He had pages of data on Mount St. Helens, the Fuji of the United States, which was almost identical in its symmetrical shape to the legendary Japanese volcano. At least it was before it finally blew with stupendous force on May 18, 1980, sending a shudder across the entire southwestern corner of the state of Washington, and literally shot a tremor straight through the gigantic Cascade Mountains.
The blast flattened fully grown Douglas fir trees up to 14 miles away from the volcano, and obliterated 400 square miles of prime forest. Fifty-seven people died. Raging mudflows thundered into the rivers. Volcanic ash showered from the darkened skies all the way to Montana, 650 miles to the east.
The colossal eruption blew the entire snowcapped glory of the summit clean away from one of the most spectacular mountain peaks in the United States. Before May 18, Mount St. Helens rose thousands of feet above every hill and mountain that surrounded it, dominating the landscape. It stood, serenely peaceful, 9,677 feet high. After the blast, it stood less proudly, at only 8,364 feet. Its great shining white crest was entirely missing, like a spent fire-work.
A broad, tilted circular crater more than two miles across was embedded into the pinnacle of the mountain. From its lower edge, carved into the north side, the crater’s rim was cut into a giant V, through which had thundered the pyroclastic flow. The molten lava was now set into a grotesque black basalt highway down the mountain, splitting into a wide fork as it reached the six-mile-wide base. The western surge had rumbled into the clear and refreshing waters of Spirit Lake. The rest had barreled down the beautiful snowy valley of the Toutle River. It was like an open-cast coal mine set in the garden of Santa’s Workshop.
Ravi knew the facts verbatim. But the part that captivated him most was one particular detail of the blast. The central “chimney” of Mount St. Helens was blocked with hundreds of tons of lava from the previous eruption, and the surging new magma, climbing into the volcano, had nowhere to go. It ultimately forced its way higher into the north flank, pushing outwards and forming a giant swelling, a dome of rock, volcanic ash, and general debris.
These great carbuncles are not unique to Mount St. Helens. They happen often with active volcanoes. But shortly before the eruption, this one had developed into a fair size — a mile across and probably 120 feet high. And it was not the rising magma that finally smashed the great bulge asunder, but a relatively small earthquake that completely destabilized the north face of the mountain.
The dome, cracking on all sides, blew outwards within minutes of the quake, and crashed down the mountainside in a landslide. The mammoth weight of a half-million cubic yards of rock was now removed from the upward flow of the lava, and the gases decompressed instantly, detonating out like a bomb, leveling every tree in sight.
It was the carbuncle that Ravi now focused on. According to Professor Landon, another one was forming on the same gutted north face of Mount St. Helens, right in the old crater, 46.20N122.18W on the GPS, to be absolutely precise.
There had been strong, steaming activity inside the volcano for several years, since the early 1990s — occasional eruptions of steam and ash, less frequent pyroclastic flows, with intermittent swellings on the northern rock face of the mountain. A much more violent blast of steam and ash on July 1, 1998, had frightened the life out of the locals before it had seemed to subside again. The new mile-long carbuncle had begun to develop in 2006, right in the middle of that massive, sinister crater that scarred the once-beautiful north face.
As they crossed the 46.20N line of latitude, Shakira knew they were dead-level with their target, dead-level with the four-mile-wide estuary of the Columbia River. They were 200 miles offshore, 600 feet below the surface, steering one-eight-zero, straight down the 127-degree line of longitude. Mount St. Helens lay 75 miles due east of the estuary. Right now, moving slowly, they were exactly 195 miles from their target, a mere formality for the North Korean — built Scimitar SL-1 missiles currently resting malevolently in the magazine room of Barracuda II.
The Pacific was a little less than a mile deep here, the seabed a flat, scarcely undulating plain. On the surface, the swells were long, rising 10 feet, but here in the quiet depths of the cold, gloomy ocean, there was nothing, save for the stark network of the U.S. Navy’s SOSUS wires, resting like angry black cobras in military formation on the ocean floor, ready to spit venomous, fatal betrayal on any unsuspecting intruder.
Admiral Badr recommended running south for another 100 miles, a position that would put them in easy range of the great scarred mountain in southwestern Washington. Shakira’s missile course was plotted and agreed upon. General Ravi had decreed there was no reason to move too far away. His overall strategy had been something of a surprise: He was ordering a daytime firing, rather than using the hours of darkness, which they all felt to be much safer, although when cocooned in their boat at 600 feet, there was not the slightest difference between night or day, summer or winter, or the days of the week.
When Shakira wanted to know why, Ravi’s explanation was succinct. “Because a big cruise missile trails a large fiery tail when it leaves the water. It can be seen literally for miles, especially in the dark. If we do it in the day it will be much, much less visible.”
“But before we fired at night.”
“That was because we did not want the missiles to be seen by security guards at the target end. This is different. We are firing into a void. Into the open wild, where there are no guards, no surveillance, no people.”
“Hmmmm,” mumbled Shakira, irritated that she had not thought of that herself.
“Our only danger on this mission,” said her husband, “is being detected by a passing warship, out there in the night, with the ocean lit up like a bloody amusement park by our rocket motors.”
“The missile could still be seen during the day,” said Shakira, “if there were passing ships.”
“There won’t be,” replied Ravi.
“How do you know?”
“Because I intend to fire when there is fog on the ocean surface. And I intend to use passive sonar and my own eyes to ensure there is nothing around.”
“But even you cannot just order fog.”
“No, but this part of northwestern America is well known for the rain that sweeps up the Pacific. And where there’s rain and cool temperatures interrupted by warm air currents, there’s fog.”
“But there may not be any, not exactly when we want it,” said Shakira.
“We’ll wait.”
Shakira Rashood asked him if he would like some tea, and her husband replied that he considered that an excellent idea, briefly toying with the temptation to remark how thrilled he was that she had decided to return to what she was good at. But he quickly rejected it, not wishing to have the entire contents of the teapot poured over his head.
Instead he looked up and smiled. “I’m very grateful, my darling,” he said, “the way you force people to explain themselves.”
“You’re too clever,” she said, affecting a mock pout. “Always too clever. I like being on your side.”
“You’re a good officer, Shakira. Ready to challenge when you do not quite understand. But in the end, respectful of your Commanding Officer. As we all must be.”
“I am a good officer,” she said seriously, but smiling. “But I hope you think I’m a better wife. Because I expect to be that for much longer.”