Parker (The K9 Files Book 6) Read online

  “Good,” the colonel said. “Because the last thing I want is this to go any further. I want everybody caught and thrown in the brig.”

  “I agree with that,” Parker said. “We have two hours until the ceremony.”

  The colonel nodded, his face turning solemn. “Six men have died in the last week. Six men who shouldn’t have. They gave their lives for this country, and here we have other men stealing from the very budget trying to help protect our men.”

  “There’s no reasoning with some people,” Parker said. “The mighty dollar so often wins.”

  “It’s a sad truth.”

  Sergeant Hall returned. “They are all on their way, sir.”

  Parker stood, motioned for Samson, and said, “I’ll leave now.”

  As they started to head out the door connecting the colonel’s inner office with his outer office, four men came toward Parker. Samson went wild as the third man passed, barking and jumping all over him. He wouldn’t even heel for Parker. The man gave Samson a hand signal to lie down, and Samson instantly hit the ground, like he had in the photo.

  Parker looked over at the sergeant, looked back through the connecting door at the colonel still seated at his desk but in a direct line of sight for what just happened and nodded, his face grim. Six men showed up in all. Parker hadn’t even had a chance to disappear with Samson yet.

  Hall shuffled all six men outside, then returned, shutting the outer door behind him. The colonel then called him into his office. Hall was there for less than a minute, shutting the colonel’s office door behind him.

  Parker looked over at Hall and asked, “Any other handlers on base?”

  “Some with little experience but not the same familiarity Samson would recognize.”

  “Besides,” Sandy said, “wasn’t that fairly definitive?”

  “It’s definitive that Samson knows that third guy well, yes,” Parker said in a low voice. “But now we have to place him at the airport.”

  “If he had anything to do with Ronnie’s death, well, his career is over,” Hall said.

  “And should be a hell of a lot more than that,” Sandy snapped. “A man lost his life. I don’t know whether Ronnie was part of this nightmare or an innocent victim, but somebody needs to be held accountable for it.”

  The sergeant gave her a sharp nod, turned and left.

  Not sure what to do with themselves and whether they were still supposed to go to their quarters or not, and with Samson still lying comfortably nearby, as he had in the hangar, Parker turned to look at Sandy. “Did you recognize any of the men?”

  She shook her head. “Not at first glance.”

  The colonel called out for them to enter. They stepped back inside.

  Then the colonel had Hall bring in the six suspects.

  All six men stood very straight, hands clasped behind their backs, staring ahead.

  The colonel rose, joined Parker, leaned in and whispered, “Check out their faces and see if anybody looks familiar.”

  Parker stepped forward as the colonel did.

  The colonel spoke to the men standing at attention. “This is Samson. The dog that went missing. He has obviously been recovered and will be heading stateside at some point today. How many of you have worked with him?”

  Two men stepped forward. “And the other four of you, have you had no contact with him?”

  The first man spoke up. “I’ve been out on assignments with him, but I’ve never worked with him myself.”

  The colonel nodded. “Dismissed, Private.”

  He saluted, stepped back, turned and marched out.

  The colonel questioned them all, and it was apparent only the two who had stepped forward had handled Samson. The other three were dismissed.

  He looked at the remaining two men and asked, “What is your relationship with the dog?”

  The first man, identified as Corporal Gregg, replied, “I worked with Samson when he was younger, but then he ended up as Corporal Lewis’s, then Corporal Fallon’s dog. Corporal Fallon was fairly protective, kept Samson isolated more or less.”

  The colonel turned to the man beside him. “What about you, Corporal Mergans? You worked with Samson a lot, didn’t you?”

  “I was the sub for Corporal Fallon, yes,” Corporal Mergans replied hesitantly. “We work with a lot of dogs. I have some specialties that I’ve been working on with all the dogs that come through here.”

  Parker studied him. His manner was a little stiff, but then he was also standing in front of his colonel being questioned. A good reason to make most people uneasy. Even those with nothing to hide. He looked over and said, “Could you give Samson a few commands as subtly as possible so I would not know you were actually giving them?”

  “Corporal Mergans,” the colonel ordered.

  The man nodded, gave Samson the command to sit. Samson sat. He then gave him a command to come. Samson walked forward to the end of the leash, looked back at Parker. Free from Parker, Samson continued forward and lay down at the man’s feet.

  The corporal leaned down, gave him a good scratch and smiled down at him. Samson appeared to be comfortable, but it wasn’t the same type of happy unfailing obedience he had given the other man.

  Colonel Barek looked at Parker.

  Parker shrugged, nodded and said, “Thank you. You’re dismissed.”

  Mergans turned and marched out.

  Parker turned toward the last man standing. “Corporal Gregg, the same.”

  “Sure,” Corporal Gregg replied, puzzled. “Do I get an explanation why?”

  The commander shook his head. “No. You don’t. At least not at this stage.”

  Parker took Samson a few feet away, and he came willingly. But the dog’s gaze was on the man across from him. Parker then walked away and stood off to the far side, as he had in the hangar, and, when he turned to look back, Samson once again lay at the man’s feet. Not touching but a foot away, just happy.

  Parker thought about the photo of Samson comfortably ensconced and nodded to the colonel.

  “Corporal Gregg, can you tell me where you were last evening between nineteen and twenty-one hundred hours?” the colonel asked.

  Corporal Gregg let a whisper of emotion cross his face and replied, “I was in the barracks, sir.”

  “Do you have anybody who can vouch for that?”

  Corporal Gregg stiffened, his gaze going to Parker, then back to the colonel. He knew he couldn’t question why when given a direct command. “I’m not sure. I took a shower and spent some time alone. I was on my laptop, just generally relaxing. I went for a walk after dinner.”

  “Did you speak with anybody? Did anybody see you?” the colonel asked, writing down notes.

  Parker thought about what he just said and how crowded the base was and how impossible it would be to not come in contact with somebody.

  “You must have seen somebody?” Parker asked deliberately, trying to keep his tone monotone. “I can’t walk ten steps without meeting somebody here.”

  “Seeing somebody doesn’t mean you actually know who they are,” Corporal Gregg said. He went to shove his hands in his pockets but realized where he was and pulled them out again. “I’ll try to think, sir, but, off the top of my head, nobody comes to mind.”

  The colonel nodded. “In that case, I’ll speak to you in a couple hours.” He thought about it, checked his clock, and said, “Report back here at thirteen hundred hours.”

  Gregg saluted. “Yes, sir.” He took two steps back, turned and marched out.

  The colonel waited until Gregg left, asked Hall to wait with Sandy in his outer office and then spoke to Parker. “Well?”

  “I would say it was him,” Parker said slowly. “But we have to place him there. Fingerprints at the hangar could easily be explained away. It is easy on a base like this to see people, but they become just faces to you after a while.”

  The colonel looked at him curiously. “How many months did you do over here?”

  “Tw
o tours,” Parker replied. “I understand that sense of loneliness. But, as far as Corporal Gregg goes, Samson obviously has a relationship of some kind with him from what we witnessed in your outer office and what we saw in the photos.”

  “All we really see in the photos is a dog lying in front of a bunch of hanging clothing.”

  “Except for that face,” Parker reminded him.

  The colonel nodded slowly. “It is hidden enough that it’ll be hard to prove.”

  “Exactly. But he got there somehow, and that means wheels. Would he have to sign them out, or would he happen to have any assigned to him? Do you have any tracking devices on them?”

  The colonel gave a half smile. “We do keep track of our people and our vehicles. I’ll get the sergeant on it. You have about an hour and a half left until your service. I believe you fly out this afternoon?”

  “I think it’s six, err, eighteen hundred hours,” Parker replied.

  “Eighteen hundred. Right. Although that may have to get pushed back, depending on how our investigation goes.”

  “Well, I hope it doesn’t, sir. Sandy and I have funeral arrangements for our brothers back stateside.”

  “Sad business, indeed. How is it that you got asked to look after this dog?”

  Parker smiled and told him about how Commander Cross had asked Badger to look into a dozen cases. “And this just happened to be one of them.”

  “It’s a damn shame that department has been closed down,” the colonel said. “It seems like more and more departments are shutting down than are getting budget money.”

  “I think that’s a constant state of affairs when it comes to government and military spending.”

  “It is, indeed. I’ll see you at the service in an hour and a half.” And he returned to the paperwork on his desk.

  Obviously dismissed, Parker nodded, called Samson to him, grabbed his rope leash and walked outside. He saw Sandy with Sergeant Hall, waiting. “We’re free until the service.”

  “Was it him do you think?” Sandy asked.

  “I think so, yes,” Parker said. “We still have to identify the men who kidnapped you.”

  “I’ve got a lookout for the man with the big nose,” Hall said. “I’ve asked around, and he does hang out with somebody who possibly matches the tall thin second man. So far, we haven’t found them on base though.”

  “Curious and curiouser,” Sandy said in low tones. “Where do we spend the next hour and a half?”

  Parker hesitated, looked over at Hall. He looked back at them, raised an eyebrow but didn’t offer anything. Parker finally said, “We can walk around the base together. We can go back to the barracks and stay there until our appointed time, or we can go to the mess and grab yet another coffee.”

  Sandy winced. “Honestly none of those sound great.”

  “I know. But we can be private and alone at the barracks.” He looked over at Hall. “Providing there is security?”

  “I’ll make sure there is,” he said. “If you wait here for a moment, I’ll go check with the colonel.” He disappeared inside and came back a few minutes later, his face completely unreadable.

  “I never know if that face means good news or bad news,” Parker said to him.

  The sergeant gave a bark of laughter. “That’s why we do it,” he said. “It keeps you all guessing.”

  “It doesn’t help us feel any better about the situation,” Sandy muttered.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But we’re the ones who need to get to the bottom of it, not you.”

  She sighed heavily. “True.”

  They walked past a washroom, and Sandy said, “I need a pit stop.” With a half smile at the men, she headed for the washroom. After she used the facility, she walked up to the sink, washed her hands thoroughly and tried to straighten up the tendrils of hair that were everywhere. She stared in the mirror for a long moment and shook her head. She returned outside. Thankfully the men were still where she’d left them. “I was afraid for a moment that you’d be gone,” she confessed.

  “Not happening,” Parker said with a smile, holding out his hand. “I’ll promise to do anything I can to stop you from getting kidnapped again.”

  “Good,” she said, gratefully linking her hand with his. “Once was more than enough.”

  They continued on to the barracks, and, as they stepped inside, Sandy gasped.

  The sergeant looked at her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Our bags are gone,” she said in stunned disbelief. She walked forward, looked around, checked under the beds and turned to look back at him. “Did you have our bags taken somewhere?”

  Hall frowned, shook his head and said, “Stay here.”

  He stepped back out but closed the door hard behind them. She looked over at Parker. “All of my personal things are in there.”

  “I hear you,” he said. “I’ve still got my wallet, but my personal gear is gone.”

  “Somebody better not have stolen our stuff,” she said, her tone turning dark. “I’ll upend this base if that’s the case.”

  “Take it easy,” Parker said. “Remember? We’re flying out today, so maybe they needed the space for someone else, and we would get moved.”

  She frowned and thought about it. “Did my stuff go missing when the men took me earlier?”

  “That’s possible. Wait. We came back here though, didn’t we?” He thought about it and shook his head, “No. We went straight to the mess hall tent. So, our bags could have been removed then.”

  He walked around the area, but there was nothing to see.

  He sat down on the side of the bed, called Samson over and let him hop up. He was pretty sure the dog wasn’t allowed on the bed, but none of those rules seemed to make any difference anymore. He let the dog stretch out, scrubbing his ears. So far, Samson had been more like a pet than a working dog. “That’s the life, isn’t it, buddy? You’ll end up going home and thinking you found Nirvana.”

  “Except a lot of these dogs love to work,” Sandy said. “They live for it.”

  “I know. But that’s not happening in Samson’s case.”

  “Unless somebody takes him on as a working dog. There’s no reason, with his training, that he couldn’t work for a fire department or for the police or an airport,” she said. “It would make him happy.”

  “Wow. That’s an interesting idea,” Parker said, as he looked down at Samson. “I’m the one who doesn’t have a way to make a living. I was looking at building houses but …”

  “If you build your house, you could build dog pens and start training these guys.”

  “I’m not a trainer. I’m not a handler.”

  “Do you think it’s hard to learn?”

  Parker shook his head. “I really don’t know. What I saw from those six handlers in the colonel’s office, it’s more than just training the dog. Where Samson here is already trained, it’s a case of his handler needing training.” He burst out laughing. “It gives me something to think about at least.”

  “I also think it’s a good career choice for both of you,” she said. “You’re still part of that whole defender-protector mold. Not sure you’ll shake that off to go build houses for rich people.”

  “How about houses for poor people like me?” he asked with a grin. “It’s not like any of us coming out of the military have massive bank accounts.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she said. “It’s another reason why I don’t want to lose my personal belongings, my purse was with them.”

  “Right. All your traveling documents and IDs too?”

  She nodded. “Along with the picture of my brother,” she said. “I brought it to place on his coffin. I didn’t want him to be a nameless, faceless box as we fly home.”

  He stared at her, surprised. “I never even thought to do something like that,” he confessed, “but what a great idea.”

  “Not so great,” she said, “if somebody has stolen it.”

  “Well, let’s hope for the bes
t. It can’t be far. We’re on a base, so it should still be here. We could go back and check where you were being held. Obviously those men knew it was empty.”

  She hopped to her feet. “Let’s go. Maybe they moved our stuff back there, so they’d have a chance to go through it. We can take somebody with us to make sure we don’t get into any trouble.”

  Parker stood, smiled, crossed his hand over his heart and said, “Break my heart. But you’re right. I didn’t protect you last time.”

  There was such a hard note in his tone, she reached out and stroked his cheek. “You weren’t with me, remember? No guilt. No blame.” She leaned in and kissed him gently and said, “Come on. Let’s go take a look.”

  Parker led the way. He kept a decent grip on Samson’s leash but had no fear he’d take off. Parker was more afraid somebody would come and jerk the dog from his hand. And he had no reason for wondering that except the dog had already gone missing once, and Parker didn’t want Samson to go missing a second time, not on his watch.

  Holding an equally tight grip on his arm was Sandy as she walked at his side. “Are we still being followed?”

  “I doubt we’ll shake the security as long as we’re on the base. It’s not worth them getting into trouble over.”

  She chuckled at that. “I guess in a place like this everybody has a duty, and everybody needs to keep the huge machine rolling.”

  “Exactly. You know how this works.” He nudged her arm toward the buildings ahead. “Do you recognize which one it was?”

  Her footsteps slowed as she contemplated the barracks in front of them. “I think it was the last one,” she said. “When I came rushing back out, I didn’t see much, just more barracks.”

  He nodded. “We should do a quick search of them all.”

  With her still gripping his arm, he opened the door, stepped into the first one, did a quick check and stepped out. They went through the next three.

  At the fifth one, Parker stepped in, Sandy at his side. She noticed something sticking out from under a cot, and she bent down. She pulled out her purse. Her cry of delight warmed his heart.