Chapter Six

Levi

Cerberus Tactical Headquarters

Northern Virginia

When Levi and the others pushed through the door at Cerberus headquarters, they found Team Alpha’s tactical coordinator, Noah, in the conference room, mapping out possible strategies for a mission they had spooling up.

Multi-colored lists filled the whiteboard behind Hailey, a logistics specialist they’d scooped up from her job at WorldCares when she and a fellow Cerberus team member, Ares, got engaged.

“Ramping up?” Reaper asked, dropping his bag out of the way by the door.

“A tropical storm in the Caribbean is growing in strength. Looking at the spaghetti models, I’m predicting a sizeable hurricane, maybe even a cat five. If that happens, we might be heading out on search and rescue if our clients can’t get off the island,” Noah said. “Flights are sketchy.” He nodded toward Hailey. “There’s a scramble to get hold of the few plane tickets still available. Hailey’s trying to keep families and pets together.”

Hailey sent a welcome home smile toward the three team members coming back from the Beast Mode fiasco in Texas. “The pets’ issue is the one that’s making this tough.”

“People would rather die than leave their animals behind,” Goose said, stepping around Reaper to find a seat at the end of the conference table. “It’s a given.”

“Good flight home?” Hailey asked as she uncapped a pen and turned to add information to the board.

“Good enough.” Levi dropped his bag next to Reaper’s, then stood with his hands resting on the back of one of the captain’s chairs as he looked over the information listed on the board.

All six Team Alpha handlers would deploy to the search and rescue mission on the island to rescue as many as fourteen clients who couldn’t get out in time.

Man, he itched to be out there with them. The problem for Levi was that he wouldn’t deploy anywhere without a dog.

The process was taking a lot longer than he’d anticipated. The criteria were stringent, as they should be. There was a limited pool from which Command could choose their operators, which was equally true for their dogs.

Levi could admit to being disappointed by their trip to Beast Mode. From the video, Casper had looked like a solid dog with polished skillsets. But that was the magic of editing; you could leave all the ugly parts in the garbage folder.

Noah focused on Levi, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. “Still no leash in your hands. I’m guessing things didn’t go as well as you’d hoped.”

“It was an adventure in futility,” Goose said.

“Eye-opening.” Reaper dragged a black captain’s chair from under the conference table and sat. “We’ll cross that vendor off our list. The dogs had a bunch of red flags, and the owners weren’t big on ethics.”

Levi clapped a hand on Halo’s shoulder as he passed behind his teammate to find a seat.

Hired after he retired from the Australian Commandos, Halo was the only member of Cerberus’s six-man Team Charlie in the room. Iniquus added Team Charlie to the lineup over the last few months. The new hires were getting their sea legs under them, adjusting to their new positions, and learning to navigate the Iniquus culture.

While Levi wasn’t the last hire on the team, he was the only one without a K9. Most of the team had been out of the military long enough that they had time to train their own dogs to their own specs.

Halo and his Malinois, Max, had come on and—within the first days of fieldwork training with Panther Force in Estonia—had already saved a handful of people’s lives. Halo’s actions were no joke badass, and the bonus was that he met his fiancée when they worked through a series of disasters together. Halo said that if you can trust someone with your life, it was a bloody good base to build a future.

Levi was glad for him. He was a lucky guy.

“So what happened with the dogs? Not a good fit?” Halo pushed his paperwork out of the way so Levi could sit.

. “Not even close.” Levi crouched and reached under the table to give Halos’ doggo, Max, a scritch. “Worse than needing too much training time to get them up to snuff,” Reaper laced his fingers behind his head, his elbows wide, “those dogs would need too much unwinding from Beast Mode training before we could polish their skills.”

“That’s always three times as long,” Halo said. “And you never know when past training will pop out and bite you.”

“If it does,” Reaper agreed, “it’s always at the worst possible time.”

“What was the problem?” Noah asked.

“They were healthy, I’ll give them that,” Goose drummed his fingers on the table. “But that’s about all I’d give them. They’re not Cerberus quality.”

“No?” Noah lifted his brow. “I’m surprised to hear that. Their reputation in the industry is a good one.”

“None of the Beast Mode dogs could work off radio collar directions,” Reaper said, “or even out of sight of their handler for one.”

“And get this,” Goose added, “not a one of them had a blood bite.”

Halo canted his head. “That’s one of the first things I did with Max. I mean, why put in the time and effort to train a military K9 if you aren’t sure how he’ll respond when they get that taste? I’ve seen trained dogs become predatory after that part of their brain switched on, and their handlers lost voice control when the dog spotted prey. With dogs bred for tactical work, that’s a dangerous situation. I’m sure we all know of a dog that was put down for safety’s sake.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Reaper said. “Had I known that from the beginning, we wouldn’t have wasted our time. It goes to show you never to assume. But then, they weren’t very forthcoming about their methods and procedures. They considered everything proprietary.” Reaper pulled his ankle over his knee, resting his hand on his shins as he turned to Levi. “We regularly train our dogs with blood sleeves. In a real-world scenario, either in rescue or tactical work, there will be blood to some extent. The dogs better know how to ignore it and stay task-oriented.”

“Who donates the blood?” Levi asked.

“Different slaughterhouses,” Reaper said, “so a variety of smells and tastes. Non-human.”

“What’s your theory on why they didn’t let them get that blood bite in?” Noah asked.

Reaper scratched the side of his face. “I’ve given that some thought. Here’s what I came up with—the team sources their dogs out of Europe, right?”

“Usually, a good thing,” Goose said. “Cleaner bloodlines.”

“But they get the pups as soon as they’ve weaned,” Reaper said.

“Their dogs don’t do basic training in a Schutzhund program in Europe?” Noah asked. “They bring them back as puppies? Why? Are they trying to save money?”

Noah’s dog, Hairyman, wandered over to sniff Levi, and Levi leaned to the side, giving Hairyman room to crawl under the table and curl up with Max. “Conroy said their training methods begin at the beginning.”

“I see,” Noah said.

“Do you?” Reaper asked. “Because I don’t think that group could have left us anymore in the dark.” He made air quotes again. “‘Our training methods are proprietary.’ It was their drumbeat answer to all my questions.” Reaper edged down in his seat until his head rested on the back of the chair. “So my theory: Beast Mode buys these dogs as weaned pups. They take them before they’ve had their basic training and before they’ve gone through their adolescence. The price is a fraction of a Schutzhund-trained K9. It’s a high gamble, potentially high reward scenario. I think they purposefully don’t let their dogs taste blood, or they could lose the money they invested in that dog.”

“So Casper,” Halo swiveled toward Levi, “I would have laid wages you would’ve picked him, mate. On video, he’s an amazing athlete.”

“Beast Mode was playing games,” Levi laced his fingers, pressing his thumbs together as he rested his elbows on the chair arms. “Before Casper came in for our inspection, they ran him ten miles.”

Noah let out a low whistle.

“Levi put on the bite suit,” Goose said, “and Casper nearly ripped his arm out of the socket. It took both Conroy and Pete and a shock device to get Casper to release.”

“That level of prey drive?” Halo asked. “That dog’s not safe. I’d imagine after seeing that, you all didn’t trust the training.”

“It was all smoke and mirrors,” Levi said.

“So where do we go from here?” Goose asked.

Levi grinned. “How about Namibia?”

Hailey looked up from her computer.

“That’s about a sixteen-hour flight.” Reaper pulled his brows together. “Seems far for a joy ride,”

“What’s in Namibia?” Hailey asked.

Levi pulled out his phone and scrolled through his video files. “I have a buddy, Enrico. We went through K9 training at the same time. Former SEAL dog handler. He was a lot like Reaper, just a natural feel for how to get a dog to know the job and have fun doing it.”

Reaper caught Levi’s gaze.

“Hey, man, I’m not trying to butter you up. I’m just trying to make a fair comparison for folks, so you all know Enrico is the opposite of Conroy and Pete.” Levi handed his phone to Reaper with a video queued up.

“No flattery taken,” Reaper chuckled, accepting the phone and tapping play. “You like his training methods? He produces well-trained dogs?”

“When you were in the SEALs, Reaper, you told me you had a dedicated K9 for your team. But you probably knew some teams, like mine, that picked a dog from the kennel to meet the mission’s needs.”

“Pros and cons to that scenario,” Reaper said, his gaze fixed on the video. He replayed it in slow motion.

“Enrico was in a similar situation to mine. I’m good at what I do when I’m handling a dog, the tactical side of the equation. But I’m not a trainer. Where Enrico, on the other hand, is a natural. When he returned the loaner pooch to the kennel, the K9 had always vastly improved its skillsets.” Levi flicked a finger through the air for emphasis. “Two things happened. On the good to interesting end, handlers, me included, tried to figure out which dogs Enrico had just worked so they could choose that one for their next assignment. And—”

“The kennel started steering all the problem dogs Enrico’s way.” Reaper handed the phone to Goose. “What’s that dog's name?”

“That’s Mojo. He’s Enrico’s pride and joy.” Levi nodded at the phone. “And you're right. They gave him the troublemakers. Don’t get me wrong, Enrico loved the challenge. But it’s not great to be out running and gunning with a questionable fur-force when lives are on the line.” He watched Goose’s face as he tapped pause and zoomed in on some aspect of the video. “I remember one time that the risk put Enrico’s team in danger. When he went back, he chewed everyone a new hole. It was a sight to behold. But he was right to do it.”

“Why’s he in Namibia?” Goose asked, passing the video to Noah.

“Enrico is an animal lover through and through. Everyone knows that about him. He’d wear you out talking about his after-military career plans. Africa was calling him. Enrico has a special kind of anger that runs through him when he talks about poachers. While we were in the sandbox, Enrico was making African contacts, learning what he could from them, and helping the rangers out by solving some of their training issues where he could. A buddy of his at Etosha Park in Namibia called up, saying they were having trouble with their scent training. Would Enrico mind flying over and seeing if he couldn’t pinpoint the problem?”

“Did he?” Reaper asked.

“Jumped on the first plane. Two things. First, their trainers were putting the scent source in the training wall while a helper would stand on the other side. When they heard the trainer start his high-pitched praise, the dog’s reward of choice—say, a tug toy or a Kong—was tossed over the top. That was supposed to appear to the dog that the scent source itself was providing the reward.”

“Why would that be bad?” Hailey asked.

“Couple of things,” Levi said. “Let’s start with the payment for a good find. In order for the reward to be immediate and look like the scent provided it, the helper would have to stand behind the concealed item. At that point, the dog could hunt the human scent and know that the thing they were looking for was behind one of those doors in the training wall.”

“Oh, yeah.” Hailey gave a nod. “I get that.”

“And because the scent wall divided the room in half and the reward person was behind the wall, it was convenient for the trainer to hide the scent. That’s especially true if they were working on the skill over and over again.”

“Yup.” Hailey nodded. “And the problem with the trainer hiding the scent source?”

“The trainer could very well have some subtle body tell that you and I couldn’t see on tape but a dog would pick up on easily. Too long a look, a pointed looking away, anything really. A dog would pay attention and remember how to get his reward.”

“And this scenario is very much like the one we saw in Texas,” Goose said. “The second dog we inspected, Diabla, was tuned in to her handler for that very reason. When we set up a double-blind, she couldn’t find the scent.”

“How do you fix that?” Hailey asked.

“It’s not a good practice to give any kind of reward—voice or play—when the dog finds the scent because the dog will stop working after the find,” Levi said. “In a real-world scenario, there may be several scent sources in a room that we need to clear. We want the dog to go in, indicate on every last scent that it finds, and when they’ve found everything and signaled each one for its handler, then go back to an exact spot. It’s there that the handler offers a reward.”

“It’s called DFR, delayed final response,” Reaper explained. “A two-person team could still do the job. One person wearing gloves would place the scents and leave through a second door so there was no possible exchange of information in front of the dog. The dog searches the room, finds all the scents, and then goes to his spot to get the praise and games.”

“Pretty quick, the dogs in Etosha were up to their real-world tasks,” Levi said.

Hailey smiled. “That’s so interesting.”

“When Enrico was there doing the work, it was everything he'd imagined it to be. He fell in love with the place and took a job. For the last few years, he’s been training K9s to support both the rangers, who track animals outside of the park and the military and police forces that protect inside the park. We’re talking about developing fearless tactical dogs that fight the bad guys but don’t get eaten by the lions.” Levi grinned.

“I’ve been to Etosha. It’s an astonishing experience,” Hailey said.

“Yeah?” Halo turned to her. “What were you doing down there?”

“A WorldCares friend of mine, Gwen Metz, and I went over to see her parents. Similar to Enrico, her folks were on a bucket list vacation to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. Once they got there, they fell in love with the people and the country and didn’t want to leave. So they uprooted, quite literally, and moved there.”

“Why quite literally?” Levi asked.

“They’re biotechnologists.” She shut her laptop lid so she wasn’t peering over the screen at everyone. “Their work focuses on developing heat and drought-resistant grape varieties so vineyards can use less water. The Metzes dug up the grape vines they were cultivating and decided to test them out in Namibian conditions. The vineyard is just outside of the national park. I got to lounge around, sipping wine and enjoying the experience. Since it was dry season, the animals would gather at the watering holes at dusk and dawn. We’d go in with one of the Metzes’ guide friends to see the animals cluster. Just the trip of a lifetime. It was surreal.” She smiled. “It was hard to believe I was there, and an elephant was walking beside our vehicle. Where I had lived in East Africa, we didn’t have the Big Five animals.”

“Their vineyard is right outside of the park?” Reaper asked.

“You can see the entrance when you’re on the top of the hill.”

Handing Levi’s phone back to him, Noah said, “Tell me about that video.”

“Mojo is one of the dogs Enrico trained to work alongside the military. Tough job. Brave people who do that work. Enrico said that just this spring, the soldiers were in a gunfight with a gang of poachers killing rhinos. The poachers would leave the carcasses and take the horns to sell. In that fight, two poachers were killed and one of the soldiers. It was the soldier who handled Mojo that went down. Mojo can’t work in the park anymore. Rhinos set him off.”

“Off?” Reaper scowled.

“Yeah, he’s rhino sour. Enrico says he could probably build Mojo’s tolerance back up, but they have to balance how much time and focus that would consume. And like we were saying about retraining the dogs from Beast Mode, you’re taking a chance that something could retrigger Mojo. Enrico thinks just getting him a job where there aren’t any rhinos is the ticket.”

“There aren’t any jobs with the rangers outside the park?” Halo asked.

“As to the rhinos, they’re out in the wild in the other areas of Namibia,” Hailey said. “I understand they’ve been working on growing the black rhino population in their natural territories.”

“Meaning anywhere in Namibia might be problematic for Mojo?” Halo asked.

“Down south in the desert?” Hailey said. “I don’t think they’d range down that far. South of the capital, Windhoek, I think that’s mostly Oryx and ostriches. Some baboons. Lots of termites.”

“Let’s get back to the problem with Mojo,” Reaper said.

“When he smells rhino, Mojo becomes fiercely protective and uncontrollable by voice command. We saw that play out with Casper. It’s a significant concern.”

“Except that’s the opposite of becoming predatory after tasting blood,” Noah said.

“Enrico put it this way: Mojo can’t be commanded when a rhino is around,” Levi explained. “He’s busy guarding and protecting. Enrico put him through his paces outside Etosha without the rhinos, and Mojo was spot on. Enrico figures he needs to sell Mojo to an outfit that won’t be around rhinos. So that’s a consideration. I’m not sure how often that would come up with Team Charlie if we considered Mojo.”

“Good chance it would never come up,” Reaper said. “If you were attaching to one of the tactical forces, we’d just make sure that you weren’t tapped to go to the zoo.” He flicked a finger toward the phone, and Levi opened it and handed it back to Reaper. “Did Enrico get video of the rhino reaction?”

“No video of the reaction. I’m assuming they’re too busy making sure that everything stays safe. But there is video comparing Mojo’s work before the incident and the same skills outside of the park afterward. He’s impressive.”

“My worry would be that he’d accumulate a list of situations where he takes the dominant role. That could quickly make him useless in the field,” Reaper said.

“Mine, too,” Levi agreed. “Enrico said that Mojo has been in life-or-death situations before and after. He thinks Mojo might be blaming himself for allowing his handler to die. Enrico doesn’t know I’m looking for a dog, so he’s not trying to sell me a Casper.”

“So he is for sale?” Noah asked. “Beautiful animal. You can see the intelligence in his eyes.”

“He’s a purebred German shepherd. I’ve been hearing stories about Mojo and his training since he was a pup. Since they can’t use Mojo as a working dog, Enrico figures that with the price for Mojo, he could get a whole litter of pups raised and ready to expand their kennel. They’ve already lost twenty-something rhinos this year alone. They need more help, and their budget is small.”

“Interesting,” Reaper said as he watched the video without providing any context. He handed the phone back to Levi. “Okay, let’s see if we can’t get over to see this Mojo pooch.” He turned to Hailey. “That vineyard your friend’s parents run, is it dog-friendly?”

“The Etosha trainers do part of their puppy training there. They encourage the guests to play with the puppies so they get used to different people’s looks and smells since the dogs work around tourists from all over the world. I bet the Metzes know Enrico.”

“Could you reach out to them and see if they have room and board for three with the possibility that Mojo might be spending the night?”

“Since I do Cerberus logistics, I think I can handle that.” She smiled. “When are you thinking of going?”

“I have this week,” Reaper said, “and then my training schedule is tight.”

Hailey scribbled notes on her pad, then looked up. “So, first flight out once Enrico is on board?”