Pursuits Unknown

by Ellen Clary

  Lars started at the edge of the container and worked his way over to the left. When he got to the end, he said, /No fish./

  “Okay, let’s do the next one.” He started on the next one.

  /No fish./

  “Keep going. This is going to take a while.”

  At the next one in the row, he said, /Cat./

  “What cat?”

  Shoving his nose against the container door, he said, /Cat. Cat. Cat./

  Oh, cat pee he means, she thought.

  “That’s okay, Lars, we’re not looking for kitties right now.”

  They reached the end of the row. “Okay, now we’re going to the next row, but we’re going to go in the other direction to save time.” Having just taught him what she wanted, she wasn’t sure how well this would work. Sure enough, he ran to the right corner container and did the sniffing from right to left like they did the first row. Whatever, the containers aren’t that wide, she thought.

  /Dog,/ he said.

  “We don’t care about dog pee either.”

  On the next one, while sniffing, his head worked up the door.

  /Big dog./

  “Let’s move on.” She realized that she was going to hear about every animal who ever had peed on the door.

  /Human./

  “Ewugh.”

  Lars gave her a ‘What’s your problem?’ look. Having a dog able to talk to you even in rudimentary ways introduced you to their obsession with bodily fluids, which was sometimes a little difficult for a human to handle. At least this human, she thought.

  They continued down the row. On the next row, Amy decided to stand at the end and just let him work his way down and run back to her. This row had a dog and a cat and “rabbit” pee on it. During the next row he said, /Food./

  “What?” She jogged down to where he was.

  Lars was trying to inhale what looked like tomatoes that had been smashed against the door. “Good boy, don’t eat it, come here.” She gave him a couple of treats as a reward for not cleaning the entire door with his tongue. Destroying evidence was bad form, even if this wasn’t evidence of anything but a shipping mishap.

  They finished that row, and the next one, and the one after that.

  “Do you need a break?” she asked, pulling out a favorite tug toy. She knew it was going to look completely absurd, them playing tug in a loading yard, but she needed him to stay focused. To keep out of the way, she moved back into the row they had completed, dropped her pack, and, bracing herself, held out the toy.

  Lars threw himself at the toy, bit down on the rope, and shook his head to both sides hard, growling his best play growl, half in his throat and half through his nose. Amy, long used to the game, still had to work to keep from being pulled off her feet. She took a step towards him, and then pulled back. His head was extended and he had all four feet braced on the ground. Amy figured that the game had added half an inch to her biceps. Lars let up and spun in a quarter circle and she followed as best she could. They continued playing tug for another couple of minutes. Amy stopped pulling on the toy and said, “Okay, break time.” Lars released the toy, happily panting, and she gave him some water and a treat.

  “Ready for more sniffing?”

  /Sniff!/ He almost seemed to bounce as they moved on to the next row.

  They spent the next two hours working their way down the line, taking the occasional play break.

  Lars never seemed to get tired of /No fish,/ but Amy sure was. The occasional reports from Harris told her that they were having the same luck. Bad day for there to be no fish, she told herself and tried not to worry about what they were going to tell Beth.

  Opening up the comm link, she said, “Harris, we didn’t find the container in our section. How are you doing?”

  He said, “We’re finishing up our last row, but it doesn’t look good. I’ll call for a cart. We’ll come get you and we can talk further.”

  “Copy,” she said. “Okay, Lars, let’s go meet our ride.”

  They were halfway back down their section when the cart with Harris and Boomer pulled up and they got in. Harris got in the back with both dogs and indicated that he wanted Amy to take the front, which she did.

  Turning to Harris, Amy said, “So it’s actually in Coolingham or Novaton. We lost the gamble, what do you call that in craps?”

  “Crapping out. Yeah, we rolled a seven, and we can only hope it’s still in station.”

  “So we’re off to the other stations.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I called Beth and she’s trying to get them to hold the most recent containers, but they’re smaller, so it’s a bigger impact. Hence, there’s not a lot of time. Catherine is going to send Yolanda and Steve to Coolingham and we’re going to Novaton.”

  “What if it isn’t there, Harris?”

  “Then they’re on a truck going someplace that we don’t know. Let’s hope it’s not a ship.”

  Amy said, “If it’s on a ship, then it becomes someone else’s problem.”

  He shrugged with his mouth and eyebrows. “Well, there is that hope.”

  CHAPTER 33:

  To Novaton

  AMY AND Harris and their dogs all got back in the vehicle.

  Lars and Boomer collapsed in their crates.

  Amy looked at them and said, “You know, I really envy how they can just flop in their crates and all is well.”

  “Yeah, it makes me want one too,” Harris said.

  Amy stretched and sighed. “You know, I’m starting to care less and less about these stupid containers.”

  “Think of what they did to Herman and Lincoln.”

  “Yeah, but they can already do that.”

  “Which has me wondering what else they hope to accomplish,” Harris said, looking out the window. “This is worrisome.”

  Their escort began to move the cars and they headed off to Novaton Robo-Truck Routing station.

  Amy dozed for the trip. In what seemed like just a minute or two, they were pulling into Novaton and going through the same setup rigmarole.

  Amy had again taken the second half of the search and she was soon getting the usual litany of what animal had peed on the doors—be it cat, dog, or what he called “rabbit.”

  Lars had now started to run to the end of the next row, though he would still sniff each container right-to-left before moving on to the next container, and he was making rapid work using a squared-off S pattern. Amy realized they were getting close to the end of the line when Harris said, “Boomer is done. Negative on fish smell.” Disappointment started to sink in. “Shit, Harris, Lars only has three rows left. What are we going to do?”

  This yard was noisier since the line beside them was still running. It was hard for her to concentrate in order to hear Lars in her head. It was like there was only so much room in her mind for input, regardless of whether it was in her mind or her ears.

  Lars had dashed around the corner to the next row and she was walking to her usual position at the beginning of the next row.

  /Cat./

  Whatever, she thought.

  /Fish. Fish, Fish, Fish./

  Annoyed, Amy said to him, /Lars, please, there no way a fish peed on that—/, then her brain kicked in, /FISH! Lars you found it! WAIT./

  Amy raced to the next row and turned the corner to join him. He was standing there, bouncing up and down, tail wagging.

  /Fish, Fish, Fish./

  “Harris, Lars found it! Second row from the end.”

  Then to Lars she said, “Good boy, Lars. Here’s a salmon cookie just for you.” She gave him another one, pulled out his tug toy, and said, “Let’s play while we wait for Harris.”

  Harris said in her ear, “That’s great, but I just talked to Beth. She’s afraid that there might be informants in the yard and doesn’t want to let on that we found it.”

  Amy said, “This spook business is just no fun. The container number is different, FYI.”

  “Record that number and keep searching. Tell La
rs there’s more fish.”

  “We have to tell Yolanda and Steve to turn around.”

  “Nope, they should continue as planned.”

  “But it’s a shipyard—a dangerous place for a dog Gimli’s size.”

  “You can tell them to be careful, if you choose your words carefully.”

  While Lars was yanking her around, Amy tried to get a look at the containers. There were two piled up, but the number wasn’t the same as before. How did they do that? she wondered.

  They broke off from the game and Lars put his paws up on the container’s rail, looking up as far as he could crane his neck.

  /Fish./

  “So the top container also smells like fish? That’s five or six feet away. I apologize for doubting you.”

  AMY TOLD her handheld to contact Yolanda. “Hello, Wild Goose One, this is Wild Goose Two.”

  “Greetings, Other Goose,” Yolanda said.

  “I know you’re on your way to the agility trial.”

  Yolanda said, “Girl, what have you been smoking? Good stuff up north I hear.”

  Amy could hear Steve laughing in the background.

  “Hear me out. My sources tell me that you’re no longer in the running.”

  She could hear Yolanda say, presumably to Steve, “I have fallen into a wormhole, and I’m talking to Captain Astro.”

  “But your fans really want to see you on the course.”

  After a beat Amy could hear her say, “No longer in the … Mmm-hmm,” in that catching-on sort of tone.

  “But go easy, it’s a dangerous course.”

  “How dangerous?”

  Crap, I haven’t worked that part out, she thought. “They’re forever moving the obstacles around and not always paying attention to where they’re going.”

  “But nothing that shoots?”

  “Correct.”

  “Okay, we will continue on to the agility trial and will talk to you later.”

  “Put on a good show for your fans.”

  “You know I always do.”

  “Ta-ta.”

  “Happy travels, Astro.” She cut the connection.

  “Amy!”

  Looking over her shoulder, Amy was just able to get “Harris” out her mouth, before Boomer nearly ran them over.

  Breathless, Harris said to Lars, “Good boy, Lars,” and gave him a friendly whack on the side. “Beth is on her way.” Lifting up his head after a few gasps, he pulled out his handheld and held it up to the lower number. He frowned. Not only did the check digit on the container with a different number compute fine, but it allegedly contained tires.

  He held up the handheld higher, aiming at the top container. “This one too. How can that be?”

  Amy noticed that Boomer also had his nose on the container. Harris grinned. “Boomer is saying ‘Fish.’”

  “How can we be sure?”

  “I’m going to scrape off a bit of the fish goo and feed it to the handheld to see if it can match it. It’s not that great, but it will give us a guess.” Harris took out a small knife and scraped a little of the painted-on substance. Then he scraped it into the small sampler. “It’s thinking.”

  Amy smiled. “As if, but I’m glad it’s working on it.”

  Harris said, “Can you ask them to bring over one of those ladders on wheels?”

  Amy walked down to find someone who could bring them one.

  Harris looked up at the numbers. There was something that didn’t look right around the edges. He said to Amy, “When you get the ladder, just put it at the end of the row and keep searching. If someone asks, we haven’t found anything but want to check a few of the higher containers.”

  Amy went a couple of rows down and found one of the mobile ladders on wheels. Fortunately, they weren’t nearly as carefully supervised as they were at Northstation and Amy was able to wheel the ladder down to the correct row without anyone objecting or insisting on helping. Harris came out to meet her and positioned it against the first container in the row. The one they were interested in was the fourth one down.

  “Let’s go look for more fish, Lars.”

  /Fish!/

  And they headed off to finish the last two rows.

  Harris tried to look carefully at the wrong container, taking photos and entering its tracking data. He learned that it was a container labeled “general goods,” filled with items that a few families were moving across the ocean. He thought about what a leap of faith it was to just throw all your belongings into a box and hope that you’d see it again someday, instead of it taking a permanent swim in the ocean.

  He moved the ladder over to the next box and repeated the charade, then decided that was enough and moved it down to the fourth-position containers they were interested in. By this time, his handheld beeped that the sample was a 90 percent match to the original fish paint, which, given all the dirt and debris that hit the container during transport, sounded about right.

  Going up the ladder, he noticed the edges of the numbers had some sort of a residue around the edges. He wasn’t sure how close an examination he could give it without someone noticing, but took a photo and placed his fingers on the strip. It was adhesive. What the heck? The other one also had the same tackiness.

  Climbing back down the ladder, he worked on a theory. Someone had covered up the numbers with the ones they originally saw. Al, the guy that sent the containers from the lab-in-a-box people, was going to have to do some explaining, but it could also have been the company that delivered the containers to Applied Sciences. Then, at the way station, some very fast person must have been able to get up there to pull the numbers off. That was a little remarkable and implied that either our bad guys had people who worked there, or they paid them off. He made a note to have Beth chat with them, but she might decline, not wanting to tip the bad guys off.

  He had been considering whether there was a low-tech way of tracking the container from a distance. Someone had disabled the GPS tracking device. He could still see it up high on the door, so they must have zapped it in some way. It looked like using electronics probably wasn’t the solution. He decided to try one of the clear flat paints that contained an element that would fluoresce green when viewed with something electronic, like the newer traffic monitoring cams.

  What to paint was now the debate. It had to be something that wasn’t already on the container. He considered a big H but decided that was a little too graffiti-like. It had to be distinctive. He decided to do a series of slashes that were like a zigzag pattern or three adjoining mountains way up on the upper left of the container in a blank area.

  He then climbed up to the roof of the container, and repeated the exercise.

  Amy had come back with Lars. “Hi, Boomer, is your dad a graffiti artist now? If he is, he needs to learn how to use a paint can.”

  Harris climbed down the ladder. “Can you help me move this ladder a couple of containers down?”

  “Sure, but care to explain?”

  “In the car.”

  “Okay, spook.” Amy helped him push the ladder over two containers.

  Harris climbed up and repeated the gesture, but Amy didn’t hear any painting sounds. “Er, Harris.” Then she realized he was faking the marking of this container.

  Harris, focusing on the door, held up a hand. He then went up to the roof and repeated the miming.

  He came back down again. “Okay, now we need to go over to the previous one you found the tomatoes on and another one.”

  “Um, okay.” Again, she helped move the ladder. They repeated this for three more containers and then moved the ladder over to where they found it and headed back.

  Beth walked out to meet them. In a voice that was meant to carry just a little, she said, “I’m sorry that we didn’t find anything, so we’re off to meet Yolanda and Steve at Coolingham.” Harris and Amy nodded and tried to look dejected. Boomer and Lars were no help in the “look sad” business, but Amy figured they just looked like regular dogs, which they did.r />
  They walked back to the vehicle, put the dogs in, and got in.

  Turning to Harris, Amy said, “Okay, what’s going on, my misguided artist?”

  Harris took a breath and then told her what his plan was.

  Amy laughed. “And you really think that will work? Are you going to watch traffic cams all day? I can’t see even you doing that.”

  “No, actually, I took a look at it with my camera, and it does show bright green. I’m going see if I can have the computer do the scan looking for the image.”

  “That’s a stretch.”

  Harris grinned ruefully, “I know, but I wanted to give it a try.”

  Amy said, “I’m no expert, but image-matching usually is comparing the same size and distance.”

  “Well I might be able to tell it to look for just the fluorescent green since that isn’t a common sight.”

  Amy asked, “How long before our boxes leave?”

  “Should be about a day.”

  “We don’t have an escort going back. Do I give the car permission to speed?”

  “Just a little.”

  “Zoom. Zoom,” she said. “Let’s go. Hey doggies, it’s burger time.”

  They dashed back, yelling the doggy version of ‘Yahoo.’

  CHAPTER 34:

  After Novaton

  AFTER AMY and Harris got back, Harris started to set up his image search program, and Amy updated their status reports. They were both completely engrossed in their work when Yolanda came crashing through the door, followed by Steve and Labrador Pearl with corgi Gimli chewing on her neck.

  Yolanda strode up to Amy’s desk, dropped both hands on it, leaned in, and, pausing for dramatic effect, said, “The egret eats a fish at dusk.”

  Without looking up, Amy said, “And the camel spits in the wind.”

  Yolanda said, “Llama.”

  “What?”

  “Llamas spit.”

  “I thought camels spit, too.”

  Yolanda said, “When they do, it’s not saliva, it’s predigested food.”

  Amy gave her an appalled look. “How did we get on this?”