Mammoth

Matt had been so fascinated just watching her face as she told the story that it took him a moment to realize she was waiting for a response. Anxiously.

"Amen, sister," he said. "I admit I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but that all sounded right to me. I wince when I see those pictures of rabbits with cosmetics being tested on their eyes, but I don't much care what they do to a lab rat. And I've eaten rabbit. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, I don't know."

They both looked at Fuzzy, who was swaying happily and slowly chewing a mouthful of hay in that peculiar back-and-forth jaw motion that worked like a grindstone.

"I'm so glad he's so good-natured," Susan said. "You know, he hasn't seen sunshine or breathed open air for three years?"

"That seems stupid."

"The last time he was outdoors was the day some nut flew over in one of those ultralight airplanes and started shooting at him."

You're kidding seemed an idiotic thing to say, so Matt said nothing.

"We were just lucky it was so windy that day he couldn't aim straight, or maybe he was just a miserable shot. The security guard was better. He put a round into the engine and brought the guy down. He was cheerful about the whole thing. Said he wanted to be the only man alive to bag an actual mammoth. Maybe he thought we'd let him have the head, I don't know. He said he didn't mind going to jail. What were we going to charge him with, murder?"

"World's full of nuts."

"That's what Howard said, too. From then on Fuzzy got his exercise ru

"Matt, do you think the plan is stupid? Is this all pointless? Can I ever get Fuzzy to a place where he can roam around outdoors?"

Matt knew a lie wouldn't do.

"Fuzzy can never live a 'normal' mammoth life," he said, slowly.

"I don't mean that, I know that's impossible. Mammoths are social, they live in herds—at least until they reach sexual maturity, if they're male, and if they're like elephants, which I think they are. No... I mean..."

Matt took her hand.

"The plan is not idiotic. If it works, it'll get Fuzzy nearer to a normal life than anything I could think of. So it's not pointless. Obviously, I can't tell you if it'll work or not. But I think we have a

chance."

"You do?"

"I do."

"That's all I ask for."

She leaned her head on his shoulder and they didn't say anything for a long time.

28

THE security industry was a growth business all through the last half of the twentieth century and showed no signs of slacking off in the first decades of the twenty-first. This was true of both the public and private sectors, but private security usually had the better technology.

There was no lack of private detective agencies if Howard needed manpower on the streets, and plenty of firms that specialized in guards and surveillance equipment stood ready to provide anything from armored perso

He thought briefly about the subs because he'd never been in one. He knew Fuzzy could swim, but where would he swim to? Anyway, a surface boat would do for that. What Howard needed mostly, at first, was helicopters. Before he was done he had chartered over a hundred of them.

Howard, Andrea, and Warburton landed at PDX as the sun was coming up and the rain was tapering off. It was still too cloudy for Howard's needs—satellite technology would be a vital part in the success of this operation, and visible light was often the best medium for a preliminary search, and you couldn't see through clouds—but the forecast was good, with westerly winds moving a high-pressure area over everything from British Columbia to northern California. It should be clear as a bell in a few hours, and into the night, which was far more important.

Andrea called for a cook to come to the airport and make meals in the plane's full galley, otherwise Howard would forget to eat. He would have been content to have Domino's deliver breakfast, lunch, and di

Things were already well advanced before they even landed. Still, an operation of this scale takes a certain amount of time to get fully in gear, no matter how much money you offer for speed. Not all the chartered choppers were equipped with the electronics needed for the search; that equipment had to be obtained and installed, crews had to be assembled. A computer laid out a search pattern and assignments were made. All in all, it was eleven before everyone was flying toward their assigned zones.

All the way there in the plane Howard and Warburton had discussed the options open to them as Andrea listened but seldom spoke. They worked out a strategy, and Howard was forced to order his priorities and face some bad possibilities.

"Worst-case scenario," Howard said, "we search for a set time, then we call in the authorities. What's the downside?"

Warburton shrugged. He wasn't going to mention that Howard would look like a fool; that was a given, the whole reason for first trying to find the damned beast themselves. Warburton would have sent up all the flares ten seconds after the first phone call, but he wasn't Howard.

"Not much. You'll catch some flack for not reporting it at once, but the search will be nationwide, and they'll be found."

"Okay. Next-worst scenario. We find them, but it's real public and everybody finds out Fuzzy was stolen. I mean, much as I'd like to, we can't just shoot 'em even if we find them isolated out in the country."

"Howard," Andrea said, "you wouldn't shoot them in any case."

"You're right. But we can hold them at gunpoint, make a citizen's arrest, right? They have stolen a pretty valuable property. They have broken the law."

"As you say, men licensed to carry guns can hold them for you," Warburton said. "They might get charged with something later, since there is no bounty or warrant out on them; we can handle that. But this may not be possible without people finding out about it. In fact, most of the scenarios I can imagine, it's going to get out that Fuzzy was stolen. It may already have. Working with this many people, there will be leaks."

"Understood."

"So... best-case scenario, we find him in a truck on the road somewhere, stop them, and drive quietly back to Fuzzyland. No publicity, no arrests. Chances?"

"Slim."

Howard sighed. "Okay. I'd settle for the second possibility. But until then we look for him, hard, and we work hard to find a way to end this quietly."

"If they've gone to ground in the country, we haven't got a prayer."

"I know that. Every instinct tells me they will stay on the move. They will know they are more conspicuous on lonely country roads, which means they'll stay on the major roads, probably on the freeways. I-84 East and I-5 South get into empty country real fast, so I think they'll head north toward Seattle. Easier to lose yourself in a big city, pull into an RV park or something like that if they need to stop. So our forces on the ground will concentrate on the Seattle metro area. Some of the helicopters will follow every road where they could be, with full electronic enhancement. But I have a feeling we'll catch them with the satellites, tonight."

"Got it. Now, I suggest we set a time frame before we call in the cops. Twenty-four hours."

"From now, or from when he was stolen?"

"The latter."

"Forty-eight hours."