"Unless she just wants to poke me in the eye," Howard said sullenly.
"No, dear, that's your style, not hers."
Howard said nothing. She was right. He was working on it, but knew he'd never entirely get his thirst for revenge under control. That's what they were doing here in the first place, instead of staying back home tending to things he could really do something about.
"What does she want for Fuzzy?" Andrea went on.
"She wants him to roam free and natural and not be 'exploited.' " He couldn't keep the sneer out
of his voice.
"Where can she find that for him?"
"Nowhere. Not as long as I own him. Damn it, I don't treat that animal badly. He works twice a
day, he is the most pampered animal in the world, he is happy—he seems happy to you, doesn't—"
"Yes, I think he's happy. Susan thinks it'd be better if he were in a wild animal park of some kind. She wants him out in the open air. She wants him to browse his own grass and eat leaves off wild trees." "Impossible. That nut shot at him."
"So what's your point?"
"You think Susan is stupid enough to go through all this merely to move him from one prison to another? With a smaller jail cell when he gets there?"
"You're going to make me ask the question, aren't you? Okay, where is she taking him?"
"Canada."
Howard laughed. Actually it was more of a snort. Andrea didn't mind.
"Right. With her other troubles, she needs to cross an international border."
"The longest undefended international border in the world. Large parts of it, mostly in Washington and Idaho and Montana, are thickly wooded, sparsely inhabited wilderness, not very well patrolled."
Howard was beginning to look thoughtful.
"But when she's there... she's got the same problem. Hide him, or lose him."
"Not necessarily. Circus animal acts are illegal in Canada now. Have been for... how many years?"
"Eight or nine, I guess," Howard said, grumpily. It was a sore point with him. There were no longer circuses in most of Western Europe, and a growing but still minority movement wanted to ban animal acts and rodeos in the United States. He had wanted to take Fuzzy on a triumphant world tour, but it was never going to happen. There were plans for an Asian tour. People were still less fussy over there. The Japanese, with their cultural quirk for cuteness, were wild about Fuzzy; he sold more big-eyed Fuzzy soft toys there than anywhere in the world. In China Big Mama was the star, for some reason. Russia felt a cultural identification with mammoths. The huge majority of the frozen ones had been found in Siberia, and there were places where ancient mammoth bones piled up like driftwood. Russians were gaga about both of Howard's mammoths.
"So what? He still belongs to me."
"Maybe, maybe not. You remember the court decisions awarding him to you were highly controversial. I suspect you greased some wheels." "Me? Bribe a judge?" He grinned.
Howard said nothing.
"Once she got him across the border... what if she turned herself in? What if a team of lawyers was waiting for her when she got there? Do they call them solicitors up there? Anyway... how long do you think they could keep him tied up in court?"
"Years," Howard muttered. He was resting his chin on his clasped hands, frowning. "I don't have a lot of connections in Canada, not like down here."
"I did a little Internet search while I was thinking this over. Canadian public opinion is solidly behind the 'Free Fuzzy' movement. Once he's actually there, I think it would be the rare Canadian who would want to let him go back to the circus."
"But what does Susan gain?"
Andrea ticked off points on her fingers. "Time, first of all. Like you said, maybe years. Two, Fuzzy doesn't have to perform. The Canadian authorities aren't fools; they'll protect him. They could move him far, far north, near where his natural habitat would be, put him in a preserve with no roads leading in while the case is being adjudicated. Every day he stays free, it would be harder for you to get him back."
Howard thought about it for almost a full minute. Then he smiled.
"Darling, I've finally found a woman as smart as me."
"Smarter," Andrea said.
Howard laughed, and picked up the phone. "Captain, we're joining Mr. Warburton at Sea-Tac Airport, as soon as you can get clearance." He punched another button. "Warburton, pull everything you've got out of Oregon and California. Concentrate the search in the Seattle metro area, but most of all along the Canadian border. I want teams at every crossing, and continuous helicopter patrols from Puget Sound to Montana. I'll tell you about it when I get there."
Then he stood up, pulled Andrea from her chair, and kissed her.
THE lady is pretty smart, Warburton admitted to himself after Howard called back to explain Andrea's reasoning. Both of them were. He wouldn't have thought of it; his mind didn't work that way. He wouldn't embark on a project knowing he would get caught... but it seemed the best possible outcome, in Susan's terms. Warburton didn't like Susan, didn't like Andrea even more—she was always getting in his way. Warburton didn't really like anybody very much, not even Howard. He didn't have much of a life outside his job, but the job satisfied him and had made him quite wealthy over the years. He was a born problem solver, that was his thing, and he had very few scruples. Fuck the rules of engagement. He was enough of a realist to know that pointing a gun at two people and shouting Freeze! was worse than pointless unless you were prepared to use it. He would shoot to wound, the leg or the foot, if he could. But if worse came to worst he would do what he had to do. Like any cautious cop, he carried an untraceable piece-of-shit throwdown weapon to put in the hand of an awkward corpse. He had killed men twice before—only when he had to; he was not a maniac. He had suffered no nightmares. He knew he could do it.
The other assistant was the owner and operator of the company, a white man fully as big as Blackstone and bald as an egg, though not by choice, by the name of Crowder. He claimed to be the best at urban environments. Warburton wasn't quite so sure about him. They were looking at a wall-sized electronic map of Washington State and lower British Columbia. Locations and unit numbers of all the aerial and ground search teams currently in operation were displayed. There were a lot of them. A whole lot of them. Maybe even enough to do the job...
The dots and numbers representing searchers moved every few seconds, adjusted by the GPS units each team carried. Most of the air units and many on the ground were now converging on the border.
"Legal crossing points at Blaine, the big one," Blackstone said. He moved a controller and highlighted as he spoke. "Then here at State Road 539, here at Sumas, and not another until way over here, at Lenton Flat. Pretty rough country through there. I wouldn't want to climb it with a mammoth."
"Hannibal crossed the Alps with war elephants. Patrol it anyway."
"Sure. Then there are seven more before you get to Idaho. You figure they'll try to drive across, or follow one of these roads close to the border and walk it?"
"Hard to say. Either way will be tough."
"Here in the west it's fairly flat, farmland, they'd stick out like a sore thumb. Fewer people in the eastern part, a lot of it's pretty arid. Desert. I wouldn't go that route, myself."
"What would you do?"
"Given what you told me? I'd try to drive up to one of the crossings out here in the boonies, go right up to the customs station and turn myself in."
"They've got to cross first. Do we have a team at all of them yet?"