The Flaming Mountain: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

by Harold L. Goodwin

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The Seabees

  The sea off the west coast of San Luz was alive with ships. Rick countedup to twenty-five and then gave up. Some of the ships were moving, andhe was sure he had counted the same one three times. He identifiedcruisers, destroyers, one aircraft carrier with a squadron ofhelicopters aboard, and landing ships of several kinds.

  One huge landing ship was nosed right up to the shore, andfrom it rolled tons of heavy equipment. From an attacktransport, the equipment's operators, a U. S. Naval ConstructionBattalion--Seabees--were disembarking by the hundreds.

  Scotty asked, "How many different kinds of flags can you see? I'vecounted six so far. U. S., British, Dutch, Venezuelan, Colombian, andPanamanian."

  "It's an international job, all right," Rick agreed. "And when the UNobservers arrive tonight you can run up a few more flags, too."

  "Reminds me of the amphibious exercises we used to have in theMarines," Scotty commented to Rick.

  Nearby, Hartson Brant and the other scientists were deep in conversationwith a group of civilians and Navy officers. The officers were theengineers, from the Naval Construction Battalion. Last night had beenspent in working with them on the details of the problem. It would betheir job to drive the big hole down into the earth below El Viejo,working against time to intercept the rising magma.

  Scientists had arrived, too, and they were taking over much of thedetail of keeping track of the magma. Each scientist had his own specialfield of interest, but all were anxious to have the data from tracings.There were geophysicists, including volcanologists and seismologists;mineralogists and more geologists.

  "Nothing much left for us to do," Rick said, a little sadly.

  "Except watch," Scotty corrected. "That's enough! Great crumblingcraters, what do you want? A mystery every day?"

  Rick had to grin. "I guess this is enough. But one thing I want to do isgo over to the volcanic pipe and see how Guevara and Connel are makingout."

  "You will have an escort," a voice said from behind them. They turned togreet Ricardo Montoya. "Now that we can turn our attention to that pair,I think we should have a talk with them. To make the talk easier, wewill put bars between us."

  "You're going to arrest them?" Rick asked.

  "Of course! What did you think?"

  "Right now?"

  "If you want to come along, join me. Now is as good a time as any. If wecan find them, of course."

  The boys joined Montoya in the front seat of a military vehicle. Theback was loaded with his men. Montoya at once steered for the trail tothe volcanic pipe. It was only a thousand yards to the north from thepoint selected for the big hole. Even around the site of the hole therewere diamond seekers, and it was hard to find a piece of ground that hadnot been tried with a shovel.

  As they got closer to the diamond field the numbers of treasure huntersincreased until, as Scotty remarked, they were thicker than fleas at amutt show. Montoya had to lean on the horn continually, and even thenthe San Luzians paid little attention.

  Finally the group got out and walked. It was easier to move on footthrough the frantically digging mob. Strangely, there was little noise.Each individual seemed intent on his own little hole. But the diggingwas futile. There was no yellow ground under the flying shovels.

  Then the group did reach yellow ground, and met rifles in the hands ofGuevara's peons. Evidently Guevara had put a ring of men around thevolcanic pipe and planned to hold it by force of arms.

  Rick looked at Montoya. What would he do now?

  The young officer looked haughtily at the nearest peons and demanded inSpanish, "Do you know me?"

  One of them nodded respectfully. "_Si_, Senor Capitan Montoya."

  "Good. You will stand aside. I am inspecting Senor Guevara's mine." Hestalked through as though there was not the slightest question that thepeons would allow it. The boys and the police officers followed on hisheels.

  A shelter had been erected on one side of the volcanic pipe. Only blueground showed, and there was a power scoop digging out more. Watchingthe shovel were Guevara and Brad Connel.

  Montoya walked up to the pair before they were even aware of hispresence.

  "Good afternoon, senores," he greeted them courteously.

  Guevara snapped, "What are you doing here, Montoya?"

  "Arresting you, senor," Montoya replied calmly.

  Connel looked worried, but Guevara gestured toward the ring of men withrifles. "Don't be a fool. We outnumber you five to one. You haven't achance."

  Captain Montoya smiled affably. "But, senor, it is you who haven't achance. Consider, senor. The honor of the Montoyas requires that I takeyou to my uncle, eh? Well, I allow the chance that perhaps I will notsurvive to take you to my uncle, but I can assure you that you willbecome a lifeless body on the instant a rifle is raised. Surely you donot doubt me, senor?"

  Guevara looked at the officer, looked at the capable hand on the cockedgun in the holster. Then he looked into the fierce Montoya eyes, and hisswarthy face turned pale.

  "Not even a Montoya would throw his life away for so small a thing," hesaid harshly.

  The captain smiled gently. "Call my bluff, senor."

  Rick had no doubt whatever that Montoya was not bluffing. ApparentlyGuevara was convinced, too. But he tried once more. "How do you expectto get us out of here?"

  "Simplicity itself. You will walk to my truck, arm in arm with SenorConnel. That is all. Of course if you should be so unfortunate as tohave a peon lift his rifle, you would never reach the truck alive. Butperhaps you are lucky. Shall we try, senor?"

  Guevara hesitated, then shrugged. "Very well."

  Connel spoke for the first time. He demanded hoarsely, "Are you going tolet him get away with this when our men have all the rifles?"

  Guevara smiled wryly. "You do not know the Montoyas, Brad. Call hisbluff yourself--only not if you wish to live."

  The ex-lieutenant governor walked slowly toward the ring of men. After amoment Connel joined him. Montoya stepped behind them as though taking astroll through the Calor public gardens. The ring opened and let themthrough. Rick breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't been quite asconfident as Ricardo Montoya appeared to be.

  Guevara paused. "May I make an announcement?" he asked.

  "Certainly, senor."

  Guevara called, "_Amigos!_" Montoya translated the Spanish for the boys."You know what you have been guarding. Now I must leave. What is leftis yours. Work as fast as you can and find many diamonds. May goodfortune be yours!"

  The ring broke as the peons rushed to grab shovels. Guevara led the wayto the truck.

  It was all so easy, Rick thought later, if you were an aristocraticMontoya with a code of honor that permitted no yielding, even untodeath. No one else he had ever met could have carried it off quite sosuperbly.

  So fast had the Seabees swung into operation that work on the big holealready was in progress when Montoya dropped the boys off. Pneumaticdrills hammered into the congealed lava, cutting holes in which chargeswould be placed. As the boys watched, explosive was thrust into theholes, a warning was yelled through a portable loud-speaker, and thecharge fired. Tons of rock were loosened.

  Even before the dust had begun to settle, huge machines were lifting therock out, or dragging big chunks, and dumping them down themountainside. Bulldozers kept the rock moving, keeping the entranceclear. Within minutes the hole was empty of rock and the pneumaticdrills were hammering again. The cycle was repeated.

  The Seabees joked as they worked, and warned each other against shovinga hole right through into hot lava, but the pace never slowed for aninstant.

  Hour after hour the big hole deepened until the Seabees ran into noxiousgases. Then they donned gas masks and continued. Deeper and deeper thehole was driven, until the temperature at the hole's end was over ahundred degrees. The Seabees merely shortened working time and operatedin relays so efficiently that no time was lost.

  Rick and Scotty got back to the hole as often as the
y could, but therewas much doing elsewhere. The Hot Springs Hotel swarmed with scientistsand observers, and there were heated conferences and late evaluationsessions. The Spindrift scientists were always in demand, and theirfaces grew gaunt as the days passed.

  The hole gave its own location because of the shock waves it sentthrough the earth to the recorders, and even Rick's untrained eye couldsee the traces slowly closing with the magma front.

  Earthquakes increased in frequency until Rick and Scotty felt as thoughthe ground never ceased shuddering.

  The air became noisy with planes as the Military Air Transport Commandbegan ferrying in troops. Flight after flight of huge transports roaredin for a landing at the Calor airport, discharged the soldiers, and tookoff again at once.

  And still the diamond hunt continued.

  Then, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Hartson Brant called a halt.

  "The magma's moving up through the dike," he reported. "It's now ornever. Captain Montoya, we will ask the troops to clear the area.Commander Jameson, withdraw all men and equipment except those necessaryfor the final packing. Dr. Cantrell, please be ready to place thecharge at dawn tomorrow."

  The final phase of the operation swung into action. The troops gatheredat Redondo and marched shoulder to shoulder southward along the mountainslopes. They herded the diamond seekers before them, sometimes withenough roughness to overcome protests, but mostly with littledifficulty. They herded the population entirely around El Viejo, andestablished a perimeter from Calor northward, with the populationconfined to a narrow segment of the island along the seaward side.

  Loud-speaker trucks roamed along the perimeter, reassuring the people.Military disaster units cooked huge quantities of food and preparedthousands of gallons of coffee and reconstituted milk. American soldiersplayed with cute little San Luzian kids and--after the diamond seekersbecame convinced they had never had a chance to find diamonds--the wholeaffair became one big picnic.

  But it was a picnic with overtones of fear.

  Rick and Scotty watched the placement of the nuclear explosive--a simplesteel can, from the outside--in the big hole. They watched the remaininghandful of Seabees load tons of rock in after it. Only the wiresconnecting the device to a radio firing unit on the beach gave evidencethat an explosion equal to ten thousand tons of TNT was about to takeplace.

  Rick asked, "Won't all those rocks keep the volcano from erupting?"

  Hartson Brant smiled. "Rick, compared with the force of the volcano,that atomic device is like a firecracker compared with a hurricane. Buteven to the nuclear explosion those rocks won't mean much. They're justto confine it a little."

  The night passed. San Souci was empty of people. The Seabees were backaboard ship. The scientific instruments were in place. Only a smallgroup of scientists remained, their helicopter standing by. They checkedout the radio firing unit, threw switches according to their check list,then announced:

  "We're ready!"