Mammoth (37 page)

DARRYL
was no Einstein, but he wasn’t stupid.

He saw the chief walking down the corridors, following him with three cameras in sequence, saw him reach the place where he should have turned to reach Fuzzy’s quarters…saw him hurry right on past it.

Saw him go into the parking lot, get in his car, and drive away.

Something funny here.

There was a red button on his console that they called the panic button. It was only to be used in the event of fire,
explosion, terrorist invasion, earthquake, or the second coming of Jesus. It had a clear plastic cover so you couldn’t accidentally punch it. Darryl had wanted to punch that button from the first moment he saw it.

Ed was second in command—what a joke, the man hadn’t stirred for hours, could have had a heart attack and died for all Darryl knew. He decided to show some initiative. That’s what officers were supposed to do, wasn’t it?

He ran all the way to Fuzzy’s enclosure. He glanced through the window into Susan Morgan’s office. No one there. He looked over the rail at the recumbent mammoth. It was twitching alarmingly now. He had never been this close to the star of the show. Hesitantly, he climbed over the rail and eased up on the beast, thinking about getting kicked by one of those big feet.

One of Fuzzy’s eyes had popped out.

He felt a sudden urge to throw up…then an even worse feeling as he saw no blood on the eyeball, saw that it was hanging out of the socket on wires, saw metal in the empty eye socket.

What the
fuck
?

He got back to his station in half the time it took him on the way out, flipped up the plastic cover on the panic button, and slammed it with his fist.

The alarm was so loud Ed Crane woke up and fell out of his chair.

IT
started to rain as they walked Fuzzy down the ramp. Fuzzy stopped and looked around. The poor thing hasn’t been outside in so long he’s forgotten what rain is, Matt realized. He got his washing from hoses and his—very clean—wallow tub, and his drinking water from a tank.

Susan got him moving into the second unit she had rented, which was strewn with hay and had a basket of Fuzzy’s favorite fruits. Matt drove the truck and trailer out of the storage yard and parked it two blocks away under some tall trees that met over the street, the best they could do to foil aerial surveillance, which was their biggest fear. He hurried back and found Fuzzy had decided to sleep off his drug hangover.

“Snoozing,” Matt observed.

“Yeah. Trouble is, so is the other one. I got a call from Jack Elk. Fuxxy went haywire. Jack ran off; nothing he could do about it. The alarm is out by now.”

Matt saw she was shivering. He was soaked to the skin but she welcomed his arms around her. She had done so much, so incredibly much, planning it all out, making the contacts, able to do most of it only on Mondays when she wasn’t a prisoner of her job, in some ways a slave to her love for Fuzzy. Now she seemed at the end of her rope. She needed reassurance…and he was happy that he didn’t even have to lie to her.

“Makes no difference,” he said, stroking her hair. “Howard gains a couple hours.”

“I don’t know…I feel we should just get him back in the trailer and run.”

“Big mistake. If the cops are looking for us, we’re screwed, we both know that. If we move now, we stand out like a sore thumb. He’ll have us before the sun comes up. We stick to the plan, it’s the best one we have.”

“But it gives him more time to—”

“He’ll
expect
us to keep moving. Every minute the circle he has to search gets wider, and he’ll concentrate on the circumference of that circle. We stay here, the most intense part of the search spreads away from us, the search gets
harder.
”

She smiled up at him. “Okay. You’re the guy who can do the math, I guess.”

“It’s my thing. Trust me.”

He hugged her again. The only trouble was, he knew, Howard was no slouch at math himself.

THE
panic button rang in several places other than Fuzzyland. The nearest fire station and the local police were alerted and were soon on their way.

It also rang in Warburton’s bedroom, waking him from a sound sleep. He sat up and looked at the communications console beside his bed. When you worked as the chief troubleshooter for Howard Christian you were never far from the vast machine that protected Howard and Howard’s interests. He saw at a glance that there was trouble at Fuzzyland.

He punched a few buttons, heard a phone ring and go unanswered. He frowned, punched a few more keys. He knew that now, in the security pit in Oregon, every single screen on the huge video wall would be displaying his no-doubt groggy face, rumpled hair, and the collar of his orange pajamas.

“Hey!”
he shouted. “Somebody pick up the fucking phone!”

Somebody did. The face of a frightened young man appeared on his screen.

“Who are you?” the kid asked.

“My name is Warburton, and I am Howard Christian’s personal assistant. What is going on?”

“Sir!”
the kid shouted, and actually stood up and saluted.

“Sit down, your face is out of the picture.”

“Sir! The…the, uh…somebody stole the mammoth.
Sir!”

“Stole Fuzzy?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Okay, hold on.” He punched a few more buttons and heard the phone ring in Howard’s bedroom. Howard answered on the fourth ring. There was no picture.

“Somebody stole Fuzzy,” he said. He listened a moment, heard pretty much what he had expected to hear. He brought the kid back onto his screen.

“Get your supervisor, right now.”

“Sir…he’s…uh, he’s gone.”

“So go get him.”

“I mean, sir, he got in his car and drove away. Sir.”

Of course. She had help. Warburton rubbed his head. This was going to be no fun at all. He’d catch her, no question, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Darryl, sir.”

“Listen very carefully, Darryl. Are the police and fire units there yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay. When they get there, you are going to tell them you hit the button accidentally.”

“But, sir, you
can’t
hit the—”

“Listen very carefully
, Darryl. I know you’re going to look a little foolish. Don’t worry about it. Your job is secure. In fact, you are in for a promotion, starting tomorrow, if you simply tell this harmless little lie. We have the situation under control down here. Darryl, are you still listening?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Tell this little lie, and you are going to be a very, very happy man. You are going to find some money in your bank account. A good deal of money. Okay, Darryl?”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Now go meet the firemen.” Warburton immediately started making more phone calls.

DARRYL
hung up the phone and looked at Ed Crane, who had been listening in.

“What about me?” Ed said.

“You, Ed, are going to back my play, and I know Mr. Warburton will take care of you. It’s none of our business, right?”

“Right.”

Darryl grasped the clear plastic cover that had covered the panic button and twisted it off. He dropped the cover into his
pocket and headed out to eat crow in front of the firemen, a big smile on his face.

THE
phone woke Andrea first. Howard could sleep through an earthquake. She shivered. She hated staying over at Howard’s apartment in his damn tower; she
knew
it would fall over in a quake. But he loved it way the hell up here, and she hadn’t talked him out of it. Yet. She shoved him once, twice. That particular phone wouldn’t ring with that particular tone unless it was very, very important. He snorted, and sat up quickly.

“What? What?”

“Warburton wants you.” She sat back and watched as he punched the speakerphone button.

“Yeah?”

“Somebody stole Fuzzy.”

Later, Andrea thought that most men, ambushed by a statement like that, musty-headed with sleep, would have said,
What do you mean, somebody stole Fuzzy?
What Howard said, after only a half-second pause, was…

“That
bitch!”

Howard kept talking. In fact, he continued to pace the room for the next fifteen minutes, seeing nothing, totally focused on the phone pressed to his ear, pausing only to curse steadily as he dialed another number. Andrea didn’t need to hear the other sides of the various conversations. She was fairly good at deduction herself.

She went to the big closet and scanned the clothes inside. They would be returning to Oregon, possibly driving down back roads and/or tramping around in the woods. She slipped out of her nightgown and put on a pair of jeans she had paid four hundred dollars for in Switzerland, even though she knew something very similar could be had for twenty dollars at Target. What was money for if you couldn’t enjoy shopping? She found a blouse that looked good on her and would be warm. She put on running shoes. Then she followed Howard around, putting her hand on his shoulder to stop him, prompting him to lift first one foot and then the other so she could slip a pair of jeans over the boxer shorts he always wore to bed. She got a shirt on him in similar fashion. She set out a pair of shoes
but didn’t try to put them on him yet. Then she rang for the night bodyguard and houseboy, and pointed them to the suitcases that were always kept packed. She told them to carry them to the elevator, and call the helicopter pilot to warm up the chopper.

There was nothing in the suitcases or in the closet suitable for the conditions they might be encountering. She would make some calls herself, once they were in the jet, get somebody to have parkas and GoreTex coats and warm wool socks and good hiking boots in their sizes waiting for them when they landed at PDX. It was a little more than two hours to Portland; that ought to be enough time.

She tried not to smile. She had to admit she was glad for the excuse to get back out of this terrorist magnet, this needle on the world’s largest seismograph, this damn Resurrection Tower. And she liked an adventure.

I’m amazed at you, Susan
, she thought. She liked the woman, and she had just made the biggest mistake of her life, other than carrying a torch for that hopeless nerd Matt Wright.
But look who’s talking
, she told herself. She watched affectionately as Howard, supernerd himself, paced the room.

She loved him like this. She loved the intensity of his focus. She herself had a reputation on the set as a perfectionist to the extent that would make Barbra Streisand or Stanley Kubrick seem devil-may-care. But she never threw a temper tantrum. She didn’t have to. Her pictures came in on time, on budget, and they made oceans of money. She had one Oscar on her mantel and prospects of another next year. She was so much like Howard it was scary: Howard always got his way, in things that mattered, and so far he had always been right.

And he worshipped her. She was used to that. Millions worshipped her, and it didn’t mean much to her anymore. At first, sure, but now she was devoted to her art, and to her causes. She would do anything for those two things, and for Howard.

Howard felt the same about her, and about Fuzzy.

Poor Susan.

And yet, in a part of her mind, she had to admit she was…what? Pulling for her? No, certainly not that, if Susan got away with this it would devastate Howard.

But she felt admiration for this incredible stunt. Damn it, the girl had guts.

MICHAEL
Bartlett sat in his rented truck in the parking lot of a Goodwill store in the town of Sandy, Oregon, a town that had grown hugely in the last few years because it was just down the road from Fuzzyland. His driver’s license was good, there were no warrants on him. He had led a very clean life for the last two years…not that it had done him any good. Before, he had not been good at waiting. He always wanted to be moving, always wanted some action. Now, he was an expert at waiting. Three years in jail did that to you. You learned to wait patiently, or you went crazy.

He had waited a long time for this moment. Many times he had despaired that it would ever come—the man was just too powerful, too unreachable. He had imagined a dozen ways to kill him, and he thought a few of them might actually work—the man’s security was good but he was often careless. But he didn’t want to kill Howard Christian, not really, he didn’t think of himself as a killer, only as an avenger, a righter of wrongs, a liberator of the oppressed.

No, what he had been waiting for was the opportunity to kick Howard Christian in the balls, very, very,
very
hard. Michael Bartlett, in what by now seemed almost like a previous life, had once gone by the nom de guerre of Python.

Oddly enough, he was never charged with the destruction he had helped to bring about at the warehouse in Santa Monica. Every shred of evidence had been hurled into the past. The site was excavated but not even a piece of foundation was found. Sometime in the intervening ten to fifteen thousand years the whole structure must have been washed away in a flood or a series of them, buried, and eventually covered by the metropolis. Christian didn’t want to prosecute, anyway, he didn’t need the possible bad publicity, the demonstrations by animal rights and antiabortion nuts.

He didn’t have to. Bartlett/Python was connected to several other incidents and eventually copped a plea: six years, medium security. With good behavior he was paroled in three. That was when his real troubles began.

He came from an upper-middle-class family but his parents were dead, he had spent his small inheritance, and he didn’t have much money of his own. He had a college degree but hadn’t worked in his field for some years, devoting himself to the cause of animal liberation. He came out of the joint determined to stay away from any criminal activity whatsoever, for all time, end of story, though he intended to keep in contact with old friends from the Movement. But no more action, no more conspiracy. He was well and truly rehabilitated.