She nodded slowly. “All right.”
Atlas had settled down, sensitive to her change in mood. He’d be hypervigilant with her this agitated. Which was even better. The big dog wouldn’t be tempted by random distractions like squirrels or rabbits while Lyn was agitated. No running off chasing furry things or coaxing her to play fetch. He’d stay with her and ensure her safety. He shouldn’t be running today anyway.
“Okay. Take a long walk then, and I’ll get some administrative work done here. Check back in with you both at lunchtime.”
Lyn nodded. A minute later she had Atlas on a leash and they were out the door.
Back in his office, David dug into one of his drawers. After way longer than he’d like, he came up with a small toolkit. Armed with those tools, a soft cloth, a firm bristled toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol, he went to work. Removing wax from a micro SD card wasn’t fun but it wasn’t hard either. He’d done it with fewer tools to hand. This time, though, he wanted to do it right in one shot with minimal chance of further complications.
Once the wax was completely removed and he was sure the contacts on the micro SD were perfectly cleaned, he loaded it into his memory card reader. A few minutes to scan for viruses and he had two files, both video. The first was tagged as highlights and the second was significantly bigger, compressed, and encrypted.
Calhoun had intended for David to find these first. David was going to make a guess that he was supposed to view the highlights to get a clearer idea of the issue at hand, then take the time to absorb the other video over more time. First things first. He made copies and backed them to his secure storage, then made secondary backups to his cloud storage. Encrypted.
Then he took his computer offline and double-clicked the video file to watch it.
“What’s Calhoun’s status?” a voice offscreen asked.
“Stable, sir. He’ll live. Unconscious for now.” Only the legs and torso of this speaker were visible.
The camera was low—around waist height or lower. Meaning it was likely a camera attached to a canine tactical assault suit. Probably Atlas’s specifically. Normally those cameras were used to give human handlers and the rest of the team knowledge of what lay ahead as the canine took point. In this case, it looked like Calhoun had been injured and Atlas was still in use. Not recommended, but there was usually a backup on the team able to take over the working dog if something should happen to the handler.
“Just as well,” the offscreen speaker said. “Not sure our teammate has the stomach for what we need to do here.”
Not likely. Calhoun had had the balls for anything that needed doing.
The unseen man continued, “We’ll use the dog to terrorize the prisoner. Damage to extremities is acceptable but try to keep it limited. We want to be able to patch him up if we need him alive past this evening.”
David set his jaw. It went against his morals to use a dog this way. But war wasn’t noble. He’d done things he’d have nightmares about for the rest of his life. He was only sorry Atlas had been commanded to do similar.
The video skipped. Highlights reel, after all.
A man was secured to a chair. He’d been worked over already and there were several more men in the room. Once in a while, a face came into frame and David paused to capture the image of the face. Only a couple; the camera hadn’t captured all of them. But he was going to need those for later, especially since the SEALs had covered the name tags on their uniforms for the interrogation.
“Wait! Wait! You want this man? I can give you his location. We can do business.”
English. Fairly well-spoken and with the kind of accent that indicated a higher level of education. David listened more carefully.
“You want him. I want him dead. Kill him for me and I will make sure you and your future company have exclusive business once you are established.”
David stopped the video and replayed. If he’d heard correctly, this wasn’t an interrogation anymore. It was evolving into something uglier: a conspiracy.
“It’s what you do, isn’t it? Once your career is complete with the US military, you go private. Establish a private military company. Mercenaries.” The man was sweating, could barely see out one swollen eye, but no one was stopping him or redirecting his discussion to more pertinent information. They were all listening. “Mercenaries need work. The best work is here. Will be here, for decades to come.”
True. Even once the war was officially over and troops were brought home, the area would be ruled by unrest. Mercenaries had job security in those sorts of hot spots all over the Middle East and surrounding regions.