by Mark Nolan
Cody took off running again. His paws were feeling the sting of the pavement and sidewalks, but he kept going anyway. He cut down an alley behind some restaurants. A man in ragged clothes was sitting on a doorstep, drinking from a bottle. As Cody passed by, the man tried to grab him by the collar, but Cody snapped at the man’s hand, almost taking off a few fingers. He snarled and continued on with his search.
A white van began following Cody. He couldn’t read the words on the side that said San Francisco Animal Care and Control, but he could sense that the vehicle was stalking him. When the van came closer, he saw the driver staring, and they made eye contact. From the van’s open window, Cody could smell scent traces left behind by a great variety of frightened dogs. He raised his sensitive nose and sniffed the air, picking up the fears of every confused animal that had ever been in the van.
The uniformed driver stopped and got out of the vehicle, carrying a catch pole with a noose on the end.
Cody didn’t know that he’d been reported as a stray dog running loose in traffic. He only knew that he’d been trained not to allow anybody to take him prisoner. He was a war dog, and somebody in an unfamiliar uniform was trying to capture him. He’d fight if necessary. His combat training came back in a flash as the uniformed man advanced toward him and held out the pole in a threatening manner.
Cody dodged the loop, leapt forward and bit his opponent on the thigh, drawing blood. He then backed away, snarling.
The Animal Control officer cursed in pain, dropped the catch pole, limped to his truck and got inside.
Cody ran even faster now, as the scent trail was fading again.
A homeless man stepped out of an alleyway, whistled at Cody, and called out, “Hey, golden dog, where’s your friend?”
Cody stopped and turned his head, recognizing the voice. He barked impatiently.
The man approached Cody, unafraid. He had long, straight black hair, and the facial features of a Native American. He wore faded blue jeans, a threadbare shirt with a red and black checkered pattern, and a small backpack. He walked with a slight limp. “Is something wrong, boy?”
Cody whined and pawed at the ground. He ran a few feet away, sniffed the air, and then returned and growled.
“Are you tracking your master?”
Cody barked once.
“Go on, then. I’ll try to follow you.”
Cody took off running.
The long-haired man jogged after him and did his best to keep up, in spite of the plastic-and-metal prosthesis he wore below his left knee.
Cody ran up a hill and into a higher-priced neighborhood. After taking several turns on a number of streets, he stopped in front of a two-story house. The car he’d been following was here; he could smell the scent from inside one of the three garages. Cody watched the front windows of the house as he ran up the driveway. He didn’t see any movement. He sniffed all three garage doors and confirmed that the car he’d followed was parked behind the center door.
His ears twitched and he heard a sound from inside the house. His alpha had yelled something in anger, or in pain. Cody’s throat tightened as he held back his growl. He quietly ran to a chain-link gate, used his nose to lift the metal latch and then put his shoulder against it. As soon as it swung open, he ran along the side of the house, stopping at every window he passed to listen and sniff the air. All the windows were closed, but scent traces escaped, and he inhaled them and learned about the interior of the house.
He found a window at the back of the house that was partly open. He stood on his hind legs and put his nose up to the narrow opening, taking deep sniffs. He smelled cigar smoke, greasy food, weapons, nervous man sweat, and—his alpha.
The fur on the back of his neck stood up. He would get inside this building, even if he had to fight someone to do it. Nothing would stop him—this was war.
Chapter 19
Jake was sky-high on the experimental drugs, with no guarantee he might ever come down again. He tried to focus on his mission, but his mind was a jumbled mess.
The man with cigar breath said, “Jake, where’s the thumb drive?”
Jake didn’t answer.
The man in charge said, “Ask him some personal questions; get him to open up.”
“Jake, do you have a woman?”
“Your mom liked it,” Jake said.
Cigar breath hit him hard in the mouth.
Jake spat blood in the direction of the man’s voice.
There was some foreign cursing and then, “Tell us a terrible secret, one you are ashamed of.”
Jake hesitated and shook his head.
“Tell us. You have to tell the truth.”
“Well …”
“Do it! You’ll feel better afterwards. And then maybe you’ll tell us about the item we’re seeking. Yes?”
The second dose of the drug was making Jake’s head spin. It reminded him of a time, years ago, when he’d been prescribed painkillers that had made him feel incredibly good—until he came down, and the awful cravings for more of them had almost broken his willpower. This new drug gave him a similar high, but it seemed ten times stronger.
He tried to stop himself from talking, but the words spilled out in slow motion as he tilted from side to side in the chair.
“One time … I shot someone … and I regretted it.”
“Who did you shoot? A friend? A family member?”
“No.”
“Who was it?”
“I shot … a boy. It was an accident.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You shot a random boy?”
“He was tall, and dressed as a man—and he tried to kill my friends.”
“Did you enjoy killing the child?”
“No. I felt bad, once I realized.”
“Where did this happen?”
“At a war zone overseas—in a village where we built a school for the kids.”
“You were in the military?”
“No, I was there on vacation.”
The man slapped Jake’s face. “What did the boy do?”
“He drove up in a junker car, got out, and opened fire on us at point-blank range. Shot the canteen right out of Terrell’s hand as he was taking a drink. He almost killed my best friend with a headshot.”
“What happened next?”
“I shot him and he blew up.”
“Exploded?”
“He was a suicide bomber, strapped with explosives. They sent him to kill the schoolchildren, specifically the girls. The terrorists hate girls. They buy and sell them as slaves, and they don’t want them to be educated.”
“Did the schoolchildren die?”
“No, we were protecting them. So the bomber tried to kill us instead.”
“How old was this boy?”
“I don’t know, maybe sixteen—old enough to drive a car without raising suspicion. Hell, I was only nineteen at the time. We send our teenagers to fight terrorists, you know.”
“Did the car blow up?”
“No, it was rigged with a bomb, but we stopped it in time, thanks to my dog.”
“What did a dog have to do with it?”
“Duke was trained to find explosives … he alerted me to the danger.”
“You survived.”
“No, I died.”
The man punched Jake in the face. “Somebody died, yes?”
Jake strained his wrists against the cuffs. “Sparks, my buddy, died.”
“Who was he?”
Jake swayed from side to side. “Radio man … was lighting a cigarette and talking to command … distracted for just a second, and got killed.”
“Did the suicide bomber kill anyone else?”
“No, we were able to defuse the bomb in the vehicle … jam-packed with badness.”
“Tell me about Duke, your war dog.”
Jake didn’t answer.
“Tell me about the dog. Did he die in the desert?”
Silence.
The man sensed an opening in Jake’s defenses. This was his chance. He leaned close in front of Jake’s face. “Duke died, didn’t he? You couldn’t save him. It was your fault. Now we’re going to kill your other dog—the golden-haired one—slowly and painfully while you watch. And that will be your fault too, unless you tell us where you hid the thumb drive.”
Jake gripped the arms of the chair, leaned back and kicked both feet toward the ceiling. He put his legs around the man’s neck and got him in a choke hold. The man grabbed Jake’s calves and tried to remove them but had no luck. He tried to talk but only grunted.
Jake twisted his body to the side and used his legs to pull his enemy down. The man fell and hit his face on an end table, smashing through the glass top. A piece of broken glass went into his right eye, and he screamed.
Jake’s chair fell over and his shoulder slammed into the floor. He squeezed the man’s neck as hard as he could. “You want the truth? You’re going to die now, just like I promised you would. That’s the truth.”
“Let him go,” the other man said, punching Jake in the face and shoulders.
Jake took the punches, ignored the pain, and focused on his murderous goal with all of his drug-induced anger. In just a few moments, he would crush the windpipe of his opponent.
The other man picked up the pruning shears. “Enough! Release him or I’ll cut your Achilles tendons.”
The door to the room opened. A young man wearing a blue hoodie entered and said, “I got the sandwiches.”
Behind him, a golden-haired dog appeared in the open doorway. The dog jumped onto the back of the young man and knocked him down to his hands and knees, then used the momentum to launch himself off the man’s back and into the air, barking and snarling.
Cody leapt straight toward the assailant with the sharp object in his hand, who appeared to be the most dangerous and immediate threat to his alpha.
Jake recognized Cody’s barking and yelled, “Cody—disarm!”
The big man turned to face Cody. He tried to raise the shears in self-defense, but it was too little, too late. Cody was on him like a predatory beast of the jungle.
Cody snapped his teeth closed on the assailant’s wrist and clamped his jaws down in a bone-crushing bite.
The assailant screamed in pain, dropped the shears, wrenched his injured wrist free, and ran out the door into the hallway.
The young man in the hoodie stumbled to his feet and cursed.
Cody’s military training was in full force now as he went into battle mode. He ran straight at the man in the hoodie, snarling and snapping his teeth in attack. The young man screamed, ran out the door and slammed it behind him.
The man with cigar breath broke free from Jake’s leg hold by ducking his head and rolling sideways in a desperate effort to escape. He got up and ran, seeing out of his one good eye.
Jake yelled, “Cody, take down!”
Cody bit the fleeing man on the right butt cheek and wrestled him to the floor, then ran ahead and blocked his path. The man lunged at the door, but Cody bit him in the crotch. The man screamed in agony but got free, and then ran around the room as the fast-moving golden nightmare snapped at his heels.
The fleeing man somehow made it back to the door. Just then it opened, and a stranger with long black hair walked in, holding a frying pan. The long-haired man took one look at the room and the screaming man who Cody was biting on the butt. He swung the pan hard and hit the fleeing man in the face, knocking him unconscious. He said a few words in the language of the Zuni people as he stepped on his enemy’s chest and went over to Jake. He dropped the pan, grabbed the shears off the floor, and cut off the plasticuffs that held Jake’s arms to the chair.
Once Jake’s hands were free, he tore off his blindfold, snatched up an AK-47 from a coffee table, and stuck the end of the barrel against the chest of the man on the floor. “Wake up and answer my questions. Where are those children? Tell me!” He shoved the barrel hard against the man’s ribcage.
The semiconscious man cried out. He drew a pistol from behind his back and fired it toward the sound of Jake’s voice.
The shot missed and Jake disarmed him, and then began to beat him with his fists. “Here’s some more truth for you. The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
He knocked the man unconscious, and in a drunken stupor, continued beating him, demanding to know where the children were. Cody barked at Jake, drawing him back from the brink. Jake’s head was still spinning from the chemicals. He yelled out Terrell’s military call sign, “Grinds!” He got no reply.
Cody went to a coffee table and barked several times while pawing at something. Jake saw his weapons and his phone there, along with a bag of plastic zip ties and a holstered pistol.
“Good dog.” Jake felt dizzy as he tapped on his phone to call Terrell, and then turned to the man with long hair. “We’ve met before—you’re an Army Ranger. You lost your leg fighting overseas. That’s all I can remember right now.”
The man nodded. “My leg is still in Afghanistan. When it got blown off, one of the wild dogs the Russians left behind ran out and took it for food.” He smiled. “But lucky for you, I can jog okay on my artificial leg.”
“How did you find me?”
“I saw your dog tracking you, so I followed him.” He looked at the man he’d hit with the frying pan. “My friend’s enemy is my enemy.”
Cody barked at him once. The man looked at him and nodded in reply.
Jake shook hands. “That time we met, you never told me your name. I’m Jake Wolfe. This is Cody.”
“My Zuni name is Eagle Eyes, but most people call me Paul.”
Jake looked at the pan on the floor. “Do you always carry a frying pan with you?”
“I grabbed it from the kitchen stove when I came in. I would have tried to find a knife, but I was in a hurry,” Paul said.
“You used to carry a knife. You tried to rob me, that’s how we met.”
“I only made that mistake once or twice. Father O’Leary has me on the straight and narrow path now.”
“Are you still working at his soup kitchen?”
“Yes, but I’m worried because the church is running low on food lately.”
Jake removed the holstered pistol off the table, and handed it to Paul. “Carry this weapon and cover my six.”
“Roger that.” Paul strapped on the belt. “Jake, you look like a homeless man I used to know, who dropped acid, snorted coke, then shot up heroin while drinking whiskey. He didn’t live through it. Maybe we should get you to a hospital.”
Jake shook his head and checked his phone. Terrell had let his call go to voicemail. He left a message, slurring his words. “Grinds, trace my phone, and send the police to my location. Hurry!” He added some creative profanity from their war deployments. Grabbing some zip ties, he used them to bind the hands and feet of the man with cigar breath he’d beaten into unconsciousness.
“We have to find those kids.” He stumbled into the hallway with Cody and Paul following him. Everything appeared as if it was a shimmering, melting dream. He forced himself to focus on his mission. “Cody, search for hostages. Search.”
Cody barked once and ran through the large house. Jake followed him, trusting his dog with his life. He held the assault rifle up in front of him, ready to kill any threat his dog confronted. Cody stopped and sniffed the air. He growled and turned down another hallway. Jake and Paul ran after him.
Cody went to a door and touched the knob with both front paws, trying to open it. Jake reached out and tried the doorknob too. It was locked. He looked at his dog. “Are you sure you want us to go in there?”
Cody pawed at the door.
“Okay, we’re going in. You know the drill.”
Cody stepped to the side and watched Jake, who took several steps back and then ran and slammed his body against the door. It burst open and Jake found himself in a master bedroom. He pointed the rifle left and right and swept the area, ready to shoot any threats,
but he only saw two frightened children sitting on a bed—a boy and a girl.
The girl had a shower rod in her hands, holding one end out toward Jake like a spear. Her little brother stayed behind her, looking over her shoulder with wide eyes.
Jake was impressed with their courage and resourcefulness. He turned to Paul, “Clear the other bedrooms.”
“Roger.” Paul went out the door.
Jake leaned his rifle against the wall and got down on one knee, empty-handed.
“Chrissy and Ben, you’re safe now. We’re here to rescue you. Your mother sent us.”
The girl looked like she wanted to believe him, but she had doubts and fears.
Jake took out his phone and called Lauren.
“Yes, Jake?”
“Your children want to say hello.”
“You found them!”
Jake held out the phone to the girl. She shook her head and continued to point the shower rod at him.
“I understand. I’ll hold the phone for you.”
Jake used FaceTime, put it on speaker and then held the phone so the girl could see her mother’s face.
Chrissy’s chin trembled as she tried hard to keep from crying. “Mommy?”
“Yes, Chrissy, Mommy’s here.”
“Two scary men and a golden dog are with us. Who are they?”
“Jake and Cody are working for me. I sent them to find you and bring you home.”
“Say the safe word so I know you’re telling the truth.”
“Barracuda.”
Chrissy dropped the shower rod, ran to Jake, put her arms around his neck, and cried on his shoulder. Jake held her and patted her on the back. Ben came over to them and Jake pulled him in for a hug too.
Jake handed his phone to Chrissy so she could talk to her mother.
Chrissy swiped at the tears running down her cheeks. “I was so scared, Mommy, but I tried to be brave for Ben.”
Lauren’s voice sounded as if she was choking. “You were very brave, sweetheart. It’s over now. Jake is going to bring you home to me.”
