Caesar the War Dog 4

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  ‘He can even identify individuals who have been handling explosives or have come in contact with explosives up to twenty-four hours earlier – as Caesar and Sergeant F are about to demonstrate. Prior to entering this room, several of you were chosen at random and given an envelope, with the request that you hold onto the envelope until the end of this session. One of those envelopes contains explosives residue.’

  A murmur rippled through the audience as delegates looked around to see who was holding the envelopes in question.

  Ben unclipped Caesar’s leash. Pointing to the right side of the room, he commanded, ‘Caesar, seek on!’

  Caesar immediately rose up and, with his nose down, trotted along the front row, then down the side of the room, as all eyes in the audience followed him. Caesar came around the back of the room then down the central aisle. Halfway down the aisle, he stopped. Looking intently at a female superintendent from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sitting beside the aisle, Caesar eased his rear end to the carpeted floor and stared at her.

  ‘Ma’am, do you have an envelope for me?’ Charlie asked.

  Nodding, the woman held it up.

  ‘A security officer is now going to test that envelope,’ Charlie announced.

  Sure enough, the chief security guard who had patted Charlie down earlier was standing at the back of the room. Carrying a portable electronic explosive detector the size of a mini vacuum cleaner, he came and took the envelope from the woman. With the whole room watching, the security guard swiped the envelope with the detector. There was a piercing electronic squawk.

  ‘Traces of explosive chemicals, Sergeant,’ announced the security guard.

  ‘Traces of explosive chemicals,’ Charlie repeated, and the room burst into applause.

  Ben now gave Caesar the ‘Return quickly’ whistle. Caesar immediately jumped up. He trotted down the aisle to Ben and sat by his right side, looking at the audience.

  ‘Good job, mate,’ said Ben, patting Caesar, as appreciative applause continued from the audience.

  ‘So, you see, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Charlie, ‘an EDD is an indispensable part of the GRRR team. Now, I know that many police services employ police dogs and that some of those dogs are trained as EDDs. But certain breeds, such as German shepherds, are not suitable for the type of work that Caesar is called upon to do. Often, too, EDDs are brought in as a last resort. Our experience is that an EDD should be part of the team from day one and involved in the primary deployment of first responders at any scene where there is the possibility that explosives are present.’

  ‘And that covers a wide range of scenarios,’ Ben added.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Charlie. ‘Caesar has been inserted by helicopter and by parachute, both HALO and LALO. He has even been inserted by mini-submarine. We can use Caesar for solo forward reconnaissance, and for this we equip him with a video camera and transmitter. We also use Caesar for old-fashioned sniff-and-find tracking of hostages and suspects. He has saved many lives. Caesar, possessing skills that we humans do not, gives us the edge over the bad guys.’

  At this point Caesar snorted, as if to agree.

  Charlie glanced fondly at the labrador. ‘And he’s as much a part of our GRRR family as any human.’

  In Big Sam’s Restaurant and Bakery, Manny pushed his empty coffee cup toward the waitress.

  ‘You want something else to eat?’ the waitress asked, refilling his cup. She picked up his empty plate with her free hand.

  Manny looked at his watch: 11.55. ‘No, just the check,’ he replied.

  ‘Check coming right up,’ said the waitress, walking off to collect his bill from the register.

  Manny looked out the window, his heart beating fast with just five minutes to go before ‘boom’ time. The late-morning traffic was thick outside, and he wondered if Rocky might be delayed. He pulled his phone closer, reciting two numbers to himself.

  In the lobby of the Sheraton Gunter Hotel, Charlie and Ben were deep in conversation with Captain De Silva and Sergeant Austin when the red-uniformed Superintendent Brenda Michaels came striding up to them. This was the same Canadian superintendent who had held the envelope containing explosive chemical residue. She was a diminutive woman, little more than five feet tall, with short grey hair and sparkling green eyes.

  ‘Thank you for cooperating with our demonstration, ma’am,’ said Ben, recognising her.

  A smile appeared on Superintendent Michaels’ face. ‘My pleasure,’ she responded. ‘You guys carried out a very effective demonstration. Of course, the Mounties have been using police dogs and EDDs for a long time. In fact, we had police dog teams before we began recruiting female officers for regular police duties back in 1974.’

  ‘The Mounties hired dogs before they hired women?’ Captain De Silva said with surprise.

  ‘It was a pretty male-dominated, misogynistic world back in the seventies.’ Michaels shrugged. ‘But, hey, you guys here in San Antonio have one of the lowest percentages of female to male officers in the United States – just seven per cent of your officers are female, if I remember correctly.’

  De Silva looked embarrassed. ‘Yeah, well …’

  Michaels turned to Charlie. ‘Sergeant, in your speech you mentioned that German shepherds don’t make good EDDs. The RCMP uses German shepherds exclusively, so I was wondering who is right – you or us?’

  ‘Sergeant F can best answer that, Superintendent,’ Charlie replied, turning to his friend.

  Ben nodded. ‘Caesar has a bit of German shepherd in him, Superintendent,’ he said. ‘Maybe that gives him his steely courage – he’s afraid of nothing. But a purebred German shepherd can be a “one master dog”. He can snap and snarl at those around him to “protect” his master, which is no good when an EDD like Caesar has to spend hours, days and sometimes weeks in the field with a team of soldiers. I couldn’t have Caesar snapping and snarling at Sergeant G, for example, when we’re on an op.’

  ‘I take your point,’ Superintendent Michaels conceded, ‘but a labrador like this lovely guy here doesn’t have the same power to daunt criminals that a German shepherd has.’

  ‘A snarling, barking German shepherd is a pretty daunting sight,’ Ben agreed. ‘That’s great when you want a guard dog that warns you of intruders, or if you want to intimidate felons.’

  ‘Particularly armed felons.’

  ‘Sure, but silence is one of the key weapons of a special ops team. We often can’t speak for hours at a time, communicating only by hand signals.’

  ‘How then do you issue commands to Caesar in that kind of situation?’ asked Michaels.

  ‘The same as everyone else – by hand signal,’ Ben replied.

  ‘Caesar recognises up to two hundred hand signals,’ Charlie added proudly.

  ‘Two hundred?’ Michaels echoed, astonished. ‘You’re kidding me!’

  Charlie smiled. ‘I taught him some of them myself, when Caesar was my care dog for a while.’

  ‘Want a demo?’ Ben asked.

  ‘A demo?’

  ‘A demonstration,’ said Ben.

  ‘Ah. Sure.’

  ‘Got an ATM card on you?’ When the superintendent nodded, Ben said, ‘Can you take it out and hold it by one end, please?’

  Superintendent Michaels took out her Visa card. Ben eased down onto one knee in front of the seated Caesar, unclipped his leash and, with a hand signal involving both hands, silently gave him instructions. Then he pointed to the card in the superintendent’s hand and then across the lobby to an ATM. Caesar trotted over to the Canadian superintendent and carefully took the credit card from her fingers. Card in mouth, he then turned and made his way across the lobby. He was a dog on a mission.

  Ben, Charlie, Superintendent Michaels, Captain De Silva and Sergeant Austin all followed the brown labrador. Hotel guests turned with looks of wonder on their faces to watch the dog pass. A pair of young newlyweds stepped aside to allow Caesar access to the ATM. Standing up on his hind legs, he put his front p
aws on the machine and pushed the superintendent’s card into the appropriate slot. The ATM accepted the card, swallowing it with an electronic hum.

  ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,’ said Michaels.

  Ben grinned and patted Caesar before he reattached the leash to his collar. ‘Caesar can’t punch in your PIN for you. But you’re not supposed to tell anyone your PIN, right?’ Ben added with a wink.

  Manny Diaz saw a black Chrysler 300C draw to a halt beside the van accross the street. He glanced at his watch: 12.00. Tall, athletic, curly headed Rocky Marron emerged from a rear door of the sedan and looked warily up and down the street. He was on time – dead on time. Manny held his phone in his hand, his index finger poised over the keypad. But his mind had gone blank. He couldn’t remember the number he was supposed to dial to set off the bomb. In fact, he couldn’t remember either of the numbers he had to dial. Trying not to panic, he reached into his pocket. With a shaky hand, he took out the two pieces of paper.

  ‘Thank God!’ he gasped to himself. If he had disposed of these slips of paper as Antonio Lopez had instructed him, he would be lost right now.

  The waitress placed the bill in front of him. ‘Your check, sir.’

  ‘Sí, sí,’ he said absently, staring at the two pieces of paper. ‘But which number is the first one?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said the waitress.

  ‘Which number? Which number is first?’ Manny mumbled, looking out the window.

  Rocky was on the move. Carrying a small suitcase, he had stepped up onto the pavement.

  ‘God help me,’ whispered Manny. He hastily chose a number, hoping and praying it was the right one. As he dialled the number, Rocky Marron began walking toward the entrance to the bank. Manny put the phone to his ear. He heard it ring once.

  In the lobby of the Sheraton Gunter, everyone heard a distant boom, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass.

  Ben had heard enough bombs go off over the years to recognise the sound. ‘Bomb!’ he declared.

  Simultaneously, Caesar’s head came up and turned in the direction of the noise. After all the ops he’d been through with Ben, he also knew a bomb blast when he heard one.

  ‘Let’s go!’ yelled Captain De Silva. He led a dash to the hotel’s front door by all the members of the group who had only moments before been marvelling at Caesar’s extraordinary abilities. Superintendent Michaels was one of them.

  Once the group was outside, they could see a pall of smoke rising above East Houston Street. Car and building alarms blared in a tuneless, high-pitched cacophony.

  ‘It went off in the street, not in a building,’ De Silva surmised from the location of the rising smoke. ‘So it’s unlikely to be a gas explosion.’

  Ben looked over at Charlie. ‘It was a bomb, right?’

  ‘Roger to that, mate,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘We might be able to help out on the scene,’ said De Silva.

  ‘I’m coming, too,’ said Michaels, as all six of them set off in the direction of the explosion. ‘I’m proficient in first aid.’

  Terrified pedestrians flooded by them, running in the opposite direction to get away from the explosion as fast as they could.

  ‘Be careful,’ Ben cautioned the group, with Caesar loping along at his side. ‘IEDs often come in pairs – in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, at the 2013 Boston Marathon. One bomb to suck in the first responders, then a second bomb to cut them down.’

  They crossed several intersections. Police sirens were wailing in the distance. Traffic in East Houston and intersecting streets had come to a halt. Several San Antonio policemen who had been on foot patrol in the vicinity were also running toward the explosion. Ahead, a parked Toyota minibus was burning, its flames spreading to surrounding vehicles. Bloodied people lay near the wreckage, with passers-by bending over them, trying to help.

  De Silva gasped. ‘It’s like a war zone!’

  A jagged section of the rear of the minibus lay on the pavement in their path, with the words ‘Texian Transit Company’ visible on the scorched metal. Ben walked over to examine it. Bending down, he recognised the back cover piece of a popular brand of mobile phone lying beside it. ‘Looks like it was detonated by mobile,’ he called to Charlie.

  Charlie nodded. ‘We got ourselves a bomber here, mate.’

  ‘Is there a time-delayed follow-up bomb?’ Ben pondered aloud.

  Charlie looked at his friend. ‘If so, where?’

  ‘Nearby,’ Ben replied grimly. He stood up and surveyed the mayhem around them, thinking about where he would have hidden a second bomb if he were the bomber. ‘In another car.’

  Manny gaped at the sight of Rocky Marron standing, alive and unharmed, on the pavement outside the Texas National Bank. Manny had chosen the wrong number and had set off the bomb in the Toyota minibus instead of the one in the GMC Savana van. He watched as Rocky ran back to the sedan. Desperately, Manny dialled the number on the other piece of paper, to set off the bomb in the van beside Rocky’s Chrysler.

  The phone rang once, twice, three times. But the bomb in the grey van across the street did not go off. Panicking, Manny looked at the phone’s screen and realised he’d dialled a wrong number.

  ‘Hello?’ answered the owner of the wrong number.

  Cursing, Manny terminated the call. He looked up to see Rocky sliding into the back of the Chrysler and pulling the door closed. Frantically, Manny dialled again. With smoking tyres and a roar from its powerful V8 engine, Rocky Marron’s car sped off. Perspiring heavily, Manny held the phone to his ear. He listened as it connected and rang … and rang. Manny realised with horror that he’d dialled a wrong number again.

  With the street to the east blocked by the wreckage of the first bomb, the Chrysler made a sharp turn and pushed into the traffic heading west, knocking aside vehicles as if they were toys. The Chrysler’s route was going to bring it right past Big Sam’s. Realising this, Manny cast aside his phone and rose to his feet. The phone slid across the table and clattered to the floor.

  Everyone else in the restaurant was crowded around the windows trying to see what was going on. Manny brushed past the man who had tried to involve him in the dispute with his girlfriend, sending coffee from the cup in his hand spilling onto the table.

  ‘Hey!’ protested the customer.

  Manny ignored him, but the young waitress stood in his way. She gestured to the unpaid bill sitting on his table. ‘What about the check?’

  Manny reached behind and grabbed a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol from his belt. The handgun most widely used by law enforcement agencies around the world, made from plastic and steel, the Glock was sleek and black and lethal.

  The sight of the pistol sent the waitress reeling back, out of his way. ‘Don’t shoot me!’ she cried, fear written all over her face. ‘Don’t shoot me!’

  Manny had no plans to shoot the waitress. His entire focus was on killing Rocky Marron. He knocked aside an elderly man as he came barrelling out of the restaurant and onto the pavement. At this moment the Chrysler 300C was passing Big Sam’s. Manny lifted the pistol to the firing position, grasping his right wrist with his left hand to steady it, as he’d been trained to do in the army. Without pausing, Manny opened fire on the Chrysler. His first two rounds were aimed at the driver’s door and window, the next two at the rear passenger compartment. Blam-blam! Blam-blam!

  Bystanders screamed at the sound of the gunshots and flung themselves away. Determined to complete the job, Manny followed the Chrysler with his pistol raised. He knew that if he did not finish Rocky Marron, Antonio Lopez would finish Manny Diaz. It looked as if the Chrysler was going to escape, and Manny cursed aloud as he ran. At high speed, the Chrysler attempted to turn right into Broadway. Clipping the end of a yellow school bus, the Chrysler flipped up onto its side and, with a screech of metal and with sparks flying, went sliding across the intersection until it slammed into a taxi.

  Dodg
ing around vehicles, Manny raced to the Chrysler and fired through the rear window, spewing rounds into the car’s rear compartment. Glass shattered and bullets whined off metal. Manny didn’t stop until he was out of bullets, emptying the seventeen-round magazine into the back of the Chrysler. People on the sidewalk ducked for cover. Others stood open-mouthed, unable to believe that this was really happening.

  ‘Put the gun down!’ came a voice from behind.

  Manny swung to see a bicycle patrolman standing twenty metres away. The man had a Smith & Wesson M&P40 pistol pointed at him with both hands. Manny didn’t recognise the policeman, but this was one of the two bike cops that he and Lopez had observed from the roof the previous day.

  ‘No way!’ Manny responded, springing forward and setting off to run past the Chrysler and make his escape.

  ‘Stop, or I’ll fire!’ bellowed the cop.

  Manny kept running. The policeman didn’t warn him again. He let off three shots in swift succession. Blam-blam-blam! Manny fell headlong in the street, in front of dozens of shocked civilians. His empty Glock flew from his grip and went skidding across the street, coming to rest in a gutter. Manny lay where he had fallen, face down, unmoving, amid the traffic.

  Ben, Caesar and Charlie proved fitter and faster than their American and Canadian police colleagues. Twenty paces ahead of the other three, they reached the spot outside the Texas National Bank where Rocky Marron had been standing just minutes before. They knew nothing about Rocky or the plot to kill him. All they knew was that serveral gunshots had been fired. As they ran by the grey GMC Savana, intent on reaching the scene of the shooting just around the corner on Broadway, Caesar suddenly reared up and tried to dive toward the van.

  ‘What’s up with Caesar?’ asked Charlie, stopping in his tracks. ‘The action’s all around the corner.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ben, allowing Caesar to lead him toward the parked van. ‘Something’s attracted him.’

  Caesar eased his rear end onto the pavement beside the van. And there he sat, looking intently at the vehicle.

  ‘What’s got into your dog, Sergeant Fulton?’ Captain De Silva panted as he reached them.