Free Minutes to Burn by Gregg Hurwitz Page A

suit. Tank ran the lotion through his flattop like condi-tioner, rubbing it into his scalp. The soldiers also Velcroed solar cells to the shoulders of their cammy shirts, the flat batteries positioned like tiny officer shoulder boards.
    The plane screeched to a halt on the tarmac, bouncing them slightly in the red webbing of the cargo seats. Derek stood, slapping his hands to his thighs. “Szabla, you guard the pallets once we unass.”
    She nodded, grabbing the M-4 by her side as the other soldiers disembarked. Red lettering stretched across the main wing of the terminal— Aeropuerto Simón Bolívar Guayaquil. The dead tufts of grass around the taxiway were baked brown and yellow, nodding in the breeze. The air was thick and slightly moist; Cameron could feel the humidity through her lungs when she inhaled.
    Though it was still early morning, a wall of heat hit them when they stepped clear of the plane’s shadow. “Holy Christ,” Savage said. “Don’t this fuckin’ beat all?”
    Rex removed a Panama hat from his bag, unrolled it, and placed it with a slight tilt on his head. The sun glared off the tightly woven straw. The combination of the hat and his clothes—white shirt with twin pockets, khakis—gave him the distinctive air of a rubber baron in Malaya. In addition to a brown leather briefcase, he carried several circu-lar nylon bags, padded and zipped shut.
    Cameron was grateful for the fifty-percent nylon ripstop cammies— they were light and breathable, and the long sleeves provided protection from the sun.
    Rex glanced over at her and Szabla. “Hey, Thelma and Louise,” he said. “Get your sun hats on.” He pointed to an orange electronic bill-board situated on top of one of the hangars: Minutos para Quemarse—
    4:30. The translation was written beneath: Minutes to Burn.
    Szabla grimaced and headed to the ramp to join Tank in unloading and unbuttoning the aircraft pallets, which held the cruise boxes, kit bags, and comms boxes full of Rex’s GPS hardware. The cruise boxes, 3 x 2 x 1.5 foot collapsible cases of sheet metal, stored the general-purpose gear.
    A U.S. army private jogged out from the airport, heading for the squad. In addition to his regular uniform, he wore the light blue beret and blue elastic belt of the United Nations. Derek walked forward, wav-ing off the private’s salute. They spoke for a few moments, then Derek signaled the squad to follow him.
    The airport was in complete disarray, filled with uniforms and a few clusters of civilians. When Cameron stepped through the cracked glass doors onto the sidewalk, she was surprised by the crowd and the con-gested traffic. Though the earthquakes’ effects were evident in the uneven pavement, buckling walls, and heaps of rubble, the life of the city went on. She realized she’d expected to find doors and windows hammered shut with planks like in some bad late-night movie about a plague.
    A teenage boy scrambled forward and attempted to grab the weapons box Szabla and Tank were carrying, but Szabla turned, quickly slinging her M-4, and side-kicked him, hammering the bottom of her boot just beneath his ribs. The boy collapsed on the pavement, moaning. A nearby policeman, a clean-shaven man with a front tooth that was turned side-ways, sprang forward and began screaming at Szabla in Spanish.
    “You’d better back off before I straighten out that fucked-up tooth of yours,” she growled.
    Rex, who’d been punching the numbers on his sat phone in frustra-tion, trotted over and exchanged a few heated words with the Ecuado-rian policeman. The policeman threw up his arms. Szabla set the box down, peering at the policeman over Rex’s shoulder. “I got more if you want some, you mother—”
    Cameron drew Szabla back so Rex could finish dealing with the policeman. When Tank moved over and stood silently behind Rex, the policeman quieted down a bit. After helping the boy to his feet, the policeman stormed off. Rex turned to face Szabla, his