As Comina knelt to hug the pups, Hamish walked with Christa, Ollie, and Blu to the back of the rented vans.
Hamish put his arms around all three of them and said, “I haven’t got the words for you fuckers. You’ve saved my damn family, what else can possibly be more deserving of thanks than that?”
After he gave them another big squeeze he swept his hands over the pile of weapons and said, “You want any of this stuff, lass?”
“No,” Blu said, “I’m sure Harry and Lissa, God rest her, would want you to have them. Harry can buy new ones, he won’t be hurting for cash ever again. Take the guns with you and hide them somewhere close, just in case. Besides, we’ve already asked enough from Ollie’s helo pilot, and I wouldn’t mind flying back into Canada without having to clip the tree tops again.”
Hamish nodded, and shook Ollie’s hand as he said, “No more illegal border crossings for you, bloke.”
Ollie gave Hamish a hug. As the two men clapped their massive arms around each other the border agent said, “My first and last. Didn’t wake up yesterday thinking I’d be a gun smuggler. You still owe me fifty bucks, by the way,” Ollie said as Hamish bent to pat Snyder, “I’ll expect payment when I see you next time.”
When Hamish stood Blu wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss that lasted a little longer than either had intended. “Take care of those kids,” she whispered in his ear.
Back at the plane Tian shook Comina’s hand before he climbed the steps. He bowed slightly and said, “Thank you, Agent Comina.”
“And thank you, Tian. I’ll let you know if anything changes,” Comina said, “Don’t worry, we know she’s moved back into her father’s house. My contact says her dad fully understands the situation and has arranged for her safety. I’m sure she’ll be fine…maybe a little pissed off, but at least she’ll be safe.” She held Tian’s hand for a moment. She smiled at him and said, “And I’m sure she’ll take your call eventually. She just needs some time. In the mean time you keep protecting them until I find Semion and Katia.”
Tian nodded.
Dan watched his family follow Tian into the plane as he pulled Nikki aside. He took the cop’s hands in his and said, “I don’t know what to say. Where would I begin? Sorry… thanks… Andi was…” He couldn’t finish, and just stared at her for a moment before dropping his eyes.
“Nothing needs to be said, Dan. She knew what she was doing, and she made me promise to help you and your family,” Nikki said, giving his hands a squeeze, “I’m not so sure that job is done. Would you mind if I went with you?”
Dan raised his head and looked at her. “Really?” he said, “We’d love for you to come, and Seamus of course.”
Nikki shrugged as she looked out at the rain and said, “I’ve got nothing here. Someone in my department, or hers, sold us out. There’s also no way I can face her family, not now. Hell, we could barely tolerate those assholes before and she always said she didn’t want a funeral. We were going to elope, and the fucking funny thing about that is I was going to surprise her with a trip to Africa for our honeymoon.” Her eyes reddened as she looked at Dan and said, “I made her a promise I intend to keep, and I want to help. There’s something special about your family, Dan, and it’s more than just those crazy dogs. She’d want me to go. Besides, I taught Andi everything she knew and you need to keep your skills up.”
A few minutes later the plane rolled slowly out of the hangar. The family looked down from the small oval windows to the friends they were leaving behind.
On the hangar floor Blu stood next to Ollie with her hand on his shoulder, and Comina winked up at Kelcy as they waved. Snyder barked and wagged at the two black dogs looking down at him.
As the rain washed over the plane’s windows, and the lights of the hangar were replaced by the dark skies over Boston, the passengers in the back of the king’s private jet settled into their seats.
The center lounge area of the plane was one continuous deep leather couch that ran all the way around the cabin. Its curve was interrupted by a front aisle that led to the bar and the galley, and a rear aisle that led to the restrooms and sleeping compartments.
The police dogs were cuddled together on the thick carpet in front of Nikki and Christa, with Sholto resting her chin on Seamus’s back.
Tian was lying at one end of the leather couch with a blanket rolled up behind his head, he was already snoring quietly.
The Hogans and Walkers were one continuous pile on the opposite wall. In the tangle of blankets and limbs it was hard to tell which arm, tail, or leg belonged to whom.
The indirect cabin lights dimmed to just a glow and Tomal’s deep, warm voice came over the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of the crazy Scottish people in the back of my plane, on behalf of our beloved King it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Zululand Air. Our flight time to Durban, South Africa, will be just over sixteen hours. Relax, get some rest, and we’ll be back to check on you once were at cruising altitude…and happy birthday to Ben.”
Dan and Aila exchanged a look, and Mimi smiled at Hamish.
“That’s right, it’s after midnight,” Mimi said as she hugged Ben tightly and kissed him on the head, “Oh my dear boy, happy birthday.”
Hamish reached over the pups and pulled on Ben’s ear. He said, “Hey old man, there ain’t much left for you to learn the hard way, is there?”
Spot and Smudge nodded and Ben smiled as he leaned against Hamish’s rubbing hand.
The cabin erupted in happy birthday wishes and tail thumps. As the plane gained speed and the wheels pulled away from the runway Captain Tomal turned to his copilot and smiled as he clicked the listen button on the intercom.
The odd group in the back of his plane was chanting, “Ben, Ben, Ben...”
Chapter 72
Semion poured himself another drink and stared at the freezing rain falling on New York. He downed the whisky and poured another. Before he set the bottle back down on his daughter’s desk he noticed the Scottish Royal Standard Lion on the corner of the single malt’s label. He snorted, and said, “Da.”
As the vents on the low windowsill started to blow hot air he slipped off his shoes. He put his feet on the sill and cradled the glass high on his massive round chest.
He was still holding the framed picture he had been holding all evening as he’d gotten drunk.
Semion stared down at his daughter. The picture was taken on their favorite slope in the Caucuses. Her beautiful mother was draped over Katia from behind and they were laughing and tugging at each other’s ski goggles.
Katia’s office door opened and Berluti took a step into the room. She nodded back at the reception area and said, “It’s Doctor Cori. He says it’s rather important.”
“Send him in,” Semion said as he waved a big hand at her, and took another drink.
Johann stepped around the large female bodyguard and watched her backside as she pulled the door closed behind her.
Without turning away from the window Semion said, “Dobriy veecher, my good doctor. What is it keeping you up so late?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, now, you know, at this time,” Johann fumbled, “but I’ve found it.”
Semion emptied the glass and filled it again. “Let me guess, Johann,” he said, “you’ve found an interesting link between the size of your brains and your balls.”
“No, I’ve found it, the one accelerated in Pembury,” Johann said.
“Lovely news, doctor,” Semion said, “but confirming what I already know is not exactly going to win you the Nobel Prize. A shit sample from the boy is nothing without his blood. Good night. It was nice of you to stop by.”
“It wasn’t the boy,” Johann said.
Semion took a long drink and dropped his heavy feet to the office floor. He was still staring at the lights from the cars creeping across Manhattan when he asked, “Niet? So enlighten me doctor, who is it?”
“Not who, what,” Johann said, “The samples didn�
��t get rejected from the accelerator tests because they were contaminated, they fooled the machines because they weren’t human. It’s canine DNA.”
Semion turned his bulk to face Johann and moved aside the mostly empty bottle of whisky. He said, “A dog got accelerated?”
“Yes,” Johann said, “I ran the test three times. The samples were good, the tests were good. It’s the Hogan’s female dog. The very one we had lying on a gurney in our facility, the very one Katia shot with the tranqs. Sorry, sir.” Johann paused, but when he saw no reaction from Semion he continued, “It’s not an infection. The dog has an amazing array of stable genetic modifications. Like I said, I ran the test three times, there’s no doubt.”
Semion scratched his unshaven face and said, “How exactly did you get shit from the dog?”
“It was in the sewer samples from the farmhouse,” Johann said, “The dog must have crapped in the house and the Walker’s tossed it in the toilet. Maybe it was sick.”
Semion stared at the doctor for a moment and then said, “The descriptions of the dog attacks sounded like govno. I assumed them to be failure-induced hysterical nonsense about security dogs that were just really well trained by that old Scot bastard. In hindsight, the attacks sounded pretty fucking autonomous, and coordinated. If Harley and my daughter were telling the truth then I doubt these were sick animals. Maybe the dog crapped in the toilet, and then flushed it herself.”
Johann thought about that and said, “The conditions would have to be just right, but a massive increase in intelligence and cognitive function is very plausible if a canine was successfully accelerated. We only tested the compound on canines in the early rounds to check for organ compatibility and solve rejection issues. In every test they expired just as all of the human test subjects had.” He pushed his glasses onto his nose with the palm of his hand and said, “It must not have been an infection, it must have been inherited. The timing is about right, based on what we know about the Dorschstein kennels. One of those dogs must have been pregnant.”
“As fascinating as this is, dear doctor,” Semion said as he filled his glass again, “Unless I misunderstood all the technical bullshit from your late boss the stool samples are only good for detection. You can’t begin to develop our serum without blood, am I correct?”
“You are,” Johann said, “Which is why it’s a good thing I kept these.” He tossed two tranquilizer darts onto the desk. Their metal bodies tinked across the glass surface and bounced off the bottle of whisky.
Semion put down the picture of Katia and picked up a dart. He looked up at Johann.
“I pulled them out of the Hogan’s female dog,” Johann said, “I put them in my pocket and forgot all about them.”
“And?” Semion asked, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“And there was more than enough blood in them to replicate,” Johann said with a big smile, “We’ve started the phase two work on the serum.”
BOOK TWO
…and let slip the pups of war.
Chapter 73
Kelcy took off her stethoscope and put her ear right down on the animal’s fur. She listened as its chest expanded and contracted. The coat was warm, and smelled like grass and something else that reminded her of a goat pen from a farm that was more than eight thousand miles away, and no longer existed.
“Well?” the doctor asked.
“She sounds clear,” Kelcy said.
The doctor raised her eyebrow at the teen, waiting for more.
A very tan Ben walked into the exam room and waved to them as he hopped up onto the back table.
“So,” Kelcy said, “based on the loss of appetite, black stool with a little blood in it and lack of anything else presenting, I’d say gastritis. I read it’s common in captivity, not so much in wild cats.”
The doctor smiled broadly at Kelcy and said, “Master fundi girl. Take her out and you two go on home, we’ll endo her tomorrow.”
“Yebo,” Kelcy said as she led the cheetah off the exam table. Both kids said goodbye and the doctor waved as they left with the big cat padding between them. After putting the animal into its pen they walked through the rehab center paddocks and climbed into an open-top Land Rover. Spot and Smudge were waiting for them in the back seat and she gave them a scratch before climbing behind the wheel.
Kelcy drove them through the twisting dirt roads of the reserve. Ben and the pups had learned to lean into the center of the vehicle as Kelcy still tended to take turns a little wide. She was still getting used to shifting and driving from the wrong side of the vehicle. Spiny aloe and fynbos lined the sides of the road near the watering hole and their branches scraped along the sides of the small truck. The kids and dogs had seen how an acacia thorn could take away a chunk of fur or flesh in an instant.
The deeply rutted dirt road crossed a wide, shallow river that flowed down into a large watering hole. After bouncing the truck over the rocks of the riverbed Kelcy stopped for a group of wildebeest crossing the road. As they sat idling a ranger’s truck came from the opposite direction. It paused to let a straggling mom and calf run between the vehicles before pulling up alongside the kids.
The game reserve’s head ranger was behind the wheel of the truck. Musa Christian ran the anti-poaching unit for Theo and oversaw all of the security on the reserve. Standing behind Musa were three men with automatic rifles. The men were hand-picked by Musa and Theo, and were tough looking and strong but they looked like children next to Musa. He was a gigantic man, and was even several centimeters taller than Hamish. The dark man didn’t talk, he whispered, but it was louder than most people’s shouts.
Rook was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, and the huge black-faced dog stood up and wagged at them after the truck squealed to a stop.
“How’s it Hogans?” Musa said, shoving Rook’s face away as he held out his big hand for Kelcy to slap it, “Big day at the clinic?”
“Yebo,” Kelcy said, “Now home to lay about and toss something on the braai.” She nodded to the men in the truck and they waved back at her. “You out looking?” she said.
Musa nodded and said, “They took an elly on the ridge this morning. Your Uncle’s team got one of them but the others escaped. We’re going to make one more loop before sundown.” The truck rolled backwards as Musa ground it into first gear. He said to Ben, “You brining those hounds with you in the morning, yah?”
“Hundreds,” Ben said as Spot and Smudge nodded at the big ranger and the wagging boerboel police dog.
Musa returned the dogs’ nods, and smiled an enormous white smile as the truck roared away.
An hour later Dan carefully swung his leg over a long bench, trying not to spill the contents of the two plates he was carrying. Each held a pile of steaming minced, spiced lamb covered in a topping of baked egg and dried fruit. As he sat down next to his wife he placed one of the plates in front of Mimi.
“Faith, this bloody bobotie is addictive. It shames my mince and totties,” Mimi said as she forked a large bite from her second helping.
Theo’s mother nodded to Mimi and said, “I find that funny, Jean. You see, I consider your dishes to be a delight where ours seem plain to me,” she raised her glass and said, “Akubehkuhle, to sharing culture, and leaving the dishes for the men to clean up.”
Half of the table met her toast with nods and agreement.
The family was seated around a large table in the boma, an outside patio. The table sat under a curved thatched roof that circled a fire pit. As the sun was setting over the tall hills of the Kwazulu-Natal behind them, the cicadas started to drown out the call of the hyenas at the watering hole.
The family and their hosts had gathered at the boma for dinner every night since arriving at Theo’s ranch. It was the only table in his sprawling compound large enough to hold all of them. Ben had recognized the boma from the video chat with Theo when he was in Canada with Christa and Hamish. They had called to show off the talents of the twin boerboel police dogs they had custom traine
d especially for him.
Vuur and Rook’s reunion with Spot, Smudge, and Sholto had been a treat to watch. The dogs saw each other from across the compound, and the boerboels had leapt from the moving truck they were riding in. The five met in a mass of wagging and butt sniffing. It hadn’t taken Seamus long to join in, and the six had been inseparable ever since.
Starting that first afternoon Spot and Smudge immersed themselves in the unique challenges the dogs and their anti-poaching team handlers were facing in the bush. Working with Hamish they developed advanced skills to augment the intensive training Vuur and Rook had already received in Canada, with Christa and Ben’s help.
They included Seamus and Nikki in the training as well. The state trooper and the big Doberman were already a talented team and Seamus was a fast study. By watching Vuur and Rook, and with the pups giving him one on one guidance, Nikki had to admit her canine partner had quickly gone from good to amazing in just a few short weeks. Even Hamish noted Seamus had become almost as proficient as Vuur and Rook.
Spot and Smudge even showed Seamus how the boerboels could lock their hind limbs under their front paws to sink in an effective choke hold on a human. Nikki initially scoffed at that claim, and nudged Christa for support. Christa kept quiet and just shrugged. She’d already been a victim of the dogs’ choke hold and felt it was something that could only truly be appreciated by experiencing it. Eight seconds later Nikki rubbed her neck and caught her breath as she shoved Rook off of her and said to the pups, “You two are seriously fucking twisted. I love it. Have Rook show me that again, but slower this time.”
As the humans ate dinner, all of the dogs lounged with their paws hanging over the edge of the boma. They were watching the watering hole below the ranch as a family of kudu came out of the bush to drink. On a rise opposite the ranch house compound, past the watering hole, they could see the security team’s offices and barracks, and the rehab clinic with its pens and paddocks for the animals being cared for.
Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three Page 32