Silent Creed (2 page)

Florida Panhandle

R
yder Creed had been up for two hours by the time his hired man climbed out of the double-wide trailer. Truth was, Creed didn’t sleep much. He’d awakened in the dark and found himself down in the kennel curled up in the middle of his dogs, his head on the belly of his oldest, Rufus.

The kennel was a contemporary warehouse. Creed had a loft apartment above it with all the luxuries and comforts of a retreat. When he designed the place he convinced his business partner, Hannah Washington, that he wanted his living quarters above the kennel so he could keep an eye and ear on the most prized possessions of their business, K9 CrimeScents.

Actually, Creed just liked being near the dogs. Sometimes in the dead of night, when visions and images haunted his sleep, he found comfort being surrounded by them. He and Hannah had rescued each and every dog in one fashion or another. But Creed knew they rescued him in a way he could not explain to anyone. Not even Hannah.

Now he watched Jason Seaver wiping the sleep out of his eyes. As he made his way into the kennel, Creed realized how much Jason looked like a young boy. Almost ten years younger than Creed, Jason had seen his world blow up on him before he reached the age of twenty. The kid was one of Hannah’s rescues. She said Jason reminded her of Creed and that was one of the reasons she hired the young man.

Tucked under Jason’s arm was his sleepy-eyed black puppy. In less than a month the Labrador pup Jason had named Scout had almost doubled in size. He brought Scout to play with the dog’s mom and siblings while he worked. This morning he put the puppy down on the ground before he got to the yard.

“Watch this,” he told Creed as he walked three paces back, then knelt on the ground facing the pup. “Come on, Scout. Come give me a kiss.”

The puppy wiggled his entire back end, almost losing his balance in his excitement. He bounced toward Jason and without hesitation stood up on his hind legs, reaching for Jason’s face and planting a big slobber right on the lips.

“That’ll come in handy when he’s searching for cadavers,” Creed said, but he couldn’t help smiling.

“I’m thinking chick magnet.”

Jason picked up Scout, and when he came inside the yard the other dogs ran to greet him. They shoved and nudged each other out of the way for Jason’s attention. None of them noticed or cared that one of the kid’s shirtsleeves hung empty below the elbow. When Creed had first met the young veteran he had been belligerent and moody, self-conscious about the amputated arm to the point of daring anyone and everyone to notice it. That the kid was thinking about picking up women—even with the lousy trick of using his puppy—had to be a good sign.

Now if only Creed could make a decent dog handler out of him.

“We’re ready to use the real stuff today,” he told Jason, and held up a Mason jar with the lid tight over the contents.

“What’s inside?”

“Some dirt and a piece of a blanket. Both were underneath a dead body.”

“Cool. How’d you get it?”

“Grace and I helped find the guy. Wasn’t a homicide, so the detectives let me have a few things for training.”

“Andy claims you have a whole stockpile.”

Andy was one of the first handlers Creed had trained. At the time she’d known more about dogs than Creed, having spent years as a veterinary technician. This was a second career for her. He knew better than to ask a woman’s age but guessed Andy was somewhere in her forties.

“Yeah? Well, don’t believe everything Andy tells you. Here, take this.” And he tossed the Mason jar, realizing too late that maybe Jason couldn’t do a one-handed catch. But the kid had no problem.

“Take it and hide it good.” Creed pointed to the trail that led into the forest. “Just before you hide it, remove the lid. There’s a cheesecloth stretched across the top. Leave that on.”

“You want me to bury it?”

“Bury it, throw it up in a tree, drop it in the creek, do whatever you want with it. Don’t think about it too much. When you finish, come on back.”

The fifty-acre property was surrounded on three sides by forest. The privacy and seclusion it afforded them was one of the reasons Creed chose this place in the northern part of the Florida Panhandle. It also provided endless training ground.

His cell phone started to vibrate as he watched Jason disappear into the woods. He glanced at the screen to see it was Hannah. Less than an hour ago they’d had coffee and Hannah’s fresh-baked cinnamon rolls in her kitchen.

“Already miss me?”

“I ought to feed you sugar more often in the morning, you gonna be this sweet.” Then without missing a beat she went on to business. “Landslide in North Carolina. Some man from the DoD. We got a request for you specifically.”

“Me or Grace?”

Over the summer there had been a lot of media attention, most of it centered on Grace, their amazing Jack Russell terrier. The scrappy little dog had won the hearts of the nation when she helped make several drug busts and stopped one human trafficking incident, resulting in the rescue of five children.

“Actually, you. No specific dog.”

“When did the slide happen? Are we talking rescue or recovery?”

“Late last night into this morning. It’s still raining, and from what I understand, there’s still potential for more slides. Possible rescues. Definitely recovery.”

“I’ll need to leave right away. What is that? A five-hour drive? Can you come finish with Jason?”

“Already putting on my dungarees.”

That made Creed smile. Hannah was the only person he knew who referred to blue jeans as dungarees. She’d hate it if he called her a Southern belle, though her mannerisms sometimes fit. She would say she was corn bread and black-eyed peas and certainly not a lady who lunched.

“But no need to drive,” she continued. “They’re sending a jet. A Gulfstream 550.”

“They’re sending what?”

“I know I got it right. I wrote it down. Gulfstream 550. That’s one of the pretty ones, isn’t it?”

“Wait a minute. I thought you said the request was from the Department of Defense.”

“That’s right.”

“What interest do they have in a landslide in North Carolina?” Creed didn’t like the sound of this.

“That is not on my list of questions. Maybe they had some training personnel in the area. The gentleman said he knew you. That you two had worked together years ago.”

“I don’t know anybody at the DoD. And I haven’t worked with a military dog in a long time.”

Creed could hear her flipping pages. She kept impeccable records and always got more information than she actually needed before she confirmed an assignment.

“Here it is,” she finally said. “Logan. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Logan.”

Afghanistan.
Creed felt like acid had slid into his stomach.

Over seven years ago, and yet just the mention of Peter Logan brought back images and memories he had hoped were long buried.

P
ensacola, Florida

E
motion runs down the leash.

It was one of the first things Creed taught dog handlers and something he reminded himself of constantly. As a handler, whatever you were feeling, you needed to tamp it down. Keep it under wraps as much as possible because a dog could sense it immediately.

As Creed walked down the aisle of the Gulfstream, he glanced back to see Bolo practically tiptoeing behind him at the end of his leash. It was exactly the way Creed felt—uneasy in the luxurious interior, like he didn’t belong there. And the dog was copying him.

He patted the big dog’s head, then ran his hand the length of his back, over the thin streak of coarse hair that stood up and grew in the reverse direction. The line was a defining characteristic of the Rhodesian ridgeback, and for some reason when Creed petted him there, the dog tended to calm down.

“Hello.” A woman greeted them from the back of the plane, looking up but not interrupting her tasks.

Glasses tinkled. He smelled fresh-brewed coffee. She wore a navy blazer, matching skirt, and black heels. Probably the flight attendant.

“Are you traveling with Mr. Creed?”

“I am Mr. Creed.”

That stopped her.

He watched her take a step back to get a better look at him. He expected to get right to work as soon as they landed, so he’d worn his usual uniform: blue jeans, hiking boots, a T-shirt, and a long-sleeved oxford left unbuttoned with the tails untucked. His tousled hair crept over the back of his collar and he kept his face unshaved but trimmed with fine lines that made it look groomed instead of like he had just gotten up. But he figured appearance wasn’t the only thing that stopped her.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I expected—”

“Someone older?”

Her face flushed the answer before she admitted it. “Yes, I suppose so.”

And in that moment he could tell she was younger than he initially had thought. In fact, she was much closer to his age, somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty. Maybe she expected her uniform to give her gravitas. So many people did. He worked with a lot of uniforms—official as well as unofficial—and titles. Law enforcement and government loved titles and badges and knowing whose title or badge won jurisdiction. Creed wasn’t interested in their pissing contests, and he simply didn’t care what others thought of him.

But now, realizing he was her official passenger, not just some casually dressed lackey, she left the galley and the flight preparations to greet him properly.

“I’m Isabel Klein, Mr. Logan’s assistant.” She held out her hand.

After a firm, brisk handshake she offered her open palm to Bolo to sniff. And because of that small gesture, Creed decided to cut her some slack for her initial mistake. He took a second look at the woman.

She noticed. Caught his eye, and he swore there was a hint of a blush, but it didn’t stay long. She reached out and took the duffel bag from his hand and swung it up into the luggage compartment with little effort. He wouldn’t allow her to take anything else and started pulling straps from his shoulder, then shrugging out of the backpack.

“Sit wherever you’re comfortable,” she said as she looked around behind him. “What’s his name?”

“Bolo.”

She smiled. “Like the acronym BOLO?”

“Yep.”

That was exactly where the name had come from—Be On the Look Out. It suited him perfectly. The dog pitched his ears in response to his name and Creed motioned for him to sit while he swung the rest of their equipment up into the overhead bins. He was overly protective of Creed. So much so that Creed had to be careful how and where he used the dog.

Bolo was muscular with great stamina and would be able to handle the long hours as well as the brutal terrain of a landslide. He was one of Creed’s multitask dogs and could search for live victims as well as find those not so fortunate.

Ridgebacks originated in Zimbabwe, where they were used in packs to hunt lions. That’s where their nickname “the African Lion Hound” came from. They could withstand the long heat of the day and the damp, cold nights. Bolo would do well for this assignment, if only Creed could keep the big dog from flattening anyone who might raise a voice to him.

Isabel glanced behind him, looking to the entrance. “Is someone bringing the other dogs?”

“No other dogs. It’s just Bolo and me.”

“Just one dog?”

“One handler, one dog.”

“Mr. Logan made it sound like there would be several.”

That was the other thing—people were always looking for there to be more. More dogs, more magic.

Creed pulled his electronic tablet and a paperback from his messenger bag and placed all three items on the seat beside the one he planned to sit in. He directed Bolo to sit next to the leather captain’s chair so the dog would be tucked against his legs, at his feet. He wanted him as close as possible for takeoff.

He removed a harness from the bag and slipped it on the dog. It provided a handle instead of just the leash in case the dog got nervous in flight. Bolo hadn’t flown before. One of his other dogs, Grace, had her first flight aboard a Coast Guard helicopter a month ago. She’d loved it. Grace would be bored with this luxury ride. Creed directed the air vent to flow across Bolo’s back and the dog lay down.

Isabel, however, was still standing beside Creed as though waiting for someone or something more. He stopped himself from taking his seat and turned to look at her.

“Can I get the two of you something? Wine? Scotch? The jet has a well-stocked bar.”

“Couple of bottles of water would be great.”

“Oh, certainly. Of course.”

And finally she turned on her heels and left for the back galley, obviously trained to be accommodating, which probably suited Logan just fine.

He looked around the wood-paneled interior as he sank into the soft leather. All of this seemed a bit extravagant for someone who was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. Logan was probably trying to impress him, but Creed couldn’t stop wondering how much this pickup was costing taxpayers.

Hannah had said that Logan was now a lieutenant colonel, but because it made no difference to Creed he hadn’t asked what Logan’s title was or who in the government he was trying to lead now. He imagined Hannah had included it in the briefing material she’d stuffed in his messenger bag. That’s where it would stay. Creed found it was best for him to know only the bare essentials.

If a handler got caught up in details, he could find himself misleading his dog and looking for signals or targets that weren’t important. Too many times handlers drove their dogs to find what law enforcement, or the officials who had ordered the search, expected to find. In this case, Creed didn’t even want to know how many people were missing. He didn’t want his mind focused on statistical rates of survival or calculating how many hours victims could stay alive buried beneath mud and debris.

Facts were fine, but Creed liked to leave room for those few cases that dispelled all rhyme or reason. Maybe it wasn’t practical—perhaps some would argue, silly—but he’d never have gotten through the last seven years in this business if he hadn’t believed in miracles.

Still, when Isabel brought the water to him, he decided to ask.

“What exactly is Logan’s job these days at the DoD?” He tried to make it sound casual, as if they were acquaintances who’d simply lost touch with each other.

She raised her eyebrows, surprised at the question, but without hesitation said, “He’s a deputy director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.”

He nodded, thanked her as he took the bottles of water, again pretending it was no big deal, and waited for her to go back to her flight duties. At the same time, his mind was trying to grasp what in the world a deputy director of DARPA had to do with a landslide in North Carolina.

Ten minutes after takeoff Isabel was back. Without waiting for an invitation or permission, she sat in the captain’s chair across from Creed, careful not to disturb Bolo, who stayed at Creed’s feet.

“I was told to answer any of your questions or concerns once we were in the air.”

“So I couldn’t back out if I heard something I didn’t like?”

She smiled, adjusted herself into the seat, and crossed her legs. She wasn’t leaving, even if he had no questions for her.

“I’m not sure how much area is affected,” she said, deciding to give him what information she had prepared whether he wanted it or not. “The major slide happened around ten-thirty last night. From what I understand, there’s been at least two more, smaller debris flows. Are you familiar with landslides?”

“A bit.”

She waited for more. He figured, they hired him, they had to know his résumé. If Isabel didn’t know, then she hadn’t done her homework.

When he didn’t offer anything else, she continued, “The region that we’re concerned about is a research facility on five acres. So we have a much smaller search area. The main structure was a two-story brick building.”

“Where was it in the slide? At the top or bottom?”

“They’re telling me it’s close to the middle.”

“How many people?”

“I’m not sure. It was after business hours. We’re still trying to contact the director. We fear that she and some of the staff may have been inside.”

“Has anyone seen what condition the building is in?”

Her eyes left his, trailed down to Bolo, and glanced out the window before they came back.

“A colleague at the scene said he couldn’t find it,” she told him.

“He couldn’t reach it?”

“No, he couldn’t find it. It’s gone, buried under the mud and debris.”