Hence, the circumstances that had planted Nora's derriere on the hard troop bench of an old helicopter.
What a festival of joy my life has become…
"Crabs, fish, sharks, even killer whales," Annabelle distinguished. "I've photographed them all, at some pretty deep depths." She hitched in her seat, to shed an imaginary discomfort, but Nora knew it was a pose. She's sticking her tits out so the grunts will get all riled up. Nora felt certain of it. She's the tribal queen and she's marking her turf, showing the skinny girl that she's got no chance.
"But I've never shot marine worms," the blonde went on. "What's so special about this one?"
It infuriated Nora the way Annabelle focused her questions toward Loren and not Nora herself, who was the more qualified expert.
"It's the rarest Polychaete," Loren answered. "And it's probably also the most stunning to look at. Brilliant red stripes run between its parapodia-the rings around its body."
Now a hint of concern came into Annabelle's tone. "How big is it? The idea of, like, really big worms? Yuck. That would gross me out. Spiders, roaches, and big worms. That's it for me."
"Then have no fear, because the Polychaete scarlata never grows more than a couple of inches long."
"That we know of," Nora pointed out.
Did Annabelle actually glare at the comment?
Loren laughed it off. "Oh, Professor Craig is only kidding, Annabelle. It's impossible for a warm water worm such as this to get any longer than an inch or two."
"Oh, thank God!" the blonde laughed, but when she brushed a tress of hair off her brow, she did it with her middle finger.
A display for Nora's benefit?
Nora put her cheek in her hand. This is going to be a peachy trip.
The aircraft noisily touched down on a long-since overgrown helipad carved into one edge of the island. "Oh no! The little lizards!" Annabelle fretted at the window. Nora smiled when she peeked out, saw the helicopter's air-blast blowing countless dozens of little anole lizards out of the palm trees.
"They're so cute!" Annabelle continued to object. "We're killing them!"
Shut up, you airhead, Nora thought. If those things were bigger, they'd eat you alive.
"Debark! Heads down, single file!" barked the warrant officer.
Nora was first off, and so slight in frame that the rotor wind almost knocked her down. They all jogged away from the riotous noise.
"So this is Pritchard's Key," Annabelle remarked.
"It's a lot bigger than it looks," Trent added. "Ten square miles, and dense. I'll bet there are parts of it that no one's ever set foot on."
"But I still don't understand what the island has to do with the military."
"Some kind of radar station, I think," Nora said. She had to shield her eyes from the bar of sunlight flashing like a guillotine blade. Palm trees clotted with the greenest underbrush seemed to explode everywhere she looked.
"No, a missile station," Loren corrected. "The locals over in Clearwater used to call it Nike Island."
Annabelle's brow creased. "What do sneakers have to do with missiles?"
Nora laughed out loud.
"The Nike Missile Program wrapped up in the mideighties," Trent explained. "It was an army tactical airdefense missile that was first deployed in NATO countries in the late fifties, designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. As the missile became obsolete we started pulling them out of Europe and planting them in the continental United States. Our biggest fear back then was Leonid Brezhnev and his new Backfire Bomber. The Nike was no longer the fastest antifighter missile, but it still had great range against potential bomber threats. The army put fifteen Nikes right here on this island, to protect MacDill Air Force Base and the army's munition depot in Jacksonville. Fortunately, the dreaded Backfire turned out to be the biggest claptrap hunk of junk the Soviet Union ever put in the air, and now there's not even a Soviet Union anymore so we don't need them anyway."
Annabelle seemed alarmed. "You mean there are nuclear missiles on this island?"
"No, no, the Nikes here were never armed with nuclear payloads. The army took them all out of here by 'eighty-five."
The blonde sighed in relief. "Oh, wow, for a minute I thought you were going to tell us that there were radioactive things on the island."
Nora couldn't have been less interested, but by accident she noticed a strange pause in Trent's monologue, as if he were taken aback. "Nope. The Nike was strictly defensive, and we don't need them now. Now we've got the Patriots that take care of the whole ball of wax."
"Not much of a beach," Loren commented of the island's shoreline. Black boulders the size of compact cars seemed to ring the key. "Just a bunch of rocks."
"Yeah, big rocks," Annabelle said.
Almost as big as the ones in your head, Nora thought.
Annabelle hitched at her aqua-blue bikini top. "I was hoping to get a tan in between shoots, but how can I? There's no beach!"
Nora shook her head. Oh no! Dollface can't get a tan! Poor, poor struggling Dollface!
"There's a strip of beach on the other side," Trent told them. "It's blocked up by more rocks but there's enough room to lie out. But before we do that-a word to the wise." He passed everyone an OD-green aerosol can as well as a neon-green rubberized repellent bracelet. "This island is Bug City. Let's spray ourselves with repellent every chance we get. And put on your bracelet. They don't smell that great but they work."
"Oh, great. Mosquitoes, you mean?" Annabelle looked like she had a mouthful of lemon juice as she sprayed her arms and legs and put the bracelet on her wrist.
"The mosquitoes aren't that bad," Trent went on, "but there are ticks and chiggers."
"Even worse. I want to get a tan, not Lyme disease."
You're so pompous and annoying, Nora thought, the ticks won't come near you. When she was done spraying herself off and donning her own bracelet, she asked, "We're only a couple of miles off the coast. Why go to the expense of the helicopter trip when we could've taken a quick boat ride?"
Trent pointed to the boulders. "Those rocks encircle the island, it's very hard to get a boat ashore, and the current's so quick if you anchor out there and swim in, you might lose your boat. Sure, every now and then some kids get on, use the place to camp out and party. The only reason I know anything about Pritchard's Key at all is 'cause I have to fly out here and check it once a month. Make sure no one's gotten on and done damage."
Nora and Loren traded a glance. What the hell does the army care about a missile site that doesn't have missiles anymore? Nora had to wonder. The only authority interested in vandalism would be Florida Natural Resources.
The WO and pilots frowned as they carried boxes of supplies off the helicopter.
"Where will we be sleeping, Lieutenant?" Loren inquired.
"Bivouac tents, of course," Trent told them. "And we'll be eating C rats."
"Rats!" Annabelle almost shrieked. "What are you talking about!"
"Rats as in rations. You'll be surprised how good they are. And we do have a field shower, so no one will be getting too stinky."
"There's a domestic water line running out to the island?" Nora questioned.
"No, no, the old missile station has a good old army water purifier and desalinator," Trent explained. "And a generator too, so we'll have some lights."
So we won't be living out here like total aborigines, Nora realized. "Loren and I would like to set up a field lab somewhere so we can catalogue worm samples for the college. We have to use a tent for that?"