“Seems like fun.” He wondered if either of them ever relaxed. She’d been on alert and “working” in every moment he’d been in her presence so far, even when she’d been in the shower and she’d left King to watch him.
“For him, this is fun.” Her attention never left King, but her lips took on a soft smile. “The best working dogs come from encouraging behaviors they already do naturally, instinctively. King is exceptional because he loves what he does.”
And she loved her current work, too. Jason squelched a pang of envy. He liked getting paid, but he’d never been as into his job as these two were.
Abruptly, King sat and looked up at Arin.
“What’s that about?” The dog was sitting upright, similar to when he’d been ready to start, and Jason couldn’t quite figure out why King looked different. Maybe he was going crazy but the dog’s body language almost shouted success.
She was suddenly excited, too. It didn’t show in her expression so much as her eyes. They gleamed with a predator’s anticipation and she had her firearm in her hands, pointed at the ground but ready. “He’s found something. It’s his passive signal.”
“Does he have a not-so-passive signal?” Jason wasn’t armed but he scanned the area around them again, trying to keep watch. If a threat was going to make itself known, it would any minute now.
“Ah, well, when he’s chasing down a target, it’s a different situation. Especially if he’s off leash and possibly far ahead of me.” She was checking out as much of the container as she could. It was positioned at a forty-five degree angle and flanked on either side by similar metal containers. “Depending on the terrain, King could get out of my sight. Then he’d signal with barking, both to bring me to him and to intimidate the target into staying put.”
Jason wondered how often their organization was contracted to search and capture, rather than rescue. Arin’s description sounded more like the latter than the former. Or maybe she was in an aggressive frame of mind. “But you didn’t ask him to bring a target to bay.”
“No.” She shot a dark glance at him then turned her attention back to the shipping container. “King is my partner and smarter than most humans, as far as I’m concerned, but he’s a dog. I don’t ask him to do anything. I give him a command and he executes it, with excellence. Anything less and it becomes a danger to him and to me.”
Jason grinned.
She looked up when he didn’t say anything and caught sight of his expression. “What?”
“Oh, I’m thinking you demand excellence in all things, from yourself and others, and I’ve got some amazing fantasies in mind now.”
He thought she might snap at him, maybe even hit him. Instead, she gave him the most enigmatic look he’d seen from her yet. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter Seven
Let him chew on that.
Arin didn’t know why she was encouraging him. She shouldn’t. But his charm was impossible to ignore and he’d been keeping watch alongside her. He’d been wary and careful, not projecting the anticipation of someone bringing her into any kind of ambush. Instead, having him at her side had been like having a partner, of the human sort.
Besides, he was an incredibly hot man and she’d seen him in various levels of undress through the course of the day. She had a few choice visuals to fuel her own fantasies for the future.
Turning her attention back to the container door was more of an exercise in willpower than she wanted to admit to herself. The door was fitted with a lockbox, which was basically a set of steel plates welded together to shelter the lock itself. This set up definitely prevented unauthorized access from someone trying to cut a lock off or jimmy it off with a crowbar. It was a good precaution in other situations but in this case, it meant she was going to have to pick the lock.
She crouched down to peer up into the lockbox with the light from her cell phone to get a look at the kind of lock she was dealing with, then she pulled her set of lock picks from their home in the shaft of her boot. King sniffed her shoulder, then turned and sat to keep watch on her six. He’d warn her of any activity behind her while she concentrated on the heavy lock.
“Do all of you know how to pick locks?” Jason moved to stand near King, covering her as well. Now, even if someone took a shot at her, it’d have to go through Jason first.
She hadn’t thought to ask him for cover, honestly, but she appreciated the gesture. “I’m not sure, but it’s a handy skill. I thought most people in security would know how.”
He grunted, a noncommittal sound. “You’re search and rescue, though. Aren’t dogs your thing, more than keeping threats in or out of an area?”
“I’m a dog handler, yeah.” The lock itself was heavy duty. It wouldn’t be as easy as the average locks on doors or even regular padlocks. She inserted her tension wrench to get started. “I’m also a sniper, which you know if you were researching our team. It’s not something I’ve tried to hide from my files.”
“Snipers don’t generally have to pick locks either.” No surprise from him, though.
Then again, he’d also met her on the roof of a building providing cover to an extraction team. He’d seen her rifle then and again at the hospital earlier today. So it wasn’t as if he’d have needed to look into the information available on her. She’d mentioned the intel and his research more to acknowledge he’d been looking into her background. Acquiring information on a person was a smart move when you wanted to know anyone in the private contract industry. Back at Search and Protect HQ, her colleague Pua was in the process of digging deeper into his background than most people had the technical skills to do.
“As to snipers and lock picking, you’d be surprised.” She started simple, inserting a slender tool with a squiggle at the end—a rake—into the keyhole along with her tension wrench. She applied slight pressure on the tension wrench and started working her rake to find the binding pin. “It’s all about finding the right location to set up and take the shot, and sometimes the right location is behind a locked door.”
“So you learned to do this as part of your sniper training.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t turn to look so much as hear his clothes rustle, but his presence at her back was almost warm.
“No.” She found the binding pin and used the rake tool to lift it up gently until she was able to turn her tension wrench in the key plug just a bit. The rest of the pins would be easier from here on out. “My little sister was delighted to learn how to lock doors as a child. She figured out how to lock herself into bathrooms, bedrooms, cars. I learned how to pick locks as a result of babysitting her when we were kids.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like an interesting childhood. Learn anything else while you were trying to watch out for her?”
“Lots of things.” Patience, for one. Arin continued to work on the lock. This one wasn’t easy and it was taking longer than she’d like. “When it came to learning anything, my sister set the standard to which others strove to achieve, myself included.”
Finally, she was able to turn the tension wrench all the way and felt the lock release. She unhooked it and placed it on the ground, then put her tools away before standing. As she rose, she had her firearm in hand, pointed at the ground for now.
“I’d say you’ve been setting the bar for a lot of others, yourself.” Jason stepped to the side.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted the latch and pulled open the container with her free hand, keeping the door between her and any nasty surprises.
Even as she pulled, she peered around the edge of the door. The interior was dimly lit and with the door open, she could hear the quiet whir of a few small fans. Sitting along the sides of the container were a dozen or more people, mostly men, all cowering from her.
King stood next to her at the ready, but didn’t issue any kind of warning growl or bark.
She exchanged glances with Jason. He gave her a slight nod and turned to continue to cover them from anyone coming up
behind them.
She pitched her voice to be as calm and reassuring as possible. Some of them may not speak English, so her tone was going to have to carry her intent. “It’s okay. We’re here to help. Everyone needs to stay calm and we’ll get you to safety as soon as possible. But you need to come with me. Can you do that?”
She paused for a few moments, then repeated her message and waited for eye contact from each of them. They all met her gaze after some hesitation, but there was hope there and most of them nodded their understanding. None of them had any hint of malicious intent or the blank look of a sleeper.
“Is Huy here?” Please let him be here.
One boy sat forward. His face was streaked with dirt but he looked to be in his early teens. There was fear clashing with hope in the way he met her searching gaze, but he lifted a hand and nodded to her.
She smiled, lips closed, and hoped she still remembered how to smile gently. Kind and gentle weren’t her forte, but this was a kid and he’d already been treated too harshly. “Kim sent me to find you.”
Relief broke across his face with a tremulous smile at the sound of his big sister’s name. He drew his knees up to his chest and propped his arms over them, burying his face.
Damn. The poor soul. She stepped into the container, to help him up maybe or to do whatever she could to comfort him. He was so close to returning to his family.
“Wait!”
Jason cursed as Arin didn’t stop in time. Her foot came forward as she stepped and her shin contacted with something he’d only caught sight of a moment prior. The lighting over the container storage area hadn’t been enough to catch it, but the added light from the battery-operated lamps inside the container had caught on the trip wire a little too late. She froze at his warning, though, and hadn’t stepped fully through it. Maybe she hadn’t triggered it.
Either way, he wasn’t going to leave her there to figure it out on her own.
Jason kneeled just behind Arin, taking a closer look at the space where she was standing. “Stay right where you are.”
He quickly but carefully moved ahead of her, careful to avoid the trip wire and look for any secondaries. Followed it around the container. The people inside scrambled to get out of the way.
Frustrated, he growled. “Stay calm, people. Try to stay toward the center here.”
If they panicked and started darting around in the close space trying to get out, one of them could blow them all up. This kind of situation was hard enough when he’d been the only person close to the device he suspected was present. The more people trapped nearby, the worse the odds were of them all walking away.
Behind him, Arin repeated his instructions with her calm, low-pitched voice. Hearing her and seeing her remain exactly where she was seemed to help the others get their shit together. They followed the instructions and gathered in a tense group at the center of the cramped space.
She had a way about her that made people want to follow her lead. Jason was as susceptible to it as the rest of the poor bastards in this forsaken box, and he was going to think about exactly why later. Right now, he only knew he didn’t want to leave her, and she wouldn’t leave these people, so Jason was going to have to clear the container so they could all walk away.
He figured the best he could do to keep building their confidence in him was to focus on his goal. At the moment, that was following the trip wire. It led him to the side of the container and into a box rigged to appear as another battery-operated lamp and fan.
“The good news is I’ve found an IED.” He kept his tone lightly conversational, his posture relaxed. It’d been a while since he’d had to deal with an improvised explosive device, and considering their current company, it might be best if they didn’t recognize the acronym he used. It was a hope, anyway. The harsh reality was that IED was a well-known acronym even to non-English speakers who came from areas subject to constant warfare.
Arin didn’t let on the severity of the situation either. She kept her voice pleasant. “How is that good?”
“Because you initiated the trigger mechanism, but it hasn’t gone off yet,” he responded, sounding cheerful. He was actually pretty happy about it. The alternative would’ve been for them all to have been blown to bits by now. He’d take their being alive as a positive and investigate why so they had a better chance of staying that way. He carefully studied the area around the box, watchful for additional trip wires. “But it will eventually, so it’s good I found it.”
She was quiet for a minute. “What’s the bad news?”
Satisfied that the immediate area was clear of any additional trip wires, he conducted a visual assessment of the box itself. Then he lifted the cover slightly, running his fingers around the edges as he looked for a deadman’s wire or some other form of tamper protection. It took precious time to locate and disable. Finally, he began to remove the cover, gingerly handling it by the edges, and exposed the device. Its mechanics were straightforward and its maker hadn’t bothered with any other cover than the box in which it had been placed. “There’s a time delay on the mechanism. It’s doing some sort of countdown now that you’ve triggered it, but there’s no convenient display to show me if we have minutes or seconds or anything. I’m working to disarm but I need you to get out in case I don’t defuse this in time.”
“No.”
He’d been expecting her to say something else, so it took him a precious second to absorb what she’d said. “You’re kidding.”
He couldn’t spare the time for an argument with her, so he kept his mind on his work. He stared at the mechanism, taking in every detail he could and considering how it contributed to the overall setup of the device. It wasn’t about recognizing a bomb. Every maker put his own special touch on an IED, and the making of them constantly evolved. He needed to apply knowledge accumulated from learning a variety of techniques and seeing them over the years. It helped that he’d survived to apply what he’d learned.
“Can I evacuate them?” Her question angered him because it meant she was still with him, inside the likely blast radius and in danger.
Staying near her had been a game before, good intentions and clearing his conscience, but now she was remaining with him—with all of them—because she was that damned good a person. The risk didn’t make sense in any normal person’s head and her virtue made him livid. “Not until I defuse this one and verify there isn’t a secondary device set to catch them on the way out. There could be another trigger somewhere. You can look for one. Or there could be a hostile outside, watching from a distance, ready with a manual trigger to set this off as soon as he sees us trying to run out of this container. As long as we’re in here, anyone watching will think we haven’t discovered it yet. They’ll wait to trigger the trap.”
“But if you don’t disarm this, won’t we be screwed anyway?” She was being very sensible considering the situation, projecting a steadiness he admired.
He’d seen plenty of soldiers who could manage gunfire and hand-to-hand combat fine, but in the face of a bomb they’d lost it. They’d bolted or tripped themselves up and set off other IEDs. The trick to surviving this type of situation was to remain capable of thinking clearly, move with purpose, and be extremely lucky. She had the first two qualities. He was hoping his history of luck would be enough for all of them.
“This is why I told you to get out.” He wanted her to back away, get to a reasonably safe distance. He wanted her safe. “You’re on the other side of the primary trip wire. You could step out and make it look like you and your dog are doing another sweep of the area.”
If someone was watching them, there was a chance they’d wait to see what she was up to. They might let her walk away. Or they might take a shot at her, but those were still better odds than her staying in here.
“I won’t leave these people. I just told them I’d get them to safety.” The woman was unflappable.
The mood shifted inside the container. They were listening and with her last stateme
nt, there was a collective sigh released as if they’d all been holding their breaths. Someone might have whispered thanks to some deity.
They should thank her.
He didn’t argue further. If she left at this point, they’d just bolt after her. It was her they were listening to, her they’d follow. She was their beacon.
Instead of fighting her, he worked as quickly as he could. It was complex work and was never as easy as picking a certain colored wire. Seconds or minutes might have passed; he had stopped keeping track. He only worked as quickly and carefully as he could.
Finally, he drew a deep breath. “This one is clear. Everyone stay calm. Stay where you are. Try to keep as still as possible.”
Arin repeated his directions.
He swept the container for any other signs of devices as everyone watched, their fear stretched taut in the air around them all.
Finally, he turned and met her gaze. If she was afraid, he couldn’t see it in her dark brown eyes. She was rock solid and waiting.
“We’re clear. Let’s get the hell out.”
Chapter Eight
Arin took a steadying breath as she slid into the driver’s seat. Adrenaline had long since left her system, but she was still hyper aware and wound up. Just a few yards away, lights flashed from the police and ambulance units that’d pulled into the parking lot an hour ago. Raul and his canine partner, Taz, stood with the lead detectives sorting out the situation as paramedics saw to the newly freed people from the shipping container. She had King in the back and the all-clear to head out, but she needed a minute to find her calm before she started driving.
Jason opened the passenger side door and climbed into the seat with a similar sigh.
She shot him a look. “Are you okay?”
Actually, she wondered what he was still doing here. She’d half expected him to slip away in the fuss as the various teams had arrived on the scene. He’d accomplished what he’d come to do and he’d proven he hadn’t been a part of a distraction or ambush waiting to happen.
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