Einstein Dog (13 page)

“She won't,” Ariel vowed, looking straight ahead.

Another thunderous crash interrupted them.

“Shee-oot!” Mrs. Krieger bawled.

Then an ominous silence emanated from the kitchen, a silence more threatening than all the clatter and bang that had preceded it. Bertrand and Ariel were still exchanging a worried look when the front door sprang open and Mrs. Krieger thrust her head out. “Okay!” she growled, then banged the door shut. The door flew open again. “But
you
have to feed her,
and
walk her,
and
brush her.”

“Mom?”

“And we might have to use some of the money from your paper route to cover expenses . . . ”

“Are you saying yes?” Ariel beamed.

“Yes, I'm saying yes,” Mrs. Krieger snapped. “But I'm furious with the two of you!”

Ariel jumped up, dislodging Purr, and hurried over to give Mrs. Krieger a hug.

A crooked smile lit up Mrs. Krieger's face as she wrapped her arms around her daughter. “What am I going to do with you?” she crooned. “And
you
,” she frowned over Ariel's shoulder at Bertrand.

“Sorry Mrs. K,” he mumbled.

“Sorry as the cat that ate the canary,” she grumbled.

Hearing this, Squawk cocked his head in an accusing manner, pointing his beady eye at Purr, a gesture his human audience found uproariously funny.

As soon as they could, Bertrand and Ariel hustled over to his house. They pleaded with Professor Smith to take them to see Libra and Genie so they could deliver the good news.

“I suppose I've got some work to do,” Professor Smith allowed. “You two can take Libra and the pups for a short walk while I shift some paper. Dean Zolinsky won't be around so it should be okay to let them off-leash for a bit.”

If Professor Smith had meant by “walk” that the children and their pack would move at a steady pace, in a chosen direction, then he had things entirely muddled. If he meant running, shouting, grabbing, falling, rolling in the grass, and laughing hysterically, then he must have understood what it was to herd SMART puppies.

While Bertrand and Ariel joined in the antics of the pups, Libra darted to and fro nervously. If one of the pups did wander, she would rebuke it sharply and send it scurrying back into the pack.

“What's the matter girl?” Bertrand asked. “They just want to have a little fun.”

She sniffed at the air and tellied him the results. An acrid stench filled his nostrils.

“Yuck!” he said. “What's that? It stinks like the bottom of a gym bag.”

Before she had a chance to answer Cap darted off toward the East Parking Lot and Libra had to corral him. After a half-hour of carousing they returned the pups to the kennel yard then moved away to confer.

“Mrs. K. has agreed to take Genie,” Bertrand informed Libra. “All the pups are accounted for,” he added, when she didn't respond. Libra wagged her tail halfheartedly, but she still seemed distracted.

When will the pups be moved?
she wanted to know.

Soon,
Bertrand answered.

She frowned.

What's wrong?
he demanded.

Before he could say anything more Libra was up and away. She crisscrossed Campus Green snuffling the grass. Occasionally she'd stop abruptly to examine a patch of lawn, then move on. Gradually she homed in on Campus Wood, and a depression atop a knoll at the forest edge. She growled, rooting at the earth angrily.

“Look,” Ariel said, pointing at a bunch of cigarette butts littering the ground Bertrand traced two depressions in the tall grass. “I'd say there were a couple of guys, lying on their stomachs, facing the SMART lab,” he said. “They've got us under surveillance!”

“Who?” Ariel wanted to know. “And why?”

A telly materialized of a lean, angular man, kneeling in front of Libra's pen. Fear and rage boiled in Bertrand's gut.

“It's that Hindquist guy,” he growled.

“But why?” Ariel wanted to know.

Another telly took shape, this one of a skinny, rough-looking character sneaking into the darkened SMART lab, a security guard following and the man hiding expertly behind the cinderblock wall of the last cage. Bertrand shivered.

Why didn't you show me this earlier?
Bertrand wanted to know.

Libra transmitted an image of Dean Zolinsky, looking upset and angry.

“Oh,” Bertrand nodded. “Because if you told me, I'd tell Dad and he might tell the dean. Then she'd change her mind about letting you go because of the security risk.”

Yes,
Libra signaled.

“What's going on?” Ariel asked.

Bertrand described Libra's tellies.

“Why's Hindquist doing this, Birdman?” she asked again.

“I don't know, Airee, but we're going to find out,” he vowed. “Something really weird is going on here. We have to dig up everything we can on Frank Hindquist and Advanced Medical Operating Systems. And fast.”

Libra barked her confirmation.

“What about your dad, Bertrand? Shouldn't we tell him?”

He shook his head sadly. “Libra's right,” he said. “Not until we've got more information. Dad wouldn't believe us, anyway. You know what he's like. First you have to come up with a hypothesis and then you have to develop an experiment that supports it . . . and blah, blah, blah.”

Ariel kept her thoughts on
that
to herself.

A-M-O-S. Ariel typed the letters in then launched her search. Twenty-nine-million references came up, most to do with the Bible, a few with a famous musician she'd never heard of, some with family genealogies. Next, next, next. She clicked through the screens rapidly, scrolling down for something — anything — of interest.

“What do you expect to find, Airee?” Bertrand teased, his comments popping up on her screen. “A link to ‘famous criminals and evil dudes' or something?”

“I'll know what I'm looking for when I find it,” she typed back.

The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. The Association for Morbid Obesity Support. It figured. When you were searching the world, there would be more than a few uses for the AMOS acronym . . .

Advanced Medical Operating Systems. There it was on the tenth page of her search. “Yeah, so?” Ariel muttered, studying the picture of a sleek, glass office building with the AMOS logo emblazoned above the front entrance. “Aiming for a better world,” a banner proclaimed.

She clicked through the links, which took her on a virtual tour of the AMOS facility. Nothing even remotely suspicious.

Clicking back to her search page, she scrolled farther down. There it was again, AMOS. But this time the label stood for Advanced Military Ordinance Supply. “In the shadowy world of the illegal arms trade the nefarious dealings of AMOS are legendary, but does the organization really exist?” Curious, Ariel clicked the link and found herself on a site called Peace Watch, which was run by “global citizens working together for a world free of war.”

“No one's even certain AMOS exists,” the article continued, “but the name has been connected with some of the most horrific conflicts of recent history. If AMOS
does
exist, it has been the supplier of weapons to the most ruthless dictators and international criminals of our times.”

Wide-eyed, Ariel read on. What did Advanced Military Ordinance Supply have to do with Advanced Medical Operating Systems, except for the sharing of a commonly used acronym and the unlikely hunch of a kid playing secret agent girl?

Ridiculous! But . . .

“But what?” Ariel muttered, angry at herself.

Well, for starters she'd overheard more than once Professor Smith and Elaine mocking Hindquist's cover of “cell farming”. The AMOS medical research proposal didn't make sense, and
that
was cause for suspicion. If cell farming wasn't the real reason AMOS wanted to see the SMART Project continued, what was?

“Hey, check this out!” Bertrand cut into her frustrated musings. Included in his message were a couple of links. “It's what comes up when you do a search for Frank Hindquist.”

“President and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Medical Operating Systems,” said the first link.

“Yeah, I already know that,” Ariel chastised her computer.

She clicked the second link. “The Global Council,” its header said. “This ultra-secret, fascist society is reported to have representation from every continent. Almost nothing is known about The Council, except that it aims to attain influence by promoting warfare
and
supplying arms to the combatants.”

Ariel stared at the screen, her heart pounding. AMOS, Frank Hindquist, the Global Council? None of it made any sense. Bits of information swirled around like confetti in her head.

A message from Bertrand popped onto her screen. “Hey Airee,” it said, “I'm thinking of going for a little bike ride tomorrow. Want to come?” Attached to the invitation was another link. She clicked and a map to Advanced Medical Operating Systems opened up in her web browser.

“Count me in,” she tapped, grinning.

The chock-a-block streets of Langley City gave way to the large acreages and farmlands of Willoughby. They crossed the Trans-Canada Highway, rolling into the suburban community of Walnut Grove, then headed west into a zone of warehouses and factories. Most of the businesses were closed, the streets deserted.

“Spooky,” Bertrand said.

“I don't like it,” Ariel agreed. “We're too obvious.”

“Who's watching?”

“I don't know,” she snapped. “They must have security patrols or surveillance cameras? We're sitting ducks.”

“We're not doing anything wrong.”

“Not yet,” she replied.

They wheeled into an obscure cul-de-sac flanked on either side by drab industrial buildings, and there it was: the bright red AMOS logo. “Wow!” Bertrand gawked, taking in the gleaming white walls of the AMOS plant. “This is
big
business.”

“I really don't like it,” Ariel fretted. “Let's get out of here before we get zapped by a laser or torn to shreds by a vicious dog.”

“What?” Bertrand demanded, skidding to a stop, so that Ariel almost crashed into him.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Watch what you're doing!”

“Airee, what you just said . . . ”

“I said let's get out of here . . . ”

“No. Not that,” he cut in excitedly. “You said we could get attacked by vicious dogs, right?”

“I was joking, Birdman.”

Bertrand wasn't laughing. “Airee!” he cried, gripping her arm. “What you said just now, it makes sense. Crazy sense.”

“What are you talking about?”

“SMART dogs! Don't you see? SMART dogs!”

“What about them?”

“If you wanted the best guard dog in the world, would you go for a pit bull, or a SMART dog like Libra?”

“That
is
crazy,” she said, intrigued.

“If Hindquist is into the arms trade, he'd do just about anything to get his hands on a dog with Einstein's brain.”

“I don't know, Birdman,” Ariel resisted “What better cover for an arms dealer than a medical supply company? He'd have access to high tech industries, a perfect way to launder money, and an international distribution system that could be used for shipping either medical equipment or weapons to just about any country in the world.”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “It's a pretty good theory. But only a theory.”

“Which is why we have to continue snooping around, right?” he said doggedly.

Ariel sighed, but pushed her bike along with him. “What, exactly, are you looking for?” she asked as he peered through the glass doors into the AMOS reception area.

“Still don't know,” Bertrand admitted. “Sometimes you just have to turn over a few stones to see what's under them.”

Whatever it was, they didn't see it in the reception area.