16

Central Park Menagerie

They were nearly to the front gates when one of the Japanese men turned and spotted the group of people running directly for his team. The men exchanged quick words and then bolted, heading straight through the gates and into the menagerie. Agent Harris led the charge after them, weaving around visitors and bolting through the main gate before she could be asked for any admission fee. After Harris came Phelps, who shoved the attendant aside, followed by Dr. Weiss with a quick “Very sorry,” then Professor Stein and Claire, the latter making a point of pointing to the “Press” card sticking out of her hat while holding it to her head with her other hand. After them Agent Hessman went running past, shouting, “Important business!”

This left Captain Beck to bring up the rear and pause briefly at the gate as the admissions attendant was picking himself up. “Guess it’s up to me. Well, uh, this should cover the bunch of us.”

He pulled out a couple of bills, dropped them into the man’s hands, then broke into a run while tossing a quick comment back over his shoulder to the confused attendant. “It’s those tigers. We’re all really eager to see them.”

The chase brought them first to the sea lion pool and the people crowding around it, trying to get a glimpse of the creatures sunning themselves on their rock within the fence that surrounded the whole large pool. One of the Japanese knocked a lady’s parasol out of her hands, another shoved a man in his way, while a third tipped over the cart of a passing vendor, spilling warmed peanuts across the ground. Anything to create some obstacles between themselves and their pursuers.

Agent Harris ran around the lady, retrieving her parasol, leaped over the fallen man, and didn’t miss a step dashing through the strewn peanuts and the crowd of kids who had formed in eager retrieval of the vendor’s stock of supplies from the ground. Behind her, Lieutenant Phelps paused to pick up the lady and her parasol, depositing them gently out of the way as the others ran past him.

“You’re just making it harder on yourselves when I catch up with you,” Agent Harris called out.

Around the perimeter of the large pond one of the five ran, passing a man carrying a large bucket of fish for the sea lions’ feeding time. The worker gave a wide grin to the eager crowd, which quickly soured when one of the Japanese men reached in and threw a fish at Agent Harris, followed by two more before he continued running. Agent Harris batted the fish away, but dealing with that cost her a few precious seconds. Lieutenant Phelps and Dr. Weiss caught up to her just as she was starting up again.

“Where are the others?” she asked when she saw no one else with them.

“Going around the other side of the pond to cut them off,” Dr. Weiss replied.

“Then let’s move it.”

As foretold, coming around from the other side to meet with the Japanese was Agent Hessman leading Professor Stein, Captain Beck, and Claire, who seemed to be enjoying everything about the chase except running in women’s shoes. “Someone should . . . invent proper . . . shoes for running,” she panted.

“You mean like something without heels?” Professor Stein ventured.

“Exactly!”

“Then maybe they’ll call them sneakers,” he added quietly with a slight grin she didn’t catch.

Trapped between both ends, the opposing team headed straight toward the building behind them. Agent Harris saw them charge straight inside and pointed to signal the others as she ran after them.

“That’s the bird house,” Claire called up. “Nothing but bird cages, nowhere to escape to.”

“It would seem so,” Agent Hessman replied. “Hurry!”

Agent Harris was the first to make her way through, but as she reached the front doors, a charge of people made its way out, followed by a scattering of fluttering squawking birds.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Dr. Weiss remarked as he ran.

Agent Harris entered into bedlam. Ahead of her stretched the walkway that went past the various cages of birds large and small, several of which had been opened by the passing Japanese team, while yet another cage several yards down was being kicked open as well, followed by noises to encourage the flocks into chaotic flight. That got several people screaming and running, which in turn gave more of the birds reason to fly madly around.

“I don’t know whether to start tossing people or birds out of the way,” she remarked.

“You know how a cowcatcher on a train works?” Lieutenant Phelps told her. “That’s me.”

Not waiting for anyone’s permission, Phelps brought his fists together, elbows sticking out to the sides, and proceeded to charge straight down the middle of the aisle, screaming at the top of his lungs. Be it person or bird, few had any taste for staying in the way of a human locomotive. The building filled with human cries, exploding with a storm of wings and protesting birds, but for a moment at least Phelps generated one clear path through the middle of it all, with the rest of his team following behind him.

At the other side of the enclosure, the Japanese team, thinking they might have finally made good their escape, took a glimpse back; but instead of seeing their pursuers caught in the midst of the mess, they saw what might have been an angry linebacker coming in for a tackle at the guy with the football‍—and they were the football. They exchanged quick words and used even quicker feet to head straight for the rear door, despite the presence of a sign saying, “Staff Only.” They ran through and slammed the door behind them.

Lieutenant Phelps didn’t bother using the doorknob to open the door but crashed right on through it. The team left flying feathers, angry birds, and confused attendees in their wake, and even more confused staff members. Ahead of them the path wound through another row of cages, branching out toward a small lake, a wooded area, an open field with a small herd of antelope from Africa, and other points of interest. The Japanese team was headed for the caged areas.

“If they open any of those cages the way they did for the birds . . . ,” Claire began.

“Yeah, really bad news,” Agent Hessman summed up. “Go for the slowest; if we capture one, we can question him.”

Agent Harris saw one man lagging slightly behind the others and broke into a fresh run. The one she’d eyed was headed for a fenced-off brick enclosure, while his companions were each running for different caged areas.

“Not this again,” Agent Harris swore under her breath. “I’m bringing at least one of them down!”

She increased her speed, but not without another remark under her breath. “Be a lot easier if I didn’t have to run in these stupid boots.”

One of the Japanese men went straight into the monkey cage, while another changed course and headed for the fenced-off grassy area where the African wildlife roamed free. The remaining two simply ran as fast along the path as they could.

“That brick building,” Agent Hessman called back to Claire. “What is it?”

“The lion house,” she said after a pant.

“You’re out of breath,” Professor Stein said as he came jogging up to Claire’s side. “You should sit the rest of this one out.”

“Not . . . on . . . your life . . . buster.”

Harris and Phelps both headed for the lion house, while Captain Beck and Dr. Weiss ran for the man leaping the fence into the grasslands area.

“He’s headed for those antelopes,” Captain Beck stated.

“I think they’re wildebeests,” Dr. Weiss corrected.

“Same difference. Now get him.”

The man they were after ran straight for the nearest creature, yelling and waving his hands at the complacent beast, until he ran up to the top of a convenient boulder, jumped . . . and landed right on the back of one of the creatures. This elicited two reactions, one each from man and creature. First the man howled in surprised pain, as one might expect the male of the species to do, coming down for a hard landing in such a way. Then the creature cried out and bucked, breaking into a run and trying to dislodge the interloper on its back.

Captain Beck and Dr. Weiss simply came to a stop and watched as the man rode the bucking creature across the field. “No,” Dr. Weiss said, shaking his head, “not even gonna try. He can have this one.”

“I’m with you there,” Captain Beck agreed. “Come on, let’s rejoin the others.”

Harris and Phelps came crashing into the lion house to discover that their quarry had indeed tried opening the cage to create more chaos without first checking what was within it. Now he was backing fearfully away while the lion lazily wondered which of the screaming visitors before him to go after. A lion handler had just come on the scene, but that didn’t seem to matter to the man as he backed away, shaking in fear, straight into two waiting pairs of hands.

“You got a choice,” Agent Harris said into his left ear. “Come with us or we toss you to the lion.”

“Take the lion,” Lieutenant Phelps urged into the other ear. “It might leave you more intact if you struggle.”

The man tried to spin around, but they had him in a firm grip between them, with Harris twisting one arm and Phelps simply squeezing his hand around the man’s other arm until he feared he might hear something snap. The captured man spoke a few words in Japanese before he relented and spoke in English. “Okay, I come. Just get me away from that creature.”

“That little pussy cat?” Agent Harris grinned.

Outside, Agent Hessman saw the two men running and the one going for the monkey cage and motioned Professor Stein and Claire back.

“Those other two can run faster than we can, and if the one going for the monkey cages has any success at letting those creatures loose, neither he nor we are going to come out the winners. Let’s see what success Sue and David have had.”

From the corner of his eye, he also saw Dr. Weiss and Captain Beck returning. Captain Beck simply shook his head.

“Got away,” he said as they approached, “and there is no way we’re going to catch him.”

“Though I suspect he’s not too happy about the mode of transportation that he chose,” Dr. Weiss added with a grin.

A minute later, and much to everyone’s pleasure, they saw Harris and Phelps coming out of the lion house with a single Japanese man gripped firmly between them.

“We got one at least,” Lieutenant Phelps reported.

“Good, then we can question him and see what’s going on,” Agent Hessman said. “We need a nice quiet place.”

“I suggest doing it outside of the menagerie,” Claire told them. “If the local officials ever trace the chaos in the bird house to us‍—‍”

“Right,” Agent Hessman agreed. “Which way?”

“The exit out into the park is that way,” Claire pointed. “Plenty of peaceful open spaces.”

“Then let’s go.”

With some guidance from Claire, Agent Hessman led the group swiftly through the zoo toward the exit into the interior of Central Park, ignoring for now what may have been the cry of some enraged monkeys as another member of the Japanese team tried to find his way out.