Chapter 4 - The Dog in the Photograph

Rourke locked the maintenance door. The little room smelled of bleach, metal polish and warm electrical wiring. Cole squeezed in after them, one sleeve torn where he'd caught the cart.

"You just assaulted a senior officer," Rourke told him.

"Former senior officer," Cole said. "And he was shooting at you, sir."

It wasn't funny, but Mara nearly smiled.

A narrow passage ran behind the water heater. Its entrance was hidden by a shelf of broken training cones. Mara reached into a gap and retrieved an envelope wrapped in oilcloth.

"Who put this here?" Rourke demanded.

"Someone who knew Thomas would need his brother someday."

Inside lay a photograph of five soldiers standing beside a young black-and-tan shepherd. Thomas Rourke grinned in the middle. Mara stood at his left, her hair dark and her face unlined. A medic named Elias Vale knelt beside the dog.

Rourke recognized the dog's white crescent marking near one ear. Ranger had the same one.

"That's impossible," he said. "This picture is old."

"The dog in that photograph was Atlas, Ranger's father. The Ridgeway dogs weren't just trained to detect threats. They were trained to find a person nobody else could locate."

"You?"

"Thomas."

Rourke turned the photo over. His brother's handwriting filled the back: THE SECOND KEY BARKS.

From the other side of the wall came Ranger's low, unmistakable bark.

Torres appeared at a service hatch. "Colonel, we got the handlers into the tunnel. But the kennel cameras just turned toward us by themselves."

Mara pointed to the tag on Ranger's harness. "Check the stitching."

Torres felt along the inner seam and pulled free a tiny brass cylinder. Inside was a rolled scrap of waterproof paper bearing a set of coordinates and a date: tomorrow.

Rourke read the location aloud. "North training reservoir."

Cole checked his watch. "There's a veterans' memorial dedication there tomorrow. Families. School kids. Press."

The radio above the door crackled, though nobody had touched it.

"Colonel Rourke," Voss said, "your brother's grave isn't the only one we can arrange."

Then a child's voice broke into the transmission.

"Mom? If you can hear me, please don't come home."

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Mara went absolutely still.

THE RED LIGHT PROTOCOL