McKean S01 A Dangerous Breed by Thomas Hopp Read Free Book Online Page A

there was little to fight back with. “There are windows on four sides,” I said desperately to McKean. “We’ll never defend this place! What are we going to do?”
    For once, Peyton McKean was at a loss for words.
    On my left a coydog shattered a dusty window and began clawing its way over the sill. Leaving McKean to hold the door, I picked up a wooden chair and splintered it across the animal’s snarling mouth, knocking it back before it was entirely inside the cabin. It ran away yowling in pain. I turned to look out a front window and saw Death’s-Head standing over Curman’s lifeless body and yapping orders. She seemed to be marshalling the pack around her for what I guessed would be a concerted attack on the house.
    “This is it!” I roared at McKean with an overdose of adrenaline in my veins. “If I get out of this, I’m never going anywhere with you again!”
    McKean smiled wryly. “That’s an idle threat,” he said coolly. “Neither one of us is getting out of this.”
    A loud whup-whup-whup noise came from overhead and a large shadow crossed the open ground where the animals had congregated.
    “A Blackhawk helicopter!” McKean exclaimed, looking out the door’s small window.
    Frightened by the noise and the sight of the war machine, the coydogs converged around Death’s-Head. The chopper made a slow turn in the sky and then fired a single missile that arced quickly to the center of the pack. The detonation flung bodies and parts in all directions and blew out the remaining windows of the cabin, knocking McKean and me off our feet.
    We got up and watched in astonishment and relief as the helicopter circled and strafed the few animals that had escaped the first explosion.
    * * * * * * * * * *
    An hour later, Vince Nagumo and General Salazar arrived with a dozen armored Humvees. Soon we were inspecting a pile of coydog corpses gathered by the soldiers. Death’s-Head and the big dog were there, as was poor little Nanna, dog 106. Beside her, a black body bag held what remained of her creator, Derek Curman.
    McKean surveyed the coydog corpses. “They were fast learners but nothing had prepared them for a helicopter airstrike.”
    Salazar, a dark, thick-set man in Army helmet and camouflage fatigues, coordinated ground and air attacks from a Humvee near Curman’s front porch. Late in the day he gave McKean a metal ice chest filled with the left ears of sixty-seven coydogs, preserved by a block of dry ice and awaiting DNA analysis.
    “Despite all the surprises I’ve seen,” McKean asserted, “one outcome was never in doubt. My DNA test works just fine. I’ll tell you what I expect to find in these ears, General. Plenty of F2 hybrids.”
    “And I’ve got a simple response,” Salazar muttered. “We’ll exterminate every canine in the east half of the state if necessary. We’ll wipe them out whether they look like dogs or coyotes.”
    We loaded the cooler in my Mustang’s trunk and drove away while an entire squadron of Blackhawk helicopters roared overhead, blasting this way and that with missiles and chain-gun fire. On the road out, McKean requested that I stop at the saltpan. “I wonder what became of the coydogs Tanner shot?” he asked, getting out and wandering around the saltpan, inspecting it minutely. After a few minutes he called me to join him at a grassy clearing in the sagebrush nearby. The ground had been dug up and then replaced in two mounds that looked like -
    “Graves!” I marveled.
    “Precisely,” McKean remarked. “They’ve learned to bury their dead. To mourn them too, I suppose.”
    “You don’t really think coydogs did this?”
    “Answer: yes,” McKean replied. “Look at the headstones.”
    At the head of each grave, three basalt stone markers about fist sized were arranged in a line. “Observe their shapes, Fin. Familiar?”
    “Some are cubic,” I said, “others round, and one is three-sided.”
    “Curman’s cubes, balls, and triangles. Note their