“I can see that,” David replied. “I don’t think President Sheppard would take offense or that it would be in poor taste to capitalize on his situation. Not when it would be for the good of the country. Frankly, he would do the same thing. I’m on board with everything you’ve told me so far. At least conceptually. Things always get messy when you start digging into the details.
“I’m not saying that I have agreed to your offer to run for office, but I haven’t entirely discounted it either. I’m still processing. So far, you’ve been preaching and I’ve been listening. Now let’s throw Envision-2100’s vision and these recent turn of events into the mix and map out a short-term strategy.”
Elton smacked the tabletop with an open palm and grinned. “Spoken like the leader we know you are, David. Let’s assume that when you leave here today, you are willing to consider our offer seriously and that you feel the same sense of urgency we do. Let’s assume you have the same white-hot-fire-in-your-gut craving for fundamental changes in our government that we do. If that’s the case, the first order of business would be for you to take care of whatever you must to accept the run for president. I don’t know what life is like at your house, but in my case, that would involve a discussion with my wife. But whether it’s her, a magic eight ball, or chicken entrails, it’s damn sure the first thing that has to happen. And it has to be done as soon as you get home. Like tonight! Before you meet with POTUS tomorrow. Judson wasn’t exaggerating when he said we were running against a short fuse, and it’s already lit.”
David nodded, acknowledging the sense of urgency apparent on every face around the table.
“Good.” Elton leaned forward. “Once you’ve made that commitment—and in the scenario I’m describing, I’m assuming you will—POTUS will announce his decision to resign from office. Of course, he’ll have to do that regardless. However, when you meet tomorrow, if you tell him you’re on board, it will undoubtedly influence both his timing and the content of his resignation speech. And, as Judson said, at some point very soon he will declare his support for you and our party.”
David looked from Elton to Judson and then glanced around the table at the other board members. “Our party? I hate to break your rhythm, but that’s the first time anyone here has mentioned a party. Can someone elaborate before we proceed further?”
11
Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone Caldera, 44.4123o N, 110.7232o W
The day of
After leaving the cafeteria, Roland and Larry headed toward the adjacent lot where they had parked the university’s van.
“While you drive, I’ll plug in the coordinates to the seismographic lab at the Caldera,” Larry mused.
The lab was nothing more than eight monitors semipermanently mounted at points around the caldera’s resurgent dome. Each monitor had a cellular connection linking it back to the Seismology Department’s central computer at the University of Utah. This arrangement allowed the collection and recording of seismic data even if a monitor was damaged.
With Roland in the driver’s seat and Larry studying data on the iPad, they traveled silently for about fifteen miles southeast on US 191 toward the caldera lab.
“Larry, heads up,” Roland said.
“What?”
“Watch for the turnoff to the volcano. I always have a problem finding it. It’s nothing more than a pig trail to begin with, and at this time of year, it’ll be overgrown. How far out are we?”
Larry glanced at his phone. “According to the GPS, we have another ten miles or so to go before we need to start worrying about where to turn.”
“Don’t let me miss—”
A tremor slammed the van so hard that Roland bit his lip. “Damn!” he shouted.
Larry jumped. “Jesus H. Christ, Roland! Either you or plate tectonics are going to give me a heart attack.”
Roland slowed the van down to twenty miles per hour to maintain control, but another strong tremor bounced them toward the shoulder. “Fuck, it’s hard to keep this thing out of the ditch. At least it isn’t raining, like the last time we were up here. We’ll have to ford Spring Creek, and I don’t relish doing that during a fucking monsoon. Again. By the way, did you bring the cayenne pepper?”
“Yep, I went by Costco on the way home last night and got the economy, metric-ton-sized bottle. Actually, a package of two. Plenty to spread around our tents for years to come. I’ll burn a bear’s nose before turning our tent into a taco drive-through for a grizzly. And I’ve got my bells laced into both boots. I don’t wanna spook no mama bears.”
Roland grinned. “I didn’t wear boots. I brought my Nikes.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Larry shot back. “You don’t have to outrun a bear. You just have to outrun me. I’m glad we got these lame-ass jokes outta the way while we’re still fresh.”
“Surely you haven’t heard that one before.”
“Don’t call me Shirley, bitch.”
Both men shook with laughter. That’s what good friends do, Roland thought. Make each other laugh.
As Roland slowly drove along US 191, Larry alternated his gaze between his phone’s GPS and the app that monitored the caldera’s seismographs. “The equipment reports almost constant movement now,” he said.
“Can’t feel it, but maybe because we’re in a moving vehicle without the best suspension system,” Roland noted. The van jerked, and his seat belt tightened. He groaned. “I felt that one.”
They continued on their way silently now, and then a sharp jolt reminded them that this wasn’t a sightseeing trip. With rising frequency, the van bounced like a plane flying through the kind of turbulence that made passengers scream and toss drinks into the aisle or on one another. Heeding every airline pilot’s advice, they kept their seat belts securely tightened across their waists.
Larry reached forward and turned on the van’s radio. The university was too cheap to pay for Sirius XM, and since they were in the middle of the wilderness, they could only pick up one channel, KWYS, out of West Yellowstone.
“Every hour on the hour, KWYS Headline News. Today’s edition brought to you by the good folks at Canyon Street Grill. This is Jody Martin reporting. If you’re just arriving in our neck of the woods, you might have noticed that West Yellowstone is rocking and rolling. And I don’t mean like with Led Zeppelin. These earthquakes have had us literally jumping the last couple of days. But just be glad you aren’t in Mexico. They’ve had a rash of gruesome kidnappings recently. Best take your chances up here if you’re a rich gringo. On the national front . . .”
When the announcer wrapped up her news report, a country-and-western tune blasted through the speakers.
Roland groaned. “For Christ’s sake, Larry, country and western? You know it’s been proven that your IQ drops one point for every hour you listen to that stuff.”
“Sorry,” Larry said, switching off the radio. “Force of habit, I guess.”
After about forty minutes, Larry checked his phone again. “According to the GPS, our turn should be just ahead of where the edge of that meadow butts up to the road.” He pointed out his window. “Yep, there. Some old tire tracks are heading through the field. If I’m not mistaken, we go across Spring Creek and then about two miles through the woods to get to the clearing where the lab is set up.”
“I think you’re right,” Roland responded. “Keep in mind that’s two miles as the crow flies. It’s at least two miles in one when you have to follow a cow path through a forest. But the ground doesn’t look too bad. I’m glad it hasn’t been raining.”
Roland turned right and cautiously steered the van off the road onto a barely visible trail made by the jeeps and service vehicles that occasionally had to make their way to the caldera. After traveling just over one hundred yards, he came to a small stream, which he recognized as Spring Creek.
The rocky bed was about fifty feet wide, but he knew the wa
ter wasn’t over two feet deep, so he plowed straight in. The crossing was a little rough against the waves, but nothing compared to the shaking Mother Earth had been dishing out. The van made it across the creek and over its south bank without a problem.
Larry stared out the van’s passenger window. “That wasn’t so bad, but are you noticing anything odd?”
“Can’t say that I have. I’m concentrating on not getting the van stuck in the mud or hung up on a rock cropping. What did you see?”
“Nothing. That’s just it. This place is normally teeming with wildlife: birds, deer, elk, all kinds of critters. But I haven’t seen or heard anything since we pulled off the road. Not so much as a chipmunk. And there are almost always ducks on the creek’s pools, especially this time of the year. Everything seems to have vamoosed.”
Roland’s brow furrowed. “Now that you mention it, you’re right. Actually, it’s creepy.”
Straining to make out a path of barely visible tire ruts, Roland continued to follow the trail as it twisted through thick stands of pine and hardwood. Every few hundred yards, fallen trees had been pulled off to one side, just enough to allow a vehicle to pass. Must’ve been park rangers.
Larry kept his eye on the GPS, but it really wasn’t necessary. Except for the service trail, there was nowhere else for the van to go.
Finally, after nearly an hour of slow, bumpy, and exhausting driving, they popped out of the forest and into a football-field-sized clearing. The university’s eight seismographs, installed in porta-potty-sized, olive-drab fiberglass buildings, were arranged in a large circle inside the clearing’s perimeter. They were equally spaced and resembled a space-aged version of Stonehenge.
Roland parked in the center of the seismograph circle to reduce the distance they would have to lug the three boxes of equipment packed in the rear of the van. They began their first task, setting up their two-person Marmot dome tent. The blaze-orange polyester shelter weighed less than six pounds and was assembled and staked to the ground in less than ten minutes.
After they erected the tent, Roland laid their backpacks at either side of the opening, then unrolled their sleeping bags onto the tent floor. While he was completing the housekeeping tasks, Larry circled the tent, sprinkling a generous amount of cayenne pepper about five feet from its edges. Then he placed an aerosol can of bear spray between the two sleeping bags where either man could grab it in the event one of the beasts made it across the cayenne barrier. Or when they had to go outside at night to urinate. One couldn’t be too careful; an adult male grizzly could weigh over eight hundred pounds and rear up to nearly seven feet in height. One swipe from a massive paw armed with jagged four-inch claws could rip out a throat.
Once camp was ready, Larry and Roland started setting up the University of Utah’s new ground-penetrating sonar-radar (GPSR) equipment. Each device consisted of an orange suitcase-sized fifty-pound fiberglass box mounted on a collapsible metal tripod about a yard off the ground. They arranged the three identical units in what they had calculated to be the center of the caldera’s resurgent dome.
Roughly one hundred yards in diameter, the dome dipped inside an eroding rim, the remnant of a long, long ago mini eruption of the giant volcano below. A half mile or so underneath its surface, a series of hot-water reservoirs bubbled. Below the water, a mixture of minerals, dissolved gasses, and two-thousand-degree-Fahrenheit molten rock, called magma, protruded through the earth’s mantle into the upper crust, similar to a cerebral aneurysm. It was called a magma intrusion. With each burst of seismic activity, the magma intrusion surged closer to the earth’s crust, where it would eventually breach the surface and become known as lava.
As soon as the first GPSR was physically set up, Roland checked it, checked it again, and turned it on. Then he established the satellite connection and started calibrating its software. At the same time, Larry worked to unload and set up the other units. In less than an hour, they had all three devices set up. When this task was completed, Roland turned on the last GPSR’s monitor and started watching the activity that was taking place literally beneath his feet.
Each unit transmitted a combination of focused electromagnetic radiation and low-frequency sound deep into the earth. Then it would collect and record the reflection, or echo, of the signals and create a digital representation of the subsurface soil composition and objects buried in the ground. Each GPSR was independently linked via satellite back to the Seismology Department’s central computer, which would aggregate the signals and compile images of magma flow and volcanic activity. The images, in the form of near-real-time video, could be sent back to a GPSR monitor or a smart device like Larry’s iPad. Roland stared transfixed at the computer screen.
“Image compositions are starting to pour in, and I don’t like what I’m seeing. I’ll tweak the contrast a little bit, but you need to confirm what I think is going on down there.”
The ground rippled like water in a pond, forcing Roland to hold the sides of the GPSR to stay upright. This continued for several seconds, jarring him so violently that he began to get a headache.
“Look at this,” Roland whispered, as if his voice might distract from the movement on the screen. “The bright red line at the bottom of the screen is the upper mantle, totally molten rock. The yellow area above it is the magma intrusion zone. You can see it bending along the upper and lower edges.”
He tapped the screen. “That’s the earth’s crust floating on top of it. Every time the intrusion zone swells, it forces the brittle crust out of its way. That’s what is causing the earthquakes in this area. It’s like the ground is sitting on top of melting wax. And this is happening as far as the GPSR can detect in every direction.”
Frowning, Larry pointed to an area near the center of the monitor that looked like a mushroom growing out of the bright red section at the bottom of the screen. “Is this what I think it is?”
“That’s what I wanted you to confirm. It looks like a gigantic bubble of magma rising up through the intrusion zone. At least a half mile wide. It’s coming up toward the resurgent dome, and it’s coming fast. Straight at the spot where we are standing.”
As they spoke, their gazes locked on the monitor, the ground shook again, violently and continuously.
“Roland, let’s get the hell outta here!” Larry screamed through rattling teeth. “Leave your stuff here and get in the van. I’ll call the EMS office.”
Stumbling across the quivering clearing, the two men made their way to the van at near-Olympic-sprinter speed. Roland jumped behind the steering wheel and started the engine. Larry crawled into the passenger seat while punching numbers into his cell phone.
The phone rang twice before the voice of an automated attendant blared from the speaker. “You have reached the office of Douglas Kurtz, director of operations for the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. I’m not available to take your call right now. Please—”
“Shit!” Larry barked, hitting the “end call” icon. He punched in another number, which was answered on the first ring.
“Nine One One, what’s your emergency?” a husky female voice inquired.
“This is Dr. Larry Furgeson with the University of Utah Seismology Department. We are currently on-site at the Yellowstone Caldera. We have reason to believe that this thing is getting ready to blow, and blow big!”
“Sir, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. What’s a ‘calder’? And what do you mean by ‘blow’? Is this some type of explosive device?”
Larry pounded the dashboard. “No, you moron! It’s a fucking volcano. You need to get in touch with Homeland Security and tell them they need to activate their emergency evacuation plan for Yellowstone Park, and everything within a fifty-mile radius, for that matter.”
“Sir, try to remain calm and tell me as much as you can about what is going on.”
The van and its two passengers were literally dribbling
across the clearing surrounding the caldera. Roland fought to keep the vehicle moving and under control.
Larry struggled to converse with the 9-1-1 operator. In sheer exasperation, he pounded the van’s dash with his free hand and screamed into the phone: “We’ve been using the university’s equipment to observe subterranean activity at the Yellowstone supervolcano. The volcano is getting ready to erupt on a massive scale. And when it goes, it will destroy this park and everything for miles around it. Now, I would like to continue our little chit-chat, but, lady, I’m scared shitless, and you’ve got a ton of work to do and not much time to do it. So if you don’t mind, would you—”
Just then, at precisely 22:47, superheated gas, Volkswagen-sized boulders, and an enormous column of magma—now technically lava—exploded out of the ground at over four hundred miles per hour. Mercifully, Roland and Larry died instantly. Their bodies vaporized before their brains could register any pain. That was not the case for hundreds of other people in surrounding communities.
Within minutes, a plume of smoke and ash rose over twenty-four thousand feet into the air.
12
The Farm
Two years before the day of
Around the table, everyone sat in a state of dual apprehension, waiting for Milt to field David’s request and for that first taste of Mattie Washington’s famous coconut cake.
As if on cue, Milt slid into the conversation: “I’m sure we blindsided you with that one, David, and it’s a subject we could spend hours discussing, but like Elton said, we have to get you back to DC before the cock crows tomorrow. Political parties are an integral part of our government. They’re woven into our culture just as tightly as college football. Unless you’re from Alabama, where anything else is a distant second.”
Elton and Melissa laughed.
“As we alluded to earlier, our existing two-party system is at the very core of what’s wrong with this country. Well, maybe not the core, but damn close. Plenty of discussions centered around the question of political parties. We knew we had to have a structure that would hold us together, something we could rally the eighty-percenters around.”
Out of Crisis Page 8
