"A newer system?"

  "It's got to be. For certain kinds of specialized equipment, the army needs to mark it in a way that can't be deciphered by an enemy in the field. I'm sure if you ran a scanner across these markings it would tell you exactly what this thing is, when it was made, model number, lot number, stuff like that. It would also tell you what it's a key for." Trent paused, puzzled. "I'm going to call the S-3 officer at my post, see if he knows anything about this island still being used for anything."

  "But you're the guy who checks the island every month," Nora pointed out. "Wouldn't you be the first to know?"

  "Not necessarily," he said. "This thing's got me thinking." He held it up. "A key, then a security lens, and what you told me this morning."

  'Huh?"

  "About the lights being on in some of the head shacks."

  Oh yeah, Nora thought. And he said he didn't have access to them. You didn't turn the lights on." She saw the simple deduction. "So it must've been someone else."

  "Someone I don't know about. So maybe the army is using the island for something ... and I don't know about that, either."

  Trent snapped open his cell phone, hit a dial key, then waited.

  "Damn," he said.

  "Busy?"

  "No, just static. I'd say we were in a bad cell out here, but my cell phone worked fine yesterday and the day before." He dialed another number and got the same effect.

  Nora called the college, just to see if she'd get through. "I'm getting static, too. Sort of a throbbing buzz."

  "Have you made any other calls?"

  "A couple times since we got here. The reception was fine. Maybe a tower went down, or a solar flare broke up some satellite waves."

  Trent kept his phone to his ear, listening. Then he shook his head and closed the phone. "The way the static rises and falls ..."

  "Yeah?"

  "It almost sounds like a military signal jammer."

  Nora frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

  Trent thought about it and shrugged. Then he agreed, "You're right, that's ridiculous. I'm sure it's just a good old case of technical difficulties. Why would anybody jam us?"

  (III)

  "Loren? Do you mind if I snorkel without my top on?" Annabelle asked. The large, tan-line-delineated breasts stared back at him as if they themselves awaited the answer.

  Loren amused himself by imagining an array of responses. Of course I mind! What kind of an immoral cad do you think 1 am? Or, I would find that unduly offensive, Annabelle. Better yet: That's sexual harassment! Expect to hear from my attorney!

  "I-I-I ... don't mind at all," he said.

  "Oh, that's good." The breasts rose in a perfect pose when she adjusted her diving mask. "It feels so wonderfully natural underwater, you know?"

  "Yeah," he droned.

  The dark pink nipples-larger than poker chipsinfiltrated him like a hypnotist's totems. She was a centerfold come to life, standing before him in utter nonchalance. Nude now, save for the white thong's tiny triangle, she was all glimmering skin and voluptuous lines. I'll bet the suntan oil on her body weighs more than the thong, he thought.

  When she leaned over to step into her flippers, Loren could've collapsed.

  This is going to be a realy V wt day ...

  Mask propped up on his forehead, Trent appeared from the trees. He almost dropped the flippers he was carrying when he noticed Annabelle. He paused to gulp. This is going to be a really great day ... the weather, I mean."

  'Yeah, not a cloud in the, uh, sky," Loren added.

  Annabelle giggled. "'That's great. A threesome.'

  "I figured you might need some army expertise finding these bristleworms," Trent added.

  'Me more, the merrier." Annabelle leaned over one more time to pick up her camera.

  The beach really is the best place to appreciate natural beauty,' Loren remarked.

  "I hear ya," Trent said.

  "First time in my life I ever seen a woman wearing a Dorito."

  "Come on, boys!" Annabelle strode off, attributes bobbing. Loren and Trent followed her like two puppies.

  They waded in behind her. Mild surf lapped at their thighs.

  You two know where the bristleworms are?" Trent asked. "Or is it just potluck?"

  'Loren knows,' Annabelle called back. 'We'll follow him.'

  Damn it! Loren thought. He wanted to be the one following her, considering what he'd be looking at. 'You remember, Annabelle," he urged. "We'll just swim out till we feel the cool-flow, then look down for the trench. The end with the yellow coral banks is where the nest is."

  'Okay," she agreed. "'T'hen you guys can follow me."

  "Smart move,' Trent said aside to Loren. There was no need to hide their obvious sexism. "She'll be snap ping pictures for a long time once we get to the nest. Which means plenty of eye time for us."

  "Precisely."

  Once they'd waded to chest-level, they all mouthed their snorkels and dove ...

  Loren thought of floating within a liquid prism. The warm water seemed extra buoyant. He marveled at the sea's schools of silver fish flowing en masse like splinters of metal, clumps of coral, and squirming anemones, large yellow-tailed snappers cruising lazily and bright as neon. Some spine-balls that were urchins rolled below them like tumbleweeds, and when a hefty octopus spotted them, it froze, tentacles extended, then shot away before a wake of black ink.

  The three of them saw the trench and then the canary-yellow mass of crenelated coral. That's when they surfaced, treading water.

  "You all saw the coral right at the tip of the trench," Loren said. "That's where the bristleworms are. Just start turning over rocks and you'll see them." He finnicked more specimen tubes from the net bag that floated off his belt.

  "I'm ready," Annabelle said, hoisting her camera.

  Both Trent and Loren were clearly diverted by the vision of Annabelle's floating breasts. "Are we going into the trench?" Trent asked.

  "It's not advisable," Loren said.

  "Why?" Annabelle asked. "I could get some great shots."

  "What's in the trench?" it was Trent's turn to ask.

  "Well, seafans, featherduster anemones, light-emitting coral that flashes like Christmas lights," Loren began.

  "That sounds pretty cool," Trent said.

  "Oh, let's go," Annabelle urged.

  "And probably moray eels that are big enough to bite the limbs off humans ..."

  "Oh, let's not go," the blonde corrected herself.

  "Thank you. So we'll stick to the coral clusters, and we should find some great scarlet bristleworms."

  "No time like the present," Trent said.

  The outcroppings of coral were about twenty feet below them. A group of shining pinfish followed them down as if part of their group. Loren's eyes scanned past the coral to the end of the trench, which looked narrow and hundreds of feet long-a minor chasm that had likely been formed thousands of years ago during an underwater plate-shift. For a moment he actually considered investigating, but then noticed some baby hammerheads loitering at the trench's rim.

  Naw, he thought.

  His eyes invariably rose back to Annabelle, who hovered over the coral, looking down. Her legs would slowly open and close to stabilize her position as she fired off some test shots with the big camera. She might as well have been nude in the water, all that immaculate flesh suspended before rising bubbles. The image compelled unshakable fantasies ...

  But it was all primordial, he knew. Eye candy, he thought, inciting my male genetic propensities. He knew now there was nothing really likable about Annabelle. She was the stuck-up leader of the cheerleading squad, who'd only settle in the end for the quarterback, the idea of social status raised to a personal priority. Shallow. Loren had encountered plenty of shallow people in his life of nerdom, and he'd had enough .. .

  The only woman he really liked was Nora, but ...

  She's my friggin' boss.

  Such was life.

  Trent was staring at Annabelle too, right at the tiny triangle of fabric between her legs. He's a caveman, all right, Loren thought, and wants to drag her back to the cave by the hair. It was clear they had something going on; Annabelle had already made her selection. Survival of the dumbest, Loren tried to rationalize. It was easier than admitting he'd never be the kind of tough guy most beautiful women were attracted to.

  He moved in and started flipping over rocks alongside Annabelle. Beige sea dust rose in billows. But then Annabelle upturned a large flat rock, and ...

  Recoiled.

  Loren and Trent immediately spotted her reaction, and swam to her.

  She jabbed her finger down violently toward a mass of scarlet bristleworms.

  They were all bloated up to the size of Ping-Pong balls, some bursting before their eyes to release spews of tiny pink worms and minuscule yellow ova.

  And these things have lungs AND gills, he reminded himself. They could be moving all over the island by now.

  Trent and Annabelle swam back ashore, leaving Loren to tread the water in place.

  He debated the idea for several more minutes. Then-

  Got nothing better to do .. .

  He dove back down, to collect more samples.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  (I)

  Slydes got back to the boat after noon. Was it his imagination or did he still feel sick?

  Imagination, he hoped. He'd felt so lousy the past day or so, but wishful thinking told him that maybe it was just the flu or something. Trekking back to the boat he quickly got lost-the island was a labyrinth of vegetation-but for the entire time he kept glancing at his arms ... to see if his skin was beginning to yellow.

  Like Jonas.

  Like a nightmare, he thought.

  But he'd seen what had happened to his brotherthe most morbid infection-and he'd seen the worms himself. He hadn't stayed around long enough for a detailed look. The simple glimpses of the long, pink, hoselike things had been enough.

  Ruth wasn't bullshitting .. .

  The air was still, the heat beating down when he climbed back aboard. He swatted at mosquitoes, squinting through sweat.

  Part of him still couldn't believe what he'd seen ...

  Ruth lay sprawled across the dingy cot downstairs, either sleeping off the oppressive heat or ...

  The thought seized Slydes.

  She ain't dead, is she?

  He had to jostle her a full minute before she came awake.

  "Wake your ass up," he ordered. "It's time to leave."

  Her face, arms, and legs looked tacky. Her eyes puffed up ... almost as bad as her lips. When she managed to reclaim some awareness, she said, "Did you bring Jonas back?"

  "No. Jonas is ... sick. We're leaving without him-"

  "What!"

  "And we'll bring back a doctor," he told her. How could he tell he the truth? We're leaving without him 'cause he got infected by the worms, and he turned yellow-with red spots-and he'll try to pass that shit on to us.

  Slydes wasn't prepared to say that.

  Ruth didn't argue with the lie-her true face. She didn't care anymore, and neither did Slydes. "I just wanna go home," she half sobbed.

  "We're gonna do that, right now." Slydes helped her up the steps. The long pink T-shirt was pasted to her flesh now, her blond hair darkened from so much sweat. When he grabbed her arm, the skin felt slippery, but ...

  It don't look like she's turnin' yellow, he observed, and me neither. That's all Slydes could hope for.

  Abovedecks, the hot air stood still, and the sun glared off the water so harshly he could barely see. "The tide ain't high enough, but we're going anyway."

  "Good, good! Just start the motor and go!"

  The shrill exclamation grated his nerves, only to be answered by a sound even more shrill when he turned the ignition key. The engine chugged as metal shimmied.

  "What the fuck's wrong now?" Ruth wailed.

  Slydes barked back-with more nervousness than authority: "Sounds like there's no oil in the damn crankcase!" and then he hauled open the engine compartment on the back deck.

  Smoke rose.

  When Slydes hunkered down and looked, his heart fell into his belly like someone dropping a stone off a high bridge.

  "Whatever it is-fix it!" Ruth screamed.

  But there'd be no fixing this.

  "Someone fucked us good," he conceded to the sight. "The engine's grenaded."

  Ruth crawled forward on bare, scraped knees, the dark circles under her eyes like charcoal smudges. "What? What?"

  "Someone drilled holes right through the valve covers into the cams ..."

  Ruth didn't want to believe it. "Who would do that? Why would someone do that?"

  A relevant question, but the answer wouldn't do them any good.

  The V -8s valve covers did indeed exhibit several holes, but the closer Slydes looked the more it occurred to him that they weren't drill marks. The tiny holes varied in diameter, their edges ... irregular.

  Slydes put his face right up to a cover. "Looks more like something burned through the metal ...

  "Fuck!" Ruth blurted. She began to sob again. "What-what's that down there?" A dirty finger pointed to the bottom of the engine compartment.

  Slydes saw it at once.

  Curled up in the oily bilge were several dead worms.

  (II)

  Annabelle threw her snorkeling gear down in the sand. "That was really gross. Did you see that?"

  "Sure did," Trent said. He sat down to rest, trying very hard not to overtly stare at Annabelle's almost totally naked body. "Looks like those little pink parasites made mincemeat out of your bristleworm nest. Chalk one up for the good old order of nature."

  Wet now, Annabelle's bare skin shone in the high sunlight. "Those little worms looked just like the ones in my lobster, and you know what? I think they're just baby versions of that really big worm I found in the shower. -I think they'rethe same type of worm."

  Trent's eyes followed the line of her legs. "Could be, I don't know from worms."

  "It's just gross," Annabelle emphasized. "That shower worm was over a foot long. They're probably all over the island but we just don't know it ... along with those yellow ticks-or whatever she said they were."

  "Nora said they were worm eggs, I think. Ova. I don't know what you're all bent out of shape over. They're just worms, Annabelle. You see a worm, you step on it."

  Annabelle made a sour face at the recollection.

  Now Trent was staring at her fat-free abdomen as she bent over to get something from her bag. The way her breasts hung down in that pose ...

  Trent was grinding his teeth. Those things should hang in the National Gallery of Art... .

  Annabelle pulled out her flask and took a long hit.

  Trent swatted at a few mosquitoes, then withdrew some repellent from his own bag. "What are we going to do now?"

  Annabelle frowned toward the gulf. "I don't know about you, but I think I'll get drunk."

  Now you're talking, Trent thought. She was a prize, all right, and more so when she had a few in her. He rubbed the repellent on his arms and neck. "That sounds like a plan, but I need to do a radio check with my post first. I've been doing it with my cell phone, but there hasn't been any reception all day."

  "Mine-crapped- out earlier, too."

  "So did Nora's. You can't trust technology these days, but one thing you can trust is an army radio. I've got a portable in my tent."

  They meandered back to the campsite, trading hits on the flask. Annabelle's anxiety over seeing all those worms seemed to recede as the rum worked into her. Aw, Christ, Trent thought. I am one lucky son of a bitch ... She had her arm around him as they made their way down the trail, her damp body bumping against his. She sure as shit makes it easy getting into her pants, he thought. She never wears any ... When they got back to the camp, though, she pulled on a tube top.

  Damn.

  - - - - - - - - Trent quickly came back from his tent, bearing the weighty handheld radio. He switched on the service frequency.--

  Annabelle sat idly on the picnic table, wagging her legs.

  "Jay One, this is Area November calling for radio check," he said into the unit. "Do you copy?"

  When he released the transmission key, all that came back was throbbing static.

  "I'm going to go take a nap," Annabelle decided and got up.

  Trent was pissed. "I thought we were going to get drunk."

  "I changed my mind." Moments later, she was getting-into her tent.

  Moody bitch, Trent thought. Always jerking guys around. Frustrated, he rekeyed the radio. "Jay One, this is Area November. Do you copy?"

  Just more throbbing static.

  This is really fucked up, he thought. Cell phones were one thing, but this was a secure military radio band.

  He frowned, and still couldn't shake the inexplicable notion: I'll be damned if that doesn't sound just like a jammer ...

  (III)

  Loren snorkeled concentric circles around the largest body of coral. Any evidence of bristleworms was just as disconcerting as before. They were all either bloated ... or emptied out and dead. His flippers languished, then stopped when he happened upon a thorny starfish. The creature didn't move when he picked it up. Is it dead? he wondered.

  When he flipped it around, he saw a stream of tiny pink worms exiting the aperture that was the starfish's mouth. With his finger then, he flipped over a common urchin, and found its underside pocked with tiny yellow ovum.

  Jesus! The parasites are all over the place!

  He came up for air a few more times, finding more and more evidence of infection. The worms attack any invertebrate in their path .. .

  He floated around more incrustations of coral, and found himself looking straight down the slope of the trench.

  In the water, it looked like a long black gouge in the sea floor. Can't hurt to go in just a little, he told himself. He knew his earlier warnings of moray eels and sharks were exaggeration; both creatures rarely attacked humans. Loren wanted to see if their odd pink parasite had ventured into the trench, too.

  He entered slowly and turned on his flashlight.

  A one-second glance was all it took.

  Bubbles erupted from his lips. He shot to the surface and immediately began to swim to shore.