Minutes to Burn

Diego had set up the PRC104 radio with the whip antenna and was trying to reach the Darwin Station. Though he couldn't speak through the handset, he was keying it so that it would break squelch in Morse, sending an SOS. The odds of someone's overhearing the radio in his office were low, especially since the Station was close to deserted, but he was playing long odds that one of the locals or Ramoncito would hap-pen by.

"Why can't I just radio Puerto Ayora for you?" Mako asked. "Have 'em send a boat?"

"Because," Diego said. "Even if there was another appropriately sized boat, which there isn't, the satellite radio there is broken. There's only a PRC104 with a whip antenna, like this one. It can't pick up signals from the continent, let alone North America."

Mako was silent for a few moments after Derek relayed the infor-mation. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded tinny, distant. "We're chin-deep in shit with skirmishes at the Peruvian border. Don't know when we can get you a helo." His sigh came out angry, even through the transmitter. "You know how we are with air assets right now, Mitchell."

"Yes, sir." Derek grimaced, his pale lips dried and cracked.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Very well, sir."

"First time you called in, you lost your ammo. Now it's the boat and your weapons. Think you can manage not to lose anything else until we speak again?"

Derek cleared his throat, angling his mouth toward the transmitter. "Yes, sir," he said, but Mako had already clicked out.

"Well, that went swimmingly," Rex said. He stood, slapping his hands to his sides. "I need to check in with Donald. Update him."

"How're you gonna do that?" Savage said. "Ain't got no radio."

"I thought…I thought I could use one of your transmitters," Rex said.

Tucker stiffened. "Oh, for Christ's sake," Szabla said, glaring at Tucker. "Grow the fuck up." She yanked the arm of her tank top down off her shoulder, revealing the bump of her transmitter. She turned to Rex. "Come here," she said.

Rex sat beside her, and Szabla activated the transmitter, then had the military operator connect them to the New Center's telephone line. Rex leaned forward to speak into the transmitter, his lips close to Szabla's bare shoulder.

"Rex," Donald said. "I'm glad to hear from you. Got some strange results back from that dino pellet."

"We've had our share of oddities on this end as well," Rex said. He filled him in on Juan's death, losing the boat, and the larva that Cameron and Derek had discovered.

There was a long, breathless pause. "I'd do anything to see that larva," Donald finally said. "I'll ready the lab in case you bring it back."

"What were you saying about the dino pellet?" Rex asked.

"I was correct. About its containing a virus. Dr. Everett was unable to identify it-they have it in a nucleic acid probe test now, but I doubt strongly it'll correlate to any gene bank specimens. They just E-mailed me the micrograph-the virus looks like curved ladders, like segments of DNA."

"What are its effects?"

"They've yet to figure out its pathogenicity, but Everett's extremely concerned. Have you been taking water samples?"

Rex glanced over at Diego, who momentarily stopped keying the handset and reached into his bag. He pulled out the two jars they'd filled with water samples-one from the waters off Punta Berlanga and one from the lagoon. "Yes," Rex said.

"Well, take more. A smattering through the island-hit any standing water reservoirs-and around the coasts so we can pick up samples from each of the major currents. I want to source this thing, see how it entered the water supply. As far as we know, it's only near Sangre de Dios-there's nothing in the recent records from nearby waters to indi-cate the virus's presence elsewhere."

Rex's hair fell in straight, lanky wisps over his forehead. "Of course," he murmured. "The drilling boat." He turned to the others, excited. "Remember that kid on Santa Cruz asked us if we were heading here again on the drilling boat?"

Diego shot to his feet. "The deep-sea core drilling boat!"

"The who?" Tucker asked.

"They took several cores off the coast here," Diego said, pointing south to the sea. "Just beyond Punta Berlanga."

"What's going on?" Donald's voice squawked. "What's all the commotion?"

"There was an ODP boat through here," Rex said. "Pulling up cores. It could've unleashed this virus from where it was buried in the ocean basin. Virogenesis is usually localized like that. The core holes left behind in the ocean floor could be like… like that cave in Kenya, the one they think is the hiding place for the Marburg filovirus."

"Kitum Cave," Diego said. "On the slope of Mount Elgon." He stood and unscrewed the whip antenna, pulling the cylindrical segments apart and S-folding them.