by Ponzo, Gary
The leggy blonde bitch sat alongside her.
The bitch’s name was Lemon. She was a four-year-old yellow Labrador retriever possessed of an extremely sensitive nose and the most expressive eyebrows I’d ever seen on a dog.
I loaded up my own tray with food before I went over to introduce myself. I’d eaten in hundreds of such places during my time in uniform. The country, climate and cap badges might be different but the smell remained exactly the same.
As I approached the dog sidled in and leaned heavily against my thigh. Normal rules about keeping animals and food separated did not apply in the military. If you had a dog in your unit capable of sniffing out Improvised Explosive Devices, you kept it close at all times.
“Hello, and what do you want, hmm?” I murmured. “Yeah, like I couldn’t guess.”
The yellow Lab beat her frantic tail against my knees while she trampled on my feet. It was my most enthusiastic reception so far.
When that didn’t get the dog the attention she wanted, she gave a couple of restrained barks and bounced stiff-legged off the floor a few times. I reckoned she was just trying to take a sneaky look at what was on my tray.
“Lemon, leave her alone!” Hope said, lifting her eyes from her plate for the first time. “Cor, sorry about that. If she’s not wearing her harness she thinks she don’t have to listen to a word I say. Lemon!”
Her accent was British, from an indeterminate mixture of regions with maybe a hint of south London at the base of it. I threaded my way towards her between the tables with the dog lurking round my heels.
“Better than the other way around I suppose. And it’s no problem—I like dogs.” I looked down at Lemon who had the most amazing green eyes. She put her head on one side appealingly as she tried to persuade me that she was in danger of imminent starvation unless I slipped her half my food. “Not a chance,” I told her. “This bacon may need carbon dating but it’s all mine.”
Hope laughed. “Oh, she’s got your number all right, Lem,” she told the dog, rubbing the gold-tipped ears.
“Too right,” I agreed. “Mind if I join you?”
“Make yourself at home,” Hope said. “Always nice to come across a fellow Brit.”
She had finished shovelling down her fry-up and now she straightened, wiping her mouth almost delicately before reaching for her mug. From the colour and smell, it was filled with the thick strong army tea I remembered so well and disliked so much. Like I said—some things never change.
“Joe Marcus pointed you out to me,” I said once I’d unloaded my tray. I stuck out my hand. “I’m Charlie Fox. Apparently we’re working together today.”
Hope didn’t respond right away. She just sat and stared at me with a strange look on her face as if I’d said something that didn’t quite compute.
As if sensing the awkward moment developing, Lemon stuck her snout under the edge of Hope’s elbow and turfed it upwards, splashing lukewarm tea all over the surface of the trestle table.
Hope protested with a cry of, “Oh, Lemon!” But she was laughing as she said it.
By the time we’d mopped up, and one of the squaddies had smilingly brought her a replacement mug of tea, the tension had passed. Lemon sank onto her haunches and continued to dust the floor with her tail, but more half-heartedly now. Her soulful eyes switched back and forth between the two of us like a spectator at a tennis match.
“I don’t believe it,” Hope said then. “When Riley said he was off to pick up the new bloke at the airport yesterday I thought, well, that you’d be a bloke.”
She rested her elbows on the trestle table and held the mug up close to her lips. The fingernails on her skinny fingers were bitten down so far past the quick it made me wince.
“Yeah,” I said. “I get that a lot.”
“So you’ve taken over from Kyle Stephens full time then, eh?”
I shook my head. “Just until they can sort out someone permanent,” I said.
She looked disappointed. “Oh, would’a been nice to have another girl to hang out with,” she said. “Dr B—Dr Bertrand—well, she doesn’t hang out much.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “We met yesterday. The frostbite hasn’t started to heal yet.”
Hope hid a giggle behind her mug, watching me with one bright eye over the top. “She’s all right once you get to know her,” she said, and seemed to surprise herself with that statement.
“How long have you been with R&R?”
“About three months,” Hope said. “Only got the job ’cos I pestered ’em non-stop until they’d give us a trial.” She put a hand on top of the dog’s head and smoothed her fur. “Soon showed ’em though, Lem, didn’t we? Soon showed ’em, girl.” She looked up, a fierce pride bringing colour to her pale cheeks. “She’s the best search and rescue dog ever.”
Her vehemence made me wary.
“Well, apparently I’m partnering you this morning, so I’ll get the chance to see her in action,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Lemon edged her muzzle onto the tabletop. Her eyes really were beautiful, a fact which she was only too well aware of. She fixed them on my plate and let out a gusty sigh.
“Had one of the local cops out with us yesterday,” Hope said. “But they’re spread so thin that if they get a call they naff off and we’re all on our tod.”
“Well I promise not to naff off and leave you.”
“Great,” she said and lowered her voice a little. “Gets a bit creepy out there sometimes. Puts the wind right up us, doesn’t it, Lem?”
The dog’s eyebrows rose in response. She gave another exaggerated sigh and licked her lips. I did my best to ignore her.
“Have you had any trouble?”
Hope lifted a bony shoulder. “Not as yet but it’s coming. Soon as people’s stocks run out and they gotta start scavenging, that’s when things can get a bit hairy. And we tend to work on our own, y’see. No point in having a crowd of diggers standing around with their thumbs up their backsides until Lem’s found something for ’em to dig up, is there girl?”
I assumed that last question was either rhetorical or aimed at the yellow Lab anyway. Hope didn’t strike me as an ideal dog handler. Her movements were too quick and nervy. I would have thought she’d turn even the most placid animal into a twitching wreck inside the first week.
Lemon rolled her eyes in my direction causing her eyebrows to bob again. It was hard not to paint human emotions onto the gesture, as if she’d sensed my doubts.
“You worked with Kyle Stephens quite a bit then?” I asked casually.
Hope stilled. Lemon cocked her head on one side, her ears raised in query. Hope stroked her until she subsided, then mumbled, “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked. I dropped my voice to match her earlier conspiratorial level and pushed my luck. “I mean, I know he died but nobody seems to want to say how and if it’s something I need to know about—so I can try to stop the same thing happening again—”
“It won’t!” Hope blurted. She checked to see who might have overheard but the mess hall was busy, the level of background conversation and clatter high enough to conceal her outburst. “It won’t,” she repeated more quietly. “Joe told him not to but he did it anyway.”
I had to lean in to hear her words. “Joe told him not to do what?”
She glanced at me quickly then, as if aware she’d already said too much. “Go into buildings that was unsafe,” she said hurriedly. “That’s what I heard. Joe’s an engineer so he knows all about stuff like that, but Kyle didn’t do what Joe told him and he got himself killed for it.”
She got up, almost leapt to her feet. “I gotta go get sorted,” she said. “I’ll pick up our search grid and meet you out front in twenty minutes, yeah?”
And she scurried off without waiting for a reply. Lemon let her go. The dog had her head back glued to the tabletop near my plate.
My turn to sigh. I picked up the last piece of bacon an
d offered it to her. Lemon snatched it out of my fingers and devoured it in one swift burnt crunch before lolloping off after Hope.
I sat for a moment after they’d gone, trying to figure out how Joe Marcus had frightened the girl so badly and why.
Had she seen what happened to Kyle Stephens, I wondered, or had they simply threatened her with the same fate?
CHAPTER TEN
Riley flew us in low over the city. Hope, Lemon and I, along with a dig team made up of Thai, Japanese, Brit and US members, and another shrink-wrapped pallet of emergency supplies bound for who-knows-where. We squeezed around it inside the cargo bay, which didn’t make for easy conversation. Neither did it make for comfort.
Some time during the night Riley had managed to beg, steal, or borrow a replacement winch for the Bell and refitted it. It may even have been the same one he’d accused the local police of filching for their own aircraft but I didn’t ask and he wasn’t saying.
It was bright enough that I could slip on a pair of sunglasses and stare without being obvious about it. If I thought I’d imagined him trying deliberately to dislodge me when I’d leapt for the helicopter the previous day, that period of observation confirmed my fears. His flying was flawless but his expression betrayed a conflicted man. At least it would seem he hadn’t been happy about trying to kill me.
Well, that was always comforting to know.
But the question remained—why? Was it his own idea or was Joe Marcus pulling everyone’s strings behind the scenes?
Riley was as relaxed about aviation inflight rules as he was about everything else, so we flew with the side door slid back, which at least created a swirling influx of cooler air inside the fuselage.
We made one stop along the way, to drop the dig team at their start-point location. They left with cheery goodbyes to Hope and pats to Lemon. I received the occasional nod—the new recruit who has yet to prove themselves in combat.
Lemon seemed perfectly happy to be up in a helicopter, if not actually blasé about it. She lay panting beneath Hope’s canvas seat, wearing a harness with a fluorescent vest built in and bootees on all four feet. The bootees were clearly styled after human hiking boots. Bright colours, hi-tech shape, rugged soles, held in place with Velcro straps. It was rather unsettling to see a dog wearing them, doubly so when she lay down between us and stretched out her front legs.
Once we were under way Hope had recovered something of her balance. As if she was only really at ease when she was working.
Well, I can relate to that.
Now, she noticed my bemused glance at the dog’s feet. “You never know what’s going to be out there on the ground,” she shouted over the rotor noise as though forgetting that we were both wearing headsets. “If Lem cuts her feet she could be out of action for weeks. She was a bit embarrassed about wearing ’em at first, but she’s used to ’em now, aren’t you, girl?”
She ran her hand over the dog’s head. I could have sworn Lemon rolled her eyes again.
“Coming up on your search grid, ladies,” Riley warned from the pilot’s seat. “Please keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times and remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop at the gate and the captain has switched off the Fasten Seatbelts sign.”
Now it was Hope’s turn to roll her eyes. “One of these days, Riley,” she said, “you’re going to do that routine and it will actually get the laugh you think it deserves.”
He chuckled and managed not to cough. “Well I’m going to bloody well keep doing it until it does,” he said. “Grab your gear.”
Even though I’d checked through my pack before we left, I gave it another quick onceover, aware Hope was doing the same. We both carried food, water, a basic First Aid kit, GPS locator and two-way radios with a hands-free earpiece. Hope also had extra food and water for Lemon and two large cans of aerosol paint. I didn’t ask what she planned on gang-tagging while she was out.
In my pack I also had four spare magazines for the SIG Sauer P229 in the small of my back beneath my shirt. Overkill maybe, but if the US Marines’ motto is Semper Fi, meaning Always Faithful, then I preferred the Coast Guard’s version—Semper Paratus, Always Ready. I made sure Hope didn’t get a sight of the gun. No point in making her more uneasy.
Her final piece of equipment was a bedraggled-looking chew toy clipped to her belt. Every now and again I noticed Lemon giving the toy a longing glance and guessed that play time was her reward for making a successful find.
Hope had expected me to carry the extra gear and she was put out when I refused. I guessed from her slightly affronted surprise that my predecessor had done so without argument.
That told me a lot about Kyle Stephens, Gulf Wars veteran or no.
So I gave her the usual speech. She didn’t like it much, but they never do.
“I’m not here to be your pack mule—you carry your own kit,” I told her. “If I have to, I’ll carry you and whatever of your stuff I can’t leave behind, but let’s just pray it doesn’t come to that.”
“What about Lem?”
I shook my head. “I can’t protect both of you. Your job is to look after your dog and my job is to look after you,” I said. “If anything happens, I’ll get between you and the threat. If I tell you to get down, get down. Don’t ask why, just do it. There won’t be time to start a debate and I will not be kidding. But unless we’re actually under fire don’t drop flat—just crouch as low as you can and be ready to move. If Lemon’s out of sight and you tell her to stay put, will she do it?”
She seemed almost offended. “’Course. I trained her myself since she was a puppy.”
“Well that’s what you should do then. And if I tell you to run, you run like hell and find a place to hide until I shout for you. That’s when you’ll know it’s safe.”
“I don’t care about me,” Hope said, “but sometimes, if people are desperate to find someone, well, they think if they get hold of Lemon they can, I dunno, jump the queue, bypass the system. So—,” her eyes skated over me, dubious now, even a little scared, “—how will I know they’re not forcing you to shout out?”
I met her eyes. “They won’t force me.”
“But supposing …”
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t try,” I agreed, “only that they won’t succeed. I will not lure you into a trap, Hope. You can trust me on that.”
She did not look convinced.
After Riley dropped us off at our designated point he was airborne again without hanging around. Anyone would think he expected incoming fire. I was reminded of the mad Israeli C-130 pilot, Ari.
Maybe they were all a little touched.
Maybe they had to be.
As Riley lifted off, with the Bell’s rotor wash like a physical force pressing down on us and blasting dust into our faces, I heard his voice in my ear.
“Comms check, ladies.”
“Five by five,” Hope said.
I went for the slightly more conventional: “Loud and clear.”
“Roger that. Be careful out there. And good hunting.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Seek on!”
Hope’s instruction to Lemon was always the same, and every time the dog responded in the same way, bounding forwards with the kind of enthusiasm only Labrador retrievers really have nailed. She soon settled into an apparently meandering search pattern, leading with her nose.
I stayed a little way back and let the pair get on with it unhindered. The teamwork between the two of them, the sense of total trust, was fascinating to watch.
Every now and again Lemon would pause to stare back at her handler as if making sure of her approval. Hope never missed these glances and was always ready to urge her on. That they needed each other was obvious, as was the fact that neither of them wanted it any other way.
We were on what might once have been a fancy shopping street lined by old-fashioned buildings that had not stood up well to a quake of such magnitude. Many of the buildings had not stoo
d at all. Of the ones that were still upright, it looked as though when the first tremors hit most of the revamped façades had simply sloughed away from the brickwork behind. Each had come crashing down like a concrete portcullis, crushing whatever happened to be below at the time.
I looked at the devastation and wondered how anybody, caught in such a location, could possibly have survived.
And if by some miracle they had, how the hell we were going to get them out without serious construction equipment and lifting gear, or possibly use of a Sikorsky S-64 SkyCrane.
In many ways the violently disturbed landscape reminded me of the Balkans immediately after the civil war. Constant bombardment reduced many of the once-beautiful cities to ruins such as this. Only the blast damage and the individual bullet holes and craters were missing.
That feeling of familiar unease put me on edge. It was totally against everything I’d ever learned, to be standing out in the open rather than using the jagged structures for cover and concealment. It felt even more wrong to allow my principal, Hope, to skyline herself on top of a mound of rubble as well.
Keeping her position always in the back of my mind, I scanned the wasteland as if expecting to catch the sight-flare of an enemy sniper. Everywhere I looked I saw the same indications of panic and sadness that always came with sudden attack regardless whether its origin was natural or man-made:
A single shoe, abandoned jewellery, a broken toy or a spilled shopping bag containing some kind pastry treats now gone bad and swarming with insects.
Lemon picked her way delicately over all this in her hi-tech bootees and squeezed between the twisted metal of cars that had once been parked nose-in toward the kerb. They were now squashed to the height of their wheels by the fallen masonry. She started at one end of the parade of boutique stores, disappearing in and out of tiny gaps without a qualm. Whenever she emerged she’d shake herself vigorously from nose to tail as if to get the dust out of her fur and look to Hope.
