Code Name: Baby

Kit jotted a note on her calendar to call and confirm a time for the visit. While she wrote, she triggered the last message.

“This is Doctor Rivera’s office, Ms. O’Halloran. Doctor Rivera asks that you call the office at your earliest convenience. He’d like to speak with you.”

Kit looked down at her hands. All the energy seemed to bleed out of her body. She sank lower in the chair, staring at the breeding awards that lined the walls of the study. Presidents, generals and movie stars smiled down from mismatched frames, mute records of her family’s contribution to humane and practical training techniques for service and working dogs. In twenty-five years her parents had personally trained over two thousand dogs, and Kit was determined to expand on their legacy.

But her body might have different plans.

After a long day of exercise, she could no longer ignore the deep throb in her right hip. Wincing, she pulled a heavy medical textbook from a nearby shelf. She didn’t expect to find anything new because she had read every relevant page at least fifty times. All of them pointed to the same conclusion: joint deterioration, pure and simple.

Kit wished that Trace would come home. She missed his outrageously bad jokes and his off-key Rolling Stones renditions.

But she never knew when her brother would appear, and she tried not to think about the possibility that he might never come back. Although the details were secret, Kit knew he was part of a highly trained covert operations team, and right now they could be deployed anywhere.

Almost certainly, it would be someplace dangerous. More than once she remembered Trace calmly telling her that hell was their specialty.

Baby gently nudged her leg. Kit sensed that the dog had come to offer reassurance with the warmth of her body and the soft thump of her tail. It was uncanny how pets developed a skill at reading their owners’ moods.

Kit took a deep breath, stretching her legs slowly. Her joints felt stiff, but they were no worse than any other day, and that was something to be thankful for. Leaning down, she slid her hand through Baby’s soft fur. She had cried herself dry months ago, cursing her body, her genes and nameless bad luck. Neither the tears nor the curses had made her feel better.

As she stared at the medical book filled with grim facts and sad pictures, something shook free inside Kit. Slowly it uncurled against her chest, blowing away restless fears and dreary expectations. She wouldn’t plan her future based on old medical files. She was strong. She would make her own future.

She closed the textbook with a snap. No more obsessing about medicine and new discoveries. If you gave in to fear, you’d lost already.

Outside the moon drifted above the mesa. Kit ran a hand through her hair and stretched. “I’m in the mood for a hero tonight. What do you guys say? Gary Cooper or John Wayne?”

Diesel stared at her, cocking his head in the half-listening, half-baffled pose that always made her smile.

Baby turned in a slow circle, stretching out on the floor.

“Bogie it is, then.” Shaking her head, Kit went out to find Casablanca.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER the Germans were storming Paris, Bogie was fighting a broken heart, and Kit couldn’t have been happier.

Curled up on the couch, she watched black-and-white images play across the wide-screen TV that had been her father’s single vice. She smiled as the story wrapped around her, pulling her in and making her forget her own troubles. Ilsa and Rick would always have Paris, and she would always have Casablanca.

Claude Rains leered at her. Kit fought a yawn as the day finally took its toll. She fell into dreams of black and white and a world filled with weary heroes.

MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED across the floor. Baby stretched out at Kit’s feet, gnawing on a rubber chew toy.

As Kit slept, the four dogs moved closer. At a look from Baby, Diesel vanished to patrol the courtyard while Butch and Sundance moved to check the backyard and rear doors.

In silence, Baby lifted her paws to the windows that overlooked the mesa. There in the moonlight the dog’s ears pricked forward.

A family of quail scurried for cover, routed from sleep by the shadow of a passing hawk. Wind hissed through the juniper branches that tossed in the moonlight.

Baby absorbed all of these movements, assessing them as unimportant. But something else moved in the darkness, and it was a thing the dog had never sensed before.

The other three dogs appeared from the shadows, drawn by the force of Baby’s uneasiness. As one, they sank down before the window, alert to the night.

While the moon rose higher and war waged across North Africa, Kit slept on, caught in restless dreams. Ranged around her, the dogs kept a wary vigil, sensing new predators afoot beneath the desert moon.

CHAPTER FOUR

SILENT AND CONTROLLED, the highly trained covert operative jumped the courtyard wall and scanned the outside of Kit’s house. At the edge of the shadows, certain he was alone, he triggered his cell phone.

Ryker answered on the second ring, sounding irritated. “0200 hours. This had better be important, Houston.”

“Permission to break cover, sir.”

“You’re persistent, I’ll say that.”

Wolfe didn’t answer. The night was silent, the air rich with the pungent bite of piñon and burning mesquite logs.

“Any new threats, Commander?”

“A cougar in the area. She drove the thing off with a stick. Added to that is the possibility that the men from this morning may return. I can’t keep her safe if I’m hidden at the top of the hill, sir. It’s simple physics.”

“There’s nothing simple about physics,” Ryker muttered. “Foxfire proves that every day.” He cleared his throat. “Permission granted. But keep things airtight. I’m holding you personally responsible, is that understood?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Then good night,” Ryker said sourly. “Some of us need to sleep.”

When Ryker disconnected, Wolfe reconnoitered. He knew the layout of the ranch from his mission documents, but even without the plans, he would still have remembered his way.

With quick movements he jimmied the side door lock and broke into the house. Once inside, he listened for Kit’s voice or the sound of footsteps, but all was quiet. Only as he turned down the front hall did he hear low voices—male and female.

Instantly his hand flashed to the Sig at the small of his back. How had someone gotten past him? He’d been watching every road, window and door for a week. During his brief naps, his scattered motion sensors took over, so the property was always monitored.

Light flickered from the far end of the hall. Muffled voices rose in anger.

Neither of them was Kit’s.

When he glanced around the corner into the living room, he saw Kit asleep on the couch, legs curled up, her hand flung over the back of a pillow. Ranged around her were the four dogs Ryker had briefed him about. Smart, fast, and highly motivated, they were products of the same genetic technology that made Wolfe one of the government’s most valuable military assets. Kit mumbled in her sleep, one hand in Baby’s fur, and the big puppy moved closer, almost protectively, as Wolfe surveyed the room. Currently Kit had no idea about the nature of the dogs she was raising. Though her supervision of the dogs’ training remained hotly contested by the Foxfire scientists, the bottom line was results: as long as Kit’s dogs showed superior skill acquisition, they would stay right where they were.

For long seconds none of them moved, Wolfe by the door and the dogs keenly alert near Kit. Baby’s head rose. She sniffed the air softly, and Diesel came to stand beside her, their intensity was nearly palpable.

Muted voices continued to come from the flickering television on the far wall as Wolfe monitored the room, staying far back in the shadows.

Then Baby turned in a circle, sneezed and sat down beside Kit with no further wariness or hostility. Wolfe felt some of his tension ebb. The dogs appeared to have accepted him as friendly. Ryker had assured him that their shared chips would make this likely.

Better than getting an ankle savaged, Wolfe thought wryly.

He made a mental note to drop this observation into his next report, along with a description of the dogs’ quick threat response when they’d shot over the courtyard wall to protect Kit.

Spirit and courage. Both were key traits for a military service dog, and these animals would be amazing assets when their training was complete. Healthy and clearly curious, they shot forward to sniff at his legs and circle him excitedly.

But Wolfe was watching Kit and the way light from the television played over her face, outlining her cheekbones and full lips. The surveillance photos in his file didn’t show the gold in her short hair or the dark curve of her eyelashes. Nor did they capture her restless energy, even in sleep.