Once inside The Institute, Edwin, Patricia and John slipped through the first unlocked door they could find, to discuss their plan. It turned out to be a laundry room, and it was their good fortune no one was there. It was early evening, and the cleaning staff had gone home for the day.

The good news was, Edwin’s old ID card had allowed them access to the building. The bad news was, he and Patricia only had two such cards, and there were three of them. That would make it difficult for them to split up, should the need arise.

But there was still more good news. When Edwin and Patricia had left their cabin to join Harry in the hunt for Jeff and Chipper, they’d brought along other supplies they thought they might need. They included very small tracking devices no larger than coins.

They’d clipped one to the inside of Jeff’s pant leg, and a second to the inside of Harry’s belt. But when it had come to Chipper, there had been nothing to clip it to. Under his collar would have been the perfect spot, but nothing could be slipped in there.

“Hmm,” Edwin had said.

“I have an idea,” Jeff had said. “Chipper could swallow it.”

Edwin had looked at the dog. “What do you think about that? It’s not much bigger than a pill.”

No problem. And, of course, you will get it back eventually. What do they call it? Stoop and scoop?

Edwin had smiled and said to Jeff, “I think he’s developed more of a sense of humour since we last saw him.”

Now that they were in The Institute, Edwin got out his phone and, using a special app, allocated the signal from all three tracking devices.

“We are good to go,” he said.

Edwin had been confident the trackers would not be detected when Jeff, Harry and Chipper entered the building, but he had been less sure about John’s gun. There were sensors on the doorways that could pick up large metal items. So John had left his firearm in the van.

Edwin whispered to John, “Jeff and Harry are downstairs in the cell. That’s where they’ll have Emily, too.”

“And probably Pepper,” Patricia added.

“Right,” Edwin said. “I think that’s where we go first. We get the kids and Harry and Pepper, then go after Chipper, who, according to this—” he held up his phone to show them—“is in the lab. Which may mean he’s back in a cage. That’s where they keep the dogs.”

“And where they operate on them,” Patricia said anxiously.

“I know.”

“What about surveillance cameras?” John asked. “We don’t exactly look like we belong here.”

Patricia looked around the laundry room until her gaze landed on a stack of cleaned and folded lab coats. “We put those on,” she said.

“It won’t buy us a lot of time, but it should buy us some,” Edwin said, reaching for three coats. He tossed one to his wife and another to John.

Patricia said, “And I know where there might be some stun guns. A little way further down this hall.”

“If I run into that Daggert guy,” John said, raising two fists, “I can just use these.”

The three of them slipped out of the laundry room. When they reached the door to a supply room further down the hall, Patricia used her ID card to get in. The metal shelves along the walls and throughout the room were loaded with boxes.

They scanned the boxes, reading labels.

“I’m not finding anything that says stun guns,” John said.

“Me neither,” Edwin said.

“Wait!” Patricia said. “Here’s a box of them and—nuts! There’s just one!”

“Give it to John,” Edwin said. “He’ll know how to handle it better than either of us.”

John accepted the stun gun from Patricia.

“Okay, let’s find that holding cell,” he said.

Patricia went back to the supply room door, inserted her card and turned the handle.

The door stayed locked.

“Hang on,” she said. “It didn’t work.”

“Try it again,” her husband said.

She inserted the card a second time. And again, the door would not open.

“It won’t unlock,” she said, turning to give the bad news to Edwin and John. “We’re trapped.”