Caesar the War Dog 4

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  About the Book

  Has Caesar met his match?

  Explosive detection dog Caesar is in Texas with his handler, Ben, to train the local police. When a bomb detonates nearby and Caesar sniffs out a second bomb at the scene, he attracts the wrong kind of attention.

  Mexican crime lord Carlos Marron, known as the Green Parrot, decides that the world-famous labrador can protect him from the kind of bomb attack that targeted his brother. Carlos orders his subordinates to dognap Caesar – and when Ben leaves Caesar in quarantine, the gang swoops.

  Now, Ben, Charlie and the GRRR team have to locate and rescue Caesar in Mexico, in the middle of a deadly crime cartel war.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  List of Military Terms

  Fact File

  About the Author

  Also by Stephen DandoCollins

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  Once again for Louise, who shares Caesar’s adventures with me from the first glimmer of an idea to the very last correction. With grateful thanks to Richard, Zoe and Catriona, and to the many readers who tell me how much they love Caesar the war dog and can’t wait until his next adventure.

  The President of the United States gazed down the line of thirteen soldiers standing to rigid attention. Hailing from seven different countries, all of them wore the varying uniforms of their national armies, except for one item of apparel they had in common – the sky-blue beret of the United Nations. The President dropped his eyes to the chocolate labrador sitting dutifully beside one of the soldiers. The dog, wearing the red parade vest of the EDD section of the Australian Army’s Special Operations Engineer Regiment (SOER), stared directly ahead, just like the soldiers around him, in best military fashion.

  ‘So, this is the famous Caesar the war dog,’ said the President. He was a tall, handsome man with greying hair. ‘Maybe I should just give the award to him, seeing he’s the only member of this top-secret United Nations unit who’s permitted to be named and photographed.’

  Everyone laughed, and the President excused himself to walk over to the lectern. He proceeded to deliver a speech praising the UN’s Global Rapid Reaction Responders (GRRR) for the work they had done from Afghanistan to Africa and places in between.

  ‘I understand you have come here direct from an operation in the Caribbean,’ he went on, ‘where you rescued the Belgian Ambassador to the United States and his family from modern-day pirates. The fact that, for reasons of international security, this operation was kept out of the media and officially never happened, in no way lessens the importance of your work and dedicated service. You are volunteers and, wherever you are in the world, you are prepared to drop whatever you are doing to defuse a crisis situation – at great risk to yourselves – which deserves enormous credit. This citation is well earned.’

  Stepping down from the dais to applause, the President turned to a United States Marine Corps sergeant holding a scroll upon a red velvet cushion.

  ‘Captain Lee,’ he called, taking the scroll, ‘please step forward.’

  Liberty Lee, Commander of GRRR, stepped forward. She came stiffly to attention in front of the President and saluted.

  ‘Captain,’ said the President, ‘I’m pleased that you and your team were able to drop by to see us here in Washington prior to their returning to base.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied Liberty.

  ‘On behalf of the people and the government of the United States, it gives me great pleasure to present the Global Rapid Reaction Responders with the Presidential Unit Citation, which has rarely been awarded to non-American military units.’ He handed the scroll to Liberty.

  ‘Thank you, Mr President.’ Liberty accepted the citation scroll and stiffly saluted once more. ‘It is a great honour. This award will be proudly displayed at UN headquarters.’

  Soon, the official ceremony was over and the President moved along the line of GRRR members, talking to each one in turn, with Captain Lee providing introductions. First to receive the President’s attention was Sergeant Charlie Grover, VC, of the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment, the famous and elite SAS. Next was a diminutive trooper from the SAS known to friend and foe alike as Bendigo Baz, followed by three American Special Forces soldiers – the gum-chewing Sergeant Duke Hazard, Texan Sergeant Tim McHenry and signaller Corporal Brian Cisco. Direct from the UK were Scotsman Sergeant Angus Bruce of the Royal Marine Commandos, and Corporal Chris Banner of the Special Boat Service.

  The President then chatted to Sergeant Jean-Claude Lyon from the French Foreign Legion, Corporal Casper Mortenson from the Danish Army’s Hunter Corps, and combat medic Private Willy Wolf from the German Army’s Kommando Spezialkräfte. And from the Japanese Self-Defence Force, there was Corporal Toushi Harada, the unit’s computer whiz. When the President reached Toushi and held out his hand, Toushi bowed to him. Last of all, the President came to Caesar and his handler, Sergeant Ben Fulton of the Australian Army’s SOER.

  ‘I saved you for last, Caesar,’ said the President, grinning cheekily.

  Caesar responded by holding up one paw.

  Laughing, the President bent and shook the paw as if he were shaking a hand. Then the leader of the free world straightened and waved an aide forward. The aide, dressed in a smart white uniform, carried a silver plate upon which sat a large bone.

  ‘I figured that Caesar would appreciate a juicy bone more than a citation,’ the President said to Ben, ‘so I asked the White House’s executive chef to rustle up something special for him. Is it okay if I give it to Caesar, Sergeant?’

  ‘Sure is, sir,’ Ben responded proudly. ‘Can’t be many dogs that get to have a bone presented to them by the President of the United States himself. My kids, Josh and Maddie, won’t believe it!’

  ‘You’re right,’ the President said. ‘The only other canines with that privilege are my family’s two pet dogs.’ He nodded to the aide, who took the bone from the plate and placed it on the grass in front of Caesar.

  With his tail wagging, the brown labrador lowered his nose and sniffed the bone. Then he looked up at Ben, as if asking, Can I have it, boss?

  Ben broke into a smile. ‘That’s okay, mate,’ he said to his four-legged partner. ‘Go ahead and enjoy the bone. I think we can trust the White House kitchen staff not to poison you.’

  Caesar eased down and, holding the bone in place with his right paw, began to gnaw at it.

  The President’s brow creased with surprise. ‘You mean to say that people have tried to give your dog poisoned bones before today, Sergeant?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Ben replied. ‘In Afghanistan, Caesar and war dogs like him became such a threat to the Taliban, they tried leaving poisoned food out for them. But Caesar is very good about stray food. He will usually ask me if it’s okay to eat something.’

  ‘That is how intelligent this dog is, sir,’ said Liberty Lee.

  ‘More intelligent than many human, sir,’ added Toushi.

  The President chuckled. ‘I can believe it
.’

  ‘He has saved all our lives at one time or another, Mr President,’ said Liberty earnestly. ‘There’s no EDD that compares to Caesar. GRRR would not be the same without him.’

  ‘Caesar is a good name,’ said the President, nodding to himself. ‘Very military. Did you name him, Sergeant?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘No, sir. He’d been given that name by the time I came across him in the training kennels.’

  ‘You know, there was a United States Marine Corps dog served in Bougainville in the Pacific during the Second World War which, I do believe, also had the name of Caesar.’

  ‘I didn’t know that, sir,’ replied Ben.

  ‘So, where do you folks go from here?’ the President asked.

  ‘Most of us will return to our regular units, sir, until GRRR is needed again,’ Ben answered. ‘As for Sergeant Grover, Caesar and myself, we’re heading for the University of Texas to speak at a police seminar on rapid response.’

  ‘I’m guessing that Caesar won’t actually be speaking at the conference,’ the President said with a grin.

  Ben smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sure Caesar will be showing police from all over America a few of his EDD tricks, sir.’

  ‘I’d like to see that. So, where in Texas exactly are you headed?’

  ‘San Antonio, sir.’

  The President looked pleased. ‘San Antonio? That’s a mighty fine city. They have a champion NBA team and the best rodeo in the country.’ He leaned in closer to Ben. ‘And of course it’s home to the Alamo. You should check it out if you get a chance. Believe me, you won’t forget your time in San Antonio.’

  The hot Texan sun glinted off the closely shaven head of Antonio Lopez. Kneeling at the low brick wall that skirted the rooftop, and using binoculars, he studied San Antonio’s slow-moving downtown traffic. His attention was focused on a late-model Chevrolet Impala sedan being towed away, six storeys below.

  ‘Boom!’ he said with a faint smile. ‘And El Loro Verde’s brother will be dead, just like that, with one little car bomb. Clever, huh, Manny?’

  ‘Sí, Antonio. But how much longer before we can vamoose?’ grumbled his associate Emanuel ‘Manny’ Diaz.

  ‘Until I say we can,’ Lopez said firmly. ‘So, keep writing what I tell you when I tell you.’ He checked his watch, noting the exact time.

  ‘Okay, Patrón,’ Manny replied with a sigh.

  Lopez returned the binoculars to his eyes. ‘So, we have established that a stolen automobile can be parked in the street for three hours before the city authorities tow it away. Sí?’

  ‘Sí, three hours.’

  ‘Now, the traffic signals. They change –’ Lopez paused, then checked his watch again – ‘every two minutes.’

  ‘The traffic signals, they change every two minutes,’ Manny acknowledged, scribbling on a notepad.

  ‘Okay, now we’ll see how the cops react.’ Laying aside his binoculars, Lopez took out a phone and dialled 911.

  ‘Emergency,’ answered a female voice. ‘What service do you require?’

  ‘Quick! Get me the police!’ Lopez said with fake urgency. ‘I see a man with a gun.’

  Moments later, a male voice came on the line. ‘San Antonio Police Department.’

  ‘There is a man with a gun – a rifle,’ said Lopez. ‘I think he is going to shoot some people. Corner of East Houston and Broadway.’

  ‘Can I have your name, sir?’

  Lopez ignored the question. ‘You must hurry! The man is wearing a long blue coat and a baseball cap. He is outside the bank, north side of the intersection of East Houston and Broadway. You must hurry, or something bad will happen.’ Lopez hung up.

  The two men waited. A few minutes passed before they heard the approach of police sirens. Lopez trained his binoculars on the corner of East Houston Street and Broadway, opposite. Before long, a pair of police motorcycles slew to a halt. The policemen dismounted and, drawing their Smith & Wesson M&P40 revolvers, took cover behind parked cars. Lopez could see them calling and waving to pedestrians, urging them to get off the pavement. They then levelled their revolvers at a man sitting on the footpath with his back to the wall of the Texas National Bank building.

  The man appeared to have only one leg and was wearing a baseball cap, a long overcoat, jeans and dark glasses. A rug on the pavement in front of him was littered with small change and a few dollar notes. A handmade cardboard sign suspended around his neck read ‘Vietnam Vet. I gave. How about you?’ Two metal objects lay beside him; from a distance they looked the length and size of a rifle.

  More wailing sirens rent the air. Within minutes, police cars were pulling up with screeching tyres north, south, east and west of the intersection. Armed police officers tumbled out and took up firing positions, aiming at the man on the pavement.

  Lopez checked his watch. ‘Just over four minutes,’ he said.

  Below, police dashed toward the seated man. He raised his hands, protesting vehemently, but was roughly bundled over onto his chest, frisked and then handcuffed. The policemen soon realised that the objects lying beside the man were crutches, not rifles. If he were to walk anywhere, the man needed his hands free to use his crutches. He was lifted to a standing position, freed from the handcuffs and handed the crutches.

  As he was escorted away to a police car, to be taken to headquarters for questioning, the man loudly protested that he’d only been begging for money. He added that some shiny-headed Hispanic guy he’d never seen before had paid him fifty bucks to sit on that particular corner. With the traffic stopped, Lopez and his offsider could hear the one-legged man’s protests from all the way up on the roof across the street. Lopez was grinning.

  ‘What now, Patrón?’ asked Manny.

  ‘Now we wait to see if our friend Marron keeps his regular appointment. Come, out of the sun.’ Lopez rose and, with his subordinate following close behind, led the way to the rooftop stairwell, where they would hide, out of sight.

  Thirty minutes later, the two Mexican gunmen scuttled across the rooftop to their previous viewing position. Kneeling at the low brick wall, Lopez checked his watch: ten minutes before noon. Lopez held the bin oculars to his eyes once more, focused on the entrance to the Texas National Bank.

  A clock in the distance began to chime. A black Chrysler 300C drew to a halt outside the bank. Twenty-two-year-old, curly headed Rocky Marron emerged from a rear door of the sedan. He was wearing an expensive business suit, white T-shirt, sunglasses and a San Antonio Spurs baseball cap. He looked up and down the street warily. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, Marron took a suitcase from the Chrysler’s back seat and hurried to the bank’s revolving door. As soon as he was inside the building, the sedan took off up the street.

  Lopez nodded to himself as he removed the binoculars from his eyes. ‘Every Tuesday and Wednesday, precisely at noon, Rocky arrives to make a deposit. A creature of habit, our friend Rocky. To stay alive, he should change the pattern of his behaviour.’

  ‘His habit will be the death of him!’ Manny said with a smile.

  Lopez turned for the stairs. ‘Take me to the bomb-maker. Tomorrow we shall return to give Rocky Marron an explosive welcome when he comes to make his next deposit.’

  Late that afternoon, a captain and a sergeant from the San Antonio Police Department met Ben, Caesar and Charlie at Lackland Air Force Base on the western outskirts of San Antonio. The US Air Force had laid on a ride for the Aussies in a Hercules C-130 that had been winging its way down from Washington on a routine transport flight. Flying in a Hercules was as normal as breathing to Caesar, Ben and Charlie. Caesar’s tail had started wagging furiously as he was led toward the big transport plane at Andrews Base in Washington. Seeing the Herc, Caesar had thought they must be going for a parachute jump – an activity he loved.

  ‘Over here, you guys,’ called the SAPD’s Captain Leo De Silva. He and his companion stood beside a black-and-white station wagon with ‘POLICE, Protecting the Alamo City’ painted on its side. The Alamo, it
seemed to the Australian visitors, was a big deal here.

  Ben and Charlie waved as they emerged from a terminal building. Both men had their military kitbag slung over a shoulder and made their way over with Caesar trotting along beside them on a two-metre metal leash.

  ‘Leo De Silva,’ said the police captain, extending his hand to Charlie. He was tall and olive-skinned, with a thick moustache adorning his top lip. ‘And this is Sergeant “Tex” Austin.’ Austin was shorter, dumpier and losing his hair.

  There were handshakes all round.

  ‘Call me Charlie.’

  ‘I’m Ben Fulton, and this is Caesar,’ said Ben.

  De Silva nodded toward the station wagon’s rear hatch. ‘Caesar can go in the back with the bags.’

  ‘I’d rather Caesar rode inside with me, sir,’ replied Ben. ‘He could get hurt rolling around in the back.’

  The police captain raised his eyebrows. ‘Okay.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want the dawg to drive while we’re at it?’ Sergeant Austin said in a supercilious tone.

  ‘Caesar only drives in emergencies,’ said Charlie, keeping a straight face.

  Austin looked at him with surprise, before breaking into a grin.

  The two Americans climbed into the front while Ben and Charlie sat in the back with Caesar between them. The station wagon was soon speeding southwest along the highway toward downtown San Antonio.

  ‘So, when we were in Washington, the President said we should check out the Alamo while we’re down here,’ said Ben. ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘You’ve never heard of the Alamo?’ said an incredulous Captain De Silva.

  ‘Can’t say that I have.’

  ‘Partner, it’s only the most famous historic battle site in Texas, if not in all of America. In 1836, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and a bunch of Texans occupied the Alamo, an old Spanish mission, while they held off the whole Mexican army of General Santa Anna. They did it for close to two weeks. Outnumbered fifteen to one, they were. They ended up all falling, fighting for Texas’s liberty.’