Darling began buying fossils, from the smallest, oldest marine trilobites to a complete land-ranging allosaurus to a soaring pteranodon. He did not settle for plaster casts, as so many museums did. Only the real thing. He had them displayed in two large rooms on his estate, along with murals showing the animals and their world. It was ironic, he thought. The Australian media had nicknamed him Salty after the northwest crocodile. That was an insult, though not for the reasons they thought. Darling did not mind being compared to a carnivore. But he aspired to be one of the all-time great ones, like tyrannosaurus or gorgosaurus. Not a relatively small contemporary offshoot.

The moon shone through the large, arching skylight. Small lights illuminated the mounted skeletons, murals, and exhibit cases. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, the six-foot-four-inch Darling stood in the middle of the cathedral-like structure. The bald-headed media titan did not end each day with a stroll through his collection. He did so today, however. He reminded himself that sometimes creatures perished due to things outside their control. The dinosaurs were a perfect example. Apparently they all died out slowly after an asteroid struck the earth. The collision threw incalculable tons of dust into the atmosphere, blotted out the sunlight for years, and created a worldwide ecological disaster. The equivalent of a prehistoric nuclear winter. According to the geological record, these impacts and global extinctions occurred with some regularity.

Portions of the earth were overdue for a similar cleansing, he reflected. It was a concept Darwin would never have imagined. A mixture of natural selection and mass extinction.

Footsteps echoed along an adjoining corridor. A few seconds later, Andrew stepped through the door connecting the mansion with the wing that housed Darling’s collection of Ice Age fossils.

“Mr. Darling, Captain Kannaday is coming up the walk,” the executive secretary informed him.

“Bring him to the kitchen,” Darling said.

“Yes, sir,” Andrew replied.

There was no hesitation in Andrew’s voice. If Darling had instructed his aide to escort Kannaday to his private observatory, to the garage, or to a guest-room closet, Andrew would have done so without question. Descended from people who lived here during the Ice Age, Andrew Juta Graham was one of the few people whom Darling trusted absolutely.