Volcano Watch

CHAPTER TEN

I left the fires to burn through the ice in my digs and went along with Krom to find out what was up with Hot Creek.

Krom drove, a red Jeep four-wheel drive. Good vehicle for an evac.

We headed south on Highway 395. If the evac is southward, we’d continue this way the forty miles to the next town, Bishop. If Bishop can’t absorb us all, we keep going to Big Pine, and then on to the next town. Sierra towns are strung along the highway, leagues apart, their backsides dug into the mountains. If the evac comes on a big ski weekend, the twenty thousand visitors can head back where they came from, all the way to L.A. I used to make the drive when I was doing grad work at UCLA. I tried to imagine it with an eruption in the rearview.

We stayed on 395 only minutes, then turned onto the narrow Hot Creek road. There are few roads that breach the caldera; they don’t go far and they’re intermittently plowed.

Krom took another turn, toward our little airport.

I looked at him.

“Len Carow’s due in,” he said, pulling into the parking lot, “and no, I didn’t forget to mention it back there, I chose to sandbag you here.” He stopped the Jeep and shut off the engine. “Len’s my immediate superior at FEMA HQ. Len’s my boss. There are some dirty politics being played. I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of getting you to come if I told you that back at Casa Diablo.”

I sat stiff. He got that right. “I don’t like being sandbagged.”

“Then let me make it worth your while. Decisions are being made that affect you. I’m making some of them. Len’s aiming to stop me — courtesy of Lindsay. It’s that simple.”

“You’re saying he’s going to fire you?”

“He can’t without cause, and I’ll give him no cause. As long as I have the support of your Council, I’ll do my job. They invited me, and they can ask me to leave, but I won’t give them cause.”

“The escape clause.”

He gave a half-smile. “Is that what you call it?”

“It’s what Lindsay calls it,” I said, then softened. “Look, I just want somebody who knows what he’s doing and if you’re it, then outstanding.”

“I am it. But Len’s not interested in my qualifications.”

“Why?”

“Goes back to Mount Rainier. Up in Washington state. Lindsay told you about Rainier?”

“She did. But tell me your side.”

He stared straight ahead, at the runway. “It was my first posting. I wanted to do my best. I wrote my own eruption-sim software and ran the numbers, of course, but I didn’t stop there. I got to know the towns in the volcano’s flowpath. I drove the roads, I walked the land. I knew by how much the population of Puyallup was swelled by its annual fair. I went with the Tacoma mayor to his favorite brewery, and I went back again to meet the locals. I needed to understand their fears, and I needed them to trust me when I made the hard calls.” He craned his neck and peered at the sky, where a slip of silver separated itself from the blue. “Len and Lindsay were at Rainier, too. Len was senior to me and he thought he should be in my job. She thought so too. Len and Lindsay. You didn’t find them at the breweries, they kept to their own.”

I said, “She’s a wine drinker” and then I said, “never mind.”

“Rainier got serious but the volcanologists kept dithering. I had a call to make — and it’s a hell of a call to order the evacuation of entire towns — and the officials, my friends at this point, were on the spot too. But my obligation was damn clear. It was to the locals. The everyday people who were sitting in the way of disaster. I made the call. We emptied the towns. It was a month before it became clear Rainier was not going all the way.” His head turned, as he followed the jet down onto the runway. “Cost the towns a lot of money. Lost business. Disruption. I felt like hell about that. But Lindsay…” He unbuckled his seat belt. “She crucified me. She told the press I was out of my depth.”

His voice held so much bitterness I thought he might stop.

He went on. “I accepted a demotion. And I’m still trying to rebuild my reputation. At the start, I did it on my own time. When a volcano acted up — anywhere — I flew there on my own nickel. I listened and I learned. FEMA was still rebuilding its own reputation and they had to be convinced to give me another shot. I convinced them. I’ve been proving my worth. Again, and again.” He angled in the seat to face me. “I made a mistake at Rainier, I won’t dodge it, but it was a mistake in timing, not priorities. I wanted to save lives. That’s what I aim to do here. I want you to know you can count on me to be single-minded in the pursuit of my job. I’d like to show you. If you’ll come to Hot Creek, there’s a slight chance in hell Len Carow will agree to come too. You’re one of the lives I’m here for, and he can’t ignore that. I’m going to show him I’m on the job. He’ll have to put it into the record.”

I believed Lindsay had crucified him, all right. I knew she didn’t suffer fools lightly, not when it came to her job. But I wasn’t convinced Krom had been a fool, at Rainier. I had to give him credit, now, for owning up to his mistake. And I couldn’t argue with his priorities. But if Lindsay was trying to crucify him again, now, she’d have a reason. She would never let her animosity interfere with her volcano.

“I’ll come,” I said. “But just so you know — Lindsay taught me everything I know about this volcano.”

Len Carow clearly did not like being sandbagged, either.

He stood by Krom’s Jeep, suitcase in hand, frowning. “Fuck d’y think yr’doin, Adrian?” He waved an unlit cigarette at me. “Sorry — Oldfield? — language.”

He reminded me of one of those financial types Walter watches on TV: thin-faced, thin-haired, glasses, cranky. I said, “No problem.”

“S’posed to call Lindsay when I get in, Adrian. Go see her road.”

“Did she inform you of the upcoming Council meeting on the subject? Nothing’s set in stone.”

Carow gave a brusque nod.

“So, can you spare us an hour right now, Len?” Krom skated a glance at me.

Carow toyed with his cigarette, sliding his fingers along its length, upending it, reversing it.

I said, “Hot Creek’s just up the road.”