When the tranquilizer wore off, Dr. Zimm pulled out his phone and immediately contacted the Corp headquarters in West Virginia.
No one would take his call.
He searched his pockets. He still had fifty dollars in cash and his official Corp credit card. However, as he learned after attempting to rent a car in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the Corp had canceled it. They’d cut him off. Completely.
That meant Dr. Zimm had fifty dollars, a phone, no friends, and 2,361 miles to somehow travel home to Boston. Fortunately, the woman behind the rental car company let him have a free map. She also let him borrow her phone charger.
This was Lenard’s doing, Dr. Zimm thought as he trudged up Route 70. He stuck out his thumb whenever he heard a vehicle approaching behind him. No one would pick him up.
Until he stopped smiling. His teeth were that scary.
Eventually, an eighteen-wheeler, then a traveling salesman, and, finally, a guy in a pickup truck took him as far as Amarillo, Texas, where he couldn’t afford a hotel room—just the $3.99 dinner special at a fast food restaurant. He slept outside, under the stars. Behind a dumpster.
He hitchhiked his way east for three more days, sleeping in open fields and behind gas stations dotting the inter-state. He lived on free ketchup packets squirted into hot tea water to make tomato soup. Sometimes he added pickle relish. He was down to his last two dollars and forty-three cents when another big rig trucker took pity on him at an entrance ramp to Interstate 90 near Fredonia, New York.
“Where you headed?” the trucker asked as Dr. Zimm climbed into the rumbling cab of his eighteen-wheeler.
“Boston.”
“Well, I can haul you as far as Schenectady.”
“Thank you.”
The driver sniffed the air.
“When was the last time you took a shower?”
“Several days ago, I’m afraid. I have been unable to rent a vehicle or book a hotel room due to unexpected credit card difficulties.”
The trucker nodded. “Tell me about it. They cut me off once, too.”
Dr. Zimm arched an eyebrow. “They?”
“The Corp. They didn’t like the way I was hauling some radioactive waste. Punished me by cutting off my dang expense account. But we worked it out. It was just a misunderstanding. Now I’m what they call a lead transportation coordinator. I pick up packages all over the country. Go wherever they send me.”
The trucker grinned. Dr. Zimm reached for the door handle. “Perhaps I should—”
He was cut off by the thunk of doors automatically locking all around him.
“How did you find me?” he demanded.
“Easy. That phone in your pocket, the one you’ve been using to call headquarters every hour on the hour for three and a half days? That thing’s a mighty fine GPS tracker.”
Dr. Zimm heard a familiar giggle.
A panel slid open behind the driver. Apparently, the truck was equipped with a sleeper compartment.
Lenard was sitting on the bed.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Zimm.”
“You! You did this to me.”
“No. I believe you did this, as you call it, to yourself when you decided to pursue Max Einstein without me. Of course, that pursuit proved to be a fool’s errand.”
Dr. Zimm fumed. But he was trapped.
“Dr. Zimm,” said Lenard in his eerily calm voice, “you need to tell me everything you know about Max Einstein. Everything. And, as you may not have yet realized, I will know if you are lying. Thanks to my most recent upgrade, I am now equipped with state-of-the-art biometric sensors.”
“I’ll tell you one thing I know for certain,” Dr. Zimm sneered. “You’ll never find Max Einstein without me.”
Lenard giggled.
“I already have.”
“What?”
“Mining all available data, I came across some very interesting chatter originating in Jitwan, India, where the owners of a packaged-water company have been answering field operatives’ complaints about, and I quote, ‘a group of brainy brats causing problems.’ They also grumbled about the ‘documentarian making a movie’ featuring these same children. That, of course, led me to scan several different cloud storage domains frequented by filmmakers….”
Dr. Zimm hated to admit it, but he was impressed with Lenard’s data sleuthing capabilities.
“I was able to breach the cloud servers’ protection protocols quite easily,” Lenard continued. “I then utilized my facial recognition software to identify and locate Klaus.”
“Where is he?”
Lenard tilted his head and widened his smile. “In Jitwan, India, of course. His face appears in much of the video featuring the CMI geniuses as they work on a water purification project.”
“Was Max with them?”
“Yes. However, there is only one clip of her. A snippet, really. I recognized her tangled mop of curly hair immediately. Her security detail, those two special forces operatives we met in Ireland, warned whoever shot that footage to keep Max off camera in the future. So far, they have complied. Now, then, proceed to tell me everything you know about Maxine Einstein. Her past. Her parents. Where she came from. Her birthday. Is she related, in some way, to the famous Dr. Albert Einstein? Is she related to you?”
Dr. Zimm grinned. “Oh, I’ll tell you everything, Lenard. Everything you’ve asked for—and more. But only after we land in India.”
Lenard looked puzzled but he did not protest.
“Very well. You will travel with me to India. As my personal assistant and human psychology consultant.”
“Thank you, Lenard.”
Dr. Zimm smiled. He was back in the hunt.
It was his turn to giggle.