Project Hannibal Kathryn Hoff (best free e book reader TXT) 📖

and trunks rose to catch the scent of danger. Ruby repeated the alert call, prompting the others to pick it up in a chorus of squeals.

That’s right, girls. Find the danger. He’d sensitized them to dogs, trained them that fast-running canids were a thing to avoid, but this was their first exposure to wolves in the wild.

Em was first to locate the wolf, her trunk lifted like a periscope homed in on the trail behind them. Her call changed to a short screech, a mammoth version of oh, shit.

Ruby huffed. Immediately, the herd solidified. Jet was shoved to the center, the adults ranging on the outer edges with tusks facing outward.

“Good, good,” Luis crooned. “Now, Ruby, move them out, but keep the herd close. Tcha.”

Mammoths couldn’t trot. Technically, they couldn’t even run—there was never a time when all four feet would be off the ground. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t move fast.

Ruby scrambled up the hill, lifting knees high, wedging her flat feet into toeholds and heaving her bulk up with surprising agility. Where no toeholds existed, a slash of her tusks created them.

Luis checked the tablet. The herd was more strung out than he liked, but help was on the way—Diamond and Turq, the two males that had been loosely following the herd, had heard the distress calls and were coming up fast.

The herd crested the hill and began to zigzag down the other side.

A roar sounded from ahead—a small, nameless river cutting through the wilderness.

At least, it had looked small from the satellite images. But with the spring thaw releasing water from mountain snows and the added burden of the storm’s rain, the river had broadened to thirty yards of torrent rushing over boulders.

From where Luis sat atop Ruby, it looked like one serious barrier.

In the rustic cabin, Anjou peered at the blips on his laptop. “What the devil is Luis doing? He’s supposed to be heading east.” Instead, the main herd had turned south, away from grid Hb27. “They seem to be going deeper into the area affected by ashfall. We should call him.”

Ginger turned the laptop away and closed the feed of the mammoths’ positions. “Absolutely not. Satellite calls can be tracked. Luis knows what he’s doing. Our concern should be Silver and Gold.”

He bridled. “Our concern should be all the mammoths.”

“Of course, my dear.” Her simpering smile was unconvincing. Diamond, Ruby, Opal . . . his beautiful creations—and she’d already written them off.

Anjou stared bleakly at the chinked cabin walls and the stuffed fish, wishing he had a way to escape. “Maybe we should call a press conference now,” he said. “Once the world knows about the mammoths, we can come out in the open and clear up all this misunderstanding.”

“We’d be arrested immediately. Don’t you see? Now more than ever, we must stay out of sight. Better to lose Luis’s herd than lose our freedom.” She bent to straighten his collar. “Go comb your hair—it’s time for our video call.”

Ginger drew her chair close so they could both peer into the screen. The grainy image of Nikodim Zhurov appeared, as sleek and self-satisfied as when Anjou had met him in Oslo. “Ginger! Henri! I am so glad you have contacted me. The Academy of Sciences is extremely interested in a collaboration. Our own progress has been substantial, very substantial. Unfortunately, the survival rates are not . . . well, to be honest, we are under pressure, great pressure, to make a better showing. To date, none of our specimens has survived more than a few hours.”

Anjou sniffed. Of course they hadn’t. Producing a mammoth was about more than splicing DNA together and sticking it in an elephant. Zhurov didn’t have the overall understanding of the organism needed to bring a hybrid not simply to birth but to maturity.

“We will need laboratory resources,” Ginger said. “And decent living accommodations.”

Anjou tightened his lips. This was supposed to be a test-the-waters call, and she was talking terms already? This was all going a little too fast for him.

“Whatever you need,” Zhurov said. “The finest facilities will be at your disposal for your research, and a dacha in the countryside to enjoy at your leisure. I can assure you that scientists are regarded much more favorably here than in your country. And we have none of the petty restrictions that seem to plague your institutions. Er . . . you did say two adult specimens? Females, and pregnant?”

“Two thousand kilos each,” Ginger said, “and halfway through the period of gestation.”

“So small! And yet mature. Remarkable.”

As Ginger added details, Anjou became more and more uncomfortable. Zhurov was clearly more interested in Silver and Gold than in Anjou. For that matter, judging by the easy conversation between them, Zhurov was more interested in Ginger than in Anjou.

“The logistics will be challenging,” Zhurov said. “Although I agree it is best to be circumspect.”

Logistics? Were they already talking about how to transport the mammoths?

Anjou broke in with, “Fine, we’ll get back to you.”

Ginger sent him an annoyed glance but, after a few pleasantries in Russian, ended the call.

“There was no reason to be rude,” she said.

“There was no reason for you to go on and on, either. And since when do you speak Russian?”

Ginger sighed. “I grew up in Korea. It was considered wise to learn both Russian and English. A little Mandarin, too, if you must know. Have you never wondered at the fact that only Americans seem incapable of learning more than a single language? And most don’t even speak that one properly.”

Anjou stared out the window at the gulls swooping in the sky. Why did people love the long days of summer? Even daylight got boring when it never ended. And every hour of summer daylight would be paid for with an hour of dispiriting darkness when winter came.

Ginger laid a hand on