Cupid to the Rescue: A Tail-Wagging Valentine's Day Anthology

by Lisa Mondello

  More bite work.

  It was all part of weekly retraining and periodic testing to make sure that all of the dogs were kept up to standards.

  It was also Valentin’s first chance to prove that he qualified.

  Today’s group was all attack dogs.

  There was some overlap. ERT dogs could find the most obvious explosives. And the sniffer dogs could attack—if they had to. Every dog here today, except Valentin, was a “pointy-ear”—breeds with sharply upright ears like Malinois, Dobies, and the big German shepherds that specialized in defense and attack. Sniffers were typically all floppy-eared. His dog was the only floppy-ear in sight.

  Alex walked Valentin up to the line.

  “Uh,” Lieutenant Jurgen looked doubtful for the first time. “Didn’t design this course with a Russian bear dog in mind.”

  “Let’s see how we do.” Alex knew Valentin’s ability even if the others didn’t. His dog looked like he lumbered along, but he was so big that he covered ground surprisingly fast.

  He was also smart as hell.

  Alex hadn’t been the only one watching Bethany and Trixie run the course.

  At the line he said softly, “Vperyod.” Forward.

  Valentin lumbered through the slalom line of stakes. They were so close-spaced that he had to take the time to turn almost ninety degrees for each passage, but he went through clean.

  The tunnel was tight but he made it—sparing Alex the image of having to slice open the heavy culvert pipe to rescue his dog. The narrow walkway and high bridge were no challenge for his sure-footed dog.

  Valentin took his “Baryer!” command and managed to Jump the four-foot wall with only a little difficulty. A hundred-and-eighty-pound dog was never intended to fly.

  Alex could hear Carlton and a few of the other trainers making jokes about Valentin facing the six-foot wall further down the course.

  Valentin glanced back to check in. Rather than calling for an attack, Alex hand-signaled him to the truck.

  All of the other dogs had jumped through the truck’s window to put the bite on the mannequin. With his rear paws on the ground, Valentin simply rested his forepaws on the driver’s windowsill, stuck his big head in—and ripped off the mannequin’s head.

  That silenced the other trainers.

  “You can let him go around the wall,” Jurgen commented as Valentin dropped his head and charged the six-foot wall.

  But they’d come up with a tactic for that back in San Francisco.

  At a full charge, Valentine turned sideways at the last moment and simply threw his shoulder into it. The fence exploded in splinters flying in every direction.

  “Huh! Guess I’ll have to make that a little stronger,” was Jurgen’s only comment.

  Alex didn’t tell him that the San Francisco course builders had gone through five generations of fences before they found one stout enough to stop Valentin.

  The last task of the first lap of the course was to take down a “villain” in his monstrous bite suit.

  Alex almost forgot; the padding was meant to protect the trainer from the bite of “normal” attack dogs. At the last second he let out a sharp whistle.

  Valentin dug in his heels, slowing abruptly, and merely flattened the trainer. Rather than biting the trainer and risking the damage Valentin’s massive jaws could cause through even the bite suit’s padding, he simply sat on the trainer’s chest. His massive tail flapped back and forth over the man’s face mask, which probably made his helmet ring.

  There was a round of applause.

  Not from Carlton, of course.

  Valentine clearly wanted to play some more. He stared hard at Carlton for a moment to let him know when to be careful with his next comment, then called out “Aport!” Valentin stepped off the man in the bite suit, clamped his jaw on the shoulder padding, and trotted over, easily dragging the trainer with him.

  The others’ silence and Jurgen’s thoughtful grunt was a sufficient praise for Alex.

  Heart of a Russian Bear Dog: Chapter 2

  “This is utterly ridiculous!” Tanya leaned back against her desk with her arms crossed. “I have only just arrived in Washington.”

  “I have instructions from your father that if you refuse his order for your protection, I am to put you on airplane and send you home to Kyiv.” Ambassador Tomas Khomenko stood at parade rest precisely three paces away, as he usually did when he was unhappy with his duty. Even in his advanced age, there was no taking the military out of the old soldier.

  “Tomas!”

  “Ms. Tatyana Ivanovna Larina.” The ambassador was being stiffly formal, another bad sign.

  “I can not go back. I have a treaty to sign.”

  “Yet, your father’s order stands.”

  “He is only the Prime Minister. I was appointed to be Assistant Minister of Foreign Relations by the President, and approved by Parliament.”

  Mostly independent of her father’s high position… Who was she fooling? But her appointment wasn’t more than a quarter his doing. A third? But by God, the other two thirds had been all her. And this treaty would prove that she fully deserved the appointment. As herself, not her father’s daughter.

  “What say does he have over my life?” Apparently the power to still make Tanya feel like a petulant child of twelve instead of a woman in the prime of her life. She could protect herself; she was a trained soldier after all.

  “Ms. Tatyana—” he sounded infinitely pained.

  “Tomas!” He was so old school. It was as if he hadn’t changed since the Soviet Union collapsed three decades ago.

  “As you wish…Tanya.” She didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that he appeared to choke on using the short form of her first name. Or that it pleased her so much at the moment.

  “You’ve been Ukraine’s ambassador to the US since long before Father became the Prime Minister. You could ignore him.”

  “I could. But the President, he has confirmed this protection order.”

  Layno! Shit!

  “Tak. Yes. Fine. Bring in these American guards. I still do not know why I have need of them. I am very skilled.” Despite her family’s wishes, she’d served four years in the Ukrainian Ground Forces—joining the 95th Air Assault Brigade just before the War of Donbass. She’d been part of the historic strike four-hundred-and-fifty kilometers through Russian lines as they illegally grabbed the Crimea. Sadly, standing too close to a Russian tank she’d mined had cost her the use of her left ear and her service. But it had been beautiful watching the Russian tank die. Now she had a new way to serve.

  “Thank you, Ms.…Tanya. We do not know these American ways. We must keep you safe.” He turned to go fetch the guards.

  Anything to get her out of the Ukrainian Embassy. As self-important as the Americans were, they were not the center of Ukraine’s world. Which was reflected in her country’s Washington, DC embassy. Not only wasn’t it on the main embassy row, it was the very farthest from the city center on the secondary row. Only Thailand, and Antigua and Barbuda were out this far.

  The three-story brick edifice looked little better than a Soviet Khrushchyovka apartment block and was just as lacking in charm on the inside. Brown walls failed to accent the brown-linoleum flooring. Instead, combined with the narrow windows—steel-barred on the first floor—it required having the lights on even on a sunny afternoon, which failed to actually cast any warmth on the brown fake-leather furniture.

  The ambassador had given her the nicest office after his own, which appeared to have had Joseph Stalin as the interior decorator. His bust had gone away on Ukrainian Independence Day in 1991 but nothing had replaced it—even Tomas looked like he’d been here since that day. There was a Ukrainian flag, and a picture of the Ukrainian President shaking her father the Prime Minister’s hand. She sighed. Even here she couldn’t escape Father’s watchful eye.

  The only sign she wasn’t in Kyiv was the white two-story Starbucks that faced the embassy from across the busy street.r />
  Ambassador Tomas returned with two Americans…and their dogs. She hadn’t expected that.

  The first was a tall man, greatly bulked up by his bulletproof vest and all of the other gear hanging from his vest. He had no weapons, but he had the holsters, so his guns must be at the front security desk. He led in a Belgian Malinois as handsome as his master. The dog was scanning the room and sniffing the air while its handler was… scanning her. She had some experience with guard dogs, and far too much with men like him.

  The second man was as different as possible from his companion. He was no heavier than the Malinois’ handler, but he wasn’t overwhelmed by his gear at all. He had one of those eternally young and hopeful faces. His expression was more the overeager boy than jaded urbanite. His hair was blond, and he wore a baseball cap with USSS across the brow in big letters. It was cocked just slightly askew, giving him a casual air.

  His first action upon entering was to scan the room quickly. He barely looked at her, which was almost as irritating as the first man’s blatantly assessing look. Then he snapped his fingers and waved one finger in a quick circle close by his side.

  A massive Caucasian shepherd with a gorgeous dark brown coat padded out from behind him. The dog seemed to fill the room as he made a quick circuit of it—he crossed past file cabinets, around chairs, sniffed under her desk, and circled back around to the other side. His only pause was as he reached her. The big dog sniffed her, wagged his tail once, then moved on.

  She’d been around enough Ukrainian Army guard dogs to know that wag was unusual. When they were seeking scent, trained dogs were very, very focused.

  No one spoke until the dog had completed its circuit and returned to its handler’s side.

  “Show off.”

  She could just hear the Malinois’ handler mutter to his teammate before he turned to her.

  “Lieutenant Carlton Tibbets, ma’am, US Secret Service, Uniformed Division. I’ll be leading your detail. This is Ripper.” He neglected to introduce his companion.

  “Sidet’,” the blond agent spoke softly in Russian and the Caucasian shepherd sat beside him. He gave it a treat. Show off? Perhaps, but she also liked the thoroughness—trust nothing. The Russians had taught the Ukrainians that a thousand times over the centuries.

  “Valentin, ma’am,” he rubbed the dog’s head, before looking up at her. “And I’m— Holy shit! Tatyana Larina.”

  The dog looked up at him in surprise and then turned to inspect her more closely.

  “Tanya. I am to be called Tanya. Or better yet, Ms. Larina. Not that other name. Which should have been clear in one of your insidious American intelligence briefing files.”

  “I apologize for my language. Sorry, ma’am. And we weren’t provided with any briefing file.”

  By Carlton’s smug look, they had been and he’d chosen not to share it.

  “But you are the spitting image,” the unnamed agent continued.

  “The spitting image of what?” But she was very afraid that she already knew his answer.

  In a good Russian accent, he spoke the verse that was the bane of her existence. “And so Tatyana was her name / Nor by her sister's brilliancy / Nor by her beauty she became / The attraction of every eye.” He said it as more as a whisper than any arrogant recitation.

  “What the hell?” Carlton was looking at his fellow agent.

  It was from Aleksandr Pushkin’s 1833 poetic masterpiece, Eugene Onegin. And she was the real-life twin of the most famous painting of Pushkin’s fictional Tatyana Larina. She still hadn’t forgiven her father for having the surname Larin then, knowing that, naming her after his favorite literary heroine, Tatyana. Being female, Larin became Larina.

  Worse, Tatyana Larina was not Elizabeth Bennet with her happy-ever-after ending. Instead, Tanya was named for Russia’s equally famous equivalent who had denied true love, instead choosing honor and duty in such a terribly depressing Russian way.

  Her mother, where she’d gotten most of her looks, at least had the decency to see the irony. To this day, Father was still tickled by it.

  Tomas was smiling with deep amusement, something she hadn’t known the man was capable of, despite his being a frequent guest at her family’s dinner table when he was in the Ukraine.

  “You shall not find me to be: Wild, sad, silent did the maid appear / As in the timid forest deer,” she replied in Russian with the next couplet of the poem.

  Tomas’ amusement grew, “That is a great truth.”

  She ignored them both and switched back to English. “Lieutenant Tibbets, do I need two dogs to guard me?”

  “We’ll be working in shifts. Based upon your profile—”

  The Caucasian shepherd’s handler twisted sharply at that. Carlton’s smug smile returned. This Russian-speaking blond boy and his beautiful dog were not his favorites.

  “—you are under possible threat from Russian agents. The treaty that you have sponsored—”

  Sponsored? It had been her sole creation—ramming it through every step of the Ukrainian’s arcane and corrupt political system.

  “—is very unpopular with their government. We’ve been asked to protect you from potential foreign agencies until it is signed next week.”

  “And,” the unnamed agent spoke up, his smile said it would be a tease, “it would look terrible if a high-ranking foreign official were to die on our soil.” He had recovered quickly from his earlier surprise at not knowing about the report regarding her. Apparently, he was not even enough of a man to feel anger. If he were such a fan of Onegin, he should challenge this Carlton Tibbets to a duel over his besmirched honor.

  And yet he looked at her as if he knew things about her just because she looked like a century-old portrait of a two-century old heroine.

  Well, she’d show him that she was no cast member from Russia’s Golden Age of Literature.

  Heart of a Russian Bear Dog: Chapter 3

  “Valentin, Ko mne!” To Me. Tanya Larina called it out with the authority of someone who expected to be obeyed.

  Valentin popped to his feet, and trotted over to her as she continued leaning back on the edge of her desk.

  What the hell? Alex was so surprised the he couldn’t even blink.

  Russian bear dogs were suspicious of everyone and only ever answered to one master, the alpha dog—and Alex had done a lot of training to prove that was himself. The breed was always immensely loyal, but to only one master. They’d tolerate family and teammates, but never answer to them.

  Yet Valentin trotted over to the Ukrainian beauty as if she was the alpha.

  Granted, she was astonishing. Five-ten at least. Slender, the smoothness of her simple squat and how it left her well-poised to spring in any direction revealed advanced training—military or martial arts. Maybe dance, for which she certainly had the look.

  Valentin nosed the long dark hair that slid forward off her shoulder in soft curls which echoed the Timoshenko portrait.

  She gave Valentin a big hug and a head rub. His tail was wagging almost as fast as a Malinois’. He even licked her hand for crying out loud.

  Valentin then turned to give him a look as if surprise that Alex hadn’t accompanied him across the room.

  “He is such a beautiful dog.” Even though she didn’t use a squeaky dog voice, Valentin was eating it up. Tanya’s voice was low and smooth. And he could hear everything in her tone, the tease and the pleasure that her ploy had worked. But also the admiration for the great Russian bear dog.

  But Valentin never socialized, especially not with other humans.

  Apparently satisfied with having made her point, she stood.

  Valentin remained close before her, looking up at her face.

  “Kysh,” she wiggled her fingers at him. Shoo!

  Valentin didn’t move.

  Alex considered calling Valentin back, but he knew what she’d done. Rather than confronting him over identifying her with Pushkin’s tragic heroine, she’d tried to punish him by calling
Valentin.

  Alex wished he could ask his dog why that worked, but he wasn’t going to help her get out of it unless she asked.

  Besides, there was no denying the similarities. Her face was aristocratic, and she would look great in one of those early-1800s high-waisted empire-style dresses that cinched just below a woman’s breasts. Though the stone-washed designer jeans and the red jewel-tone satin blouse did look exceptional on her as well. The lace-up mid-calf black boots kept her from appearing merely feminine. Instead she looked ready to take on some Russians.

  She tried several things, until even Carlton was smiling, but Valentin was having none of it. She even tried ignoring him, but it was hard to ignore a waist-high, hundred-and-eighty-pound dog.

  She finally looked from the dog to him. “What is the command I need?”

  “Go Home,” Alex said in English.

  “Domoy!” She pointed at Alex’s chest.

  Valentin trotted back to stand at his side, but left a longing look in his wake.

  “Thank you, Agent…”

  “Sergeant Warren,” Carlton answered for him. “Agent” meant protection detail, not Uniformed Division, but did he need to hit Alex’s lower rank quite so hard?

  “Alex Warren. That’s how I got interested in Aleksandr Pushkin in the first place. We share part of a first name and a birthday.”

  “June 6th. Practically a national holiday—for Russians.” Her tone reminded him that Ukraine was not Russia, though he knew Pushkin was almost equally popular there. He had been exiled to Odessa, Ukraine, while he wrote Eugene Onegin, after all.

  “May 26th,” Alex corrected her. “We overlap under the old style, Julian calendar that he was born under, not that new-fangled Georgian thing that the Soviets only adopted in 1918—along with the rest of the world, I’ll admit.”

  Her eye roll was as emphatic as his parents’ when he got on about Russian history. Nerd alert. Maybe he really should drop it.

  “Are you first shift, Lieutenant Tibbets?” She very clearly turned the cold shoulder on him. Real smooth, Alex. Way to impress the protectee.