Derek nodded. "His a.s.s 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 j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. of a mission-keep the slipper in one piece and get him home as quickly as possible. If it's feeling a touch half-a.s.sed, that's because it is."

Cameron let her breath out in a whistle. She glanced at the kids run-ning 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 b.u.mps in the road of his mourning process.

"At least we don't have any screaming seamen on board," Derek con-tinued. "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 mis-sion."

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.

"h.e.l.l 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 goatf.u.c.k 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 dark-ened 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 ham-mer.

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 h.e.l.l'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 s.n.a.t.c.hed the bill back from Rex and read from it. "'Expedited delivery-four hun-dred 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 Th.o.r.eau routine."

Donald rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand. "That's why it took me so d.a.m.n 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 look-ing after you. I was a.s.sured 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.

"h.e.l.lo," Donald began. "I'm-"

Savage knocked Donald's shoulder as he pa.s.sed 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 Mitch.e.l.l. I'm the OIC of this platoon."

Donald took his hand with some hesitation. "OIC?"

"Officer in Charge."

Szabla curled her arm across her chest, rotating her fist so the ball of her biceps slid back and forth. Donald turned slowly to face Rex, who remained blank-faced, leaning back so the chair c.o.c.ked under his weight.

"Well," Rex said, staring at the ceiling. "Let the games begin."

After the introductions were made, the squad gathered around the conference table. Derek sat at the far end beside Rex and Donald, facing the soldiers. Cameron was relieved to see that he looked more steady than before, more professional.

Rex studied Derek, a hint of a smile on his lips. "Sure we don't need more men?"

"Two of us are women," Szabla said. "And, in keeping with the finest naval tradition, prefer to be referred to as either broads or dames."

Rex laughed, but Derek shot her a stern look. Donald rose, folding his hands across his generous belly. "Now, I've already gone over the itinerary with Lieutenant Mako."

"I'm up to speed," Derek said. "There'll be plenty of time for me to brief the others before we lift out tonight."

"Good," Rex said. "Because it's bad enough there's going to be seven of you. But I certainly can't get through an expedition of this importance-"

"Of this importance," Szabla repeated.

Rex stared at her. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"It means that with the current state of affairs, I don't think a scien-tific outing is of the utmost-"

"I'm handling this, Szabla," Derek said.

"-importance that we need to dispatch top-notch soldiers-"

"Szabla," Derek said, his voice raised in warning, "Which part of 'I'm handling this' did you not understand?"

"I think 'handling,' LT. She has trouble with gerunds," Justin said, turning a sweet smile to Szabla before she backhanded him. He caught her hand at the wrist inches from his nose.

Cameron almost told Justin and Szabla to shut up but restrained her-self, not wanting to undermine Derek. She placed her hands between her knees, pressing them together.

"Top-notch?" Rex asked rhetorically. Savage dug his fingernail beneath a small scab on the back of his neck and sc.r.a.ped it off, examin-ing it before flicking it onto the floor. He ran his hand across the sore, then wiped the blood on his pants.

"Rex," Donald said softly, his voice tense. "I don't think-"

Derek stood up and leaned over the table, facing his charges. "Let's get one thing straight. We are escorting Dr. Williams because that's our mission." He turned to Rex, who gazed up at him from his chair, seem-ingly awed by his considerable size. "But you don't have to make things more difficult than they need be."

"I'm merely taking issue with the choice of 'top-notch' as an adjective." Rex pointed at Savage. "That guy looks like he crawled out of a sewer."

Savage waved. He went back to relacing his boot, which was resting on the table.

"The only thing that matters," Cameron said, "is the mission objec-tive."

"Who brought the girl scout?"

"Szabla," Derek said. "I'm not f.u.c.king around here."

Donald removed his small spectacles and polished them nervously. "I'd like to...if it's okay,I'd like todiscuss-"

Rex bounced forward in his chair. "We're flying into Guayaquil, need to stop there for the night. How? I don't know. That's your department. Obviously we're not taking United. We get to spend Christmas night in Guayaquil, lovely polluted industry town and cultural hub of the uni-verse. We're picking up Dr. Juan Ramirez, a professor of ecology at Uni-versidad de Guayaquil, who will be a.s.sisting me in my objectives. Then we're flying to Baltra, which houses the only operating airport in Galpa-gos. It's a former U.S. Army base, so that should float your respective boats."

Savage belched. Rex elected to ignore him.

"Then we'll need to establish our telemetry gear at the Darwin Station on Santa Cruz, scold whoever's left in the seismology department for letting their operation go to s.h.i.t, and we're on our way to Sangre de Dios where I'll be undertaking the extraordinarily ambitious and impressive task of outfitting the island with geodetic trinkets and toys-six Global Positioning Satellite units, to be precise."

"What's the terrain?" Cameron asked.

"Quite varied. From scorched lava to dense forests."

"We bringing NVGs?" Szabla asked.

Rex shot Derek a puzzled look. "Night Vision Goggles," Derek explained. He turned to Szabla. "No. It's not triple canopy, and we're set-ting the GPS units during the day. We don't need to be tricked out for combat-it's not exactly a hot area."

Szabla leaned back in her chair, placing her arms behind her neck and flexing. "How do the units work?"

Rex said, "They measure the rates of the land's deformation. We need six to form a network. They'll relay information to the Darwin Station, and the scientists there will, in turn, forward the information to us via computer."

"Why don't you just have the information relayed directly here?"

"Unfortunately, the telemetry equipment isn't that sophisticated. It only relays information along line of sight. The distance from Ecuador to Sacramento is great enough that the curvature would throw off the transmissions."

"Curvature?" Tucker asked.

"The earth is round," Rex said, with a sardonic grin.

Tucker pressed his lips together. "Oh, yeah."

Derek leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I understand transportation around the islands is a problem?"

"Yes, but I've arranged it all after we hit Baltra-it's just the airports that are tangled in military red tape. Boating between islands is a logisti-cal pain in the a.s.s, but not a political one." Rex turned to face the others. "In all, it's an eight-day trip-two days transport out, four days on San-gre, one day back. If all goes well, we'll be back for New Year's. Your job is to make sure I don't get shot, stabbed, or drawn and quartered in Guayaquil, to get me through the airports without any cavity searches, and to help me blanket Sangre de Dios and get the gear in place."

"Aren't there scientists out there already who can do this?" Cameron asked. "And save us the trip?"

"That's a very good question, Miss..." Rex looked at her expectantly.

"Chief," Cameron said. "Kates. But Cameron will do just fine. And a straightforward answer without the condescension."

Rex whistled. "Lo siento mucho."

"No problema."

Rex suppressed a smile as he leaned forward. "All right, Cameron. The reason the scientists there can't take care of it is because their fund-ing, as you can imagine, has gone to even further s.h.i.t as a result of the economic turmoil, and they can barely afford upkeep, let alone cutting-edge technology. Shipping's gone to h.e.l.l, so we can't send the equipment down to them. We can hardly get through via phone, fax, or E-mail just to find out what the h.e.l.l's going on. On top of all that, they're fleeing the islands in droves."

"Why?" Cameron asked.

"Because they're not as courageous as we are." Rex smiled. "Or as stupid. 'The few, the proud...'"

"That's the Marines," Szabla said.

Rex waved her off. "Same difference."

Tucker was listening intently. "Why's Sangre de Dios so important?" he asked.

"Because it sits over a network of fissures running south from the Galpagos Fracture Zone and, more significant, fissures running inland from the East Pacific Rise-it's near the source of both major forces that affect movement of the entire Nazca plate."

Tank watched Rex blankly. When Rex finished speaking, Tank turned to the others. "English?" he said.

"It's near where s.h.i.t is the most f.u.c.ked up," Szabla replied.

"Because of that," Rex continued, "it's our canary in the coal mine." He noticed that Tucker was jotting notes in a small pad. "That's C-A-N-A-R-Y."

Tucker looked at him self-consciously, then slid the pad back into his pocket. "Just thought it would help keep me up on things," he said.

Rex flashed a grin. "Indeed."

"I'm sure you're all aware of the severe ozone deficiency in that region." Donald stood and crossed to a large cabinet, pulling it open. "You'll need to take every precaution down there. Protective contacts, SPF one hundred lotion." He pulled out several tubes of sunblock and waved them at the soldiers. "Get it everywhere-webs of your fingers, insides of your ears; if you part your hair, rub it along the exposed line of scalp." He held the tubes out to Derek, but Derek waved him off.

"We're covered," Cameron said. "Customary operating supplies for missions in ozone-poor regions."

Derek clapped his hands once and rose. "We'll be lifting out at 2300 from the base. Any other questions?"

"Yeah," Savage said, thunking his bootless foot on the table. His voice was gravelly with phlegm, so he cleared his throat and spit in the corner. "You think we could see about getting me another boot sometime soon?"

Cameron walked out of the women's room on the third floor of the New Center and headed down the hall toward the stairs, her boots loud on the tiled floor. Sealed with yellow police tape, the elevator doors were now used as a bulletin board. Cameron stopped for a moment and glanced at the flyers advertising lecture series and research trips.