Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Kyle had been in the kennels since oh-six-hundred.
Not because he needed to be. Alex had everything handled—had always had everything handled, which was one of the reasons Kyle had spent considerable effort convincing the man who had trained Kyle to be a dog handler back when they were both SEALs to come be his kennel master in Colorado.
Alex’s evaluation was clear—the latest litter of Malinois pups was sharp.
Kyle thought about the previous litter. Bennie had already been placed and was doing things that Kyle wouldn’t have believed possible from a dog that had nearly washed out of the program entirely.
Kevin Foti deserved about eighty percent of the credit for that, which Kyle intended to tell him someday when the kid was old enough not to let it go to his head.
No, Kyle was in the kennels because after yesterday’s news about Ray Castillo, he needed to be near the dogs. Simple as that. Dogs always calmed his nerves, reassured him that not everything in the world was evil, not as long as there were dogs inhabiting the same planet.
His other reason was because the thing he’d worked so hard for, the Lackland AFB inspection date, was eleven days out.
Kyle had made sure every radiograph was filed, every microchip number logged, behavioral assessments documented to the letter of the SOW—because Kyle had read that document so many times he could probably recite sections of it in his sleep, and because the one thing he was not going to do was give Lackland a paperwork reason to look sideways at Watchdog’s breeding program.
He crouched beside Pretzel’s enclosure, and yes, the pup was now called Pretzel by everyone, regardless of what it said on his official paperwork. The pup looked back at him with an expression of profound dignity that was somewhat undercut by the fuzzy cottonwood fluff stuck to his nose.
“You’re going to pass,” Kyle told him. “Don’t embarrass me.”
Pretzel sneezed. Kyle laughed and rubbed the dog’s head.
Kyle’s phone buzzed. His direct line for work—the number he gave to contractors, suppliers, the Lackland program coordinator he’d been working with for the better part of two years.
A man named Garrett who said you bet at the end of every other sentence and had three kids and coached Little League and had been, as far as Kyle could tell, genuinely invested in getting Watchdog’s application across the finish line.
He fumbled the phone and dropped it.
“Dammit!” By the time he picked it back up, he’d missed the call. Kyle dialed his voicemail.
Garrett’s voice sounded apologetic, careful, landing each word like he was walking across ice.
“Hey, McGuire, it’s Garrett. Listen, I’m real sorry to have to make this call.
I know you were scheduled for an inspection, but the application has been flagged for a security suitability review—nothing accusatory, just something that has to run its course, probably.
No timeline I can give you for the inspection now.
Could be quick, could take a while.” He paused.
“Could be the end of the road, which doesn’t make…
” Garrett stopped himself. “Look, I’m not in a position to say more than that. I’m sorry, Kyle. I really am.”
The message ended.
Kyle stayed crouched beside Pretzel’s enclosure.
Eleven days. The radiographs. The microchip numbers.
The behavioral assessments. Bennie, who Kevin had believed in when nobody else did.
Pretzel, who had a little girl convinced he was her personal responsibility.
The Jets litter that Alex had trained with the kind of quiet, methodical excellence that made Kyle proud every single time he watched them work.
All of it sitting in a Lackland file right now, under a flag that Garrett couldn’t explain and Kyle already understood.
The situation echoed. He’d been furious when the military lost his paperwork to adopt Camo when the dog retired.
He’d nearly put his fist through his office wall at Watchdog in Los Angeles.
That bureaucratic disaster had led him, eventually, inexplicably, to a ranch on a mountain and the woman who ran it, and he still didn’t entirely know what to make of that fact except that the universe had a crazy sense of humor and occasionally, against all probability, a generous one.
It didn’t feel generous right now. It felt like it was targeting him.
But not just him.
This isn’t random.
Kyle straightened up. Pretzel watched him go with the cottonwood fuzzy still on his nose.
He walked back to his office to wait for the second message he already knew was coming.
It came through an hour later.
Not through Garrett, but through an email routed through a Lackland address Kyle didn’t recognize, which told him everything about how seriously whoever was behind this took their own deniability.
The message was short, professional, the kind of thing written by someone who considered himself a reasonable man making a reasonable offer that was anything but.
Re: Suitability Review
The security review attached to your application is administrative and can be resolved quickly once the related concern is addressed.
That concern is Maren Walsh.
Make her available for a private interview, and the review will be withdrawn. So will any local complaints regarding animal welfare at your facility.
No action involving the child is required.
Consider this a professional courtesy.
We trust you’ll make the appropriate decision.
Kyle read it twice through a haze of red fury. Then he set his phone face-down on his desk and sat very still for a moment.
Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.
He’d been in the military for a long time. He’d waded through a lot of bullshit.
No action involving the child is required.
Like Juni was a bargaining chip, not an innocent little girl.
Kyle picked his phone back up and called Lachlan. It rang once.
“Talk to me, Pup,” Lachlan said.
“We have a problem.”
“Scale of one to ten.”
“Eight.” Kyle paused. “Maybe nine.”
Lach didn’t hesitate. “We’ll be right in.”