Page 30 of Red Line

A day late, a lost opportunity, a traitorous terrorist in the wind, four US operators, and a K9 in a volatile country without food or water.

Yeah, things could have gone to hell.

But they’d arrived at the second X. With the engine off and the car in neutral, Havoc let gravity roll the vehicle into a low-lying area, where he threw the gear into park.

The house was a silhouette against a black nightscape.

Making their way forward, there wasn’t much in the way of cover. The men lizard-crawled to keep even the sliver of a moon from spotlighting them.

While the team left every extraneous piece of operational equipment back at the fill site, they had to keep a headset with night vision to drive with the lights off and also the equipment to trick Rory out with his high-dollar electronics.

It was possible—though not probable—that someone declaring authority would believe that the group of friends, lost wandering the Syrian desert, were indeed content developer hobbyists who used their doggo to make side money. There actually was a Tik-Tok with Rory fans, though, on social media, they used his official name, “Glory.”

Nomad was told the team call him Rory because that’s how Rory pronounced his name himself. They’d laugh like it was the funniest thing ever while Nomad shook his head. Had to be an inside joke.

Glory’s fame, though, was developed to cover just such a case when equipment might need an explanation. Rory’s doggy helmet had a place to attach a camera that fed to Ty’s tablet. There was a two-way mic attached to his collar. He wore a protective vest rated for small-arms fire and stab wounds to his vitals.

And when Rory dressed out, he knew he was badass.

He embraced it, strutting around, tongue hanging long as he panted with anticipation.

Send me in, coach!

Ty dispatched Rory to circle the farmhouse, managing Rory’s movements through commands softly spoken over the comms collar. This skill was trained and drilled until Rory could work independently. From past experience, Nomad knew that the images that would come back were, unfortunately, only as high as Rory’s head, about hip height to most. Even though Ty had taught Rory to lift his chin and scan, the angle still wouldn’t be ideal. But it would still be invaluable information.

Besides showing the team the exterior, Rory's current task was to draw any dog barks so there wouldn’t be surprises later.

While their dog was a force multiplier, the other guy’s dogs were an impediment.

“Rory, sit.” Ty pointed at the tablet’s screen with the eerie green images. “See the open window there? I can get Rory up onto that wall. There, he gets up some speed for momentum as he moves over this lower roof and jumps through the window.”

The team’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light. And they could see enough to have a sense of the environment, losing only details and color.

“There’s enough clearance for his equipment?” Havoc asked.

“Rory will figure it out.” Ty was confident.

“That looks like a good place to infiltrate from a ground game,” T-Rex said. “Depending on what’s on the other side of that window. Yup. We can try that. I didn’t see another access point that’s workable. And I’d rather not kick a door down and go hand to hand tonight.”

“Agreed.” Ty recalled Rory.

When Rory came back to Ty to sit and wait for commands, Nomad noticed that he caught Ty’s eye in the meaningful way that dogs do. From working alongside dogs and their handlers for nearly two decades, Nomad knew they passed pictures back and forth, silently communicating. After a moment, Ty handed off the tablet to T-Rex and came up to a crouch. When Rory turned to focus on the window, Nomad knew that Rory agreed with the game plan. “Rory, sit and wait.”

Rory’s body quivered with the effort to follow the command as Ty lined himself up with the window and jogged to the wall. Rory’s ears twitched toward Ty, waiting for the command so soft that only Rory could pick it up.

Once Ty reached the wall, he used his body to make a ramp.

Rory was a bolt of lightning. He flashed across the ground, ran up Ty’s body, and up the wall until his front paws looped over the top of the second-story roof and scrambled over.

Ty moved back so the team could assess the images and get a feel for the interior.

Nomad watched as Rory stopped and assessed the window, then took a run at it. Leaping through, he dropped to a crouch, completely silent and still to avoid notice.

No other heat signatures were showing up in the warm end of the spectrum. “Rory, hold,” Ty commanded through the mic.

“Door’s shut,” Nomad whispered.

Ty enlarged the screen. “If it’s not locked, Rory can open that kind of lever.” He toggled the mic and made his command. Slowly, silently, Rory cased the entire house following Ty’s instructions.

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