The Secret of Rover

by Rachel Wildavsky

  But everyone just looked depressed. Six people were there—no, eight—and every one of them slumped over a computer as if defeated. Alicia leaned haggardly against the wall. The secretary, who had been so crisp and in control at her office in the State Department, was now limp and unkempt, with great dark circles beneath her eyes.

  David bypassed every normal greeting. “It’s eight forty-one!” he shouted. “Why isn’t anybody hurrying?”

  Alicia pushed herself away from the wall where she had propped her thin, exhausted frame and picked her way through the scattered furniture to meet them. “David, Katie,” she said, robotic with weariness. “Alex.” She nodded toward the door, where he was breathlessly entering. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I’m sure—”

  “Where are they?” demanded David, frustrated to the point of rudeness by these time-wasting preliminaries.

  “I understand,” said Alicia, looking grave. “First things first,” she said. “Your parents and sister are still living. Or at least, we have no reason to think they aren’t. But kids . . .” She took a deep breath and continued. “Kids, the news isn’t good. We just aren’t finding them. I don’t want to—I won’t lie to you. We—we’ve reached the end.” Her face was full of compassion and shame.

  “The recording?” asked Alex anxiously. He was now by their sides.

  Alicia shook her head. “It’s just not working. It’s—I’m sorry, Alex.”

  “So you’re giving up?” asked Katie in disbelief.

  “We’ve tried it three times,” said Alicia, “and—”

  “Try it again,” demanded David. “Uncle Alex, you try it.”

  Alicia and Alex shared an agonized gaze and Alex slipped into an empty chair before a gigantic console. Frowning, he tapped a few obviously familiar keystrokes.

  Hurry, thought David, watching his uncle’s careful fingers. But Katie’s eyes were elsewhere. She was looking toward the front of the room, where a single enormous screen hung high on the wall, facing every desk and dominating the tiny space. This screen alone, among all the others in the War Room, had until now been totally blank. With Alex’s keystrokes, it had sprung to life.

  “Katkajan,” Katie whispered. And so it was. A satellite photo of that country had filled the gigantic screen.

  Just to the right of David and Katie sat a technician with headphones over her ears. This woman now read out a string of letters and numbers. Hearing them, Alex pushed another button and a small, green dot appeared on the screen. The dot hovered somewhere over a range of mountains that cut across the center of Katkajan like a slash.

  “They’re huge,” murmured Katie, looking with dismay at those mountains. If their mom and dad and Theo were still there, then there really was no hope.

  But by now David had also found this screen, and he had focused on a different part of it. David was watching the green dot. “That must be Rover,” he said to Katie in a low voice. “That dot right there.”

  Alex, still frowning, was punching more instructions into his keyboard. And as he typed—and as they watched—the green dot started moving. It had been perfectly still, but now it began to vibrate and tremble.

  Rover indeed: The dot on Alex’s machine looked exactly like a panting dog, straining restlessly at the end of its leash. Katie found herself whispering to this doglike dot. “Go,” she murmured. “Go, Rover. Go get ’em.”

  Then Alex threw the dog a bone. He tapped a final key, and the song that Katie and David had recorded just moments earlier filled the room. The instant it did, he leaned to his right and pushed a button on a nearby phone.

  The button dialed a number. Somewhere in Katkajan, a phone began to ring, and it was playing the same song.

  You are my sunshine . . .

  “Fetch,” muttered David tightly. “Rover, fetch. Go find that phone.”

  It was almost as if the dot had heard him. Instantly its faint tremble switched to a steady pulse. Instead of vibrating in one place, it began making tentative darting motions this way and that. Then slowly, shakily, the dot began floating away from the mountains. It began to draw nearer and nearer to Taq, the Katkajanian capital.

  “It’s working!” said David.

  “They’re not in the mountains!” cried Katie. “David, this is good! If they’re in Taq, we might still have time!”

  But at this Alicia spoke. “I don’t like to disappoint you, kids,” she warned. “But you need to watch what happens next.”

  She was all too right.

  No sooner had the words left Alicia’s lips than Rover stopped. The dot paused briefly, somewhere over the eastern foothills of the Katkajanian mountains. Abruptly, it then headed northeast. They all held their breath as just as abruptly it dropped perhaps a hundred miles to the south, hovered briefly, and began floating west.

  Rover had heard, but it could not make sense of what it heard. The dog was tracking, but it could not pick up the scent.

  “It’s just wandering!” cried Katie in despair. “It’s all mixed up!”

  While the dot was drifting, Alex was holding the phone to his ear. Now he hung it up. “Voice mail!” he said bitterly. And the final notes of David and Katie’s brief recording faded from the air.

  “That’s what it’s been doing, Alex,” Alicia said apologetically, as if she were trying to let him down gently. “At first it seems to hear, and then it doesn’t.”

  “Have you tried Level 3?” asked Alex desperately.

  “I’m afraid we have, sir,” responded the technician with the headphones.

  “It’s so close, Alex,” said Alicia. “It’s so close to working. But it’s not—it’s just not—”

  “It’s just not enough.” Katie broke in and they all turned to stare, their eyes drawn by the decision in her voice. “It’s not enough,” she repeated, “so we have to give it more. David, let’s sing it again. Let’s try it live.”

  “But what about the piano?” asked David.

  “Forget the piano. It can work with just our voices. That recording we just did—it’s not good, David! It isn’t right at all!”

  Alex stopped her. “It won’t make any difference, Katie,” he said mournfully. “Rover isn’t about details like that. It listens for tones, the unique vibrations—”

  But Katie spoke only to David. “What do we have to lose?” she demanded. She seized his arm in her two fists and shook it. “David, what’s going to happen if we don’t try?”

  David spun around to face his uncle. “Where’s the microphone?” he barked.

  “The mike?” asked Alex.

  “We’re doing this one more time,” said David. “We’re going to sing it again, right here and right now.” He gestured toward the big screen, where the green dot still wobbled forlornly. “That dog needs fresh food,” he said, and for a moment—from the indignation in his voice—it was almost as if he were talking about a real dog.

  “It’s here!” said a voice near the front of the room, and a wireless mike was passed, hand over hand, to where Katie and David stood.

  Katie snatched at it. “How do you turn it on?” she asked, even as she found the switch and flipped it.

  “Wait!” said Alex. Seizing the phone, he held his finger over the button that dialed the number. He was ready to go.

  Then Katie’s and David’s eyes met and the room went absolutely silent. They clutched the microphone between them, and Katie whispered. “One. Two. Three.” And Alex pushed the button, and strong and sure they began to sing:

  You are my sunshine,

  My only sunshine . . .

  They reached the third line. Katie stomped hard on David’s foot, reminding him of the word they had to hit with special force.

  You make me happy,

  When skies are gray . . .

  That was it. That was exactly the way Mrs. Ivanovna had made them do it. Katie squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut. She was concentrating on the rest of the song, remembering. She was disappearing into her own world, throwing every ounce of h
erself into what she was singing.

  You’ll never know, dear . . .

  So intently was Katie focused that she forgot to watch the dot. But David’s eyes were open. David could see the dot, and the dot was changing. It had begun to vibrate.

  How much I love you . . .

  With that, the dot began to move. Jerkily at first, then more steadily. It was hiking itself to the right, to the east.

  Please don’t take my sunshine away.

  Why wasn’t Katie looking? David wondered. It was uncanny how much the dot resembled a dog jerking and pulling at a rope to which it was tethered. Now David stomped on his sister’s foot, and her eyes flew open. He did not stop singing, but he gestured frantically toward the screen, where the green dot was now sailing with a steady, determined motion toward the east, where Taq lay nestled in the foothills.

  The dog was on the scent. They could practically hear it baying. And then Alex hung up.

  “Voice mail,” he said again. But for the first time, there was excitement in his voice. His fingers visibly trembled as he began to punch in the number one more time.

  The dot had stopped somewhere over the eastern slopes. David stared at it, willing it to hold on. Please don’t quit, he thought. The music’s coming back. Please don’t give up. Please don’t—

  “Wrong number!” cried Uncle Alex, again hanging up the phone.

  Wrong number? There was another phone in front of David and he scooped it up.

  “I’ll do it,” he said crisply. And he began to punch his parents’ familiar number into the phone.

  Alex looked alarmed. “David!” he cried. “David, don’t!”

  “What?” said David, pausing. This was no time for one of his uncle’s issues.

  “I don’t want you dialing, David.”

  “I know the number!”

  “It’s not that,” said Alex urgently. “It’s—there’s always a chance they might pick up!”

  Unexpectedly, Alicia spoke. “Alex is right!” she said. “Let him do it. We can’t take a chance that you’ll get a live answer!”

  David did not hesitate. “Thanks,” he said, “but no thanks.” And he resumed dialing.

  “This is important,” said Alex. “Listen to Alicia!”

  “We tried listening, Katie and me,” said David. “For weeks we’ve been listening. Now I’m making a call.”

  Alicia sounded desperate. “These are kidnappers,” she urged. “They’re killers; they’re dangerous. Dealing with people like this is a complex skill; it takes training.”

  But David punched in the last digit. His eyes focused on the map as he listened for the ring to begin. His mouth was set in a hard, determined line.

  “If anybody answers,” cried Alicia, “hang up! Promise you won’t talk!”

  “Say when,” whispered Katie.

  “Now,” he said, and again they began to sing.

  Somewhere in Taq, the Bowdens’ phone was playing their song. This time the dot made a beeline for that phone.

  The dot was racing toward the Katkajanian capital. Even as it did so, the satellite image behind it was morphing. The rest of the country began to disappear, sliding off the edges of the screen. The center of the screen, where the capital was, began to grow larger and larger. City streets and landmarks emerged. Rover was zooming in on its target.

  You make me happy . . .

  The dot picked up speed as it descended into Taq. It was sure of itself now; it knew where it was going.

  When skies are gray . . .

  Now the telescoping of the picture accelerated to a dizzying speed. Watching it was like being in an airplane that was coming in for a landing. Details loomed into view. They could see not only streets but tiny buildings as well. The dot hurtled downward like a missile that was about to strike.

  You’ll never know, dear . . .

  The closer it came to its goal, the faster the dot seemed to go. Down it went, and down, down, down. They could see cars now, and bicycles, and people. Out of all that great country and that huge, teeming city, the dot was zooming in on a short, ordinary-looking street lined with small, ordinary houses.

  Now they could see the tiles on the roofs of these houses. If the dot got any closer, it would crash.

  And then it stopped. It stopped over the chimney of an inconspicuous gray house with shuttered windows and an abandoned appearance. And as it did so, the computer began to beep—an insistent, repeated beep.

  “Found!” cried the technician with the headphones.

  “Alert the Katkajanians,” ordered Alicia, her voice shaking. “Get the address of that house. And get me the head of police in the—”

  But Katie and David did not hear. They were intent on the phone, which David clutched tightly to his ear. It had stopped ringing.

  “Hello?” said David. “Hello?”

  “David, hang up!” yelled Alex. “Say nothing!”

  He should have spoken to Katie, too. With a great wrench, she ripped the phone from her brother’s hands and clutched it to her face. “Where are our parents?” she demanded with steel in her voice. “Where is our sister? What have you done with our family?”

  Everyone fell absolutely silent. Behind them a technician flipped a switch and instantly the call was transferred to a loudspeaker, which broadcast both sides of the conversation at full volume into the War Room. Every man and woman there was eye-locked on Katie, and all were on the edges of their seats.

  Aware that every sound they made could now be heard by the kidnappers in Katkajan, Alex put his finger to his lips and flailed his arms, gesturing wildly for silence. Whoever that was on the phone must not know where Katie was calling from.

  Alicia, who had been finishing an urgent call to the head of the Katkajanian police, abruptly hung up. Then, except for the crackling static of the broadcast call and the sounds of their breathing, there was total silence in the War Room.

  “Oh, so dis is de daughter?” The faraway Katkajanian voice sounded very near. “How sweet. How you find us, honey?” And he laughed.

  “We haven’t found you,” Katie lied. A shrewd instinct told her to keep the kidnappers off their guard. “We’ve called you. It’s different, unfortunately. I want to talk to my mother.”

  “Your mother, she beezy right now.” And he laughed again. “She sayin’ her prayers.”

  The small gray house in the satellite photo may have looked shuttered and abandoned, but clearly it was not empty. Behind the Katkajanian who held the phone, the voices of the other kidnappers could be heard. Now the man with the phone turned away from it and spoke to them in his own language. From the excited cries that greeted his remark, he must have told them who had called.

  Katie strained to hear the voices of her parents, but she did not.

  David, who had snatched a piece of paper and scribbled something across it, now shoved a note under her eyes. Keep him talking, said the note.

  This advice was not necessary and Katie pushed it away.

  “You’re trying to upset me,” she said to the Katkajanian, “and it won’t work. Just give me my father instead.”

  “He a leetle tied up too.” And the man laughed yet again. “Hey,” he said abruptly. “Where you callin’ from? How come you no call before dis?”

  “I didn’t want to talk to you, that’s why,” she retorted. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  The Katkajanian found this question hilarious. “Harry Potter!” he said happily when his mirth had died down. “My name Harry Potter! Nice try, honey. Oh—no, wait. Dat not really my name.” He paused. “My name really Meeckey Mouse.” And he laughed even louder than before. “My name—”

  It was too much for David. The nerve of this guy, with his lame humor when their parents’ lives were on the line. He snatched the phone from his sister’s hand.

  “Listen up, Mickey,” he said.

  “David,” Katie hissed. “I was keeping him talking!”

  “Listen up,” David repeated. “And put your friend
s on. I have something you all need to hear.”

  Alex went pale. “David—no,” he whispered.

  “Whooee!” shouted the Katkajanian. “Now de son is talking!” And David, frowning, turned aside from his uncle’s desperate face, while far away in Taq the kidnappers gathered around the phone.

  “What you got for us, honey?” said the man a moment later with barely repressed glee.

  “Advice,” said David. “Just a little advice for all of you, about my mom and my dad and the baby, too.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and when he spoke he was very calm. “If you harm so much as a hair on their heads,” he said, “then you had all better watch your backs for the rest of your lives. Because one of these days, I am going to be behind you—I and my sister. If we have to wait till we’re old—if we have to wait till we’re dead—we will track you down.”

  At this the Katkajanian stopped laughing. Katie grabbed again for the phone but David would not let her have it.

  “Got to go,” snapped the Katkajanian. “Nice advice, but I got to go. We plannin’ a little party in—oh, about one minute.”

  Katie looked at the clock. It was 8:59. She lunged and the phone was hers. “Hello?” she begged. “Hello?”

  But then everything fell apart.

  On the other end of the line there was a crash, as if a door had splintered open. Frantic shouting followed, and something somewhere fell heavily to the ground. A gunshot rang out, and then another and another.

  Amid the chaos of yelling and struggle a woman screamed—a terrible, terrible scream. Then with a click the line went dead.

  “What’s happening?!” cried Katie. She wheeled around to look at the screen. Surely something would show. But the screen had gone black. “Who was that? David, who screamed?”

  “The police! That must have been the police—they broke down the door! It wasn’t Mom,” he added, belatedly answering her question. “That scream—I know it wasn’t Mom!” But there was fear in his voice.