Watchers

getting vaccinations?”
    Einstein only whimpered.
    Travis pulled the reluctant dog out of the corner, freeing his tail for a session. Dropping the leash, he took Einstein’s head in both hands and forced his face up, so they were eye-to-eye.
    “Did they hurt you with needles in the lab?”
    Yes.
    “Is that why you’re afraid of the vet?”
    Though he did not stop shuddering, the dog barked once: No.
    “You were hurt by needles, but you’re not afraid of them?”
    No.
    ‘Then why are you like this?”
    Einstein just stared at him and made those terrible sounds of distress.
    Nora opened the bedroom door a crack and peeked in. “Did you get the leash on him yet, Einstein?” Then she said, “Phew! What happened in here?”
    Still holding the dog’s head, staring into his eyes, Travis said, “He made a bold statement of displeasure.”
    “Bold,” she agreed, moving to the bed and beginning to strip off the soiled spread, blanket, and sheets.
    Trying to puzzle out the reason for the dog’s behavior, Travis said, “Einstein, if it’s not needles you’re afraid of—is it the vet?”
    One bark. No.
    Frustrated, Travis brooded on his next question while Nora pulled the mattress cover from the bed.
    Einstein trembled.
    Suddenly, Travis had a flash of understanding that illuminated the dog’s contrariness and fear. He cursed his own thickheadedness. “Hell, of course! You’re not afraid of the vet—but of who the vet might report you to.”
    Einstein’s shivering subsided a bit, and he wagged his tail briefly. Yes. “If people from that lab are hunting for you—and we know they must be hunting furiously because you have to be the most important experimental animal in history—then they’re going to be in touch with every vet in the state, aren’t they? Every vet . . . and every dog pound . . . and every dog-licensing agency.”
    Another burst of vigorous tail wagging, less shivering.
    Nora came around the bed and stooped down beside Travis. “But golden retrievers have to be one of the two or three most popular breeds. Vets and animal-licensing bureaucrats deal with them all the time. If our genius dog here hides his light under a bushel and plays dopey mutt—”
    “Which he can do quite well.”
    “—then they’d have no way of knowing he was the fugitive.”
    Yes, Einstein insisted.
    To the dog, Travis said, “What do you mean? Are you saying they would be able to identify you?”
    Yes.
    “How?” Nora wondered. Travis said, “A mark of some kind?” Yes.
    “Somewhere under all that fur?” Nora asked.
    One bark. No.
    “Then where?” Travis wondered.
    Pulling loose of Travis’s hands, Einstein shook his head so hard that his floppy ears made a flapping noise.
    “Maybe on the pads of his feet,” Nora said.
    “No,” Travis said even as Einstein barked once. “When I found him, his
    feet were bleeding from a lot of hard travel, and I had to clean out the wounds with boric acid. I’d have noticed a mark on one of his paws.”
    Again, Einstein shook his head violently, flapping his ears.
    Travis said, “Maybe on the inner lip. They tattoo racehorses on the inner lip to identify them and prevent ringers from being run. Let me peel back your lips and have a look, boy.”
    Einstein barked once—No—and shook his head violently.
    At last Travis got the point. He looked in the right ear and found nothing. But in the left ear, he saw something. He urged the dog to go with him to the window, where the light was better, and he discovered that the mark consisted of two numbers, a dash, and a third number tattooed in purple ink on the pink-brown flesh: 33-9.
    Looking over Travis’s shoulder, Nora said, “They probably had a lot of pups they were experimenting with, from different litters, and they had to be able to identify them.”
    “Jesus. If I’d taken him to a vet, and if the vet had been told to look for a retriever with a tattoo . .
    “But he has to have shots.”
    “Maybe he’s already had them,” Travis said hopefully.
    “We don’t dare count on that. He was a lab animal in a controlled environment where he might not have needed shots. And maybe the usual inoculations would’ve interfered with their experiments.”
    “We can’t risk a vet.”
    “If they do find him,” Nora said, “we simply won’t give him up.”
    “They can make us,” Travis said worriedly.
    “Damned if they can.”
    “Damned if they can’t. More likely than not, the government’s financing