Genesis Plague (5 page)

“P
aul, wake up. We’re almost there.”

Cassidy gently shook my
shoulder until I opened my eyes, then she dropped back into the seat across
from me.

“I wasn’t expecting to
sleep.”

“All that spying on me
must have worn you out.”

“You know, that must
have been it.”

She started throwing
balled-up napkins at Flint, who was still sleeping, as I walked up to the
cockpit. Pierre was focused on a distant speck of land in the ocean ahead. It
grew steadily larger as we approached.

“Everything okay up
here?” I asked.

Without looking away
from the window, he pointed at the headset in the copilot’s seat. I put it on
and sat down, admiring the walnut inlay surrounding the complicated controls
before me.

“Everything is fine,”
he said. “We will land shortly, but look…”

He gripped the plane’s
steering column and slowly tilted us a few degrees to the right of our
destination. I was about to ask what he was doing when the first sign of gray
appeared in the sky. As the plane banked to the side, my view was filled with
an enormous thunderhead; a bulbous mass of dark cloud, the front of which was
expanding toward Hawaii.

“What is that?” I asked.

Pierre tapped a button
on his dashboard and a glowing screen flicked on to show a radar scan of the
area. In the upper left was the trademark outline of the Hawaiian Islands. In
the upper right, ragged in appearance but unmistakable in shape, was the
outline of a newly-forming hurricane.

“A monster,” said
Pierre. “Her name is Valentina, and she is predicted to make landfall in two
days.”

“Headed right for the
islands?”

He nodded. “Picking up
speed as she goes. Category three at the moment.”

“Levino didn’t mention
anything to me about a storm,” I said apologetically.

“Do not feel bad. I
would have offered to fly you anyway.”

We sat for a moment in
silence, watching the clouds roll through the sky in slow motion. Pierre gently
eased the plane back on course.

I said, “Can I ask you
something without offending you?”

“We shall see.”

“Is Pierre Jacques your
real name?”

“But of course. Why?”

“It’s just so
very…French.”

He threw back his head
and laughed heartily. After he settled down, he said, “Well, then, it fits,
because I myself am very French.”

“Did I offend you?”

“Not at all, my friend.
My name and my heritage are sources of pride for me, so if anything, you have
given a great compliment.
Je vous remercie
.”

He flipped a switch
above him and spoke to Air Traffic Control on the Big Island, clearing us for
landing. I put my headset back in the copilot’s chair and joined Cassidy and
Flint at the back of the plane to prepare for landing.

“Did you play nice?”
asked Cass after I sat across from her.

“I have no idea what
you’re talking about.”

She gave me a little
half-smile that made me tingle all over. “Now
that’s
a first.”

P
ierre flew us to a private airstrip off Hilo Kona Road, a
twenty minute drive from the Mauna Loa Observatory where Roger Levino had
promised to meet us.

I got my first glimpse
of the ancient volcano as we descended below five thousand feet on our approach
and dropped out of the dense cloud cover. It was not the elemental image I
expected from magazines and television shows that always sought to present the
most dramatic events in a volcano’s life: bright lava exploding from a boiling
caldera, sending dense ash clouds laced with lightning billowing into the air.

Instead, Mauna Loa was
just another brown mountain, albeit a large one, bulging up from its green
surroundings peacefully. Some might have even called it boring.

“Not what you were
expecting?” asked Cass. She watched me with amusement as we approached.

“Levino made it sound
like we were walking into an eruption.”

She laughed. Cassidy
had been here before to study Mauna Loa and the other active volcanoes on the
Big Island. Her geochemistry research for the university took her around the
globe, collecting samples and data from the Sahara to Antarctica. Ever since we
fell into step together, we’d both done our best to make sure our research
trips were compatible.

Flint sat up and peeled
the limp bag of peas from his eyes. “Believe me,” he said, “if Mauna Loa were
erupting, Levino wouldn’t want to be anywhere near her. She hasn’t popped her
top since ’84, so when it happens, it’ll be big.”

“How many times have
you been here, Flint?” I asked.

“This will make
nineteen.”

Cassidy whistled,
impressed.

“As far as pure mantle
study goes, it doesn’t get much better than Hawaii. You have four active
volcanoes on the Big Island and one in the ocean directly offshore. And it’s
not a bad place to relax, either.”

Pierre’s voice cut in
over the intercom. “Prepare for landing.”

We buckled up and
settled into our seats. The plane banked to the right as we approached the airstrip
and I caught a view of the north side of Mauna Loa, which until then had been
hidden behind its formidable bulk.

There was a zig-zagging
crack running across its lower slope, reaching almost to the peak. There was no
smoke, but the crack glowed a brilliant red-orange, and seemed to be pulsing, as
if the heart of the mountain was just underneath the surface. I could see a
collection of large white tents at the base of the volcano, several hundred
yards from the lowest point of the fissure.

“They move fast,” said
Cassidy, looking out her window at the tents.

“They probably have to
because of the hurricane,” I said.

She and Flint spoke at
the same time: “What hurricane?”

A
n open-topped white Jeep arrived at the airstrip just as our
plane came to a full stop. The grassy field next to the strip was otherwise
empty except for a pilot who was standing next to his small Piper, watching the
darkening sky with a frown on his face.

We grabbed our bags as
Pierre came back from the cockpit. He kissed Cassidy’s hand as she left the
plane.

“What’s your plan now?”
I asked as we shook hands.

He shrugged and looked
out through the open door. “I do not want to be stuck here when the storm hits,
but I always have a hard time passing up a vacation in Hawaii. I think I might
stick around a short while. Perhaps we will see each other again?”

“Perhaps. Take care of
yourself, Pierre.”

“Always,
Monsieur
.
Always.”

Heat rose up from the
airstrip as I stepped away from the plane, and within ten seconds I was
sweating from every pore on my body. The warm summer breeze did nothing to cut
through the thick humidity, which blanketed the land.

A young, muscular man
of about twenty-five hopped easily out of the white Jeep and took our bags. He
had tanned skin and wavy, coal-black hair. From the dirty splashes on the sides
of the Jeep, the roads we were about to drive were filled with mud.

The driver of the muddy
Jeep set Flint’s bag gently in the back seat, then did the same with Cassidy’s.
He stared at me for a moment through his reflective aviator sunglasses, then
roughly crammed my bag in the far back, doing his best to be the opposite of
considerate.

He helped Cassidy into
the passenger seat, his eyes lingering a little too long on her legs, then
hopped into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. He shifted into gear as
Flint and I scrambled up into the back seat. I barely had my door closed before
the driver stomped on the gas pedal. We bounced off the airstrip onto a dirt
path, toward the main road.

“I’m Mike Pahalo,” he
said. “I’m taking you to the observatory.”

He hit a deep,
mud-filled pothole in the unpaved road and Flint bounced up, almost landing in
my lap. He grunted as I elbowed him back to his side of the Jeep.

“He’s Mike Pahalo,”
said Flint quietly as we left the bumpy dirt path and turned onto a paved
stretch of road.

“He sure as hell is,” I
replied.

L
evino was waiting for us when Mike pulled the Jeep into the
observatory parking lot. My boss was pacing back and forth with his hands
clasped behind his back. He was short, bespectacled, almost fifty, and had a
slight paunch that pushed against the buttons of his collared shirt. All of the
hair on top of his head had long ago retreated down to the sides, as if fleeing
from the sun, forming a dark horseshoe that hugged the back of his skull from
ear to ear.

There were several
other cars in the parking lot, all of them outfitted for off-roading. They had
spare fuel canisters lashed to their roofs, and large water tanks bolted to the
back. Most had an engine snorkel to keep the motor from flooding during stream
and river crossings.

“Looks like quite the
expedition,” I said to Levino as I climbed down out of the Jeep. I did my best
to ignore Mike as he yanked my bag out from behind the back seat and dropped it
on the ground.

Levino shook my hand
briskly.

“Those aren’t ours,” he
said, gesturing to the off-road vehicles. “The bastards weren’t supposed to be
here for another two days. Somehow word got out, and now I’ll be damned if the
whole world doesn’t know about what’s going on up here.”

Mike handed Flint and
Cassidy their bags, then stood next to Levino.

“Oh, yes, you’ve met
Mike,” said Levino. “He’s, um, well, he’s our field assistant on this one, so,
you know. He can be a bit of an asshole, but who can’t? Besides, he’s young.”

Levino shrugged as if
that explained everything, then he walked away, leaving Mike gaping like a
fish. I hoped the grin on my face wasn’t permanent.

“What
is
going
on, Doc?” asked Flint.

“Flint, my boy!” said
Levino, brightening up. “I’m glad you’re here.” He slapped Flint’s back and
guided him toward the Mauna Loa Observatory, a collection of long white
buildings with corrugated siding and several domed observation towers.

“I guess we’re just the
window dressing,” said Cassidy. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek,
then followed after Flint and Levino.

I ended up next to my
new buddy Mike Pahalo as we headed toward the observatory.

“Field assistant,” I
said. “Not from San Francisco University, because I would have seen you in the
lab.”

Mike grinned, as if he
had some secret that he couldn’t wait for me to uncover. “Not from the lab,
no.”

And that was all I
could get out of him. Not very chatty, that Mike Pahalo.