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“That’ll work.”
“I know we’re throwing you into the unknown,” Ridge said, “but that’s why we hire special forces. Roll with it. But when you come against questions, I expect you to radio them to the team. The main thing you’re to remember is that if you spot our subject, in the civilian world, we treat every find as if it were a crime scene, so minimal trace on your part.”
“Sir.”
Ridge clapped his hand onto Halo’s shoulder. “Let’s hope someone makes that call and makes it soon.” Ridge looked up at the sky. To Halo, it looked like a fine day. But Ridge pulled his brow together.
Checking his compass and grid, Ridge and Zeus took off into the woods.
When Halo looked down, Max’s muscles were taut, his eyes expectant. He was ready. “All right, Maxi, here we go.” Though their window for a successful recovery was narrow, any anxiety for Mrs. Haze’s safety had to be set aside so stress didn’t interfere with their task as they worked the problem. “We’re going to treat this day like any day we’re out there training. Calm and steady, good focus, hey?”
The only thing was this wasn’t a typical training day. Ridge trusted them with the trailing task, a position of high importance.
This was Max’s first time putting his skills to the test on a mission with real-world consequences. Halo shifted his attention to the family huddled together, arms holding each other tight, the sounds of broken sobs fracturing the otherwise silent soundscape. A family was desperate for the team’s success—their loved one’s life on the line.
2
As Team Alpha stepped off the blacktop into the woods, Halo and Max accepted the scent source from the sheriff who then removed himself from the scene until Max got onto the trail. Halo calmed his breathing and let go of his stress, thinking of his own gramps, confused and endangered. He let go of the pictures of the granddaughter trying to recall her grandmother’s shoe as she frantically looked in the stores trying to get a tread. Other than human eyes and ears and an ability to traverse the mountain, Halo didn’t have much to offer here. It was all on Max’s keen abilities.
Calm and steady from Halo’s leadership was important to Max’s success.
Without any equivocation, the reason they were out here was to bring Mrs. Haze home safely.
A distant second was to give Max a career helping others on the Iniquus search and rescue team.
As Halo stood at the doorway with Mrs. Haze’s scent in the bag, Max knew what was coming, stomping impatiently, ready to get on the trail.
Halo had needed to run Max through a series of tricks to calm his K9.
When they followed Mrs. Haze’s trail, Max and Halo would adulterate the scent cone. They got the one clean shot at this task. Better to wait and get it right.
When Max’s posture relaxed into focused control, Halo opened the bag and held it out to Max. “Ready to get at it, Maxi? Scent. Scent. Scent.”
On cue, Max lowered his nose into the bag, chuffing the smells left on the nightgown into his olfactory chambers. A canine nose was so discriminating that a dog could detect viruses, cancers, and even how far along a woman was in her pregnancy. Outlandish studies showed time and again how primitive human scent compared to their K9 friends.
Lifting out of the bag, Max had the imprint and was ready to go. Panting with excitement, he caught Halo’s gaze, waiting for the command. Two choices could happen here depending on the type of job they were on. “Get it,” was the combat command, the “dangerous criminal” command. “Get it,” told Max that he was to seek out the source of the scent and then bite it hard. Today, though, Halo called out the other command, “Max, seek. Seek. Seek.” Max would go about his business trailing the imprinted scent, and Halo would do his human best to keep up with the prize-winning athlete. When Max found the scent, he’d go back and find Halo and report his findings, leading Halo to the spot.
Max’s nose went up in the air. He sniffed over the threshold. After running tight circles outside the door, Max locked in on something and lowered his nose to the ground, chuffing happily. Legs splayed wide to keep his nose skimming the pavement, Max trotted forward in a straight line from the door, into the woods, and up the gentle rise of the slope.
So far, so good, but this terrain was going to present a considerable test, Halo thought as he stuffed the scent source into his pocket and followed Max into the tree line. Squirrels frisking with their playmates and other distractors filled the woods. An unfamiliar environment, the temptation of novel scents, even the feel of the ground underfoot—thick with leaves and slick with wet clay beneath—might be more than a two-year-old’s resolve.
Would prey drive overcome pack drive, especially when his pack wasn’t in sight? That was the test.
With a sudden jolt, Halo pitched forward. He was quick enough that he got his elbows wide and his hands on either side of his shoulders as he tried to disperse the energy to protect himself from injury.
In the last moment, Halo twisted his head away from the ground, his ear hovering just above the dampened leaves. Halo was grateful he didn’t break his nose in a face plant. He wasn’t so sure about his leg, though. Giving himself a moment to exhale the pain, Halo pressed himself back up on his feet.
Halo had undertaken his share of searches for people—those desperately praying for rescue and those urgently trying to evade detection—while working in the mountain ranges of the Middle East. But that landscape looked a world apart from this.
Even back home, Halo had been stationed out of Holsworthy, near enough to the Blue Mountains, where he liked to climb the cliffs.
The Shenandoah was part of the Blue Ridge. Those two mountain range names were about where the similarities ended.
The devil, as they say, was in the details.
Here, the terrain confronted the team with a boulder-studded elevation dense with trees. Leaves thickly blanketed the ground, looking like they’d make a soft bed for bivouacking, but could prove problematic when looking for their missing person, especially someone as fragile and endangered as the woman that had gone missing.
As the team got on the trail with their dogs today, they all knew that time was the enemy. For that reason, Halo had started out keeping a steady pace, following closely behind Max. But, very quickly, Halo’s foot found the first hole hiding under the blanket of leaves. His weight dropped straight down until he was mid-shin, but his forward momentum propelled him, and he found himself stretched out on the dampened ground. The forest litter hid the dangers beneath—roots that caught the toe of his boot, and worse were the holes that swallowed his leg. Each time he went down, he’d felt the torque and tension on his knees and ankle. Surely, there was a strategy for this terrain. He had a lot to learn.
