Watchers

this would be a snap.
    You’re almost seventy-one, he told himself as he stroked past the rocky point, which was illuminated by a navigation-warning light. What ever possessed you to play hero?
    But he knew what possessed him: a deep-seated belief that the dog must remain free, that it must not be treated as the government’s property. If we’ve come so far that we can create as God creates, then we have to learn to act with the justice and mercy of God. That was what he had told Nora and Travis—and Einstein—on the night Ted Hockney had been killed, and he had meant every word he’d said.
    Salt water stung his eyes, blurred his vision. Some had gotten into his mouth, and it burned a small ulcer on his lower lip.
    He fought the current, pulled past the point of the breakwater, out of sight of the harbor, then slashed toward the rocks. Reaching them at last, he hung onto the first boulder he touched, gasping, not yet quite able to pull himself out of the water.
    In the intervening weeks since Nora and Travis went on the run, Garrison had plenty of time to think about Einstein, and he felt even more strongly that to imprison an intelligent creature, innocent of all crime, was an act of grave injustice, regardless of whether the prisoner was a dog. Garrison had devoted his life to the pursuit of justice that was made possible by the laws of a democracy, and to the maintenance of the freedom that grew from this justice. When a man of ideals decides he is too old to risk everything for what he believes in, then he is no longer a man of ideals. He may no longer be a man at all. That hard truth had driven him, in spite of his age, to make this night swim. Funny—that a long life of idealism should, after seven decades, be put to the ultimate test over the fate of a dog.
    But what a dog.
    And what a wondrous new world we live in, he thought.
    Genetic technology might have to be rechristened “genetic art,” for every work of art was an act of creation, and no act of creation was finer or more beautiful than the creation of an intelligent mind.
    Getting his second wind, he heaved entirely out of the water, onto the sloped north flank of the northern breakwater. That barrier rose between him and the harbor, and he moved inland, along the rocks, while the sea surged at his left side. He’d brought a waterproof penlight, clipped to his trunks, and now he used it to proceed, barefoot, with the greatest caution, afraid of slipping on the wet stones and breaking a leg or an ankle.
    He could see the city lights a few hundred yards ahead, and the vague silvery line of the beach.
    He was cold but not as cold as he had been in the water. His heart was beating fast but not as fast as before.
    He was going to make it.
     
     
    Lem Johnson drove down from the temporary HO in the courthouse, and Cliff met him at the empty boat slip where the Amazing Grace had been tied up. A wind had risen. Hundreds of craft along the docks were wallowing slightly in their berths; they creaked, and slack sail lines clicked and clinked against their masts. Dock lamps and neighboring boat lanterns cast shimmering patterns of light on the dark, oily-looking water where Dilworth’s forty-two-footer had been moored.
    “Harbor Patrol?” Lem asked worriedly.
    “They followed him out to open sea. Seemed as if he was going to turn north, swung close by the point, but then he went south instead.”
    “Did Dilworth see them?”
    “He had to. As you see—no fog, lots of stars, clear as a bell.”
    “Good. I want him to be aware. Coast Guard?”
    “I’ve talked to the cutter,” Cliff assured him. “They’re on the spot, flanking the Amazing Grace at a hundred yards, heading south along the coast.”
    Shivering in the rapidly cooling air, Lem said, “They know he might try putting ashore in a rubber boat or whatever?”
    “They know,” Cliff said. “He can’t do it under their noses.”
    “Is the Guard sure he sees them?”
    “They’re lit up like a Christmas tree.”
    “Good. I want him to know it’s hopeless. If we can just keep him from warning the Cornells, then they’ll call him sooner or later—and we’ll have them. Even if they call him from a pay phone, we’ll know their general location.”
    In addition to taps on Dilworth’s home and office phones, the NSA had installed tracing equipment that would lock open a line the moment a connection was made, and keep it open even after both parties hung up, until the caller’s