AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And this volcano, one of twenty in Iceland, was relatively peaceful, though it had erupted in 2021 and 2022, filling the valley with blue-tinged volcanic gas.
They were standing on a brown hill above the Meradalir Valley on the western end of Reykjanes Peninsula. All around them, a network of pipes carried steam over the hill to the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power plant.
Oliver needed to shout to be heard by Birkir Fanndal, a friend acting as guide for this trip: “Will you ever use it?” Oliver asked.
“The steam?” Birkir shouted back.
Oliver nodded.
“Oh, yes. Eventually.”
But Oliver and Leah Cutler, trained volcanologists and acknowledged experts in their field despite being celebrities, knew full well that the vents were too powerful to be harnessed; that was why they were left open to release steam to the sky.
The young blond photographer from the Reykjavík newspaper circled them as they talked, working around the camera crew, taking pictures. As if on cue, Oliver Cutler flung his rightarm skyward, pointing at the steam. He knew it would make a good picture. He was right, as usual.
“You like that one?” he asked, leaning close to his wife.
“You know I do,” she said.
“I’m a giver.”
The Cutlers had been invited by Iceland’s government to tour the nation’s geothermal sites. This country, including its capital city, Reykjavík, was powered almost entirely by geothermal energy; Iceland had exploited this resource more successfully than any other country in the world.
“Do you have enough?” Birkir called to the newspaper photographer.
The woman nodded.
“Then back to the car,” Birkir said.
Oliver, Leah, and Birkir drove off in their Land Rover, leaving Tyler and Gordon to pack up and head out in their own rented car.
The Land Rover crossed a high earthwork dam overlooking the acres of black lava that marked the most recent eruption of Fagradalsfjall. The dam, the Cutlers saw, was man-made.
“Where’d this come from?” Leah asked.
“Built it for the last eruption,” Birkir said. “We didn’t want the lava to reach the power plant.”
“And it worked?” Oliver said.
“Don’t know if it would’ve or not,” Birkir said. “The lava never got that far.”
Oliver’s cell phone rang. Even in the middle of the Icelandic countryside, cell phones worked. “Cutler.”
“Please hold for Henry Takayama.”
Now there’s a name from the past,Oliver Cutler thought.
He and Leah had met Tako Takayama five years earlier on a consulting visit to Hilo; Takayama, the head of Civil Defense, had invited them. Oliver wondered if he still had the same job. Assoon as he had that thought, he smiled. OfcourseTakayama still had the same job. He was the type. Oliver was sure of it—Tako Takayama would die in that job.
“Oliver, how the hell are you?” Takayama said when he came on the line.
“Very good, Tako.”
Oliver saw curiosity register on his wife’s face when she heard the name, obviously remembering him too.
Oliver raised his eyebrows and shrugged helplessly. But in that moment, a nearly forgotten phrase from the islands came back to him: “Long time, no smell.”
He heard Takayama laugh. “Listen, I’m calling because I need your advice, Oliver. There’s something going on at the observatory, and I think it could mean big trouble.”
