Duty Unleashed (Citadel Soultions #4)

Chapter 1

Ben Garrison

The hallway narrowed ahead of us, a choke point with a ninety-degree turn at the end.

Tactical lights cut white arcs through the drifting smoke, and I could feel Jolly pressed between my legs—every muscle in his body coiled, vibrating with controlled energy.

He knew what was coming. Seven years of this, and he still lived for the work.

We moved in a stack—single file, tight to the wall, each officer’s hand on the shoulder of the man ahead. The formation kept us compact, reduced our profile, let us flow through doorways without tripping over each other.

My left hand rested on Jolly’s harness instead of the officer ahead of me.

Right hand on my holstered sidearm, ready to draw the moment the shield moved.

Martinez was point, his bulk filling the doorway, shield up and steady.

Behind me, four officers held the line, breathing measured despite the chaos erupting from the room at the end of the corridor.

Donovan Hughes’s voice crackled through my earpiece from his position with the breach team on the opposite side of the building. “West corridor clear. Moving to contact point.”

Having him here made the job easier. Two tours in Afghanistan together, and we’d developed shorthand that didn’t need words.

He wouldn’t be running a dog on this contract—his last K9 partner had retired six months before he’d left the Army, and he hadn’t bonded with a new one yet—but his tactical expertise and K9 knowledge made him invaluable.

“Police! Put the weapons down, and come out with your hands up!”

The command echoed from the breach team—they’d hit the building from the west entrance, working toward the same corner suite from the opposite side. For a moment, silence. Then the sharp crack of gunfire, rapid and close.

“Shots fired! Shots fired! They’re shooting!”

More shots. The breach team had made contact, pinned down somewhere on the other side of the suite. Our job just changed—we weren’t backup anymore. We were the second angle, the pressure from the flank that would force the suspects to divide their attention.

“Barricade in the corner office! At least two shooters!”

Martinez, the officer in front of me holding the ballistic shield, advanced. I moved with him, keeping Jolly centered in my stance. The dog’s tail was rigid, his focus absolute. His head tracked every sound, his nose working, pulling in the scent of suspects we couldn’t see yet.

The hallway walls were close enough to touch.

Paint peeling, water stains spreading brown across the drywall.

Bare bulbs overhead, half of them dead. We’d entered through the east stairwell, worked through a maze of small offices on the first floor, and now this main corridor stretched ahead of us toward the large corner suite where the suspects had holed up.

“Moving!”

Martinez took three steps. I matched him.

That was when the round hit.

Martinez screamed—a raw, guttural sound that filled the narrow space as he went down, his shield clattering against the concrete. He grabbed his thigh, rolling onto his side, still screaming.

“Man down!” I grabbed the shield before it could slide away, planted it between us and the threat. “Medic!”

Another shot pinged off the shield. The impact vibrated through my arm.

“Get him out!” I shouted over my shoulder. Two officers grabbed Martinez by the vest and dragged him back, his boots scraping against the floor. His screaming faded to sharp, bitten-off curses.

Now I was point.

The shield wasn’t meant for me. It should have been another officer carrying it so I could focus on my job of handling Jolly. With no room to maneuver another person to hand off the shield to, it was what stood between Jolly and the next round, so I held it.

“You ready, boy?”

He answered with a low whine, his ears pricked forward, locked on the barricade at the end of the hall. Twenty feet, maybe. The suspects were dug in—I could see a pile of overturned furniture, a desk tipped on its side, filing cabinets stacked in front of it.

There were two of them. One crouched behind the desk, weapon up. The other throwing debris, trying to draw fire while his partner lined up shots.

Incoming rounds slapped against the front of my shield.

“Moving!” I drew my sidearm, angled the pistol over the top of the shield, and squeezed off three rounds toward the barricade. Suppressive fire—not aimed to hit, aimed to make them duck.

Jolly pressed harder against my leg. He wanted to go. Every fiber of his training, every instinct, screamed at him to engage. I felt it in the tension of his body, the barely contained trembling.

Not yet.

Eight years old. Gray creeping in around his muzzle, spreading toward his eyes. Slower to rise in the mornings than he used to be. The math wasn’t kind—working K9s retired around nine, sometimes ten if their bodies held out.

I couldn’t afford a bad send. Not anymore.

“Moving!” I fired twice more over the shield. The suspects ducked behind the desk, and I gained two steps before they popped back up. The shield took another round—this one high, skimming the top edge of my helmet. Shit.

Jolly’s body was a coiled spring against my thigh. He didn’t understand waiting. He understood go. He understood find. He understood the electric joy of the work, the moment when his teeth closed on a sleeve and the fight ended because he willed it to end.

He didn’t understand that someday I’d have to ask him to stop.

Three more steps. We were close now, maybe twelve feet from the barricade. Through the narrow slit in the shield, I watched the shooter behind the desk. Watched his hands. Watched the rhythm of his fire—crack, crack, crack, then a pause as he dropped the magazine.

Reloading.

“Jolly, fass.”

The command for attack was barely out of my mouth before he launched. Seventy-five pounds of Belgian Malinois and German shepherd mix, moving like a missile. He cleared the gap in three bounds, soared over the barricade in a blur of dark fur and white teeth—

“Move, move, move!”

I shifted the shield and rushed the barricade, drawing my sidearm as I ran. The officers behind me flowed forward. Jolly hit the first shooter before the man could seat the fresh magazine, and they went down in a tangle of limbs and snarling fur.

The second suspect spun toward me, weapon rising.

“Drop it! Drop it now!”

He froze. My sights were centered on his chest. Behind me, three officers had their weapons up, all trained on the same target.

The gun clattered to the floor. He raised his hands.

“Clear! We’re clear!”

Officers poured through behind me, flooding the space.

Jolly had the first one pinned, teeth locked on his padded sleeve, body positioned so the man couldn’t rise. His tail was wagging.

Of course it was. Even in combat mode, Jolly’s tail never stopped.

“Aus.”

He released. Sat back on his haunches, tongue lolling, looking at me like he expected applause. I pulled a ball from my pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it midair, crunching down with satisfied intensity.

The lights came up.

Fluorescent tubes flickered on overhead, washing the room in institutional brightness. The smoke machines cut off, leaving the air hazy but clearing. Martinez was sitting against the wall now, his “wound” nothing more than a red paint splatter across his tactical pants.

Paint rounds. Training gear. The “suspects” were officers in full bite suits, already peeling off their protective layers.

I pulled off my own helmet and set down the shield.

Donovan emerged from the west corridor, his tactical vest still dusted with drywall from the breach. He crossed the room and gave Jolly a quick scratch behind the ears before straightening to face me.

“Hell of a send. You got Jolly nice and close to the bad guys before exposing him.”

I shrugged. “He did the hard part.”

Sergeant Eric Vance caught my eye from across the room.

He’d been running overwatch on the breach team, coordinating the two-pronged approach with Donovan.

A decade on the force, at least the last six running the tactical unit.

Solid build, calm eyes, with quiet authority that made younger officers straighten up when he walked past.

“All right, let’s debrief.” Vance’s voice cut through the chatter. “Martinez, you’re dead. Congratulations. Someone get him a tag.”

Laughter rippled through the group. The tension broke, the way it always did when the scenario ended and everyone remembered they were still breathing.

I knelt beside Jolly and ran my hand over his head. He pressed into my palm, ball still clamped in his jaws, tail thumping against the concrete floor.

“Good boy. That’s my good boy.”

The debrief took a lot longer than the training exercise had.

I stood at the front of the room while two dozen officers from the Summit Falls Police Department in sweat-damp tactical gear listened. Some leaned against walls. Others sat on overturned crates. Donovan stood near the back, arms crossed, watching the room with the same alertness he always had.

From us hunting Taliban in the valleys of Afghanistan to training cops in a Colorado ski town. Life took strange turns.

We were here to help Summit Falls prep for their new upcoming K9 program, so we took any questions they had. Including whether Martinez was an idiot for getting hit.

“The mistake wasn’t taking the hit.” I kept my voice level. No judgment, just facts. “Martinez did exactly what he was supposed to do—hold the shield, advance the position. Sometimes teammates catch rounds, and we have to be prepared to adapt.”

“You held the dog back.” This from Seth Briggson, one of the potential department’s K9 handlers.

He stood against the far wall, arms crossed, having made it clear during every exercise for the past week we’d been here that he didn’t appreciate outsiders telling them how to do their job.

“For almost a full minute after contact.”

“I did.”

“Why?” The question came out like a challenge.