Minutes to Burn

Szabla took an instinctive step forward, but Cameron grabbed her shoulder. "Orders," she said. Breathing hard, Szabla pushed Cameron's hand from her shoulder, but stayed put. Tank leaned hard on Derek as they approached, his movements stiff and pained.

A section of the cliff gave way, burying Juan's corpse and the Zodiac in a surge of rocks. As the last few stones tumbled to the top of the mound, Derek locked his arms around Tank's waist, lacing his fingers and straining as they stumbled across the slippery black rock into the surf. They tried to duck a four-foot wave, but it hit them square in the chest. Tank came up gasping, facing the others. To the west, water shot through the blowholes, sending screeching blasts into the air.

Szabla's face was blank. "Juan?" she asked.

Derek shook his head.

Justin leaned into Cameron, and she pressed back reassuringly with her shoulder. Tucker looked out across the rough ocean, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Savage smiled. "Welcome to Sangre de Dios," he said in a low purring voice.

Tank's legs gave out, and he hit the surf with a splash. It took four of them to lift him out of the water.

Chapter 25

The tremors subsided and soon Derek didn't even have to brace against the waves. The mound of lava rocks at the cliff shifted, sending a trickle down one side that flowed gentle and steady like hourglass sand before stopping. The air stilled.

Trailing long, slender streamers, a few red-billed tropicbirds circled overhead, preparing to return to their nests in the cliff walls. Baby Sally Lightfoot crabs scrabbled across the lava, their bright orange shells seeming to glow against the dark rock.

The soldiers waited silently for another aftershock, standing thigh-deep in the water. After about fifteen minutes, Derek sloshed up onto the flat lava plain. He turned to help Tank pull himself up, and the oth-ers followed.

The stack of cruise boxes and kit bags remained before the cliff walls, barely beyond the reach of the fallen rocks. The cruise boxes' hard tops had been dinged up, but they hadn't collapsed. The weapons box, along with several cruise boxes, was buried in the rubble with the Zodiac. Derek gazed at the collapsed section of the cliff. There was no way they'd be able to get Juan's body, the Zodiac, or any of the buried gear out from under that much rock. Not without a bulldozer. The weapons had been useless anyway, though Derek was not looking forward to filling out a report detailing the missing ordnance.

The soldiers assessed the terrain in silence. Rex looked pale, almost sickly, and he repeatedly glanced over at the mound of rocks burying Juan's body. Finally, Szabla smacked him on the chest. "Relax. All that staring's not gonna make him any less dead."

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?"