Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

About a hundred yards east, the lava and cliffs faded into the low-lying sand dunes. The beach was well clear of the cliff and other over-hangs, safe from falling objects during earthquakes and tremors.

"We'll set an LUP down on the beach," Derek said. "Tomorrow, we'll see about moving up somewhere stable and establishing permanent camp."

The soldiers dragged the cruise boxes across the lava to the beach and began to set the lay-up point, assembling the tents and stacking supplies. Derek and Cameron took inventory.

They'd stay one buddy pair to a tent. Diego was supposed to have shared the fifth tent with Juan; now he'd have it to himself.

Tank could barely fit on the standard-issue foam sleeping pad, so he sprawled out on the ground. Once he lay down, he couldn't get back up. Tank was drowsy with the pain, which was a bad sign, given his extremely high threshold. Once, in Copenhagen, he'd sustained a rifle butt blow to the head without passing out. Justin tried massaging out the spasms in his legs, but the muscles were too tightly knotted. Though Justin's trauma bag was on the boat, he always carried a few extra items in his kit bag, including Toradol. He gave Tank a 60 mg injection.

They mustered near the tents around a hurricane lamp, Derek facing them with his back to the night, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes. They'd pinned Tank's tent flap open so that he could look out on the meeting.

Cameron thumbed an eyelid, thinking of Juan sitting on the edge of the mausoleum, his wedding band a thin, gold streak in the night. She tapped her ring, checking it was still safe around her neck.

Rex cleared his throat nervously. "Look," he said. "I don't mean to be mercenary, but we're still going to complete the survey, right?"

Savage made a sucking noise, clearing something from between his front teeth. "I didn't drag my shit all the way here to turn tail and run at the first sign of a falling rock or a dead spic." He winked at Diego. "No offense."

Diego shrugged, not recognizing the slur.

"We're fucked on the Zodiac," Derek said. "Justin, tomorrow, you're gonna take a swim out to the boat, figure out how to get the rest of our gear to land. How's the Prick one-oh-four?"

Justin swung the backpack off, plunking it on the sand. The material was torn where it had been struck by the falling rock. "It took a blow," he said, as he carefully removed the radio. Cameron was relieved to see that the radio proper and the S-folded whip antenna both appeared to be intact. The size of an old-style VCR, the radio was a confusion of buttons and dials. The handset usually worked like a telephone, but both the receiver and transmitter were smashed.

After tuning the radio, Justin keyed the handset to break squelch, pushing the button on the side so that a burst of static would go through. "There's no way," he said. "We can't speak or get anything back."

"And my phone's buried over there." Rex gestured to the fallen cliff. "So that's it? We have no contact with the outside world?"

"Just not with the other islands," Derek said. He tapped his shoulder, indicating his subcutaneous transmitter. "We can still reach base through these. They're satellite."

"We gonna call in?" Justin asked.

"I don't see what for," Derek said. "Our job was to get Rex here, help him get his trinkets in place, and split. Far as I can see, that objective has not been compromised."

"I'd like to get one of the GPS units set early tomorrow morning," Rex said. He pointed at a narrow trail that led up through a break in the cliff walls of Punta Berlanga. "I'm thinking right up there if I can find suitable rock. After that, we gotta survey the island for other locations."

Derek crouched, letting a handful of the fine, flourlike sand run through his fingers. "We have camping gear, food, and kit bags with clothes and personals. From the boat, we need to grab medical supplies, scuba gear, mosquito netting, backup white fuel for the hurricane lamps, extra MREs, and K-bars. All the GPS equipment intact?"

"Yes," Rex said. "One of the tripods is a little bit-"

"That's good," Szabla said. "Then we can focus on getting the shit up and running and getting the fuck out of here."

Tank moaned inside his tent, trying to straighten his legs.

Derek rose, brushing his hands off on his pants. "Anyone…" He stopped to clear his throat. "Anyone want to say anything? About Juan?"

A silence filled the air, broken only by the soft sounds of the ocean behind them. Justin toed the sand.

"A few words or anything?" Derek added.

Savage coughed. Tucker blinked.

"Guess not," Szabla said.

Cameron helped pull several cruise boxes around the hurricane lamp to serve as makeshift benches. The others' eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She knew she looked equally spent, but sleep seemed unappealing with the memory of Juan's death so vivid.

Savage sat off by himself on the beach, legs crossed Indian-style, staring out at the dark water. Szabla watched him, the light from the hurri-cane lamp flickering across her face. Diego lay on his back across two of the cruise boxes, his arms dangling so his fingers brushed the sand. Szabla's face darkened when she glanced in the direction of Juan's buried body. "What a waste," she said.

Rex was leaning back against the cruise box, his face tilted up toward the heavens. "Have you heard of Enrico Caruso?" he finally asked.

Clearly annoyed, Szabla studied the hard surface of the cruise box between her legs as the other soldiers exchanged glances. "The tenor?"

"The tenor. On April eighteenth, 1906, after a riveting performance in Carmen, he retired to his suite in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The quake hit at five twelve in the morning, took the rear wall clean off the building. Well, Caruso was something of a superstitious guy." Rex lowered his eyes from the stars finally, looking at Szabla. "Italian," he said. Szabla bit back a smile, and Rex continued. "His conductor found him weeping in his room. To calm Caruso down and distract him from the aftershocks, he convinced him to look out on the devastation and sing. And Caruso did. Streets rent and broken, streetcars bent like toys, water mains shooting geysers, people sobbing and running and bleeding, and here's Caruso, singing at the top of his lungs, his voice ringing through the rubble, clear as a bell." Rex paused, shaking his head.

"This all looks like a mess to you," he continued. "A big fucking mess. The quakes and the sun, falling rocks and dead animals. But it all has rules. Nature always follows definable rules." He pointed at the crum-bled cliff wall in the distance, the mound of rock that formed Juan's makeshift grave. "The principal shock must've been east-west, given the damage moved along a north-south vector. That means this rumble was a little gift from the East Pacific Rise." He scratched the stubble on his chin, his eyes on the dark sky. "The earth's movements can be regulated, sometimes predicted. That can save lives."

He caught Szabla's eye again and stared her down. "Getting these GPS units in place is my way of singing through the disasters, of trying to win something back for our side." He laughed a short, dying laugh and ran his hand through his lanky black hair. "I know you all think the military has better things to do right now. I know that I'm an arrogant, narcissistic bastard, and that doesn't help much either. But we have the opportunity to accomplish something here. So what do you say you all just back off a few steps and give me a hand?"

They sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the island. Rex cuffed his sleeves, revealing a deep scar on the back of his right forearm.

"What's that?" Cameron asked, indicating the scar with a flick of her head.

Rex glanced down at it, as if noticing it for the first time. "Candle-stick, eighty-nine World Series. The Loma Prieta quake. I caught a flying hot dog vendor's box on the arm." He laughed. "Hardly heroic."