Volcán de San Martin, racing toward the sea.
A lone Tango a dozen yards away made it to his feet, swaying as he rode the mass of basalt, and then the rock lurched and pitched and he fell over the side and into the thunderous slide. As bigger and bigger chunks broke from the northern edge of the rock, Dean managed to get to his feet and scramble south, putting some distance between himself and the edge.
The rock slab was pitched forward nearly forty-five degrees. Dean could look down the slope at green pine forest and banana plantations, at sheer cliffs and, beyond, the sparkling blue of the Atlantic. There was nothing to stop the landslide now, nothing between millions of tons of falling, sliding rock and the ocean.
Charlie Dean was falling with it.
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