“Exactly,” Emerson said. “They aren’t drilling for oil.”
“Then what?”
“We’re standing over the shallowest part of the underground lava lake. Magma has a temperature of around two thousand five hundred degrees. The only thing that makes sense is that they’re mining the magma, and they needed to build a machine that could withstand the heat without melting.”
Riley thought back to their conversation with Marion White at George Mason University.
“Why mine the magma?” Riley asked. “The professor said the magma contains osmium, but it’s only worth four hundred dollars per ounce. Other than that it’s just worthless silica and sulfuric acid gasses.”
Emerson nodded. “Yes. It wouldn’t make any sense, at least from an economic point of view, to build a one-hundred-billion-dollar facility to mine osmium. There’s something else going on.”
“Could they be possibly trying to drain the lava lake?” Riley asked. “Maybe they’re trying to relieve some of the pressure to prevent an explosion.”
“I doubt it. Where, then, are they dumping all the lava they’re removing? And, frankly, I would think it could just as easily have the opposite effect and destabilize the area, sort of like the effects from hydraulic fracking.”
The Humvee parked in front of the Quonset warehouse, and the soldiers patrolling the compound rushed over to the truck.
Riley watched the door to the hut open. A tall man in a white lab coat walked out and went to the truck.
“Isn’t that Eugene Spiro, the chief scientist for the National Park Service, who we met back at the Department of the Interior?” Riley asked.
“It is. Looks like the gang’s all here.”
The soldiers opened the rear door to the truck and carefully removed a large metal container that looked like an inner tube connected to a battery-operated power source. The chief scientist pointed toward the warehouse and followed them inside, along with Tin Man and the director. A couple minutes later they all exited and walked into a large construction trailer that obviously served as a makeshift office.
“Looks like a meeting for the American Society of Ruthless Psychopaths,” Riley said.
Emerson smiled. “I tend to agree. How do you feel about doing a little snooping?”
“I’m against it.”
“Are you totally against it?”
“Yes.”
“When you say ‘totally’ do you mean one hundred percent? As in, it’s not even open to discussion?”
“I guess I’m willing to talk about it,” Riley said.
Emerson crept through the compound toward the rear of the warehouse.
“Great,” he said, motioning to Riley to follow him. “Let’s talk about it while we do some snooping.”
They snuck around to the rear of the warehouse. There was a small window about six feet off the ground, and Emerson knelt down on his hands and knees in front of it. “Why don’t you take a look?”
Riley stood on Emerson’s back and peered through the little window. “What am I supposed to be looking for?” she asked.
“Just describe to me what you see.”
“It’s a high-tech lab of some sort. There’s a giant vat in the middle of the room connected to a lot of machinery I don’t recognize, except for a bigger version of the metal donut that was in the back of the transport.”
“Interesting. Is there anybody there?”
Riley climbed down off Emerson. “No. It looks like everyone’s left.”
“Interesting.”
“I know what you’re thinking, and you can just forget about that,” Riley said. “There’s absolutely no way I’m walking into the lion’s den. Tin Man could be back any minute.”