An excerpt from Free the Animals, the true story of how the animal liberation underground started in America
Valerie, the main character in the book, and a new recruit, Chad, have precious cargo in their van as they head across the Nevada desert:

Twelve dogs, many with surgical wounds, have been freed during a breakin at the University of California-Harbor. It is imperative that the dogs get to safety on the East Coast as quickly as possible. Valerie, exhausted, has turned the driving over to Chad and fallen asleep on the floor of the van. Old Man, the most battle-scarred of the dogs, sleeps next to her, his head on her stomach. The others press up against her and sleep fitfully, perhaps knowing that their fate hangs in the balance. The van suddenly stops ...

Valerie knew, even before her eyes could focus, that something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked.

“We’ve been stopped by the police.”

“What!” Valerie was lying, then sitting, and finally kneeling, trying to stand up in the mass of dogs. She couldn’t see out the back door, but the side curtain had parted, and as the officer walked alongside, she drew it closed.

“Try to relax. Try to look calm,” she hissed at Chad. All she could think was, please don’t start barking.

The Nevada state trooper stuck his head in the window—all the way in. Valerie had decided to lend her support to Chad by occupying the passenger’s seat at this point. She had to keep her knees firmly between the two seats, because a lot of curious, wet noses were now trying to poke through the gap to determine where she had disappeared to. The curtains were jiggling wildly. Valerie tried to smile at the officer.

“Were we speeding, officer?” she asked.

“Yep.” He wasn’t smiling.

Valerie gave an apologetic grimace.

“Driver’s license and registration. Where you going?”

They had rehearsed this, but before Valerie could give their pat answer, Chad blurted out, “Kansas.”
Great, Valerie thought. Now the police had their route and could catch up with them later even if they got out of this problem. She could have killed Chad. He was handing over his real driver’s license, and the cop was reading his real name aloud.

“Where you coming from?”

There were California plates on the van. Valerie let Chad take it. At this point, it didn’t seem to matter.

“L.A.,” he said.

“Whatcha got back there?” The second the cop said those words, Valerie realized they were probably on a drug-run route. With some confidence, she realized that neither she nor Chad fit the classic drug-runner stereotypes that she had studied in rookie school. And drugs don’t smell like wet, urine-coated dogs.

PLEASE DON’T BARK
Behind Valerie, there was no barking, but there was a lot of movement, and then somebody let out a big growl. “It’s our mother dog and her puppies,” Valerie said quickly. “The puppies are grown, and we’re trying to find homes for them. Can we interest you in a couple? They’re real nice.” If he was interested, Valerie’d find some reason not to give him one. Please don’t ask to see them, she thought. Some of the dogs had huge patches shaved out of their backs and legs. They looked exactly like dogs stolen from an experimentation facility or else dogs belonging to some kind of cult worshipers who took chunks out of animals for fun.

Valerie reached back and tried to get her hands on Sam. He didn’t have any scar tissue, and he hadn’t been shaved. He was a bit old to be a puppy, but ...
“No thanks. Got two of my own. Stay right there.”

The officer retreated to call in their tag number. Valerie told herself they had nothing to worry about; the computer had no way of knowing the registered owner was fictitious.

“How fast were you going?” she raised her voice at Chad as they sat there, waiting to be arrested or released.

“It couldn’t have been 5 miles over the speed limit,” he said defensively.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

The officer returned to Chad’s window.

“I hope it’s not too expensive,” Valerie said humbly.

“Nope. Twenty dollars, but don’t think of not paying it, or you’ll go to jail next time you come through Nevada.” Next time sounded good to Valerie, but she would be sure to pay the ticket.

TRAPPED IN THE DESERT
As soon as the officer stepped away from the van, Chad tried to brush it off. “Listen, we survived,” he said.
Valerie wanted to hit him. “We’re not out of it yet,” she told him through gritted teeth. “We’ve got a straight road for the next three hours and nowhere to go in this desert but down it. If that cop stops for coffee soon—and he will—we could be in for big trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Chad looked at her with no understanding of the seriousness of their dilemma. Valerie’s eyes were ablaze with fury.

“If he meets a fellow officer or if the waitress behind the counter asks him if he’s busted anyone this morning, what’ll he say? He’ll probably say, ‘Naw, nothing much. Just gave a speeding ticket to two people with a vanload of dogs.’ And the other person may say, ‘That reminds me, did you hear on the radio some people went in and took a whole bunch of dogs out of some L.A. lab?’ And over his coffee, the officer will remember, ‘Hell, they were coming from L.A.’ He’ll radio ahead. And here we are, stuck on this road with hours ahead of us and no place to turn off. We’re dead, Chad. And so are the dogs.”

Chad drove on, not daring to say a word. Valerie got out the map and looked for other possibilities. If they slipped down into Arizona, it probably would take them just as long, and she was sure the Nevada police had a reciprocal arrangement with their brethren in that state. To catch the crossroad, they would have to turn around and pass the point where they’d been stopped. There was nothing to do but press on. Valerie would have given her right arm for teleportation. Or a small ALF helicopter landing in the middle of the desert...

Do Valerie, Chad and the dogs make it to safety? Find out by picking up a copy of Free the Animals at your local bookstore, or order through the PETA catalog in this issue or click here to order on our Web site.