Page 11 of Surge

“Didn’t answer my question.” Garrett hated this guy. “There are hundreds of operators out there who can do what I can do.” He scratched his beard. “And what I can’t figure is why Chapel would give you the time of day.”Yet, he had . . .So, what had Tyson seen that Garrett was missing?

A heavy, awkward silence settled between them before Caldwell finally huffed. “Look, you don’t have to like me?—”

“Good.”

“—but I think we can both agree this needs to be done.” His pocked face reddened. Anger? Irritation? “As for why Damocles? Because Chapel is the best at what he does, and this mission demands that skillset. Just like we need yours.”

“My skills only go so far. Greasing me won’t make me sign on.”

“I told him about what happened in Burma.” Caldwell cleared his throat. “Damocles has identified one of the Sachaai’s low-level guys in Singapore that we can buy a sample from. Chapel suggested you go in undercover as a buyer, get the sample, and then track him to the stash of chemicals.”

Garrett couldn’t help but roll the idea through his head. “Track him? And what—end up sniffing that stuff again and dying like Samwise and Tsunami? I’d go if you had positive confirmation that the chems weren’t mixed, but if I lost him—I can’t track him. You’d need a specialized search dog who can find that ‘unique lipid.’” He stabbed a finger at the spook. “Your words. And since you told me in Burma that Tsunami was the only dog with that training—and oops, now she’s dead thanks to your, once again, bad intel—you are out of luck and this convo is over.” He stood.

Caldwell smirked. “Tsunami wasn’t the only one.”

Stiffening, Garrett stared at the spook. “What?”

“Tsunami wasn’t the only dog trained to rout the Sachaai lipid,” he said with way too much calm and smugness. “There’s another. He’s here, about an hour away at a ranch.”

Garrett cursed himself—he’d walked right into that one. “A Breed Apart.”

“That’s it.” Caldwell spoke quietly, too confident he’d ensnared them in this op. “Chapel put in a call to the ranch’s COO, Heath Daniels.”

“Yeah,” Zim said. “I’ve seen him—a gorgeous black Belgian Malinois named Surge.”

Surge. Wait . . . Garrett remembered Sam showing him a picture of Tsunami’s littermate. But what were the chances this one had been trained in scenting the same lipid? The memory of watching Tsunami collapse beneath the gas hit him hard. “Hold up.” He swallowed. “That chemical killed Tsunami. What’s to stop it from killing Surge?”

Zim reached into his pocket, pulled out two clear two-inch plastic medical vials. He glanced over at the spook, then back at Garrett. “Caldwell, um, visited a Sachaai building on Jurong Island and stole—er, found a few oral vaccine medicine vials. Like these. Twist-off lids. I tested Caldwell’s find, positive for potassium cyanide and sulfamic acid. Also processed with Tariq’s lipid.” He held his hands apart, each holding empty plastic tubes. “The vials aren’t harmful until”—he smacked them together—“they’re mixed.” His hands burst apart, and he let the vials fall into his lap.

Garrett squinted. “Or it becomes toxic gas. Like in Djibouti.”

Zim shook his head, returning the tubes to his pocket. “I hacked into Sachaai messaging?—”

Caldwell cleared his throat loudly.

Zim bit his lip. “Well, anyway, they want to put poison in our food supply—kill more people at the same time. And Surge is an MWD. Like Tsunami, he won’t eat anything not given to him by a team member.”

“What do they want to do with it?” Garrett asked.

“That, we’re not one hundred percent on yet,” Zim said with another shrug. “We know they’re developing it into a liquid spray, but whether they’ll put it on a food source being imported or ship it here for us . . . is unknown.”

“And not our problem,” Caldwell asserted. “Because we’re going to stop them before they can do anything with it.” He leaned forward. “Daniels has agreed to contract Surge to us for this op. He and Thompson are ready for action.”

Garrett took a deep breath, feeling like he’d been caught in a volatile undertow. He owed Zim a listen. “So Sachaai is threatening a major chemical weapon attack on the US. We have to intercept those chemicals well before they get here . . .” Something. . . wasn’t quite right. What was he missing? He glared at the operative. How had he convinced Chapel to underwrite this mission? No paramilitary firm had unlimited funds, so what had he bought this favor with? “Is there more?”

The man held his gaze for several seconds. “Isn’t there always?”

Zim shifted in his seat. “Okay, look—Caldwell is going. Chapel likes the efficacy of his source on this.”

Not him. Caldwell, of course, was holding something back. Same as in Burma and Djibouti. Why on earth would he trust the man a third time?Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. A third time?

“I’m out.” Throwing a glance at the food he no longer had an appetite for, Garrett stood and dropped a ten on the table for a tip. “Thanks for lunch, Zim. See you the next time you’re in Hill Country.”

Zim shoved to his feet, blocking his exit.

Garrett scuffed his beard. “Don’t waste your breath, man. It’s not happening.” He let the growl fill his words.

His buddy held up his hands. “Damocles wants justice for Reicher—Sam. His brother is one of theirs.”

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