She’d watched the strike unfold. All had seemed normal. Then Mark had appeared at the farm. She’d been furious, but had been concentrating on managing that strike. She was looking at thousands of acres of redwood forest, and she could not let the fire go out of control.

“He hasn’t reported in, has he?”

“Mark? Of course he has. He’s awaiting orders.”

“You have tape of his action? Have you watched it?”

“I was about to. Obviously, there’s going to be a review board. I’ll watch it, do my evaluation, then put a time-stamped impound on it for the board.”

“Watch it now.”

“I—you’ll need to leave.” He wasn’t cleared to see her system in operation.

“Do it this moment,” he rasped, “or I’ll see you in prison.”

She’d never heard a tone of voice quite like that before or seen a expression like the one now on Turner’s face. She only knew a small part of what he knew, and the man was like a volcano about to explode. So she went across the room and activated her system, touching a few keys, going back to a view of the area of the strike zone.

He’d come close behind her. “Not there. The farmhouse.”

She leaned into her controls, backing the view out a little. There was the farmhouse standing in its little yard of yellow flowers.

“What am I looking for?”

“Back it up about ten minutes.”

As she did so, she saw Mark’s van pull up and his team get out and move into the woods behind the house. He disappeared onto the porch.

She switched to infrared. This way, she could see the figures under the trees, red shadows moving with the care of the skilled hunters that they were. Each man was identified with an infrared-visible helmet symbol. She watched them penetrate the woods, followed by Dr. Hicks. Lovely woman, Linda Hicks … whose duty caused her to spend every moment of her time with Mark, damn her.

The men stopped, but not entirely. Slowing the visual down, it looked as if they were executing a precise, directed motion, as if each of them was being pushed back and forth at high speed between invisible figures.

This sight made chilling sense to her, though, because hybrids had a low infrared signature.

“This is the attack,” she whispered.

Another heat signature appeared, moving fast from the house to the woods—Mark. The smeared red blotch of his infrared image paused a moment, then shot toward the woods.

She flipped on the recording of his telemetry. His heart was thundering, his breath roaring.

Obviously she should have watched this and not the air strike. But she’d been so concerned about containing the fire.

The heart rate shot from 70 to 160, and Mark, for just an instant, disappeared.

Turner remained silent.