Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three

by Robert Udulutch

  Spot stopped mid-charge and jerked his head back causing the woman’s blade to whip just past the end of his snout. She had committed a lot of weight to her jab and spread her legs to regain her balance just as Lum came at a full run from behind her. The small coyote snatched her outstretched ankle as he passed. Following Spot’s instructions, the runt only gave it enough of a tug to trip the woman before letting her go and running past her. Spot didn’t want the young hunter too close to this formidable woman, and he wanted to take her relatively unharmed if he could.

  As she fell Spot launched himself at her again. He delivered the disarming bite she had baited him for, but he ignored her forearm and removed three fingers and the knife as he grabbed her hand, bit down hard, and yanked.

  She screamed, and in one quick motion kicked Spot away as she rolled backwards. Again her speed surprised him, and in a flash she was up on her knees with her sidearm in her good hand.

  It was pointing at Spot’s chest.

  Jixi finally had the black security dog in her sights, and even this cunning animal couldn’t cover the two meters between them faster than a bullet. She moved the gun up a fraction of an inch, making sure she’d hit him above the vest’s breastplate. Her ruined hand was screaming at her, her ankle stung, her career-ending hamstring injury was pinging painfully up her calf, and her face and thighs still burned from the explosion…but she had the gun and she’d gotten the better of this strange dog. Jixi smiled, and started to pull the trigger as the dog slowly raised its paw.

  She stared as the dog’s paw split apart into pinchers. Her eyebrows raised as the dog reached up and very deliberately took her knife out of its mouth. Her severed fingers fell into the snow as the dog opened his jaws slowly. Jixi stared into the dog’s intelligent eyes, and then looked at his prehensile paw again. It was spinning her knife around in a circle.

  Jixi remembered the hard-to-kill dog at the clinic, and the significance of these dogs hit her like a train. She fumbled with her wounded hand to press the talk button on her mic as she adjusted her aim to wound the animal instead of killing it.

  Disobeying his alpha’s direct orders to flee, Lum had made a large loop and circled around behind the woman again, kicking up snow as he added a burst of speed. Spot was suddenly glad One Ear had assigned the stubborn little insubordinate hunter to their house. The tough coyote landed on the woman’s back and snapped down with a hard bite to the neck. Spot dove away as the woman’s shoulders arched and she fired. The bullet went wide, missing him by an inch as he tumbled away into the snow.

  She pawed at Lum, raking at his muzzle with the remains of her injured hand but the runt had his bite sunk in deep.

  As Jixi screamed she turned the gun towards her own neck, aiming at the little coyote’s face.

  Spot leapt forward, but there was too much ground between them. He looked at Lum’s determined little face and futilely barked for him to let go as the woman’s gun pressed into his disfigured lip.

  The woman’s other shoulder exploded.

  An instant later the rifle shot rang out from the woods. Bits of bone and flesh sprayed, and a halo of blood droplets hit Spot and Lum.

  Spot flinched, realized it was Ben who had shot, and saw Lum was still locked on the other side of the small woman’s neck. Spot lunged forward again.

  The woman’s arm dropped limp below her ruined shoulder as Spot hit her. He wrapped his paws around her gun hand, planted his feet, and pulled hard as they all fell back into the snow.

  Jixi looked up from the ground and saw the strange accelerated dog above her. She couldn’t feel his odd hand-shaped paws taking away her gun.

  She did feel the hot breath of the wild dog clamped down on the other side of her neck.

  Spot told Lum to let her go carefully. He wanted the small woman to live long enough to answer some questions. As Ben’s rifle shot had removed a good chunk of her clavicle and scapula, and the important bits between them, he wasn’t sure how long they would have.

  Lum’s one canine tooth was in deep. As he released the pressure on the woman’s neck she kicked out, catching Spot hard on the jaw as she twisted away with one great shove. There was a sharp tearing sound and Lum tumbled in the snow with a piece of the woman’s neck still in his jaws. He spat it out, not noticing the chunk of bloody skin contained most of her triangle tattoo.

  Holding her limp arm across her chest, Jixi flicked her hips and snapped to her feet in one fluid move. She turned to run for the front of the house but her legs felt like bricks and she stopped after a few large lunges. Stiff legged, she turned to face the dogs but they weren’t attacking. They just stood side by side, watching her.

  Jixi realized pulling away from the bite on her neck had been a mistake. The gusher of blood from her torn neck pumped down her front and splashed up on her cheek. She felt the warmth soaking her skin, and a moment later she felt cold. The chill flowed through her chest as she struggled to press down her mic button.

  Jixi whispered, “Harley, the dogs are acce…”

  The cold consumed her as her voice trailed off. She looked into the black dog’s eyes as she fell sideways into the snow.

  Spot walked over to the still twitching woman, ignoring the pain from his jaw and bleeding shoulder. She looked up at him, and then past him as her eyes stopped blinking. With the blood splashed on her face Spot thought she indeed looked just like Jia, and Mina. He barked into her face, Took more than one sec, didn’t it, bitch? When are you people going to get tired of getting killed by us?

  Spot grabbed her wrist and hit the talk button for her mic. He barked again, What have you done with them? He stared down at the young woman for a moment more, and then barked, Fuck you! before letting go of her bloody hand. Spot didn’t care that the humans on the other end of the radio wouldn’t understand him.

  Lum seemed bemused by his alpha’s display, and tipped his red-smeared face when a voice crackled over the dead woman’s bloody earpiece, “T-one, what the hell was that?”

  Chapter 48

  Hamish had counted down with Comina, and flicked to full auto as he stood up from behind his truck. As he squeezed the trigger the bolt of his assault rifle hammered back and forth and chugged out empty casings that flew in an arc, clinking as they bounced over the top of his truck. The muzzle flashed, and downrange sparks danced across the gravel, and picked bark from the trees next to the black van. Hamish narrowed his margin of misses as the jagged holes closed on the man crouching next to it, but stayed clear of the back of the van itself.

  Comina and Mimi moved fast from the burning kitchen. They crossed the driveway and fell onto the packed snow behind Hamish just as a barrage of fire took out the taillights and the rear window of his truck. The other shooter had come around the front of the house and opened up on them. Bullets pinged next to him and Hamish rolled away down the side of the truck, scrambling for cover.

  Katia thumbed her mic, “T-two, incendiaries, flush them,” she said, and drew another line of bullets down the back of the big maroon truck.

  Marty was cowering on the ground next to the van.

  Katia saw him and didn’t bother with the mic. She yelled, “Get up!” as she stomped through the snowy front yard towards the driveway.

  She caught a flash of the furry gray and brown dog darting towards her from the woods. She spun and sent a burst at the fast animal, and then her mouth dropped open.

  Racket had followed Hamish’s and Lum’s directions. When he saw the human’s finger move he leapt away as fast and as hard as he could. The snow covered ground beneath him puffed but he’d leapt straight up, and sideways, and landed softly several feet away.

  Katia had never seen an animal move like that, and she didn’t like the confident look it shot at her after it deftly landed. She shook her head, and before she could get the dog in her sights again it had disappeared into the dark. She tried to follow it with her thermal sight but it started and stopped quickly. It was intermittently hiding behind trees as it bolted away
, making it impossible for her to get a clean shot.

  As Katia turned away from the dog’s odd, effective evasion behavior she nodded at the big dog trainer hiding behind the truck. Hamish Walker must have some real talent. Pity, she thought as she sent another burst into the fender by his head.

  Marty got up from the snowy gravel next to the van and loaded another grenade. He aimed for the truck and hit the launcher’s trigger.

  Hamish nodded to Comina and they stood up with their guns raised. He aimed for the woman nearing the driveway as Comina sighted on the man by the black van.

  Hamish recognized Katia’s pretty face from the pictures on Barton’s tablet just as he started to squeeze the trigger.

  Comina also recognized her target, and picked a spot just below Marty’s chin. In a flash his face was obscured by a puff from below his weapon, and Comina saw the blur of the grenade racing towards them.

  Comina abandoned her shot. She grabbed Hamish’s backpack and yanked hard as she turned to shove Mimi towards the front of the Wagoneer. Hamish’s muzzle flashes traced an arc into the air as he was pulled away.

  The rear of Hamish’s truck shook when Marty’s grenade round exploded. Flames poured out from under the running boards and licked up the dual rear tires.

  “Again,” Katia said as she stepped over a snow bank and onto the driveway near Marty. He sent another round over the top of the vehicles and the front of the barn erupted in flame. “The pen shed,” Katia said as she started to walk up the driveway.

  Hamish rolled off Comina and she batted out the flames on his jacket. He turned to collect his rifle but it was burning in a pool of fire next to her Glock. The agent drew her backup ankle piece and helped the smoldering Hamish crawl around the Wagoneer’s plow blade as Mimi threw snow on his legs.

  Mr. Watt stared at them from the edge of the pen. He’d stopped his constant stream of bleats and just watched, saucer-eyed with his tongue hanging out as the shed behind him burned brightly.

  Katia shot out the back window and the rear tires of the white Jeep when the grandmother tried peeking around it with a shotgun. Katia checked the woods behind her again for the dog, and then turned back to the Walkers. When she saw the assault rifle burning on the ground under the truck and the fires around the perimeter of the turn-around she smiled. The family had nowhere to run. There was too much open ground between their vehicles and the woods. Pieces of the burning barn were falling near the Jeep and she could see her target’s shadows moving behind it. The family might get a little crispy, but technically she would have fulfilled her father’s wishes. As long as they could pull every crumb of information from them before they died, and a little blood, he wouldn’t be too displeased with her.

  She dropped down to the tranq gun and started to jog up the driveway. “Covering fire, but don’t hit them,” Katia said. Marty looked down at his gun, set it to full auto and blew out the rest of the Jeep’s side windows.

  From somewhere in the dark of the woods behind them the dog began to growl. The growl turned into yaps, which turned into singing barks, which turned into a long, sustained howl.

  Katia and Marty turned and stared at each other.

  They raised their rifles towards the woods, and Katia alternated between night vision and thermal but she didn’t see the animal. The haunting howl echoed through the trees and Katia suddenly wasn’t so sure it was a domesticated dog. She thought it was a small shepherd, but it certainly sounded like a wild animal. Her mind shot back at her, That thing’s far too well trained to be a wild dog.

  From the thick woods far behind the goat pen came another, distinctly wild howl.

  It was joined by another, and another, and another.

  Chapter 49

  “T-one, repeat. What the hell was that barking?” Harley said, and then breaking protocol he added, “Jixi, where the fuck are you?”

  From his hiding place behind a tree trunk Ben watched through his scope as Spot signed a thanks, and then some instructions. Before darting away with Lum he also signed that the woman Ben had just shot was no longer available to answer any questions.

  Ben’s parents were huddled together under a tangle of snow covered pine branches a few yards from him. Dan had the black van in his night vision sight but through the dense trees and smoke could just barely make out the man standing next to its open door. He fought the urge to shoot, or to just charge the man and tear his head off. Aila was pressing into his shoulder, and he shared her unspoken desperation to get to Kelcy and Mimi. He struggled with leaving the job of taking the man out to Spot and Ben, but Hamish’s words kept replaying in his head. After Hamish had shown Dan how to shoot the assault rifle he had locked eyes with him and said, “Don’t let those new muscles or your fatherly pride make you daft, Danny boy. If the shite hits the fan let your dogs and the boy take the lead. They’ll know what to do. Your son’s a belter with this kit and by far the best shot in your family. And your wee dogs…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want them angry at me. They’re a bloody effective team.”

  As he huddled with Aila in the woods Dan was having trouble agreeing with Hamish. He flicked off his rifle’s safety just as Ben rolled into their hiding spot and whispered, “You two wait here and keep your heads down. That woman assassin was well trained and Spot doesn’t want us getting in front of that guy’s little bullpup riffle. Their sights look to be a smaller versions of our combo FLIR and NVD, so stay behind something cold and don’t move around. Remember your head’s the hottest part of you. It also looks like their firing something smaller than our five-five-six ammo and we’ll want to stay at least a hundred yards out to give our rounds the advantage, especially with his undermount launcher. I’ll call out when Spot says it’s safe to head for the cars. Dad, if you have to shoot remember what Hamish said about two-count bursts. Anything more is wasting ammo…and let your ACOG scope do the work, keep both eyes open and just follow the lighted dot.” Ben reached over and twisted a knob on Dan’s rifle scope two clicks. He said, “The guy’s got full-frontal tac armor so aim for his knees and let the recoil pull the barrel up through the burst. Love you guys.” Ben gave them each a kiss, and quickly checked in with Spot again before rolling over his mom and disappearing into the dark woods.

  As Dan clicked on the safety of his rifle and lowered with Aila into the snow covered branches she whispered in his ear, “Are you fucking kidding me? He was afraid of snakes under the shed a few months ago, what the hell did Hamish do to our kid?”

  The Hogan’s house was completely engulfed in flames, but even over the hiss and popping of the inferno Ben heard the crackle of distant gunfire and several loud booms from the direction of the farm. Mimi’s house was almost a mile away so the fighting there had to be heavy. Ben fought off his own urge to jump up and bolt for the path to the farm. As he turned back to his rifle he hoped Agent Loyal Comina, or whatever the hell Lindsay’s real name was, had been making herself useful.

  Ben watched as the assassin shot low and fast away from the van. He was keeping clear of the heat from the fire and sticking close to the trees for cover as he crossed the front yard. Ben stopped running and dropped behind the cover of a tree as he realized they’d need a new plan. He found Spot again with his scope.

  As Harley approached the rear of the house he saw a body lying in the snow. No no no no, he thought as he moved behind a large tree before taking a knee. Even at this distance he was sure it was Jixi, and she wasn’t moving. He raised his rifle, flicked to infrared and saw too much blood around the cooling body. The large pool still showed up as a warm orange glow against the gray of the cold snow.

  When the man stopped behind a tree Ben rolled a few feet to the left and leaned over a thick log to steady his shot. He clicked a setting on his scope to adjust for the distance, and waited for him to show himself again.

  Harley stared at his dead cousin. He fought to keep the rage rising within him in check, and he struggled to push away his own screaming questions about this lethal family. He
wished Tian was by his side, and he cursed Katia’s obviously fucking flawed intel. Harley shook his head, working hard to shove all of that bullshit aside. There was still targets in the woods and he was going to finish this. He pulled another grenade from his tool belt, and in doing so he leaned just a little to the left.

  Ben saw the silhouette of the man lean out from behind the tree and thought, The last one I tried to wing didn’t live very long. He aimed for a little less meat, recited his shooting mantra, and exhaled just before he squeezed the trigger.

  Harley ignored the sharp report from the rifle in the woods, the chips of bark hitting his face, and the biting sting in his shoulder. He dropped to the ground, and as he rolled he finished loading the tear gas canister into the grenade launcher. He popped back up behind a tree and quickly guessed at the shooter’s position as he sent the tear gas round screaming into the woods. He rolled again, coming up at the next tree while moving to the gun trigger and spraying a line of fire from his compact assault rifle.

  Spot and Lum watched from under the bushes in the front yard. The gas canister popped near their family, and then a sustained burst of flame streamed from the assassin’s gun. The man’s strange assault rifle had no recoil and spit out rounds at an amazing rate. He also spun like he was on a swivel and effectively covered his flanks and his rear between each burst. Spot couldn’t get enough of a window to rush him. He stomped in frustration before he and Lum pulled back and slipped out through the back of the bushes.

  Ben held his breath and rolled away from the spreading gas before stopping and pulling the vest away from his shoulder. The bullet punch he’d felt hadn’t gone through it, but it sure hurt like hell. He dug around in the fabric and pulled out a deformed, small caliber bullet. He thought, So maybe a hundred yards wasn’t enough.