law—so you can stretch it this way or that, rearrange the arc of it so you are
nearly always—short of blatant theft or cold-blooded murder—safely on the right
side. That’s a daunting thing to realize but true. I’ve no fear that anything
you tell me could land my bottom in a prison cell, Travis.”
Half an hour later, Travis and Nora had told him everything about Einstein. For
a man only a couple of months shy of his seventy-first birthday, the
silver-haired attorney had a quick and open mind. He asked the right questions
and did not scoff. When given a ten-minute demonstration of Einstein’s uncanny
abilities, he did not protest that it was all mere trickery and flummery; he
accepted what he saw, and he readjusted his ideas of what was normal and
possible in this world. He exhibited greater mental agility and flexibility than
most men half his age.
Holding Einstein on his lap in the big leather armchair, gently scratching the
dog’s ears, Garrison said, “If you go to the media, hold a press conference,
blow the whole thing wide open, then we might be able to sue in court to allow
you to keep custody of the dog.”
“Do you really think that would work?” Nora asked.
“At best,” Garrison admitted, “it’s a fifty-fifty chance.” Travis shook his
head. “No. We won’t risk it.”
“What have you in mind to do?” Garrison asked.
“Run,” Travis said. “Stay on the move.”
“And what will that accomplish?” “It’ll keep Einstein free.”
The dog woofed in agreement.
“Free—but for how long?” Garrison asked.
Travis got up and paced, too agitated to sit still any longer. “They won’t stop
looking,” he admitted. “Not for a few years.”
“Not ever,” the attorney said.
“All right, it’s going to be tough, but it’s the only thing we can do. Damned if
we’ll let them have him. He has a dread of the lab. Besides, he more or less
brought me back to life—”
“And he saved me from Streck,” Nora said.
“He brought us together,” Travis said.
“Changed our lives.”
“Radically changed us. Now he’s as much a part of us as our own child Would be,”
Travis said. He felt a lump of emotion in his throat when he met the dog’s
grateful gaze. “We fight for him, just as he’d fight for us. We’re family. We
live together . . . or we die together.”
Stroking the retriever, Garrison said, “It won’t only be the people from the lab
looking for you. And not only the police.”
“The other thing,” Travis said, nodding.
Einstein shivered.
“There, there, easy now,” Garrison said reassuringly, patting the dog. To
Travis, he said, “What do you think the creature is? I’ve heard your description
of it, but that doesn’t help much.”
“Whatever it is,” Travis said, “God didn’t make it. Men made it. Which means it
has to be a product of recombinant-DNA research of some kind. God knows why. God
knows what they thought they were doing, why they wanted to build something like
that. But they did.”
“And it seems to have an uncanny ability to track you.”
“To track Einstein,” Nora said.
“So we’ll keep moving,” Travis said, “And we’ll go a long way.”
“That’ll require money, but the banks don’t open for more than twelve hours,”
Garrison said. “If you’re going to run, something tells me you’ve got to head
out tonight.”
“Here’s where we could use your help,” Travis told him.
Nora opened her purse and withdrew two checkbooks, Travis’s and her own.
“Garrison, what we’d like to do is write a check on Travis’s account and one on
mine, payable to you. He’s only got three thousand in his checking, but he has a
large savings account at the same bank, and they’re authorized to transfer funds
to prevent overdrawing. My account’s the same way. If we give you one of
Travis’s checks for twenty thousand—backdated so it appears to’ve been written
before all this trouble—and one of mine for twenty, you could deposit them into
your account. As soon as they clear, you’d buy eight cashier’s checks for five
thousand apiece and send them to us.”
Travis said, “The police will want me for questioning, but they’ll know I didn’t