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Prologue
1
Iniquus’ Cerberus Tactical K9 is Building Team Charlie
Shenandoah, Virginia
Basil St. John—code-named Halo—unfolded himself from the back of the gunmetal gray passenger van. For an hour and a half, he’d traveled west with Cerberus Team Alpha from Iniquus Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Shenandoah Valley.
“Shenandoah.” Halo moved those unfamiliar sounds around his lips and tongue, thinking it had a forlorn kind of feel to it. As Halo set his rucksack on the ground at his feet and sent his gaze up into the hills, he remembered an American Marine from Wyoming he’d met behind the wire of a UN military base back in Halo’s early days as an Australian Commando. With his sweat-stained cowboy hat, that Marine sat near the campfire, strumming his guitar, singing about home—lush with prairie grasses dancing under a bright sun during the day and the night’s sky a riot of diamonds overhead.
Those moonlit songs painted a picture of the mid-west in Halo’s imagination.
The pictures he’d formed of the East Coast, including D.C., the city he hoped to call home, came from the movies. Five days ago, Halo had flown in from New South Wales to interview for a job that had come available with world-renowned Iniquus Security.
Halo’s military record stood strong. But that record alone wasn’t going to get him a place on the teams. Even with the special operator boxes ticked, the Iniquus hiring process was a thorough one. Halo had spent days moving through daunting security scrutiny, followed by physical, ethical, and psychological tests. Iniquus had a worldwide reputation for integrity and excellence; they weren’t going to take on anyone who didn’t fit their specs, and that included American citizenship, high-level security clearance, and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. Lucky for Halo, though he hadn’t been to the United States since he was a month old, he had, in fact, started this life in a New York City hospital.
As Halo stepped off the plane in D.C., he thought his mental pictures had pretty much lined up. But standing here in the parking lot with the sun just breaking over the horizon in the east, sending a golden glow over the height and breadth of the mountain range sprawling across the horizon, Halo had to admit that he hadn’t expected this—not so close to the capital city, anyway.
Today, Cerberus Alpha was at the base of the mountain, taking on a real-world mission.
The team had invited Halo along. It was a final test to see if he was a good fit for Iniquus’s K9 Tactical Team. Just like in all special forces units, only a portion of the job was about skill proficiency and technical knowledge. A big chunk of success was personality. Could you get along? Did you have a team mindset? Did they have confidence that you had their back when things got wild and hairy?
When facing life-or-death scenarios, trust was everything.
And today, there was a life on the line. A woman had wandered from her care facility into the foothills after a delivery man didn’t wait to hear the door snick shut behind him.
Throwing his borrowed pack over his shoulders, Halo watched a car park in the back corner of the lot. The driver jumped from the car and ran to the knot of distraught family members huddling close. A high-pitched wail rode the wind, and Halo imagined that it could well be his own family if something like this were to happen to his gramps.
Halo turned to scan the sleepy-looking hill in front of him. It was hard to imagine that someone was out there and would soon be struggling to stay alive if the search teams didn’t get to her in time.
The family was lucky, though, in this one regard, trained search teams were amassing.
Max let out a high-pitched bark, looking for Halo and wanting out of his crate. Halo fell in line behind Ryder as the team unloaded their dogs from the follow van. Ryder was an Australian Commando brother. On his recommendation, Iniquus Command extended an invitation to Halo for the interview. And he was grateful.
Ryder tipped his ear toward the family, and Halo gave him a nod of understanding. It was tough to watch that kind of pain.
On the way out here, Ryder had told him that at times when circumstances presented as acutely perilous—be they missing children, someone with a medical condition, dangerous weather, or a suicidal war veteran—area officials often reached out to Cerberus to lend an assist while State resources scrambled.
When the Iniquus search teams were in town, they did their best to help. But they were often elsewhere—Team Bravo was training in the Caribbean, and Alpha was just now getting back from an Italian mudslide that trapped three contract-protected students for days in the debris.
Team Alpha was jet lagged and exhausted from the physical demands of their time in the dirt but put their personal comfort aside to be here.
Tripwire efficiently unloaded his German shepherd, Valor, from the K9 transport and stepped out of the way for Ryder to get Voodoo.
Today, Halo wanted two things very badly. He wanted Iniquus to offer him a contract, yes. But mostly, he wanted to be a force multiplier as the team worked to save a woman’s life.
Halo turned his attention to the van; it was his turn to get his dog.
Max sat proudly waiting, the tip of his tail vibrating with excitement. He knew they were going to work, and Max loved every minute of the physical and mental challenge.
“Ready to go, boy? Today, we’re not playing. Someone needs us to be in top form.” He unclasped the lock, and Max jumped down, rounding to flank Halo.
When Halo stepped out of the way for the next guy, Max pressed to his side. “Come on, Maxi, let’s get you into uniform. Today, you get to wear your helmet and goggles. Let’s see what Ryder says is in store for us.”
Halo had been training his K9, Take It to The Max, since he was about eight weeks old. As they got the call to interview for the position with Iniquus, Halo was celebrating Max’s second adoption day anniversary, which launched the Malinois full-blown into his doggy adolescence. And like human teens, that had its challenges.
Back in their early days together, when he was still a K9 handler with his Australian Commando unit, Halo would get home at night and work with his pup, patiently building the skillsets Max would need to reach his full potential. Tactical work, apprehension work, scent work, Max was a nose and a bite. And he enjoyed all of it—especially when he got to wear his doggy goggles. Dressing out in his tactical kit seemed to make Max feel badass.
