Page 175 (1/2)

The ferocity of the sudden storainst each other before they were crushed flat and incinerated, their charred rerowth that escaped the rolling inferno were left standing blackened and dead Already, the ground was littered with birds that dropped out of the sky, choked to death by the gases and fued into the atmosphere

As if guided by a heavenly hand, the ungodly ooze swept over the security compound but bypassed the Chinese laborers' detention ca the lives of three hundredquality was that it traveled no faster than the average hue, but caused little loss of life

But then cas' turn

From deep within its bowels, the volcano naave out a deep-throated roar like a hundred freight trains rolling through a tunnel The crater hurled out a trereater than the one belched by Winkleman It twisted and swirled into the sky, a black, evilas it looked, the ash cloud was only an opening act for the drama yet to come

Scaggs' western slope could not resist the deep-rooted stress ascending from thousands of meters below The liquified rocks, nohite-hot mass, hurtled toward the surface With ied crack on the upper slope, releasing an inferno of boiling le, thunderous explosion that scattered the ments

A gigantic frenzy of molten lava shot froe An enored in a pyroclastic flow, a tuas that travels over the ground like liquid160 kilo speed, it avalanched down the flank of the volcano with a continuous roar, disintegrating the slope and throwing a fearsome windstorm in front of it that reeked of sulphur

The effect of the superheated steam of the pyroclastic flow as it relentlessly swept foras devastating, enveloping everything in a torrent of raining fire and scalding anic object was instantly reduced to ashes The seething horror left nothing recognizable in its wake

The horrifying flow outran the canopy of ash that still cast an eerie pall across the island And then the fierythe water and creating ainto the sky The once beautiful lagoon quickly lay under an ugly layer of gray ash, dirty mud and shredded debris swept ahead of the catastrophic flow of death

The island used by reed, an island that some believed deserved to die, had been annihilated The curtain was coony

Giordino had lifted the sleek British-built Agusta Mark II helicopter from the deck of the yacht and reached a safe distance fro rock fell over the dock and the yacht He could not see the full scope of the devastation It was hidden by the iht of three thousand meters above the island

The incredible twin eruptions were not only a scene of hideous malevolence but of awesome beauty also There was a sense of unreality about it Giordino felt as if he were looking down from the brink of hell

Hope flared when he observed the yacht suddenly cooon toward the channel cut in the encircling reef Badly wounded or not, Pitt had soet the boat under way However fast the yacht could fly over the sea, it was not fast enough to outrun the gaseous cloud of fla across the lagoon

But then any hope vanished as Giordino watched the uneven race in growing horror The inferno swept over the yacht's churning wake, closing the gap until it susta Mark II From a thousand feet in the air it appeared that no one could have lived for more than a few seconds in that hellish fire

Giordino was overco alive when the ether in the copilot's seat and a friend as like a brother were dying in the holocaust of fire below

Cursing the eruption, cursing his helplessness, he turned froht His face was drained white as he flew more on instinct than experience His inner pain, he kneould never fade His old surefire cockiness had died with Gladiator Island He and Pitt had traveled a long road, with one always there to save the other in times of peril Pitt was not the type to die, Giordino had told himself on nurave Pitt was indestructible