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horse while Alex paused to get an update. “I’m going there!” she shouted and swung herself up bareback. “Short Stuff and Middle Man are still in the corral.”
    “Wait! You can’t do anything—”
    “Just work things out with Ralph,” she called over her shoulder, then raced her horse down the four-wheel-drive road and disappeared into the shadowed trees. He had never seen her ride like that before.
    Reacting on instinct, Cassie was at their supply packs. She withdrew the two shotguns she had carried with them, ostensibly for protection against coyotes or bears.
    Alex didn’t need to think hard about who might have done such a thing. “Kinsman was a decoy,” he said to Ralph. “Him and his supposedly reasonable discussion, he was just a plant to get inside. But how could they target the hospital in the dark and from so far away?”
    “I’m willing to bet they targeted this place with those microwave echoes I keep hearing. If Kinsman planted some sort of passive echo locator—”
    “His pen! Damn, I didn’t even think! He left it on purpose. They could have targeted from that. I’m packing up Cassie, and we’ll be right down there.”
    Before Alex could switch off, the Security chief said, “Wait—that’s gunfire. Jesus, those bastards are coming in from the South Gate!” Ralph’s voice strayed for a moment as he barked orders to a security crew, who scrambled in response. “The Hospital’s in flames, Boss. We’re sending people in to try and rescue the animals.”
    “Keep yourself safe,” Alex barked. “Helen’s already on her way.” He thought of the two adult mammophants in the corral, the wonderful dodos and moas, all the exotic and frightening animals he kept in the solid-wall pens in the back of the Hospital. And all of his people. He prayed his wife would be safer down there with Ralph and his crew than up here. “We’re coming in—”
    Another thin patter of popgun shots rang out. Alex thought he was getting Ralph’s background noise until Cassie cried, “Just below us!”
    “Ralph, we’ve got intruders up here, too.”
    “Clement Valley! Jesus, do you want me to send a—”
    “You just do your job there. And watch Helen’s back, dammit.”
    He shut down his link and studied the shadowy trees. Another few shots, yes, nearby. One of the mammoths bellowed in surprise, or perhaps pain, sounding like a squeaky cannon.
    “Hey!” Cassie tossed Alex one of the shotguns, and he caught it instinctively. The weapon felt hard and cold and strange in his hand. She looked at him with an anguished face. “Maybe that missile hitting the Hospital was just to get our forces away—so they could come up here and kill my mammoths.” She swung herself up onto her already frightened mare and bent low, snatching the tether rope. “I’m going down to the herd.”
    The gunshots came faster as she rode hard down into the valley.
    “Wait!” Alex called after her—pointlessly—then got his butt in gear.
    He mounted his own gelding and followed her into the darkness. Here he was, the head of a gigantic international corporation—and his wife and a young girl had both jumped into action while he stood around and talked to himself.
    The horses were already uneasy with the smell of the mammoths, and the pattering gunfire spooked his mount even more. He caught up to the young ranch hand as she tried to see down into the darkness. “You leave the mammoths alone!”
    “Quiet!” he urged, fearing the shadowy attackers might target Cassie instead of the animals.
    Sharp, flat shots from their left.
    Alex saw dim shapes running, stalking closer, as if intimidated by coming so close to the prehistoric beasts. Simple rifles would have little effect on a woolly mammoth, he thought—just before another round of muffled percussive bangs.
    A few seconds, then distant explosions came from the open valley floor.
    “Grenade launchers.”
    “You bastards!” Cassie screamed.
    “Hush! They don’t know