Einstein Dog (32 page)

“Let brothers and sister out,” Genie repeated.

She knew what he'd do next: reach for the communications button on his chest console and try to link up with Hindquist. All along he'd been looking for something to pin on her, now he figured he had it. He made his move.

Zap!
She jolted him with a pain burst.

“Ayeee!” he screamed, flung back against the metal door.

Again, she was ready for his next move. Summoning the remnants of his courage and his instinct for survival, Charlie whirled and reached for the door handle.

Zap!
The jolt threw him forward, slamming his face into the wall.

“No move!” Genie yelled through the Thought Matrix Translator.

“N-no move,” he panted.

“Let dogs out now.”

“But they'll kill me.”

Zap!

“Ayeee!” he screamed.

For God's sake, Genie, go easy with that thing,
Breeze pleaded.

Genie ignored her sister. “They no kill,” she informed Charlie. “Me kill.”

Cowering, barely able to work the latches, Charlie opened the cages, then retreated to the far side of the room, closest to the door. Genie switched the gun to Kill mode and waited.

Now that she had her chance she didn't really want to kill Charlie Gowler. But she couldn't let him go either. If he raised the alarm, they would all be dead. “You get in cage,” she ordered him, inclining her head toward the kennel that had just been vacated by Blizzard.

For a split second her weapon pointed away from him and Charlie didn't hesitate. Grabbing the handle, he yanked the door open . . .

Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three bullets ripped into him, the force spinning him and hurling him against the wall again.

For a second, while consciousness dimmed, he stared at Genie accusingly. How could you do this? his eyes pleaded. Then they darkened and he crumpled into a heap.

Damn it, Genie! What are you doing?
Cap yelled.

Breeze and Blizzard were too shocked to say anything.

He killed our mother,
Genie replied.
He will never kill another dog or boast again of the ones he has killed. I've done what needed doing. Now let's get on with our plan.

Jeez!
Cap shuddered.

Hindquist smiled, allowing himself a little celebration as the AMOS truck backed into the loading bay. What were such moments for, if not for savouring like fine wine? Capturing Einstein and the boy would be the crowning achievement of a red-letter night.

His smile turned to a grimace as he remembered the embarrassments he'd suffered on account of these two. Never again would they foil his plans or boast of having bested Frank Hindquist, councillor for America North. And if anyone ever asked what had happened to that impudent dog and his boy, well, Hindquist would have an answer to set the record straight.

Nobody defied Frank Hindquist.

He smirked. Charlie Gowler would be busy tonight. “I knew I was keeping him around for some purpose,” Hindquist said to himself. A skilled leader could find uses for anyone, even stupid people like Charlie Gowler, who would not be deterred by screams of agony or pleas for mercy.

“My subjects will know that rebellion is a futile gesture. Puny acts of heroism will be rewarded with shattered bones and broken spirits,” he murmured. “We need people like Charlie, who can carry out our punishments with zeal.”

The truck nudged the loading bay, shuddering to a stop. Soon all the loose ends would be tied up and he could get on with building his SMART force. Hundreds and eventually thousands of Genies would be his to command. No need to rely on the slow process of natural birthing to increase his legions: pups could start out in test tubes, new generations being born before their predecessors had been weaned.

Hindquist nodded and a worker stepped forward to unlock the trailer door. The man looked about nervously, wondering what on earth could be inside that warranted so many guards.

“Get on with it!” Hindquist ordered.

The man swung the door open, stepping aside in the same instant. A bank of floodlights switched on, illuminating the inside of the trailer.

Nothing! No dog. No boy. Hindquist sighed. He'd imagined catching them like vermin, even though he knew they'd surely conceal themselves farther into the load, hollowing out a cavity somewhere amongst the boxes.

“Begin unloading!” he ordered the shipping crew. “Guards, check every pallet. Break down the load to make sure they haven't rearranged the boxes to hide themselves. Look for signs of tampering and re-stacking. I know they're here; if they get through, somebody will pay.”

The senior guard nodded grimly, then signaled for the first pallet to be unloaded. The team pored over it, pulling it apart and prodding into every cranny with thin metal rods.

“Tear this shipment down!” Hindquist shouted impatiently.

“Yes sir!” the guard answered.

Ariel had been given an assignment. Not the one she would have liked, perhaps, but hers to carry out diligently. And that she would do.

From outside the AMOS facility looked normal enough. As predicted, the final shipment had arrived around 3:00 am. Now she could hear the unmistakable sounds of cargo being unloaded: the growl and rattle of a forklift, the thud and bang of heavy items being shifted. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Sooner or later, though, all hell was going to break loose. It was only a matter of time. By now Genie and the others should be working toward their objectives.

“And here I am, watching from a safe distance!”

Well, “safe” might be a bit of an overstatement. Hadn't they learned from bitter experience that anyone who went up against Frank Hindquist and AMOS could never be safe? How he could twist every circumstance to his advantage?

Ariel subdued her rage. She found herself thinking about Genie, how the SMART dog had surprised them in the wood. A chill raised the hair on her neck. She loved Genie still, but had to admit the dog who had confronted them earlier that night scared her. Genie had been shaped into something frighteningly efficient and lethal during her captivity.

It wasn't so much the gear they'd outfitted her with, or the keen intelligence Professor Smith had bred into her. It was the calculating look she'd given them, as if she'd been numbed to everything except hard facts and precise, military stratagems.

Ariel herself preferred hard data over wishful thinking, but if someone allowed no room for joy, or sadness, or daydreaming she became . . .

“A psychopath,” Ariel filled in the blank.

Was she making too much of a brief encounter? After all, police officers, doctors, soldiers, lawyers and a long list of other professionals could act dispassionately on the job and then become feeling, loving beings at the end of the day. So maybe Genie had been in her professional mode when she'd ambushed them.

“Maybe she can switch off her working persona and show her old self once all this nonsense is finished,” Ariel hoped.

One thing was certain: Genie's incarceration hadn't diminished her intelligence. She seemed sharper than ever. Her plan to fool Hindquist with a staged stun bombing had been absolutely brilliant. But if she could fool someone like Hindquist and outwit an organization like AMOS, she could easily run circles around the rest of them. Ariel suspected they didn't know the full scope of Genie's plan.

She glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes had elapsed since the shipment arrived, a quarter of the allotted time before she was to call the police. Genie hadn't minced her words: their original plan would have resulted in capture and certain death for all of them. She'd explained how the underground facility could be sealed off from the world by the gigantic hydraulic slab that doubled as the shipping room floor. If that closed, there would be no escape. Hindquist's guards would track them down and kill them.

We must disable that ramp,
she told them emphatically.
If it closes we're doomed. AMOS will never be discovered.

What about Einstein and the boy?
Cap demanded.

Our brother and his human will die, too, if we don't disable that ramp,
Genie pointed out.
It must be our objective.

They had to believe her, had to get inside and jam the giant maw of AMOS.

As for Bertrand and Einstein?

They'll be in the vicinity of the ramp,
Genie allowed.
We will rescue them.

Ariel trusted Genie. In her heart she knew her dog would not betray them or let Bertrand and Einstein perish. But the feeling persisted that Genie knew things she was not telling.

“Maybe she just didn't have time,” Ariel said hopefully.

Hindquist quelled his uneasiness by pacing. They
had
to be in the load somewhere. All his information indicated that's where they
would
be. But so far no dog, no boy. It didn't make sense, and the farther into the trailer the crew got, the less he liked it. They'd taken apart every pallet, looking for the intruders. What more could they do? Look
inside
the boxes and crates?

He winced. That hadn't occurred to him, and even now that he'd thought it the notion seemed far-fetched. How could a boy and dog get inside one of the boxes? Where could they have put the stuff that
had been
inside? How would they seal the lid so you couldn't tell the box had been tampered with?

Unlikely, Hindquist thought.

But the idea persisted. If you can make an outlandish plan work, you've got the best plan of all, he remembered, thinking of his own
modus operandi
. How often had he duped customs officials by concealing contraband in impossible places? Wasn't the notion of an underground arms distribution and manufacturing plant in the middle of a suburban industrial park audacious?

Yet he was standing in just such a facility.

“I need to check inside the boxes,” he told himself.

But opening each one would take hours and the enemy might be on the move already. He needed some way of checking the cargo quickly, something that could see inside the boxes . . . or smell the faintest trace of a human or canine presence.

“Genie!” he thought. “She should have been here all along.”

He jabbed the button on his hand radio. “Genie?” he barked. He waited a moment, listening to the empty static, then shouted, “Genie, can you hear me?”

“I hear,” Genie responded at last.

“I need you in the shipping area immediately. I think the enemy may be concealed
inside
one of the boxes. I need your nose to check out the cargo.”

“I come.”

“Hurry,” Hindquist urged. “Who knows what they might be up to?”

Hindquist turned to the guard closest to him. “Go and keep an eye on the off-loaded cargo that's been moved downstairs,” he ordered. “Check the boxes to see if any have been tampered with or opened.”

“Yes, sir!” The man hustled down the ramp.

Things were not going as expected and that made Hindquist nervous. Still no need for panic, but a heightened vigilance was definitely in order. He needed Genie now! “Where is she, damn it!” Hindquist scowled, continuing his pacing up and down the loading dock. More than five minutes had ticked by and still no Genie. Worse yet, neither she nor Charlie Gowler were responding to calls on their radios.