A further problem for Gilmore was making sure the excited animals didn’t become dehydrated, a condition that could throw their systems into shock, even kill them, within minutes if it were severe enough. At 150 pounds each, they needed plenty to drink to prevent their revved-up canine metabolisms from overheating. Mindful of this, Gilmore had brought several gallon jugs of water in the bomb-detection van parked outside One Times Square, and the panting dogs had led him in that direction twice in the last hour.

He had been standing to one side of the stage, watching Rob Zyman and Joleen Reese take their places beside the mayor, when he noticed Fay tugging at the leash again. This had gotten him kind of disappointed. In these last few moments before the countdown, he had wanted to stick close to the worn but not worn-out folkies for a reason that was, he had to admit, not entirely professional. Gilmore had been a Zyman fan since his older brother had come home with his first album, Big City Ramble, back in the late sixties and, Zyman’s public appearances being few and far between nowadays, he’d figured this might be his last chance to see him perform before he slung his battered Gibson guitar over his shoulder and rambled off down the lonesome highway. Even if all he did was sing a verse or two of “Auld Lang Syne” in his famed and often-parodied sandpaper rasp, Gilmore had figured it would be an event worth catching.

But then Fay had started panting and tugging, signaling him in no uncertain terms that she needed her radiator filled.

Now he was making for the van with the dogs out ahead of him on about six inches of leash, staying inside the area that had been cleared below the stage, Fay’s tongue hanging halfway to the pavement. Hershey, in this instance, had stayed on the job, his head slouched low, sniffing this way and that, acting as if he’d gone along with his partner just out of canine chivalry.

Suddenly, thirty feet or so from where the van was parked, Hershey stopped dead in his tracks and turned to the left—toward the crowd—whining and barking, his triangular ears angling back against his head. Gilmore looked down at him, puzzled. The dog was frantic. Odder still, Fay was also barking like crazy, facing in the same direction as Hershey, her thirst seemingly forgotten.

Unease creeping up on him, Gilmore added more slack to the leash. The dogs began pulling to the left, hunting further, almost leading him into a collision with the horizontal plank of a police barricade. He made them heel with a sharp command, then steered them to a gap between two sawhorses, his eyes scanning the crowd.