Minutes to Burn (2001) (6 page)

"Hey, guys," Tucker said. The same easy Alabama drawl.

As she neared, Cameron noticed that Tucker looked different some-how, not quite sickly but weary, as if he'd just come out the far side of a harrowing dream. He smiled. "Hey Tucker," Cameron said, as Tank gathered her up in an immense hug.

A building of a man, Tank kept his blond hair cut in a flattop, giving his head a rectangular appearance. Cameron and Justin both suspected that he harbored an enormous crush on Cameron; in noncombat situations, she was the only person he allowed to touch him. Supposedly, he'd been at the top of his class through BUD/s in Coronado, and he'd gone on to be a sixty gunner with Justin on Team EIGHT, his bulk allowing him to tote the larger M-60. No one knew much about Tank's past, but it was rumored he once played center for Notre Dame.

Tank didn't talk much.

"Szzzaaabbbllaaa!" Justin growled through a smile. The "S" in "Szabla" was silent, giving her name a rhyming beat that the other soldiers drew out like a swear word used affectionately--Za-bla. The name, along with a 110-pound rottweiler named Draeger, was left over from a short-lived early marriage.

Szabla turned to Justin, still in a fighter's stance, and feigned two jabs at his face. A black woman with well-defined, even features, Szabla was striking, though hard in appearance. Her arm muscles were better defined than those of most of the male soldiers; Justin maintained that he could rest a beer on the shelf of her triceps. As always, she wore a sleeveless top to show off her build; today it was an army-green tank. Since she wore her brawn over her intelligence, it was easy to forget that Szabla was ROTC, MIT, Phi Beta Kappa. She'd been a structural engineer as an undergraduate, and after she graduated, she had been one of the first women through BUD/s. Though she remained in the Special Forces reserves, she was an architect full-time at a downtown Sacramento firm.

"Droppin' off the little lady?" she asked.

"Nope," Justin said. "I'm your corpsman."

Szabla drew her head back, her forehead lining with wrinkles. "Hubby and wife? This ain't no Amway convention."

Cameron shrugged. "I don't know what's going on. Mako told us both to report." She walked over to Savage and extended her hand. "Cameron Kates."

Savage glanced down at her hand, then looked away. She lowered her arm, electing not to comment since she couldn't determine his rank from his ripped cammies. As she stepped back, she noticed that he wore only one boot.

Savage followed her eyes down to his sock. "Tough night," he said.

Cameron turned to Szabla, who raised her eyebrows. "Far as I can see," Szabla said, "he ain't gonna join in any reindeer games."

Cameron smacked Tucker in the chest. "We got something of a reunion going on here, huh?"

Tucker shifted on his feet and smiled his nervous smile, his eyes darting to the pavement. "Yeah. Guess so. I been...I sorta fell off for a while there, you know." He laughed a short stuttering laugh, and Cameron noticed his eyes were ringed with faint black circles, like fading bruises. "You know how it goes."

"Who's our OIC?" Szabla asked.

Justin turned to her, eyebrows raised. "You haven't heard? Derek."

"Mitchell?" Szabla whistled, one dying note.

"He'll be fine," Cameron said defensively. Justin rested a hand on her back, but she stepped away ever so slightly, not wanting to have any personal displays before the other soldiers.

Szabla snorted. "Listen, girl. After going through something like he went--"

Derek rounded the corner, pulling off his jacket. "Sorry I'm late." At six foot four, Derek was surprisingly unintimidating, especially for someone built like a linebacker and trained extensively to kill other people. Barrel-chested, arms stretching his shirtsleeves at his biceps, he tapered in, almost impossibly, to a slim waist before expanding again through his powerful quads. His full cheeks would have made him look young were they not generally covered with stubble.

He nodded at Justin and hooked Cameron's neck with a hand, yanking her forward on her toes. "It's good to see you, Cam." His eyes drifted, then focused. "Really good to see you." He turned to Justin with a smile. "So how do you feel about me stealing my old swim buddy here back for the mission?"

Justin shrugged. "Take my wife, please."

Derek turned to Cameron and winked. "You should get yourself a real man."

Justin laughed. "That's what I keep telling her."

Derek nodded at Tucker, then smacked Tank on the shoulder. Tank didn't move.

"Hey, LT." Szabla leaned over, offering her hand to Derek. He slapped it, and they locked hands for a moment.

Derek strode over to Savage and glanced him up and down. Savage didn't bother to meet his eyes. "Why don't you introduce yourself to the platoon?"

Savage ignored him. Derek leaned in close until his face was inches from Savage's. Savage met his eyes evenly. Leaning back against the wall, he made no effort to rise to a more protective posture. Finally, his eyes flickered to the others. "We got seven men." He looked at Cameron, then at Szabla. "Make that five. That ain't a platoon. That's three shy of a half."

"For all practical purposes, it's a squad, and I'll run it as such." Derek paused, straightened up. "I gave you an order."

Savage ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip, his blue eyes hard like bits of sea-washed glass. "Savage," he said. "William Savage."

"Are you shitting me?" Justin said. "Savage? Yeah, okay buddy." He turned to Derek. "If he's Savage, then I get to be Harddick."

"And I wanna be Dickwrench," Szabla added. "Or something."

"You already are," Justin smirked. Szabla flipped him off.

"If you're having trouble with the name," Savage said, running a hand over the stubble beneath his beard, "I can carve it on your forehead for you."

"Yeah, try not to knock over your walker as you head over here," Justin said. He laughed, shaking his head. "Savage. That's great. That's fucking brilliant."

A mother walking with her two kids saw the group of soldiers up ahead and ushered her kids across the street to avoid them. They turned into Roosevelt Park and the children sprinted ahead onto the soccer fields, laughing.

Savage reached out, sliding his fingers down behind Justin's ear before Justin knocked his hand away. Savage rubbed his fingertips together, then smelled them. "Still a little wet."

"Oh?" Justin said, slightly flushed. "Not up to par with your Civil War comrades?"

"Vietnam. Team ONE, Bravo Platoon, sixty-gunner."

"I thought we'd forgotten about all the Vietnam vets," Szabla said. "Wasn't that national policy?"

"You fuckin' candy-ass whore--"

"Candy-ass whore." Szabla whistled. "Nice, this is nice. Where'd you find this one, LT? Recruiting in prisons?"

"Actually, yes," Derek said. A thick silence settled over the soldiers. Savage grinned vengefully.

"Fuck," Tank said.

Cameron tapped Derek on the arm. "Can I have a minute here, please?" Derek followed her across the street to the park. Cameron slowed down near the playground, setting her foot in the bucket of a swing. "What's going on, Derek?" she asked.

He didn't respond, so she just looked at him, hard and steady. Finally, he sighed. "It's a low-priority mission."

"That seems to be something of an understatement. We're a shooter short, Tucker looks like death warmed over, and Mako sprang a jailbird."

"Look, Mako doesn't have the men, but he was getting leaned on from up top. I guess one of these New Center guys predicted an earth-quake in Santa Cruz, gave the residents twelve hours' notice to evacuate. Saved some lives, including--"

"That of our very own Secretary of the Navy, Andrew Benneton," Cameron said with a grimace.

"Favors, like shit, flow downhill. You know the drill: Secretary of the Navy calls the Commander, who calls the Team THREE CO, who calls our favorite Operations Officer, John Mako, who, with little notice and a big headache, needs to field a SEALs squad."

"So he scraped together reserves and pulled you back from leave."

Derek nodded. "His ass is covered as long as he provides BUD/s-trained soldiers. We're just here to dog-and-pony. The best I could do was request old platoon-mates. No one wanted this. It's a jerk-off of a mission--keep the slipper in one piece and get him home as quickly as possible. If it's feeling a touch half-assed, that's because it is."

Cameron let her breath out in a whistle. She glanced at the kids run
ning
over the lawn. The girl attempted a cartwheel and landed flat on her back. "How's Jacqueline?"

Derek bit his lip, turning his face to the breeze. "You never know just how tough you are until something like that happens. Just how much you can stand." His face looked narrow and displeased, as though he'd bitten into something sour. He murmured, "You have no idea what it's like to lose a baby."

Cameron averted her eyes, uncomfortable. "No. No I don't."

Derek shook off his thoughts like a chill and turned back, all business again. "I'm gonna run the squad like they used to run half platoons before they kicked the fulls up to sixteen. Szabla's next in rank as an 0-2, so she'll be the AOIC. Believe me Cam, I'd rather it was you."

Cameron wasn't really sure what to make of his rapid mood swings-- she figured they were bumps in the road of his mourning process.

"At least we don't have any screaming seamen on board," Derek continued. "You five are all E-4 and up, though Savage and Tucker haven't kept up proficiency training in some time. Like I said, low-priority mission."

Cameron grimaced. "What a squad."

"Hey!" Szabla yelled from across the street. "You about done with your little tea party?"

Derek waved for her to shut up and nodded at Cameron. "Ecuador's in a martial law state--first time since '78, I think. Heavy UN influence. There was some talk upstairs about having NATO move in so we could have more control, but the French weren't having it. We'll have to cut through a decent amount of red tape at Guayaquil, but it should be clear sailing once we hit the islands."

"Is Guayaquil that dangerous?" Cameron asked.

"Hell no," Derek said. "The city center's cordoned off--it's basically a UN camp. Outside of that, there's still a lot of random crime, as always, but things are up and running. I suppose it's no place for a civilian, but it's hardly Borneo. These scientists are just freaked out because that last guy went missing."

"Or they're using us to cut through the red tape."

"Probably a little of both." Derek formed a fist and held it out. "Gonna need your level head and your bad Spanish."

Cameron tightened her hand and Derek brought his down on top of hers. He smiled, and a few faint wrinkles fanned through his cheeks. Cameron noticed a patch of stubble on his chin that he'd missed while shaving and felt a sadness move through her. Derek had aged a decade since she'd seen him last month. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" she asked. "It's hardly been six weeks."

"I know. But this is a cakewalk of a mission. It'll get my legs back under me." He smiled almost bashfully. "Mako leaned on me pretty good. I didn't want to do it at first. Didn't think I was ready."

"What changed your mind?" Cameron asked.

"When he told me you were signed on." Derek looked down and studied his thumbnail for a moment. When he raised his head, his eyes were steeled with resolve. "Let's get this goatfuck on the road."

Donald faced Rex across the oblong disk of granite that served as the New Center conference table. Charts and diagrams hung about the room, and information seemed to jump out from the walls--the dark
ened
hues of bathymetric maps, the curving arrows of oceanographic currents, the jointed lines of surface temperatures climbing hesitantly upward. No fewer than five computers were currently running, though Rex and Donald were the only ones sharing the office on the top floor. The other scientists worked in cubicles below, or in the basement lab.

"I'm impressed you were able to get here on time," Donald said. A slightly rounded short gentleman with kindly eyes and a shock of white hair that sprayed up from his head at all angles, Dr. Donald Denton stubbornly refused to yield to comb or brush. He wore only linen-- linen shirts of all shades and patterns, linen dinner jackets at formal events, linen slacks so wrinkled they resembled corduroys. His skin had an enthusiastic reddish sheen to it, as if he had just finished some weighty task that involved a great degree of physical exertion. The truth of the matter was that he loathed physical exertion. Fortunately for him, as the President of the New Center, and the more academic Co-Chief of Research, the closest he got to exercise was a few swings of a rock hammer.

Still breathless, Rex pulled off his bicycle helmet and tossed it in the corner. "Well, it's not every day one gets his very own team of trained SEALs."

Donald leaned over, exhaling audibly, and pulled two jars filled with red-tinted, brackish liquid from a padded box. He set them on the table before Rex.

"Alien urine specimens?" Rex asked.

"Water samples. From Frank. Dated the twenty-seventh of October. The mail from Ecuador, as you can imagine, has all but ground to a halt. They came in on a cargo plane late last night, and were waiting for me here when I arrived this morning."