Three

Avoice came crackling over the loudspeakers—Rachel Sherrill's boss, Theo Nakamura, telling visitors to evacuate the botanical gardens immediately.

"This is not a drill," Theo said. "This is for the safety of everyone on the grounds. That includes all park personnel. Everyone, please, out of the park."

Within seconds, park visitors started coming at Rachel hard. The grounds were more crowded than she had thought. Mothers ran as they pushed strollers ahead of them. Children ran ahead of their parents. A teen on a bike swerved to avoid a child, went down, got up cursing, climbed back on his bike, and kept going. Smoke was suddenly everywhere.

"It could be a volcano!" Rachel heard a young woman yell.

Rachel saw two army jeeps parked outside the distant banyan grove. Another jeep roared past her; Ted Murray was at the wheel. She shouted his name but Murray, who probably couldn't hear her over the chaos, didn't turn around.

Murray's jeep stopped, and soldiers jumped out. Murray directed them to form a perimeter around the entrance to the grove and ensure that the park visitors kept moving out.

Rachel ran toward the banyan grove. Another jeep pulled up in front of her and a soldier stepped out.

"You're heading in the wrong direction," the soldier said.

"You—you don't understand," she stammered. "Those—they're my trees."

"I don't want to have to tell you again, ma'am."

Rachel Sherrill heard a chopper engine; she looked up and saw a helicopter come out of the clouds from behind the twin peaks. Saw it touch down and saw its doors open. Men in hazmat suits, tanks strapped to their backs, came out carrying extinguishers labeled COLD FIRE. They pointed them like handguns and ran toward the trees.

Her trees.

Rachel ran toward them and toward the fire.

In that same moment she heard another crash from the sky, and this time she knew for sure it wasn't a coming storm.

Please not today,she thought.