Breathless

Carter, seized him by the scruff of the neck and by the tail, and manhandled him into a crate.
    Merlin’s restrained growl would not have frightened a wolf, but the disconcerted weasel said to Grady, “Keep that leash short.”
    “I’ll kennel the other one,” Cammy said.
    “Please stay back,” Jardine said, and in spite of the
please
, it was a warning. “These animals belong to us now, and we’ll deal with them.”
    “But there’s no need to handle them so crudely,” she protested.
    “For the record,” Jardine said, “the animal didn’t cry out or indicate in any way either that it was caused pain or even that it was frightened.”
    “They don’t seem to know they should fear anything,” Cammy said. “Maybe now they’re going to learn.”
    Carter snared Puzzle from the chair and shoved her into the second crate.
    Again Merlin growled, but he was too well-behaved to test his leash.
    Infuriated by their insensitivity, Cammy said, “What’s the matter with you? Look at them, look how beautiful they are, how amazing.”
    “Yes,” Jardine replied, “they’re pretty, they’re very pretty, just like in their pictures. But whether they’re pretty or not, we have a job to do, and we have to get on with it.”
    The spaces between the crossbars in the crate door would not allow Riddle to reach through and disengage the latch, but he tried.
    From imprisonment, the animals regarded Cammy with bewilderment, as each of the uniformed agents carried a crate out of the kitchen.
    No sooner had those two men cleared the doorway than another two entered the room, one after the other. Each of them carried an empty black duffel bag.
    Jardine said, “Mr. Adams, officially you have five firearms in thishouse, but I’m sure you’re in possession of others purchased before background-check applications were required. These gentlemen will accompany you room by room to collect those weapons.”
    “You have no right to confiscate my guns,” Grady declared.
    “We’re not confiscating them, Mr. Adams. We’re impounding them for the duration of this investigation, which is not only within our rights but is also our duty. You’ll be given a receipt for them, and when we leave, the weapons will be returned to you.”
    Once Jardine had served the warrants and crossed the threshold, the movie-hero’s-best-buddy persona had been stripped off and folded away in the costume trunk. Now he was who he had always been. His slight overbite no longer endeared him but was merely the better to gnaw at a bone. The blue eyes no longer twinkled, but darkled.
    To Grady, he said, “Don’t you think I would be a fool to leave such weapons in the hands of a marksman who has killed so many people at distances beyond a thousand yards?”
    Although the marksman label came as news to Cammy, she found it strangely heartening instead of ominous.
    Evidently mistaking the character of her surprise for shock, Jardine said, “So, Dr. Rivers, it unsettles you to know Mr. Adams was a sniper in the Army Rangers?”
    “I’m not entirely sure why,” Cammy said, “but it actually gives me a lovely sort of comfort.”
    “Every one of the men I took down,” Grady said, “was as bad as a man can be. If you fear me having a gun, Mr. Jardine, then you must know something about your own character that I only suspect.”
    This time, Cammy could not keep it to herself: “Very nice.”
    The men with the duffel bags worked at being stone-faced, and they were reasonably successful, although they would never make it as guards at Buckingham Palace.
    As if the deputy director had found Riddle’s jar of jalapeño peppers and had tossed back its contents, his face appeared to swell tight, his lips paled, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes phased out of focus for a moment.
    When he dared to speak, his voice was tight: “Your house phone and Internet connection have been disabled. These gentlemen will collect your cell phones and text-messaging devices. For the duration of this operation, any attempt to communicate with anyone beyond this property is a federal offense punishable by up to seven years in prison. Scientists on the team will be arriving over the next few hours. During these two days, you will from time to time be asked to answer questions about the two animals, their behavior, their demeanor. You’re free to go to and from the labs to meet with them. At one o’clock this afternoon, I will debrief you here, in this room, Dr. Rivers. We