“Drop out of sight?” Anjou glanced at the lawyer. She gave a nod, setting her looped earrings swinging. “That wasn’t our intention—at least not my intention. The herd had been deployed, and we were thinking of moving to a larger facility. It seemed a natural time to give our staff some time off and to take a bit of a vacation. I’ll admit I was surprised when Ginger insisted on a cabin near the sea.”
He should have figured it out then—she’d already moved Silver and Gold to the coast, along with their expensive government-purchased equipment, all nicely packaged in shipping containers ready to be carried across the Bering Strait to Russia. Getting Anjou to go along was just a bonus.
“It was only after we reached the cabin,” he said, “that she came to me with a story about being in danger of arrest for lying to immigration and tried to persuade me to go with her to Russia. I’m afraid she almost had me convinced that I was about to be arrested with her. Er, was there an arrest warrant?”
“No,” the interviewer said. “Just a ‘be-on-the-lookout.’ When the army reported that you’d disappeared so suddenly and we realized you were in the company of a suspected spy, it raised alarm bells.”
“I see.” God, he was a fool for believing her. “Well, I played along, but as soon as I could get away for a few minutes, I called the nearest FBI office.”
The agent looked up. “She says Russia was your idea. That you were so upset at the government cancelling your grant that you were ready to defect.”
Anjou bridled. “I’m a loyal American. Take my science to another country? I’m ashamed she even thought it possible.” In that, he was perfectly sincere. Living in Alaska was bad enough, but even prison would be better than Siberia—in prison, there’s the possibility of parole. “We knew there were questions about whether the grant would be renewed, but I was confident that environmental necessity would outweigh any political concerns.”
“Even if the government had decided to destroy your life’s work?”
Anjou shrugged. “If I had known about it, I would have been flying to Washington to talk to my congressional representatives, not going on vacation in the backwoods.”
“Hmm.” The agent turned a page. “Dr. Kim also claims you were inflating the underlying contracts and pocketing the proceeds yourself.”
The lying little minx. At his lawyer’s warning glance, Anjou got himself under control. “I’m afraid I trusted Ginger completely. By all means, look into the bookkeeping.” He leaned forward, putting all the sincerity he had into his voice. “I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do. My work is more important than a mere job. It’s vital to the future of the planet. No amount of money is worth jeopardizing that.”
The interviewer shrugged and closed the file. “Well, it looks like your work will go on now, even if you’re not heading it up any longer.”
He slid across a tabloid newspaper. The headline blared: Rescued by Mammoths! A grainy cell-phone-proportioned photo showed a large, furry mass with unlikely-looking tusks. The inset photo was of a grinning teenager wearing a Save the Mammoths tee shirt.
Among the smaller headlines: Celebrity Orgy! More Evidence of Bigfoot! Russian Spy Ring Captured! Could Mount Taktuq Erupt Again? Lose 30 Pounds in a Weekend!
Anjou sniffed. “That isn’t the sort of publicity a serious scientist wants. Still, if it persuades the public that the threat of permafrost loss is real, then something good may come of it.”
With Ginger being held without bond, Anjou under investigation, and the books being scrutinized, Project Hannibal no longer existed. Anjou wasn’t too worried—after all, he was the victim here, a dedicated scientist taken advantage of by an insidious foreign conspiracy. He could play that role in his sleep—emphasizing to everyone that his only concern was for the environment and begging the public to ensure that the mammoths be allowed to remain free to do their part. His lawyer was already vetting the requests for talk-show interviews.
At least the mammoths were safe—that part of Ginger’s scheme had worked perfectly. With all the publicity, the administration in Washington had switched gears to promote itself as the savior of mammoths and had officially placed Anjou’s creations under the protection of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Anjou might be temporarily under a cloud because he’d been taken in by a Russian spy, but that would blow over. There was still no one else in the world who could produce a living mammoth out of scraps of DNA. And if he could produce a mammoth, why not an extinct Irish elk? A Tasmanian tiger?
After all, it was always wise to have a backup plan.
CHAPTER 43
Reunion
In a tundra meadow some hundred miles north of the place where they’d crashed, Sera bounced up to Estelle. “Do I look all right?”
Laughing, Estelle wiped a smudge from Sera’s face and tucked a few stray hairs back into her braids. “You look wonderful, chérie.”
She did, too. Dirty jeans, hiking boots, and bright yellow Save the Mammoths sweatshirt—but the joy in Sera’s face lit up Estelle’s world.
Sera bit her lip. “I wish Annie were here.”
Estelle laughed. “Now that she’s back in Rainbow, I don’t think she’ll ever leave again. She says she’s too busy, working in her garden, smoking fish, and looking after baby Rufus.”
It was July, only four weeks after what the news channels called the “miracle mammoth rescue.”
The
