'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 running 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 darkened 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.'
Rex took one of the jars and held it up to the light. Particles swirled in the cloudy liquid.
'One from Santa Cruz, the other he took first thing after landing on Sangre de Dios. I guess he sent them back with the boat that dropped him off. I'll run them down to the lab after the meeting, see what I come up with. Oh, and I almost forgot.' Donald leaned forward, pulling a folded sheet from his back pocket. He handed it to Rex. 'Take a look at this.'
Rex took the sheet and glanced at it. 'Sixty-four hundred bucks!' He whistled. 'What the hell's that for?'
'Evidently, Frank ordered one of those solar-powered specimen freezers delivered to him on the island. Some shady shipper threw it on an oil tanker out of Manta, got it to him in two days.' He snatched the bill back from Rex and read from it. ''Expedited delivery-four hundred dollars.'' He shook his head. 'I just don't understand what he would've needed a freezer that large for.'
Rex shrugged. 'Maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't know what he was ordering. Maybe they sent him the wrong size to rip him off. Us. To rip us off. Did he clear the expense with you?'
Donald waved him off. 'Please. You know Frank. He was never in touch on a survey. Hated to be distracted from his work. He couldn't be bothered with lugging communications equipment.'
'Ah yes. His Thoreau routine.'
Donald rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand. 'That's why it took me so damn long to realize he was missing.' He drummed his fingers on the granite. 'I have to confess, I'm glad you'll have a military squad looking after you. I was assured they were the best.'
A loud single knock hit the door, and Donald rose to his feet. He opened the door to reveal Savage, standing slightly crooked in one boot and one torn sock. Beside him, Tucker jiggled his hand back and forth, watching it closely.
'Hello,' Donald began. 'I'm-'
Savage knocked Donald's shoulder as he passed him. Tank followed Tucker into the room, banging his head on the door frame. Derek emerged from the rear, holding out his hand to Donald. 'Derek Mitchell. I'm the OIC of
