Extinction Event (book 1) ending.
Sam Leighton had discovered that his man in charge of The Organization’s hazardous waste plant in Egypt, was being blackmailed by the Russian Mafia. They forced him to dump planeloads of ionizing nuclear waste into the active volcano on Montserrat.
Based on scientific prediction, the waste could reach critical mass at any time in the next ten thousand years: the half-life of the material.
The resulting nuclear explosion deep within the earth’s mantle, or possibly the core itself, would extinguish all life on the planet. The calculated force of the ejected material would act like a short burst from a rocket motor, and propel the planet into a different orbit.
Academic though it is for an earth without life, depending on the direction of the blast, it would upset the orbits of neighboring planets and possibly drive the Earth into them, into the sun, or out into space. Ultimately, our entire solar system would change.
Sam explained all this to Max and asked that he go to Montserrat with a small team of scientists, to check for any evidence that could implicate The Organization. If evidence was discovered, until the planet exploded there was every reason to cover up the disaster.
It was not a question of doing the right thing, admitting to the problem and leaving the world to clean up the mess. There was no way of extracting the molten waste from the magma, deep inside the earth.
Either the earth blows up, or it doesn’t!
The team of scientists returning to their dinghy were drenched in lava, as the volcano belched its way to an eruption.
Unaware that he was all alone, Max investigated an odd formation, low down inside the crater. It turned out to be the remains of a large cylinder filled with nuclear waste.
Max had come into contact with the lethal rays and knew that by now he was a dead man walking. Should he dislodge the evidence and let it fall into the lava - it was heading that way in any case - or should he just leave now, and let someone else clean it up?
The cylinder of waste might just be the trigger for extinction!
Fate took the decision for him; he saw the cylinder topple and fall in to the seething magma.
On his way back to the dinghy, Max found the remains of his team, and envied them their instant death.
The legs of his protective suit were rapidly filling with vomit and diarrhea, as the cells in his intestines were being killed off by the radiation oozing from the cylinder.
He eventually reached the dinghy, stripped naked and collapsed in the sea, to wash himself.
Max made his final report to Sam Leighton, just as delirium overcame him. He launched the dinghy in the hope that Sam would send help before he was killed, either by radiation sickness or the volcanic eruption.
***