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this? You’ll be killing fellow Americans.”
    “No problem, sir.”
    “I can’t have you balk at the last moment.”
    “I took an oath, Commander.”
    Commander Roscoe felt uneasy. “This is why we’re leaving it until dark. We can’t be seen to be doing this. You understand why?”
    The second lieutenant replied. “They’re either carrying the disease, or they’re the terrorists themselves, sir. I’ll mop up the slop. No problem. They’ve released a nerve agent. They’ve killed everyone on the island. They don’t deserve to live, sir. They’re traitors as far as I’m concerned. I’ll kill them as easy as stepping on a bug.”
    “You’re to leave no one alive. Go to it.”
    “Aye-aye, sir!”
     
     
    21.20 PM
     
    “Cool it, man,” Luke said firmly. The wild-eyed man point ed the flare-gun at Luke and then back to Sophie again, unable to comprehend her words. “How can she have the plague?”
    “Everyone upon the island has been exposed to it,” Sophie explained.
    “Then, why ain’t we dead?”
    “It’s ninety-nine percent fatal. We’re obviously immune.”
    He waved the flare-gun furiously, “Cure her. Now.”
    “She is too far gone, I’m sorry.”
    His hand trembled and pointed the flare-gun at her, “Make her better, or I’ll kill you!”
    “I can’t,” she said.
    His body trembled and his eyes glared, he raised the gun to her head and his finger squeezed back on the trigger. . .when Luke snatched up a harpoon-gun and fired, the harpoon whooshed out and shot into the man’s chest, pinning him to the wall.
    The wild-eyed man’s legs kicked and danced in his macabre death-throws. Blood gurgled from his mouth then he twitched for a moment.
    Sophie found Luke outside throwing up. “You saved my life, thank you,” she said gratefully.
    He looked at the vomit bashfully. “Must’ve been something I ate,”
    She looked down at the puddle of vomit. “It looks like everything you ate,” she joked. “Still, proves you’re human,” she patted his back. “I thought you might’ve said some tough-guy corny line like, ‘stick around, dude,’” she mimicked his deep voice.
    He clicked his fingers, “Oh man, I wish I had said that, let’s go back in.”
    She rolled her eyes, “I think we should keep moving.”
     
     
    21.25 PM
     
    The navel landing craft bounced across the waves as it headed to shore. A gung ho kid scanned the beach back and forth with night vision goggles, and then shouted. “Gotcha!”
    “How many?” asked the second lieutenant.
    “Two of ‘ em. Man and woman.”
    The gunner operating the forward-mounted machine-gun braced himself, as the boat hopped a large wave. He steadied himself and prepared to fire.
    “Let’s get ‘ em,” The gung ho kid whooped with glee at the thought of the coming action.
    “Ready?” the second lieutenant asked and the threesome touched knuckles, “OK, let’s light ‘ em up.”
    With a loud bang, he fired a flare that zoomed into the night sky.
     
    __________
     
    Luke and Sophie strol led bare-foot at the water’s edge feeling the sand between their toes and the tide lapping at their ankles, looking like newly-weds without a care in world. They carried the scuba-tanks and passed discarded jet skis.
    “If I’m right,” she said. “It is going to be a pandemic like the world has never seen. We are going to need a massive quarantine of the infected, mass evacuations of the uninfected, and then we need to develop a cure for this new strain of plague.”
    “How hard can it be?” he said with nonchalance.
    She looks at him incredulously.
    “I’ll give it a go.”
    She laughed. “You idiot,” she playfully hit him on the arm.
    He winced. “ Argh!”
    “Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry.” She touched his injured arm and baby-talked him, teasing. “Does it hurt?”
    “Yeah, of course it damn well hurts. I had half a helicopter smash through my arm.”
    “Half!” she laughed and punched him again, then immediately