Minutes To Burn Part 9

The woman leaned over and hit a b.u.t.ton on the phone. "Get her in the slammer."

The slammers, run at Biosafety Level Four, were in the medical section, just beyond the hot suites. Two-room units with locks only on the out-side, the slammers each had two beds. Crash doors led to small operating rooms; in the event of a medical emergency, doctors could enter the slammers in full s.p.a.ce suits. The survivors of the Bolivia trip had been individually quarantined in three of the units since their arrival at Fort Detrick.

As the slammers' main function was to isolate and observe people who'd been exposed to hazardous agents, each featured an enormous window running the length of one wall. A cl.u.s.ter of technicians and virologists crowded around the Slammer Two window. Inside, Samantha sat on the bed, humming to herself.

One of the virologists, an overweight man with a bushy beard, clasped his hands and shook them in the air. "All right, Sammy!"

She stood and bowed, and went to the far wall and pretended to run against it, like a hamster on a wheel. The crowd outside cracked up. Then, she grabbed a coffee mug from the counter and ran it across the length of the window, as if drawing it across prison bars. More howls. Finally, the crowd began to dissipate, but not before her colleagues called out their good-byes.

Samantha sat on the bed and lowered her head into her hands, think-ing of the week before her. She'd been instrumental in developing a new test that could detect early BHF-specific antibody response in twenty-four hours-a test she'd soon take. If it showed that the antibodies were present in her blood, they'd have to clear the antiserum for use on the pilot and flight attendant. Even so, they'd need to hold Samantha for at least a week to be certain that the antibodies had cleared the virus from her body. She felt fine so far, but it was way too early to tell anything. Placing the palm of her hand across her forehead, she closed her eyes. The antiserum would work; she was convinced her methods were sound.

She glanced down at her watch and shot to her feet when she noticed the date. December 25. She had three children and a nanny waiting for her at home by a half-decorated tree, and she wouldn't be out of the slammer until New Year's. A sudden rush of guilt flooded through her. They hadn't had time to unwrap gifts this morning, and she'd promised she'd be home before dinner. How could she do this to her children?

Crossing to the telephone on the counter, she asked the operator to patch her through to home.

Kiera almost didn't hear the phone ringing over the blare of her stereo. She lay on her stomach sideways across her bed, flipping through Cosmo Girl, kicking her one leg lazily in the air behind her. Her skin was dark, betraying her Guatemalan heritage, and a chevron scar remained on her abdomen from the liver transplant she'd received as a five-year-old when she'd first entered the country nine years ago. Her walls were adorned with colorful posters: Timmy Mandalay sulking on a rocky sh.o.r.e; Daddy Trippilicious decked out in gangsta garb; the Ebola virus blown up to 10Kx magnification.

The song ended, and she heard the shrill ring of the phone. She stood, hopped over to it, and answered, having first to unearth it from beneath a mound of clothing. "Yeah?" The expression on her face changed to one of weary irritation. She lowered the phone, pressing the mouthpiece to her shoulder.

"Mom's in the slammer again!" she shouted.

CHAPTER 14.

--------------------- he creature felt something moving within her; it was time. Turning her head, she scanned the dark forest for a suitably protected loca-tion. She rustled through the understory of the Scalesia forest, twigs whispering against the smooth hard sh.e.l.l of her cuticle. The ground dipped slightly, the blanket of trees following the contour of the slope.

Suddenly, the ground moaned and vibrated beneath her feet, but she did not rear up on her hind legs; she was accustomed to the sound. The lava tube that ran beneath the stretch of the forest was catching the wind and sucking it along its innards.

About 350 meters in length, four meters wide, and five meters high, the tube had been formed centuries ago when lava had spread quickly out of a volcano crater. The surface of the lava had cooled quickly and hardened, but the inner flow had continued to rush downhill. When the lava flow ceased, an empty tube had been left behind, ringed with a hard-ened crust. Additional lava flows over the years had buried the tube, except for the two ends, which broke through the forest floor like gaping mouths.

Her front legs hanging before her, the creature nosed her way through the ferns shielding the southern entrance of the lava tube. They fell back into place after she pa.s.sed through, camouflaging the hole.

She all but filled the entrance, her antennae brushing the ceiling. Inside, the tube was cool and damp. Water dripped against the black lava floor, the sound amplified up and down the tunnel. A few thick Scalesia roots twisted into the cave at the entrance, running along its mouth. She moved forward, pulling her swollen abdomen to the base of the wall.

Though she was close to nine feet tall, the creature was not tremen-dously heavy; most of her height was in her long, spindly legs and neck. The significant length of her body made up most of her ma.s.s, but it too was light, enabling an efficiency of movement.

Grasping an outcropping of lava with the hooks of her forelegs, she tugged on it; it would hold her weight. Moving with quick halting motions and using the claws at the ends of her legs, the creature pulled herself up the wall until she was dangling upside down from the roof of the cave. She twisted her abdomen in tight circles, and a light frothy sub-stance began to emerge from the appendages at the tip.

As she turned her abdomen in continuous spirals, she formed the ootheca, the translucent case for her eggs. Two antennae-like protru-sions on the tip of her abdomen combed the froth as it emerged. Apply-ing discreet doses of the white material, she built a structure five feet in width, enmeshed along the length of the thickest tree root. Then she began the laborious task of inserting her eggs inside the structure, each egg laid at the base of its individual chamber. The chambers would pro-tect her offspring from predators and desiccation; they were bordered with pockets of insulating air and topped with one-way valves that would permit the fragile larvae to emerge without damaging themselves.

The creature labored with the unremitting energy of a machine, twist-ing through her arcane, instinctual dance. The chambers of the ootheca that were laid first began to harden. The female finally egested the last bit of froth, pinching it off neatly into a final chamber. There were eight individual chambers in the ootheca. Her abdomen swayed again, strain-ing, but nothing more emerged.

Still upside down, she curled up, grooming excess froth from the tip of her abdomen with her mouth. If the froth hardened, it would prevent her from being able to excrete wastes, and she would die prematurely. Rolled in a complete circle, she looked like a huge green bud sprouting from the roof. She cleaned herself meticulously, her mouth worrying over her lower extremities. Finally, exhausted, she crawled back to the ground.

The creature pulled herself from the cave, breaking through the veil of ferns into the open air. A pair of smooth-billed anis lifted from a tree to her left, and her head pivoted automatically to watch them depart. They called to each other in distinctive whining whistles, as they faded into the foliage, black dots with streaming tails.

The creature moved forward, tired but oddly strengthened.

She was hungry.

CHAPTER 15.

--------------------- ameron was disappointed not to find her husband back in his room. She and Justin had done well maintaining a professional distance, but it was more difficult than she would have thought. Until now, she'd never realized how accustomed she was to small, affectionate exchanges-exchanges not overtly emotional but quietly attentive, like how he'd pull her shirt down in the back when it came untucked.

Tucker and Savage's room was empty, save Tucker's good-luck charm, a thermite grenade, which rested on top of the small minibar. Cameron peeled back the top pocket of her cammy pants, glancing at the digital face sewn inside-2107. The others had probably gone out for chow. She paged Szabla to ascertain everyone's location, then knocked on the door to Tank and Rex's room.

Tank stepped out into the hall. He looked at the ground as he some-times did when he was around Cameron, as if schoolboy-nervous to look her in the eye. "Uh... Cam." He cleared his throat. "About the thing with the dog..." He scratched his hair above an ear.

"Apology accepted," she said.

He nodded a little, then raised a hand halfway to her face, as though he wanted to touch her. He withdrew his hand and gestured. "You have a, uh, a hair in your mouth."

She brushed the wisp of hair aside, hooking it behind an ear, and headed to her and Derek's room. At first, she thought it was empty, and she was angry that the weapons had been left unguarded, but then the door to the balcony banged in the breeze and she crossed and saw Derek sitting out there alone. There was no sound of the baby next door.

"Cam," he said without turning around.

"Yeah?" She pulled the mag from her Sig and tossed it in the cruise box.

Without looking at her, Derek pulled the key chain from around his neck and handed it to her. She unlocked the two padlocks on the weapons box and set her pistol next to Tank's on the foam. "I might need a little time alone tonight," he said when she handed him back the key. "Would you mind bunking in with Justin and Szabla? I figured you wouldn't mind sharing a bed, given he's your husband."

Cameron leaned against the door to the balcony. "Well, I don't...I don't know that that's appropriate....Why don't-"

"I'm the OIC," he murmured. "I decide what's appropriate."

Cameron took a moment to digest the rebuff before speaking. "I paged Szabla. She said they're out at a restaurant down by the river. Sav-age took off somewhere." She paused, deciding how to phrase her next sentence. "I know everyone's antsy, but you gotta rein them in. We can't be scattered all over the city like this."

"I know," Derek said.

"Maybe I should go round them up."

He nodded slowly but still did not turn around. She watched the back of his head for a moment, then reached out and set her hand on his shoulder. He did not seem to notice. She removed her hand, backed out of the room, and closed the door quietly behind her.

Derek sat trance-like after she left, gazing over the rooftops as the minutes smeared into one another. The streets within his view were empty. The construction crews would be back in the morning, hammer-ing things together-streets, buildings, sidewalks-readying them for the next wave of destruction. The noise of a guitar being badly played carried to him, and occasional high-pitched voices and peals of laughter. The night never faded in these towns, these South American towns; it just eased into daylight.

He closed his eyes for a moment, felt the humidity on his cheeks, the tropical scent of life and rot in the air. Cameron was right; as the LT, he had to buckle down and keep things under better control. It would be some time before he felt as though his thoughts and emotions were put away where they belonged instead of sliding around inside him like bro-ken gla.s.s. The baby next door certainly wasn't helping. Though it hadn't cried in a while, he could still hear it, gurgling and cooing.

Down below, a couple walked up the street, holding hands. The man stopped and helped the woman over a wide fissure in the sidewalk. A vivid image caught Derek by surprise-Jacqueline late in her pregnancy watering the roses out back, her belly a globe beneath a yellow dress, her smile wide and drifting, full of secret thoughts.

He ran his fingers over the b.u.mp of the transmitter-his bug. Ever since Jacqueline had been committed to the inst.i.tution, he'd awaken in the night, listening for the soft rasp of her breathing or the cry of the baby beneath the crickets, and the hum of the electric clock. But then he'd remember they weren't there. It was just him, just him and the crick-ets.

He'd stopped by to say good-bye to Jacqueline before leaving on the mission.

Her Haldol dosage had been increased again, the antipsychotic med-ication making her face fight itself-stretching, biting, popping like a carnival clown's. She'd stopped washing again; he'd noticed a thin line of dirt at the base of her hairline.

As soon as Derek had gotten within her reach, she'd dug a finger painfully into his ear, searching for bugs. She'd twisted her nail so hard he'd had to check his ear for blood. She believed they were planting bugs on their minions-a conviction exacerbated or maybe even caused, he feared, by the penny-sized transmitter that stood out from the curve of his left anterior deltoid. She thought he'd been bugged under his skin.

He had stood in the small, sterile hospital room, gazing at the woman who was his wife with tragic disbelief. In the hospital parking lot, he'd sat in his wife's old Subaru, pressing his forehead to the top of the steering wheel, a keen sense of loss moving inside him like a sharp-bladed tool. He hadn't been in his wife's car since Before; he'd only driven it that day because he'd banged his truck against a tree the night before coming home from a bar. Her car had echoed with memories of the unintelligi-ble cooing, sounds that wouldn't quite form themselves into words or laughter. Before driving off, he'd ripped the bright pink-and-white cush-ioned car seat from the upholstery and hurled it away.

It had been a long road since the wedding five years ago. Jacqueline had been nineteen years old then, just a baby, her rich brown hair pulled back in a French braid. She used to wear a pair of round gla.s.ses that made her look like a librarian. Bad genetics, his friends from the teams would joke, referring to her bad eyesight, but they wouldn't have joked if they'd known how right they were.

Since her father had asphyxiated himself on the fumes of his '77 Dodge Ram in the garage two days after she'd turned eleven, Jacqueline had been raised by her mother alone. By the time Jacqueline began high school, her mother was already having delusions, and around Jacque-line's soph.o.m.ore year, she'd started hearing the voices of the three mon-keys and was moved to the Whitehill Psychiatric Inst.i.tution. Jacqueline had been raised in Utah by a stern spinster aunt.

It had been difficult for Derek to admit that his wife needed to be inst.i.tutionalized. He'd fought the reality for months and it had cost him everything. He'd never forget the morning he finally drove through the wrought-iron hospital gates and left her there with the battered brown suitcase she'd packed with three dresses and a rain slicker when she'd fled Utah for college. Now, one continent and nearly four thousand miles away, the images still maintained their vise-grip on him. It felt pretty barren now, his life, and it didn't look as if it would be changing anytime soon.

He was snapped from his thoughts when the building lurched, throw-ing his chair to the side. He grabbed hold of the balcony railing to steady himself, but it pulled free from the stucco and plummeted to the street. He staggered inside the hotel room, falling over and banging his head on a cruise box. His Sig Sauer fell from his belt. One of the walls was undu-lating so fiercely, he thought it might buckle. Pulling himself to his feet and wiping the blood from his forehead, he fought his way to the weapons box, the floor shuddering beneath his feet. He double-checked both padlocks, then turned, lurching out into the hallway in time to see Tank rush Rex to the stairs. The woman from next door flashed down the stairs to safety, the baby cradled to her chest.

Rex was grinning a madman's grin. "Feel those compressional waves?" he yelled.

Derek pointed Tank down the stairs and Tank yanked Rex along with him. The stairs seemed to be swaying from side to side. The three men crashed through the lobby and stumbled onto the street. The quake finally subsided.

"Here," Rex said, pulling them into an arched stone doorway across the street. People ran past in both directions. Shattered gla.s.s was strewn across the sidewalks, and a few fingers of asphalt had risen in the street, but no buildings had gone over. The hotel guards were arguing with a construction worker at the end of the block.

Derek felt for his gun and noticed it missing. "f.u.c.k!" he barked.

Eyes glowing with excitement, Rex didn't seem to hear him. "We're practically sitting on the epicenter," he cried, banging his fist into his palm. "Those roller coaster waves-those are the shear waves. Usually there are all sorts of heterogeneities by the time they reach you, but those f.u.c.kers were clear as day." He leaned out the doorway to look up the street, but Derek forced him against the wall, his forearm pressing into the top of his chest. "That must've been a six!" Rex crowed, strain-ing to see over Derek's arm.

They huddled together until some of the commotion settled on the streets. Soon it was quiet, save the long, wailing moans of a woman somewhere in an apartment nearby. Derek stepped cautiously from cover. He glanced up an alley alongside the building and realized that it was the same side street his room overlooked. He located his balcony and saw a man frozen in the window, looking right at him. He was the man they had seen earlier, the handsome guayaquileno with the unbut-toned shirt and gold chains. They stared at each other for a moment, then the man bolted from the window and Derek sprinted for the lobby.

A worker tried to restrain Derek at the door, but Derek sent him fly-ing with a straight-armed shove. He was up the stairs two at a time, and he kicked through the door to his and Cameron's room, splintering one of the wooden panels. The cruise box holding the two spare ammo crates and all the jammed mags was empty, and Derek didn't see his pis-tol on the floor. The weapons box and the other cruise boxes were banged up, some of them flipped over, but they all seemed to be intact.

Cursing, Derek leapt back through the doorway and glanced in both directions. At the far end of the hall, a large window, newly shattered, looked out onto Calle Pedro Carbo. Derek sprinted the length of the hall and stuck his head out, cutting his hands on the bits of gla.s.s stuck in the bottom of the frame. Holding the last ammo crate, the man with the gold chains ran to a waiting truck. The back was covered, but through the flap, Derek saw the other ammo crate, and a bag he a.s.sumed held the Sig and M-4 mags. The man turned back and laughed, spreading his arms. He blew Derek a kiss, jumped in the pa.s.senger seat, and the truck was gone.

Derek stood for a moment leaning in the direction it had gone, breathing the heat, watching the truck's exhaust fade into the air. Behind him, a bare bulb dangled from a wire, its protective casing smashed. Light danced around the narrow hall as the bulb swayed from an after-shock. When Derek shifted his weight, he noticed the gla.s.s digging into his palms, so he lifted his hands from the sill. Turning, he sank to the floor, leaning back against the wall. He raised his hands to his face and pushed back the skin of his cheeks until his eyes slanted.

There was a momentous rumble from the stairs, then Tank ran down the hall toward Derek, Rex following close behind. Tank stopped before Derek, breathing hard. "What?" he asked.

Derek lowered his hands. His cheeks were smeared with blood from his palms, two crimson marks like war paint. "The ammo," he said. "They got the ammo."

The squad convened at the hotel immediately following the earthquake, Cameron having successfully rounded up the others. Derek sat in the wooden chair, the soldiers circled silently around him. The cuts on Derek's hands were superficial; Justin had easily picked out the gla.s.s, then applied antibacterial gel. They all stared at the boxes, which Derek had already opened and inventoried.

"At least they didn't take the geodetic equipment," Rex said.

Szabla's smooth cheeks drew up in a squint. "The black marketeers will be devastated."

"I contacted Mako, who put me in touch with the UN colonel who runs this AO," Derek said. He spoke in a soft, angry voice. "As you can imagine, the colonel was less than helpful in fielding my request for replacement ordnance, despite the fact that this happened in their f.u.c.k-ing backyard. The UN does not seem to be making us the highest prior-ity, which in light of the ammo shortage down here, puts us somewhere worse off than s.h.i.t out of luck. They did promise armed transfer to the airport tomorrow."

"Whoopee," Szabla said.

Tank started checking the weapons to see if anyone had accidentally left a round chambered. "Nothing left?" Tucker asked. Tank shook his head.

Derek said, "Both crates and the mags. They got it all. We're essen-tially without weapons."

Savage thunked his boot down on the edge of Derek's chair. He pulled up the leg of his pants and yanked his blade from the ankle sheath. "Not really," he said.

"Yeah," Justin said. "I'm sure we could take on an army with that bad boy."

Derek knocked Savage's foot off his chair. "That's the good news," he said. "We don't need to take on an army. We lift out tomorrow morning, and the islands are a docile environment."

"How do you know that?" Rex asked.

"Guayaquil's basically a docile environment," Szabla said.

"Yeah, you guys seem to be breezing through this leg of the mission."

Szabla stiffened. "Look, you f.u.c.k-"

"I have been a.s.sured that the islands are not hostile," Derek said, "aside from the obvious seismic complications against which weapons will hardly be useful. Our mission is to a.s.sist you in distributing the GPS gear, which we can accomplish without ordnance."

"I'm just nervous about bandits, or random..." Rex stopped, looking around. "Well, it is a concern. The situation in Galpagos has gotten increasingly desperate."

"I think you'll find the seven of us adequate bodyguards," Derek said.

Szabla held up a hand, fingers spread. "One of us would be an ade-quate bodyguard." She rose from the bed. "But remember your request for a ma.s.sive misallocation of resources? You see, to impress you and all the contacts you called in-"

"Szabla," Derek said, his voice raised in warning.

"-we all have to waste a week and wave guns around so you feel like you're well taken care of in a city less dangerous than New York on an average Sat.u.r.day night."

"Szabla!" Derek barked. She looked down, fuming.

Rex applauded her performance. "Love the drama," he said. "And you're right, Guayaquil is much safer than New York City, if you ignore all the minor details of life here, like, say, those four journalists who were found two weeks ago with their d.i.c.ks cut off and rammed down their throats. Hey, Guayaquil has even more advantages over the Big Apple. More of the cab drivers speak English. . . there's no Andrew Lloyd Web-ber... "

Szabla lunged for Rex, but Cameron stepped in her way. Szabla stopped before b.u.mping into Cameron and stared at her, but Cameron didn't meet her eyes. "Why don't we all take a time-out here?" Cameron said softly, looking down at her boots. After a moment, Szabla took a step back. Cameron continued, "We no longer have weapons but, as Derek said, they're not essential for our mission objectives from this point. We'll get an armed escort to the airport tomorrow and from there, we can easily bodyguard Rex and Juan, a.s.sist in positioning the equip-ment, and get home."

"So everyone stow it and get some sleep," Derek added.

They grabbed their kit bags and headed for the door.

"Feliz f.u.c.kin' Navidad," Justin said.

CHAPTER 16.