Page 15 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

He knew Adele’s activity centered on thwarting science experiments that endangered her country.

He also knew that her team had been doing intelligence work in Northeastern Lebanon when they’d had their electronics and communications wiped, putting them in extreme danger, which led to the death of a teammate in the event.

And Xander knew that fatal mission was the catalyst for Adele’s group joining the AWG alum on the hunt for the Zoric mystery machine that caused the Lebanese catastrophe.

Xander watched both Nutsbe and Titus stiffen as Adele passed into the room.

Tension always hid beneath the Panther Forces' professional demeanors when Adele showed up. While Xander didn’t know the details of the story—didn’t want to know the details—what he’d pulled from the wind was that Adele had been on a mission that sought to neutralize what the Mossad viewed as an existential threat.

The threat happened to be a Panther Force operator’s now wife. And she had been the victim, not the perpetrator.

Once again, Xander heard the drum beat of perils when falling in love while working in a career like his.

Just don’t do it.

“We’ll give you the room,” Titus said, gathering his file. “Your escort is standing outside the door, for your convenience.” Titus and Nutsbe, along with Beowolf and Covington, left the room.

When various alphabets came together for exchanges that required plausible deniability, Iniquus often allowed the meetings to take place on neutral ground. Today, they were in the war room because it was effectively a SCIF. They had not just privacy here but security as well.

White and Adele moved to find seats around the table with Finley, Xander, and Radar. Hiro sat to Xander’s right.

Xander had known Suko Hiro from Afghanistan, where his call sign was Super Hero, and he’d lived up to his name.

After losing the toes of his left foot to an IED, he’d moved over to use his brain in logistics since his body was no longer able to keep up in the field.

It was a good day when Xander realized that most of the AWG alumni would be under Hiro’s command.

“White, I haven’t seen you in a while.” Xander was rubbing Radar’s ears as Radar assessed the newcomers. “I heard your teammate, Red, was in a car accident in Morocco. How’s she doing?”

“She’ll never be in the field again,” White said, her face purposefully wiped of emotion. “She’s okay with that. She’s had enough.”

“Of course,” Xander said.

“She has another surgery coming up. Did I hear correctly?” Hiro asked.

“Yes, tomorrow morning, actually. We’re hoping it reduces Red’s pain levels. She’s in pretty good spirits, taking things day by day.” White turned her focus on Xander. “That accident has a distant connection to you.”

“Yeah?” Xander paused his Radar scritches.

“On the day of the accident, Red was traveling with a Delta Force operator, Nomad, who was a new guy on the same Delta Force Echo team I brought to Kyrgyzstan to find and extract Scott, Tink, and Peter.”

“Small world. Nomad. You used his name,” Xander pointed out. “Does that mean he’s left Delta?”

“He took medical leave to stick with Red and help her through. He’s mostly healed from the accident.

He gets migraines when there’s bright light in his left eye.

He can mitigate it by wearing a patch when he’s out in the sun.

But that’s not compatible with Delta Force field requirements.

I will tell you, he was heroic on the scene.

If you’re going to be in a car accident in the middle of nowhere Morocco, it’s best to have special forces sitting by your side. ”

Xander said quietly. “Please let Red know that we stand in friendship if she needs anything at any point along the way.”

“That’s very nice of you. Thanks. I’ll pass that on. Yeah, it’s weird not having Red on the team. An adjustment.” There was something hard and sharp in White’s eye when she said that.

And Xander wasn’t the only one to notice.

Everyone in the room knew that look; someone had stepped out of bounds to hurt one of White’s team, and that person wasn’t going to be allowed to go quietly into the night. White meant to extract her pound of flesh.

Xander silently wished her the opportunity to see that through.

But first, they had to stop the Zorics’ retribution against the world.

“So now that we’ve settled into our seats and caught up a bit on the big news happening with our cases, the dog at my feet is Radar. He was trained by Cerberus to be my Digger as I continue to search for the machine.”

Heads nodded.

“Let me tell you why I’m in town,” Xander continued. “Anna Senko sent me to talk to Bill York,” Xander said. “York has been tracking a guy named Orest Kalinsky.”

“I know of an Orest Kalinsky, best buddies and cousins with Papa Bear Medved’ himself,” Adele said.

“What’s his involvement?” Hiro asked her.

“He’s rich. He uses his money and his fundraising skills for a foundation that supports cutting-edge science around the world,” Adele said.

“York asked my team for help with this Orest’s movements in the U.S. But I don’t know Orest Kalinsky’s background. What kind of science are we talking about here?” Finley asked.

Adele pushed her sleeves up to her elbows.

“Mostly it has to do with communications and satellites, the kind that might inform their doomsday machine. Although their foundation has just released a study showing that warming waters create global security issues, as the hotter the water, the harder it is to find submarines. That study makes me nervous.”

White leaned forward. “Now, why would the Zorics fund something like that, I wonder?”

Adele plunged on without responding to White’s question.

“But there’s a wide array of science. Orest seems to have two pet interests.

He’s big into food security and naturally occurring neurotoxins like those found in the box jellyfish—box jellies and Palythoa.

” She turned to Finley. “You all had a murder here in D.C. using those neurotoxin studies, so you’re well aware.

Pretty much any time the Zorics need a little science to fuel their terror, Orest’s got someone in a lab thinking they're saving the world, but instead they’re helping it implode.

He’s a manipulative, jovial Santa-figure of a terrorist, swooping in with his rosy cheeks and bowl-full-of-jelly laughs, and death.

” Adele sniffed. “Unfortunately, Orest Kalinsky has created a public persona that is highly respected with connections to universities and labs worldwide. It’s a formidable shield. ”

“I understand their use of neurotoxin and the communications pieces,” White said. “Is food research interesting to us?”

“Anna explained that Orest is making sure the family can eat plentifully during the Apocalypse,” Xander said.

“Davidson Realm,” White posted an elbow and rested her cheek on her fist. “Yeah. That’s problematic.”

“I’m tracking his movements inside the United States,” Finley said. “He’s got tickets to Fairbanks tomorrow morning via Newark. Did Anna tell you why Orest is going to Alaska? Seems odd this time of year.”

“Alaska to see his dog team participate in the Iditarod,” Xander said, “so a little R&R before End Times.”

“End Times,” White said, “that’s awesome.” She turned to Adele. “Well, nice knowing you. Sorry, we didn’t get that girls' weekend in Vegas we’ve talked about.”

“Maybe we can meet up for drinks in the afterworld,” Adele said.

White moved her hands to her lap. “I hope I’m going to the afterworld. I don’t want to be one of those poor souls shivering around the fire during a nuclear winter.”

“Yeah,” Xander said, “that’s not even funny right now.”

Finley drew his brows together.

“Why ‘right now’?” Adele leaned forward, concern lacing her brows.

“Zorics, as we all know,” White said, “are aspirational world stage players, wanting a seismic shift on a societal level to force the world back to the fabulous early 1980s when the USSR was big and scary, and we were all jamming out to Madonna and Simple Minds.”

Adele quirked a sardonic brow. “Right, well, what they want is a time machine, not a nuclear bomb.”

“My understanding,” White said, “is that if The Family waits much longer to deploy their machine, AI will be able to thwart their systems. And while we hoped that, in this case, AI could come to our rescue, The Family understands it’s now or never.

So, they may have to start their mission before it’s a hundred percent ready. ”

“While the Zorics don’t have nuclear aspirations,” Xander said, “Sometimes when you push something over, there’s a domino effect. The Family knows it and is moving to the environs of their fallout shelter.”

“You saw the Zorics are flocking to Singapore?” Hiro asked.

“Yup,” White and Adele said in unison.

“What are we doing about it?” Finley asked.

“We continue to try to work it out,” Hiro said.

“The problem is we’ve got a twenty-two-year-old over at DHS running the terror division who wasn’t alive to experience the USSR. The idea of a return to that world-order isn’t possible in his imagination.

Since he doesn’t think the Zoric family is a threat, he’s closed the file, and everyone’s been fired or reassigned. ”

“What is this now?” Adele leaned forward.

Hiro said quietly, “Priorities are being redefined.”

“Color Code is unaffected as we have a carve-out and work independently,” White said.

“Luckily, the Zorics case fell to Color Code over on the CIA side. I don’t think we’re on anyone’s radar.

” White looked down. “Not you, lovekins,” and Radar laid his head back down.

“Because of our special congressional mandate, we might be safe.”

Adele turned her attention to Xander. “But the AWG alumni are still looking for the machine in Kyrgyzstan after the snow melt, aren’t you?” Adele asked.

“Not anymore,” Xander said. “AI was watching satellite images to see if there was odd foot traffic on the mountain for us to check out once the area was passable.” He put a hand on Radar’s head.

“Radar and I were packed and ready to go. But when I saw Anna in Bratislava two days ago, she said the machine is no longer in Kyrgyzstan. She thinks it’s heading west toward Europe, but she had nothing actionable, not even a solid idea of a compass direction. ”

“Do not be disheartened,” Hiro’s voice was adamant. “We still have a shot at figuring this out. It’s easier to find something out in public than tucked in a mountain cave. We find the puzzle pieces, we put them together, we come up with a response, we eliminate the threat.”

“Sometimes,” Adele said, “it’s a—” She paused mid-sentence as Xander and White grabbed their phones as a surge of incoming messages blew them up.

Finley thrust forward, worry etched on his face. “What’s going on? What have you got?”