Minutes to Burn (2001) (3 page)

"He changed his tune rather quickly once Benneton got involved." The boa nosed its way up into Rex's crotch, and he shoved its head away. His was one of the larger boas around, even bigger than the behemoth the receptionist kept in her desk drawer at the vivarium in Quito. "'Preemptive' is a term largely missing from jarhead terminology. The military gives no consideration to how we could alleviate potential political or social problems down there. Always running around expending all their energy on secondary effects."

In the house across the street, a middle-aged woman watched Rex through the kitchen window, one soapy dish frozen midway to the sink. Rex waved and she turned away in horror. He glanced down and noticed that the boa's head was protruding from between his legs like a living penis. He opened the mailbox, but it was empty. The boa tightened around Rex's leg until it started to tingle. "How do you like those myths coming back from Sangre?"

Donald laughed. "I suppose it makes sense. In hectic times, people are more prone to project the uncertainties of the world onto something tangible."

"Monsters."

"Indeed. The Galapagos are a land of strange creatures to begin with. It's already in the cultural unconscious."

"Darwin's backyard," Rex proclaimed melodramatically.

"Indeed. Don't underestimate how much people love to believe that creatures dark and dreadful evolve there on a daily basis."

Rex snorted. "What we shouldn't underestimate is people's ignorance."

Donald sighed. "You rarely do."

The boa eased around Rex's stomach, sliding its tail up over one shoulder. It tensed and relaxed, an orange-spotted band of black moving about him like a pulse. Rex stopped in the middle of his lawn, turning his face to the rising sun. The boa wrapped a coil around his throat, and he felt the firm edges of its skeleton beneath the sleek surface. A minivan drove by, five faces peering at the window. It drifted to the side of the road, then veered sharply to avoid hitting a telephone pole. Rex did not notice.

"I'm just eager to throw down permanent benchmarks and get the continuous GPS units up around Sangre," Rex said. "It's about time we got more concise data on the rates of deformation and reduced the guesswork. In fact, that's what Frank should've been doing down there--scouting equipment locations. I bet he wasted his time collecting butterflies. Like when he spent two days observing that strain of mutated frogs outside Cuyabeno. He was so distracted he barely got the geochemical sensors in place."

"The ecos versus the tectos. Like the raging geology-geophysics rivalry when I was coming up. And I thought the Center was too young to be divided by factions."

"It's no longer divided," Rex said, "now that Frank has been sensible enough to pass on." There was a long silence and Rex glanced at the phone to make sure it hadn't cut out. "Just a little humor, Donald. Don't be a bore."

"Frank is a great loss," Donald replied defensively. "Aside from you, he was the nation's most prominent field ecotectonicist."

"Oh, come on, Donald. Frank wasn't prominent. Just loud and fortuitously published."

Donald heaved another deep sigh. "Some things..."

"And all that referring to himself in the third person. God that was awful. 'In attempting to witness the tireless mastications of the Rhicnogryllus lepidus, the author found himself in the middle of a magnificent rain forest glade.'" Rex groaned. "His phrasing was second only to that stupid Gilligan's Island fishing cap he wore everywhere like a yarmulke."

"Well," Donald said, a note of offense in his voice, "he's gone now."

"The fact that he's dead does not raise him in my professional estimation. But that's neither here nor there. What time are we meeting with the GI Joes Monday?"

"Nine o'clock."

The boa stretched itself out in the air, then swooped back toward Rex. He kissed it on the face. "I'll be there with bells on."

Chapter
4

Cameron
regarded the large wicker cornucopia bulging with plastic fruit that sat on the glass table smack in the middle of the waiting room. The cornucopia had stubbornly remained through her six years of checkups, gathering dust, the reds and oranges fading on the waxy peels. Particularly unsubtle decor for an OB/GYN's office, she mused.

Spread on a stand to her left were all the magazines that people only read in doctors' offices--Redbook, Psychology Today, Prevention. And on the lowest part of the rack, accessible to little hands, a neat row of Highlights for Children. How she hated that magazine. Along with crayons, decorative Band-Aids, and minivans, Highlights for Children was beyond Cameron's domain; it belonged to that vast and clanish group of people she had always regarded with something more than curiosity, something bordering on irritation. Some envy as well, perhaps.

The clicking of a woman's footsteps approached, and Cameron waited to see which door concealed them. Justin leaned forward and coughed uncomfortably as the door to the right of the waiting room opened. A girl, who couldn't have been older than sixteen, came out, a nurse trailing her by a few steps.

The nurse was a short, stocky Italian woman with the darkest rings around her eyes Cameron had ever seen. She was always there, that nurse, behind the door, escorting them in, escorting them out. Her back was humped with age, and when she smiled, her teeth protruded at all angles.

Though Cameron had never seen her up close, she would have bet the woman had wisps of facial hair. She recalled the street lady from that Tennessee Williams play with all the sex in it, the one who kept muttering, "flores para los muertos." Cameron cleared her throat softly and shifted in her chair. She would be seeing the woman up close soon enough.

In hands curled like talons, the girl clutched a cheap leather purse in front of her, as if concerned that someone might snatch it right in the waiting room. She looked shaken, her cheeks a puffy red that suggested she'd been crying a short time ago.

Smiling her sickening smile, the nurse pulled the door shut behind the girl, leaving her to face Justin and Cameron uncomfortably for a moment before she scurried from the waiting room. Cameron realized she was tense through her shoulders and neck.

Justin caught her eye and smiled. Reaching over, he pulled the clasp of her necklace around to the back so that it wasn't visible. A calming ritual. The ring dangled out of view beneath her shirt, a small bump in the fabric.

The thick wooden door to the right led back to the abortion suite. Cameron had always found it shocking that day surgery emptied into the same room where women waited for their postpartum checkups. It seemed wrong.

She'd spent enough time in the waiting room to be able to predict which door the other women were going to be beckoned through for their appointments. The doors even looked different. The door to the "proper" OB/GYN suite was painted a cheerful yellow, a large smudge-free window taking up most of the top half. The door that led into the dilation and curettage rooms was dark, solid, ominous. It didn't even have a peephole.

Younger girls in the waiting room, with dark half-moons under their eyes, were a shoo-in for the wooden door, especially when they were alone, or with only their mothers. When accompanied by both parents, they often headed through the happy yellow door, disappearing into the stream of light behind the window. Women who looked like teachers went through the yellow door, as did women with baby barf crusting on old sweatshirts proclaiming the names of cities and vacation spots. Women in smart navy blue business suits always went through the dark door. For these last women there were, to date, no exceptions. Navy blue was the color of death.

Feeling Justin's thigh pressed against hers, Cameron leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and studied the individual strands of the orange carpet. The navy blue suit women always seemed calm and assured while they waited; Cameron felt neither.

She suddenly felt her transmitter vibrate, a gentle tugging beneath the flesh of her deltoid. Turning her head, she spoke into her shoulder through her shirt, activating the unit.

In '04, subcutaneous transmitters had replaced saber radios, which had headsets that allowed soldiers actually to listen through their jaws. The transmitters were better protected than the bone phones and impossible to lose. The soldiers' day-to-day movements powered the units, kicking a tumbler back and forth and recharging a minuscule battery--self-winding watch style.

Cameron disliked using her transmitter in public; often it drew strange looks from people who thought she was talking to herself. It had been some time since she'd been paged.

Justin glanced over, eyebrows raised, then whispered a command to activate his transmitter as well. A click sounded in the room, indicating that the transmitter had switched from silent mode to audio. "Kates," Justin said. "Public."

Lieutenant John Mako had called in on the primary channel so that he could speak to them both at the same time. His disembodied voice issued through their transmitters. "Cam and Kates, Mako. I think I got you kids an assignment. You with Cam?"

Justin rested his hand on Cameron's knee. "No, sir, a redhead about five seven with a vacant smile."

"What do you mean, 'you kids'?" Cameron asked. "We're working together?"

"Do I have a speech impediment of which I'm not aware?"

"No, sir. It just seems a little . . . odd. Isn't that breach of--"

"I need bodies," Mako said. "And I need them quickly."

"What kind of time frame are we looking at here?"

"Briefing Monday, depart Monday night. I need you to babysit a scientist, take him down to Ecuador and make sure nothing gets his tape measure in a tangle. He's an earthquake guy, wants to check out an island down there. It's a short, easy mission. You'll be back in a week."

Justin groaned. "Sounds thrilling."

"You'll be surprised how much things have deteriorated down there. Might rustle up some excitement after all."

Justin leaned back in his chair. "I'll be sure to wear my spurs."

"How big's the platoon?" Cameron asked.

"It's a half. Seven, eight."

"Isn't that a bit vague given we're lifting out Monday?"

"You know how things are right now. Besides, this is hardly a black op."

"Who's the LT?" Justin asked.

Mako paused for a moment before answering. "Derek Mitchell."

Justin looked at Cameron nervously. "Do you really think that's a good idea, sir?"

"Do you really think you want to question my judgment?"

"Is Derek active again?" Cameron asked.

"He'll come off emergency leave. I'm pulling the rest from reserves."

Justin cleared his throat nervously. "But has he . . . recovered?"

"Enough. This mission will get him back into the swing, get his mind off things. It's exactly what he needs. Ask your wife. She's his ex-swim buddy."

"Yeah," Justin said, "but after what happened to his baby."

"Don't forget, it wasn't him who..." Mako's voice trailed off.

Justin gritted his teeth. "If you say so, sir."

Cameron leaned back in the chair. A flash of Derek on their last mission. Riding shotgun in a humvee, foot on the dash, tongue pressed into his cheek as he jammed M-4 mags. Miles of desert stretching around the vehicle in all directions. Without looking up, Derek handing her the last gulp in his canteen the minute she reached for hers. Knowing hers was empty before she did. "Who else?" Cameron asked.

"Some familiar faces."

"Like whose?"

"I did mention that the briefing was Monday?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you are aware of the purpose of a briefing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I'll assume there are no more questions at this time. Is that a fair assumption, Cam?"

Cameron flashed an unamused smile, letting it fall quickly back into a grimace. "Yes, sir."

"I'll be in touch with information about the briefing. In the mean-time, see if you can contain your curiosity." Mako clicked out without waiting for a response.

The old nurse pushed open the wooden door, which creaked softly on the hinges. She leaned forward into the lobby, a plastic clipboard in her hand. Her voice was deep, textured like a smoker's. "Kates. Cameron Kates. The doctor's ready for you."

Cameron looked up at the nurse. "How long will this take?"

The nurse shrugged. "Probably about fifteen minutes."

"Jesus," Justin said. "That's longer than it takes to make a baby."

"Yeah," Cameron said with a faint smile. "I wanted to talk to you about that." She glanced back at the nurse. "And I can be up and on my feet after?"

"You'll have to take it easy for a couple of days."

Cameron turned to Justin, her frustration evident. "I wanted to get this over with."

"If we're lifting out Monday..." Justin raised his hand, then let it fall to his knee. "You can't really risk being sore."

"Goddamnit." Cameron pushed herself back in the chair, then slumped down.

The nurse waited, tapping the clipboard against her thigh, her breath a rattle in her throat. Justin faced his wife, speaking gently. "It's only a week, honey. That'll even give me time to knock you up again."