Here's the skinny, I forgot about this post but I fixed this.

The cable comes in the housing with the two metal discs at the end of the cable already manufactured in place. You have to shove the whole thing through the firewall.

The airbox and battery need to come out. The cable is visible coming out of the corrugated plastic tube that goes through the firewall. The part comes with a new gasket and plastic tube. I took the cable out of the gasket and pushed it through the existing one.

You can remove the barrel adjuster from the metal stand-off in the foot well by sliding the clip toward the center console.

I used one of the other four "udders" on the end of the tube and routed the cable through there rather than the original passage for the hood cable, because it was difficult to feel the cable into its original position on the other side - if you had two people this might be a lot easier. No biggie anyway, just sliced a corner off the "udder" on both ends and sprayed some silicone on the cable end and it came right through.

Connect the cable to the latch at the front corner of the car first, then put the cable through the barrel-adjuster at the lever in the cabin, then thread the cable through the slot in the orange lever. Re-adjust the barrel adjuster to get tautness.

Put the air box and battery back and done!

Update.

The cable is in two pieces - one goes from the driver's foot well to the driver side front corner, then the second piece goes from the rocker assembly to the passenger side.

The piece is about $37 bucks from the dealer. Not bad considering my private Volvo "specialist" wanted $300 to fix that!

Install does not look horrible; it is basically a bicycle brake cable.

My cable has now lost about an inch of the original length from having the vise grips attached to the end of the cable repeatedly for two weeks!

If your cable gets similarly shortened you can still get the hood open. One can remove a small plastic clip and take out the barrel adjuster assembly that tightens the cable tension. You can then improvise a backstop for the cable housing (like a washer or part from a bike) against the sheet metal butt bracket and open the hood.