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