Minutes to Burn

Savage shrugged, enjoying the web of intrigue that he'd spun around himself. The new breed of soldier, raised with ethics books and dry-cleaned LTs, always expressed a certain disgust at anyone involved in the Vietnam mess. It had angered him at first, but he'd come to realize that the disgust was a form of respect. They knew he'd seen things that they'd never see, not in the push-button, long-range sniper world they lived in now. They knew he'd done things.

He sucked hard on the butt. "I was eighteen," he said. "It got lonely."

Szabla leaned back against the bed. She ran one of her hands up the curve of her arm, gripping her biceps. Justin had overheard Savage's remark. "You sick bastard," he muttered. "Rape, that's admirable."

Savage cocked his head, looking into Justin's handsome blue eyes. "Who ever told you war was admirable?"

The sunlight was dwindling, the brief equatorial dusk already under way. Tank and Cameron flanked Rex. Cameron was grateful to Rex for qui-etly letting the matter of the dog go. Frustration was setting in-they were beginning to realize just how difficult it was to locate one man in this neighborhood of dark streets and broken buildings. If they didn't find Juan to alert him of the take-off time tomorrow, Rex's survey would be compromised.

Cameron shooed away beggars as they approached, and watched for eyes darting to her boots so that she could thwart advancing shoe shin-ers. A woman walked by peddling newspapers-El Comercio's headline announcing another 120 dead in a Quito landslide.

They stopped at a vehicle underpass before Julian Coronel, a thor-oughfare with four lanes of quickly moving traffic. Across Coronel, an enormous white wall ran in both directions for as far as Cameron could see, broken only by large arches with locked metal gates. Ahead and to the left stretched a white pedestrian bridge, which Rex indicated with a gesture. "Might as well try there."

Underneath the bridge, colorful advertisements for ice cream were peeling from the concrete in strips. One strip ran through the smiling face of a light-skinned woman.

Steering wide of a group of homeless men, they climbed the pedes-trian bridge and walked over the busy thoroughfare. When they got halfway across, the land on the far side of the wall became visible, and Cameron gasped out loud. It was perhaps the most breathtaking sight she had ever seen. Against the backdrop of several small hills, white marble gravestones, tombs, and mausoleums stretched up into the air, forming what appeared to be a miniature city. Some of the tombs were so extravagant that they resembled residential buildings with distinct floors, each one featuring gates for the ornate caskets. A few others were domed, fronted with immense tinted-glass doors with polished metal handles. Paved walkways ran between the tombs, some of them as wide as small streets. Shrines, statues, and trees gave the cemetery a jagged skyline. Only a couple gravestones had fallen over; for the most part, the cemetery had been resistant to the tremors. It almost glowed in the dark-ening air, a small forest of white stone.

Even Tank stopped dead in his tracks.

"They call this 'La Ciudad Blanca,'" Rex said. "The White City." He grinned. "For obvious reasons."

Rex walked down the far set of stairs, descending down into the cemetery. It was almost nightfall, and Cameron glanced ahead at the rows of tombs, the myriad hiding places for muggers and thieves. Tank felt for the pistol in the back of his pants, so Cameron knew he was thinking the same thing.

"This is the history of Ecuador," Rex said. "Every important name, every important date, is here. Buried, gilded, commemorated."

As they walked through the grounds, Cameron noticed the family names carved into the white marble. Palm trees lined a slender, marble-paved lane, the trunks painted white. The silhouette of a man appeared in the middle of the path. He was genuflecting, staring up at the humbler monuments dotting the dark hillside.

Rex drew closer. "Juan?"

The man rose and threw his arms wide in greeting. He was an ugly man, with wide, uneven features, his cheeks deeply pocked. His skin was dark, his arms covered with hair. "Dr. Williams," he said in heavily accented English. "You are here in one piece, no?" He nodded to Cameron and Tank. "And the soldiers. A pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your offer to escort us."

"Offer?" Tank said, but Cameron elbowed him in the ribs.

"You might have waited at the lab," Rex said. "We've spent hours searching for you."