Under Pressure

Book 6: FBI K-9 Novel

by Sara Driscoll

Genres: Mystery; Animal Cozy Mysteries; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

FBI handler Meg Jennings and her K-9 partner, Hawk, are drawn into a case that involves a fortune in uncut gems, and an enemy whose power and ruthlessness know no bounds …
Diamonds are no one’s best friend when the jewels in question are smuggled conflict gems. Meg Jennings and her Labrador, Hawk, have undertaken many search-and-rescue missions, but this case has an unusual twist. A Philadelphia
syndicate is importing diamonds from war-torn African nations and selling them with fake certificates to Stateside dealers. Agent Finn Pierce of the Organized Crime Program is embedded with the syndicate, but being caught with a wire or
tracking device would mean instant execution. If Meg, her partner Brian Foster, and their dogs can track Pierce to a deal location, they can break the smuggling chain while maintaining Pierce’s cover.
With the syndicate monitoring every move, it’s a risky operation with more players than Meg and Brian first assumed—on both sides of the law. And when one of their own gets caught in the line of fire, the team embarks on a desperate
rescue mission, knowing that mere seconds are all that separate life and death …

Release date: November 30, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 267

Sample

Eye Clean: A jeweler’s term for a gemstone that has no flaws visible to the naked eye.

“What’s this thing made of? Lead?”

Stepping back from the staircase, Meg Jennings studied the two men maneuvering a massive wardrobe up the stairs. The strangled question had come from her partner, Todd Webb, on the lower end of the wardrobe and taking the brunt of the weight, while Clay McCord balanced the top and steered them up the flight of stairs.

“Oak.” McCord’s voice was slightly breathless. “Been in my family for two generations. They don’t build them like this anymore. It’ll outlast me.”

“It’ll outlast me when it slips out of my hands and crushes me on the way down,” Webb grated.

Meg took a step forward, already calculating whether she could slip in beside Webb to carry some of the weight, when he glanced sideways and winked at her. She relaxed, realizing that while the piece of furniture was heavy, to a firefighter/paramedic who routinely wore sixty pounds of gear and carried another hundred pounds of hose to run headlong into a roaring fire, this wasn’t as much of an effort as he was making out.

“Can’t fool me,” McCord retorted. “You have to work out for a living. Us journalism nerds have nothing on you big, brawny firefighters. All we have to lift is a keyboard.”

“I figured that’s why I got the heavy end. And nice try, nerd. I saw the weight set in the truck that’s going in the basement.”

“That’s Cara’s. I’m a delicate flower.”

“That’s you, all right. Now stop dragging your feet. We can go faster than this. But if you tell me to pivot, you get to carry the rest of your stuff in here solo.”

McCord’s crack of laughter bounced off the unadorned walls. “Deal.”

Meg stepped closer to her sister, Cara, who stood at the bottom of the steps, worry digging a crease between her eyebrows. With the same tall, athletic stature, long, straight black hair, and ice-blue eyes, they could almost have been twins, though in reality Cara was eighteen months younger than Meg. Granted, the months-old, pale, inch-and-a-half-long scar over Meg’s right eyebrow would now forever differentiate them. “I wasn’t sure the two of them were going to be able to manage that piece.”

“You and me both.” Cara stepped to the staircase and laid one hand on the heavy wood banister as the men crested the stairs and set the wardrobe down in the hallway on the runner. “They’re good.” Turning, she stared down the hallway to the pile of boxes stacked in the middle of the kitchen. “Want to give me a hand with these?”

“It’s the least I can do, considering you did the same for me last month.” Meg looked down at the pack of dogs at her feet to find her black Labrador, Hawk, at her knee. “Come on, guys. Let’s see if we can find the box with the treats in it.” She started down the hallway, trailed by Hawk, along with Cara’s two rescue dogs—Saki, a mini blue-nose pit bull, and Blink, a retired red brindle greyhound. Cody, McCord’s hyperactive golden retriever, shot past the group to gallop into the kitchen and then stop, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he waited for them to catch up.

Up until last month, the two sisters had shared a house in Arlington, a situation that worked perfectly for them until they’d both partnered up. Webb had found the perfect compromise for all four of them—a duplex with two identical units located in the Cookes Park area of Washington, DC, only ten minutes from McCord’s office at the Washington Post, and about fifteen minutes away from Webb’s firehouse, Meg’s office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and Cara’s dog training school in Arlington. Meg and Webb had moved in the previous month; now Cara and McCord were moving into their side of the duplex.

“You live and work with a trained scent dog. Let’s make this job easy.” Cara entered the kitchen and pointed at the stack. “Hawk, find the treats.”

His tail waving happily in the air, Hawk trotted toward the pile of boxes, detailing each box as he moved methodically around the pile. Circling to the back side, he sniffed the bottom box, moved up to the middle box, paused, and immediately sat down in his trained alert signal.

“Good boy.” Meg circled the pile. She lifted off the top box and set it on the counter, opened the next box down, and pulled out a bag of chicken jerky. “He’s such a Lab. He’ll do anything for food.”

Cara ruffled his ears and bent to place a smacking kiss on the top of his head. “Of course he will. Now reward the good behavior.”

Opening the bag, Meg pulled out four large pieces of jerky. “Sit.” Three rumps hit the ground simultaneously.

Cara gave Cody a look and he belatedly sat.

Meg gave the dogs their treats and they scattered to different parts of the room to settle down, crunching loudly.

The rhythmic thud of boots muffled by the charcoal stair runner telegraphed the men were on their way down. Webb and McCord came through the kitchen door, both breathing hard. They were both dressed in jeans and T-shirts, but, beyond that, they were the yin and yang of light and dark, as different as the sisters were similar. Out of his turnout gear, Webb had a firefighter’s muscular physique, with brown eyes and dark hair trimmed short to fit easily under his helmet, and the no-nonsense outlook of a first responder. McCord, on the other hand, had blue eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses, slightly floppy blond hair, and a perennially jovial expression. If there was a joke to be made about a situation, McCord would be the first with a zinger.

“Any more pieces like that?” Webb made a beeline for the fridge, opened it, and pulled out two cans of beer, handing one to McCord before opening his own and taking a long series of swallows.

“No, thank God.” McCord opened his own beer. “The beds are next, but they’re all broken into pieces. Then we just need to put them together.”

“Bedroom, master bath, and kitchen.” Cara picked up her glass of sparkling water and tapped it against McCord’s can. “If we can get those set up today, we can settle in for the night. And then deal with the rest over the next few days.”

“We can do better than that.” Meg leaned back against the counter. “Todd’s on shift tomorrow, but I’ll be here. We can get almost everything into place by the end of the weekend.”

“Unless you get called to a case.” McCord tipped his head back to take a long drink. He set his can down and fixed Meg with a pointed stare. “You’re not holding out on me, are you?”

Meg fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Would I do that?” At his derisive chortle, she shrugged. “Okay, I would have in the past. But we have a deal.”

Since the first case they’d worked together the year before—when a disgruntled bomber shunned by the world around him had taken out his misery and rage on those he saw as responsible, and had used McCord as a direct conduit to the FBI—they’d worked a number of cases together. As an investigative reporter for the Post, McCord had been able to use his research skills, contacts, and dogged determination to make himself invaluable to Meg. They’d solved cases, and while they’d lost a few victims, they’d saved countless lives.

One of those lives had been Cara’s.

They’d made a deal during their last case—Meg would share details of her case in exchange for his assistance. He, in turn, would remain silent until the case was closed and would earn an exclusive on the story in reward.

“It’s actually been a slow week for the group,” Meg said. “Lauren and Rocco”—Meg referred to her colleague Lauren Wycliffe and her border collie, Rocco—“got sent down to Florida to help out after that tropical storm blew through and those kids went missing, and they were afraid there was a kidnapping in progress. Rocco found them. They were lost and scared, but that was the extent of it. Otherwise, it’s been quiet lately.” She rapped her knuckles on the cabinet door behind her. “Knock on wood, it will stay that way. It’s a nice change.”

Hawk finished his snack and wandered over to the group.

“Is Brian back yet?” Cara asked.

“This week, hopefully. It’s been a long three months, but Brian couldn’t bring Lacey in until she was in top shape. There’s just too much resting on her performance out in the field. I saw her about two weeks ago, and she’s looking great. Of course there’s some scarring.”

Meg couldn’t help but remember the terror of Lacey’s injury last April when Brian, out on a search, had been attacked by a cougar and Lacey had defended him, almost at the cost of her own life. Her injuries were severe, but with quick medical care and Brian’s steadfast efforts to nurse her back to health, Lacey was making a full recovery. Now it was time to put her to the test.

Meg couldn’t have been happier that they were coming back to the team. She’d really missed Brian. They worked together seamlessly; so much so, Craig often paired them together. She’d worked with Lauren and Rocco, and Scott Park and his bloodhound, Theo, over the past few months, but she never felt quite as in-step with them as she did with Brian and Lacey.

“Most of the scarring is hidden in Lacey’s fur. More importantly, she moves well. I think what Brian is most concerned about is her stamina. Sometimes these searches go on for hours. He’s been jogging with her, working her stamina back up.” Meg’s gaze dropped to Hawk. “He said she’s ready to join Hawk and me on our five-mile misery-loves-company morning runs again.”

Cara ran a hand over Hawk’s head and down his back. He looked up at her, his tail wagging so hard it repeatedly thumped the side of the boxes. “I bet Hawk will be thrilled with that. He must be missing her.”

“He likes working with Rocco or Theo. He’s great solo. But he really loves Lacey. And they click together as a team better than any of the other dogs do.” The alert of an incoming text sounded and Meg pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Uh-oh.”

Webb crossed the room to stand beside her. “What?”

“It’s Craig,” Meg said, referring to her supervisor, Special-Agent-in-Charge Craig Beaumont. “I told him I needed this weekend off unless a disaster occurred.” She opened the text and read the message. Then read it again as dread and confusion coiled in her gut.

“I don’t like that look. What’s the disaster?”

“I have no idea.” She met Webb’s gaze. “He’s ordered me to meet him in EAD Peters’s office Monday morning at nine.” As the executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, Adam Peters oversaw the Forensic Canine Unit.

The only time she’d ever been summoned to Peters’s office, it had been to be called on the carpet after she’d disobeyed a direct order from Craig.

To this day she stood behind that decision. A madman had been killing women who looked like her in order to kill her again and again. She’d disobeyed Craig’s order not to enter a building that was about to be demolished because she knew Hawk could find the victim in the basement and get them all out before the implosion. He had—though only by a matter of seconds. They’d been thrown so hard by the shock wave, Meg came away with a grade-three concussion.

She’d do it all over again, given the same set of circumstances.

You people drive me to drink, and I can’t do it on the job.

She remembered Peters’s words from the party she’d thrown to celebrate the close of the case and the recovery of her sister after she, Webb, McCord, and Hawk had saved Cara’s life. When he was out of his office, Peters was personable and funny. Inside his office, he was pure hard-ass.

“What did you do wrong?” McCord asked.

Cara smacked his arm—hard—and McCord grunted in pain. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why does she have to meet with Peters?” McCord turned to Meg. “Any idea?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Why don’t you call Craig to get more information?” Webb suggested. “Rather than worry about it for another day and a half.”

“And ruin what’s left of our weekend?” She lifted the beer out of his hand and took a long drink, keeping her eyes locked on his, ignoring his raised eyebrows. “Not on your life.” She handed him back the can and turned to McCord. “What’s next?”

McCord continued to stare at her in silence.

Rolling her eyes, Cara linked her arm through Meg’s and tugged her toward the front door. “The beds are next. Come on, they’ll catch up to us sooner or later. They always do.”

Fingerprint: Any unique identifying characteristic of an individual or a diamond.

Webb knew her too well. Meg had pasted on a smile for the rest of the weekend, but she’d spent every moment she wasn’t occupied with Cara’s move fretting about the meeting with Peters. In the end, she was absolutely stumped about why Peters needed to see her.

With only a few minutes to go until the meeting, she strode down the hallway toward Peters’s office. Hawk, off leash and wearing his FBI work vest, heeled at her side.

Stop stressing. You’ll find out in a few minutes. Nothing to do for it either way.

“Good boy, Hawk. Let’s find out if we’re on the chopping block and then . . .” She stopped dead and trailed off as two figures turned the corner at the far end of the hallway. Her spirits jolted upward; she’d recognize the tall, dark-haired man and the German shepherd at his side anywhere. “Brian! What are you and Lacey doing here?”

Brian grinned at her as Lacey broke into a half trot at the sight of Hawk. “Lacey, heel. We’re at work.” But he compromised and picked up his pace.

Meg met him halfway with a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you.” She pulled back and studied Lacey as she and Hawk happily greeted each other, bumping noses and circling excitedly. “Lacey looks great.” Meg abruptly remembered her meeting and why she was here, instead of on the fourth floor. “What are you doing here? I mean, not in the building”—she pointed to Peters’s door—“but here.”

“Craig sent a text over the weekend saying he wanted to meet me here at nine.”

The weight resting on Meg’s shoulders melted as all of her stress slid away, leaving only confusion. She might think she’d done nothing wrong, but Brian absolutely hadn’t. He’d been on paid leave for several months at this point. “I got the same text.” She met his eyes. “So now the question is—why are we here?”

“You realize the best way to find out is to go into Peters’s office, right?”

“Funny man. You haven’t spent the whole weekend sweating over what you screwed up.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because the only time I was called to this office was after the Gettysburg building demolition. Peters was . . . displeased.”

“I bet that’s putting it lightly.”

“In spades. When I got Craig’s text, it was all I could think of, but I couldn’t come up with a reason.”

“I hear you.”

“But now you’re also here, so that can’t be why.”

“As I said before, we’re standing out here, asking these questions, when we could be in there, why?”

“Amazingly, I’ve even missed your sass.”

“You know it.” Brian laid a hand on the doorknob. “Come on, girl. Let’s go watch Meg face the music.”

“Hey!” But Meg followed Brian into the outer office, feeling lighter than she had since Saturday afternoon.

Peters’s assistant showed them through to his office. Bald and dressed in a conservative navy suit paired with a matching tie that shrieked Fed! to Meg’s eye, Peters sat behind his wide desk in a padded leather chair. Meg’s gaze slid to the chairs facing Peters, first falling on the stocky build and familiar craggy face of Craig Beaumont, whom she acknowledged with a nod. Then she turned toward the other chair to find a petite brunette in a tailored burgundy pantsuit rising to her feet, a smile lighting her face.

“Kate!” Meg stepped forward, her hand extended. “This is a surprise. I haven’t bumped into you in months. Probably since shortly after we closed the urban exploration case.”

Kate shook hands. “It’s definitely been too long, but I’ve been out of state a couple of times on cases.” Kate’s voice carried the sweet tea–infused lilt of Tennessee. She released Meg and turned to Brian. “Brian, it’s good to see you as well.”

“Sure is.” He shook hands with her and then stepped back as Kate bent to greet the dogs.

“Craig was telling me about Lacey. You’d never know from looking at her that she’s been on leave. Is she ready to come back?”

“We both are.”

“I’m glad to hear that because I have a proposal for you.”

“For us?” Meg exchanged a look with Brian, only to see her own curiosity reflected back.

“Yes. Please have a seat.”

Meg and Brian took the two empty chairs, Brian beside Kate and Meg on the opposite side, next to Craig.

“You may be wondering why I called this meeting,” Kate began.

Brian couldn’t keep his lips from twitching as he flicked a glance in Meg’s direction.

“EAD Peters has kindly allowed me to come in with a little cross-division proposal for you,” Kate continued.

Peters leaned back in his chair, the leather squeaking quietly as his weight shifted, and studied Meg over his glasses. “I’ve given Kate permission to borrow you and your dogs for a case she’s working on. Beaumont is in agreement.”

Craig raised a single index finger. “With the understanding that if something hits the fan and I need you, I can have you back. In the meantime, I’ll have Scott and Lauren cover any new cases while you’re in Philadelphia.”

“Philly?” Brian asked. “What’s there?”

“Jewelers’ Row.” Kate held up a hand, forestalling any more questions. “Let me back up so you can get the whole picture. I’m working on a case with the Organized Crime Program. They focus on transnational organized crime taking place across borders that involves an American component. We’ve been focusing on Philadelphia, and, more specifically, on the Philadelphia crime family.”

“The Italian Mafia?”

“They’re sometimes referred to as the Philly Mafia or the Philly Mob. They have their fingers in a lot of pies—firearms trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, and murder, to name a few.”

“Just a few.” The sarcasm in Brian’s muttered words was unmistakable.

“We’re taking a multipronged approach, with different agents tracking their different areas of business. They’re experienced and use their knowledge and skills, and their already-established contacts to ferret out what’s really going on.”

“What role are you playing in this?”

“They wanted an agent from outside the program for one particular aspect of the family’s operation because it’s so specialized. Financial crimes, firearms crimes—unfortunately, there’s a lot of that nationally—which take a lot of agents to investigate. However, they’re also dealing in conflict diamonds.”

Brian whistled. “Yeah, that’s specialized. Are we talking blood diamonds?”

“Blood diamonds, conflict diamonds, hot diamonds . . . they’re all the same thing. Diamonds mined and sold to finance a war or a warlord. Those diamonds are then sold and move through a number of permissive countries that mix the gems in with legitimate stones, while counterfeit certificates are created for the conflict gems to give them a fictitious provenance. They’re then sold to groups that deliver the stones to diamond brokers, who, in turn, sell them to jewelers.”

“Do the jewelers know they’re getting conflict diamonds?” Craig asked.

“Most of the time, no. However, we suspect there are some who know exactly what they’re buying. Especially those who cut their own gems because these are often coming through as rough stones.”

“I assume once the jewelers cut them,” Meg said, “there’s no tracking back to the original stone. They’ve essentially laundered the stones.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“Why are you investigating these crimes instead of the FBI Diamond Trafficking Program?”

“We’re actually working with them. My role is to liaise between the two groups and to lead the Philadelphia investigation into the family’s illegal diamond activities. We’ll be working with Special Agent Doug Addison from the Diamond Trafficking Program.”

“What you’ve explained so far makes sense,” said Brian, “but I don’t see where we fit in.”

“When I worked with you on the Stevenson case, I got a firsthand lesson on what your dogs can do and was extremely impressed. The way they could take the scent from an old sock or shirt, and search through the worst of environments, to not only find a trace of the scent, but to follow it straight to a victim. Without the dogs, we would have likely lost every senior citizen who’d been taken. With the dogs, even though we were fighting the clock, we saved many of them. That skill interests me.”

“You mean specific scent work? Not when they’re going after an unidentified scent, but when they’re tracking a known scent.”

“Yes. I think we can use a little out-of-the-box thinking, as long as the dogs can track inside structures, as well as outside, and through potential crowds.” Kate glanced from one handler to the other and then down to the dogs. “Can they?”

“Absolutely.”

“You bet.”

Kate chuckled as Brian and Meg answered on top of each. . .