Minutes to Burn

Chapter 59

They headed back for base camp, Cameron taking a long detour through the field where they'd burned the mantid. She returned to the others, who had assembled in Derek's old tent. It felt divine to be out of the sun in the soothing shade of the tent. Ramoncito was lying on his back on a sleeping pad. Diego and he spoke softly as the others looked on.

"I got the SOS," Ramoncito said. "And I understood it." He tried to smile, but the movement cracked his lips even more, and he winced from the pain.

Justin leaned over, examining the blistering on Ramoncito's back. He winked at Cameron. The burns weren't too bad.

"Single thirty-five-horsepower engine bringing you one seventy-some nautical miles at ten knots." Diego pushed Ramoncito's hair off his fore-head and rubbed more lotion onto his sunburnt face. "You must've been on the open water for seventeen hours."

Ramoncito tried to smile. "Sixteen."

"Glass sea state," Cameron murmured.

Diego said, "You never should have come."

"You asked me to."

"Not you. If you received the message, I thought you'd get help."

"From who? I know my way home better than anyone. Besides, who would have listened to me?"

"The Captain of the Port."

"Yeah right. I had to steal the TNT from him. Fresh in from the army."

"You stole the-" Diego cut himself off, shaking his head. "Puta madre."

Szabla was on her knees in the corner, looking through one of the TNT boxes Ramoncito had brought along. Row after row of two-pound blocks lined the bottom beneath coils of wire and a scattering of blasting caps. Szabla picked up an olive-drab Clacker detonator and examined it with a smile. The two sides of the Clacker could be pushed together like a stapler to detonate a charge.

"Why'd you bring so much?" Diego asked. "There must be two, three hundred pounds here."

"I thought there might have been a slide, and we'd have to blast some-thing out from under tons of rock. Like we did with that generator up by Media Luna. That was fun." He propped himself on an elbow and drank some more from the canteen.

"Not too much too quickly," Diego cautioned.

"You sound like papa." Ramoncito lowered the canteen. "Where are my parents?"

Diego turned to the soldiers. "You'd better give us a moment alone," he said to the others in English. Cameron nodded and led the other soldiers out. It was clear from Ramoncito's face that he was anticipating bad news.

Savage stopped at the flap. "Kid," he said. "You're one brave little motherfucker."

They all walked a few paces from the tent, leaving Diego to tell Ramoncito that his parents had died. Rex shook his head. "What a thing," he said.

"What're we gonna do?" Szabla said. "Our extraction's not till tomor-row night, but there's no way that boat can pull the weight of all of us, not on limited gas like that."

"Plus there's a space issue," Justin said. "Even once we toss the emp-ties, there's at least thirteen full fuel cans, and it'll take all of them to get back to Santa Cruz." He glanced at the others. "I don't know who the hell's gonna want to wait behind, though."

Cameron was watching a hawk hover above a knotted patch of shrubs just beyond the watchtower. It folded its wings, accelerating toward the ground. It dipped and then rose, and Cameron made out the silhouette of a rat struggling in its talons as it flew toward the sun. "We're the only thing that'll hold them on the island," Cameron said.

Szabla looked at her, head cocked. "Excuse me?"

"The creatures. You heard what Donald said-we're the only 'sizable and appropriate food source.' If those larvae metamorphose into adults, they're gonna be hungry. If there's no food here, they could very well fly elsewhere in search of it." Her face hardened. "I don't want that virus leaving the island."

"You want to stay here?" Justin asked. "As bait?"

"Yes," Cameron said. "I do."

"It's not likely that the adults can fly," Rex said. "Even though they have wings."

"But we know that the larvae are amphibious. Diego even said that the first one we found could very well have been heading down to the ocean. They could drift with the currents, wind up God knows where. If we're not here to track them down…"

Diego stepped out of the tent, his face heavy, and approached the others. "He wanted to see the bodies, but I told him…" He scratched his cheek, letting the sentence trail off. "He's too upset to even argue with me about staying."

Cameron nodded. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Yes," Diego replied. "So am I."

"You and Rex collected lots of water samples yesterday, didn't you?" she asked.

Diego scratched his forehead at the hairline. "Yes. From various points on the island and all along the coast, especially from the dino-rich waters flowing in from the deep-sea core holes."

"If you don't want this island bombed, I'd suggest you get back to the Darwin Station, run virus tests, and pray to God none of the samples are infected," Cameron said. "Contact Donald and Dr. Everett at Fort Det-rick, where the decision's being made." She pulled her hand from her pocket and opened it to reveal a small silver disk, Tucker's transmitter that she'd pulled from the ashes of the mantid's belly. "Heat-resistant to two thousand degrees," she said. "Picked it from the bones. I already tested it. Just activate it and ask the operator to patch you through. Med-ical Division Wing, Slammer Two."

"We can't leave you all here," Rex said. "With… with the possibility of-"

"We have TNT," Cameron said. "We're soldiers. You're scientists. And you'd better get that kid out of here in case all hell does break loose." She looked at the other soldiers. "We came here a squad, I say we stay here a squad. We still have some business to take care of."

Tank nodded first, then Justin murmured his assent.

"What the fuck," Savage said. "Got nothin' better to do."

Szabla stared at Cameron long and hard, the line of her cheekbones glistening with sweat.

"You'll be in charge," Cameron said.

"Girl, that gets harder and harder with you around." Szabla shook her head. "Fuck it. We can't all fit in that boat, and it's our responsibility to clear the civilians." She nodded at Cameron. "I'm in."

"We shouldn't leave you here," Rex said.

Szabla smirked. "No need to be valiant for the sake of the ladies when we can both kick your ass."

Rex nodded seriously. "True," he said. "True."

Szabla stretched her arms with a groan. "We're minute to minute here. What's our defense if we can't get to those last two larvae in time? The adults are pretty antsy, pun be fucked. I can't see one just staggering into a pile of explosives and det cord. Look at the Rambo shit Savage had to pull just to get near it." She let out her breath, puffing her cheeks. "I mean, we can't exactly lob around blocks of TNT."

"Why not?" Rex asked.

Szabla bit back a smile. "This ain't a Road Runner cartoon. If we throw it, we can't time the explosion. Timing sucks in general with TNT, since it's not meant as a killing explosive. It's too unreliable to light a fuse set for less than thirty seconds anyways. It's always better to detonate it."

"The fuses aren't made for that," Cameron concurred. "Plus TNT has no frag-there's no shrapnel to expand the killing radius. We need to lock the creature's location before we detonate, hold it close to the explosives. Hopefully within an enclosed space so it'll blow like an inter-nal charge. Walls won't allow the explosion to dissipate as easily."

Rex nodded. "Greater overpressure."

Tank formed a gun with his hand and tilted it at Rex with a clicking noise. "Freezer?" he asked.

"I don't know." Rex shook his head. "It would be tough to lure one in there without live bait, and we've already noted the island's lack of dogs and goats. Plus, I don't see her ducking into a metal box without great provocation."

"I agree," Szabla said. She turned her fist, making her biceps slide up and down.

"So what the fuck are we gonna do?" Justin asked. "Dig a pit?"

"Yeah," Savage said. "We are." They turned to him, surprised. "Once you get someone in a pit, you own 'em," he said. "You got elevation, you got 'em trapped-you can do anything you want to them. We lost guys in pits sometimes in Nam, steep pits. They'd try to scramble up the sides, but the mud would give way under their hands. Right in the middle of combat, with us retreating. They were fucked. I had an LT that'd shoot 'em before leavin' 'em there for the gooks to play with."

The silence that followed was broken by Cameron's laugh.

"What's so funny?" Justin asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just debating whether I should mention that I find the term 'gook' offensive. I guess the civility of my response seemed oddly out of place." She looked at Savage, amusement lingering on her lips. "I forgot who I'm dealing with."

A smile flashed somewhere in Savage's beard.

"But I do think it's a good idea," Cameron continued. "The pit. We'll camo the top of it, rig the bottom with explosives. All we need is to slow the fucker up for a split second to blast it." She glanced over at Diego. He looked upset but said nothing. "Let's get to digging."

"You don't have to," Rex said. "There are natural cavities all around this island. Gases within the lava that didn't rise and escape to the air. Sort of like trapped bubbles. Some of them barely break the surface, and then the tops erode." He turned east, raising a hand to shade his eyes. "I noticed a number of them just past the base camp," he said. "You should be able to find one of suitable size."

Ramoncito stepped through the flap, his face red from the sun and his tears. Rex walked over to him, removed his Panama hat, and set it on his head. "Ready to head back?" he asked.

Ramoncito nodded, still sniffling.

Rex signaled Diego and they headed to Diego's tent to gather the water samples.

The soldiers stood dumbly in a half-ring around the boy, waiting for the scientists' return. Ramoncito's face broke, and he started crying. Szabla and Savage turned away uncomfortably, and Tank chewed his lip. Ramoncito swayed, still light-headed from his sun exposure.

Justin stepped forward to steady the boy. After a moment, Cameron joined him.

Loaded down with bags full of water samples, Diego and Rex stood at the edge of the road near the rows of balsa trees that Diego so loathed. Tank flipped Rex an extra tube of sunblock and Rex nodded his thanks.

Cameron checked the watch face sewn into the inside of her pants pocket. "It's 1500 now," she said. "That should put you back at Santa Cruz at 0700. You'll have about fourteen hours to set up your gear, run tests, and reach Fort Detrick with your results."

Justin removed his long-sleeved shirt and gave it to Ramoncito to protect him from further sun damage on the ride back. The sun was still strong, but it had softened, already beginning its arc to the horizon.

Ramoncito took it from him, gratefulness in his eyes. He probably wanted to decline the offer like a man, but the pain of his sunburn made him swallow his pride.

Justin smiled. "You'd better wait to smell the thing before you thank me. It's a touch ripe, but it'll keep the sun off you."

Cameron stood beside the two scientists, even after the other soldiers nodded their good-byes and began to convene near the tents. Rex shifted his canteen strap on his shoulder, squinting into the sun in Cameron's direction. "Guess you guys aren't so useless after all," he said. His cheeks had taken on color, just beginning to redden. He waited for Diego and Ramoncito to look away. "Thank you," he mouthed.

Cameron shrugged. "What were we gonna do? Draw straws and leave some of our squad behind?" She shook her head. "I don't think so."

"So that's it?" Diego asked. "Strictly a military decision?"

A sulfur butterfly danced a clumsy circle around Diego's head. It flut-tered down, landing on his backpack, a pale yellow spot. Cameron reached over, plucking it gently off the fabric by clasping its wings between her fingers as she had seen Diego do earlier. She took the but-terfly's thin body between her thumb and finger and turned it over, blowing gently on the closed wings. They splayed under the soft pres-sure of her breath, spreading open beautifully across her hand. She swept her hand upward, releasing the butterfly, and they watched it navi-gate the gentle southeast winds. "Yes," she said. "It is."

"We'll do our best to get back and convince the government that we know more about science than they do," Rex said. He glanced at the sweep of the dark forest. "Just two more larvae constitute the account-able virus reservoir." He nodded once, slowly, and they both understood the unspoken implication. Taking a small step back, he checked his watch. "You have about nineteen hours to pickup. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

Cameron shook her head. "No." She ruffled Ramoncito's hair roughly and pointed down the road. "Get out of here," she said.

They turned and began walking down the road toward the watch-tower and the thin trail beyond. After a few paces, Ramoncito stopped and turned. Cameron was still standing there, watching them leave.