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?"
Justin swung the backpack off, plunking it on the sand. The material was torn where it had been struck by the falling rock. "It took a blow," he said, as he carefully removed the radio. Cameron was relieved to see that the radio proper and the S-folded whip antenna both appeared to be intact. The size of an old-style VCR, the radio was a confusion of buttons and dials. The handset usually worked like a telephone, but both the receiver and transmitter were smashed.
After tuning the radio, Justin keyed the handset to break squelch, pushing the button on the side so that a burst of static would go through. "There's no way," he said. "We can't speak or get anything back."
"And my phone's buried over there." Rex gestured to the fallen cliff. "So that's it? We have no contact with the outside world?"
"Just not with the other islands," Derek said. He tapped his shoulder, indicating his subcutaneous transmitter. "We can still reach base through these. They're satellite."
"We gonna call in?" Justin asked.
"I don't see what for," Derek said. "Our job was to get Rex here, help him get his trinkets in place, and split. Far as I can see, that objective has not been compromised."
"I'd like to get one of the GPS units set early tomorrow morning," Rex said. He pointed at a narrow trail that led up through a break in the cliff walls of Punta Berlanga. "I'm thinking right up there if I can find suitable rock. After that, we gotta survey the island for other locations."
Derek crouched, letting a handful of the fine, flourlike sand run through his fingers. "We have camping gear, food, and kit bags with clothes and personals. From the boat, we need to grab medical supplies, scuba gear, mosquito netting, backup white fuel for the hurricane lamps, extra MREs, and K-bars. All the GPS equipment intact?"
"Yes," Rex said. "One of the tripods is a little bit-"
"That's good," Szabla said. "Then we can focus on getting the shit up and running and getting the fuck out of here."
Tank moaned inside his tent, trying to straighten his legs.
Derek rose, brushing his hands off on his pants. "Anyone…" He stopped to clear his throat. "Anyone want to say anything? About Juan?"
A silence filled the air, broken only by the soft sounds of the ocean behind them. Justin toed the sand.
"A few words or anything?" Derek added.
Savage coughed. Tucker blinked.
"Guess not," Szabla said.
Cameron helped pull several cruise boxes around the hurricane lamp to serve as makeshift benches. The others' eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She knew she looked equally spent, but sleep seemed unappealing with the memory of Juan's death so vivid.
Savage sat off by himself on the beach, legs crossed Indian-style, staring out at the dark water. Szabla watched him, the light from the hurri-cane lamp flickering across her face. Diego lay on his back across two of the cruise boxes, his arms dangling so his fingers brushed the sand. Szabla's face darkened when she glanced in the direction of Juan's buried body. "What a waste," she said.
Rex was leaning back against the cruise box, his face tilted up toward the heavens. "Have you heard of Enrico Caruso?" he finally asked.
Clearly annoyed, Szabla studied the hard surface of the cruise box between her legs as the other soldiers exchanged glances. "The tenor?"
"The tenor. On April eighteenth, 1906, after a riveting performance in Carmen, he retired to his suite in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The quake hit at five twelve in the morning, took the rear wall clean off the building. Well, Caruso was something of a superstitious guy." Rex lowered his eyes from the stars finally, looking at Szabla. "Italian," he said. Szabla bit back a smile, and Rex continued. "His conductor found him weeping in his room. To calm Caruso down and distract him from the aftershocks, he convinced him to look out on the devastation and sing. And Caruso did. Streets rent and broken, streetcars bent like toys, water mains shooting geysers, people sobbing and running and bleeding, and here's Caruso, singing at the top of his lungs, his voice ringing through the rubble, clear as a bell." Rex paused, shaking his head.
"This all looks like a mess to you," he continued. "A big fucking mess. The quakes and the sun, falling rocks and dead animals. But it all has rules. Nature always follows definable rules." He pointed at the crum-bled cliff wall in the distance, the mound of rock that formed Juan's makeshift grave. "The principal shock must've been east-west, given the damage moved along a north-south vector. That means this rumble was a little gift from the East Pacific Rise." He scratched the stubble on his chin, his eyes on the dark sky. "The earth's movements can be regulated, sometimes predicted. That can save lives."
He caught Szabla's eye again and stared her down. "Getting these GPS units in place is my way of singing through the disasters, of trying to win something back for our side." He laughed a short, dying laugh and ran his hand through his lanky black hair. "I know you all think the military has better things to do right now. I know that I'm an arrogant, narcissistic bastard, and that doesn't help much either. But we have the opportunity to accomplish something here. So what do you say you all just back off a few steps and give me a hand?"
They sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the island. Rex cuffed his sleeves, revealing a deep scar on the back of his right forearm.
"What's that?" Cameron asked, indicating the scar with a flick of her head.
Rex glanced down at it, as if noticing it for the first time. "Candle-stick, eighty-nine World Series. The Loma Prieta quake. I caught a flying hot dog vendor's box on the arm." He laughed. "Hardly heroic."
Szabla dug a piece of dirt out from under a blunt fingernail. She sat up straight and pulled off her cammy shirt. Her skin was dark and smooth, the blocks of her stomach standing out like bricks beneath her jog bra. She turned around, revealing a knot of scar tissue just below her left shoulder blade.
Diego glanced over from his sprawl on the cruise boxes. He was tick-ling his face with a strand of beach morning glory. Clearly uninterested in their story telling, Savage began doing push-ups on the sand outside their circle, slow and methodical.
"Trying to help an old lady in Bosnia," Szabla said, patting her scar. "House caved in, she was stuck beneath some stones. Picked her up, threw her over a shoulder to clear her from the building. She pulled a knife on me."
"That's a stab wound?" Rex asked.
Cameron smiled, knowing the story. Szabla hooked Justin's neck with her hand and yanked it roughly and affectionately. "You think my buddy over here would let me meet my end from Mother-fucking Hubbard?"
Justin grinned. "I hit her with a board."
"And missed."
"Well, Szabla tripped and dumped the old bitch-"
"And the board hit me instead, right on the shoulder."
"A board left a scar like that?" Rex asked.
Szabla and Justin exchanged a glance, starting to laugh. Cameron smiled, looking down and shaking her head. "It had a nail in it," Justin said.
"So genius over here wallops me, I got a two-by-four stuck in my ass, and the cunt claws her way up and takes off down the street like Jesse fuckin' Owens."
"You think that's bad? You want to talk stupid?" Cameron stood up, pulling down her pants and turning around to display a four-inch scar beneath her right buttock.
"Cam, Jesus," Justin said.
She yanked her pants back up and zipped them, forgetting the top button. "We're lifting out to Alaska of all places, for a block of winter warfare training. I have my blade out to get through a canvas strap on one of the supply bags and I catch a glimpse out the window of the sun setting over the tundra-just beautiful. So I put down the blade and lean forward, watch for a few seconds until it dips below the horizon. I sat back down, right on my knife."