Regaining his breath, he entered the cool, dimly-lit lava tube and slammed the large reinforced steel door behind him with a loud, muffled clunk. Then he drove the one-inch diameter steel slide bolts into the sides, locking the door from the inside.
Osama sat down against the cool basalt rock to rest, pleased with himself at his ingenuity and resourcefulness. Once Fuyuki and his assistants had re-established the Scalar weapon’s exothermic mode, they were expendable to him. Retrieving the side arm from the dead guard that Turner’s people killed, he terminated the three men as effortlessly as a person killing a fly.
I will not be beaten by that fool, Turner, or the United States. When I alone have the wealth and power from the ZPGs that Pencor so graciously provided me, I’ll be untouchable, he thought vainly.
Minutes later, a grinning Osama began to slowly make his way down the lava tube to the tunnel entrance, and to freedom. At that precise moment, the Tomahawk missile struck the Bishamon complex.
The missile penetrated into the heart of the complex, detonating as it reached the core. The resulting explosion sent a monstrous fireball into the early evening sky that was seen from all over the island. People everywhere on Tenerife stopped to look at the curious aberration coming from the old dormant volcano. Osama felt the tremor of the explosion, but paid little mind since he was safely away from the complex at that point.
The ZPGs in the facility were completely destroyed in seconds, terminating the power to the Scalar weapon’s two parabolic dishes and huge electromagnetic oscillators. The EM waves that were directed towards La Palma reacted just as Yashiro had feared. The immense power carried in the EM waves over the vacuum of space-time now had no origin, nor termination point. With no direction, the powerful EM waves exited to the nearest reference points. The first was the Bishamon facility, and the other was at the convergence point deep within the magma chamber on La Palma.
Osama halted his progression as he felt a new tremor. He listened to the growing reverberation in the ground increase in veracity as the earth began to shake beneath him. What followed next was a shock wave of tumultuous force that shook the entire lava tube and sent Osama reeling to the rocky floor. The last thing he saw before the overhead lights went black was the ceiling of the lava tube cascading to the floor in a thunderous roar, effectively sealing his only exit route.
The complete and utter darkness consumed him to his very core. He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight, since he now found himself confined to the darkness like a blind man. Slowly getting up, he shuffled his way toward the direction of the cave, only to find a huge pile of debris blocking his route.
I’ll have to go back the other way, he thought, growing uncertain and for the first time in his life, afraid.
Osama slowly stumbled his way back to the entrance of the facility. With relief, he found the door by groping in the dark for the cool steel. He tried to slide the steel bolts on the lock, but was unable to budge them. With ensuing panic, he desperately began screaming and pulling on the slide bolts. To his dismay, the collapse of the facility and tons of falling rock had jammed the steel door on the outside and twisted the frame.
Winded and terrified, he sat down and tried to figure a way out. There was none. He was trapped, all alone in the darkness, with no way out. His muffled screams went unheard for three hours as he lay on the floor cowering in panic. Total madness set upon him after four days. While immersed in darkness, he could see into his own mind, the hundreds of people he’d murdered in his long, violent reign, all looking at him from the blackness of the sealed lava tube. They were condemning him, laughing at him, and taunting him.
Yagato Osama, the powerful Japanese Yakuza Oyabun who controlled the life and death of many; the man who would be rich and powerful, died a very slow and lonely death.
36
For Eli Turner and Maria Santiago, still trapped on their precarious perch on La Palma, the situation was becoming dire. Though the massive landslide had ceased its progression, the tremors became numerous once again as a result of Osama’s reactivation of the exothermic Scalar weapon. Their brief respite on the narrow ledge of basalt high above the deserted town of Puerto Naos was now shattered by a series of violent shock waves from deep within the fiery magma chamber beneath the Cumbre Vieja.
The volcanic ash presented their most immediate danger, as tons of toxic, airborne ash emanated from the eruption and rained down upon them. Likened to dirt-laden snow, the suspended particles of crystalline silica irritated their eyes and throat, causing uncontrolled coughing and burning in their eyes.
Maria now cradled the elder Turner in her arms. She had fashioned makeshift face masks by ripping her parka into small pieces and tying them around their faces. Using the remainder of the material, she applied direct pressure to his chest wound in an effort to stem the blood flow. Doing so had also somewhat helped his breathing. She knew that if he didn’t get required medical attention soon, he would not survive.
“I’m not able to get through on the cell phone,” she yelled to Eli as another tremor shook the fragile ledge beneath them.
“It must be atmospheric interference due to the eruption,” Turner said weakly. “We’re lucky that you got through the first time.”
As another massive tremor hit, Maria closed her eyes and held on to Eli. She covered his face as pieces of basalt rock and dust fell from the outcropping rock above them. The fierce trembling precipitated another fissure just to the right of Maria. As it began to fracture, the crack traveled towards the edge of what used to be the floor of the lava tube. She opened her eyes to find herself looking at an increasingly widening fissure and she scrambled to drag Eli away from its edge. With a resounding crack, the tiny ledge they had just been laying on tumbled downward into the void beneath them. What remained was a balcony-sized section of floor that was now the only thing keeping them from falling to certain death far below.
“I’m so sorry for getting you into this mess, Maria,” Eli managed weakly as the tremor subsided. “Please forgive me.”
“No one twisted my arm to come here, Eli. This is not your fault,” she replied. She picked up his hat that had fallen off during their frantic repositioning and placed it into the back pack. “Besides, it was worth the risk to actually find these relics and know that they’re real. It’ll be sad if they are lost again.”
“Maria, I don’t think I’m going to make it,” he said weakly as he looked into her eyes and had another coughing fit. “I want you to tell Josh that I met my end doing what I loved the most, and that—”
“Don’t talk like that!” she yelled, tears of despair beginning to flow from her eyes. She knew that they were both doomed if help didn’t arrive soon. “Just hang on. We’ll get out of this somehow. I know Josh and Samuel will find a way,” she added optimistically, even though she knew that it probably wasn’t to be.
More ash and debris began to swirl about them, accompanied by a sound that she thought was another tremor. Realizing that this was most likely the end, she held on tightly to Eli and laid back in silent resignation. As she gazed above her, Maria realized that this wasn’t a new series of shock waves, but a much more familiar sound.
The huge CH-46 Sea Knight appeared out of nowhere and hovered above her like the vision of an angel. Maria jumped up on the ledge and started shouting.
“Eli! They’re here! We’re gonna' make it!” she yelled, looking at the elder Turner, but seeing that he was no longer conscious. Her sudden joy was transformed to despair as the Sea Knight drifted away from them and moved upward along the ridge. “No!” she screamed. Waving her arms wildly, she saw Turner leaning out of the emergency door of the chopper as it moved slowly away from them. “Please, don’t leave us,” she cried again as the Sea Knight moved further and further away.