“But future generations . . .”
Ginger’s lips tightened. “Future generations don’t vote. Homesteaders do.”
Anjou blew out a breath. Ginger had warned him months ago that the homestead movement was gaining traction and that Project Hannibal might become a casualty to political expediency. Once again, she’d proved her information network was damnably efficient.
Ginger placed a comforting hand on his arm. “Don’t despair, Henri. I have a plan.”
CHAPTER 2
Urgent meeting
Luis Cortez courteously scraped the dung from his boots before entering Project Hannibal’s headquarters. A slender man with dark, shaggy hair and a neat mustache, he would have preferred to shower and change, but Ginger had said the meeting was urgent. She’d have to take him as is, despite the lingering odor of mosquito repellant and mammoth.
Inside, Luis bypassed the laboratory with its gene editors and microscopes and the gestation room with its huge incubation vats, now empty. At the executive office, he didn’t bother to knock.
Anjou’s chair was vacant, his glass-topped desk bare. Just as well. Anjou had the golden touch with genetics, but in everything else, Ginger was the clever one.
Luis flopped into the leather-and-steel guest chair. “What’s up, Ginger?” She was built like a cushy easy chair, lots of padding under that white lab coat. Her coal-black hair was squared off in a no-nonsense bob. The only feminine things about her were her red-painted fingernails and a pair of sparkly red reading glasses that slanted upward in a style popular in 1960.
Ginger’s nose wrinkled as she looked up from her notes. “Ah, Luis. Have you decided where the herd should be released?”
That was the reason for the urgent meeting? “Far eastern end of the Brooks Range,” he answered, “near the border with Canada. There’s a huge tundra area on the south slope of the mountain range: grid Hb27 on the topographic map. Satellite images of the area show warming ground temperatures and the advance of forest vegetation. It’ll be an ideal place to document the difference that mammoths can make.”
She bit her lip. “Are you sure that’s remote enough?”
“It should be. It’s part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That refuge is bigger than a lot of states in the lower forty-eight, so the whole area should be free of development for the foreseeable future. There are no roads, of course. To get to the target area, I’ll have to truck the mammoths up the Dalton Highway to a point north of Coldfoot. There, we’ll unload the herd and strike east for a hundred and fifty miles. When we get to Hb27, I’ll use the satphone to call the bush pilot to pick us up. Brandon says the whole expedition should take two to three weeks.”
Ginger nodded slowly. “Excellent. About the timing . . .”
“I’ll start in mid-July, once Opal’s calf has arrived and is walking well.”
Ginger frowned. “I’m afraid that may be a problem. We want you to deploy the herd now—as soon as possible.”
“Now? Why?”
She tapped a legal pad that bore scrawls in English and Korean. “With the election coming, my sources tell me the administration has decided to cater to the homesteaders. They want to open more Alaska land to settlement, and mammoths would be competing for that land. That’s why Major Butterick was here—the army’s planning to terminate Project Hannibal.”
Luis’s stomach sank. “Terminate? They can’t. What will happen to the mammoths?”
Ginger’s eyes glinted. “Who knows? A zoo? Someplace where they’ll be exhibited as scientific curiosities? As failed experiments?”
Monstrous. The mammoths weren’t experiments, and for damn sure they weren’t failures.
For the last seven years, from the time Project Hannibal’s first infant mammoth had spilled out of its incubation vat, Luis had mothered the herd—bottle-feeding them, training them, even sleeping with them. Getting the genetics right was only one part of the equation. As an animal behaviorist, Luis knew that what happened after birth was just as crucial. To survive in the wild, mammoths needed a herd. That meant learning the rules of herd life—and Luis had been the one to teach them.
Raising the mammoths had been the most fulfilling part of Luis’s life, but now that Project Hannibal’s herd had reached adulthood, they could raise their own young without a human nursemaid—but only if they were allowed to roam free.
Voice raspy, he asked, “What can we do?”
Ginger leaned forward, her face earnest. “With careful planning, I think we can reverse this terrible decision. You must deploy the mammoths as soon as possible, but very discreetly. Get them away before the army realizes we’re moving them and keep them out of sight.”
Luis chewed a fingernail. Keeping the mammoths out of sight was what he’d planned to do anyway. He’d trained the mammoths to respond to all sorts of dangers, but the greatest peril they’d face would be from humans.
“If we must move them,” he said, “we’d better go right away. The last thing I want is for Opal to go into labor while we’re on the road. But how are you planning to get the army to reverse its decision?”
“Once the herd is free to wander in the wild, they’ll be safe—at least for a time. Without the tracking signatures, it will take weeks for the army to find them. By then, winter will make searching for them impractical. Meanwhile, we’ll arrange for a strategic leak to the press.” She smiled. “A few photos of mammoths in their natural environment will take the internet by storm. Soon the world will buzz with the news that mammoths once again roam the wild, with a pro-environmental purpose. People will fall in love with them. After that, any move the short-sighted politicians make to recall them will raise a public outcry.”
Luis began to feel more hopeful. Ginger might
