DR. CATALYST COULD HARDLY CONTAIN HIS GLEE. AS soon as the creature left the van he closed the rear doors and drove away from the neighborhood. Steering into a nearby shopping center parking lot, he pulled up a screen showing the tracker for his hybrid on his tablet. The program he used showed a small red dot moving along a map of the surrounding area. The red dot was the animal’s transmitter location.

The GPS program was accurate to twenty-five feet. Swiping the screen, he zoomed in on the locator. He almost clapped his hands when he saw it blinking in the backyard of the Doyle home. It was already there. The creature could find and follow a scent better than he could have imagined.

It had taken some doing to train it to focus on Emmet Doyle. In order to provide the animal with the boy’s unique aroma, he returned to Tasker Middle School a few days after the Blood Jacket incident. The school had remained closed for several days after the attack. Late at night he sneaked passed the very lax security post and broke inside. Checking records in the school office, he found Emmet’s locker number and combination. There he found a jacket, a pair of tennis shoes, and a treasure trove of other materials he would need for his experiment.

Dr. Catalyst had purchased a four-hundred-acre farm to train the creature. The farm had originally been intended for use as an ostrich ranch and was equipped with a suitable barn and sufficiently high fences to prevent the creature’s escape. It was well out of the metropolitan area, at the end of a long dirt road with no neighbors close by.

It was more than enough space to train the fast-growing hybrid. Dr. Catalyst used the odors embedded in Emmet’s clothing to teach the hybrid to focus on that smell alone. Whenever it followed the scent to an article of Emmet’s clothing, it was rewarded with a specially prepared, uniquely rich mixture of food. Soon the creature grew to crave the special food it earned. When it followed the wrong scent, it received nothing. After a few weeks, the beast would bypass everything from raw meat to other types of prey placed in its path to get to its target.

Like his Pterogators, Dr. Catalyst had trained it to respond to a homing beacon. When he was in an appropriate place he would activate the beacon. There was no sense in risking the animal being destroyed or captured before it completed its mission.

Now it was in the Doyles’ backyard. Dr. Catalyst wished he were able to attach a video camera to the animal somehow. He knew from kidnapping the Doyles’ stupid, yapping, tablet-stealing, leg-biting dog that Emmet let it out into the backyard every night before going to sleep. Since he had captured the mutt, they installed some primitive security measures — motion-sensor lights and such — but they would not deter the monster he created. It would be the last door Emmet ever opened.

Dr. Catalyst watched the blinking light for a while. It remained in the backyard. A few minutes later it began moving. It was now trailing along the canal that ran behind the house. The Doyles’ home sat on a dead-end street and he would need to be careful. But he could not resist driving by and at least attempting to get a glimpse of the carnage.

There was a police scanner installed in the van. He flipped it on. Sure enough, emergency vehicles were on the way to the Doyle address, including an ambulance. He started the engine and pulled out of the lot. Rolling down the driver’s-side window, he could hear the sirens approaching.

It was a very good night. A very good night indeed.

Dr. Catalyst sighed. His moment of victory was not as satisfying as he thought it would be. He thought he would feel triumphant, but instead he felt … confused.

For so long, he tried using his wealth and influence to focus attention on the plight of the Everglades and the entire South Florida ecosystem. But years of dealing with lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats had gotten him exactly nowhere.

It was the inaction of others that had forced him to take his brilliant scientific mind and put it to work on a solution. He’d concluded that introducing his own genetically altered creatures was the only option. Perhaps if someone — anyone — had listened to him, things might have gone differently. Now there was no turning back.

In the beginning, he had only meant to scare off Emmet and Calvin. To frighten them enough so they would stop interfering in his plans. But Dr. Geaux refused to back off. It was her fault he had to kidnap the lad’s father, to show everyone how serious he was. He was never going to harm the man. But the Doyle brat had taken things personally and caused everything to escalate.

As he drove, he began to feel better. Whatever fate had befallen that horrid child, he had brought it upon himself. Dr. Catalyst was not to blame.

The fault lay entirely with Emmet Doyle.