Comina leaned forward, clicked the talk button for her headset again and said, “Alright boss, I admit I don’t have a better plan. I hate not being able to keep them safe, and I hate lying to non-criminals, but I agree running away won’t help them.”
“We have a few advantages,” VB said, trying to brighten the mood, “My mole in Orthus is getting closer to the inner circle. We know they moved the infected twins Allen and Arty to the company’s black site. We just don’t know where it is yet, or how they have progressed on the formula. I have, however, been able to fuck with Semion’s ability to get his people into the country, at least for a little while. I arranged to have five of his sketchier crew detained at Heathrow, and somehow all of his employees have landed on the no-fly list.”
“Oh VB,” Comina said, “You can’t do that. Ignoring direct orders to shelve this case is one thing but messing around with Homeland is a career killer, or worse. Even for Teflon Barton.”
As VB pulled the tow truck into the Walker farm driveway he snorted, and said, “Loyal, my career is already over. Have no delusions my dear protege, I put all the nails in that coffin the second I told my boss you’d been pulled out of Pembury and I’d shut down the case. Oh well, I always wanted to teach.”
“Teach?” Comina said, laughing in his ear, “Now that is a class I’d happily go back to school for. Let me guess, bullshitting one-oh-one, or maybe advanced downhill shit-rolling?”
“Jest all you want, doc,” he said, “but the poo mountain surrounding this case stinks to high heaven, maybe all the way to DC. Whoever is fucking around in the background is pretty connected so there won’t be any happy ending here. When it hits the fan there will be layers and layers of finger pointing and back door beheadings right down the line. The best we can hope for is to stop that crazy Mogevich clan and get the Walkers and the Hogans out of this fucking mess without losing too much. What happens to us after that is a crystal ball I just don’t have. We’ll be lucky if we both end up yelling at community college brats to shut up and put their cell phones away.”
“Huh,” Comina said, “mister big picture only sees trees now and no forest. I also love your optimism. It motivates me to get up and go to work every day.”
VB said, “Well you had better get up a little earlier and work a little later. My transgression with Homeland is a temporary hiccup for Semion and Katia. I think they are going to deepen their alignment with the Tiandihui gang now, and those fuckers have the best snakeheads in the world. I don’t know how long you have, but you need to watch your undercover ass and find their connection in Pembury, and find it fast.”
She watched as he turned the truck in a wide arc, pulling into the parking area and stopping next to a big maroon truck in front of a pen. A goat walked into the wash from the headlights and bleated at him.
Comina said, “Wait VB, just hold on a second.”
As she watched her boss pause, and check his beard in the rear view mirror, she said, “I’ll continue to stay hidden against my better judgement but you need to do something for me. You need to tell them what we know. They deserve it and this can’t be one-sided anymore.” She leaned further forward on her couch and said, “You taught me the ability to turn it off, no matter how deep we went. To keep it professional, and for a decade I’ve trusted that logic and walked away safely after every job. I thank you for that, but things have changed. This case is different. You’re the one who said this family was smart, and tough. I don’t think we know the half of it. I think lots of bad guys have underestimated this quiet little family and paid the price for it, but the Hogan’s and Walkers have never seen anything like Semion and Katia Mogevich. We have to arm them with what we know, VB, and my inexperienced rookie gut tells me the day’s coming when we’re going to need allies. We have to start treating this family like one. You need to trust them.”
VB smiled as he looked into the rear view mirror where he knew Comina could see him. He winked at her, and grabbed his thick clipboard and climbed down from the truck.
He walked through the falling snow to the kitchen door of the farmhouse.
“Arnold,” Mimi said as she looked at his coveralls and held open the door for him, “So nice of you to stop by, again.”
After the debacle in Canada the family was expecting another visit, but Mimi wasn’t sure how he’d known Hamish and Ben had arrived home early.
VB followed her into the house and Mimi retrieved a small tablet computer from the kitchen counter. “We’re clean,” she said, holding out the listening device sweeper to him, “We checked the house with your little anti-bug thingy here when you pulled in, but you’re welcome to give it a go.”
VB nodded to the rest of the family seated at the kitchen table and said to Mimi, “No, I’m sure you got it, and you can hang onto that.”
As he took a seat at the table VB listened to Comina speaking softly in his ear. She told him sweeping the house with the bug detector would take about half a minute, after it was powered up. To do that the family must have seen his truck when it first entered their long driveway, but there was no way to see that far from inside the house, especially not in this snowy haze.
He nodded again as Mimi held up an empty tea cup.
VB recognized Hamish from his file picture and introduced himself while shaking the big Scot’s hand.
Ben came down the hall and nodded to VB before he looked at Mimi.
She said, “We’re clear dear, it’s okay to talk.”
“Hey Mr. Barton,” Ben said as the pups trotted in behind him, “How’s the war going?”
“Hello Ben,” VB said, “Can you give us a minute, I need to talk to Mr. Walker about Canada.”
Hamish fixed the director with a look and said, “Hamish will do. And yes, let’s do talk about Canada. I’d prefer the wee bairn stay if it’s okay with his folks.”
“Yes,” Aila said, “Ben’s part of this discussion.”
VB nodded, and thanked Mimi for the cup of tea. He cradled it and waited for Hamish.
Hamish took a long sip from his cup, and then said to VB, “So have at it young man.”
“Well,” VB said, looking around the table, “typically the way this works is you tell me what happened and I ask questions.”
“How about I ask some questions instead?” Mimi said over the lip of her cup, “Can you tell us why my eleven year old grandwean here had to shoot and kill a pack of murderous thugs who had apparently smuggled a jug of that vile compound with them to the north woods? Whereby they infected two wee wolves that turned into wild canine versions of that poor bloody monster Jerry Dorschstein. Wolves that attacked and ripped thirteen innocent people to pieces, and also had to be killed by Hamish and Ben.”
Chapter 5
Constant rain had been hammering the city for three days. It flooded the narrow cobblestone alley behind the tightly packed row of restaurants. Dirty water chugged from the alley’s downspouts and carried away bits of food and trash from its greasy dumpsters. The debris flowed down the central gutter and circled around a partially clogged storm drain.
Tian Tzeng stepped lightly over the slick cobblestones, deftly avoiding the deep puddle as he swept one hand under the large man’s armpit. He circled around his attacker in one fluid motion, water flicking from his ponytail as he moved like a flash.
The man had thrust a double-edged knife at Tian’s ribs but the quick, muscular young man slid out of the way, grabbing the man’s knife hand. He allowed it to follow the natural direction of its thrust and then turned the man’s wrist, guiding it in an arc until the blade buried smoothly into the second, larger man’s belly.
Tian continued his spin, stepping aside as the shocked man pulled the dripping knife from his partner’s gut.
The bigger thug dropped his own razor knife. He tried to hold the gash in his stomach closed as he dropped to one knee. Blood trickled out of his mouth and mixed with the rain as it dripped down his chin.
The first man stared at his blade, disbeliev
ing, and dropped it like it was hot. The knife fell into the greasy torrent flowing around his feet. With wide eyes he looked at Tian.
The man took a step back and started to unzip his soaked leather coat.
“Don’t,” Tian said, shaking his head slowly as the rain flowed down his face and off his strong chin.
The man reached into his coat.
Tian turned his head and eyeballed the man. He jumped to the right and hopped off a crate as he lashed out with his left foot. He caught the man’s hand inside his coat as it wrapped around the handle of his pistol, snapping three fingers and fracturing his wrist. The man yelped as his arm went limp. His hand hung dead in his armpit, slumped over the zipper of his jacket.
“Really, don’t,” Tian said after he landed softly and returned to a pensador stance. With one arm across his chest and the other hand touching his temple, he had two dozen close quarter defend or strike moves ready for the man.
The man staggered back a few steps and dug into his coat with his good hand as his chubby partner splashed face first into the wet slime of the gutter.
“Please don’t?” Tian asked as he stepped lightly towards the man on the balls of his feet.
The man turned and ran. He lunged away, off balance on the slick uneven bricks with his good arm swinging wildly.
He made it three steps before a cannon boomed and then echoed off the walls of the narrow alley. The man’s shoulder blades arched backward as two bullets slammed into him at the same time. They tore open his spine just below his head, and both of the man’s shoes flew off as he tumbled forward. He pushed up a spray of water as he slid face first before coming to a stop in a heap in the middle of the alley.
Tian turned around and looked at his cousin who was kneeling in the rain and holding up his huge hand cannon.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Harley?” Tian said, “You didn’t need to kill the guy.”
Harley got to his feet, inspecting the slice in the sleeve of his bright yellow leather bomber jacket. There was a small red scratch on his arm beneath it. As he poked a finger through the hole he said, “Thanks, cousin.”
Tian had shoved him out of the way an instant before Harley would have been split open by the big thug’s razor knife.
Harley stepped to the edge of the little river running down the middle of the alley. At his feet the portly thug was damming the flow, and rolling and moaning in the pooling water. Harley stood in the heavy rain, staring down at the man as the water ran down his jacket and dripped from the end of his big pistol.
Tian watched flames shoot from the suppression holes of his cousin’s gun and the man jerked in the water as the recoil boomed loudly again in the alley.
Tian thought Harley’s pistol was a ridiculous thing. It was a gift from their grandfather and he had given Tian’s brother Liko a similar cannon. Like Liko‘s, the gun was custom made in Italy and was engraved with a silver dragon, but unlike his brother’s fifty caliber Harley’s gun was a forty-five, and it had twin barrels. One pull of the fat trigger fired two bullets and spit the casings from either side of the wide top slider. Harley’s gun was engraved with a double-headed fanged silver dragon. It wrapped around the grip and twisted around the pistol until the jaws opened at the end of the muzzles. The tip of the barrels were notched to match the dragons’ fangs so when the pistol was fired some of the muzzle flash and smoke exited through the fangs. Harley even used shell loads that contained powder that wasn’t fully smokeless to enhance the effect. The garish thing was horribly inaccurate and made a hellacious noise, but Harley said it added two inches to his dick…one for each barrel.
As the dragons’ mouths still smoked a trail of blood swirled around the dead man and flowed with the bits of trash around the street’s center drain.
“C’mon,” Harley said, flipping the man’s coat open and taking out a wet envelope and his wallet, “I’m buying.”
Chapter 6
As Mimi’s question hung heavily in the quiet kitchen of the Walker family farm Barton looked at Ben, and then at the black dogs standing next to the boy. They were wagging in sync like windshield wipers. He could picture Comina hovering over her tablet with her finger on the talk button and wished she’d break the horrible silence in his earpiece.
VB opened his thick clipboard and removed his tablet. He flicked open the stand and as it powered on he said, “Alright, I’ll start from the beginning but I’m going to ask you all for a leap of faith first. I need to know about these dogs of yours. We recovered portions of x-rays taken by the vet, Doctor D’Souza. They showed some canine brain abnormalities and forepaw modifications but our people hadn’t been able to fully interpret them.”
Ben crossed the room and sat in the empty chair next to Aila. She put an arm around him and said, “What do you think, Ben?”
Ben looked at Kelcy who nodded, and then at Hamish who also nodded. Mimi nodded as well.
He looked at his pups for a moment and then said, “Okay Director Barton, try to keep your cheese from sliding off your cracker, and say hello to Spot and Smudge.”
The pups stepped forward and put their front feet up on the table. Spot spread open his paw and reached out to shake VB’s hand.
VB stared at it for a long moment. In his ear he could hear Comina had clicked on her mic, but she didn’t say anything. He reached over the table and shook the pup’s paw.
Smudge shook his hand as well, and then hoped down and walked around the table.
Spot split his paw again and signed, and Ben translated, “Pleased to meet you, sir. If the government is responsible for the formula that gave us these gifts I guess we should thank you, before we curse you.”
VB scratched his ear, trying to hide his flinch as Comina screamed and then laughed loudly in his ear. He could hear his partner drumming her hands on her coffee table.
Smudge jumped up into the empty chair next to Barton as Spot took a seat opposite him. The black dog looked directly at the agent and signed again as Ben translated, “Your turn.”
VB pulled his stare away from the pups. He looked around the table at the bemused faces staring back at him.
“Just breathe there, Mr. Bond,” Hamish said as he clapped VB on the back, “You’ll be having a bit of whiplash for a while, trust me. This lot grew up with these hounds but those of us more recently initiated struggle with the lunacy of it all. It doesn’t ever really pass completely.” He took a sip of tea and said, “Go ahead lad, just start at the beginning.”
Smudge tapped VB on the hand with one of her split paws. He could tell from the tender look on the black dog’s face it was meant as a comforting gesture but it really didn’t help to calm the whiplash Hamish had just accurately identified.
“You can thank us for the formula, sort of,” VB began as he stared into the dog’s smart brown eyes, “It started as some geneticist’s doctoral research project at the University of Wisconsin but was quickly taken over by a shadow contractor for DARPA when it started to show real military promise. The goal was to enhance a soldier’s ability to handle extremes by copying the same process used to make plants resistant to certain environmental conditions. After some initial success it ultimately didn’t work and was mothballed, but somehow it showed up in the hands of a multinational weapons manufacturer.”
Kelcy asked, “Enhance them how? You mean like a GMO?”
“Yeah,” Barton said slowly, looking at the fifteen year old, “Apparently the same technique. They amplified certain human genes with inherently resistive or advantageous traits.” He spun the tablet around so the family could see, and flicked through the first few pages of a report. “This is from the Special Operations Lab at Fort Detrick,” VB said, “The recipients and the senders are blacked out, as are some of the details, but it gives a good overview of the program with pictures so the woefully lacking senators and their only slightly smarter analysts could understand it.”
Kelcy and Spot leaned over the table and moved VB’s hand out of the way. They took
over navigating the pages, taking turns with his paw, and her finger, flying over the screen. They stopped on a graphic representation of an early accelerator test that detailed the delivery method.
“Ha!” Kelcy said to Spot as she tapped the screen, “I knew it.” She turned to VB and asked “How much of the source research material do you have?”
“All of it, I think,” VB said, “Except anything developed after it left DARPA.”
Comina agreed in his ear.
Kelcy high fived Spot, and after reading VB’s confused face said she and Spot had assumed the formula had obviously modified their DNA, but they had disagreed whether the delivery systems used co-expressed processes or stem cell interference. They were learning as fast as they could on their own, but didn’t have enough background in biology or genetics yet to go much further. After she explained their understanding of genetically modified organisms the teen quickly dove deep into gene insertion techniques that could have possibly resulted in the pups’ gifts.
Comina translated the broad strokes into VB’s ear.
As the bright, pretty teenager spoke confidently about transgenic processes, and Spot added details with Ben’s help, Barton thought about Comina’s earlier comment, Lots of bad guys have underestimated this quiet little family.
Mimi slowed her granddaughter down. She explained that as the kids’ and dogs’ research gained momentum and their knowledge grew the grownups had tried to keep up. It was a frequent topic of dinner conversation, or argument, whenever something new was learned or a theory was proposed.
Aila had gotten up to open a sleeve of ginger snaps cookies. She filled a plate and offered one to VB before setting it on the table. She said, “My problem with the GMO theory has always been the pups’ level of control over their abilities. I am far from an expert, but I don’t think molecular cloning or recombinant insertion works fast enough, from what I can gather.” She turned to the dog seated next to her and said, “The initial DNA modifications can only account for part of your secrets, boy.”
Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three Page 3