Then they heard the rasping.
Juan's head tilted and pulled back from the rock. The entire right side of his face was awash in blood, a shard of cheekbone glinting some-where in the mess. Breath rattled through him. His lips faded away into crushed teeth. The bloody maw opened. And screamed. A splattering of blood left the mouth with each cry.
"Get it off!" Derek yelled. "Get the fucking thing off."
Tank struggled forward, cactus pads stuck to the bottoms of his boots. Lines of sweat streaked from his hairline, curving down his ruddy cheeks.
Derek grabbed the rock and fought against it, but it didn't budge. He felt a jagged edge tear into his right hand, but he strained against the wound with all his might.
The screaming quickened.
Tank laid one massive hand on Derek's shoulder and hurled him aside. He spread his arms and seized the rock in a massive embrace. Dipping low on his haunches, he prepared himself as though for a power-lifting squat.
The screaming continued-harsh, rattling cries filled with liquid. Juan started to jerk back and forth, flailing against the rock. Blood was splat-tering all over the place now; Derek could see droplets filling the air even over Tank's shoulders.
"Jesus, kill him. We should just kill him," Derek yelled.
But he had no gun. He found himself looking around for a rock to use as a makeshift weapon, his stomach cold and pulsing at the thought.
Straining with all his might, Tank rose from his crouch. He groaned through his clenched teeth, the sound rising to a roar. His face filled with blood, swelling until it looked as if it would explode if pricked with a pin. His shirt split straight down the back.
The boulder shifted in Juan's lap and then rose, hovering barely an inch above his smashed thighs. With another roar, Tank leaned back, hugging the rock to his chest and getting it about two feet off the ground. With the force of his entire body, he tried to hurl the boulder to one side, but it dribbled out of his arms, thunking into the lava.
Juan lay motionless, his jaw open with his dying scream. His arms were twisted up to his chest, one hand bent out at a grotesque angle, a nub of bone protruding from the wrist.
Tank swayed as he looked at the body, his arms moving like pendulums. He tried to clench his hands into fists but could not. They dangled open in defeat. Red scrapes ran all the way from the insides of his wrists up across his chest. His shirt hung from his shoulders in ribbons.
"Let's go," Derek said. He rested a hand on Tank's shoulder, but Tank shook it off. "He's done," Derek said sternly. "Let's clear out before more aftershocks hit."
Tank nodded once, a slight movement of his head. Derek rested a hand on his shoulder, turning him toward the water. Tank grunted with his first step. Derek stabilized him as best he could with an arm around his waist, but it didn't really help.
They crested the cactus tree, and Tank stumbled roughly down, taking a spray of spines across the back of his thighs. His feet jarred against the lava, and he would have kept going down to his knees if Derek hadn't caught him, staggering under his weight. Tank righted himself, whimpering like a puppy.
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."