Off the Leash

by M. L. Buchman

  It was ridiculous. He’d met her twice for less than ten minutes each time, but she left a greater impression than a Jacques Torres praline. It seemed that everywhere he looked he saw her, or at least impressions of her.

  Even now, as he streamed toward the White House in the company of hundreds of others, he could spot a flounce of brunette hair just her color and in the same carelessly unfettered cut.

  He hurried across 14th pushing the limits of the Don’t Walk countdown. Normally he was glad to wait and simply enjoy the day, but not today.

  The glimmer of shining fifty-percent-cocoa brunette was still moving quickly down the block ahead of him. It moved with a speed and determination that had his pulse and his hopes picking up a beat. It was very hard to run into a dog handler by chance while working in the White House kitchen. Even on the busy streets of a large city it was more likely.

  Maybe, just maybe.

  He’d long since learned to keep his stride short or he outpaced anyone with him. But to keep up with Linda—if it was her—he opened up his stride. He could cover ground quickly when needed, yet still he only gained on her slowly.

  A chance gap down the half block of crowded sidewalk gave him a full view of the woman for just an instant.

  It was her.

  No one else that he’d ever met had that head-down determined walk so completely integrated into their stride. Was he shallow that he also knew her fabulous figure from behind could belong to no one else? Perhaps, but it was true. Three days ago, when she’d disappeared from his chocolate kitchen doorway and he’d hurried out into the hall to see her striding away, she had stamped an indelible impression on his memory. As fine a vision as when she’d been walking toward him. She made him smile, delectable from every angle.

  She slowed abruptly, causing a snarl in the normally smooth flow that was commuter foot traffic, causing her to briefly disappear from view. When she reemerged, their separation had halved. Then he missed the crossing at the corner of 15th and the White House Gift Shop and was left at the corner while President Zachary Thomas’ face stared at him from a dozen plates in the display window.

  As if he needed a reminder that he was focusing on a woman rather than his job.

  “Morning, Thor. Hey there, Linda. Long time no see.” Malcolm and Jim from the first day’s fence line. He came off the corner of Pennsylvania just as she crossed it and left the fence line to come greet her.

  Relief washed through her. She was about to open her mouth to explain what was happening when Malcolm veered sharply sideways, almost jerking the leash from Jim’s hand.

  Jim grunted once in surprise, then his gaze shifted from his dog to Thor and then to her face. No question, just a blink of surprise. Malcolm had found a scent and the handler had understood the cue.

  With quick slices of her hand, she indicated the backs of her three “most likelies.”

  He tried veering Malcom off to the side, but the springer spaniel wasn’t having anything to do with it. All the confirmation either of them needed.

  Blondes peeled off toward the White House, as did the couple with the coffee cups. One of the other couples stopped to take a picture in front of the statue of Lafayette—the French hero of the American Revolution.

  That left one couple and three solos. One of the solos peeled off, the brunette, but neither dog followed.

  The other two—Black Wool Coat and Gray Suit—continued as if in flight formation, continuing along Pennsylvania Avenue toward Blair House, where foreign dignitaries were frequently housed. She vaguely remembered yesterday’s briefing that the Japanese Defense Minister was already in residence to help prepare the way for the upcoming State Dinner. Or perhaps arriving early to make sure that the Japanese PM could lay claim to the Blair House accommodation so close to the White House rather than being placed in the Hay Adams across Lafayette Square.

  Then the two targets veered more deeply into the park.

  She glanced at Jim, who offered her a small shrug as if to say, “Your find, your call.”

  If only Thor had alerted to the scent, she might have hesitated. But with both dogs catching it…

  That’s when she had an idea.

  She pulled Thor back, much to the dog’s dismay, then slipped the release on his harness. The moment before he took off, she whispered “Fassen! Ruhig!” Attack! Silent!

  The small dog raced after the target, and in a dozen very small bounds, lunged at the back of Mr. Black Wool Coat. He grabbed a mouthful, then dug in all fours and yanked.

  Because Thor hadn’t made a sound, the man almost fell over backward in surprise.

  His briefcase fell to the ground as he tried to turn and see what was going on.

  Japanese. Five-seven. Black hair to just above the ears. Particularly prominent cheekbones. Squinting against the bright sun—now in his face—his left eye closed first. His hands were small and exposed, no gloves despite the cold weather. Perhaps to make sure he held tightly onto the briefcase—even though he hadn’t.

  Linda jammed Thor’s harness into the front of Jim’s partially open jacket—didn’t he get that it was freezing out?—then trotted up, “Secret Service Police. Are you okay, sir? I’ve got him,” She snatched up Thor before the man could kick him. She let him wrestle with the man’s coattails for a moment longer before whispering, “Gute Hund,” just loudly enough to get Thor to settle and release. It should look as if she was the good cop, saving a passerby from a stray dog.

  Meanwhile, Jim’s Malcolm had stepped up to the man’s briefcase and promptly sat. Bad cop.

  Jim moved up to block the man reaching for it.

  “I have diplomatic immunity. You can’t touch that,” Black Wool Coat protested. Gray Suit had continued on his way with hardly a sideways glance.

  “May I see your card, sir?” Jim put all of his six-plus feet and workout body to good use, looming over the small Japanese man.

  While he was fishing in his pocket, she set Thor down. “Get along, you,” she said in English, then followed it softly with “Such,” in German. Thor sought. It took him three steps and he sat down in front of the briefcase beside Malcolm. Double confirmation on the explosives.

  “Isn’t that sweet? They’re friends,” she did her best to make it a coo, which sounded utterly ridiculous. Probably meant she’d gotten it right.

  The Japanese man turned to look at her. Jim took the opportunity to call the bomb squad. As they were on twenty-four-hour alert and were stationed less than six blocks away, they’d be arriving very quickly.

  Again the man reached for his briefcase.

  Rather than telling Black Wool Coat not to touch the case, Jim called out, “Pass auf!” Malcolm twisted to face the man and let out a snarl befitting a much larger dog.

  Thor also reacted to the command and added his higher voice to Malcolm’s.

  She stepped firmly between the man and the dogs.

  “We seem to have a problem here, sir. Would you mind explaining it to me?”

  Already she could hear the bomb squad’s sirens roaring toward them along New York Avenue.

  Clive wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on at the other side of the morning crowd, he was just glad that he was catching up to Linda. He hurried along the path to where she’d stopped close by Andrew Jackson’s statue at the center of the park. The massive edifice was topped by a bronze of the two-term President and general of the Battle of New Orleans on horseback.

  At his feet, close by the wrought iron fence protecting a circular lawn, Linda and Thor stood close beside another handler-dog team, chatting with a man in a long wool coat who appeared upset.

  Thor glanced in Clive’s direction.

  Half a heartbeat later he was staring at the yellow end of a space age gun that Linda had pointed at his chest from less than ten feet away.

  “Uh…”

  “Damn it, Clive! Get out of here! It’s not safe.” She swung the weapon down toward the ground and he recognized it as a taser. He’d seen o
ther Secret Service agents carrying them, but never thought about it much. Now that he’d stared down the barrel of one, then into the wielder’s coldest dark eyes he’d ever seen, he’d be thinking about it in his nightmares for a long time to come.

  “Why isn’t it safe?”

  As if in answer, two vehicles jumped the curb and raced across the square in their direction. The black suburban was unmarked, but there was no mistaking the equally black truck close behind it. “FBI Bomb Technicians” was emblazoned down the side in large gold letters and it towed one of those disposal trailers that looked like a six-foot steel sphere.

  Capitol Police streamed in close behind them.

  Some of the early morning crowd scattered in alarm, others moved forward to gawk.

  And they were all focused in their little group’s direction.

  “Any other questions? Now get out of here.” Linda holstered her taser and turned back to the third man.

  Clive hadn’t noticed him before—an Asian in a long wool coat. His face looked arrogant as he held out some form of ID. Clive had seen enough of them at the White House to recognize a Diplomatic Immunity card.

  When the police came up to move Clive back, he went, but he didn’t leave. He joined the gawkers at the safety perimeter and didn’t care if the policeman rolled his eyes at him before walking away.

  Already the bomb techs were pulling on those heavily padded suits they wore making them three times their normal size.

  And still Linda stood close by the fallen briefcase that commanded the dogs’ attentions. She wore no bulky body armor. She looked so fragile, standing in the center of the danger.

  A robot rolled out of the second truck. Bright silver with long arms holding multiple cameras aloft. A yard long and equally high—it drove forward on four rubber tires.

  And still no one was moving aside.

  Clive wanted to shout a warning but had no idea what it would be.

  “Move it, ma’am,” one of the bomb techs called out. “And get your dogs clear.”

  Linda kept watching the Japanese, chronicling additional facial features until she could draw him from memory, even though Jim was holding his ID and calling it in to doublecheck that it was valid.

  Goro Yamashita had stopped trying to retrieve his briefcase, but he also wasn’t walking away. His hands, except for retrieving his immunity card, had reached into no pockets for a hidden trigger.

  There was also something odd about his attitude. Arrogant and self-righteous, yes. But not fanatical in the way she’d come to recognize as “normal” among the true jihadists of Southwest Asia. He didn’t strike her as a man who would blow himself up, yet he wasn’t walking away to move outside any blast zone either. Linda judged that the hazard was low.

  She called Thor to heel beside her and stepped straight into the man’s personal space.

  Yamashita gave way, backing up. Not even a single glance at the briefcase. It made it unlikely that there was some sort of a proximity detonator on his person that would trigger the explosives if he was too far away.

  He dug in his heels at ten meters. “You are not authorized to touch that case.”

  Jim had him covered with a sidearm that he hadn’t reholstered, so she risked a glance. The robot had reached the case and extended a camera eye to inspect it closely.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Linda made an effort to recover her good cop role. “But I saw no markings on your briefcase that would indicate it was a diplomatic pouch.”

  “That’s precisely what it is!”

  Now she understood some more of the elements of the Secret Service training. As a soldier, she’d have believed him. But now she knew that if it wasn’t clearly labeled, it wasn’t technically a diplomatic pouch—a single fact of thousands they had spent these last months pounding into her brain. Without a label, once he’d dropped it, it had become a briefcase and nothing more.

  But if they opened it and discovered a pouch inside, they’d have to return it unopened no matter what the dogs said about it. They couldn’t even X-ray the pouch without breaking the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

  Leaving Jim to cover the man, she trotted over to the bomb squad’s truck. Two TV vans had pulled up close behind it. At least the no-fly zone over the White House was keeping the news helicopters away. She didn’t like staring straight into one of the camera lenses, even if the Capitol Police were keeping them back. She turned her back on it.

  Why did they even bother with television anymore anyway? She’d left for war before cell phones became the standard form of news gathering. Now there were fifty or a hundred people recording every single move she made. She could either worry about someone catching something she didn’t do perfectly… Or they could all go to hell.

  She opted for the second choice and erased them from her mind.

  “Who’s your commander?”

  “Talking to him. What do we know?” He was leaning over the robot operator’s shoulder and didn’t bother to look up.

  “Japanese male. The briefcase triggered both of our dogs.”

  “Please don’t use the word trigger around explosives.”

  “Got it. Both dogs alerted. He has diplomatic immunity. We’re verifying that it’s genuine. He has the card.”

  “Diplomatic…Shit!” He looked up at her.

  “He dropped the case and it has no outer markings. If you open the case and there’s a diplomatic pouch inside, we’re sunk. But if you X-ray it while it’s still closed…”

  His smile was quick. “Some light in the day. Thanks, sergeant. We’re on it.”

  Clive didn’t like the way the man’s eyes lingered on her as she and Thor trotted over to rejoin their teammates and the man in question. The fact that his own eyes had been lingering earlier was…well…

  Okay, maybe he could empathize with the bomb squad officer. In the nation’s capital—the city most likely to have women looking their best this side of Paris and Milan—Linda stood out as being impossibly real. Designer clothes traded in for police gear. An attitude that didn’t care what others thought of her. And a lethal edge which, of all unlikely things, was attracting him a great deal. Past lovers were casual memories, two ships in the night and all that. Nothing about Linda Hamlin said that was any part of who she was.

  What did she see when she looked at the world?

  Danger everywhere and everything a threat until proven otherwise?

  He tried to see Lafayette Square through her eyes.

  The sun was well up now, the sunlight had cleared the buildings to the east enough to light the five statues at the four corners and the center of the square. The grass was green and the concrete walkways were immaculate after being cleaned by the nighttime crew. Some people stood on the park benches to get a view of the excitement over the heads of gawkers who showed no sense of self-preservation.

  Of course, neither did he. Except he did. A little. Linda was out there and he couldn’t leave until he knew that she’d be okay.

  The robot was tipping the case upright and a man in a bomb suit was rolling out a cart. Probably the X-ray machine he’d been able to overhear Linda talking about.

  Some people were looking at their watches, cursing, and pushing through the encircling crowd to hurry off to work. His time was more flexible, and even if it wasn’t, at the moment he didn’t care.

  If Linda saw danger everywhere, she must be overwhelmed by the amount of information. How did she filter it down? He scanned the area again. Of the entire crowd, only a few people stood out. Several hecklers were shouting for an arrest. Someone else had a placard on a tall handle, protesting against police brutality. He was waving it about injudiciously enough to have cleared a space around himself of people who didn’t want to be brutalized by it.

  The perpetrator himself stood with his arms folded over his chest, waiting. He wasn’t watching his briefcase or the bomb tech. He wasn’t watching the two dogs sitting at alert by their handlers’ feet. He also wasn’t looking at
Linda. Instead he wore a smug half smile and faced the other dog handler.

  Clive scanned for anyone else who wasn’t behaving as might be expected. There were too many people. Cell phones aloft, hecklers still heckling, police keeping a secure perimeter, and the bomb squad ignoring everyone while they worked through their meticulous procedures.

  A third of the way around the circle, an Asian man stood at the front of the crowd. No phone aloft, no emotion on his face. His hands were unnaturally straight at his sides. As if he was standing at attention, but not in any US military form that Clive had seen around the White House.

  Clive kept an eye on him as he scanned the rest of the crowd, but he didn’t pick out any other anomalies.

  Because he’d ended up beside the bomb squad on their initial arrival, moving away from Linda only after the police cordon had been set up, he was inside the bubble—a feeling he recognized from working at the White House.

  He took a deep breath, finding a conviction somewhere inside him that was stronger than chocolate. Then he simply strode into the circle as if he belonged. It must have worked because he only saw twenty or so cell phones turning to track him, but no officers shouted at him to stop.

  “Hi, Thor,” he squatted down to pet the dog now sitting beside Linda. Maybe if he didn’t surprise the dog, he wouldn’t face the wrong end of a taser again.

  Thor popped to his feet and leaned into Clive’s knees hard enough that he lost his balance and fell over backward on his butt.

  Linda looked down at him in surprise. “What part of get as far away as possible don’t you understand?”

  Thor decided it was a prime chance to sit on his chest and breathe doggie breath down into his face. He knew that his palate would be ruined for tasting chocolate at least for the morning—everything would taste like panting dog.