The Swarm (76 page)

La Palma, Canary Islands, North-west African Coast

‘So why all this activity in the waters of a holiday resort, when the worms could do so much more damage in Japan or back home?' asked Frost. ‘The North Sea was densely populated. The American coast is chock-a-block with people and so is Honshu, but the worm colonies in those areas aren't nearly big enough to make a splash. And now we've found worms here, on a holiday island off the north-west coast of Africa. So we ask ourselves why.'

Dressed as usual in a baseball cap and industrial overalls, he was standing high on the western side of the volcanic ridge that stretched across the island. In the north, the famous Caldera de Taburiente, an enormous crater caused by erosion, was ringed with sheer walls of rock, then the mountain ridge continued southwards, the line of volcanic cones extending to its tip.

Frost was accompanied by Bohrmann and two representatives from the De Beers Corporation, a business executive and a technology specialist called Jan van Maarten. They were gathered on a sandy slope with the helicopter parked to one side. From there they looked down on a verdant crater-pocked landscape of awe-inspiring beauty. A long line of peaks towered into the sky. Black trails of lava led down to the shore, dotted with tender green shoots. There were lengthy intervals between the eruptions on La Palma, but the next volcano could erupt at any time. In geological terms, the Canary Islands were still relatively young. As recently as 1971 a new volcano, Teneguia, had made its presence known, erupting near the southern tip of the island, and extending the land mass by several hectares. Technically, the ridge was a single volcano with numerous vents, which was why people tended to refer to the Cumbre ridge as a whole whenever they discussed the volcanism of the island.

‘You see, the real question,' said Bohrmann, ‘is which areas should be colonised to maximise the damage.'

‘You don't really think it could be planned in that detail?' asked the executive. She gave a puzzled frown.

‘It's all hypothetical at present,' said Frost, ‘but assuming there's an intelligent mind at work here, it's incredibly strategic. In the aftermath of the North Sea catastrophe everyone reasoned that the next disaster would happen in another densely populated industrial area. And, sure enough, worms were present on such sites, but only in small numbers. The obvious explanation would be that the troops, so to speak, were depleted, or that it takes time to create new armies of worms. Our attention is continually being nudged in the wrong direction. Gerhard and I are fairly certain now that the half-hearted invasions near North America and Japan are just a diversionary tactic.'

‘But what's the point of attacking the hydrates in La Palma?' the woman asked. ‘No one could claim that it's a hub of activity.'

The De Beers Corporation had entered the picture when Frost and Bohrmann had gone in search of existing technology to vacuum up the methane-eating worms. For decades the seabed off the coast of Namibia and South Africa had been scoured for diamonds. Various companies were involved, but the biggest player was the international diamond corporation De Beers, which used ships and offshore platforms to launch its mining operations 180 metres below. A few years previously De Beers had started to develop new ways of mining the seabed at even greater depths, using remote-controlled submersible crawlers that vacuumed up the sand and minerals, transferring them via suction pipes to surface support vessels. The most recent project focused on developing a more flexible system that could operate without the need for horizontal ground. The new technology, a remote-controlled suction pipe, would be capable of scouring vertical surfaces. Theoretically the system would be operational at depths of several thousand metres, but first it would be necessary to build a pipe of that length.

The committee had decided to collaborate directly with the team assigned to the project by De Beers. So far the corporation's two representatives had only been told that their system was of potential use in helping to prevent a worldwide disaster, to which end a suction pipe measuring several hundred metres in length was needed as soon as possible. Frost had proposed a visit to Cumbre Vieja to explain what would happen to humanity, should their mission fail.

‘Oh, don't let appearances deceive you,' he said. ‘There's plenty of activity here.'

The strands of hair protruding from his cap quivered in the cool sea breeze. The blue sky appeared in the lenses of his shades. He looked like a cross between Fred Flintstone and the Terminator, as his voice carried over the peaceful pine forests.

‘We wouldn't be standing here in the first place if volcanic activity two million years ago hadn't blasted the Canaries out of the sea. It may look idyllic, but you shouldn't let it fool you. There's a farming village down there, Tijarafe - a lovely place, sells wonderful
quesos de alemendras
. On the eighth of September each year they celebrate the Fiesta del Diablo. A devil runs across the market square, spitting fire and setting off explosions. Why? Because the islanders know the nature of their Cumbre. Fire and explosions are part of natural life here. They know that, and so, too, does the force behind those worms. It knows how the island was created. And if you know how things are made, more often than not you can identify their weak spots.'

Frost took a few steps towards the edge. The friable volcanic rock crunched beneath his Doc Martens. In the distance below, glittering waves broke against the shore.

‘In 1949 the sleepy old dog Cumbre Vieja sprang into action with a bang. The eruption came from one of its craters, at the top of the San Juan volcano. It opened up a fault. It's hard to spot with the naked eye, but it runs for kilometres along the western flank of the island, just below where we're standing. It's possible that the rock at the heart of La Palma has been fissured. At the time, a section of the Cumbre Vieja ridge slipped four metres downwards into the ocean. I've been monitoring the area for the past few years. It's highly likely that the next eruption will cause the western flank to break off entirely, owing to the unusually large amount of groundwater trapped within the rock. As soon as a new burst of hot magma enters the volcanic vent, the water will expand and evaporate in an instant. The resulting pressure could easily blast the western flank into the water. It's already been destabilised, and the eastern and southern flanks are pushing against it. Five hundred or so cubic kilometres of rock would collapse into the ocean.'

‘I read about that,' said van Maarten. ‘The Canary Islands authorities say the theory is dubious.'

‘Dubious?' Frost thundered, like the trumpets of Jericho. ‘If anything's
dubious, it's their failure to address the problem in any of their statements. All they care about is not worrying the tourists. But this problem isn't going to go away. The world's already experienced similar disasters, albeit on a smaller scale. In 1741 Oshima-Oshima erupted in Japan, triggering thirty-metre-high waves. More waves were generated by the collapse of Ritter Island in 1888 in New Guinea, but the amount of falling rock was barely one per cent of the landslide that could take place here. A GPS network has been continuously monitoring Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, looking for any sign of movement, and it sure as hell is moving. The south-eastern flank is slipping seaward at an annual rate of ten centimetres, and God help us if it starts to gain momentum. The consequences are too dire to imagine. Volcanic islands have a tendency to get steeper with age. Eventually a section breaks off. The authorities on La Palma don't want to face the truth. It's not a question of
if
it will happen, it's a question of
when
. In a hundred years? A thousand? The only thing we can't be sure of is the timing. The volcanoes here don't give much warning.'

‘So what would happen if half of the island fell into the sea?' asked the executive.

‘The mass of rock would displace vast quantities of water,' said Bohrmann. ‘A dome would form on the surface of the ocean. According to our estimates, we'd be looking at a speed of impact of three hundred and fifty kilometres per hour. The fallen debris would extend sixty kilometres over the seabed, stopping water flowing back over the landslide, and creating an air cavity that would displace far more water than the volume of the rock. There's some debate about what happens next, but none of the scenarios are especially comforting. The landslide would create a mega-wave off the coast of La Palma, with a probable height of six to nine hundred metres. The wave would set off across the Atlantic at a thousand kilometres per hour. Unlike earthquakes, landslides and slope failures are point events, which means the wave's energy dissipates as it radiates across the ocean. The further it travels from its source, the flatter it becomes.'

‘At least that's something,' said the technology specialist.

‘Not really. The Canary Islands would be wiped out in a flash, then an hour later, a hundred-metre-high tsunami would wash over the northwest African coast. Think of it this way: the European tsunami reached a height of forty metres in the fjords, and we all know what happened
there. Six to eight hours after the eruption, a fifty-metre wave would sweep over the Caribbean, laying waste to the Antilles and flooding the east coast of America from New York to Miami. Soon afterwards the wave would hit Brazil with similar force. Smaller waves would travel as far as Spain, Portugal and the British Isles. The consequences would be devastating, even in central Europe. The European economy would collapse.'

The representatives from De Beers paled. Frost grinned at them. ‘I don't suppose you've seen
Deep Impact?
'

‘You mean the movie? That wave was a lot higher,' said the executive. ‘It measured hundreds of metres.'

‘Fifty would be enough to flatten New York. The impact of the wave would release more energy than the United States uses in a year. It doesn't matter how tall a building is - it's the base that takes the force of the tsunami. The rest of the building collapses, regardless of how many storeys there are. And we won't have Bruce Willis to save us.' He gestured towards the edge of the ridge. ‘There are two ways of destabilising the western flank of the island: either Cumbre Vieja erupts, or there's an underwater avalanche. The worms are working on a landslide - a kind of miniature version of what they did in Europe, although the force will be enough to detach a segment of volcano. The rock will sink into the depths, and that in turn will prompt a minor earthquake and destabilise the Cumbre ridge. The earthquake might even trigger an eruption, but in any event the western flank will detach. It's going to happen either way - and we'll have a disaster on our hands. The worms off the coast of Norway took a few weeks to finish the job. Things could move even faster here.'

‘How long have we got?'

‘It's almost too late already. Those worms are pretty cunning, and they've gone to work in spots that are hard for us to reach. The whole scheme depends on the power of mega-waves to propagate on open water. They've already scored one hit in the North Sea, but that was relatively minor by comparison. If this harmless-looking little island collapses into the ocean, human civilisation is going to see just how tough things can get.'

Van Maarten rubbed his chin. ‘We've already produced a prototype for the suction pipe. It's operational at depths of up to three hundred metres. We haven't tried it any deeper yet, but…'

‘We could extend the pipe,' suggested the executive.

‘We'd have to figure something out pretty quick, but if we stopped work on everything else…What worries me is the support vessel.'

‘A vessel won't be large enough,' said Bohrmann. ‘A colony of a billion or so worms - that's a huge biomass. You'd have to find somewhere to pump it.'

‘That's not the real problem - we can always set up some kind of relay. No, I was thinking about a command ship with the control desk for the pipe. If we extend the length to four or five hundred metres, we'll need a vessel big enough to transport it. That's half a kilometre of pipe! It'll weigh God knows how much, and it's a damn sight thicker than deep-sea cable. We won't be able to coil it up and stick it in the hold. Besides, we need the boat to stay stable while we're steering the pipe. I don't think we need to worry about an attack, but the hydrostatics are going to be tricky. A pipe of that length can't be left dangling from the side of the vessel without affecting its balance in the water.'

‘How about a dredge?'

‘Wouldn't be big enough.' The man thought for a moment. ‘A drillship, maybe. No…We'd be better off with a floating platform. We're familiar with those already. We need a kind of pontoon system, ideally a semi-submersible construction like the type they use in the offshore industry - except we wouldn't want to anchor it in position. We'll have it travelling across the water like a normal boat. It has to be manoeuvrable.' He moved away from the others, muttering something about resonant frequencies and swell variations. Then he rejoined them. ‘A semi-submersible should do the trick. It's stable, mobile, and provides an ideal base for the boom, which, let's not forget, will have to take a lot of weight. There's a semi-submersible in Namibia that would adapt quite easily. It's got two propellers, each with a six-thousand-horse-power engine. We can get it fitted up with some additional thrusters, if we think we might need them.'

‘The
Heerema?
' asked the executive.

‘Right.'

‘I thought we wanted to get rid of her.'

‘She's not ready for the scrapyard yet. She has two main rudders, and the deck's supported by six huge columns - it's just what we need. OK, it was built in 1978, but it'll do the job. It's the simplest solution. We won't need a derrick, we'll have two cranes instead. We can use one to lower
the pipe. Pumping up the worms won't be a problem. And we'll be able to moor the vessels before we fill them with worms.'