Rem passed the note to Santo. ‘You’ll know more about this.’
Santo asked Watts what this was about.
‘They want a security team.’
Santo held up the paper. ‘So who are we going to send? It says you need to select them.’
Watts had already considered this. ‘Send the men who already have basic training.’
Clark immediately began to protest. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t go. ‘Don’t put me on that list. I want nothing to do with it. Once they start taking notice they’ll pick you out for all sorts. You put your head up a little and they pick you out.’
‘Clark, that’s what people call a career.’
‘Whatever they call it. I don’t want it.’
Clark gave a gesture like he didn’t care.
‘Did they say how many?’
Rem looked over the note. They didn’t say.
Santo counted out the men. ‘Pakosta, Clark, Chimeno, Kiprowski, me.’
‘Kiprowski? With a gun? I don’t want to see that.’
‘He’s done basic already. He’ll do fine.’
‘Kiprowski was in food services.’ Watts disagreed. ‘There’s no way he ever did basic.’
‘Then Samuels. But that hound won’t hunt.’
Santo grimaced, but Clark protested. If they wanted everyone who had basic training, then they needed to include Samuels. It was only fair. And why not take Kiprowski if he wanted to go?
Rem asked if they could keep it down. ‘Tell them we can only spare four. We still have to run the pits. Even with four down this will leave us short. Find out more about what they want.’
Watts steered clear of the ruts, and the Humvee lost traction and slipped sideways, a small slip, almost imperceptible.
* * *
Watts called on Rem late in the morning.
‘We have a connection. Praise the lord.’
‘You have a signal?’
‘I know. Who knew. A connection. Different thing, same result.’
Rem sat in his doorway with a towel over his head and poured water on occasion to keep himself cool. ‘Who was it?’
Santo stretched out in the shade, feet dug into the dust. ‘Probably your boyfriend Markland.’ Santo rolled to his side, wrapped his arms about himself, spoke in a squeaky voice. ‘Oh Rem, tell me about HOSCO. Kissy kiss kiss.’
Watts pulled a face. ‘Actually, it was Markland. He said they’d fixed what you wanted and you should expect him to arrive this afternoon. Fourteen hundred hours.’
Rem didn’t understand. ‘You said him?’
‘Or it. I’m not sure.’
Rem asked if he knew what him or it was.
Watts shook his head. ‘I just wrote down what he said.’
Santo sat upright, ‘Markland’s pimping for you now? You even remember what you asked for?’
Rem shrugged. ‘You were there.’
‘Me? I lost all interest the minute you started talking.’
Watts held his cap up for shade. ‘Well. It’s coming in two hours, whatever it is. He just wanted us to be ready. That’s all.’
Rem looked up at the man. ‘I’m ready. You ready?’
‘Sure,’ Santo laughed, ‘I’m always ready.’ He kicked down his heels, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. ‘Ready for anything, me.’
* * *
Rem stood at the cabin door and watched as Chimeno wandered from the latrines to the Quonset to the latrines. As far as he could tell Chimeno didn’t want to go to the latrine or back to his cabin and was caught tracing the ground between them.
The afternoon gave itself to reflection, the strangeness of being here. Rem took out his phone, turned the camera to video, and panned about the camp. Goldrush, he thought. We look like prospectors.
Chimeno’s movements made little sense, and when Samuels came out of his cabin Chimeno sank back to the Quonset door. Rem watched as Chimeno watched Samuels walk to the latrines. After one moment inside Samuels came out running, helter-skelter.
‘You should see this.’ Samuels pointed back at the latrines, eyes agog, face bright with surprise.
Samuels’ shout brought Pakosta and Santo to their doors. Rem couldn’t immediately see the reason for the fuss. The latrines were a simple row of open-topped huts with a sandbag wall, head height, built as a blast protection. Samuels pointed to the ground where the bags slumped into the dirt, at what Rem first took to be a kind of hairy crab, brittle and spindly: an insect, with a body as long as the palm of his hand. The creature straddled the first sandbag, legs splayed on one side, tucked in on the other.
‘Ten legs. That’s not right.’
Not keen on leaning any closer Rem took Pakosta’s word.
‘You know what this is?’
‘Camel spider.’
Samuels ducked back. ‘That’s no spider.’
‘You’re right. It’s not a spider. It’s not a camel either.’ Pakosta straightened up, matter of fact. ‘I wouldn’t stand so close.’ He stuck out his boot and the creature braced. ‘See that? Instinct. They only come out once they’ve bred. Females. They inject you so you can’t feel anything, then chew a hole in your guts and lay their eggs. They run at thirty miles an hour and jump five, six feet at a time. Spring right up. See those legs? Man, you don’t want that on your face.’
Pakosta flicked his cigarette and the spider sprang right at them. Pakosta, Samuels, Santo and Rem careened out of the latrines, the spider, already ahead, scuttled under the cabins. Chimeno ran full pelt past the Quonset and the fuel dump until he couldn’t be seen.
Pakosta pointed in Chimeno’s direction. ‘Spider-boy moves to number one.’
Rem wanted to know if these creatures were harmful.
Pakosta laughed. ‘Sure. If you give it a chance to bite you. There’s other things, much worse. Scorpions for one. They’ll sleep in your boots and get you five times before you pull your foot out. You can’t get help fast enough.’
The three of them looked along the cabins for the spider, each armed with a section of tent pole taken from the Quonset. Chimeno waited at a distance, hands on hips, and couldn’t be coaxed back to help with the search.
‘Vibration. That’s what they don’t like. Most times you see them at night, if you see them at all. Then you wake up and it’s chewing your dick off.’
Pakosta made a munching sound and Santo told him to shut up. Some things they didn’t need to know.
‘Fine by me, just don’t sleep.’
Santo raised his pole as a threat. ‘I’m not sleeping.’
‘It’ll still get you. They hide in holes smaller than your fist. Come out at night and rape your ass.’ Pakosta stood with the pole over his shoulder, satisfied. ‘And they love dark meat.’
Santo levelled his pole at Pakosta’s neck and prodding him, warned: ‘You say shit like that one time.’
Pakosta backed away with a small laugh.
Watts and Clark stood at their doors curious at the fuss. Watts suggested they get Kiprowski out to help find it, and Kiprowski, already behind them, came to the front, sank to his knees, and swept his arm under the steps.
‘Woah!’ Watts jolted back. ‘You don’t do that. You don’t know what’s under there.’
Kiprowski smiled up, still reaching. ‘There’s no way a camel’s getting under there.’
‘Spider,’ Santo corrected, ‘a motherfucking egg-laying turd-breeding bastard camel spider.’
‘Yeah?’ Clark nodded thoughtfully. ‘I heard about those.’
‘Place is infested.’ Santo spat.
‘No shit.’
Kiprowski stood and dusted off his shirt.
Pakosta stabbed his pole under the cabin. ‘Seriously, no shit. This is serious business. They crawl up your ass and eat their way out to your face.’