That earned him a quirky smile, “Or she did and still thinks we should run. Who knows how deep the danger goes?” She said the last in sepulchral tones and made a creepy fingers-wiggling gesture.
“Only comes up to here on the ducks,” Abby held a hand to her hip just as Ricky would when describing the dangerous ocean out on his lobster boat.
Derek’s laugh echoed off the hard walls. The rest just looked at her like she was crazy. Nobody from away understood a Mainiac’s sense of humor—except Derek.
“So, give Zackie a biscuit and then tell her to Seek again.”
Dilya did, and said, “Faigh” again.
She sniffed in a circle. Stopped and tilted her head a couple of different ways before looking at Dilya with what even a non-dog person like Abby could read as confused.
“Try starting her out in the hall again.”
Dilya led her out, called out the Seek command, and Zackie came straight back into the lunchroom.
“She follows the freshest scent, right?” Abby asked as they all watched Zackie crisscrossing the room.
Dilya nodded. “Or the strongest.”
“Which means that either way, it isn’t out in the hall.”
“But—” Dilya waved a hand to indicate the four walls of the lunchroom. There were no places to hide.
Abby took a cue from Colonel Gibson and watched Zackie instead of her own intuition—especially as the latter wasn’t leading her anywhere.
Behind the counter, refrigerator, trash can, halfway to the door, back to the supply drawers behind the counter, over to the chalkboard… Then Zackie’s puzzled look again. The Sheltie appeared to get the paths mixed up from there.
Chalkboard to middle of the room, over into the servers’ side of the counter.
Abby’s eyes tracked to the answer mere steps ahead of Zackie.
“The dumbwaiter. We’re in the basement. She took the dumbwaiter where food supplies must be delivered from a service truck up at street level.”
It wasn’t big enough for even Dilya and Zackie together, though Derek had to physically force Dilya not to ride up into the unknown alone.
57
Miss Watson hated being right. That it was a skill that had kept her alive all these decades didn’t make her feel any better at the moment.
She sat in a tan TUL—Truck Utility Light, the military version of a Land Rover Defender 90 compact SUV—that she’d liberated. She’d also borrowed the driver’s parka after knocking him out.
After capturing the truck from three buildings over, she’d parked close by the building she’d been incarcerated in. The low sun, having cleared most of the roof line, would stop people from looking her way or seeing into the hard shadows cast over the vehicle.
Unless they found its driver where she’d left him tied up and knocked out sooner than she expected, everyone would assume this vehicle was hers. The most basic place to hide, in plain sight. Wearing a military parka over a plain clothes suit inside the base’s security perimeter also marked her as a person worth avoiding. She could do with a little less attention for a while.
A dozen RMP cars remained down by the monstrous Base Hangar, blasting the area with flashing blue lights. A pair of Chinook helos circled above them in a way they made look aggressive rather than merely an exercise. A third hovered above the far side of the building she’d escaped from less than half an hour ago. The helos were all black and had long refueling probes. Only the 160th Night Stalkers flew their birds that way.
Well, at least that meant, if Dilya was indeed here, she wasn’t alone. Emily Beale or her people must be here as well. No, Emily would see to Dilya’s safety personally; the colonel was here as well.
Dogs were out on ground patrols, but they didn’t worry her. They’d be explosive sniffers, and she had none on her to attract their attention. As long as she didn’t run, she wouldn’t do so either. People-tracking dogs were far rarer. If there were even any on base, they were unlikely to be trained to hunt a specific human, most of those were body-finders rather than trackers. However, that meant the alerts were out and she wouldn’t be slipping out the front gate to stroll the English countryside any time soon.
But Zackie had always been trained in finding people, not explosives or drugs. And she wouldn’t need a sample scent. That dog, like its owner, was too smart. If they’d found the Digestives, and she had little doubt Zackie would, they’d continue hot on her trail. Her chalk handiwork had been completely futile.
“Getting old, girl.” She realized that her message was not only futile, but would intensify Dilya’s search.
So, Dilya and a rescue team were coming.
Except she couldn’t risk that, because she’d been right. Dilya’s greatest asset at this time in her career was in so few recognizing her skills. Unlike herself, the girl remained an unknown.
