Cerberus Tactical K9 Team Charlie

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance

Synopsis

The Cerberus Tactical K9 Team Charlie romantic suspense series features standalone stories centered around elite operatives and their tactical K9 partners working for Iniquus. Former military operators from specialized units—Australian Commandos, SEALs, Green Berets, Marine Raiders, and Delta Force—transition to high-stakes missions with Cerberus. From Washington D.C. to Namibia, St. Croix, rural Virginia, Spain, and Tanzania, these handlers and their K9s face life-or-death situations while navigating unexpected romance.

Each book pairs action-packed suspense with relationship development, exploring themes of trust, second chances, and survival. Heroes with guardian instincts meet heroines—including STEM professionals and journalists—who refuse to be damsels in distress. The series delivers guaranteed happily-ever-afters with recurring characters creating connections across stories and found family dynamics emerging as operatives support each other. Perfect for readers who enjoy protective heroes, capable heroines, and the bond between handlers and their working K9 partners in high-adrenaline romantic suspense.

Publisher: Fiona Quinn, Ltd

Sample

From Book 1 Guardian's Instinct

 

Prologue(3)

1

 

Iniquus’ Cerberus Tactical K9 is Building Team Charlie

Mid-August

Shenandoah, Virginia

 

Basil St. John—code-named Halo—unfolded himself from the back of the gunmetal gray passenger van. For an hour and a half, he’d traveled west with Cerberus Team Alpha from Iniquus Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Shenandoah Valley.

“Shenandoah.” Halo moved those unfamiliar sounds around his lips and tongue, thinking it had a forlorn kind of feel to it. As Halo set his rucksack on the ground at his feet and sent his gaze up into the hills, he remembered an American Marine from Wyoming he’d met behind the wire of a UN military base back in Halo’s early days as an Australian Commando. With his sweat-stained cowboy hat, that Marine sat near the campfire, strumming his guitar, singing about home—lush with prairie grasses dancing under a bright sun during the day and the night’s sky a riot of diamonds overhead.

Those moonlit songs painted a picture of the mid-west in Halo’s imagination.

The pictures he’d formed of the East Coast, including D.C., the city he hoped to call home, came from the movies. Five days ago, Halo had flown in from New South Wales to interview for a job that had come available with world-renowned Iniquus Security.

Halo’s military record stood strong. But that record alone wasn’t going to get him a place on the teams. Even with the special operator boxes ticked, the Iniquus hiring process was a thorough one. Halo had spent days moving through daunting security scrutiny, followed by physical, ethical, and psychological tests. Iniquus had a worldwide reputation for integrity and excellence; they weren’t going to take on anyone who didn’t fit their specs, and that included American citizenship, high-level security clearance, and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. Lucky for Halo, though, he hadn’t been to the United States since he was a month old, he had, in fact, started this life in a New York City hospital.

As Halo stepped off the plane in D.C., he thought his mental pictures had pretty much lined up. But standing here in the parking lot with the sun just breaking over the horizon in the east, sending a golden glow over the height and breadth of the mountain range sprawling across the horizon, Halo had to admit that he hadn’t expected this—not so close to the capital city, anyway.

Today, Cerberus Alpha was at the base of the mountain, taking on a real-world mission.

The team had invited Halo along. It was a final test to see if he was a good fit for Iniquus’s K9 Tactical Team. Just like in all special forces units, only a portion of the job was about skill proficiency and technical knowledge. A big chunk of success was personality. Could you get along? Did you have a team mindset? Did they have confidence that you had their back when things got wild and hairy?

When facing life-or-death scenarios, trust was everything.

And today, there was a life on the line. A woman had wandered from her care facility into the foothills after a delivery man didn’t wait to hear the door snick shut behind him.

Throwing his borrowed pack over his shoulders, Halo watched a car park in the back corner of the lot. The driver jumped from the car and ran to the knot of distraught family members huddling close. A high-pitched wail rode the wind, and Halo imagined that it could well be his own family if something like this were to happen to his gramps.

Halo turned to scan the sleepy-looking hill in front of him. It was hard to imagine that someone was out there and would soon be struggling to stay alive if the search teams didn’t get to her in time.

The family was lucky, though, in this one regard, trained search teams were amassing.

Max let out a high-pitched bark, looking for Halo and wanting out of his crate. Halo fell in line behind Ryder as the team unloaded their dogs from the follow van. Ryder was an Australian Commando brother. On his recommendation, Iniquus Command extended an invitation to Halo for the interview. And he was grateful.

Ryder tipped his ear toward the family, and Halo gave him a nod of understanding. It was tough to watch that kind of pain.

On the way out here, Ryder had told him that at times when circumstances presented as acutely perilous—be they missing children, someone with a medical condition, dangerous weather, or a suicidal war veteran—area officials often reached out to Cerberus to lend an assist while State resources scrambled.

When the Iniquus search teams were in town, they did their best to help. But they were often elsewhere—Team Bravo was training in the Caribbean, and Alpha was just now getting back from an Italian mudslide that trapped three contract-protected students for days in the debris.

Team Alpha was jet lagged and exhausted from the physical demands of their time in the dirt but put their personal comfort aside to be here.

Tripwire efficiently unloaded his German shepherd, Valor, from the K9 transport and stepped out of the way for Ryder to get Voodoo.

Today, Halo wanted two things very badly. He wanted Iniquus to offer him a contract, yes. But mostly, he wanted to be a force multiplier as the team worked to save a woman’s life.

Halo turned his attention to the van; it was his turn to get his dog.

Max sat proudly waiting, the tip of his tail vibrating with excitement. He knew they were going to work, and Max loved every minute of the physical and mental challenge.

“Ready to go, boy? Today, we’re not playing. Someone needs us to be in top form.” He unclasped the lock, and Max jumped down, rounding to flank Halo.

When Halo stepped out of the way for the next guy, Max pressed to his side. “Come on, Maxi, let’s get you into uniform. Today, you get to wear your helmet and goggles. Let’s see what Ryder says is in store for us.”

Halo had been training his K9, Take It to The Max, since he was about eight weeks old. As they got the call to interview for the position with Iniquus, Halo was celebrating Max’s second adoption day anniversary, which launched the Malinois full-blown into his doggy adolescence. And like human teens, that had its challenges.

Back in their early days together, when he was still a K9 handler with his Australian Commando unit, Halo would get home at night and work with his pup, patiently building the skillsets Max would need to reach his full potential. Tactical work, apprehension work, scent work, Max was a nose and a bite. And he enjoyed all of it—especially when he got to wear his doggy goggles. Dressing out in his tactical kit seemed to make Max feel badass.

Clipping the last buckle on Max’s borrowed blaze-orange vest, Halo checked his collar with its tracking and comms units affixed. “All’s good, Max.”

Ryder came over to sit on the bumper beside them. “You’re going to need the three Gs here, mate: goggles, gloves, and gators.” Ryder opened his pack and pulled those items out. “They’ll hand you a can of bear spray as we set out. Powerful stuff, you want to make sure it doesn’t leak on you or Max.”

Halo opened the loaner pack and pulled out a pair of gators. Just like in the Commandos, every item in the ruck was essential and organized into specific spaces. No matter what went down—no matter the field conditions—an operator could grab up anyone’s pack, reach in, and through muscle memory, put their hand on the lifesaving piece of equipment.

Problem was, Halo hadn’t trained on the configuration. Handed this pack on the way out to the site, he learned a lot about what he might expect from today’s mission just from the equipment inside. Almost all the weight came from the water bladder and climbing ropes. Each tool could serve multiple purposes, and all were special forces quality construction. The wraparound goggles and the thickness of the leather gloves were a bit of a mystery.

Max watched with interest as Ryder and Halo attached the gators to their boots, pulling the thick, water-repellent cloth up over their pants legs, tightening them with the pull cord under their knees. This addition might help to protect from snake bites. More likely, though, they’d be serving to guard against ticks and a bug the Americans called “chiggers.” They were “scrub-itch mites” back home, and Halo would go a far piece to avoid those nasty buggers.

Goggles around his neck, gloves slipped into his belt, he squeezed the pocket on the left thigh of his borrowed gunmetal gray tactical uniform pants to double check his first aid kit, then to his lower leg pocket for his emergency sleeve with fire starting materials and signaling backup. With a sat phone in his right pocket, sealed safe with hook and loop fastener, Halo stood and pulled the rucksack over his shoulders as he saw the team heading toward the team leader, Ridge.

With a tap of his thigh, Max plastered himself to Halo’s side, and they set off together.

With his K9 Zeus at his side, Ridge had been conferring with the sheriff, but now he strode a distance from the building, and the team formed a horseshoe around him to gather the necessary mission details. The dogs sitting between their handler’s feet were ready to spring forward and get on task.

“Gentlemen.” After Ridge lifted his phone and swiped, each man reached down to retrieve the pinging phone in their pocket. “The first picture is our lost person. Gloria Haze, female, eighty-one. The only name she will answer to is Grammie. Diagnosed with dementia, she is, for the most part, non-verbal and non-responsive. She’s a new resident at this facility and has no history of wandering from here, so there are no historical search finds to check out. She’s not from this area, so she won’t be trying to return to a place from her past. Five foot two and a hundred pounds, Mrs. Haze is frail. Her carers last saw her in blue striped cotton pajamas and tennis shoes this morning. The camera that monitors the delivery door isn’t functioning. A hall camera last recorded Mrs. Haze at zero-five thirty. That means she has a two-hour jump on us. Now, frail and elderly does not always indicate the ability of a missing person.” Ridge turned to catch Halo’s gaze. “Last year, we were on a search for a man with dementia who was remembering his days on the cross-country team for his university. And every member of special forces knows that the brain can make the body do astounding feats. In that case, he was thirty miles down the trail when our ATV caught up with him. My understanding is that in her youth, Mrs. Haze was an avid hiker, which means we’re changing up our search protocol.”

Tripwire asked, “Only Mrs. Haze? The other residents are accounted for?”

“When they found the door ajar, they did a census,” Ridge said. “Mrs. Haze was the only one unlocated. We’re fortunate we aren’t looking for more.”

“Any information about a shoe tread?” Ryder asked.

“The sheriff is working on that for you.” Ridge looked toward the family huddle that had just grown by another carload. “The granddaughter is going to the store when it opens to see if she might recognize the style. If they get anything, they’ll send a picture of the tread to our tactical operations center, and you’ll get it on your sat phones.” He posted his hands on his hips. “On the subject of tracking, in this area, they’ve had rain showers off and on for the last three days. This might make for good track traps, so while you’re watching your dogs, keep an awareness. The ground, being wet, however, poses a threat should Mrs. Haze sit or lie down. With little fat or muscle protection, the ground will quickly wick her body heat away. I want each of you to grab a hypothermia bag from the duffle.” Ridge turned to Halo. “Wool socks, fleece hat, four hand warmers, and an extra mylar blanket.”

Halo nodded his affirmation.

“Since the time of disappearance, there’s only been a light breeze. The scent cones should have held close to the ground for your dogs. Your search areas.” Ridge handed out maps, marked in yellow highlighter, to all but Halo. The men looked down at their task sheets and then off into the distance, getting their bearings.

“There are no high-hazard areas in our search perimeters other than the terrain and the weather,” Ridge said. “Make absolutely sure that all structures and heavy brush are thoroughly investigated.”

“Sir,” the team said.

Ridge turned his attention to Halo. “I’ll talk to you about your duties momentarily.”

“Sir.” Halo had assumed he’d be trailing one of the others to learn their methods.

“A Virginia land navigation team is en route. They’re about two hours out. They’re also mounting an equestrian team. It’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck event. We’re running against a clock. In three hours, the weather front we were talking about on the way here this morning is going to make Mrs. Haze’s survival tenuous. I just got an update from our command center that we should expect sustained, heavy rains that will significantly limit our visual field. The temperature will drop into the lower fifties. So, let’s get on task. Blaze orange beanies, team, small game hunting season has begun in Virginia.”

Tripwire jogged off toward one of the vans while the others held tight, dropping their maps into silicon sleeves that hung from their packs. Arriving back in the circle, Tripwire handed Ryder one of the duffels. Ryder distributed the hypothermia packs while Tripwire handed out the promised bear spray. After storing the additional support pack in his ruck, Halo clipped the pepper spray on his left, ready for a quick draw.

Tripwire nudged him. “Hey, in case you’ve never experienced this level of capsaicin, pointing downwind is your friend. If you spray into the wind, and it dowses you, the bear just thinks he’s having gourmet for dinner.”

“Fair warning,” Halo said.

Tripwire caught Halo’s gaze. “It’s fat bear season. They’re getting their last bites in before they settle in for a long winter’s nap. They’re out looking for food. Keep an eye on your dog.”

“Yeah.” Mental note: research American bears and survival techniques. There were lots of deadly critters in Australia, but bears weren’t on that list.

Ridge did a comms check, and the team each took their compass direction and headed out.

Max looked up at Halo expectantly. He got a hand signal that told him to sit and wait.

“Typically, we have our two bloodhounds, Whisky and Chaser, out on a trail,” Ridge said. “They weren’t available today.” Ridge sent a glance down to Max. “Reaper was impressed with Max’s stamina while trailing, especially for such a young dog.” Reaper was the Cerberus chief training officer. If he was impressed, that was good news. “While the others are air scenting, I want Max working nose to the ground.”

“Sir.” Max was going to love that. Trailing was one of his favorite things to do.

Ridge bladed his hand toward the building. “The sheriff is beside the door they found open, which he believes was Mrs. Haze’s exit point. He has a plastic bag with the subject’s scent source—a nightgown she wore yesterday.”

“That’ll work.”

“I know we’re throwing you into the unknown,” Ridge said, “but that’s why we hire special forces. Roll with it. But when you come against questions, I expect you to radio them to the team. The main thing you’re to remember is that if you spot our subject, in the civilian world, we treat every find as if it were a crime scene, so minimal trace on your part.”

“Sir.”

Ridge clapped his hand onto Halo’s shoulder. “Let’s hope someone makes that call and makes it soon.” Ridge looked up at the sky. To Halo, it looked like a fine day. But Ridge pulled his brow together.

Checking his compass and grid, Ridge and Zeus took off into the woods.

When Halo looked down, Max’s muscles were taut, his eyes expectant. He was ready. “All right, Maxi, here we go.” Though, their window for a successful recovery was narrow, any anxiety for Mrs. Haze’s safety had to be set aside so stress didn’t interfere with their task as they worked the problem. “We’re going to treat this day like any day we’re out there training. Calm and steady, good focus, hey?”

The only thing was this wasn’t a typical training day. Ridge trusted them with the trailing task, a position of high importance.

This was Max’s first time putting his skills to the test on a mission with real-world consequences. Halo shifted his attention to the family huddled together, arms holding each other tight, the sounds of broken sobs fracturing the otherwise silent soundscape. A family was desperate for the team’s success—their loved one’s life on the line.

 

2

 

As Team Alpha stepped off the blacktop into the woods, Halo and Max accepted the scent source from the sheriff who then removed himself from the scene until Max got onto the trail. Halo calmed his breathing and let go of his stress, thinking of his own gramps, confused and endangered. He let go of the pictures of the granddaughter trying to recall her grandmother’s shoe as she frantically looked in the stores trying to get a tread. Other than human eyes and ears and an ability to traverse the mountain, Halo didn’t have much to offer here. It was all on Max’s keen abilities.

Calm and steady from Halo’s leadership was important to Max’s success.

Without any equivocation, the reason they were out here was to bring Mrs. Haze home safely.

A distant second was to give Max a career helping others on the Iniquus search and rescue team.

As Halo stood at the doorway with Mrs. Haze’s scent in the bag, Max knew what was coming, stomping impatiently, ready to get on the trail.

Halo had needed to run Max through a series of tricks to calm his K9.

When they followed Mrs. Haze’s trail, Max and Halo would adulterate the scent cone. They got the one clean shot at this task. Better to wait and get it right.

When Max’s posture relaxed into focused control, Halo opened the bag and held it out to Max. “Ready to get at it, Maxi? Scent. Scent. Scent.”

On cue, Max lowered his nose into the bag, chuffing the smells left on the nightgown into his olfactory chambers. A canine nose was so discriminating that a dog could detect viruses, cancers, and even how far along a woman was in her pregnancy. Outlandish studies showed time and again how primitive human scent compared to their K9 friends.

Lifting out of the bag, Max had the imprint and was ready to go. Panting with excitement, he caught Halo’s gaze, waiting for the command. Two choices could happen here depending on the type of job they were on. “Get it,” was the combat command, the “dangerous criminal” command. “Get it,” told Max that he was to seek out the source of the scent and then bite it hard. Today, though, Halo called out the other command, “Max, seek. Seek. Seek.” Max would go about his business trailing the imprinted scent, and Halo would do his human best to keep up with the prize-winning athlete. When Max found the scent, he’d go back and find Halo and report his findings, leading Halo to the spot.

Max’s nose went up in the air. He sniffed over the threshold. After running tight circles outside the door, Max locked in on something and lowered his nose to the ground, chuffing happily. Legs splayed wide to keep his nose skimming the pavement, Max trotted forward in a straight line from the door, into the woods, and up the gentle rise of the slope.

So far, so good, but this terrain was going to present a considerable test, Halo thought as he stuffed the scent source into his pocket and followed Max into the tree line. Squirrels frisking with their playmates and other distractors filled the woods. An unfamiliar environment, the temptation of novel scents, even the feel of the ground underfoot—thick with leaves and slick with wet clay beneath—might be more than a two-year-old’s resolve.

Would prey drive overcome pack drive, especially when his pack wasn’t in sight? That was the test.

With a sudden jolt, Halo pitched forward. He was quick enough that he got his elbows wide and his hands on either side of his shoulders as he tried to disperse the energy to protect himself from injury.

In the last moment, Halo twisted his head away from the ground, his ear hovering just above the dampened leaves. Halo was grateful he didn’t break his nose in a face plant. He wasn’t so sure about his leg, though. Giving himself a moment to exhale the pain, Halo pressed himself back up on his feet.

Halo had undertaken his share of searches for people—those desperately praying for rescue and those urgently trying to evade detection—while working in the mountain ranges of the Middle East. But that landscape looked a world apart from this.

Even back home, Halo had been stationed out of Holsworthy, near enough to the Blue Mountains, where he liked to climb the cliffs.

The Shenandoah was part of the Blue Ridge. Those two mountain range names were about where the similarities ended.

The devil, as they say, was in the details.

Here, the terrain confronted the team with a boulder-studded elevation dense with trees. Leaves thickly blanketed the ground, looking like they’d make a soft bed for bivouacking, but could prove problematic when looking for their missing person, especially someone as fragile and endangered as the woman that had gone missing.

As the team got on the trail with their dogs today, they all knew that time was the enemy. For that reason, Halo had started out keeping a steady pace, following closely behind Max. But, very quickly, Halo’s foot found the first hole hiding under the blanket of leaves. His weight dropped straight down until he was mid-shin, but his forward momentum propelled him, and he found himself stretched out on the dampened ground. The forest litter hid the dangers beneath—roots that caught the toe of his boot, and worse were the holes that swallowed his leg. Each time he went down, he’d felt the torque and tension on his knees and ankle. Surely, there was a strategy for this terrain. He had a lot to learn.

With an exhale calibrated to reset his system, Halo pulled himself out, checked himself over, and dusted off his borrowed uniform. Made from some lab-created miracle fabric, he still looked immaculate, dry, and mud-free. No one would know how much time he’d spend rolling in the muck.

Halo tipped back to watch angry black clouds amassing above the trees. The rainy mist on his face and the temperature noticeably dropping reminded him that their operational window was narrow. Once that rain started, the scent trail would be challenging, if not impossible, for Maxi to follow. This was their golden hour, and if he broke his ankle, Halo wouldn’t be of any help to Grammie, and he wouldn’t get the job with Iniquus either.

A phrase that the American SEALs used came to mind: “Slow is fast, and fast is slow.” It made all the sense in the world to him under these circumstances.

Halo stepped forward, his foot coming to rest in front of the biggest pile of scat he’d ever seen. He knelt and waved his hand over it—still warm.

Pulling his sat comms from his pocket, he took a picture, sending it back to Cerberus with the text: Bear?

Affirmative was the immediate response.

Tripwire had warned him to keep his eye on Max because the bears were getting their last mouthfuls in. He thought Max would try to hold his own, but honestly, other than the movies, Halo didn’t have a trained strategy for bears. Images from The Revenant flashed through his memory, and Halo would vastly prefer that he didn’t need to face down a bear today.

His phone pinged: Don’t dance with the bears. Get rid of any food. Make noise so you don’t startle the bear. If it’s charging, get big and loud.

Big and loud. Halo muttered.

Deploy bear spray if the bear is downwind. Otherwise …

Halo was gourmet. Yeah, he remembered.

Crouching, Halo looked for tracks to at least get a sense of the bear’s direction of travel and saw no disturbances in the leaf litter other than what he had made in his fall.

Halo looked at the tracking readout on his GPS unit, aligning himself with the red dot that represented Max, sniffing his way through the woods. It had been a fairly straight line, so Halo thought Max was still on task and not chasing squirrels. With an adjustment to his pack, Halo paced forward, singing the kind of made-up song he sang to entertain his nieces and nephews. “Hey, fuzzy bear, I mean you no harm. I’m singing out so you won’t feel alarmed.” Yeah, kids were easily amused. Hopefully, the bear would be, too.

A few paces out, Halo noticed that Max’s red dot stopped moving. He didn’t know how to interpret that.

As a matter of Iniquus protocol, Max wore a communications collar with a two-way radio system so Halo could command his dog from a distance, and they would have a means for communicating with a lost person. His collar also held a sat camera that was monitored at Headquarters back in D.C. Max was also a moving point on the mission board in the Cerberus operations room as well as a red dot in the tracking app in Halo’s handheld GPS unit. It was fumbly to need those three pieces of equipment—a sat phone with video feed for Headquarters, a radio to contact the team and his dog, and the GPS tracking unit with its off-grid memory system—better, though, to have to juggle than to go without the information. As with any mountainous wilderness area, cell tower connectivity was a luxury. And the sat phones were only as good as the weather was clear and the tree canopy was thin.

As he and Max were thrown into today’s mission, they at least had the comms part down pat.

Max trained from the get-go in responding to disembodied vocal commands from Halo. It had been an essential skill for the Commandos’ dogs to have. When a team sent the K9s in with a camera to give live feed information on the interior of a target location, the handler could direct their dog through the building with “turn left, turn right, hold” commands. This also facilitated recall. A simple “to me” brought Max racing back, twirling to flank Halo, looking up with sharp concentration, waiting for his next command.

Why had Max stopped? Was he off task?

Halo stepped carefully over a fallen log. Ryder had warned him not to step on tree trunks because they often rolled, trapping the hiker underneath. Also, a snake called a copperhead liked to hide out in the space beneath the log. “Copperhead?”

“One of the venomous snakes out here, mate. Not as bad as what you find out woop-woop at home, but it’ll make for a hell of a day.”

And just as that thought passed through Halo’s mind, his comms broke squelch.

“Bob for Halo.”

He pressed the communications tab taped to his chest. “Go for Halo.”

“Max has a snake in his mouth, and our AI system is cautioning that it is possibly a rattlesnake.”

Rattlesnake. That was out west in the desert where they had cactuses, wasn’t it? Cowboys and settlers kind of danger? Cactus and horses kind of danger?

“He’s trapped it in his teeth just below the head from what we can see from his collar camera,” Bob said. “The head can’t reach the skin to sink a bite in that position.”

Rattlesnake.

Fear was an ice-blue pulse in Halo’s system.

“Command Max to freeze,” Bob said.

Halo tapped his radio to access the comms system on Max’s collar. “Max, freeze. Max, hold.” This was a command they’d been working hard on, though, the scenario Halo had considered was landmines. They had built up time that Max could stand there unmoving, both with Halo in the picture and with distant comms commands.

This present scenario could well have the same devastating effect.

Death was death.

“You’re fifty yards away. Straight line,” Bob said. “We’ll talk you forward.”

“Is he holding?” Halo’s lungs had tightened down, and he switched to combat breathing, count of four in, hold, count of four out.

“He’s doing as asked. We’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Which was a shite way to deal. Bob would have to perceive, speak, and then Halo would have to, sight unseen, respond with his commands.

“Good boy, Maxi. Freeze. Freeze.” Halo kept his tone as light as possible. He wondered if that were the correct command. If Halo gave the chomp command, instead, Max could possibly bite the snake in two. 

Halo raced full tilt over the terrain. If he went into another bloody hole, it was a broken leg. Didn’t matter. He’d drag himself to Max’s side. 

“Hold tight, Maxi. Good boy.” There had to be an antivenom. But surely the team didn’t have it with them, Halo calculated. They were an hour up the mountain. Venom usually worked on weight. Muscle mass might give Halo some advantage if he were bitten, but Malinois were medium-sized dogs. A bite might well prove lethal no matter how fast Halo darted back down the mountain to the Iniquus vans.

Powering up the hill, he could see Max in front of him.

Max widened his field of perception to take in Halo. “Max, freeze,” Halo called out, shoving the unit into his pocket to free his hands.

When Max caught Halo’s gaze, his tail wagged excitedly.

Now, Halo could hear the rattle of the snake’s tail. It sent another burst of blue-colored adrenaline through his veins.

That sound, the wriggling movement, Max must think this was a toy.

Now that he was closer, Halo moved forward crouched and steady, testing the ground in front of himself to make sure he could advance without falling and startling Max into letting go of the snake. The triangular shape of the head chomping at the air with sharp fangs dripping venom just outside of Max’s jaw was clearly life-threatening to Max. How could he get the snake safely from Max’s mouth?

“Good, boy, Maxi. Freeze.” Halo’s mind was madly calculating. “Freeze, Max.”

Killing the snake, Halo well knew, would not stop the mouth from biting or reduce the lethality of the venom. He had to separate dog from snake.

He couldn’t just grab the snake and tell Max to release. That release might not be fast enough, and the snake might turn and get a bite in. It would require split-second timing. But Halo had Max’s reward ball in his pocket. And nothing made Max move faster than getting his mouth on that ball.

Would it work here?

Halo slowly drew the ball from his pocket. And Max stomped the ground with excitement. “Max, freeze!”

Sweat slicked Halo’s skin. Heart racing, he bent and got his hand around the tail. The vibration of the rattle twitched just below his fist. Twisting his body until his arm was fully extended, Halo prayed that Max would do as commanded the instant the command left his mouth, and Max wasn’t going to pull one of his stubborn teenaged tantrums, unwilling to let go of his new-found wriggle toy.

Halo’s head was turned to focus unblinkingly on Max.

Here we go.

Halo tossed the ball into the air, calling, “Max, release.” And as the S hissed between his teeth, Max opened his mouth and jumped for the ball. In the same instant, Halo whipped the snake through the air.

The snake flew into the distance.

“Bob. Good job, Halo. I have Dani Williams here. She’s Team Charlie’s assigned vet. She’ll talk you through next steps.”

Halo looked behind him to make sure the ground was clear, then dropped his ass to the ground next to where Max was aggressively chewing on his ball.

In that moment, Halo realized his mistake. Sure, he got the instant release he needed to save Max’s life. But he’d used Max’s reward ball—his “high-dollar” reward—to do it. Halo had just rewarded Max for having a snake in his mouth, reinforcing the very thing that Halo did not want his dog to do. That meant Max would look for opportunities to grab up a snake—venomous or not. Halo made a mental note that he needed to undo that training, or Max would be at high risk.

“Dani for Halo. Careful. We don’t want to get Max’s heart rate up until you’ve checked him over. Call him into your lap and give him scritches and praise while I give you more information.”

Halo held out his arms. “Here, Maxi.”

Dani’s voice was professionally steady. “We’ve got this. Rattlesnakes have a low death rate, about twenty percent in dogs. This isn’t like some of the snakes in your part of the world. The biggest danger is if Max was bitten in the tongue or eye. Let’s check those out first. You’ve had plenty of K9 first aid classes, and you know the drill. As you move slowly and thoroughly over the entire surface of Max’s body, you’re going to palpate—I know it’s tough for a dog dad to do. Lots of emotion. I want you to remove his collar and hold it between your chest and chin. As you move around his body, I’m going to use the camera feed to be a second set of eyes.”

Max was happily chewing his ball, and Halo thought that was for the best. He pulled his headlamp from the ruck, tugged it over his head, and tightened down the elastic strap. He then unclasped Max’s tracking collar, lengthened the strap, and wrapped that around his head.  “Can you see?”

“Affirmative. Okay, he wouldn’t be chewing the ball like that if he’d been bitten on the tongue. As you palpate, you’re looking for anything red or swollen. Move the hair out of the way to see if you can find puncture marks from the fangs. Most likely, you would see blood, sometimes quite a lot of blood. You’re looking for any signs of pain. These working dogs are stoic, so watch for him to stop chewing and look around at you.”

Halo did as he was told, working methodically over Max’s side, his tummy, the other side, head, and backside. Max seemed to delight in the extra long time he got with his ball.

“Max just walked up to the rattlesnake and bit just above its head?” Dani asked. “I’m trying to imagine a scenario that put the snake and dog into that position. I’ve seen enough. You can get his collar back on.”

“I have no idea,” Halo said, replacing the comms unit around Max’s neck. “Maybe they took a tape of the camera feed?”

“I think you’re good to get back on task,” Dani said. “Watch Max. If you see any signs of vomiting or diarrhea, I need you to call it in. We’ll go from there. Radio me if you have any concerns, anything that has Max acting out of the norm.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Halo was well aware that Mrs. Haze was out here in the woods with the same kinds of hazards as he’d face today—bears, venomous snakes, dangerous terrain, and an approaching storm. Add to that the confusion that put her up on this slope in the first place. But he took a moment to let his heart reseat. There was no room for mistakes that would pull eyes and resources away from Mrs. Haze should either Max or he need assistance.

Halo put his head down on Max’s scruff and breathed the scent of dog fur. When he came up, he held his hand under Max’s mouth. “Release.” The slobber-covered ball dropped onto Halo’s palm, and Halo shoved it into his pocket. “Good job, mate.” Halo stood and pulled out the scent source to get Max back on task.

With a few chuffs into the bag, a few sniffs into the air, and a few circles over the ground, Max was back on the trail. And Halo was going to do whatever it took to stay close enough to keep an eagle eye on Max’s safety. And, as the air rumbled with thunder, to press forward and find Grammie.

 

3

 

It wasn’t five minutes after Halo had whipped the snake into the distance that Max, once again, stopped in his tracks.

A massive tangle of stems and leaves formed a lattice on which thick curtains of thorns turned the vegetation into a seemingly impenetrable mass. Max trotted to the left and right, looking over the vegetative structure.

Halo wasn’t sure why Max had lifted his nose off the trail and into the wind. Normally, Max traced the scent around the impediment. Could it be something caught on his radar that needed identification—another snake that had been fun for him, or maybe that bear from earlier?

He was about to call Max over to offer him some water, a pet, and then another sniff of the scent source when Max let out a whine. Flattening himself into a pancake, Max used his back legs to scuff himself under the matted leaves and out of sight.

Pressing the button on his sat phone. “Halo for Bob.”

“Go for Bob.” The operations manager’s voice crackled with static.

“Max disappeared into a hill of vegetation. I’m sending you a picture. Can you identify this plant for me?”

Today on the mountain, they’d clawed their way over the rocks, batted away swarms of gnats, blisters rubbed Halo’s heels from the new uniform boots, and all of that was cake compared to the dense, seemingly impenetrable tangle that was in front of him. Halo waited for his low-res photo to transfer to Headquarters and for the AI assistive technology to help them decipher what was there. The static on the line was getting louder as the cloud cover thickened the sky above him.

This was the hour of desperation. He viscerally felt the seconds spinning toward chaos—the moment the sky would dump down on them, and their opportunity to save Mrs. Haze would vanish.

If Max crawled under this bush because he was tired or distracted, Halo could understand it; they’d pushed hard for hours now without a break. “But it would be bloody terrible timing, mate,” Halo muttered under his breath.

“Bob to Halo. What you’ve got there, brother, is an unholy marriage of rhododendron bush and sweetbriar, the two banes of mountainside search and rescue here in Virginia. I’ve actually never seen it that big and dense. Max is in the middle of that?”

“Affirmative.”

“You might be on top of our missing person. That kind of natural mantrap stops people with a dementia diagnosis in their tracks.”

“How’s that?” Halo crouched, inspecting the ground for signs that someone had passed this way. He found nothing. Of course, with the wind picking up, making the leaves skitter about, he didn’t expect to find anything obvious.

“When people with dementia wander, they typically move in a straight line until they get stuck. For example, if they hit a hard surface, a tree trunk, or a rock, they’ll ping pong off and keep going in the new direction. But if they don’t encounter resistance, they continue forward. That’s why you were told that every bush needs a thorough check. Especially briars. The thorns snag the clothes. That’s where we end up finding our lost subjects —bound up in the bushes. See what Max says. But if he’s interested in that area, that vegetation needs a thorough search. Over.”

“Copy. Out.” Halo now understood the thickness of the gloves and wraparound goggles. He was pulling his pruners from his pack when Max’s tail emerged first, and then he wriggled his way out from under the vegetation.

Max had that intensity in his eyes that he got when he found his scent. Plopping onto his haunches in front of Halo, his tail swishing excitedly over the ground. This was it. Max found something significant. “What have you got, boy?” Halo held his breath.

What happened next was the crucial information.

Max was scent-trained as a live-find K9 and an HRD—human remains detection—dog. If Max found a human cadaver, he’d sit and drape a paw over his nose as if he were weeping.

Max rose up to take a step forward. He caught Halo’s gaze, then touched his nose to the scent bag, sat, and lifted his paws in “prayer” to tell Halo he had a live human find. Interesting that he touched the scent source first. That was new.

Back in the day, when Halo and Ryder were working with Australian military dogs on assignments, these skills had been part of their units’ survival. The dogs not only helped the team find insurgents, but if one of their band of brothers went missing, the dogs could work a scent source pulled from the guy’s pack or tent. As miserable as it was to think of finding a brother had died, the dog’s choice of signals meant the team knew what they were dealing with. If it was someone alive, it was go-go-go. If the person were deceased, the team had more time to plan and limit their risks.

Halo was pulling Max’s reward ball from his pocket when Max caught Halo’s gaze a second time, then draped a paw over his nose, and Halo’s heart sank.

Max had never done that before, giving both signals—alive and dead.

Regardless, the find meant a reward and high-pitched praise. Halo tossed Max’s ball into the air, “Good-boy!”

Halo said into the sat phone. “Max is indicating a find.”

“Go ahead and radio your team,” Bob said. “I’ll send out a text with your GPS coordinates. Farthest team from your present location is twenty minutes. Team Alpha will rally to support you.”

The fat drops of precipitation pattered on Halo’s ruck. “The rain’s started up. How is that radar looking?”

“You’re light green for precipitation for another twenty - maybe thirty minutes, then your area turns maroon to black. On our forecasting color spectrum, that’s as bad as we get. You can't stay put without shelter and the risk of mudslides. You need a plan to get down the slope despite the weather. The risk increases exponentially with time. This system will settle into the valley for about twelve hours. Then it’ll be dark and the terrain slippery. Tonight’s temperatures drop into the lower forties.” He turned to Halo. “That’s very unusual for end of August in Virginia.” His gaze swept the terrain. “We’re going to minimize the risk for the team and Mrs. Haze by moving you down to shelter. I’ll convey that to Ridge. Over.”

“Copy. Out.”

As Max settled in to enjoy his ball, Halo pulled the leather gloves on. “Grammie? Grammie, can you hear me? I’ve come to take you to dinner. Are you hungry?”

After a moment of silence, Halo pressed his sternal button to put him on the team radio. “Clear the net. Clear the net. Clear the net. Team Halo and Max.” In Iniquus' radio protocol, that phrase meant that he and the communications officer could speak, and no other radio traffic was allowed.

“Ridge. Go for Team Alpha.”

“Max is indicating a find.”

“Do you have eyes on?” Ridge asked.

“I’m standing at a ball of rhododendron and sweet briar, two meters high, must be three meters wide, dense vegetation, no visual. Over.” Honestly, Halo wasn’t sure about this. Yes, he always trusted his dog, but how in hades could a frail senior have gotten into this tangle without leaving a trace of broken vines, at least?

Then again, how could a bear take a dump in the woods and leave no trail? Halo just didn’t know how to read this land yet.

Halo waited for a return communication, but the radio crackled and sputtered.

Thunder boomed close enough that Halo felt it in his chest.

Though, he wasn’t sure anyone could hear him, he said, “Halo. Out.” He hoped that the sat text from Bob with Halo’s GPS location got through, or he’d be alone trying to get Mrs. Haze off this mountain.

Glancing down, Halo saw Max’s muscles were tight with excitement.

As he lay on the ground, his ball trapped between his front paws, Max focused on Halo.

“In there, huh, Max? Both dead and alive?” Looking around at the bush, Halo asked, “Maxi, is this the best route to get to the lady?”

Max shifted his focus from Halo and stared into the foliage with an intense focus. Halo raised the blade of his hand toward Max’s nose and swung it in a line forward. He adjusted his stance.

If Max went in and crawled out backward, that meant there was no place to turn around. This wasn’t a façade with open space beneath. It was going to be dense going. And Halo wanted to get in and get eyes on the situation before the sky opened up.

Tightening his ruck on his shoulders, Halo lay on the ground, reaching in, feeling for thicker branches to cut and shove aside. He needed both a way in and a clear path for extraction, a clear way for his team to move in. Working as quickly as possible, cutting his way forward, Halo tried to reason out Max’s signal. If Grammie had been bleeding, the blood would begin to decay the moment it left her body. Decaying blood was a cadaver scent. That was possible. Probable.

“Max. Stay,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the greenery.

He was feeling his way through this process, trying different strategies to get through the mass as efficiently as possible. It was a bloody miserable undertaking that he’d never faced before. The novelty of dealing with the briars catching at his clothes and tearing at his skin, the tangle at his feet made his movement frustratingly slow.

Halo was accumulating a list of skills he wanted to train if he was lucky enough to be offered an Iniquus contract. Skills that would make things safer for Max and for the subject they were tracking.

Alive and dead at the same time? What was Max trying to tell him? Was Grammie on the cusp? Could he get to her in time?

 

4

 

The Haze family, crying in the parking lot, filled Halo’s memory, and he pushed their image aside to focus on the tickle that crawled across the back of his neck.

He was close to finding Mrs. Haze. He knew it.

“Hello? Grammie, I’m here to take you to dinner. If you can hear my voice, call out, please.” Please.

He stilled.

“Grammie?”

When he slowed his breath to listen, all he could hear was his heart thumping in his ears and a rumble of thunder up above. Using the Commando bio-feedback training that allowed him to quickly calm his nerves and silence that thrum of blood, he tried again. “Grammie?”

This time, he heard mewling behind him to his left.

It sounded like a wounded animal.

Halo twisted to look in that direction. And there, inches from his boot, was a bare foot, cut and bloodied.

Now that he’d reached the epicenter of this section’s tangle, Halo used the saw on his multitool to cut through the base, lifting a segment, then thrusting it up and over the top and clearing the space where the woman lay. “Grammie, hello,” Halo said softly as he moved to her side.

Mrs. Haze had pulled off her pajama bottoms and hugged them to her like they were a stuffed bear, sobbing. “Grammie, I’m Halo. It’s time for dinner.” That phrase was the one that got Halo’s gramps to cooperate on days when he was disoriented. Halo just hoped it had the same effect here.

Pressing his radio, he quietly said, “Halo to Team Alpha. I have Mrs. Haze. She’s alive with injuries.” He pulled the sat phone from his pocket and took her picture for Headquarters on the off chance it could get through.

He checked his watch—twenty minutes until things shifted from green toward Maroon. Halo’s mind worked to set his priorities as muscle memory moved his hands and he got his equipment staged for action.

He pulled the tarp from his pack and draped it over the bush to form a make-do tent. He knew it wouldn’t hold up to the impending deluge. But it kept the rain out of his eyes as he set about stabilizing Mrs. Haze.

His attempts at assessing her condition were met with screeches as she clawed and hit Halo with the kind of strength a brain conjures when it’s fighting for its life.

He rocked back on his haunches to give her space. Having her combative amongst the briars was a bad idea. With a practiced eye, Halo let his gaze methodically search her from head to foot. He called his findings. “Halo to Team Alpha. Mrs. Haze is combative, and I am unable to apply field first aid without risk. My cursory assessment follows. Her breathing is ragged. Her lacerations seem superficial, and what blood I can see has coagulated. I don’t see evidence of broken bones. Her skin is pale, dry, and cold to the touch.”

“Ridge and Zeus, three minutes from your location.”

“Tripwire, six minutes to your location.”

“Ryder, if we can keep this pace, about ten minutes to your location.”

The team continued the check-ins as they converged while Halo pulled out his hypothermia pack and a cup to offer her some water.

Once he had the team with him, they could devise a way to get Mrs. Haze down the slope. In the meantime, Halo didn’t like that he didn’t have eyes on his dog. Especially if the rain was going to limit his visual field. “Max to me,” he called out.

Almost as soon as the command left his mouth, Max was there. He gave Halo a lick on his neck, then went over to sniff over Mrs. Haze. She seemed to like that. Maybe she would let Max lie down with her. At least that would keep her warm. 

Max stepped past Halo as he unfolded the Mylar emergency blanket. His nose pushed into the leaves, then he turned back to Halo with a whine.

Halo squat-walked forward to ensure they weren’t sharing this space with dangerous critters, and there he saw another foot. This one was slipper-clad and male. The exposed ankle was tinged bluish grey with the beginnings of algor mortis.

Halo pulled the clippers from his pocket, furiously snapping at the stems and vines that encapsulated the man until he could reach the guy’s head.

Dead.

Obviously and thoroughly dead.

Bollocks.

And now Halo had his answer. Brilliant Max had told him, oh so clearly, the scent source was alive in the bushes, and there was also someone who had died. It was Halo that hadn’t understood the communication.

“Good job, Maxi. Good find.” Halo tried to make his voice high-pitched and happy, but this winded him.

Halo pulled his sat phone out and took a picture of the deceased. Before he sent it on, he called Bob. Speaking through the haze of interference, he reported, “Halo here. I have a second find. Deceased gentleman in pajamas, robe, and slippers.”

“Say again, Halo? You’re breaking up with the cloud cover.”

“Elderly male. Pajamas, robe, and slippers. Picture sent. Deceased.”

“Breaking up. Confirm the word ‘deceased.’”

“Affirmative. The man is dead. Guessing from his clothing and age, he came from the care facility. Since they are together in the bush, I think one of the residents followed the other out the door and up the hill. They are both tangled in the vines. I suggest the facility do another census and ensure they account for all of their residents. We need to know if any other people are wandering this slope.”

“New resident census. Wilco. I’ll—” Static crackled from the phone, and heavy drops thwacked the plastic cover above Mrs. Haze. The line went dead.

“Good job, man, just in time.” Ridge appeared under the tarp. “She won’t let you near?”

“Confused and combative,” Halo said. “I don’t want her to exhaust herself further or cause herself any more harm.”

“She seems okay hugging Max. Let’s see if she’ll put up with Zeus at her back to get her temperature up.” Ridge dropped his pack and pulled out a fleece that he tugged on as he called Zeus to him. Ridge used hand commands to silently get Zeus into place, disturbing Mrs. Haze as little as possible. They needed her calm for this next step.

Ridge turned his focus on the male.

“I have the body bag out,” Halo said. “Since they treat civilian finds as crime scenes here, I wasn’t sure about protocol.” Halo lifted the bag.

Ridge accepted it from his hands and unzipped it the length. “We’re going to be all hands on deck getting Mrs. Haze off this slope. We need to prioritize the living over the dead. We’ll have to leave him here for a forensic team to evaluate and transport.” Ridge explained as he and Halo maneuvered the man’s body into the bag and zipped it shut. “At least we can preserve the body in as pristine condition as possible for the family. And the medical examiner.”

Ridge used his handheld GPS unit to put a point onto the screen, marking the man’s body for another team to extract once the mountain was stable. “When our team gets in place, we’re moving down this mountain as fast as possible. In the heavy rain and dropping temperatures, Mrs. Haze’s survival is going to depend on speed.”

“Halo?” Ryder called out from outside of the tangle.

“Hold. We’re coming out,” Ridge replied.

Leaving the dogs in place, warming Mrs. Haze, the men crawled out from under the tarp. Rain flicking them with fat drops, they pulled on their ball caps and raincoats. They left their goggles in place for the moment to protect their eyes from the briers, but Halo knew that as temperatures went south, the lenses would fog very quickly, making them a hazard.

The team had gathered. Under the billowing clouds, the late morning sky grew ever darker. The men strapped their headlamps in place.

With the last man on site, they formed a huddle, heads together, yelling out their ideas as the wind whipped their words up and away.

“I spoke with Bob while we still had a satellite connection,” Ridge said. “As conditions continue to deteriorate, the State rescue coordinator sent the equine team home. The mountain rescue team won’t risk the slope until the storm’s moved through. We’re on our own.”

“They can read radar as well as we can,” Tripwire said. “They know the risks. I’m just as well with them staying put so the rescuers don’t need to save the rescuers.”

“Thoughts on sheltering in place?” Ridge asked the men.

Didit shook her head with a deep frown. “With the storm that’s coming in, it’s more than dropping temperatures and pelting rain. We could configure around that. Uncomfortably, sure. But we’re facing mud slides, high winds toppling dead trees, and possible flash flooding when we cross the creek. Staying put is a bad decision.”

“The amount of time I spent wrenching my ankles in the holes today needs to be a consideration, especially as the leaf litter gets slick,” Tripwire said.

So it wasn’t just me, Halo thought.

“We’re going to lose visibility here in a minute. This is what I propose,” Ridge said, pulling his all-weather field notebook from his chest pocket. “We’re a team of five handlers and 5 K9. That makes this scenario work. We number off.” He took a moment to sketch. “A two-person team rigs the length of our climbing lines from tree A to tree B. At the same time, we run lines between tree B to tree C. Tripwire, you’re one, Didit two, I’m three, Ryder four, and Halo, you’re five.”

“Five,” Halo said, watching the Ridge’s pencil trace over the waterproof paper.

“Number five will attach into the line and take the first length carrying Mrs. Haze. Once Number Two gets her line secured to Tree B, she attaches to the line and then climbs back up to Tree A. There, she will escort Number Five back down to Tree B. The escort's job is threefold. First, they will handle two K9s on lead. Second, they will be searching out any hazards—holes, roots, slick spots. These are to be communicated back to the carrier. Third, should the carrier lose their footing or need assistance, they are ready to render aid.”

“Sir,” Didit said. “Mrs. Haze is too frail for a fireman’s carry over rough terrain, especially for the extended period of time it’s going to take to get her down.”

“Agreed. What do you propose?” Ridge asked.

“I say that we line a body bag with mylar and slip her in there,” Didit said. “Leave room to breathe in the zippered enclosure. That set up should keep her warm and dry, especially if we can get the hand warmers in her armpits, groin, and down at her feet.”

“The handles will help us with passing her from one carrier to the next.” Tripwire scuffed his boot into the ground and then turned his gaze toward the sky. Tripwire had spent a summer hiking the Appalachian trail. Halo would be paying close attention to what he said about conditions.

“She’s being babysat and warmed by the dogs because she’s combative,” Halo said. “That could become a hazard on the slopes.”

“Agreed,” Ridge said. “I’d rather not medicate her. While we have permission to do so from her power of attorney, she’s had her body challenged today. I’d like to get her down and assessed by a doctor. That being said, everyone’s safety is paramount. Whoever is the escort will carry the syringe. You hand it on to the next escort, etc. It will be the escort’s call if and when to deploy the sedative.”

“Sir.”

“Very well.” Ridge put his pencil back on the paper, tapping the paper for clarification. “At the point where the carrier has reached the next tree—that’s you, Halo as Number Five—you’ll hand Mrs. Haze to Number Three, me, for carrying. Number Five becomes the escort. Number Two, Didit, you’ll radio Number One, and the two of you will release your lines and move safely down the slope to run those lines between Trees C and D. And in that manner, with handoffs of responsibility, and times for those not in an active posture to rest, we will leapfrog our way down the slope.” He looked over to Halo. “It was an hour and a half from start of mission until the subject was found. I estimate four to six on the way down. We’ll speed up once we have our rhythm. We’ll slow down when we hit obstacles. I’d very much like to get over the creek in the next hour, or things are going to get wild and hairy for us up here.”

“Wilder and hairier.” Tripwire let his hand rest on Valor’s head. “At some point, we may end up carrying the K9s to avoid injuries to them as the integrity of the slope degrades.”

“Agreed,” Ridge said. “They’ll be on leads. Leave their protective vests, helmets, and goggles in place. Turn on their location strobes. That’ll help everyone keep a visual. I can’t imagine losing radio contact in such close proximity but never say never. If that happens, we need to huddle up and make another plan.”

“Sir.” 

And so they started the slow descent.

Every muscle in Halo’s body strained and quivered, trying to stay balanced and upright with Mrs. Haze in his arms. Though, only a hundred pounds, her weight still tried to pitch Halo forward. At points, his escort had one hand on the rope and the other on his chest, pushing him upright. Max very quickly ended up lying across the top of Halo’s ruck. And on Halo’s turns being the carrier, Max’s weight helped to keep Halo balanced on the slope.

This was tense business.

While the brim of his ball cap kept much of the sting of rain out of his eyes, his line of sight was the length of his arm. And in the torrent, it was impossible to check Mrs. Haze to make sure she was still alive. The terrible thing was that there was nothing more they could do for her than to get her down to the care center, where the doctors waited for their arrival. That and the love of her family. He believed strongly in that power. He’d learned that lesson from his brothers in the Commandos.

When the radio call went out saying that they’d hooked into the last tree, a stream of rescue workers swarmed forward to relieve Team Alpha and race Mrs. Haze inside. Halo had no concept of time and how long it had taken to get her down. Every part of his being had focused on moment to moment. Just like in the Commandos, he lived in a three-foot world, controlling what happened in the immediate space around him.

Concentration was energy. And Halo would admit to exhaustion.

Caked in clay, when the team moved through the doors, they were met with triumphant cheers, back slaps, and thankfully hot food.

Ridge asked if they could take it to go. The dogs needed to get a once-over by their vet.

Halo wholeheartedly concurred with that request.

While they waited for the servers to package up the meals, Halo was asked to sit off to the side while the team posted their reports. He knew it wasn’t the hot wash and the mission reports that would follow today’s events. That happened as a team.

What they were doing now took place on their individual tablets.

Halo suspected this was the assessment of his performance. Command would want to hear what they had to say while emotions were still fresh and before they talked themselves into or out of a perspective. Command would also want to know what the team members thought before they talked amongst themselves. That’s the way it had been with Halo’s Australian unit, anyway.

That task accomplished, the team was filled in on the subjects. “Mrs. Haze will recover with rest. The family sends their gratitude. The man that Halo found has been identified as Ernest Gregory. His identical twin had been counted twice by the staff, and Ernest Gregory had not been missed. A sad day for the family,” Ridge said. “They offer their many thanks to the team for finding him and protecting his body.”

The men quietly gathered their bags of grub, loaded into the vans, and were on their way back into the city.

Halo allowed himself to close his eyes, and when he opened them, they were back at Cerberus’s headquarters.

Dani was waiting at the door and immediately took control of Max, saying she would give him a thorough check, looking for any signs of rattlesnake poisoning or injury as they walked away.

When Halo tried to follow her to the washroom, Bob clapped a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. “Halo, you’re wanted in Command stat.”

Halo looked down at his mud-covered body. “Would it be all right to have a five-minute cleanup and a fresh set of clobber? I don’t want to drag into their offices and leave a trail of mountain debris.”

“I’m sure they’d appreciate it. I’ll call over and let them know you’re on your way.”

Moving into the shower, Halo leaned his head back and felt the luxury of hot water rinsing away the mud, if not the fatigue.

Yes, he was feeling his nerves. What happened next might well change the entire trajectory of his life.

Would Command offer him a contract?

Bear scat and rattle snakes aside, he and Max had got the job done.

Was it enough?

That depended a lot on what Team Alpha had said in their assessments.

And that Halo had no control over. You click, or you don’t.

Last week, this job and the possibility of uprooting his life weren’t even on his radar.

Things moved fast in the kind of life he led.

It was the way Halo liked it. He liked the challenge of a storm.