Golden Gate Volcano

By Al Newman

Here we go again – another tale of a great American city devastated by nuclear war, Godzilla, the Ebola virus, or natural disaster. In order to be worthy of notice, a new destroy-that-city tale would have to be a cut above its predecessors. The author has done his best to accomplish that here.

The prologue takes place in St. Pierre, Martinique, in 1902, when the eruption of Mt. Pelée killed 30,000.

The action moves forward to California in 2012.

US Geological Survey vulcanologist Cavan Monaghan and his soon-to-be lover, helicopter pilot Veronica (Ronnie) Wentworth, head up a group of environmentally devoted people trying to find a connection between a recent siege of moderate earthquakes and the appearance of hot springs in the counties north of San Francisco. The team includes a gay paramedic and his partner; a second-grade teacher; a sculptress who lives on a houseboat; a retired geology professor; a cross-dressing coroner's assistant, and a marine biologist. Other major characters: an arrogant newspaper columnist, the Hispanic Governor of California, the female President of the United States, a hypertensive salvage ship captain, an ingenious Army Corps of Engineers General whose lover is a zealous reporter, a pair of Pakistani ship dismantlers, Ronnie's wealthy and manipulative father, and assorted US senators, high-ranking military officers, and cabinet members.

Cavan suspects that a major earthquake may be imminent. He is surprised that the USGS is playing down evidence of that earthquake in contravention of the agency's responsibility to alert the public to latent disasters. Cavan’s data suggest that the earthquake might cause magma to surface somewhere nearby. Two people die in accidents involving superheated water – one of them in the Golden Gate Channel. Cavan stumbles on clandestine, seabed-drilling activity 50 miles offshore. The Secretary of the Interior and Cavan’s superiors try to impede his investigation. Convinced that the government is blindsiding its citizens, Cavan decides to make his findings public.

But time runs out. An explosive eruption rocks the channel two miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge, blasting millions of tons of channel bottom and seawater skyward. A cinder cone begins to rise. The eruption generates a tsunami that devastates communities around San Francisco Bay. The ashfall mandates mass evacuations. The terror, trauma, and confusion of the post-eruption hours are described in detail. Chinatown burns. The death toll exceeds 33,000. Property losses are incalculable. Volcanic ejecta threatens to close the channel, cutting off billions a week in trade. Ash threatens to collapse the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco is evacuated. California's governor decides to bulldoze a ship canal through the peninsula south of San Francisco.

Cavan, promoted to chief of the USGS facility at Menlo Park, finds that high ranking government officials knew of the volcanic threat and had authorized an experiment to divert the emerging magma to the sea bottom instead of the channel. Cavan is asked to brief President Waterman, and finds out that she never knew about the experiment. The President pressures a cabinet member into revealing that a shadow government consisting of high-level government officials has existed since the 1970’s. It’s raison d’être was that if ever a major presidential decision were to threaten the United States with extreme injury or disgrace, the shadow group would bypass the President and make the necessary decisions. The group was convinced that by protecting the presidency as an institution, they might keep constitutional government from failing in a time of severe national unrest, and that the group would take the fall if a secret undertaking failed and the group's existence were exposed. The President dissolves the shadow government.

A sub-sea nuclear device is detonated and the volcano goes silent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Al Newman
• Release date: Apr 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370261444

Al Newman

I was born in the seaport city of Portsmouth, NH, in 1932. Son and grandson of sailors, my association with the sea goes back several generations. After graduating from Portsmouth High School in 1950, I served on a destroyer 1951-1954. I graduated cum laude in economics from the University of New Hampshire in 1958. I was a bookkeeper for a laundry supply company in Durham, NH, and was an accountant at the Shell Oil refinery in Martinez, CA, 1960-1963. Too late, I discovered that I found economics tedious. So, without ever having taken an education course, and with only one semester of French Literature and one year of Italian in college, I was hired out of the oil refinery to teach French and Spanish at an elementary school in Placerville, CA. Oh, and at half the pay. I was weighing oil trucks on a Friday and teaching school the following Tuesday. Since taking freshman English in 1954, I had never taken any classes that might prepare me to be a writer. When the inspiration hit me, I just jumped in. I had rambled through life – first a cook, then a US Navy sailor, then an accountant, and finally a teacher. Writing was still over the horizon. I retired from teaching in 1988, sold off what I owned, drove to Puerto Barrios, on the east coast of Guatemala, and became a partner in a used clothing business. I bought a concrete shell of a house on a muddy road with jungle outside my bedroom window. Got rid of the gigantic roaches and the scorpions, and prepared for life in the tropics. But – I soon became uncomfortable making money on the backs of people whose income averaged a tiny fraction of my own. So, I used my equity in the clothing business to pay off what I owed on my home. No longer working, I sat staring at the breadfruit trees and bamboo across the road. A troop of feral pigs would occasionally storm down the road to gnaw at my date palm stump that produced dates at ground level. A boa constrictor managed to get up under my tin roof and take up residence on my drop ceiling. My yard man discovered it when we became curious as to why I was no longer troubled with rats, mice and bats. So the snake and I had a symbiotic relationship. But, I was bored to distraction. There had to be more to life than sitting on my front steps, drinking Gallo beer, and swatting insects. Then, one glorious day – an epiphany. I had never been at ease with my house’s location near the Motagua River. An earthquake there in 1976 had taken 23,000 lives, and I really didn’t want to be part of the next inevitable statistic. Another interesting thing – Guatemala is ringed with active volcanoes. You know what? I had to write that novel that just about everybody intends to write someday. My novel would be about earthquakes and a volcano. I started looking for research materials, but I never found a place where I could buy a book – any book – in Puerto Barrios. And this was before the Internet, by the way. I drove to Guatemala City, 180 miles distant, and found a bookstore near the university, but it didn’t have what I needed. I couldn’t let my exciting plan wither on the vine, so, I sold my house and drove back to California. I became a virtual recluse for the eighteen months it took me to write Golden Gate Volcano. I did take time to ride my bicycle 60 miles on my 60th birthday, though. I was never able to get my novel published – but I was a bona fide writer, and that was all that mattered. And I had an idea for my next novel. Soon after I arrived in Puerto Barrios an employee at our clothing store had killed a 12-foot boa constrictor in the weeds out back. We gutted it to check on a curious lump, and discovered a very large, partially digested iguana. The experience stayed with me. OK – I’d write about a snake. A big snake. Big-big, even. Hmmm. Why not a snake that ate people? I took a Greyhound bus from Sacramento to Brownsville, Texas, switched from bus to bus in Mexico, and finally arrived in Belize. For six harrowing weeks, I rode all over the country in sputtering buses with crates of chickens on the roof, crawled jungles, climbed pyramids – even had my life threatened. But I survived, amassed vast quantities of photographs and research material, flew home, and wrote Anaconda Among Us. OK, so there are no anacondas in Belize. I explain this paradox in the story. Well, I’m a genealogist, too – I have been since 1946. Even as a teenager, I faithfully kept all of my correspondence and identified every photo given to me by elderly relatives. I zeroed in on my favorite ancestor – John Pio, my great-great-great grandfather, an immigrant sailor from Madeira. I researched his descendants and compiled pedigrees for everyone researchable who married into the blood line. The result is not for the casual reader. John Pio Came to Maine incorporates every scrap of information I could find on John and his descendants. It contains hundreds of photos and genealogical charts. Google the title to be taken to a free website that has the book in its entirety. From 1998 to 2002 I spent six months, off and on, in Costa Rica. I seriously thought about relocating there. But then, at age 70, I met a fascinating lady, Cecilia, a professional clown. All thoughts of a life in Costa Rica evaporated, and we took our vows in 2004. It’s never too late. Now, at age 79, I am in denial about my age. I hit the gym about four times a week, work out on the heavy bag, and run three miles about once a week. Cecilia and I have a wonderful life together. She remains very active as a clown and I am gearing up for my next novel. I have always been interested in the US Supreme Court, but I’ve never heard of an adventure novel about that august institution. I believe its time has come. I have accumulated and studied two dozen books on the court and I keep current with its decisions. I have the plot in mind. There’s no working title yet. And, how about you? Don’t just talk about it. Secure your place in literary history. Write that book! Al Newman

Book preview

PROLOGUE

12:02 PM, Monday, May 5, 1902, Rivière Blanche, Martinique

Jean-Loup spat with disgust. He thrust another armload of sugar cane into the grinder and spat again. The black-flecked spittle landed on his big toe. Fils de putain! Maudite montagne! he cursed. Which would be the first to turn totally black — his lungs or the sugar? Little matter — the fine volcanic ash would soon clog every machine in the mill, rendering lungs and sugar equally useless. Of the many inconsequential islands trailing off southeastward from Puerto Rico, why did he have to be born on this hopeless, Caribbean pimple? Little work – if any. Little future – if any. He used his decomposing hat to whisk the ash from his forearms. Several straws fluttered away in the process. A gray-pink, machete scar glowed against the obsidian skin of the cane cutter’s forearm.

Ça va? Julien asked, brushing past Jean-Loup and unshouldering his own load of cane into the hungry jaws of the grinder. He wiped his mouth on his arm and inspected it. Toujours – toujours cette merde noire, — Always this black shit — the Creole grunted.

"You have the gall ask ‘Ça va?’ you asshole? I’ll give you ‘Ça va!’" Jean-Loup threatened. This goddamned ash and gas is killing everything — you, me, the crop, and the machines. He looked seaward. Yes, even the fucking fish! Jean-Loup took deliberate, short breaths so as not to pull the sulfurous fumes any deeper into his lungs than he had to.

Sois patient, mon ami, Julien counseled. It’ll stop. It always stops." Julien rubbed his reddened eyes and studied the volcano, four miles northeast of the rattling mill at the mouth of Rivière Blanche. Mont Pelée had been belching debris and laminating the sky with gritty clouds for more than a week, now, its ash column, at the moment, a swaying cobra. This occasional discomfort is the tax we must pay to our goddess, Julien said, revealing the child in him and hoping that his words might appease the invisible forces churning the volcano. "A small price, n’est-ce pas?" He laughed without humor. "At least Pelée doesn’t demand our money like Meunier does, God curse all foremen."

Stay here until your black phlegm turns red and your woman goes down on Meunier to get bread money, Jean-Loup taunted. Me, I’ve had my fill. Just look at this sugar — looks like it’s full of flyshit. He glanced seaward. "See that boat out there — the sleek one? Well, it’s bound for Marseilles, and so am I, Julien. When your lungs finally burst from this dust, think of me, mon frère, screwing my way through France and actually spitting white again. The ground rolled, tables emptied themselves, a piece of roofing fell, and the grinder jammed. Jean-Loup shrugged a Need I say more?" at Julien.

Could it be a million goats stampeding? Silly. Or, all of the cannon of Europe rumbling down the river valley, firing as one? How could it be? The earth vibrated, the buzz of it radiating up the canefield workers’ legs and confusing their privates. As the roar and vibration intensified, Jean-Loup and Julien studied each other’s fear. A persistent, sharp snapping suggested that, somewhere off toward Mont Pelée, hundreds of trees were breaking. In truth, it was thousands. A particularly violent shock threw both men to the ground. They stared northeastward, breath suspended, as though waiting for a salivating ogre to come thundering down the mountain. In an instant, a 25-foot wall of boiling mud, a half-mile wide, burst over the rise, cannonading boulders and shredded trees into the Guerin sugar mill. Jean-Loup, Julien, Meunier, and 150 others were snatched up and folded into the scalding mix like raisins into a batter. The juggernaut roared through and as suddenly became silent, leaving only the hiss of seawater turning to steam. A field of mud lay popping where a small community had stood, robust and bustling, moments before. A lone chimney remained to mourn. Workers, wagons, livestock, buildings, machinery, and an entire sugar crop rested en collage on the floor of the Caribbean.

* * * *

In St. Pierre, six miles south of the sugar mill site, a scabrous dog, its tail drooping in permanent submission, stretched to see through the ash-mottled, storefront window. The two silhouettes beyond the glass gesticulated as only the French can do. No sound escaped, the ubiquitous, volcanic powder muffling everything. Inside, Les Colonies editor and publisher Paul St. Jacques thumped his desk, stood and leaned toward his visitor.

"Non, Monsieur le Gouverneur — a disaster did happen, Pelée roars on, and the people are understandably filling the boats for St. Lucia. Another thing — I am appalled that you have stationed soldiers along the overland escape route to turn back the refugees. Well, you had better march your military flunkies in here to put out tonight’s edition. I will not print that ‘unsafe’ is ‘safe’ just to keep your population in place for Sunday’s election. Les Colonies is a credible and responsible publication! The matter is closed."

Governor Maurice Mouttet still bore the ash accumulation from his arduous, fourteen-mile carriage ride from Fort de France. Fool! he rasped, his face now plum-colored. He mimicked the editor’s actions and stood nose to ponderous nose with him. "Will people remember that they decided to flee before you wrote your article? Before you recommended abandonment of the city? They - will - not! Don’t you understand the masses? For shame – a publisher who’s never read Marc Antony’s speech! When the people of St. Pierre return to find their homes and belongings ravaged by hordes of incoming refugees from the countryside, it is you who will be the scapegoat, mon ami. Your friends and neighbors will erroneously recall with perfect lucidity that it was your editorial hysteria that persuaded them to flee in the first place – that they sailed off in response to your recommendation. That’s what they’ll say and that’s what they’ll believe — and that’s what they’ll become enraged over — as they mourn their losses."

Maurice, St. Jacques said, outwardly relaxing his stance and voice but inwardly conceding that the governor might have a point, "St. Pierre, despite its many hills, has long known the wrath of the sea. Pelée could generate an earthquake that might bring this city down. And after that, what? A tidal wave to tidy up the debris? And then, what’s to keep us from getting a mud bath like the sugar mill did? You wish me to ignore the indicators? Maybe chat about the fish catch and the balmy weather? Put politics ahead of prudence? People are making rational judgments and are speaking with their feet. The threat is real, and is news, and we are a newspaper. Are we to call our readers fools?"

"If you and your rational readers had the facts, you would be up sweeping off your roofs and whistling as we speak. Have you even looked at Pelée today? Well? Do it — then tell me that the ash cloud isn’t smaller. Do you know why it’s smaller, Mr. Scientist-Journalist? Here, here is your news — the headline of a lifetime. The governor thrust a cablegram at St. Jacques. Read! Read, and then tell me that I am politically motivated!"

The editor held the crumpled, buff sheet at chest level and read: KINGSTOWN ST VINCENT X 16:10 X 7 MAY 1902 X VOLCANO SOUFRIERE ERUPTION 14:40 TODAY X UPWARDS OF 1000 DEAD NORTH END OF ISLAND X PRAY SEND IMMEDIATE RELIEF X

The corners of Governor Mouttet’s mouth twitched upward as though he were torn between elation and concern. You see? The pressure is off, literally and figuratively. The lava bubble has burst 100 miles from here. The people of St. Vincent, God rest their martyred souls, have taken the fusillade that could have been meant for us.

St. Jacques looked over his glasses, eyebrows aloft in skepticism. You’re saying there can be only one violent eruption in a given area?

"A bubble needs but one prick to pop, n’est-ce pas? The fires of hell need only one exit to savage the world, n’est-ce pas? Have you ever heard of a volcanic eruption duet? No, of course not. I have waited my entire life to wager against such an event. Don’t take my bet, Paul. Be sensible. Your crisis is, in point of fact, a tourist attraction. Capitalize on it. Put out a one-page ‘extra’ to stop this diaspora. Mme. Mouttet and I have taken rooms at L’Etoile and will stay in St. Pierre until Monday. Tell them! Tell the people that their governor is in St. Pierre and is enjoying its ambiance — if not its smell. Do it now, pour l’amour de Dieu. Don’t make Martinique the laughing stock of the Caribbean."

It was 5:00 PM, Wednesday, May 7, 1902.

* * * *

Ugh! I smell muleshit! Now you’re putting mules in the jail? There was no response. This water tastes of scum. I demand clean water. Nothing. "Can I empty my pot? Bâtards! At least, some light, then — every human being deserves light. Silence. A thread of light, fine as a spider web, played around the out-of-reach, observation-hole cover of the below-ground-level cell. Fuck your mothers, then! And may they rot in hell and forever feast on the vile shit you feed me! Do - you - hear - me? A rat scurried. No other sound. Auguste Ciparis, 25, awaiting trial for assaulting a white gendarme, slid to the stone floor and crouched in a corner. He rubbed his face on the cool wetness of the wall and thought briefly, Vermin, be my friend." A tear fell to the straw and he was asleep.

It was 7:25 AM, Thursday, May 8, 1902.

* * * *

Shhh! Yes, madame is still sleeping. Bring me coffee and croissants. Yes, and raspberry preserves. He tightened his bathrobe sash and extracted his pipe from the pocket. He looked at his watch. It was 7:35 AM.

The stooped and balding garçon in the ill-fitting uniform nodded wearily. Oui, M. le Gouverneur, des croissants, du café, et de la confiture de framboises.

Governor Mouttet quietly closed the door and padded to the balcony where he could watch the traffic toward the waterside slow, stop, and reverse. His success made the sulfur smell less pungent, his pipe more flavorful. People in their homes were votes in his pocket. All it had cost him was a promise that each of France’s départements would purchase several copies of future editions of Les Colonies. Yes, and now he’d have St. Jacques in his pocket with all the rest. This volcano idiocy would be forgotten by the time the doors were flung open for Sunday’s election. He relaxed at his table, ankles crossed, and studied the Les Colonies lead story. Lead story, indeed — its only story. Aromatic smoke drifted from the governor’s nostrils. St. Jacques had wrapped his story in reverence. God’s wrath had been unleashed on St. Vincent. St. Pierre was spared. Thanks be to God, the everlastingly merciful. We may safely unpack. Our children can be reassured. All of St. Pierre’s churches will be open today.

Mme. Mouttet stirred, happy that the tobacco smoke from the balcony was overpowering the omnipresent hydrogen sulfide. This would be a fine day for a tea party and the telling of frightening tales. Whom should she invite?

* * * *

Bare feet on the warm and bulging earth at Morne Rouge would have felt the pulse, the throbbing, the stirrings. But no person was at that place, 19/10 miles from Mont Pelée and 31/10 miles from St. Pierre. No animal remained. Frantic trees were chained in place. Pelée was about to give birth and no living thing wanted to be in attendance. Cracks in the earth inspire fear, inspire myth. Steam from the cracks hiss doom. The moans, if heard, would render the listener mad. For these considerations and others that would never be described, all mobile life had long since disappeared from the knoll.

At 7:38 AM, the throbbing blister stretched a few centimeters more, and then burst. Morne Rouge simply disappeared. No lava, no boiling mud. A body of dust and pure heat, its volume approaching that of Mont Pelée itself, shot laterally from the site and raced toward St. Pierre at cyclonic speed. Flame appeared and vanished in microtime as forest, field, and structure were overrun and incinerated. As the thermal wave swept into and over the city, Paul St. Jacques, Les Colonies and all copies of its last edition ceased to exist. Governor Mouttet was ashes before his pipe hit the balcony. Mme. Mouttet met oblivion in the middle of her guest list. The unleashed beast swept into the sea, destroying 17 ships and killing more than half the passengers and crew on board the Roraima, riding at buoy well away from land.

* * * *

At 9:00 AM, shoemaker Léon Compère-Léandre, a 28-year-old, powerfully built Negro, stunned and suffering deep burns, wandered through his city, now a cemetery of searing stone. Auguste Ciparis lay moaning in his dungeon, clothing intact but with seared flesh peeling from his back. He would be rescued on Sunday, when there would be neither election nor electorate. Léon and Auguste alone survived. Their 30,000 neighbors had become charcoal or had had their lungs broiled in a few superheated seconds.

* * * *

Long after Pompeii disappeared beneath the ash in hilly, western Italy, and more than a century before the emergence of Mount Bonita near a hilly thumb of a peninsula in the western United States, there was an energetic, brightly-painted, quaint but avant-garde city dominating a cluster of hills in western Martinique. And then it wasn’t there.

CHAPTER ONE

Battered hat above formless clothing, lined and weatherbeaten face above a beard born of neglect, knuckles scraped and bruised — he might have been a prospector resurrected from a 160-year slumber to resume his quest for riches. But in July 2012, no one seriously looked for gold in the mountains of eastern California anymore. For Cavan Monaghan, a 37-year-old with a PhD in geology, his personal mother lode did not lie embedded in quartz miles upstream, but rather miles beneath his feet where earth’s crust meets earth’s mantle. Long Valley was rumbling again, and Cavan, a crack vulcanologist with the US Geological Survey, was matching wits with mother earth. Cavan was in his element. He was happy.

Although the most recent eruption had been miles away and 550 years earlier, the current spate of magnitude 6.0 earthquakes soberly hinted that the next eruption might be just over the horizon. The spasmodic earthquake tremors jolting Long Valley revealed that rocks were snapping apart deep within the earth in response to magmatic pressure. When an existing volcano misbehaves, people are forewarned — they know when and in which direction to flee. Long Valley, however, had no such alarm system — no existing volcano. The eruption, when it came, would begin with a sky-swallowing explosion, an obliteration of nuclear proportions, and would culminate with the growth of a new, volcanic vent – a cinder cone. Somewhere in California, a tectonic plate — a segment of the earth’s crust — was thrusting itself under another plate. This produced indescribable pressure, easily generating enough heat to melt stone. As with any liquid under pressure, the magma had to escape its confinement, if not today then a thousand years from today – or a hundred thousand. The path of least resistance was invariably upward. It was inevitable — magma would eventually see the light of day in Long Valley, perhaps even in the town of Mammoth Lakes, itself.

Cavan, a veteran of volcano battles around the world, had traveled the perimeter of Mammoth Lakes today, reading tiltmeters, recording data, producing graphs on his laptop and comparing his results with those of the days and weeks before. Although the data indicated that the magma tongue was rising, there was no recent, discernable change in ground uplift. The magmatic aneurysm, Cavan felt certain, wouldn’t rupture anytime soon. The city would be safe today and for the foreseeable future. His cell phone rang.

Come to the trailer before you go back to the hotel, OK?

Sure. What’s up?

Reston is rattling your cage. Come in and pick up your mail.

"Reston? What in hell do they want?"

Come in and pick up your mail.

* * * *

Cavan read the directive from the national headquarters of the USGS in Reston, Virginia. Son of a bitch, Jonesy! I’m transferred.

Where to?

Menlo Park. Just what I need — a frigging thinktank! What the hell am I going to do there? I do my thinking in the field, not in a goddamned cardboard cubicle! I’m a grunt, not a fucking theoretician.

Won’t Menlo Park be a promotion?

Not unless it comes with hot and cold running Playboy bunnies.

"‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do . . .’"

"Up yours and Tennyson’s, too! Look around you Jonesy. This is the ‘Valley of Death’ and here’s where I’m needed. Next year, ten years down the road, who knows — this valley is going to go ‘Poof!’ and Mammoth Lakes will be just so much space debris. There’s no way I could alter that, but I might help save lives."

CHAPTER 2

Cavan nudged his truck through the October downpour. Come on, baby, You can’t hide from me forever. Show yourself, goddammit! I want to go home. He massaged his eyes with thumb and forefinger, herding accumulated matter to the inner corners. He still couldn’t see the outside world any better — how do you massage foul weather out of the sky?

Got your Sonoma County map handy? supervisor Kendrick Wimberly had asked when Cavan called in two hours earlier. Some ‘Vladimir’ person just called in a frenzy, screaming about smoke pouring out of the ground in his vineyards. What are we — 9-1-1? It was fumarole steam, of course — won’t impact his stupid grapes, but we don’t want him blaming inferior wine on Survey indifference, right? We’re already up to our armpits in bad press. So, check it out, would you? From the Carneros Highway, you turn west on Turkey Farm Road — in Big Bend, see it there? Look for a suspended wine cask with a big, silver VLADIMIR on it.

Thumbs touching at the top of his steering wheel, chin almost touching his thumbs, Cavan squinted to see through the downpour. He floored the pedal and his pickup fishtailed through the slop. Know what? I think your Vladimir’s full of shit, Cavan said to an absent Kendrick. Fucking thing should be right here. Trees rushed up and thousands of wet, wind-driven eucalyptus fingers swept over the truck. Ohhh, yes, Cavan said as he saw dense steam corkscrewing up from the ground and bullying the rain aside. Nearby grapes had become raisins on the vine. Apologies, Vladimir.

Cavan stopped, slid from the cab and slogged toward the steaming hole where vineyard met rock and hill. His athletic build and vitality gave form to otherwise rumpled clothing. A sulfurous mud pool at the base of the steam coil popped like butterscotch pudding newly begun to boil. Cavan smiled the smile of discovery. He couldn’t wait to analyze this mud. Grasping a sapling for support, Cavan leaned over to collect his sample. A sudden stillness gripped the vineyard — even the rain seemed to pause, momentarily frozen in space. Cavan looked right and left. Nothing. As he bent lower, the ground sprang up, and for an instant, someone was waving the world back and forth in front of Cavan’s eyes. The young tree was wrenched from his hand and he fell to his knees, one hand plunging into the hot, puck-pucking mud. Shit! His collection flask sluiced into the hole and headed for the belly of the earth. Like a god rudely roused from slumber, the aperture growled. As the shaking trailed off to become seismographic history, the growling intensified. Cavan stared at the hole in disbelief. Better not be looking down this son of a bitch when it ejaculates. ‘Ejaculate," hell! It was only a hot spring, wasn’t it? He quickly and unprofessionally scooped some sediment into his hat, stumbled back to his truck, and emptied the sample into another flask.

Cavan, in his 15th year with the US Geological Survey, was wrapping up a two-week investigation of newly reported hot springs in the wine-producing areas of Sonoma and Napa Counties. A meticulous investigator, he had visited farmers’ markets, mom-and-pop grocery stores, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, and twenty vineyards to inquire about hot springs and related phenomena.

The absence of fast-food stores, electronic service stations, and shimmering billboards along the highway painted a picture that might have been vintage 1935. But, a lifetime had passed since the distant ‘30’s, and megalopolis was creeping ever closer. Trucks now roared past ancient hillsides where mossy and weathered boulders, vestiges of the volcanic wrath of eons past, lay scattered like grapeshot from a gargantuan cannon.

A new sound rose above the rattle of the rain and interrupted Cavan’s reverie. What in hell? He leaned out of the cab. His hot spring was ejecting a 15-foot-high spout of water and steam. Jesus jumping Christ! ‘Hot spring,’ your ass! This is a frigging geyser! This far south? Holy shit! The scene dissolved as the eruption abruptly ended.

Shivering and exhausted but hoping for a repeat performance, Cavan ran back toward the aperture. The wind picked up, its passage through the trees and over the hillocks rendering a feeble imitation of a pipe organ. Hand burning, body freezing, Cavan eased himself down onto a rotted log which promptly disintegrated. He sat spread-legged in the mire, staring helplessly as water crept into his pantlegs. Come on, geyser, he sighed, do something. You fucking owe me.

Months earlier, when Cavan was still in Long Valley, a series of earthquakes, some measuring more than 4.0 on the Richter scale, had rattled the Central California coast. For five months they increased in frequency and intensity. When unseasonable monsoon rains arrived to join the tremors, the unraveling of public composure accelerated. By late September, clouds of fear swept upward to meet incoming clouds of rain. Forty days of incessant downpour had some people dusting off Bibles to reflect on the parallel. Cliffs collapsed, hillsides tobogganed and soil washed away, turning the edges of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay into slurries. Water levels rose. As though buckling under the weight of so much water, the earth shuddered somewhere in the Bay Area two or three times a week. In San Francisco, North Beach espresso poets had Hell’s bulldozers ripping their way toward the surface.

Newspaper editors, stripped of their omniscience and omnipotence, dashed off fearful columns packed with irrational demands. Other Californians comported themselves no better. They pounded on the door of anyone with a seismograph, including Cavan’s own US Geological Survey, demanding nonexistent answers. Mayors, legislators, and California Governor Vinicio Galvez arm-twisted the agencies charged with scanning seismological data and producing earthquake horoscopes. Money materialized, the troubling economic downturn notwithstanding, and was spent in a heartbeat — and bought only frustration. The seismological community threw up its hands in mute despair as the Bay Area trembled soggily on.

The public spoke with one voice. What’s causing these earthquakes? Yes, yes, you politicians lie and you experts never agree, but, damn it, you have to tell us, anyhow! They were met with silence. What fool would put career and reputation on the line to advance conjecture as probability? The unthinkable as inevitable? The paralysis was understandable. Such an earthquake pattern was unprecedented, not just in the Bay Area, but anywhere in the world, at least during the last three centuries. The US Geological Survey, cyclically targeted for oblivion by a cost-conscious Congress, was the most paralyzed of all. Reporters noted scornfully that the more willing someone was to discuss the earthquakes, the less likely he was to know what he was talking about.

If fault lines — ruptures in the earth’s crust — were visible from Google Earth, California would look like a badly crazed, china platter. An earthquake can be of the strike-slip variety, where one side of a crustal plate jerks horizontally past the other, or of the subduction variety, where one migratory segment of the earth’s crust slides forcefully under another. Slow, steady, almost imperceptible, crustal plate movement is called creep. Such chronic creep, unlike the machine gun bursts of mini-movement that often precede a major earthquake, is happily tolerated. While it tears everything apart along a fault line, it does so gracefully, quietly, majestically, with near-zero speed. Continuous creep destroys things, but it doesn’t destroy people. The current Bay Area phenomena were manifestly not of the day-to-day creep variety. It was as if all crustal faults within a hundred miles of San Francisco were answering a call to arms. Previously unknown faults stood in line to introduce themselves and the infamous, 800-mile-long, San Andreas Fault flashed warnings almost daily.

We can’t inform the public because we don’t know anything, huddled experts whispered. How can we pacify people who are living on a vibrating washboard? they asked. Maybe we can placate the masses by simply looking busy, they all whispered, nodding in unison. Desperate agencies suddenly dispatched hordes of geologists to look busy. Cavan’s specialty being volcanoes, he was sent to gather data along the Rodgers Creek Fault, which stretches northward from San Pablo Bay to Santa Rosa. There are no active volcanoes nearby — the closest is Mount Lassen, 200 miles to the north, and it had a 95-year record of silence. The reasoning put forth by Cavan’s superiors for sending him north was strained, at best. It seems that a few thousand years back there had been volcanism near Mount Hannah, south of Clear Lake, just an hour north of Big Bend. Several extinct cinder cones — short-lived, dwarf volcanoes — dot the area. A 150-square-mile magma chamber that could one day pockmark the landscape with new cinder cones, was busily generating hot springs, steam vents and dry steam beneath Mount Hannah. Since some of these geological curiosities had recently popped up along the occasionally violent Rodgers Creek Fault, south of their normal range, Cavan was sent to study them and determine what was causing their southward migration toward San Pablo Bay. The gnomes of Menlo Park were hoping he could find a relationship between his findings and the earthquake swarms.

By evening, the rain had found distant gardens to romp in. The moon celebrated its release by jumping from cloud to cloud. Cavan pulled over and parked near the Petaluma River Bridge on Route 37, a few miles south of his geyser. Exhilaration clashed with anxiety on a field of exhaustion as a thousand questions roared from the stands of his mind. Like a Native American of times past, at one with nature and steward of his world, Cavan stared across the salt marsh toward San Pablo Bay and pondered the southward migration of this subterranean heat. A few stars watched over his shoulder as other stars performed a ballet in the water. An owl swooped in and was as quickly gone, responding to a distant chorus of frogs. What do I get, Cavan asked the star ensemble, when I plant hot springs along an earthquake fault that is overdue for rupture, add a baby geyser to the mix, and zap it with continuous earthquakes? Is this a wake-up call?

Vladimir was dreaming of vintage harvests when it happened. Cavan was kicking his two-week accumulation of newspapers into the hallway at his Pacifica condo as it happened. On a moonlit moor in Big Bend, Cavan’s geyser was expelling a 45-foot torrent of hot water and steam.

CHAPTER 3

Ronnie sat on the end of the examination table, ankles crossed, hands tormenting the handkerchief in her lap, head down, her long blond hair sweeping across her face like the final curtain in Swan Lake to conceal the anguish, the tears. She seemed to be listening, but she was looking down on her life from a cold satellite. This was Dresden redux — the morning after.

They won’t interfere with your flying, the orthopedist continued. That should cheer your up. He ticked off her blessings on his fingers. You’ll walk, swim, dance, do your aerobics — and almost pain-free. Just use common sense and moderation, and don’t put any Herculean strain on those knees.

What’s down the road? she asked, curtly cutting him off. I’m 36. What will I look like five, ten, twenty years from now? She closed her eyes and said to herself, who will ever tell me I’m pretty again? Having my own business and being damned good at what I do isn’t good enough. I’m a warm body, too, and my biological clock is ticking, big time. I’m all of the quirks, habits and preferences that separate women from men. I like being a woman, and you don’t associate defective knees with femininity. I need to be the same woman I’ve always been. What’s the next step, doctor, she asked. Scars? Contraction? Deformity? Will you be seeing professional triumph where I see disaster? Haven’t I been through enough as it is? She reopened her eyes, now red and brimming. I’m a world beater in a bathing suit — I have to stay that way!

Don’t talk nonsense! the doctor snapped. "Just stop it! You’re spouting bullcrap! OK — prognosis. Sometime, probably sooner than later, we’ll have to install prostheses. So what? Ronnie flinched. She looked at one knee, then the other, as though she were looking at babies. The surgeon caught this and confirmed, Yes, both of them." She looked away, raised her gaze slightly, and stared at the wall. She hated Dr. Knox right now. Sanctimonious bastard! She hated the half-glasses that he repeatedly tapped so they wouldn’t slide off his nose. For Christ’s sake, get some glasses that fit! her mind screamed.

The surgeon continued, "What do I really think? We’re looking at five years down the road – but five good years. When the time comes, nobody’s going to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night to drag you down your last mile. You’ll tell us when to slap in the good joints and retire the bad ones. Knee replacement isn’t a horrific procedure. It’s become routine in recent years. Ho-hum surgery. Some hospitals are even doing it robotically. Your replacement shock absorbers, when the time comes, will be better than the originals. He tapped his glasses and concluded, Go home now, Veronica, shake off this unreasonable fear, and make a spectacular life for yourself."

Ronnie stopped focusing on her own sad reflection in the plane window and watched the lightning exploding miles below her over the mountains of west Texas. The veterans hospital in San Antonio, which had first become her home in the spring of 2007, and then, gradually, her home away from home, was behind her again. How long this time? A year? Six months? Shit! Well, at least there were no hot, pulsating knots of barbed wire rotating inside her knees right now. That was a break. Thank God for little favors.

Her present predicament had begun as absurdly as a Saturday morning cartoon — Friday, March 17, 2006. USAF Captain Veronica Wentworth’s mission: engage and take down enemy aircraft of any description. Totally routine, except for the inherent danger. Then, she guessed in retrospect, she must have been clipped by a defective surface-to-air missile because there was nothing on her radar except a friendly evacuation helicopter at 3000 feet a few miles ahead of her. Her plane was going to go down. Her initial reaction was cool, automatic, and before she could consider fear, she ejected. Only then did her conflicting thoughts and emotions cascade all over each other. All right! she yelled. Seat disconnected, chute opened. Hot shit! Then, Wait a minute! What’s waiting down there? Will I be shot? Something worse? I could be passed around from raghead to raghead, a tall, blond spoil of war, tailor-made for enemy R & R. As she drifted into the reasonably safe zone between the war of the sky and the war of the soil, she spoke, as though to a companion, OK, my war is over and I’m all in one piece, so whatever’s down there — if I live — I can handle. I think. Hey! No shit! she shouted. The evac chopper was signaling to her. Fifteen minutes — no more — and aircraft carrier, here I come! See you around, enemies all. Not such a bad war after all! Then — the preposterous. Oh, no! Oh, Jesus, no! It’s gone! Rotten bastards blew it out of the sky! Oh, those poor . . . Debris burst from the smoke and flame like surprises from a piñata — and then there was nothing. Her rescuers died at the instant she dared to hope. Suddenly, she saw the face of death charging in, a boomeranging fragment of helicopter blade — a surrealistic scimitar rushing in to impose Islamic punishment. It impacted her knees, smashing them, then tumbled away in slow motion. Ronnie, dazed, uncomprehending, then in exquisite pain, also tumbled away — into the spiraling, welcome oblivion of unconsciousness.

Hey, forget this crap! she commanded herself, shaking her head and coming back to the present. But it was hard. She remembered her dead rescuers as dead because she’d never known them in life. They were all around her — the dead and the dismembered — on wobbly, oxidized, blood-encrusted gurneys. Dry, dull eyes stared up at whatever had been before them in the last instant of life. In her nightmares those shriveled eyes, accusing gray raisins, turned toward her. She shuddered at the recollection of lying naked among those rescuers on the bleak, mideastern landscape, fearing that the bottom half of her was gone. The pain, the blood. More than anything, the loneliness made her want to throw up. The trussing-up by well-intentioned but poorly equipped Muslim surgeons. Ugly memories. Demeaned, helpless, afraid. And, the guard — that filthy fucking guard! Unfinished business with that bastard! It would almost be worth going back if she could give him a taste of what he gave her. Ambivalent feelings about having screamed, Dad-dy! during the worst of it — and praying that he couldn’t hear her.

Champagne? The flight attendant smiled, slowly closing and reopening his eyes, bottle poised to pour, his lips poised half open, throwing a kiss without throwing a kiss, wordlessly telling her how beautiful she was at the precise moment when she needed reassurance.

Good looking! she mused, then fantasized. Turn around. Let’s check those buns. Love to give them a pinch — see how tight they are. Love some, thanks. She smiled back as he poured. Erotic messages swirled about her. But, as Ronnie was easing him into bed during a prolonged kiss, he was suddenly smiling just as suggestively at — and pouring for — an expensively dressed, obese woman across the aisle. Tittering and disarmed by the attendant’s penetrating attention, she, too, had him halfway into bed. End of dream. Gone the allure of those buttocks, so perfectly muscled for thrust. Probably gay, anyhow. The Fox and the Grapes.

The trapdoor in the bottom of her skull dropped again and her mind tumbled through it and she was falling up or falling down in nowhere and was being pulled apart but there was no gravity and she whirled, splayed like a tortoise nicked and flung by an eighteen-wheeler and she could see her eyes turning to raisins and she was glad because now she could hide among the dead where she would be safe and where there would be no recrimination. "I don’t want to be in any parades on Fifth Avenue! she screamed in her delusion, foreseeing a billion pieces of shattered helicopter blade in place of ticker tape, and fearing that the silken ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor about her neck would contract and strangle her. She had never been invited to a parade — she had never been recommended for that medal. Suddenly, her knees were raised and forced apart and she was ashamed and couldn’t close them or pull her slacks up to cover her nakedness because they had been stolen and dyed with the blood of her comrades-in-arms, and all the fiends laughed in chorus and the ghostly, transparent evac chopper revolved faithfully around and around the tornado of bits of human flesh that she was spinning in until, finally, she was deposited gently back in her airline seat, chest thrust out, knuckles white from trying to crush the armrest. The flight attendant was picking up her fallen, plastic champagne glass and winkingly replacing it with another. Winking? As though that swish had ever seen a day of combat!"

The captain’s crackling voice called passenger attention to the Grand Canyon, now visible on the starboard side. Ronnie chuckled quietly. I could be down there right now if Dad hadn’t been such a shit about lending me the money. A civilian again, she had applied for a pilot’s job with a number of airlines. Reluctant to entrust a planeload of passengers to anyone with post-traumatic stress disorder, all found subtle reasons to reject her application. Those carriers that rejected her quickly hired one or more female pilots to avoid sex-discrimination exposure.

Despairing of being hired by a reputable airline, Ronnie decided to go into business for herself. She analyzed her savings and a small inheritance from her unmarried, older sister, Celeste, who had died in a diving accident in 2005. Objective — buy a 2-engine, 12-seat excursion plane and run tours through the Grand Canyon. Shortfall — about $750,000. Only recourse — Dad. Ohmyjesus!

If I help you to go into business for yourself, I’ll never have grandchildren, C. Hopkins Wentworth had complained. Ronnie, you’re obsessive-compulsive and a workaholic. I’m not stupid — I’ll never get to see you if you go tooling off to Arizona. Besides, I worry about you flying alone.

Say it, Dad — I’ll become delusional when I’m up there with a load of tourists and wipe out on the canyon wall. His suggestion of a shrug confirmed the accusation. "Well, you don’t have to worry. I wouldn’t dream of flying alone, she lied. I’ll find another pilot to work with me — a partner with financial resources if you don’t want to finance me. Besides, I wouldn’t still have my pilot’s license if the FAA thought I was a flying fruitcake."

You didn’t let me finish, he protested, rearranging the items on his desk as though they were chess pieces. Ronnie appreciated the symbolism. "You want money — you’ve got money, he said as though he were talking about a nickel. As much as you need — if you agree to accept it, that is. You might never have to pay it back, either. What do you think of that, young lady?"

Here we go again! I know you all to well, remember? The dialogue resembled that of a grade B 1940’s detective film — rapid give-and-take, wisecracks, verbal one-upmanship, anything to keep Ronnie and her father from betraying the affection they had for one another. You wouldn’t be such a rich old bugger if you went around making business proposals like that without tentacles dangling from them. What’s the catch? I know there’s a catch. But I’m desperate, so I’ll say ‘yes’ anyhow.

Here’s my offer, he said, proud of his crafty blueprint. He fixed his sallow gray eyes on Ronnie’s and maintained contact even as he lowered his head. Ronnie could sense that she was in his crosshairs. $450,000 to use for your office, pad, and start-up expenses, he announced.

Pad? What pad? she demanded. Am I a pilot or a stenographer? That better not have been a sexist remark!

You’re not going into this enterprise in any half-assed, shoestring fashion, he snapped, ignoring her diatribe.

This enterprise? He’s got it all charted out? Oh, well, screw the pad business, whatever it is, she decided. I accept the deal.

You can’t accept — I haven’t finished. You know goddamned well I haven’t finished! he growled. Ronnie had tipped her king over too soon.

I know.

Next stipulation — helicopter. No plane.

Excuse me?

You heard right — a helicopter. That’s non-negotiable. Take it or leave it.

You want to etch my PTSD in stone? I’m not flying any frigging helicopter! she spat, head vibrating with determination. You know my history. How could you ask me to pilot a helicopter, of all goddamned things?

You’re not incompetent but neither am I, and you’re going to get a helicopter and that’s that, by Jesus! I can’t think of a better way of finding out up front how sound my investment is. He rested his chin on his thumb, index finger against his temple — his customary confrontational posture with Ronnie. Ripples appeared, line by line, above his salt and pepper eyebrows as he tried to look blasé. Besides, he added in far lower decibels, knowing that it had to be said but reluctant to let Ronnie hear it, I’ve already bought it — new.

Dead silence for a few moments, then, I hate you!

Bullshit!

What kind of helicopter?

A McGowen Air-Tour 12.

A Twelve? she yelled. New? You bought a new McGowen twelve passenger? That’s — let’s see — that’s over five million dollars!

Not for me.

I should have guessed.

The original buyer couldn’t take delivery, so I paid three million four in cash, getting his down payment as a discount.

Well, Mr. President-of-Ronnie’s-Charter-Service — any more surprises for me?

Arizona’s out. You go into business right here in the Bay Area. It makes damned good sense.

"What good sense?" she demanded, more to maintain equal footing than to protest. She could see good points in this stipulation.

I’ll get to see you once in a while. Admit it — it’s a hell of a lot less dangerous flying a helicopter here than squeezing a plane through the Grand Canyon. What’s more, you’ll never be hard-pressed for clients. I can legitimately help you with that — and without interfering with your exasperating, female independence, either, he rammed home at the last second as he saw the reaction coming.

Is that all? she asked in a blithe voice that masked fury. "Now, let’s see — I’ve just used your money to buy the aircraft you have chosen, to fly in the area you have designated. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to do the flying and have me take over the management of your portfolio, sitting at some cute, little pink desk?"

Don’t be a smart-ass! You know you like the deal.

I don’t like the helicopter.

But you do like the deal.

I still don’t know the whole deal.

The rest is guaranteed to make you happy.

Oh, Jesus! He’s going to make me happy again. Exhausted, lips scarcely moving, she whispered, I can’t wait to hear it.

I’ve got a right-hand man for you — a pilot.

You’re my personnel officer, too? she shot back, angry again.

No. I’m your private detective and missing persons investigator. It’s Gronk.

This is too much. Ronnie sat down at last, silently processing this surprising bit of information. Gronk? Where’s he been all these years? He’s OK? How did you ever find him?

A snap. I just put out the word to look for a Polack pilot who spent half his time flying upside down, half his time destroying some waterfront bar, half his time in jail, and the biggest half of his time shacked up with some monument to ugliness. I guessed from his lifestyle that he’d be in Hemingway’s old haunt, Key West, and I guessed right. There he was, doing everything I said he’d be doing, and he’d have been doing them simultaneously if he could have.

Casimir Gronk Garonsky was a longtime friend of father and daughter. A veteran of Desert Storm, whiskey poet, ex-football idol, current lost soul, and a Thoreau among journeymen pilots, Gronk was reduced to alternating between crop dusting and performing in fly-by-night airshows. It was at just such an airshow that the elder Wentworth’s investigator found him, flying upside down, fifty feet over the water, possessed of a withering hangover.

You went out of your way to find Gronk, Ronnie stated as though it were the summary of a lifetime’s work. What ever made you do something so nice, so non-self-serving?

You’re right, he rejoined satirically, I didn’t do it because I wanted to have my daughter flying with the best at her elbow, I didn’t do it because I wanted to shanghai my daughter out of the Grand Canyon and into the Bay Area, and I didn’t do it because I wanted to keep an eye on my daughter who has a condition she vehemently denies. I didn’t do it because I hoped to have a grandchild or two somewhere along the line. He lowered his voice and spoke even more furtively. I didn’t even do it because I care about you.

Ronnie didn’t react outwardly to the bombshell but she was astonished — then suspicious — then ashamed of having been suspicious.

Her father returned to his effusive high gear. I located Gronk and made him a soberingly lucrative offer out of sheer altruism — in keeping with my reputation.

You’re an old bullshitter but, just when I think I know you, you do something nice and totally out of character, and I realize I don’t know you at all.

You haven’t asked me about the details of my no-payback stipulation.

I have a heart condition, you know.

No you don’t — now, listen. You sign a note. After a while, I burn the note, he replied, drawing down the corners of his mouth and shrugging.

You’re going to burn a note for millions? she asked. What’s this ‘after a while’?

The day my grandchild is born.

How come you never went into politics?

I play dirty?

No, nothing like that, she cooed with sweet sarcasm. You’re just a Macchiavellian, old scuzz-bucket, that’s all.

Well, maybe I do get carried away when I engineer my deals. How come you always add ‘old’ to every insult you throw at me? He glanced at the liver spots on the back of one hand, looking as quickly away.

You know how I feel about marriage. Pre-programmed to fail for a woman combat veteran.

Marriage doesn’t seem to be relevant to the deal. I can think of better things to do with my money than pay for matrimonial hoopla, anyhow.

A grandchild out of wedlock is OK? You’re not a Republican anymore?

The only important issue is whether I can juggle being a grandfather, godfather, and role-model — and I’m sure I can.

Role-model? You? You believe that? What galaxy are you from? You’d have your granddaughter staging a corporate, cookie takeover in day care, for Christ’s sake.

"Do we have a deal?

"If you’re asking me, ‘do I yield?’ the answer is ‘no.’ The deal, as I see it, is you give me all the time I need to learn to cuddle up with helicopters. If they drive me to a shrink — by God — you write the checks! After a deliberately pregnant pause, And, I pay off the note with profits — not progeny."

With the financial aid of the elder Wentworth and the technical aid of Casimir Garonsky, Ronnie inaugurated her helicopter charter service in Mill Valley, five miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, on Valentine’s Day, 2009. But pain and flashbacks combined to take the luster off the positive elements in Ronnie’s life. The business prospered and the knees ached. Gronk put his errant behavior on hold and C. Hopkins Wentworth discreetly distanced himself from the operations of the business. Still, Ronnie went from masseuse to whirlpool bath to psychologist and inevitably back to San Antonio. A capricious psychological condition in tandem with an agonizing knee condition was too much for one person to tolerate. Jesus Christ Himself only had one cross to lug up Calvary, she complained.

The PTSD was relentless, but Ronnie resolved to handle it. But today wouldn’t be the day. Arriving at San Francisco International Airport, she repaired to the ladies’ lounge and stood for several minutes leaning stiff-arm on the vanity counter, tears welling up in the eyes of the complex person in the mirror. As her strong face softened, the shadows that were the hollows in her cheeks turned pink. She dashed into the nearest stall and sat down, her face in her hands, her long, silken hair cascading over her condemned knees, and she cried and screamed and cursed and did for herself what no therapy or support group ever could.

CHAPTER 4

The plaque on the heavy door at the end of the carpeted corridor announced:

US Geological Survey

IGNEOUS AND GEOTHERMAL PROCESSES BRANCH

KENDRICK WIMBERLY, BRANCH CHIEF

Beyond the door and behind immense glasses sat Mimi Andres. African-American, a threshold anorexic, her ponytail a panther’s tail with each snap of her head, Mimi effectively barred access to the chief’s office with no more than a flash of her eyes. Beyond her area of electric activity, an inner-sanctum door rested half-open. Mimi’s intercom sounded. She was at the chief’s door while his finger was still on the button. Mr. Wimberly?

Kendrick Wimberly, rigid, balding and recently ill, seemed improperly on this stage. The desk was massive — the man himself, toylike and ready to fall out of his suit. Peering wearily up through bifocals at the silver-blue crescent on the wall, he sighed, appalled at his fate. He would never catch the twin to that fish. There would be no crossed marlin swords gracing his study wall when he retired. His upcoming Bahamas fishing trip was waving good-bye. Extended-hour days and extended-day weeks would be his lot until the earthquake crisis was over or until he keeled over and died. It needn’t have happened, he told himself. This stress could easily have passed his office by. That damned Cavan person was responsible. The report he shook in lieu of Cavan Monaghan himself would resolve nothing. It would only pour the hot syrup of anxiety over a plate already overflowing with needless problems.

Hold all calls unless they’re from Western or Reston, Mimi, he said. Western was Saul Caspar, Assistant Chief Geologist for the Western Region, head of the Menlo Park office. Any call from Reston would have high priority — it would be from someone outranking him. Any sign of Mr. Monaghan?

I reminded him 25 minutes ago.

* * * *

Cavan was in his office, feet on his desk, necktie askew, pencil behind his ear. Glancing from his papers to the computer monitor and back again, he said, Gotcha! Satisfied, he glanced at his schoolhouse clock. Oh-oh. Coming, Kendrick. He checked his shirttail, threw on his jacket and straightened his tie. Lifting his chin and putting his tongue in his cheek, Cavan checked to see whether last night’s shave still held. Should do. He enjoyed rushing past Mimi and bursting, unannounced, into Kendrick’s office, shaved or not, necktie in agony, chewing gum with his mouth open, and iconoclastically sitting on one corner of the chief’s desk. But he hadn’t behaved so boorishly since he returned from the North Bay counties nine days earlier. He needed to radiate professionalism, image, credibility. He took inventory — report, maps, references, determination. OK, moment of truth.

* * * *

Kendrick poured a glass of water and took his 11:00 AM pills. He measured his day by intervals between medications. Suffering a back-to-back heart attack and stroke the previous May, he’d been off the job until mid-July. He returned to work the same day that Cavan reported in from Long Valley. Kendrick felt better — recovered, perhaps. But, recovered enough to be the Sancho Panza to Cavan’s Don Quixote as he tilted at geothermal windmills? Hardly. He planned to be in effusive good health at his retirement banquet in June of the following year. He dreamed of the accolades and of the gold-plated fishing reel he wasn’t supposed to know about. Cavan and his report were dangling those dreams over an abyss. But, Kendrick had a ploy.

Mr. Monaghan to see you, sir, startled him in mid-scheme. Cavan sauntered in like an overdressed used car salesman, exuding confidence. Mimi got back to her desk before snickering at the masquerade.

Have a seat, Cavan. My, but we look presentable, today. Tell me — how’s the hand?

Cavan warily extended his hand for inspection. He knew about Kendrick and marlins. He wouldn’t be Kendrick’s catch of the day. ‘Nary a blister, boss.

Kendrick’s thumb was riffling a beige folder. A curious approach, he said, giving the folder a visual vinegar bath. Not your standard, objective USGS report — objectives, procedures, findings, analysis, recommendations. More like a press release. More evangelical than impersonal. Some reason for that, Cavan?

Pardon? Cavan asked innocently.

"Title’s innocuous enough — ‘Changes Noted in Geothermal Activity Along the Rodgers Creek Fault.’ But, do those little things you found call for a Situation Report? Are you putting me on notice? Making it a matter of record that there’s a dangerous situation up there and that the ball’s in my court?"

"There’s catastrophe potential on that fault. I couldn’t not make it part of the written record."

Kendrick winced at the word. Catastrophe? he asked, affecting astonishment. Cavan — really — isn’t that overkill? A little bitty geyser that wouldn’t even make a respectable bidet?

Cavan laughed at his boss’s humor even though he knew that a serious contest was in progress. He straightened his smile. I can make a case that a major earthquake may strike on the Rodgers Creek Fault, that it may happen soon, that it may exceed magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale, and that it may be complicated by magma surfacing. Cavan was standing now, leaning over Kendrick’s desk. Would you call that ‘little bitty?’ It didn’t elicit a response. Has Western seen the report?

No, but I summarized it for him. You can present it when he gets here. Kendrick was passing the buck upward. Ploy looking good.

‘Gets here?’ Western’s coming down? Cavan asked, subconsciously touching his necktie and wondering what the hell Western was coming down for. As Cavan spoke, a great, three-piece, navy blue pinstripe suit strode in, presenting the six foot, eight inch frame of Saul Caspar. Morning, Kendrick. Then, nodding, Monaghan. His long, silver hair whipped away from the sides of his head and then back into place as he turned from Kendrick to Cavan. Kendrick says you’re the St. George come to slay our trembling dragon, he smiled, eyebrows, eyelids, wrinkles all nuances of blue steel. Good. I’ve been hoping that someone would emerge to combine these geological anomalies into an Einsteinian unified theory. What do you have, son?

What I have, sir, is a troublesome theory, he replied, flashing anger at a basking Kendrick. If you were expecting solutions, I’m going to disappoint you. My findings don’t deal with the earthquake swarms. Or, if they do, I haven’t made the connection.

Western sat down, put his elbows on the arms of his chair, and brought his fingers together at chin level. His legs seemed to stretch across the room. A corner of his mouth sank. He, too, wondered why he was here. Proceed.

Cavan unrolled a two-by-three foot map on Kendrick’s desk and used bric-a-brac to hold the corners down. From left to right at the bottom, the map showed San Francisco, San Francisco Bay, and the Oakland-Berkeley area. Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano Counties lay above San Pablo Bay, the northern extension of San Francisco Bay. The counties north of the bay were streaked with minor earthquake faults, most of them running northwest to southeast. Sonoma County, site of the Rodgers Creek Fault, was the most fault-scarred, looking as though it had been repeatedly scored by a giant claw. Western stood up and leaned over to inspect it.

This map is 45 years old, Cavan said. He tapped a mass of red dots east of the fault. These red zits represent hot springs and other geothermal activity as it was in 1965. Now, look at this, he continued, unrolling a 2010 map with the red dot concentration in this instance west of the fault.

I see a shift in geothermal activity from an axis east of the Rodgers Creek Fault to a new axis west of the fault, Western said. So? It’s interesting. But, beyond tantalizing some university into passing out grant money, what’s the significance?

I believe that the shift in geothermal activity is due to diminishing negative gravity under Mount Hannah, just south of Clear Lake, Cavan said. There was volcanic activity there some 10,000 years ago. When the older map was printed, the magma chamber covered 155 square miles and was two and a half to four miles under the mountain, but now the chamber seems to be sinking and shrinking.

These blue dots replacing red ones denotes a shift in negative gravity? Western asked. Kendrick silently congratulated himself. There was good communication between his superior and his subordinate. Almost out of the noose, now.

Yes, sir. What once was a minus 50 gravity reading at Mount Hannah is now minus 35, and negativity diminishes commensurably as you move away from the mountain. At The Geysers Power Plant, where the gravity was minus 35, it is currently minus 27. It appears that the magma chamber may now only be about 100 square miles in size and over five miles deep at its shallowest point under the mountain. Cavan moved his hand along the blue dot concentration. Evidence of subsurface cooling in eastern Sonoma County extends all the way to San Pablo Bay.

You believe magma chamber shrinkage is causing these effects you noted out in the field? Western asked.

Cavan nodded and said, Shrinkage, cooling, maybe. But I believe the magma is moving laterally.

Or it could be attributable to a form of magmatic realignment 100 miles down, Kendrick couldn’t help chiming in.

From pale blue eyes under marshgrass eyebrows, Western studied Cavan. Lateral, subsurface magma flow? Cavan closed and reopened his eyes in response.

In order not to seem to be lecturing Western, Cavan addressed Kendrick, whose specialty was submarine geology. Most hot water exuded by the earth is, as you know, the product of rainwater percolating downward far enough to be heated by the decomposition of radioactive materials deep within the earth’s crust. Once heated, the water expands, some of it converting to steam, and ultimately surfaces as hot springs. Geysers, too, are the product of intense heat and pressure. In this case, though, instead of relying on decaying radioactive materials for its heating process, the water comes in contact with a rare, upward-projecting tongue of magma. Above the magma chamber there must be dense rock with fissures that allow superheated water to be pushed toward the surface. Short of the surface there must be an almost solid shield of rock. When nature creates a passage through the otherwise solid rocky shield above a superheated water chamber, a small amount of the water may escape to the surface as the rock cools and contracts between eruptions. Cavan folded his arms across his chest. Mr. Caspar, we have a geyser not far from San Pablo Bay. What does that mean to you?

An orange light flashed on Kendrick’s telephone. Yes?

Call for Mr. Caspar, sir,