Zero Point (21 page)

Turner, shaken by what just transpired, stared at the shattered remains of the vehicle and what was left of the two mercenaries lying at its side.

“For what?” he whispered silently as Captain Saune swung the helicopter around for a quick landing on the quarry compound. “
You died for what
?” He let go of the gun, weary of this nightmare, and wishing it would end.

As the big chopper set down, Turner ran down the loading ramp to greet his father, who was running over to join him.

“Are you all okay?” Turner asked in a weary voice as Maria, Yashiro, and Burr followed the elder Turner.

“We’re fine, Son,” he replied, seeing the distressed, weary look on his son’s face. “Another minute, Josh, and those goons would have done us in for sure. Those guys definitely weren’t here just to talk.”

Maria reached for the younger Turner and hugged him tightly as she cried tears of relief.

“It’s alright, Maria. No one is going to hurt you. We’re going to get out of here now,” he said softly as she trembled in his arms. “Go into the chopper,” he said to the rest of the group, motioning them to the loading ramp.

“You had to do it, Josh,” the elder Turner said gently to his son. He put his arm around his shoulder as they walked towards the waiting aircraft. “They didn’t leave you any other choice, Son. It was either them, or all of us.”

“I’m just tired of the killing, Dad. When is it all going to end?” Turner replied as they reached the safety of the helicopter's cargo bay. Samuel, in the flight deck, activated
the stow
switch on the loading ramp, removing from view, the grizzly scene outside.

“You saved us all, Son. I’m proud of you,” Eli said in an effort to comfort his son. “When we get back to Santa Cruz, we’ll get help to expose Pencor and Osama’s dirty plans, and we’ll be done with all of this.”

“Hey, amigo,” Samuel yelled, coming to the rear from the flight deck of the helicopter. “The Captain says he’s going to take us to his Guardia Civil base in La Laguna where we can get a hold of the authorities.” He then plopped down in one of the many crew seats in the rear of the craft.

“I’m afraid this isn’t over; not by a long shot, Dad,” Turner said. “I’m sure that they will have men scouring the island looking for us after they realize we’ve escaped. We have to find a safe place to regroup. Professor Santiago’s house at the university is our best bet. We will go there and then decide what our next move is going to be.”

“But, Son, the authorities can—”

“Dad, from what Yashiro has told us, they will never react in time to stop the landslide on La Palma,” he said, interrupting his father.

A weary Josh Turner sat down next to Samuel and closed his eyes, endeavoring to wipe out the images of death engrained in his mind. All sat in silence as the noise of the huge Sikorsky filled the void of the large cargo bay, each of them wondering what the next few hours would bring.

16

Puerto Naos, La Palma Island

I
t was another tranquil island morning on the western beachfront of La Palma, with scores of tourists enjoying their breakfast at the Los Tilos restaurant located in the Sol La Palma Hotel. The four-star establishment, built in 1999, was renowned for its luxurious amenities, beautifully decorated suites, and world class dining.

Located in the midst of a banana plantation, just off the Calle Del Remo highway, the luxury hotel offered its guests a lavish view of its black volcanic sand beaches along with panoramic excursions to the natural parks on the island for the more adventurous.

The tourist and locals went about their daily lives, while waiters of the Los Tilos hustled back and forth serving a variety of breakfast dishes to its many guests. A slender, dark-haired woman, fit from years of rugged work, sat alone looking out the restaurant window to the blackened beaches below.

Wearing her trademark Timberland hiking boots, Massachusetts Institute of Technology jersey, and jeans,
Rosalie Harris sipped her herbal tea as she pressed the cell phone to her ear.

The Sol La Palma had been her home for the last two weeks, while she and the film crew for the National Geographic Channel filmed their documentary. She was pleased with all the amenities that the TV channel had lavished on her as a perk for acquiring her particular talent, but felt a bit uncomfortable in these luxurious surroundings.

‘Rugged Rosalie’, as she was known to her co-workers and friends, was a seasoned field scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. With over twenty years of experience, her job sent her all over the world, climbing in and out of dormant and active volcanoes. Rosalie's current assignment, not by her own choice, was acting as scientific consultant for the documentary, providing filmed interviews and on-the-scene accounts, which she felt rather uncomfortable doing.

Rosalie now tapped her fingers impatiently as the hold signal on the phone clicked relentlessly, just as it had for the last five minutes. She took another sip of tea, recounting the unsettling occurrences that had transpired over the last few days while filming on the Cumbre Vieja fault line on the western flank of the island.

The filming had gone fairly well thus far, with the crew setting up each shot from different vantage points on the volcanic ridge. Based on her expertise, she explained the theory of the remote possibility that an eruption of Cumbre Vieja could cause a major mega-thrust tsunami. The volcanic
eruption would cause the fault line to collapse into the sea and a massive tsunami would occur devastating the western hemisphere. The BBC had done a special on the theory years before, but the National Geographic Channel wanted to do a follow-up program, which to them meant good ratings.

Just two days ago, she and the crew were taping at the twelve foot fault running down the spine of the southwestern slope of the island, a result of the 1949 eruption. She had noticed the unmistakable signs of active volcanism that only she could interpret with her years of hands-on experience. Rosalie knew that the multiple active
steam
vents and abnormally high ground temperatures indicated an active magma chamber. Seeing these ominous clues set off an alarm in her head because she had witnessed them so many times before in the past. The only thing missing were the seismic tremors, and this perplexed her.

On yesterday’s film shoot, they had suddenly encountered four Asian men on the ridge. The men told the crew that they were on private property and, for their own safety, they should leave. She found it quite disconcerting that two of the men were armed under their jackets.

She and the film crew left at Rosalie's insistence, and immediately traveled to the park office for clarification. They were assured that there was no restriction to their going up to the fault ridge, and that the men they encountered were in error. Much to Rosalie's growing trepidation, the film crew decided to try again in the morning.

Rosalie sent the film crew ahead of her this morning, explaining to them that she had to contact her main office in Washington D.C. to report her observations. She would hire a ride to the fault line located high above the tranquil beaches later on. The crew teased her, saying she was becoming a regular Chicken Little worried about the sky falling. Reveling in their joke, they left her ninety minutes earlier to set up the equipment for the day’s film shoot.

The phone in her ear finally clicked. It was followed by a man’s voice that said, “USGS Data Center: Peter Markson speaking.”

“Hi, Pete.
It’s Rosalie,” she said, relieved to no longer be on hold.

“Hey, Rugged Rosalie, how goes your new reality TV show?” Markson said, teasing his co-worker about her latest assignment.

“Very funny, Pete,” she replied, annoyed at being the brunt of jokes with her peers. “You know I was right in the middle of my field work on Mt. Etna in Sicily. The main office could have sent anyone here if they wanted.”

“Calm down, Rosalie. I was just kidding. Besides, could you imagine seeing our director of operations doing a TV documentary?” Markson said, laughing aloud. “You were a much better choice. So, what’s up?”

“Pete, I’m calling for a favor. I need you to pull up the sensor and seismic data on La Palma in the Canary Islands. I just got off the phone with the local research center and their
sensors show a normal status for the Cumbre Vieja,” she said to her friend in Washington.

“I’m at my computer now, Rosalie. I’ll retrieve it for you. Why do you need it?” he said with concern in his voice.

“Pete, I’m seeing all the distinct signs of active volcanism on the Cumbre Vieja. I’ve got numerous steam vents and elevated ground temperatures, but nothing is registering on the sensors here,” she reported.

“Do you have any seismic activity?” Markson asked, knowing his friend was a seasoned professional and not prone to making idle warnings without good cause.

“That’s the part I don’t get. I am seeing all the signs, except for that,” she said in a puzzled tone. “We’re right on top of it, yet we haven’t experienced any seismic events at all.”

“Hang on, here comes the data,” Markson said as he perused the data screen in front of him. “Ground temps are within normal parameters, according to this data. Seismic activity,” he paused, scanning the month long report. “I show nothing that’s out of the ordinary, according to our historical data. A few tremors here and there, but that is to be expected. Without active micro-gravity monitoring on-site to identify activity in the magma feeder tube conduit, it’s a wild guess.”

“Damn!” she said in frustration. “When was the last satellite photo taken of any uplift zone indications in the caldera? Any pressure in the magma chamber would cause uplift on—”

“I know, Rosalie. I’m looking at it right now,” Markson interrupted, already ahead of her train of thought. “Okay, here it is. It was taken over two years ago. I can schedule a pass over today if you really think it's necessary. GEOS is over the eastern Atlantic now,” he said as he began the programming for the satellite.

“That would be great, Pete. You’re the best. If you do see any uplifting in the dome, call me on my cell right away, alright?”

“Will do, Rosalie.
You take care of yourself,” he said to his longtime friend.

“I will, Pete. Bye,” she said as she flipped the cell phone off. She finished her tea, stood up, and started heading for the door to the parking lot. It was then that she saw the film crew’s local contact, Andreas Conti, coming in the door with a police officer.

“Miss Rosalie,” he said in a relieved voice. “I’m so glad to see that you are alright.”

“What’s the problem, Andreas?” Rosalie asked, suddenly concerned.

“There has been a terrible accident on the slope of Cumbre Vieja, Miss Rosalie,” he said tersely. “The film crew’s van went off the cliff going up to the ridge fault. We thought you were with them, but we couldn’t find you in the wreckage.”

“What wreckage? Where is the film crew?” she asked, totally shocked by the news.

“I…uh…I’m sorry Miss Rosalie, but there were no survivors,” he answered. “It’s lucky that you were not with them.”

Rosalie sat back down, stunned by the news of the film crew’s deaths.
Could it have something to do with
those men on the ridge yesterday
?
Was it really an accident
? She wondered how fate had somehow spared her from the same demise.
Get a hold of yourself, girl.
Y
ou’re getting paranoid in your old age. It was just an accident, and nothing more.
Reaching for her phone, she began to call the States with the terrible news.

***

As the island's inhabitants went about their daily routine, primordial forces were at work in the volcanic magma chamber four kilometers beneath La Palma.

Normally, magma rising from fractures deep within the earth’s crust is far less dense than its surrounding rock. As it ceases to rise, it forms a chamber, or pool, of magma deep beneath the surface. As more magma wells up into this pool, the pressure on the magma chamber increases. This increased pressure causes it to expand upward, resulting in a volcanic eruption.

The immense, glowing plasma field generated by the Scalar Interferometer weapon was being directed from the island of Tenerife. It had been increasing exponentially in size over the prior months, super-heating the center of the La Palma magma chamber and expanding outward.

Without the natural forces deep within the earth that would normally up-well the molten rock, the super-heated liquid rock frothed within its chamber. This sent unimaginable temperatures cascading up towards the surface. The ancient Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, kilometers above the molten boiling tempest, was able to release some of the gigantic pressure from deep within the bowels of the earth through its many surface vents.

On the western flank of the island’s ridge, high above the black sandy shoreline, millions of liters of water trapped between layers of soft sediment and basalt rock boiled under the vast heat of the super-heated core with no means of release.

Minute by minute, almost a trillion tons of softer surface rock above the natural aquifer began to loosen its grip. Now, near the point of no return, it struggled to free itself from its ancient confines and slide into the sea far below.