Chapter Ten
Dakota
Tuesday
The walk from his office to the WorldCares Operations building was only about fifteen minutes.
He wore his urban male uniform: a medium-shade blue suit, brown hard-soled shoes, and a tie. Dakota hated the tie; he’d never get comfortable wearing a tie. Especially now as it flapped around in the wind. He kept tucking it back into his suit jacket, putting “tie clip” on his mental shopping list.
Last night on the way home from work, Benny had a heart attack, and Dakota had joined Jasper up at the hospital supporting Martha until her family could get there.
Worried for his friend, Dakota had taken Tank for a good, long run that morning to shake off any prickly energy that might interfere with today’s mission.
It was still good to fast-pace their walk, settling any nerves either of them might have going into a new experience: their first real-world solo sniff test.
He’d have to ask permission to use his video camera during the part of this meeting where Tank was deploying his sniffer. He could imagine that it wouldn’t normally be allowed for security reasons. But Reaper wanted to see how they did when he wasn’t around to keep fine-tuning the team’s approach.
When Dakota was with the Navy on the swift boat team, it was all about honing skills, building best-practice muscle memories, and consistency so that missions flowed like water. Dakota and Tank could never let up on their daily training.
Just as Dakota put his foot on the bottom stair of the WorldCares Operations building, the right-side door swung open.
A brown-haired woman in a black trench coat stepped out onto the stoop, angling her head toward the sky to check the weather, then turning her attention to her phone before raising her hand in the air to signal someone.
She hustled away from him, down the stairs toward the cross street.
Yeah, it was her.
A moment later, she disappeared from view.
Dakota would have liked better reflexes and a quicker brain at that moment, then he’d have jogged around the corner to see if he could introduce himself.
Yeah, definitely her.
It wasn’t just the brown hair; it was how she moved with the fluidity of an athlete and an aura of confidence, even when she was storming out of a medical building seething with anger.
She was the same woman he’d seen Sunday at the races, too, because Tank knew her.
Tank leaped forward like he had at the mud race, hellbent on getting over to her this time.
Dakota had to lift Tank off his feet by the handle of his work vest to maintain control.
That was no small feat, since Dakota’s body flew apart into those particles like some kind of sci-fi film character. His gray matter wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
Luckily, he pieced himself back together much faster than the first time it happened at the race, where he blamed the sensation on depleted electrolytes.
And yesterday, the same damned sensation when he turned suddenly at the taxi to see her coming out of the medical building. It had dissipated a bit faster.
If this sensation was a reaction to that woman, he was slowly acclimating to her strange effect on his circuitry.
He felt whole again much faster. The zap of energy left him feeling powerful and clear-minded, like a shot of adrenaline when he was deep in the fight.
It was the side of effervescent tingle that felt strange.
Correlation isn’t causation, Dakota reminded himself.
One of his Swift Water brothers had developed something called Bow Hunter’s Syndrome that stemmed from his years on the football field and on the battlefield, which created lasting neurological trauma that made him pass out with sudden twists of his head.
Dakota swung his head quickly side to side just to see, and it changed nothing.
After yesterday with Benny’s heart attack, this sensation Dakota had experienced three days in a row was catching his attention, especially given his own traumatic injury list.
Dakota asked Benny if he needed a doctor; Benny said he’d go the next day. That decision on Benny’s part almost cost him his life.
Was Dakota being a coward for not stopping by some walk-in clinic to at least run these sensations by a doc?
What would Dakota even say? “Listen, I think something's been shaken out of whack from all the times I crouched too close to a blast radius back in my days in the sandbox. Maybe something finally came loose.”
That seemed a reasonable way to start.
More reasonable than that, he had developed some weird reaction to a brown-haired woman who was about five feet eight and had the build of a tennis player. Suddenly, he was spotting her all over Washington, D.C., and every time he did, he fragmented.
Dakota set Tank back on the ground. “What say you, Tank? Have you got it together?”
Tank’s body had stiffened with concentration. His nose was chuffing the air. Then he sat and looked up for his next instruction.
She must be gone.
Signaled to walk by his side, Tank plastered his body to Dakota’s thigh, but his tongue hung long, drooling with hyped nerves.
Dakota decided to take a couple of minutes to circle the block so that when they were inside and hopefully, given permission to search any cash reserves as a team, they were squared away.
When Dakota and Tank were back to even keel, Dakota went through the door to the security desk and showed his credentials.
Tank’s nose was chuffing the air, and the guard lifted off the seat and leaned over the desk to get a look.
“That’s a magnificent dog,” he said as he sat back down.
“Straight through to the elevator bank, then up to the fifth floor. Out of the elevator, take a right, then another right, and you’ll come to the director’s PA’s desk.
I’ll let her know you’re on your way up. ”
Tank’s feet were wide, and his nose was on the ground as he followed a scent.
Either someone had dribbled steak juice, or they were following the brown-haired woman’s trail.
For a flash, Dakota thought it would be interesting to just let Tank do his thing, trace the scent to its source, and maybe learn the woman’s name.
But then, what would she think of that? “Stalker material, buddy. How about you stop that? Let’s give the woman some privacy.” Dakota signaled “leave it” to Tank, who then swiveled and plastered himself to Dakota’s side.
Up they went. Following the directions from security, the team landed at the PA’s desk. Stepping back to wait patiently for her to finish up her phone call, Tank focused on the open door of an empty office and stomped his foot.
And there it was, a vase of distinctive tropical flowers.
Very distinctive. Very tropical.
Dakota reached down and scritched the top of Tank’s head. “Got it.”
“Sir, may I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am—”
“Erica.” She smiled.
“Yes, thank you, Erica. I’m Special Agent Dakota Kayne with the Secret Service.” He held up his badge. “I have an appointment with Neesa Meesang this morning.”
“She’s on a call and will be just a minute. May I offer you a cup of coffee or a bottle of water?”
“No, thank you, ma’am. But could you tell me whose office this is?” He pointed toward the open door.
“Rylee Jones? She’s co-director of operations along with Neesa.”
Tank leaned into his leg and looked up at him.
“It’s Rylee,” Dakota told him as a diminutive woman with long black hair leaned around the door, one office down.
Her wide-legged pants and tunic seemed like an effective executive style for an NGO.
Her look said clean and precise, but also comfortable and welcoming.
“Hey, you must be Dakota Kayne and Tank.” She focused on Tank, “You are magnificent. Wow.” She looked up at Dakota. “Huge.”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you. Jasper Lee texted me that he’s running five minutes late. My apologies. We usually run a tight ship, but last night our colleague ended up in the hospital with a life-threatening condition, and Jasper wanted to stop by this morning to check on the family.”
“Of course.”
Neesa flicked a hand toward Rylee’s office. “This is Sun Yu with legal.”
Dakota bobbed his head in greeting without walking Tank farther into the room. Some folks were intimidated by Tank’s size; better to hang out by the door and give everyone the necessary space.
With a hand signal, Tank lay neatly at Dakota’s feet, pillowing his chin on his paws and closing his eyes.
“My co-director is involved in a training evolution this morning. I’ll do my best to answer all your questions, and I’ll note the ones that need more research or Rylee’s input. I expect her later today.” She turned to the PA. “Erica, we’re expecting one more. Just show him in when he gets here.”
“I understand from Sun that three of our teams have caught your attention.” She picked up a pen and held it with both hands. “I wish I had known right away, so we could try new security protocols to protect our people.”
“Not a team,” Sun clarified, “in the first two incidents, the concern centered around a single individual. In this latest incident, three of our team members carried the unused cash back to the United States. All three teams involved were our fast-reaction teams.”
“How many teams do you have?” Dakota asked.