Minutes to Burn (2001) (17 page)

Espanola and Santa Fe, the oldest existing islands at 3.25 million years, were less volcanically active than their westernmost cousins, Fer-nandina, Isabela, and Sangre de Dios, which at seven hundred thousand years still experienced marked fits and growing pains. Because the islands were formed of basalt, a low viscosity magma that flowed and spread easily, the volcanic peaks rose less steeply than their continental counterparts, whose silica-laden andesite magma permitted more coni
cal
protrusions. The product of gentle, effusive eruptions, the Galapa-gos were broad and mildly sloping islands that resembled the domed backs of the tortoises for which the archipelago was named.

The islands floated amidst seven oceanic currents, which carried with them marine life from as far away as Antarctica and Panama. The conflu-ence of these currents, warm and cold, northern and southern, gave the archipelago a climate uncharacteristic of the equator. In most aspects, Rex pointed out, the Galapagos were anomalous: the lumbering reptiles; the smattering of penguins and flamingos among the more traditional pelagic birds; the albatross that clattered their way through their elabo-rate mating dance and threw themselves from cliffs to become airborne.

Cameron had listened to Rex intently, but she'd thought the others seemed bored.

The sun in Baltra was much more intense than in Guayaquil. Their faces slick with sunblock, the soldiers exited the plane. Cameron felt the heat of the concrete through her boots. A Minutes to Burn electronic bill-board flashed 2:50 on the runway. Two Kfirs were parked on the far edge of the apron, where they sat in the hot sun, still linked to tow trac-tors--Israel had been kind to the Ecuadorian army.

Two French soldiers met them on the tarmac, their uniforms adorned with UN trimmings. One of them jogged out to direct the taxiing plane. Szabla conversed with the other in French and gestured to the squad to follow them inside.

The terminal was all but deserted. A flat open building with visible rafters and three-quarter-height walls composed of large porous brown slabs. The west wall had fallen over, but since it wasn't directly connected to the ceiling, it had dragged nothing else down with it. It left an open block of air, looking out over low, scrubby vegetation. Dirt had blown in, scattering across the concrete floor. The emptiness, in addition to the barren landscape and abandoned souvenir shacks, made the place seem haunted. The squad walked silently through the building. A wooden sign with grooved white lettering hung on the nearest wall: Bienvenidos, Parque Nacional Galapagos, Ecuador. To its left was a crudely painted blue map of the archipelago. Poorly drawn pictures of turtles, iguanas, and an impos-sibly elongated flamingo hung on the walls. A thin film of red dust cov-ered everything.

Cameron stepped forward, kit bag slung over one shoulder. An enor-mous cardboard cutout of a short, stubby penguin lay on the ground, the beady black eyes staring up at her dumbly. Savage put his foot on its beak. Setting a boot on one of the dilapidated benches, Cameron glanced at the old jitney terminal behind the airport. Just beyond it, a metal dolphin with chipped blue paint had fallen on top of a tortoise sculpture, giving the distinct impression that it was humping it.

Savage flipped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it, taking in the scene around them. "This place is a fucking zoo," he grumbled.

The French soldiers went behind the disused TAME ticket counter and Szabla waved the squad over. "Let's get our shit down on the mani-fest and head out of here."

The soldiers lined up and filled out the information, each listing name, rank, and company, completing a Park form, and showing the French soldiers military ID. Savage dawdled over by the wall, gazing at the cardboard cutouts. He put his cigarette out in a tortoise's eye. Tank and Derek loaded the gear onto a dolly they'd found in a back closet.

The two-mile road to the Itabaca Channel was split with scarps, earth-quake wounds where the ground had cracked and then clamped shut again. They'd have to heft their gear over felled telephone poles and wires to get to the dock. Cameron gazed at the strip of water. It was apparent that the channel had been created by water filling the crack of a seismic fault.

Rex tapped her shoulder with the clipboard, and she took it from him. He pointed to a small, flat-bottomed panga moored at the dock. Stretched out on the pontoon, a man slept in the shade afforded by the makeshift ramada of palm fronds that he'd propped overhead using two fishing poles. His hat was over his face, Huck Finn style. "The seismolo-gists at the Station said they'd have someone waiting," Rex said. "I arranged it a few weeks ago." He smiled, pleased with himself. "The roads across the channel are a mess, so we're going to have to take the panga around the island to Puerto Ayora."

He noticed Tucker mishandling a comms box and scurried off. The others had already headed out behind the airport and circled up, waiting for them. Cameron finished at the clipboard and handed it off to Sav-age, the last one left. He took it with some hesitation, and when Cameron glanced back, he was still standing over it, an uncomfortable expression on his face. He stared at the form, chewing the end of the pen. He set the pen down and followed Cameron, but the French soldier called out in heavily accented English, "This not eez complete."

Cameron backtracked and checked the forms. Though he'd written his basic information in the manifest, Savage had left the complicated Park form blank. He took out another cigarette, coughed into his fist, and put the cigarette away.

"You gotta do this shit," Cameron said. "We don't want a hassle."

Savage shrugged. "Fuck it." He raised a hand and ran it over his ban-danna. His face softened a touch, and Cameron thought she caught a glimmer of vulnerability in it.

"Move it!" Derek yelled from outside.

Savage cleared his throat. "Just a touch rusty, that's all," he said.

Cameron looked at his handwriting more closely. She glanced from his dyslexic scrawl to his face and picked up the pen. "Come here," she said. "I'll help you."

Chapter
20

S
amantha lay back on her bed, resting her legs straight up the wall. Lagging behind a guided tour of the facilities, a four-star general paused at the slammer window, double-taking at Samantha's posture. He stopped, crossing his arms in disapproval. Out of the corner of her eye, Samantha saw him looking at her. Thrashing around on the bed, she feigned a seizure, rolling her eyes and moaning. The general quickly turned and scurried away.

She sat up on the bed and rubbed her face. Suddenly, she recognized her children's laughter down the hall, and she rose and crossed to the window, waving as her three kids made their way toward her.

Iggy, her six-year-old, led the charge, running toward the slammer. Adopted from an orphanage in Kaliningrad, he had almost white hair which he wore in a bowl cut, his bangs a straight line across his forehead. His smooth cheeks were accented with nearly perfect circles of rosy red. Kiera limped behind him, still having trouble with her new prosthetic leg, which she'd only had a few weeks. She was growing so quickly, it seemed she was always adjusting to a new prosthesis. Maricarmen, the nanny, hurried behind the two older children, holding Danny, the three-year-old, on one hip.

Danny was emitting a long, steady moan, his voice garbling with each of Maricarmen's footsteps. He finally stopped and giggled explosively. Iggy reached the window first and banged on it. Samantha held her hand flat against the window, pressing it against the outline of his. "Hey, baby," she said. "I'm sorry I missed Christmas. But you have a ton of gifts to open the minute I get out."

Down the hall, Kiera tumbled over. A passing soldier stopped to help, but Kiera got up herself, adjusting her prosthesis and picking her back-pack up off the floor.

Maricarmen set Danny down and he ran to the window. Iggy had to pick him up so that he could see over the sill. Samantha kissed the glass, then realized that probably wasn't such a good idea and wiped her lips.

"I brought the air ticktacktoe!" Iggy cried, setting Danny down. He unrolled a thin, transparent plastic board against the window, and it clung in place. He pulled out a magic marker and made an "X" in the middle. Samantha pointed to a slot, and he penned in an "O."

"How are things going, Maricarmen?" Samantha asked.

Maricarmen rolled her eyes and ruffled Danny's hair. "He's no eat
ing
," she said, with her distinctive accent. "I make him peanut butter, but he refuse. And Iggy's no brushing his teeth."

Kiera reached the window and leaned against the glass. "So that's where my shirt went," she said.

Samantha gazed down at the NVME T-shirt. "I think the blond one's a cutie."

"Mom!" Kiera rolled her eyes. "You are so embarrassing."

"You'll have to buy marshmallow fluff for the peanut butter," Saman-tha continued to Maricarmen, "or else he won't--"

A lab technician approached and knocked on the glass. "Sorry to bother you, Sammy, but I wanted to let you know we finally got the shipment. Everything looks fine. Oh--and there's new gloves for the hood lines. Latex hands bonded to neoprene sleeves. Less slippery. Also, Tim's having problems with the Machupo rats. He can't get a safe handle on them."

"No!" Samantha said. "You can't use those gloves. We had them once before--"

"Mom!"

Samantha pointed at a slot, and Iggy penned in another "O." "And the latex separates from the sleeves. They leak like hell. Send 'em back and tell admin that their insistence on lowest bidder is going to have someone vomiting blood."

"Gross," Iggy said. "Your turn."

Maricarmen picked up Danny again, and he yanked on her necklace. Samantha turned back to her. "Brush. And pick up that glittery kid's toothpaste that comes out shaped like an elongated star on the tooth-brush." She tapped the glass to get the lab tech's attention. "Tell Tim to grab the rats by the tail and lower them onto a wire cage. When they pull away, their necks are exposed and it's the perfect scruff-grabbing angle."

Kiera pulled a folder out of her backpack. "I brought the flashcards. I'm sending them through the pass-through box," she said.

Beside the window was an autoclave that could be opened from both inside and outside the slammer. One side always remained sealed. Inside, extremely strong UV killed off any germs. Before an object was moved out of the slammer, it first had to sit in the box under UV light for fif-teen minutes, then be sprayed down with disinfectant for further decon-tamination.

Samantha grabbed Kiera's folder as Iggy cried, "Three in a row!" and wiped the marker off the board with his sleeve.

"No, don't..." Samantha shook her head, looking at the black smudge on Iggy's sweatshirt. He started a new game, drawing another "X." "I'm sorry they're being difficult, Maricarmen," she said, pointing at the board to take her turn. She pulled out an enlarged photograph from the folder and pressed it against the glass. It was a fuzzy black-and-white enlargement of long slender threads that curved around them-selves.

"Ea-sy," Kiera groaned. "Filovirus."

"Good, baby," Samantha said. She waved at Danny with one finger. "How's my little blowfish?" she asked. He laughed and puffed out his cheeks. Samantha turned to Maricarmen with pleading eyes, holding another photograph to the window. "I should be out in a week. I've already contacted day care--they can take them days. Do you think you could...?"

Kiera gazed at the photograph, which featured spaghetti-like rods curved in shepherd's crooks. "Marburg," she said. "Causes disseminated intravascular coagulation."

Maricarmen waved her hand. "Of course. I will maybe have to reschedule some things,but if you are busy saving the world..."

Iggy laughed. "My mom saves the world," he said.

"Not quite, honey."

Iggy banged into Kiera with his rear end, almost knocking her over. She leaned over, unstrapped her leg, and smacked him across the head with it.

"Kiera!" Samantha said. "We talked about that kind of attention-getting!"

"Well--"

"No 'wells.' Are you going to act like that when you're a senator? Well? Are you?"

"I'm not gonna be a senator. I'm gonna be a virologist."

"You can be both if you stop whacking people over the head with your prosthetic limb. Now..." Samantha pulled out another enlarge-ment and pressed it to the glass. Round particles containing small grainy bits.

Kiera bent over, strapping her leg back on. "Arenavirus," she said.

"Excellent." Samantha tapped the glass and Iggy penned an "O." He blocked her move with an "X."

The lab tech returned. "I took care of the gloves," he said. "And you got this from Donald Denton at the New Center." He pulled a test tube, containing the Sangre de Dios dinoflagellate DNA pellet, out of a padded box. "He thinks the plankton are virus-laden. I'm sending them through." Not wanting to damage the DNA, he clicked a switch to deac-tivate the heat and UV light inside the autoclave before placing the test tube inside. The precautions were only a necessity when moving materi-als from inside the slammer to out.

Opening the autoclave from her side, Samantha pulled out the test tube and held it up, then glanced at her microscope on the counter. She looked back at the kids.

"I know, I know," Kiera said. "You have to get to work now. I recog-nize when your mouth gets like that."