WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

could not figure out to whom he could sell his information for a price worth the

risk he was taking. Not to the U.S. government: it was their information to

begin with. And not to the Soviets, the natural adversary, for it was the

Soviets who had paid him to kill Weatherby, the Yarbecks, the Hudstons, and

Haines.

Of course, he couldn’t prove he had been working for the Soviets. They were

clever when they hired a freelancer like him. But he had worked for these people

as often as he had taken contracts from the mob, and based on dozens of clues

over the years, he had decided they were Soviets. Once in a while he dealt with

people other than the usual three contacts in L.A., and invariably they spoke

with what sounded like Russian accents. Furthermore, their targets were usually

political to at least some degree—or, as in the case of the Banodyne kills,

military targets. And their information always proved more thorough, accurate,

and sophisticated than the information he was given by the mob when he

contracted for a simple gangland hit.

So who would pay for such sensitive defense information if not the U.S. or the

Soviets? Some third-world dictator looking for a way to circumvent the nuclear

capabilities of the most powerful countries? The Francis Project might give some

pocket Hitler that edge, elevate him to a world power, and he might pay well for

it. But who wanted to risk dealing with Qaddafi types? Not Vince.

Besides, he possessed information about the existence of the revolutionary

research at Banodyne, but he did not have detailed files on how the Francis

Project’s miracles had been accomplished. He had less to sell than he’d first

thought.

However, in the back of his mind, an idea had been growing since yesterday. Now,

as he continued to puzzle over a potential buyer for his information, that idea

flowered.

The dog.

At home again, he sat in his bedroom, staring out at the sea. He sat there even

after nightfall, after he could no longer see the water, and he thought about

the dog.

Hudston and Haines had told him so much about the retriever that he’d begun to

realize his knowledge of the Francis Project, although potentially explosive and

valuable, was not one-thousandth as valuable as the dog itself. The retriever

could be exploited in many ways; it was a money machine with a tail. For one

thing, he could probably sell it back to the government or to the Russians for a

bargeload of cash. If he could find the dog, he would be able to achieve

financial independence.

But how could he locate it?

All over southern California, a quiet search—almost secret yet gigantic— must be

under way. The Defense Department would be putting tremendous manpower into the

hunt, and if Vince crossed paths with those searchers, they would want to know

who he was. He could not afford to draw attention to himself.

Furthermore, if he conducted his own search of the nearest Santa Ana foothills,

into which the lab escapees had almost surely fled, he might encounter the wrong

one. He might miss the golden retriever and stumble upon The Outsider, and that

could be dangerous. Deadly.

Beyond the bedroom window, the cloud-armored night sky and the sea flowed

together in blackness as dark as the far side of the moon.

2

On Thursday, one day after Einstein cornered Arthur Streck in Nora Devon’s

kitchen, Streck was arraigned on charges of breaking and entering, assault and

battery, and attempted rape. Because he had previously been convicted of rape

and had served two years of a three-year sentence, his bail was high; he could

not meet it. And since he could not locate a bondsman who would trust him, he

seemed destined to remain in jail until his case came to trial, which was a

great relief to Nora.

On Friday, she went to lunch with Travis Cornell.

She was startled to hear herself accept his invitation. It was true that Travis

had seemed genuinely shocked to learn of the terror and harassment she had

endured at Streck’s hands, and it was also true that to some extent she owed her

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