“You’re not going to take a probie’s word over mine, are you?” Hector demanded. “The truth is, he attacked me. You know how Dobermans are, they just can’t be trusted. I should probably explain this to Captain Reese, though. He always does what is best to keep the Unit running smoothly. He’ll understand.”
“Reese is no longer in charge, Hector,” Rex said. “Until we find a new alpha, I am in charge.”
“You quit.”
“I’m back.”
Hector laughed. “Senile old fool! When the Master takes over, he will crush you. Weak old…mutt.”
“You watch him till we get back,” Rex told Seeker. He looked to Diesel. “Get Blackie into his kennel, then join us.”
They nodded their understanding.
“Sarge…Sarge…” Blackie gasped, fighting Diesel’s attempt to drag him to the kennel so he could rest and begin his recuperation. “You’ve got to get…Arnold and Antony are…”
“Everything will be okay,” Rex assured the young dog. “We know the truth now. You did good. Save your strength.” He looked the Doberman over and saw that although the dog was seriously injured most of the blood on him was not his own. “Blackie, Hector outweighs you by quite a bit, and while he’s not our best fighter, he is the dirtiest and most cunning. Not that I’m not thankful for it, but how are you still alive?”
Blackie grinned weakly. “I guess Hector maybe bit off more than he could chew.”
Rex nodded. “And choked on it.” He looked to Diesel. “Get him in his kennel, then join us quickly.”
“Yes, Sarge.”
Rex watched as all the police dogs struggled into their vests, their eyes hard, their jaws set. Preparation was taking time, but it was necessary. They were not some casual rogue gang of bullies and brawlers, but the Chula Vista Police Department K-9 Unit, and that was how they would meet the Master’s gang, representatives of law and order and justice, not mediocrity and convenience.
The police dogs met outside, as the last purple of twilight was swallowed by the vastness of the night. They maintained silence so as not to attract attention from any companions. Rex gathered them around him one last time.
“No one has to tell any of you how to do your jobs,” he said softly. “You’re all good police officers, the best of your breeds, the finest dogs with whom I have ever served. I would ask you to do your best tonight, but I don’t have to. To do less than your best is not in your nature. Let’s go!”
As the pack started out, still holding silent, Rex noted they had one observer, a Welsh Springer Spaniel gazing from one of the upper condos. Rex nodded to the young dog, then turned his attention to their mission.
Chapter 14
Darkness was full upon the land by the time Levi and the others reached the westernmost end of F Street, a dismal stretch of brackish marsh where it became Lagoon Drive and curved toward a region where the barren wasteland had been transformed into a marina and a maritime industrial area.
Levi and Antony trotted abreast. Antony had out of habit taken the lead, only to discover he was catching up with Levi. The Cane Corso was not accustomed to anything but being in control, having sole and unshared responsibility. Now he understood there were many times when that assumption was actually an usurpation, the role of alpha being relinquished to him simply because other alphas knew he was too ignorantly hardheaded to step aside. Having this day devoured more humble pie than in all the days preceding, he did not want the “old” Antony to take over, so he started to drop back, to run beside Arnold.
“Up here,” Levi whispered so low as to be inaudible to all except, perhaps, Yoda. “Beside me.”
Antony caught up with Levi, then slowed his pace when he was exactly even with him. The pace Levi set for the pack was brisk; they had to push themselves to keep up, especially Yoda whose Pomeranian legs were churning like windmills, but none fell back. The cats ran with the dogs, more or less, though Groucho and Smokey often bounded across the rough landscape in great leaps, as was in their nature; they never surged ahead, but they often had to fly to catch up.
Antony glanced at the Dachshund-mix he had for so long held in disdain. His once all-black fur was now so flecked with white he seemed almost spectral fleeing through the night, and his face and muzzle were so pale it was almost as if he wore a mask. Antony had never before realized how old Levi was. Levi stared straight ahead, and Antony understood with a bit of a start that Levi had no need to look back – he knew the others were following, and would follow wherever he led. Levi was in the lead, not because he claimed to be an alpha but because everyone recognized he was the alpha.
As they distanced themselves from the bright lights and heavy traffic of Chula Vista, they did not detect a presence behind them, a shadowy figure moving fast but keeping far back and downwind.
At a barricaded peninsula that was nothing more than a shrub-dotted mudflat inches above the tide line, Lagoon Drive curved south into Marina Parkway, an appellation seeming unsupported by the bleak vista before them. Farther along were yacht moorings and slips more suited to the street’s name, but they all knew that if their quarry was to be found by the waterfront at all it would be here among the complex of shipyards, commercial docks, and brick warehouses, some new but most reclaimed from the century that had abandoned them.
Levi stopped, the others drawing near. He lifted his muzzle and gently sniffed the breezes flowing off the harbor and across the docklands.
“There are dogs in there,” Levi said, motioning to the brick buildings. “The Master may be among them, but with the strong smells coming in off the bay I cannot be sure.”
“You can smell that all the way from over there?” Antony asked. “What a sniffer you’d make for the Unit.”
Levi smiled. “I don’t think I would do well in an organization such as yours. Too limited in scope.”
“We should split up and come in from various directions,” Antony suggested.
“Good idea,” Levi acknowledge. “Since the citrus warehouse was found out, they’ll be wary. Smaller groups make sense.”
“Move fast and silently,” Arnold agreed. “Harder to detect.”
“Antony and Arnold cut along the shoreline and come at the warehouses from the west, out of the shipyard,” Levi instructed. “Sunny and I will go across the marsh and come in at the northeast corner. Yoda, you stay with Groucho and Smokey, circle around, and come in from the south.”
“What?” Yoda exclaimed softly. “Me, babysitting cats?”
“No worry, Levi,” Smokey said in his soft, gravelly voice. “We will take care of the little doggie.”
Groucho grinned Cheshire-like.
“Grrr,” Yoda growled, at a loss for words, for once.
“Let’s go,” Levi said.
Antony and Arnold struck out to the west, cutting along the fence that marked the boundary of the South Bay Maritime Works, largest ship repair facility on the West Coast. They slipped through a gap and threaded their way among the hulls of all manner of ships, from simple fishing boats to billion-dollar yachts; a forest of masts rose to the sky from older travelers upon the sea.
“I’m worried about the others,” Antony murmured. “If they run into trouble with the Master and his minions…”
“If they do,” Arnold replied, “they will take care of themselves, and each other.” He paused. “And us, if it comes to that.”
“I know it’s too late to turn back now,” Antony said, “but I keep thinking, this is no place for civilians.”
“What are we?” Arnold asked.
The Docklands
They passed by the looming mass of a wooden hull, the frigate HMS Surprise, in for minor repairs before being relocated to the San Diego Maritime Museum. It had been lifted from the bay by a giant crane earlier in the day, and, suspended as it was in the light of the crescent moon, the antique vessel might have been a ghost ship sailing toward a port forever beyond the horizon.
By crossing the shipyard they avoided detection by
any sentries set by the Master over the warehouse and storage area. They passed between the sleek hulls of two massive yachts and found themselves near the main gate, which they exited unnoticed. They avoided the glare of sodium lamps, hugging the deep shadows, and made their way to the warehouses abutting the water.
“Very few security lights,” Arnold observed.
“Most of the warehouses are unoccupied, at least officially,” Antony whispered. “Yet another economic miscalculation by the powers-that-be, tax money that could have been used for the Unit.”
Though no watch seemed stationed in the shadows between any of the brick buildings or peering through any of the black windows, Antony and Arnold approached with the utmost caution, every nerve-end tingling in wariness, every sense alert for danger.
Levi and Sunny padded through the marshes with surprising speed, leaping from one firm spot to another, avoiding any of the treacherous pools or quicksand. The dangerous nature of the path to the warehouses was why Levy had allocated it to himself and Sunny. His paddle-shaped paws and his ability to make prodigious leaps gave him an advantage over the others, while Sunny had the natural affinity for fording wetlands unharmed common to all Golden Retrievers. Sunny was also protected from the chill rising from the earth by her double coat; Levi, lacking such protection from the elements, ignored the coldness seeping into his old bones.
“You do realize we’re being followed?” Sunny mentioned.
“We’ve had a shadow since leaving the house,” Levi replied.
“You didn’t say anything about it.”
“Everyone needed to focus on the mission,” Levi said.
“You know who it is then,” she said.
“Yes, and that is also why I chose not to tell the others about it,” Levi explained. “None of the others would understand why it is important for him to be here tonight.”
“Important to…” Sunny started to ask.
“Second warehouse,” Levi said softly. “In the shadows.”
“Yes, I see him, a Rottweiler,” Sunny acknowledged.
“I’ll go in just ahead,” Levi said, “but you’ll need to come in with enough speed to catch him before he can open that big mouth.”
“You just worry about getting past those teeth.”
Levi bounded across the marshland, those long muscular legs of his imparting such speed as no other Dachshund-mix dared ever dream of attaining. Behind him, Sunny pounded forward, taking a much more direct route.
The Rottweiler heard their approach before he saw a thing. Not wanting to raise a false alarm over a marsh bird or some lesser inhabitant of the wetlands, he stepped forward, peering across a brackish fen obscured by rising tendrils of mist made luminescent by the descending horned moon. Something small and sleek burst from the vastness of the night, and as he turned, gaping astonished, a second object erupted from out the darkness like a golden comet. Before he could understand what had happened, he found himself crushed between a brick wall and eighty-five pounds of swiftly moving Golden Retriever. Though he stood motionless several moments, the light was already gone from his hard onyx eyes, and he fell onto his side like a toppled lawn statue, unconscious.
“That’s going to leave a bruise,” Sunny said, flexing the shoulder with which she had plowed into the Rottweiler.
Levi poked the downed dog to make sure he was out of action, then looked at Sunny. “On you or him?”
“Both, I think,” she replied. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Levi grinned. “Neither of us are, but we can still show the pups a trick or two.”
After pulling the sentry into the shadows, Levi and Sunny made their way deeper into the labyrinth of warehouses. Sunny slowly swayed her great head to and fro, looking for signs of danger, while Levi sniffed the night air.
On the south side of the complex, Yoda and the cats passed between two dilapidated brick warehouses. So far, they had not encountered any living creature. To their eyes and ears the structures seemed devoid of any activity.
Yoda suddenly veered toward a shadowed wall, taking Smokey and Groucho with him. Both cats had enough confidence in Yoda’s radar-dish ears not to resist him. Less than a minute later, a Boxer trotted around the corner of a building and passed by them. Because the Boxer was so close, it was likely even the faintest of whispers would alert him, so Yoda and the cats resorted to the “language of the paw,” the silent communication used before the advent of a common tongue in most of the animal world.
“What shall we do?” Groucho signed.
“Attack!” Smokey indicated with a sharp paw thrust.
“Wait,” Yoda cautioned with an upraised paw, which he then inclined thirty degrees. “We follow him.”
Yoda and the others stayed well back and kept to the shadows, but those proved to be unnecessary precautions. The Boxer was focused fully on his destination, oblivious to his stalkers. They trailed the Boxer till he turned the corner of a building which signage identified as the home of the Kuristan Import and Export Company, Ltd., one of the brick warehouse facilities built very close to the jutting quay. The Boxer stopped abruptly, causing Yoda and the cats freeze in their tracks. The cats were ready to spring, and Yoda to pounce, until it became apparent that the Boxer had not detected them and was merely displaying an abundance of caution.
They watched as the Boxer looked this way and that before vanishing amidst stacks of wooden crates at the end of the building. After several moments, when it became apparent the Boxer was not going to emerge, they essayed forward, moving as silent as mist. The crates that had at first seemed to be haphazardly stacked were, upon closer inspection, revealed to be a cleverly constructed warren of passages and chambers, ultimately leading to a very well concealed entrance into the long-neglected, perhaps abandoned brick warehouse.
Yoda suddenly backed into a niche between packing crates. The cats, knowing they should always trust the Pomeranian’s ears, followed suit, leaping to higher ground. Scant seconds later, two Dobermans trotted in from the night.
The Dobermans drew up short, however, near Yoda and below where Smokey and Groucho crouched. One sniffed air and ground.
“What is it, Gamal?” asked the one Doberman, obviously the dominant of the two.
The Doberman named Gamal, looked at his comrade, sniffed a bit more, growled low, then shook his head. “Nothing, Aleph.”
“Let’s go then,” the lead Doberman said impatiently. “The Master needs to prepare, and he does not like to be kept waiting.”
Gamal nodded and followed after.
The Dobermans vanished into the labyrinth.
“I’m going to follow those Dobermans,” Yoda indicated in the covert language of the paw. “You two, find the others.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Groucho protested.
“I will go with you,” Smokey signed to Yoda.
Yoda started to protest his need for a dog-sitter, but the look in the big tom’s eyes informed him of the futility of it. The Calico bounded silently out of the tangle of crates.
As Yoda and Smokey turned and cautiously traversed deeper into the darkness, they made a most curious couple, the fox-faced wild-haired Pomeranian and the huge tom whose black-and-silver coloring made him almost seem a phantasm, and yet they were united in purpose and resolve.
The twisting passage they noiselessly trod ended at a battered door hanging askew on a single hinge, forming an opening about four feet wide and five high, large enough to accommodate the biggest dog. Smokey peered at the frame with his glittering eyes, indicating some coarse hairs caught in the splinters.
Yoda nodded, then eased into the darkness within. The little dog’s ears were practically quivering as he searched the blackness for even the faintest noise. Yoda was so intent on whatever dangers might be ahead he did not notice the soft padding of paws behind until Smokey snagged his collar with a single claw and yanked him into a small litter-strewn room.
They crouched in the absolute blackness of the chamber. Les
s than a second after they quit the entrance a large dog shambled past, barely distinguishable, even to Smokey, a Black Labrador. He did not pause as he passed by.
Smokey put his mouth close to Yoda’s ear. “We are deep in the heart of darkness, Yoda. Take care.”
Yoda nodded and successfully suppressed a tremor. He knew they needed to penetrate farther into the building, even though what he really wanted to do was flee. He clamped his jaw to keep it from chattering, eased his head into the passage, determined the way was safe, comparatively, and continued on, sleek Smokey at his side.
The passage opened into a larger chamber, very wide and long, separated by half-walls, and cluttered with numerous shipping crates and long-neglected equipment. At the far end, barely visible through a forest of boxes, was a pack of dogs, waiting.
Yoda and Smokey made good use of the cover afforded by the cluttered nature of the apparently abandoned warehouse, keeping to shadows and sliding through narrow gaps. Doing so, they avoided contact with other dogs wandering in from the night for what was obviously to be another occasion of the Master holding court.
Smokey found a final perch atop a stack of boxes where he could remain hidden, yet have a good view. Yoda, however, was forced to move in closer and stay at floor level – even a Pomeranian considered a giant among his own kind has little Pomeranian legs, not at all suited to jumping any higher than a few feet.
Yoda settled into a hiding place with a fairly good view of the assemblage. There were a dozen or so dogs before him, of various breeds, but he noticed the two Dobermans were not among them. They were obviously awaiting the advent of the Master. From various twitches, yawns and other non-verbal signals, it was clear all of them were in a state of high anxiety and stress. He also heard very low whispers, and though he could only pick out fragments of intelligible speech, he could tell most of the dogs were scared witless; those not terrified were wary to the point of paranoia.
K-9 Blues (Paws & Claws Book 3) Page 19
