Page 11 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

There was no Kyrgyzstan job to do.

No summer mission scouring the mountains.

The entire reason for finding Radar and having him trained had evolved.

Now, what was Xander going to do about Radar?

It would be impossible to integrate a dog—no matter the K9's masterful training—into Xander’s current day-to-day.

Or even hour-to-hour.

Later that afternoon, Xander needed to meet with Bill York and find out if he needed to follow Orest Kalinsky to Alaska. And Xander would make a plan from there, whether Radar could fit into that picture or if Radar needed to stay here with Reaper.

Xander wanted to know what York had been chasing and what he’d learned in the process. Anna seemed to think York had hit on something important. And, in the bar, Anna could only say so much.

Xander had to push the ramifications of Anna’s update, both global and personal, out of his mind. He’d focus on controlling the three feet around him, which included Reaper and Radar.

Blocked by the vehicles, Radar hadn’t spotted Xander yet. But, as always, the first thing Radar did when he moved from one space to another was to do a thorough visual scan to get his bearings and gauge the vibe, then his nose went up as he did a secondary scan with his sniffer.

Today, the air current blew past Xander straight over to the team.

Radar turned his gaze on Xander.

A grin spread across Xander’s face. “There he is! There’s my good boy!”

As Radar stood politely beside Reaper, his entire body quivered with contained excitement.

Butterflies danced in Xander’s stomach.

It was the same sensation every time he came to collect Radar from his training course to have some bonding time. It was hard to describe, except that it was like leaving a piece of him behind and not feeling whole again until they were together.

As Reaper stopped, Radar sat, but he couldn’t quell the quiver.

“Xander,” Reaper called out with his hand extended.

“You’re being mean,” Xander said, reaching for the shake.

“Just doing my job,” Reaper said with a grin.

Xander knew Radar was facing a test—an important one—in the face of intense desire to break command and do what he wanted to do, could Radar exercise self-control?

Reaper looked down and caught Radar’s gaze. “Radar, release.”

A bit of warning might have been good. Xander needed a wider stance to brace against full-body contact with Radar.

Laughing, Xander crouched to rub and scrub and coo his welcome, “Hey, Buddy! I missed you, too.”

When Radar had settled, Xander stood. “What have you got planned for us?” He looked at his watch, “I have to get back up to Iniquus Headquarters by ten-hundred.”

“That should do it.” Reaper pointed down the road farther back on the property.

“We’re about to sign off on Radar’s training.

To certify him, we’ve been gradually adding complexity to his evolutions.

If it’s okay with you, we’re going to go at this like it’s a day in your life.

We’ll start you dancing as you approach a shoot house.

Once inside, you and Halo will clear it, then search it for a missing electronics component.

And we’ll let things unfold from there. You’ll get directions as necessary, but we want the emotions to be true.

If you don’t know what’s coming, there’s no way you can telegraph those pictures to your dog. ”

“I’m up to the challenge. Complex, huh?” They were walking toward an SUV at the back of the lot.

“We recently brought on a dog named Mojo out of Etosha National Park, which is a game preserve in Namibia, Africa. Mojo’s trainer had the same philosophy as Cerberus: we don’t train to be pretty, to show off, or act badass on a field in front of spectators.

We train to save lives—our own and those around us. ”

The truth of that hit Xander in the gut. “Digger.”

“His actions saving his handler are a source of pride here at Cerberus,” Reaper said.

“It took the right combination of Digger’s instincts, as well as our training methods.

Since that incident with Scott on the mountainside and what we learned from Mojo’s trainer in Namibia, we’ve focused on training our dogs’ problem-solving skills.

It’s perfectly fine to have a working dog that is on point with his behavior.

We need that in place as a baseline for safety’s sake and for the air of professionalism that our clients expect.

But now we’re paying a great deal more attention to layering scenarios and making them as true to life as possible, so we can accurately predict how the dog will perform.

I promise you, if we had only trained Scott’s dog to follow a command, Scott would have died.

Radar’s ready to be your battle buddy in Kyrgyzstan. ”

Xander kept it to himself that it looked like time was up on that mission before he and Radar got a shot at finding the “Big and Bad” their team had been hunting.

Usually, these training sessions were a blast, just a hundred percent fun, jumping out of helicopters, fast-roping with Radar strapped to his pack, running and gunning through mazes and shoot houses.

And up until his Bratislava meet-up with Anna, Xander had looked forward to today richly.

Now it felt like he was fiddling while Rome burned.

There was nothing he could do but move steadily through his day.

First, train with Radar, then deliver Anna’s message to Nutsbe, and then meet up with Johnna White, his CIA counterpart, and Adele Gutterman, who was with the Mossad.

He wondered if Adele wanted to chat about the Zoric-Iranian satellites that Russia had just launched.

At least Anna had told him about them, so he wasn’t blinking at Adele like an idiot.

He was interested to hear what the CIA and the Mossad thought of the sudden shift toward Singapore.

If the Zoric family was heading into a lockdown bunker with supplies for decades of survival, man, that was a bad sign.

Ice washed through Xander’s blood, and Radar reacted by stiffening his spine and scanning for a threat.

“Radar,” Xander pulled his attention around. “It’s okay, buddy. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re alone.”

“All right, here we are.” Reaper lifted a hand, and a man dressed in Cerberus Tactical with a Team Charlie jacket jogged over. “This is your partner today, Halo.”

“G’day,” Halo said with an obvious Australian accent and outstretched hand. “I’m the guy who's got your six, yeah? You’re going to lead since you’ve got the land shark with you. I’m just here to cower in the shadow.”

“You know Radar?” Xander asked.

“Aw yeah, we’re great pals, Radar and me. I’ve been working with him on his water skills. If you ever have to chase the bad guy into the drink, Radar can see that through.”

“Okay,” Reaper said, “today you’re going to practice your dancing skills, Xander.

Out there is a bad guy. If you find the criminal and take control, then we’ll move on to the point where Radar needs to solve a problem that he’s not been faced with before.

” Reaper pointed out. “Your bad guy is in that area. There’s a shoot house that you will treat as lethal, though we’re using laser guns today that release the scent of gun powder and sound like suppressed fire.

Orange tip, no barrel.” He pulled the weapon out of his pack and handed it over for Xander’s inspection.

“You’re the only one with a weapon in hand during this scenario. ”

“Got it.” Xander accepted the training tool.

“Nothing else on you? No knives, ankle holsters, anything?” Reaper asked.

“That’s all I have,” Xander said as he tucked the laser gun back into his belt at the small of his back.

“Very good, gentlemen,” Reaper said, “have a productive evolution. We’ll be watching and taping from the various cameras, especially the one on Radar’s collar, so we can assess after.”

Just like that, Reaper melted into the background.