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the door, MacGulry took careful aim.
A wicked smile carved his chapped lips the instant before he pulled the
trigger.
The explosion was deafening. The driver jerked the wheel in time with the
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recoil and the Land Rover skidded sideways. A simultaneous eruption of red
burst beside the speeding vehicle. Thick bright blood splattered the dusty
hood and windshield. Chunks of warm kangaroo bits splashed the young driver's
bare arms and knees.
Robbie MacGulry grinned delightedly. "Woo-hoo!" he screamed. "Bagged the
bugger!" His rugged face was flecked with blood. His shoulder ached where the
gun's padded stock had hammered the joint.
As the billionaire media mogul wiped blood on the sleeve of his bush jacket,
his driver struggled to keep from vomiting up the poached eggs and Foster's
beer he'd had for breakfast.
MacGulry whooped a wicked, snorting laugh as the driver regained control of
the Land Rover. They raced back up alongside the thundering mob.
The kangaroos had shifted direction. The panicked animals were tiring. Mouths
foamed, noses twitched as the Land Rover pulled abreast.
One doomed animal was so close MacGulry could have reached out and scratched
it behind its furry ears.
MacGulry brought the gun barrel within an inch of the kangaroo's gray head and
pulled the trigger.
As the latest explosion rang out, Robbie MacGulry whooped with joy.
"Gotcha, ya bastard!" MacGulry screamed.
In the side mirror, the driver glimpsed the dead kangaroo. The animal was
suddenly something from another planet-all feet and tail. The head had been
shot clean off. A ragged chunk of torso was missing, as well. One limp arm
hung in grisly red strips.
Robbie MacGulry grinned at his driver. Flecks of sticky wet blood stained his
big white teeth. The smile suddenly collapsed into a scowl.
"Here! What the hell ahh you doing!" MacGulry yelled as his driver puked on
the dashboard. "Sorry, sir," the young man gurgled. He was trying to hold in
the vomit with one hand while driving with the other.
"What ahh you, some kind of Greenpeace pooftah? It's just blood." MacGulry ran
his tongue across his teeth, licking off the sticky red film. "See?"
The man did see. He saw his boss lapping up blood like a ghoul, and he saw
thick chunks of furry gray flesh stuck to his own knees and then he saw last
night's supper joining breakfast on the dashboard of the Land Rover.
The driver's hands fled the wheel and he slammed on the brakes. Chucking
clouds of dust, the Land Rover skidded to a spinning stop.
Sensing salvation, the kangaroos cut off in another direction. In a haze of
hot dust and pounding feet, they hopped to freedom across the vast plain.
MacGulry's eyes grew wide with rage. Raw fury knotted his wrinkled face.
Baring pink-stained teeth, he was contemplating swinging the barrel of his gun
to the driver's head when his dashboard-mounted phone buzzed to life.
The media giant exhaled angrily. "You're fired," he growled, flinging the gun
into the back of the truck.
Dropping into his seat, MacGulry snatched up the receiver, flicking off bits
of kangaroo flesh. "What?" he demanded.
There was only a handful of people on Earth with access to this private
number. The voice on the phone was clipped and obsequious. Very professional
and very, very British.
"Mr. MacGulry, sir, I hate to bother you, but it's important."
"What's wrong?" MacGulry pulled the phone away before the caller could
answer.
"Stop puking, ya underdaks-wearing bastard! If you're gonna be crook, do it in
the dunny!"
The driver looked around for a dunny. The prairie was vast. No outhouses in
sight.
"Nature's dunny, idiot," MacGulry snarled.
The driver understood. Climbing from the truck, he went over and puked in the
dirt.
"What is it?" MacGulry growled into the phone. The caller picked his words
carefully.
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"There is someone-that is to say, there's something here you should see, sir.
At once."
Like all News Company employees-which was the corporate umbrella under which
virtually all of Robbie MacGulry's businesses existed-the caller knew enough
not to waste his employer's time. The Englishman was being vague for a reason.
MacGulry sighed hotly.
"I'll be back quick as a can," he grumbled. He slammed the receiver back into
its cradle.
MacGulry sat there for a long moment, staring at the bleak horizon.
The kangaroos were a distant cloud of hopping dust. He pulled off his glasses,
blowing dirt off the thick lenses.
"Bastard," he whispered so softly even the wind failed to hear. Had someone
been there to hear, they would have gotten the clear impression MacGulry was
talking about neither the Englishman on the phone nor his incompetent driver.
MacGulry glanced to his right. His driver was still doubled over. The young
man seemed to be almost finished.
Quietly, MacGulry slid over behind the wheel. When he started the engine and
stomped on the gas, his driver had to jump out of the way to avoid the
lurching Land Rover.
The media tycoon floored it and cut the wheel. When he zoomed back the way
they'd come, he could see his panicked driver waving helplessly from within a
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