Code Name: Baby

As he came closer, Wolfe noticed the ugly welt on her arm where she’d fallen on the trail this morning. Near the welt was a bruise from Sundance, who had kicked her accidentally while running through an improvised obstacle course on the mesa.

She’s changed, Wolfe thought. Grown up with a vengeance.

There was no mistaking the smooth curve of her breasts or the line of her thigh beneath the nightshirt she wore.

Bad news, pal.

Frowning, he looked away, studying this airy room with views over three mountains and forty miles of sagebrush. He’d spent some good hours here, playing pool with Trace, arguing about cars and politics. He’d felt safe here once.

Memories rushed over him, good mixed with bitter, drawn from his few hours of normal boyhood. In this house he had glimpsed all the things his life might have been in a different family.

One with a father who didn’t enjoy casual cruelty.

Wolfe hadn’t thought about his father for years. His past was a closed book, the wistful boy buried deep. Before joining the Navy, he had changed his name and dropped the bitter memories like a stone hurled far and long into deep water. Only seventeen, he’d already been a man when he left Lost Mesa. He’d worked in the fields, backbreaking labor that had carried him from county to county and harvest to harvest. Two days after his eighteenth birthday he’d seen a recruiter’s office and felt a light go on.

Two days later he was on a bus bound for the closest training facility. The Navy had made him whole again and he’d met every challenge thrown his way, proud to become a SEAL. When he’d been selected to join the ultrasecret Foxfire unit, his new life had seemed complete.

All these thoughts flashed by in seconds as Wolfe stood in the blue-gray light of a movie he didn’t recognize. The four dogs didn’t move, faces alert beside the couch where Kit slept, and Wolfe knew beyond a doubt that they were measuring him, analyzing every action. He avoided any swift movements that could be mistaken for aggression, and when the dogs continued to show no sign of hostility, he crouched beside the smallest one, a black Lab with melted chocolate eyes.

So this was Baby.

The runt of the litter, she was also the smartest and most gifted, if Ryker’s files were right—and they almost always were. Wolfe raised his hand, checking the dog’s response.

The big dark eyes focused intently. She sniffed his open palm and nudged his hand, her tail bumping on the rug.

The SEAL felt a little surge of satisfaction when Baby rolled over calmly in a gesture of trust, raising her head to meet his hand. The animals were well nourished and superbly groomed. Their coats were thick and smooth, their eyes clear. According to Ryker, none of the government’s in-house labs had produced dogs with anything close to Kit’s record of health and growth rate. Wolfe made a mental note to check the ingredients of the new food mix she had developed. He had already sent back photographs with a 12X zoom and detailed notes about her training methods. Clearly she deserved her excellent reputation.

Ryker wanted to know how a civilian working alone in an isolated and meagerly equipped location could outperform highly paid scientists in state-of-the-art facilities. Some people were convinced that Kit’s parents had stumbled across a food additive to enhance the dogs’ training speed. Others had called it blind luck. For his part, standing face to face with Kit’s dogs, Wolfe suspected a different process was at work.

Kit didn’t hesitate to crawl through the dirt on her stomach to show a six-month old puppy how to be silent in the brush. She didn’t hold back a laugh of pure glee when she jumped from a ladder into a mound of straw with two wriggling dogs in her arms. She offered unquestioning loyalty and her animals responded in kind.

Wolfe wasn’t a scientist, but he sensed that Kit herself was the secret ingredient.

He looked up to the scrutiny of chocolate-colored eyes. Baby continued to study him for what felt like a lifetime, sniffing his hand. Damn if Wolfe didn’t feel as if he’d been scanned, analyzed and dissected from forehead to big toe.

When Baby nudged his leg, Wolfe winced. She was a little too close to the jagged cut he’d received during his insertion jump from a military chopper north of Taos. But he didn’t pull away, sensing the dog’s concentration.

Seconds later Baby was nudged aside first by Diesel, then by Butch and Sundance. Each dog sniffed the area on his thigh where he had been wounded. When they were finally done investigating, they drew back into a motionless line.

The seconds stretched out. Wolfe felt the dogs’ concentration grow.

What in the hell was going on? Why did he feel as if he was being ruthlessly analyzed all over again? Suddenly Wolfe realized it was his wound that fascinated the dogs, possibly because they sensed something unusual—or familiar—about his blood chemistry. Another observation to go into his report to Ryker.

Across the room, Kit twisted suddenly. Still asleep, she kicked free of her cover, her hand hitting the remote on the side table.

The images on the screen multiplied, twelve small boxes of the same street scene.

Curious, Wolfe moved closer. He’d never seen a complicated TV screen like this one. Back at the lab, facilities were tight and schedules strict. Training constantly, the team members had little time for entertainment, since they had to be able to deploy at a moment’s notice, day or night.

It was fair to say that he had missed a few things, given his lifestyle. With Baby by his leg, he followed images of tanks rumbling through the streets of Paris. Against the haunting chords of a piano, he saw Humphrey Bogart’s ashen face when he was left alone for a second time.

War was hell, all right. Wolfe could identify with that.

Kit twisted again. Her other hand hit the remote, changing the display to one small box in the bottom corner of the screen.

Fascinated by the technology, Wolfe picked up the remote and sat down in the far chair while he studied the unfamiliar control. He could rig complicated trigger units for every kind of explosive device, so he figured this equipment wouldn’t be much of a problem.

He touched one of the buttons.

The action froze on the big screen.

He touched another button. In seconds he’d worked out how to resume action, mute the audio and fast-forward. After making sure that Kit was still out cold, he started the movie again. Diesel moved closer while Baby nuzzled his shoulder. With the dogs ranged around him, he felt oddly safe and protected.

But safety was an illusion with Cruz on the loose. Jumpy, he rose and circled the room, checking windows and doors. After each pass, he was drawn back to his seat beside Baby and the images that flickered over the screen.

Without a sound Sundance moved to the big window overlooking the front porch. Diesel and Butch slipped away into the shadows. Baby didn’t budge, her head resting on Wolfe’s shoulder. For one strange moment the SEAL felt an unshakable sense of belonging.

But he didn’t belong. Not as a ragtag boy, and definitely not as a man. Because of Foxfire, he would always be different, and he had accepted that difference, both gift and curse, the day that the government had implanted his first chip.

And he had work to do. Now that he had ascertained Kit’s safety, there was no reason for him to sit watching a sixty-year-old movie and enjoying the sight of Kit’s hair aglow in the lamplight.

As Wolfe stood up, Baby slanted her head and met his eyes.

He wasn’t sure if he imagined what happened next. Across the room the sound climbed, voices murmuring. Wolfe tapped a button on the remote, wondering if he had accidentally hit something without noticing. But a second later the volume climbed again.

A defective television?

He frowned at the wall of high-tech equipment and lowered the audio again. Behind him the dogs were lined up in a row. Panting, they stared at him expectantly.

As a test, he muted the sound. Instantly, it shot back to its prior level.

Wolfe dropped the volume, sorting through possible explanations. A wiring malfunction? Battery failure?

Flipping the remote, he removed the batteries. He was about to pry off the inside cover and check the inner circuitry when the TV muted on its own.

The batteries were in his hand. The dogs were ranged on the floor in front of the television, unmoving. Baby’s tail thumped once.

The dogs?

He didn’t buy it. This kind of skill had never been part of their genetic package. The source had to be an equipment malfunction.

Tensely, he pocketed the batteries and moved to the far wall. Leaning down, he scanned the controls and manually triggered the volume.

Nothing happened.

Wolfe thought it over. Then he thought it over again. His gaze returned to the dogs.

Baby sat down in the middle of the rug. Casablanca stopped, and the television switched over to regular programming, where a man with a sequined cowboy hat waved his arms and pitched used trucks.