He got to his feet.“Rocket’s in good shape.Just a tad overweight, but nothing to be concerned about.Lay off the bacon bits and feed him high quality organic fortified food.It’s better if you purchase that food for yourself and give him some, but if you go with dog food, make sure you get something that’s one hundred percent meat and free of artificial preservatives.If you can’t find fortified food, then he needs to be on a daily dose of vitamins.Calcium’s…” His voice trailed off as he noticed the kid’s eyes glaze over.“You know what, I’ll have Jackie print out a couple of sheets for you.In the meantime, if you talk to the kennel manager, tell him David says hi and buy good food for the dogs already.”
The kid blinked in shock.No doubt the idea of telling a superior agent anything other than yes sir or ma’am or no sir or ma’am had never occurred to him.
Jackie led the bright-eyed youth and his beautiful pup from the examination room, and David headed to his office to make notes in his patient file.He was one of the newest class of handlers Faith was supposed to be teaching, but since she was off on yet another case, her subordinate instructors were handling the beginning of the cycle.David couldn’t really judge her for that considering his own extracurricular activities, but he felt a bit of general irritation at the fact that their lives hadn’t changed materially since moving to D.C.Leaving Philly was supposed to be their chance to put everything behind.Now Faith was off snooping for killers, with the ageless Turk still at her side and David was getting himself in trouble with the freaking CIA.
He chuckled ruefully.Wisdom was in short supply for the two of them.
Don’t bring her into this.You’re the one trying to trace drug buys to prove the CIA is trying to create telepathic dogs.
“Yeah, fair enough,” he said out loud.
He stepped into his office where Rogers tried unsuccessfully to not take up the entire space with his massive frame.Explaining his presence turned out to be difficult, and when Rogers helpfully said that Faith had received anonymous hate mail and was worried about him, it did little to soften the worries of his staff.
But Faith wanted him watched, so here he was in an office two sizes too small for his faithful bodyguard.“I thought Hammerton was supposed to relieve you after lunch.”
“His niece got into a fight at school.”
“Oh.Damn.I’m sorry.”
Rogers shrugged.“Kid’s been bullied all through sixth grade.Finally stood up for herself, and the principal wants to have a hissy fit.Jeff’s going because he’s the kind of person people don’t try to intimidate.He’s going to back up his sister when she says that her kid’s going to hit back every time someone hits her.”
“Good for him,” David said.“And her.”
“Yeah, he’ll be back tonight, though.”
“It’s fine if he needs the evening off,” David said, sliding behind his desk.
Rogers chuckled.“Not happenin’, doc.”
David lifted his hands.“Just saying.”
“So have you made any progress?”Rogers asked.
David opened his desktop and waited the extra few seconds for the firewall Michael had installed to boot up.“Some,” he replied vaguely.
“That’s good.I’m sure you can’t wait until this is over.”
“You’re not wrong,” David said, opening up the file and reviewing what he had learned so far.
Maldonado, as far as he could tell, was completely unaware of anyone using her research in any capacity, good or bad.The records David had obtained never showed her prescribing serotonin agonists to dogs.She had applied for a research grant several times and been denied each time, but it seemed she had accepted the judgment of the powers that be and abandoned her research.Of course, she had been killed shortly after, so that probably put a damper on her continued work.
She was a dead end, but her research wasn’t.With help from some resources Michael had sent him, David had determined that large batches of serotonin agonists were ordered on nine separate occasions over the past four years, the first one being ordered two weeks after Maldonado’s death.These large orders were obtained from different pharmaceutical manufacturers, but the purchaser was always the same: Green Glen Health Collective.
Serotonin agonists were ordered by many legitimate medical professionals, but only Green Glen placed bulk orders of this size.Each order contained enough drugs to dose fifty dogs according to Maldonado’s suggested schedule for a period of twelve weeks or thirteen dogs for a period of forty-five weeks.The frequency of the orders suggested a larger number of dogs for a shorter period of time.
Or a much higher dose than Maldonado suggested.
David looked up Green Glen Health Collective and got eight different results.Five of them were marijuana dispensaries, three of which were located in the city of San Francisco alone.They sure did love their weed in California.
Two Green Glens were health retreats, one of them a semi-legitimate sanitarium for sufferers of chronic illness and one a complete pseudoscientific “karmic wellness commune” in Colorado whose leader wore a tunic and a hip-length beard and called himself Guru Pasha Mahavanya despite clearly being a Caucasian American.
The final remaining Green Glen had no information at all.No website, no mission statement, no staff directory, nothing.Just a phone number and an address.David didn’t want to risk testing the phone number, so he plugged the address into Google Maps and received a location in an industrial park in Mesquite, Texas.
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.Mesquite was quite a distance from Quantico.If the drugs were being sent here, then how did the 93rdend up here?
Then again, they had only arrived recently.What had happened to drive them away from Texas?
He wished he could talk to the person sending him emails.He had followed the drugs and discovered Green Glen Healthcare, but now where did he go?Did he keep following the drugs?Did he try to figure out why the CIA moved their operation here?Did he look at the names of the other doctors on the first list?
