Watchers

the brother who had died young.
    The last of the four photos was of ten soldiers grouped on what appeared to be the wooden steps in front of a barracks, grinning at the camera. One of the ten was Travis Cornell. And on a couple of their uniforms, Lem noticed the distinctive patch of Delta Force, the elite antiterrorist corps.
    Uneasy about that last photograph, Lem put it on the dresser and headed back toward the living room, where Cliff was continuing to sift through bloodstained rubble. They were looking for something that would mean nothing to the police but might be extremely meaningful to them.
    The NSA had been slow to pick up on the Santa Barbara killing, and Lem had not been alerted until almost six o’clock this morning. As a result, the press had already reported the grisly details of Ted Hockney’s murder. They were enthusiastically disseminating wild speculations about what might have killed Hockney, focusing primarily on the theory that Cornell kept some kind of exotic and dangerous pet, perhaps a cheetah or panther, and that the animal had attacked the unsuspecting landlord when he had let himself into the house. The TV cameras had lingered lovingly on the shredded and blood spattered books. It was National Enquirer stuff, which did not surprise Lem because he believed the line separating sensational tabloids like the Enquirer and the so-called “legitimate” press—especially electronic news media—was often thinner than most journalists cared to admit.
    He had already planned and put into operation a disinformation campaign to reinforce the press’s wrongheaded hysteria about jungle cats on the loose. NSA-paid informants would come forth, claiming to know Cornell, and would
    vouch that he did, indeed, keep a panther in the house in addition to a dog. Others who had never met Cornell would, in identifying themselves as his friends, sorrowfully report that they had urged him to have the panther defanged and declared as it had reached maturity. Police would want to question Cornell—and the unidentified woman—regarding the panther and its current whereabouts.
    Lem was confident the press would be nicely deflected from all inquiries that might lead them closer to the truth.
    Of course, down in Orange County, Walt Gaines would hear about this murder, would make friendly inquiries with local authorities here, and would swiftly conclude that The Outsider had tracked the dog this far north. Lem was relieved that he had Walt’s cooperation.
    Entering the living room, where Cliff Soames was at work, Lem said, “Find anything?”
    The young agent rose from the debris, dusted his hands together, and said, “Yeah. I put it on the dining-room table.”
    Lem followed him into the dining room, where a fat ring-binder notebook was the only item on the table. When he opened it and leafed through the contents, he saw photographs that had been cut from glossy magazines and taped to the left-hand pages. Opposite each photo, on the right-hand page, was the name of the pictured object printed in large block letters: TREE, HOUSE, CAR...
    “What do you make of it?” Cliff asked.
    Scowling, saying nothing, Lem continued to leaf through the book, knowing it was important but at first unable to guess why. Then it hit him: “It’s a primer. To teach reading.”
    “Yeah,” Cliff said.
    Lem saw that his assistant was smiling. “You think they must know the dog’s intelligent, that it must’ve revealed its abilities to them? And so they . . . decided to teach it to read?”
    “Looks that way,” Cliff said, still smiling. “Good God, do you think it’s possible? Could it be taught to read?”
    “Undoubtedly,” Lem said. “In fact, teaching it to read was on Dr. Weatherby’s schedule of experiments for this autumn.”
    Laughing softly, wonderingly, Cliff said, “I’ll be damned.”
    “Before you get too much of a kick out of it,” Lem said, “you better consider the situation. This guy knows the dog is amazingly smart. He might’ve succeeded in teaching it to read. So we have to figure he’s worked out a means of communicating with it as well. He knows it’s an experimental animal. He must know a lot of people are looking for it.”
    Cliff said, “He must know about The Outsider, too, because the dog would have found a way of telling him.”
    “Yes. Yet, knowing all of this, he hasn’t chosen to go public. He could’ve sold the story to the highest bidder. But he didn’t. Or if he’s a