From Down Here Chapter 6
Kojo barely stirs at the familiar sound and smell outside the door. It's the human who brings the thing that Tim looks at and puts under his dish sometimes. Usually, the thing comes around the time Tim and Lucy get up. But Kojo heard them mating the night before and sometimes they sleep a little longer when they do that. Kojo hopes they don't sleep so long that his breakfast comes out of the big bag. Then he hears Lucy say something. If she's awake, Tim will be too. And they should both come out – unless they decide to mate again. Kojo could bark, but Tim's taught him not to when he and Lucy are mating or sleeping. And he doesn't want Tim to be mad. So he'll wait and hope they come out soon.
The door finally opens and Lucy comes out. She doesn't look as sad as she did the night before, but she isn't happy the way she usually is after she and Tim mate. She gets down to pat Kojo before she goes to the door and gets the thing that came. As she looks at it, her face does something Kojo doesn't remember seeing before. "Tim! You've got to see this now!"
Tim comes out of the bedroom very fast and takes the thing from Lucy. "A manifesto? What the hell!"
Kojo has no idea what that means but he can tell it makes Tim mad. He also smells scared. So does Lucy. She takes the thing back and starts to do what humans call reading. "The LA Times received an email last night containing this. 'We have set off explosions all over Los Angeles. They were all in houses we robbed and the LAPD investigated. Still, our bombs remained. The LAPD had no way of detecting them. Our explosive is unique. The LAPD's chemical sniffers aren't calibrated for it. Their canines aren't trained to alert their handlers to it. We can set off bombs anywhere, anytime. This is what we are sworn to uphold.
"'Manifesto. The pure white master race must occupy all positions of authority. The inferior mongrel races must always obey the commands of their white superiors in all public and private positions. The right of the pure white race to bear arms must be unabridged. The mongrel races are forbidden from bearing arms or using weapons of any kind. All property must be surrendered or revert to the master race. The master race will control all services and communications.
"'Until this manifesto is complied with in every way, the explosions will continue. You will not know when. You will not know how. You have no way of knowing. The city must announce compliance by midnight July 11.'"
Kojo doesn't know why, but Tim's scared scent is stronger than Kojo's ever smelled it before. Lucy still smells scared too, but she looks mad, madder than Kojo's ever seen. "Tim, the family that lived across the street, they were Chinese, weren't they?"
Kojo doesn't understand Lucy's question but he understands Tim's "Yes."
"And the family that lives in the house where Kojo found the bomb, their name is Martinez," Lucy says. "And I'll bet that every family's house that blew up or still had a bomb is of color."
Kojo only gets a few words that Lucy says, but he can tell that Tim agrees with her. They both run back into the bedroom, grab their phones, and start talking very fast. Kojo's seen them do that before, but not with as much of a scared scent. And usually, when they do, they leave fast. They never forget to feed him and give him water, but when anything like this has happened before, his breakfast has always come from the big bag.
Kojo is dozing when a familiar scent reaches his nose. He can hear Nolan coming to the door. He doesn't move as fast as Lucy or Tim or as fast as he has before. But he gets there. Kojo meets him with a happy yip and wagging tail and delights when Nolan reaches down to scratch him behind the ears.
Nolan makes funny noises when he bends down but doesn't seem too unhappy. "Tim and Lucy and everyone the LAPD can put in the field are hunting for the bombers. I'm not cleared for that yet, so they sent me over to keep the city's hero company. And Tim gave me the recipe for Tim's Kojo Supper Number One. I've spent a lot of time with Lucy. She's an enthusiastic cook but not the world's best. And I've picked up a few things over the years. There were times when my business dried up and I would cook for my family while my ex-wife was out grabbing as many work hours as she could. I hated that. I wanted to be a more responsible provider than my father was. But while it was going on, I got pretty good at cooking. I'm not as good as my fiancée, Bailey. She cooks for the firehouse sometimes and she's terrific. But I can get through a recipe without setting off smoke detectors."
Although he likes being talked to, Kojo can't understand a lot of what Nolan is saying. Still, he recognizes what Tim called the thing that made the terrible noise when Lucy was cooking. He whimpers.
Nolan strokes Kojo's head. "I can't stand the sound of those things either. So, shall I give Kojo Supper Number One a try?"
Kojo barks his encouragement and trots toward the kitchen. He's happy that Nolan follows, and sits quietly the way Tim taught him to, while Nolan gets the things with delicious smells out of the fridge and starts to cook.
"The lab started testing the bomb you found," Nolan tells Kojo, while he works. "They're trying to figure out how to recalibrate the chemical sniffers to detect the new explosive. I heard the canine units will be trying to train their dogs to smell it too, but they've been trained on other things that apparently have a different makeup. So it may take some time.
"And Lopez and Harper have taken on the job of trying to trace where the chemicals to make the explosives came from. You know Lopez, right?"
Kojo takes the question as permission to bark.
"Yeah, I thought you did. But Harper's the one good with chemicals. She learned about them when she was tracking drug dealers. Lucy is good too. So she's also working on it. Tim and his Metro unit are checking out places they think the bombers might target. But they don't have much to go on. And a lot of our cops in the streets are trying to calm people down. The manifesto printed in the paper really scared them. To tell you the truth, it scared me too. But if you hadn't tracked down that bomb, I'd be a lot more scared. At least you and the lab will give us all something to go on.
"The minute the medics give me the green light, I'll be back on the street too. I'm hoping that's tomorrow. If it isn't, I can come to see you again. But if I can't come, Genny and the boys should be able to. You want to see the boys?"
Kojo takes Genny's name as another invitation to bark.
"Yeah, I thought you would. Well, I think this is almost ready. You enjoy it and then we'll go for a walk. But have mercy on a wounded cop. We'll need to take it slow and I can't hold on if you try chasing squirrels."
Kojo thinks squirrels are those furry-tailed things. But Nolan doesn't sound very happy when he mentions them. Kojo will do his best to be good.