James Smith - The Flock

"Why haven't they done this kind of thing before?" Mary asked. "If they've always been here in Florida, and they like to eat dogs, then why haven't we known about them?"

"We think one of them is a rogue," Kate told him. "We think the big one, the one in Dodd's photos, is a rogue. Disrupting the flock. It's the only explanation. In fact, it's been our latest project to trap it."

"Trap it," Ron repeated. "How were you going to do that?"

"I could think of a number of ways," Mary said.

"I'm sure," Kate said. "That's what I was doing out in the field when I first met you, Ron. We caught you on a video monitor and Vance radioed to me to 'stumble' upon you. Bring you back to the compound and figure out what the hell someone from Fish and Wildlife was doing out in the bush. He thought maybe you guys had suspected something. And, as you know, Vance doesn't trust your kind."

"I know," Ron said. "Why didn't I see your radio? Or hear it?"

"I turned it off," she said. "Stuck it back in my pack."

"Oh." He sighed. And he had thought it was his boyish charm that had attracted her.

"Don't look so offended," she told him. "We had to find out what you were doing there. Vance knows you guys are working hand in hand with the studio to enable them to buy up all of the acreage from the old military base, turn it into subdivisions and shopping centers like the rest of Florida. He's trying to stop that. He's trying to save these animals."

"Then why didn't he just go to the public about them?" Mary asked. "It doesn't make sense to keep it all a secret."

"He doesn't trust the public," Adam said. "He knows what happens when the destiny of wilderness is in the hands of our esteemed public. I do, too. It all gets gobbled up and destroyed. Nobody cares about it. Nobody's willing to pay to protect it. Vance was trying to buy it all up and give it to the Department of the Interior, and tell them what's living here. That's been his plan all along. The last thing he wants, and the rest of us included, is to let the public know about the flock, to have them try to come in here and disrupt their habitat."

"Well, it's a moot point, now," Ron said. "I can't stay quiet about it. I've got to go to the police and tell them what I know about Dodd's murder. And I'll have to show them the disk."

Levin sobbed, and Ron and Mary looked at him, shocked at the sudden burst of sadness. "Oh, hell," he muttered from between his fingers.

"I wish I could figure out something else," Ron told him. "But I don't have any other option. Someone killed Tim Dodd, and I have to tell the authorities what I know. I've got to."

"We understand, Ron." It was Kate. Her face was solemn, but there was no accusation there.

Mary stood up, arched her back. Everyone could hear her spine crackle as she bent backwards. Finished stretching, she looked at Kate. "What are these things, anyway? I've never seen anything like them. I mean, who ever heard of a bird with arms instead of wings?"

"They're Phorusrachids," she said.

"For-us-what?" Mary tried to pronounce it.

"For-us-RAY-kidz," Adam said, forming the phonetics for the word.

"I've heard of those," Ron told them. "They were a species of predatory ground birds that lived…what? Two, three million years ago?"

"Well, they're obviously not extinct," Kate said. "But most paleontologists thought they'd been gone for at least a million years, although back in '95 a guy found an ankle bone from a phorusrachid in a Blancan deposit in Texas, which would put it at about twelve thousand years. And a fossil dig in a spring here in Florida revealed that their wings had evolved into arms-that discovery came around 1994. It just wasn't big news," she added.

"Well, this is big news," Mary told them. "It's huge news."

"They're doomed, now," Adam wheezed.

"Screw that," Mary all but yelled. "As soon as the papers and the reporters get hold of this, the whole place will be protected. You'll see. You'll all see."

All eyes were on Mary, the single voice of enthusiasm in the room.

"I suppose we will all see," Kate admitted. "I don't think there's any other alternative, now." She sighed, and slumped in her chair.

Ron looked at Mary, at Levin and Kate. He knew how the wheels of government turned. And, for now, he felt like crying.

"You want me to ride with you to talk with the police?" Mary was walking down the wide corridor with Ron.

"Yeah. I'd appreciate that. You can back me up on the fact that my house was broken into and that I was threatened over this." Ron held up the disk before he stuffed it back into his shirt pocket.

"I guess it's the least a pal can do, huh?" She didn't wait for a reply to her sarcasm. "What about that Kwitney chick? Think she made a copy of the photos?" She hitched a thumb back toward the opposite end of the corridor, where they had left Levin and Kate.

"I didn't see her do it. Did you?"

"Nah. But like I said, it's my cousin who's up on all that computer stuff. Not me. I hardly know how to turn one on, much less use it. My thang is trapping."

"I know what you mean. But I can't see where it would do them any good. If what they were saying is true, they must have plenty of photographic and video evidence of these big birds."

"Hate to meet up with one."

"I'd love to see one. Hope I get the chance. This is going to change everything as far as Salutations and the old bombing range is concerned." They were almost to the entrance foyer of the main building. Sunlight streamed through the big, tinted windows, and through the skylights above.

"I wonder how that reporter got that close to one and lived through it? The one in those pictures looked as if it was bearing down on the photographer."

"I'm sure I don't know. And it was only a temporary reprieve, as things turned out."

"Yeah. Too bad. He didn't seem like a bad sort the times I talked to him."

"He was just a guy making a living, is all. Same as us." They were at the foyer, and could see the truck parked outside, its hood up.

"What the hell," Mary said, pointing at the pickup.

Riggs ran to the door and pushed it open, a great draft of cool air following him out into the muggy day. Almost immediately he could feel moisture and heat clinging to him as he ran toward the truck. He brought himself to a halt with his forearms, leaning into the engine to see what was going on.

Mary was right behind him. "What's going on, Ron?"

But she didn't have to ask. Both of them peered down into the engine, seeing that the distributor cap had been torn free. And something blunt and obviously heavy had been used to thrash about in the general vicinity of the block and radiator. Various liquids oozed and dripped onto the sandy ground beneath the truck.

"Damn," Ron said.

"What'll we do?"

"This is bad. I was wondering where that Kamaguchi guy went. Let's just get the hell out of here while we can."

"You don't have a gun in there, do you?"

"Hell, no. I work for Fish and Wildlife, not ATF. Let's just hoof it while we can. I don't want to go back in there."

They went past the cab of the truck and looked inside, seeing that it had been plundered, the glove compartment open, papers strewn about the seat and onto the floorboard. "Let's go man," Mary was saying.

"You'll go nowhere but back inside." It was Kamaguchi. He was standing in the narrow roadway just inside the overhanging shade of a pair of slash pines that flanked the trailhead.

"Try to stop us," Mary said.

The first shot showered a spray of sand over her boots, and the second bored a neat hole in the taillight of the truck just to the left of her knee. "You're not going anywhere but back inside, I told you. Now," he stepped out of the shadows and they could see the.22 semi-automatic he was carrying rather easily, holding it with some familiarity, "you two get your asses back in the building before I blow holes in your heads. I'll do it, too."