Chase

by Linwood Barclay

  He darted across the street, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a taxi, its horn blaring, and dashed between a man’s legs as he opened the heavy, brass-framed door to the terminal.

  “Whoa!” the man said.

  The dog trotted into the terminal, craning his head upwards, looking for a schedule. His eyes landed on it.

  BOSTON, TORONTO, SYRACUSE, RICHMOND, MONTREAL—

  He didn’t want to go to any of those places. His eyes kept scanning the board.

  PROVIDENCE, DAYTON, CANFIELD, CHIC—

  Whoa! Hang on. There it was: CANFIELD.

  That wasn’t the exact place he wanted to go, but it was as close as any bus was going to take him. Once he got to Canfield, he could walk the rest of the way. His GPS program told him it was eight miles from Canfield to where he wanted to be.

  That might take Chipper a day or so, but he could do it.

  He checked to see what time the Canfield bus left and was alarmed to see that it was due to leave the station in the next five minutes. Which meant that it was probably already here, loading with passengers.

  Chipper scurried back outside and ran to the platform where the buses lined up. He looked at the destination boards posted over the front windshields. The sign on the fourth bus read CANFIELD.

  Chipper had to get on that bus.

  Passengers were lined up, waiting to board. Most were already on, and seated. A man Chipper figured was the driver was midway down the side of the bus, directing passengers to leave their larger bags with him. As passengers boarded, the driver, the name YABLONSKY stitched to his uniform, opened a low, large, rectangular door beneath the windows and between the front and rear wheels. He began tossing the bags into the empty, cavernous storage area.

  Chipper assessed the situation. The driver, while loading the bags, was keeping an eye on the people getting on the bus, which meant he was facing forward. Chipper slunk down the other side of the bus, came across the back, and peered his head around the corner. The driver, his back to him now, was still loading bags. But there were only a few to go.

  Chipper had to get in there without being seen. And that meant timing it just right.

  There was a sudden squealing sound. Chipper looked towards the street that ran past the terminal, saw two large, black SUVs with windows so darkly tinted he could not see who was inside.

  The Institute.

  Four men jumped out of each vehicle. But these were not the White Coats, not the men and women that Chipper had seen most days—the ones who poked and prodded him, who put devices inside him and took them out again, who sat at their computers and typed and clicked and printed out results. These men and women getting out of the SUVs were like the ones who’d been looking for him on the subway. Black suits, white shirts—ties on the men—little wires running down from their ears into their jackets.

  They conferred briefly, pointed up and down the street, then in his direction. They were dividing up the search.

  One of them headed towards the buses.

  Chipper crouched down below the massive vehicle, inching forward so that he tucked behind the wheel, hidden from sight. He peeked around the edge, saw a man coming in his direction.

  Did The Institute have people searching for him all over the city, or were they tracking him? Were the implants that allowed The Institute to know where he was at all times activated? There would have been no need to have that program engaged when they had him locked up in a cage.

  The bus driver loaded the last of the bags. In seconds he’d be closing the door to the luggage compartment. Chipper crept around the tire, his snout almost sticking out from under the vehicle.

  The driver, who had been down on his knees pushing bags deeper into the cargo hold, stood. An arm went up.

  This is it.

  The broad, vertical metal door started to swing down. When it was halfway to closing, Chipper sprung out from under the bus and scooted into the cargo hold, unseen by the driver as he watched the passengers board. Chipper brought his hind legs in just as the door slammed shut, nearly closing on his still-sore tail.

  It was completely dark inside the cargo compartment. Chipper, moving blindly, worked his way between and over the bags until he was near the back of the luggage hold. When the door next opened, he didn’t want to be spotted. He snuggled down between some bags and rested his head on his outstretched paws.

  Moments later, the bus engine began to grumble and Chipper could feel the huge, lumbering beast back slowly out of its spot, stop, then lurch forward.

  I’m getting away. I’m getting away. It’s going to be okay.

  For a brief moment, Chipper felt encouraged. And then he coughed.

  The smell of exhaust inside the cargo hold was strong.

  He hoped he had enough air to last him till he got there.

  Daggert was back in Madam Director’s office with an update.

  “I’ve pulled my team together and we’re heading out.”

  “Last I heard,” she said, “the animal was cornered in the subway. I thought this was wrapped up.”

  “No. They think now that he may have been hiding in a cello case when they went through the car. Then he got away.”

  Madam Director, seated behind her desk, touched her fingers together, making her hands into a tent. Her nails were long and painted blood red.

  “So where is the dog now?”

  “Unknown. Another team converged on the bus station, but they could not find it.”

  “Surely you didn’t expect the beast to buy itself a ticket?”

  “No.”

  Madam Director’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you should find out if the dog has bought a bicycle and is pedaling out of town.”

  Daggert remained stone-faced as she asked, “How did they know to look in the subway in the first place? And then the bus terminal?”

  “Control managed to remotely activate the GPS locater, but it’s not been working perfectly. They probably would have replaced the software in the animal if it hadn’t been slated for termination.”

  “You understand, Daggert, why we must get this animal back?”

  Daggert nodded.

  “Even if the animal attempted to pass itself off as a normal dog, and were to be taken in by some kind family, adopted as a stray, it would be found out as not being like other dogs. They’ll find the port built into its collar. Perhaps they will, out of curiosity, try plugging in a laptop or some other device just to see what happens. Can you imagine that scenario, Daggert?”

  “Yes. Although, as you know, there is the five-digit password protection.”

  “Good heavens, is that the level of our sophistication? Is this dog as easy to get into as an ATM? What do you think will happen if someone gets into the program?”

  “I expect they might call someone. Police, newspapers, the six o’clock news.”

  “Yes. And we would risk becoming exposed. Our work would become public knowledge. A vital security program jeopardized. And once the world found out what we were doing with animals, imagine what else they might uncover? Reporters start digging, they might find out that the dogs are just the beginning of what we’re working on here. We’ve faced a crisis like this before; a threat of exposure.”

  “I know,” Daggert said. “And as you will recall, I solved it.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “But it was very messy, Daggert. There was a lot of collateral damage.”

  “I got the job done.”

  “Well, now you have a new one,” Madam Director said in a clipped tone. She ran the fingers of one hand through her long, red hair. “I’m worried about more than exposure. Suppose one of our enemies got hold of this mutt? Took him apart, figured out what made him tick? Can you imagine the damage?”

  “It would be catastrophic.”

  “That’s why our most expedient solution may be to find this dog and destroy it. Recovering his internal workings intact would be nice, but keeping what we do here from going public is the priority.”
/>   Daggert nodded. “Understood. And if we are unable to maintain the GPS connection, we have another option.”

  “Yes?”

  “The optical feed.”

  The woman cocked her head, reminding Daggert for a moment of the look he got from The Institute’s dogs when they were puzzled. It was an observation he chose not to share with her.

  “Video,” he said. “The animal, as you know, is fitted with optical hardware that allows us to see what it sees. He is, essentially, a surveillance system with fur. If we can see what the dog sees, we can run it through landmark recognition. For example, if the dog were in Times Square, we’d recognize that pretty quickly, and could get there and find him.”

  “We’re not in New York, Daggert,” the Director said.

  “As I said, that’s an example. It doesn’t have to be a major landmark. It can be anything you might be able to see on Whirl360, the site that allows you to see what’s on any street in the world. But at the moment, the optical hardware, like the GPS system, is not operating at peak efficiency. I have Watson working on it.”

  “Who’s Watson?”

  Daggert thought. He could never remember the man’s name. “Not Watson. Wilkins. He hopes to have a fix soon. Meanwhile, we’ve fanned out across the city. We’re checking parks, in case the animal’s more instinctive side comes into play and it wants to chase a few squirrels.”

  Madam Director shook her head slowly and sighed. “Get out,” she said. “Get out and find that dog. Get down on your hands and knees and start sniffing other dogs’ butts if you have to.”

  Once the luggage compartment door was closed and the bus was in motion, Chipper attempted to get comfortable in spite of the unpleasant exhaust smell. He’d wedged himself in behind an oversized suitcase, and when he started to be troubled by an itch just behind his ear, he was unable to get his hind leg in position to scratch it.

  So he backed out from behind the suitcase and found an area about three feet by three feet where there were no bags. He had to find this spot by moving around and bumping into things, because there was no light in here at all. He was working blind. Even though The Institute had equipped him with very special eyes that could transmit images and record video, he did not come with a set of headlights. What he needed right now was a miner’s hat made for a dog.

  When he found a spot he liked, he circled it twice, the way dogs do, then lay down. And scratched. And scratched and scratched and scratched.

  That felt better.

  For the first time today, he had a moment to think. And as he so often did, he thought about the kind of dog he used to be.

  A plain old pooch, that’s what he once was.

  He was one of a litter of six border collies born on a farm. It was a sheep farm, and Chipper’s mother did what border collies did best. She rounded up those sheep at the end of every day, nipping at their heels, barking at them like a drill sergeant. Some of Chipper’s earliest memories were of scampering after his mother in the field, his five brothers and sisters bouncing along with him.

  What a wonderful time it was, growing up on the farm. But it did not last long.

  One day, when Chipper was nearly a year old and still playful as a puppy but fully grown, a man and a woman arrived at the farm in a black car. Chipper didn’t understand words back then, so he didn’t know what they and the farm owner said to each other. But soon after the conversation, Chipper found himself in the back of the car, being driven away. He recalled leaping up in the back seat, paws on the rear window ledge, watching the farmhouse recede into the distance.

  And his mother chasing after him, but finally having to give up when the car hit the main road and the woman behind the wheel hit the gas.

  He was taken to a place where there was no grass or sheep or barns or fields or chickens or anything at all like that. What he remembered was a lot of white. White walls and white floors and white lights and men and women in white coats.

  And then, everything went totally and completely black.

  He did not know how long the blackness lasted. A week? A month? Maybe as much as a year? Of course, time meant nothing to him before the blackness. It was only after he emerged from the blackness that he began to be aware of time.

  When he came out of the blackness, he was aware of much, much more than just time.

  He was aware of everything.

  They had done things to him. Put things into him. Taken out some parts of him that were real and replaced them with other parts that were not.

  As a pup, he’d loved to be overwhelmed with the multitude of smells the world offered. Hundreds of scents wafted up his nostrils and he could very quickly distinguish one from another. It was like radar for the nose, and Chipper loved it. And he could handle it, too.

  But when he awoke from the darkness, it wasn’t just that they’d awakened his other senses—of touch, sight, hearing and taste. They had done that, to be sure, but it was as though Chipper had not just five finely attuned senses now, but five million.

  Whenever there was something he wanted to know—the weather, the time, where he was, even something like 76,354 divided by 297—he just knew it.

  There were two White Coats who worked with him, eased him into his new life and new capabilities. They were so nice. They comforted him when he was frightened and overwhelmed. He no longer had a mother, but they were almost like parents to him.

  He loved them.

  And then, they were gone.

  Chipper coughed.

  He rested his snout on his forelegs and thought about where the bus was going. From the way it had been described to him long ago, his destination sounded like a wonderful place. Out in the country, on a lake. Far, far away from the city’s loud noises and traffic and thousands of people.

  Chipper coughed again.

  The Institute had taken Chipper and the other animals out in the country a few times, and it was always his favourite part of training. It was like being a puppy again, back on the farm. A rainbow of scents. Flowers and grasses and dirt and birds and pollen and squirrels—oh yes, squirrels!—plus rabbits and skunks and possums and chipmunks and snakes and frogs and wasps and ants and, well, the list went on and on.

  It was so nice in the country. He hoped that where he was going would be like that.

  Chipper coughed again. There was something seriously wrong with the air in this luggage compartment. It was a sickening smell. Dirty and oily, and it seemed to be pushing away what little air was in here.

  Diesel exhaust from the bus was leaking into the luggage area.

  Chipper tried to hold his breath, but he was only able to do that for a few seconds. And when he went to breathe in again, he ended up taking even more of that noxious exhaust into his lungs.

  Chipper now realized this wasn’t the best place to hide after all. It was dawning on him that if he stayed in here much longer, he would die.

  Cough cough cough.

  He rose on all fours and started working his way over to the closed door. There were a lot of suitcases in his way, but there was about a foot of space between the top of the bags and the roof of the luggage compartment. Chipper, his head and back rubbing up against the top of the hold, crawled awkwardly over them until he was up against the door.

  He sniffed around, rubbed his nose up against the metal, looking for a button or a lever or anything that would make the door lift up, but found nothing. The only way to open it was on the outside, he figured.

  More coughing.

  Chipper’s head throbbed. And even though, in total darkness, he had no visual sense of up or down or left and right, he was feeling dizzy.

  The dog was losing consciousness.

  He didn’t know how long it would take for the bus to reach Canfield. A couple of hours, he figured, and he had been on the bus for the better part of an hour. He checked his built-in software: exactly seventy-two minutes to go. Could he last another hour?

  Chipper did not believe he could.

  He gav
e his head a shake and kept running his nose along the edge of the door. He managed to push one bag about six inches away from it, dropped his nose down, and saw a sliver of light at the bottom of the door, a crack to the outside.

  Chipper pressed his nose up against the crack, getting whiffs of fresh air from outside.

  He sniffed and sniffed and sniffed.

  The dizziness held off slightly, but the headache was unrelenting. And the coughing wasn’t letting up, either.

  This tiny sliver of fresh air was only going to buy Chipper a bit of time, but it was not going to save him. He dared not move away from it, worried that as soon as he did, the exhaust fumes would overwhelm him.

  Sniff sniff sniff.

  The headache was getting worse. Chipper was starting to feel sleepy.

  Sniff sniff.

  He began to feel less concerned about his situation. He was starting to think maybe he didn’t feel that bad after all.

  He began to dream that he was back at the farm.

  There was his mother, herding the sheep. Looking his way, encouraging him to follow. Chipper stumbling along after her on his short, puppy legs.

  I’m coming, Mom! Wait for me!

  What a lovely place to be. No worries, no cares. All you had to do was run around and play and chase the sheep.

  Sni—

  The next day, Jeff was standing on the end of the dock when a small aluminum boat, no bigger than his own twelve-footer, came speeding towards him from the east. The outboard bolted to the back was going full throttle, which brought the bow up and kept Jeff from seeing who was sitting in the back, driving it.

  It got closer and closer without slowing down and Jeff feared the boat was going to crash into the dock.

  He took a cautious step back.

  A couple of seconds before it would have hit the dock, the boat veered sharply, throwing a large wave over the end and soaking Jeff’s running shoes. That was when he saw that the person sitting in the back of the boat, one hand gripped to the outboard’s throttle, was Emily Winslow. She was in white shorts and a red T-shirt and, on top of this, an orange life jacket.