Night Howl (16 page)

Gerson grunted and they all turned to him. He looked out over the stream.

“Do you insist that I continue?” Kevin asked.

Qwen thought a moment. “The thing is,” he said, “do you insist
I
continue?”

“Stop playing games,” Ann said. “Tell him and get it over with. You know we need him. Probably more than ever now,” she added.

“All right,” Kevin said. He straightened up. “I’m going to explain this in the simplest way I can. Not that I think you’re stupid,” he added quickly. “It’s just that it’s complicated.”

“My father used to say that anything that’s honest and good could be told to a nine-year-old,” Qwen said. Ann smiled.

“Yes. You know that the major technological-industrial nations of the world are in a race, not just a race of weapons, but a race to win the world’s markets, to do things most efficiently, to make the best use of fuels and energy, to make themselves as self-sufficient as possible.” Kevin paused, but Qwen just took another bite on his beef jerky. “Everywhere, in all sorts of laboratories, scientists are working on projects, on research, trying to discover answers, methods, secrets, if you will.”

“Don’t tell me the dog is a scientist,” Qwen said and laughed.

“Jesus,” Gerson said. He spit and took out a cigarette.

“No, he’s not a scientist, but he’s a product of science.”

“Product? You mean like a box of tissues?”

“In a way, yes. The process that was used to create him could mass produce hundreds like him, if we wanted to.”

“Wait a minute,” Qwen said, “let me understand you. You made this dog in the laboratory? From scratch?”

“No, not scratch.” Kevin smiled and turned to Ann, but she was stone-faced. “We began with dog genes, genes from a natural dog, and we duplicated those genes and then began to experiment with them . . . what they call genetic engineering, today.”

Qwen didn’t say anything. He folded the paper over his remaining beef jerky and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “I’ve heard about that,” he said. “Science changing nature. Sounded very dangerous to me.”

“Oh, there have been some very good things,” Ann said. “The mass production of insulin, for one. It’s a great deal cheaper. And there have been some very promising experiments with produce—larger vegetables, greater amounts of grain, not to mention bigger farm animals for meat. It’s the way we’ll stop starvation, for sure.”

“What the hell’s all that got to do with a dog?”

“Well, it wasn’t just a dog. We’ve used the process on other animals as well. You’ve got to understand,” Kevin went on with more energy and animation, “that what might look grotesque to you now is part of what is necessary for us to gain something very beautiful and very valuable later on. After all, remember Doctor Frankenstein had very good motives for what he began,” Kevin added. Once again he looked to Ann and once again she was nonplussed.

“So you made a German shepherd in your laboratory and from what I gathered before, you made him larger than the ordinary German shepherd. What does that lead to—bigger and better pets?”

“No,” Kevin said, smiling. “Not at all. As I started to say, everywhere in the world there are scientists working on problems, trying to discover secrets. Well,
what’s the most important ingredient in all that? What’s the most necessary thing?”

“I give up,” Qwen said.

“Intelligence. It’s as simple as that. Whoever has the most intelligent people will have the most progress.” Kevin held his hands out as if that explained everything.

Qwen looked from him to Ann and then back at him. “So?”

“So what we’ve been doing is working on increasing intelligence. What is intelligence? Why is one person smarter than another? Why is one animal smarter than another? You know, using dogs, that some dogs are smarter than others, even within the same species. Ann and I, and our superiors back at the institute, belong to that school of science that believes increased intelligence can be genetically engineered. Simply put, we believe we will be able to isolate genes that have to do with intelligence and create smarter people. Eventually,” he added. “We’re not there yet, but when we get there ... try to imagine what it could mean. Intelligence is power, power greater than anything that now exists. We can outsmart the enemy, outthink him, outdevelop him, outcreate him. Think what it would mean if the average man, the average man, mind you, had the intelligence of an Einstein.”

“And you think you’ll do all this by pickin’ and pokin’ around with genes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ve been doing it with animals up to now?”

“Exactly. With very satisfactory results, I might add. Satisfactory enough to get the kind of financing and support from our government that we get.”

“So,” Qwen said, leaning in toward them, “you made a smarter dog.”

“In a matter of speaking, yes.”

“So smart that it would perform like a human at times?”

Kevin looked to Ann and both of them looked at Gerson, who had come up behind them.

“You’ll have to tell him all of it,” she said.

“Part of our theories, part of what we do required us to perform some unusual experiments,” Kevin said. “In the course of doing one of them, we isolated a gene relating to human intelligence and we . . . we implanted it in the brain of the dog. Before birth, of course. We didn’t expect it to take. There were so many reasons why it shouldn’t, but we’ve made remarkable progress with the problems of rejection. You must remember the transplanting of a baboon’s heart into a human baby.”

“There was the orangutan’s kidney in that man in Australia last year,” Ann said.

“Yes, not to mention some of the experiments behind the Iron Curtain. As far as we know, though, no one’s ever done what we’ve done. Thus, the importance of secrecy.”

Qwen looked over at Maggie. The dog had been lying quietly a few feet from him, but she stirred and produced a low growl as she eyed Gerson. The big man’s shadow fell over the group and reached the dog. Qwen looked up at him.

“What part of our government do you work for?”

“Oh, what’s the difference?” Gerson said.

“That’s all right,” Kevin said. “It’s a legitimate question. I’ve asked myself the same one from time to time. I suppose if you trace all the lines back, you’ll reach the CIA.”

“Had that feeling.”

“We’re concerned with the research,” Ann said, “not the politics.”

“Anyway,” Kevin said, “you can understand now
why the dog is so important to us. He’s one of a kind and we’ve spent the better part of two years developing him, learning from him and about him, actually.”

“How did he get out?”

“He opened a door,” Ann said, “went to a window that was partly opened, forced it up enough, and jumped out. You know how he got past the fence.”

“Has he been out before? I mean, has he been with people before?”

“Yes. It was part of his testing program, but we had no idea how far he had developed. We were just learning new things about him when he escaped.”

Qwen nodded, took a chunk of chewing tobacco out of his pouch, and stuck it between his gums and his cheek. Ann and Kevin watched him patiently, but Gerson turned away again and flipped his cigarette toward the stream. Maggie watched it fly, and then she rose and shook herself. Somewhere in the forest behind them, a crow complained. Its cawing sent a flock of sparrows skywide and to the west.

“So if I’m to understand you,” Qwen finally said, “there’s a dog with human intelligence out here.”

“To some extent, yes,” Kevin said.

“But you don’t know exactly to what extent?” Qwen tilted his head after asking the question.

“Well...”

“No,” Ann said quickly. “We thought we knew his limits, but there have been some new conclusions.”

“Such as?”

“Ego. He has a well-defined ego. Ordinary animals have no mirror consciousness. Some monkeys have been found to have it, but by and large, it’s not in the ken of lower animals. In other words, Mr. Qwen, if you put Maggie there before a mirror and she saw herself, she wouldn’t know herself. She has no self-awareness. And you can’t just say it’s not in her experience. You can leave her in a room with mirrors
from the day she can see, and she won’t develop it, whereas a human baby will.”

“By the way, does this dog have a name or did you give it a number?”

Ann looked at Kevin and he laughed.

“I gave it a name,” he said, “but no one liked it.”

“What?”

“Phantom.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Well. . . a phantom is something that is not really what it seems to be or should be. I thought that fit. You understand, don’t you?”

“I understand that you people are weird as hell. Does he come when you call out that name?”

“Yes.”

“If he wants to,” Ann added. “He can make decisions independently, think for himself. Maggie will respond automatically when you call her. It’s the training, and it’s inbred by now. She won’t challenge it. She won’t reject you or your command.” Qwen just looked at her a moment.

“Well,” he said, “if I didn’t see some of the things he’s done up to now, I might think you’re all lunatics. Maybe I still do.”

“Haven’t we wasted enough time?” Gerson said. “If you’re a trapper, you should be able to track the bastard no matter what he is. You can track a person too, can’t ya?”

“That’s true, Mr. Fisher ...”

“Fishman.”

“Fishman. Sorry. But an animal in the wild’s got certain advantages over a man, and when you combine that with higher intelligence, you’ve got a challenge. What I mean,” Qwen said turning his attention to Ann and Kevin, “is he’s got instinct. He’s got speed. His senses are keener.”

“We know,” Kevin said softly.

“In your experiments,” Qwen began, “did you have him matched up against people? I mean as a way of measuring his intelligence?”

“Yes,” Kevin said, “especially against children of comparative age. A dog’s year is supposed to be equal to seven human years.”

“Did he . . .”

“Win? Often.”

“One more question,” Qwen said, turning to Ann. “Did he like it?”

“Most definitely,” she said. “More and more so during the last few months and weeks.”

“All right,” Qwen said, standing, “we’ll go southeast.”

“Why southeast?” Kevin asked. He and Ann stood, too. Gerson moved in their direction.

“Because that’s where he’ll find people the fastest,” Qwen said. “And from what I gather from this mess, that’s the direction that holds the most promise of any satisfaction for him. Phantom,” he muttered and walked on.

Tom Carlson stood on Ken Strasser’s back porch and looked out toward the barn where his men were wrapping up their materials. This part of his investigation was over and the clues and information were quite unsatisfactory. Usually there was something about a murder that placed it in one or another of the common categories of crimes. Once that was accomplished, he had a systematic way of proceeding. This was not the case. The substantiated involvement of a dog confused him. If the old man had gotten into a confrontation with a German shepherd, why did the animal smother him to death instead of biting him? He had heard of animals smothering babies, but a grown man?

It was difficult to believe in an imagined scenario. The old man came out with his rifle to chase off a big
dog. The dog knocked him down and then . . . maybe the dog was knocked unconscious and fell over him and the old man, weakened by the first blow himself, was unable to move the dog off his face. Then the dog came to and left.

He couldn’t blame anyone for laughing at his theory, but there wasn’t even another man’s footprint, and it would be stretching it awfully far to suspect that a man used dog fur to kill Strasser and then covered up his own tracks by marching a dog around the place. No, from what he had learned, he had to conclude that this was a man-animal confrontation.

One of the primary things to do after any crime had been committed was to look for the weapon. In this case, the weapon was an animal and since the animal wasn’t here, since there were no signs of its having been wounded, it was logical to assume it had escaped to someplace else, perhaps someplace nearby.

After hearing the German shepherd story from Harry Michaels, Carlson concluded that his investigation should now center in on the Kaufmans. The coincidence of something terrible happening with a German shepherd there and something terrible happening with one here was too significant. Especially since, for the moment, it was all he had to go on. Even so, he didn’t discuss these ideas with any of his men. He felt he had to do some personal footwork and gather something more concrete before he presented his theory to anyone else.

His ego required it. He hated the thought of being laughed at, and he remembered how he had reacted when Harry Michaels had first brought up the involvement of a German shepherd. He had always prided himself in being methodical and concise, bringing true scientific observation and scientific detachment to all of his cases. Police detective work wasn’t as glamorous and romantic as it was depicted to be in television
and movies and books. It was nitty-gritty, detailed, careful analysis carried out with a monotonous uniformity of procedure. Anyone following him around through the investigations of most of his cases would become bored quickly. That was all right; he wasn’t in this business for the headlines.

Why was he in it? What had brought him to this farmhouse and this case? He couldn’t claim to be on some moral crusade, eager to dedicate himself to the capture of evildoers. He had to admit that his first interest in police work had been whetted by movies and television, but he’d never really seen himself as the heroic type. Throughout his public school education, despite his good looks and athletic prowess, he was still quite standoffish.

Close to being a loner, he was never really popular with the rest of the student body. In fact, those who knew him well resented his egotism and the cold pleasure he evinced whenever he achieved anything academically or athletically. He knew that they called him Mr. Clean behind his back and even slipped it into the senior yearbook, but he didn’t let that bother him.