by April Hunt
Medicci nodded. “We’re going to need to restrain him. This won’t cause major pain but it will be more than a pinch.”
“You don’t need to put him out, do you?” Lyn sounded concerned.
He didn’t blame her. Anesthesia wasn’t something to do lightly. He’d never seen Medicci do it, wasn’t sure she could on an on-site visit like this.
Medicci shook her head. “Normally, it’d be something I’d recommend an office visit for. These chips are intended to be permanent and even though they’re inserted to sit below the skin, they can sort of migrate over time. If they do, I’d need to make a bigger incision and maybe even tease apart the tissues to get a good hold of it. ”
She spread the fur to expose the bump David had pointed out. “This one is easy to locate, obviously. It’ll be a pinch. Just enough of an incision to retrieve the chip. Should be fine to restrain and muzzle him. But you two should probably leave the room so he doesn’t associate any negative experience with either of you.”
Chapter Ten
Come in.” David closed out a few spreadsheets and directed his attention to Medicci as she walked into his office.
“All done. Lyn is with Atlas now, fussing over him.” Medicci smiled. “Good to see a softer touch for these dogs sometimes. You all do a great job with them; don’t get me wrong. But the battle weary deserve a dose of spoiling here and there.”
David didn’t plan to argue since he agreed. “Small doses. Anything I should know about aside from what we talked about before?”
The amusement fled from Medicci’s face, her gaze darkening and the corners of her mouth turning downward. “A couple of things. First, once I shaved away the fur around the area, it looked to me as if the chip had been placed fairly recently. The skin had newly healed from an incision. It definitely hadn’t been there for several years. Which was odd because I thought the size of the bump was indicative of scar tissue forming around the chip. There should’ve been more scar tissue around it under the skin, developing a sort of sheathe. That wasn’t the case.”
Medicci placed a wax-covered object on his desk. Her expression was completely blank. “This is not the microchip any vet anywhere implanted. Military or otherwise.”
David touched the wax. The right length, but flat and rectangular instead of cylindrical. It was a micro SD card, for shit’s sake. What was it doing in Atlas?
Of course, he’d seen something like this before in animals and in humans. Hell, people had been known to bury the damn things in open sores on their own bodies, letting the wound scab over. It was scary what a person would do in the face of necessity…or desperation.
He had no idea what to say but Medicci definitely didn’t need to know everything. “This is—”
Medicci held up her hands. “It’s out. As long as there is no threat to any animal’s health under my care, I don’t need to know. It’s best if I don’t, isn’t it?”
David nodded, grateful. He’d lie if he had to. But the best lie was one he didn’t have to tell. Or truth. That worked well, too, in the proper dosage.
“Keep the incision clean and he’ll heal just as fast if not faster than the other injury. If you think there’s more, we could do an X-ray at my office to locate any other potential implants. I didn’t detect any more bumps under his skin, though.” Medicci headed for the door but paused. “He’s a good dog.”
“He is,” David agreed.
And all this time, he’d really been carrying the weight of Calhoun’s last message on his shoulders.
He pocketed the micro SD and headed down the hall, finding Lyn with Atlas in the examination room. “How’s our guy?”
“Acting like nothing happened.” Lyn laughed, giving Atlas a hearty rub around the shoulders.
Atlas deigned to give David a doggie grin, tongue lolling out. When Lyn’s rubbing migrated over his back to his rump, the dog’s eyes practically rolled back into his head as if to say, Oh yeah, that was the spot.
Atlas had to really trust Lyn to allow her behind him that way and in a dominant position. Even for butt rubs. Usually military work dogs were too dominant and aggressive to let anyone but their handlers such privilege. In Lyn’s hands, Atlas could almost be a normal dog.
“Let’s keep things easy for him today. You feel comfortable going for a walk around the property? Forte’s still on watch this morning and he’s got your mobile in case he sees anything on the perimeter cameras.”
Lyn straightened, her expression momentarily somber. “Didn’t realize you had video surveillance all around the property.”
“Had it on the entrances before and added more to cover the entire perimeter since last week.” David and the others had considered it previously and cursed themselves for not already having it installed. No matter how quiet the town was where they were located, forewarned was forearmed and they’d corrected the mistake immediately, each of them contributing to the cost from their own private funds. “We’ll all have notice if anyone is even snooping around the fences, much less tries to step onto the property again.”
She nodded slowly. “All right.”
Atlas had settled down, sensitive to her change in mood. He’d be hypervigilant with her this agitated. Which was even better. The big dog wouldn’t be tempted by random distractions like squirrels or rabbits while Lyn was agitated. No running off chasing furry things or coaxing her to play fetch. He’d stay with her and ensure her safety. He shouldn’t be running today anyway.
“Okay. Take a long walk then, and I’ll get some administrative work done here. Check back in with you both at lunchtime.”
Lyn nodded. A minute later she had Atlas on a leash and they were out the door.
Back in his office, David dug into one of his drawers. After way longer than he’d like, he came up with a small toolkit. Armed with those tools, a soft cloth, a firm bristled toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol, he went to work. Removing wax from a micro SD card wasn’t fun but it wasn’t hard either. He’d done it with fewer tools to hand. This time, though, he wanted to do it right in one shot with minimal chance of further complications.
Once the wax was completely removed and he was sure the contacts on the micro SD were perfectly cleaned, he loaded it into his memory card reader. A few minutes to scan for viruses and he had two files, both video. The first was tagged as highlights and the second was significantly bigger, compressed, and encrypted.
Calhoun had intended for David to find these first. David was going to make a guess that he was supposed to view the highlights to get a clearer idea of the issue at hand, then take the time to absorb the other video over more time. First things first. He made copies and backed them to his secure storage, then made secondary backups to his cloud storage. Encrypted.
Then he took his computer offline and double-clicked the video file to watch it.
“What’s Calhoun’s status?” a voice offscreen asked.
“Stable, sir. He’ll live. Unconscious for now.” Only the legs and torso of this speaker were visible.
The camera was low—around waist height or lower. Meaning it was likely a camera attached to a canine tactical assault suit. Probably Atlas’s specifically. Normally those cameras were used to give human handlers and the rest of the team knowledge of what lay ahead as the canine took point. In this case, it looked like Calhoun had been injured and Atlas was still in use. Not recommended, but there was usually a backup on the team able to take over the working dog if something should happen to the handler.
“Just as well,” the offscreen speaker said. “Not sure our teammate has the stomach for what we need to do here.”
Not likely. Calhoun had had the balls for anything that needed doing.
The unseen man continued, “We’ll use the dog to terrorize the prisoner. Damage to extremities is acceptable but try to keep it limited. We want to be able to patch him up if we need him alive past this evening.”
David set his jaw. It went against his morals to use a dog this way. But war wasn’t noble
. He’d done things he’d have nightmares about for the rest of his life. He was only sorry Atlas had been commanded to do similar.
The video skipped. Highlights reel, after all.
A man was secured to a chair. He’d been worked over already and there were several more men in the room. Once in a while, a face came into frame and David paused to capture the image of the face. Only a couple; the camera hadn’t captured all of them. But he was going to need those for later, especially since the SEALs had covered the name tags on their uniforms for the interrogation.
“Wait! Wait! You want this man? I can give you his location. We can do business.”
English. Fairly well-spoken and with the kind of accent that indicated a higher level of education. David listened more carefully.
“You want him. I want him dead. Kill him for me and I will make sure you and your future company have exclusive business once you are established.”
David stopped the video and replayed. If he’d heard correctly, this wasn’t an interrogation anymore. It was evolving into something uglier: a conspiracy.
“It’s what you do, isn’t it? Once your career is complete with the US military, you go private. Establish a private military company. Mercenaries.” The man was sweating, could barely see out one swollen eye, but no one was stopping him or redirecting his discussion to more pertinent information. They were all listening. “Mercenaries need work. The best work is here. Will be here, for decades to come.”
True. Even once the war was officially over and troops were brought home, the area would be ruled by unrest. Mercenaries had job security in those sorts of hot spots all over the Middle East and surrounding regions.
“I will be the head of my organization. Not some middleman. Don’t just capture and interrogate the man you are looking for. Kill your target for me. We will do business for a long time to come.”
An unseen man—probably the commanding officer based on the authority in his tone and the way the men in camera view deferred to him—spoke. “You make a very interesting proposition. We can make a deal.”
Son of a bitch.
* * *
A sunny morning with blue skies and a light breeze went a long way toward banishing her worries. Lyn didn’t want to live a paranoid life. Walking with Atlas had been a lot easier than she expected, relaxing even. She babbled about random things like the trees around them and the squirrels she spotted. He listened. He was good like that, being a dog and all.
People made things way the hell too complicated.
This trip, she’d spent far more time than usual pondering her childhood. Contrasting and comparing her experience to what she was learning about David specifically, and Brandon and Alex by virtue of their work at the kennels. They were so very different from the wealthy clients she normally worked with in terms of their knowledge of dogs and the way military life had influenced their life after. They were complex men with simple desires: build a good life, train good dogs.
And they were all single. It hadn’t required a morning shopping with Sophie to figure out why, though the woman had provided some interesting insight. Every one of the men, including David, had serious issues to work through.
Lyn’s parents had lived walking on eggshells. Too many secrets between them, unresolved misunderstandings, and unaired grievances. They’d remained married but they’d fallen out of love. Lyn had trouble believing maintaining the appearance of propriety had been worth the misery in a loveless marriage. But then, her mother had been married once before and probably preferred the security marriage afforded her.
Lyn’s stepfather could’ve been worse. He could’ve been abusive, for example, but he hadn’t been. He’d just never had a use for Lyn’s mother or for Lyn. There’d been so much more important away than there was to pay attention to at home.
She should steer clear of David for those telltales. He preferred to work on a need-to-know basis, and he was the person to decide what she needed to know. It was something she could work through on a professional level but in a personal relationship they were going to slowly deteriorate. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself from resenting it over time.
The memory of his kiss stirred up fluttering sensations in her chest and brought heat to her cheeks. He was good. Really good. And the chemistry between them was more intense than anything she’d experienced with anyone else. No way was she going to regret the kisses last night. But what she needed to decide was whether she wanted more.
“Lyn.” David came striding across the grounds.
David standing still was a striking figure. The man in motion was enough to make her stop in her tracks and stare. He had an economy of motion, neat and efficient, but covered distance faster than she imagined a man could just walking. She wondered what he was like running an obstacle course. Actually, she’d pay to watch him traverse one of those. Maybe there was one of those traveling challenges coming through the region in the near future. Sophie would help her enter him.
Plans for another day.
“Change in plans.” David came to a halt a few yards short of them. His jaw was set and he wore a decidedly grim expression.
“For the day?” She considered him. “Or in general?”
“This project with Atlas could be closed out a lot sooner than we planned.” He frowned. “It’s not the way I want it to work out, but it might be for the best. You don’t want to be involved in what’s probably coming next.”
“I’m capable of deciding what I want, given the full picture.” Oh, he was not going to toss her to the curb.
“It’d be safer for you.”
She held up her free hand. “I was attacked in my own hotel room the night I arrived. One of those attackers showed up here the next morning. Now that man is on bail and no one ever found the other guy. Last night you told me I could feel safe here. And now you’re telling me it’s safer for me to go out there. Make up your damned mind.”
Anger and frustration welled up inside and this time he was not going to dispel it with a kiss. He’d dismissed it, distracted her from it, and done everything to take her attention away from the cause but now he was trying to push her away and this was the limit.
“Why don’t we go inside and—” Not a single sign of his truly comprehending showed in his face. He was still focused on getting her to do what he wanted.
“No.” She widened her stance, figuring he couldn’t possibly make her move. Atlas came to heel at her side, watching the exchange between her and David intently. “We can talk about this right here. Give me good reasons, supported with real information, and I will make a decision based on those.”
David sighed. “It’s better if you—”
“This is not a military operation.” She cut him off. “If we are truly partners working for Atlas’s best interest then we share information. Nothing less.”
She shut her mouth then. Interrupting him twice was already beyond rude. She wanted to resolve this, not antagonize him into throwing her off the property for real.
David worked his jaw, obviously reining in his own temper. “Anything to do with Atlas is looking to be complicated.”
The dog in question glanced over at the sound of his name but stayed where he was.
“His previous handler wasn’t only lost in the line of duty.” It sounded like a struggle for David to share even that much and he looked all around them.
They were yards from the perimeter fence and even farther from the main house. No one was near enough to overhear.
David continued, scowling. “Atlas’s previous handler’s name was Calhoun and we served together when I was still active. We were friends. So receiving texts from him wasn’t unusual.”
She wasn’t sure where this was going so she waited.
“Any communication from deployed military is monitored.” David shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “His last text was out of character for him. Odd. But what I read into Calhoun’s last text to me could be discounted as parano
ia.”
He looked at her, braced. Waiting for a reaction.
She considered it. Considered David. He wouldn’t be worried over something that wasn’t an actual threat. “Just because a person is paranoid doesn’t mean they’re delusional.”
That won her a ghost of a smile. Nodding, he continued. “Text was weird as hell. Typically any bar on base would only issue two drinks in a night over there. But we drink so infrequently, two is more than enough. I figured he was in between missions, low on tolerance and sleep, and drunk texting me.”
Lyn snorted. “Better than texting an ex.”
“But a drunk text still has a purpose behind it.” David pulled his hand out of a pocket and rubbed his face. “Dramatic, I know. But he was going on about Atlas and carrying the answers on his shoulders.”
Lyn raised her eyebrows. “So he could’ve been referencing a book I read in college or mythology.”
David snorted. “We do a lot of reading deployed, believe it or not. But Calhoun wasn’t into that kind of fiction as much as mythology, especially as it applied to strategy and the art of war.”
“So we’re thinking the Titan Atlas, then. I remember he was supposed to carry the celestial spheres on his shoulders but that’s all I’ve got.” She’d had a phase as a kid reading up on Roman and Greek mythology. Atlas was one of the only Titans she remembered at all. If they got into Nordic gods, she was going to have to start running Internet searches.
David held up both hands. “The message meant exactly what it said: Atlas carries the answers on his shoulders. There was a micro SD card in his shoulder instead of a locater chip.”
“Oh.” Well, her overactive imagination could take a break, then.
“I’ve got some of the data running through a decryption now but I’m not sure which encryption he used. It’s going to take a couple of days.” He gestured back toward the main house and his office. “But Calhoun left me a highlights reel to give me an overview of the issue. It’s bad.”
