“No, sir,” Jake interrupted before the other man could give voice to the notion of replacing him. “I promise you, Max and I are on it.”
The site commander studied him for a long, silent moment, then gave a brisk nod. “I’m getting fed up with dancing to this joker’s tune.”
“We all are, sir,” Jake assured him.
“Let’s get cracking then,” Aronson said, yanking the door open wide.
Jake followed him into the dim interior of the arena. A few team leads were hovering around one of the tall counters encircling a support post. Jake was happy to join them there while Aronson conferred with Bud Thompson and a woman dressed in a bright blue pantsuit.
He leaned closer to Evan Furst. “Who’s the suit?”
“Governor’s press secretary.” The other man kept a wary eye on the suit. “Things are about to get interesting.”
“Like they haven’t been already?”
Colonel Aronson broke away from the small knot of people and came over to them. “We’re splitting up on detection. LRPD will cover the outer perimeter, including the auxiliary buildings,” he announced.
Jake murmured to Furst, “I hope they strike out in those buildings. We moved about a dozen head of expensive cattle there earlier in the day.”
Aronson turned to him. “I’m putting you on the inner circle. I need you to cover most of the arcade games. We’ve hardly looked at any of them except the remains of the duck game.”
Jake nodded, wondering if the colonel had given him the inner circle because it would keep him close to Cass, or if he’d given up on trying to make him stay away. Either way, he wasn’t about to argue with the man. He stood, shifting his weight impatiently as the other teams were assigned to investigation or intervention. The moment they were dismissed, he pivoted for the door.
They were stepping out into the afternoon sunlight when an explosion sent them diving for ground.
Max and the LRPD detection dog, a black Labrador named Holmes, strained against their leads, unbothered by the noise but keen in their desire to track down the source of the sulfurous scent wafting toward them.
The glass doors flew open behind them. Aronson and the other officers assembled spilled out onto the asphalt apron.
“Where?” Aronson demanded, head swiveling as Jake and the LRPD handler dusted themselves off.
“South.” Jake nodded in the direction of a thin plume of smoke rising above the buildings behind the arena. “Looks like Poultry.”
Colonel Aronson snatched his radio from its clip. “Yardley, come in,” he barked.
Static crackled, then a voice came across loud and clear. “Yardley, sir.”
“What’s happening?” the commander demanded.
“Sir, we have a failed intervention.”
“Details,” Aronson prompted.
“No casualties. Minimal property damage. Well, aside from Rex,” he amended.
Jake winced as Aronson let loose with an expletive on behalf of them all. The Arkansas State Police had introduced their robotic dog the previous year to great fanfare. The four-legged android controlled by a bomb squad specialist was often sent to assess the IED a team had identified and to determine the best path to intervention in disarming the device.
“Damage assessment?”
“Looks like we’re going to be back to using old Rufus for a while,” the man reported, referring to the less-sophisticated robot the LRPD used. “I don’t think any of the birds were harmed. This was not very powerful. Noisy, for sure, and Rex was right up in it, but other than disabling the bot, it didn’t do much damage.”
“I’m sending a team in to help with investigation.”
Aronson’s eyes skipped over Jake. “You and you,” he said, pointing to a couple of firefighters. “Go check the site.” Turning back to Jake and the detection team from LRPD, he said, “I’m getting tired of this bozo setting off firecrackers for fun. Find me the last three and let’s get them disarmed.”
“Last two.” Jake wanted to bite back the correction, but it was out there, so instead he bit the tip of his tongue.
“Excuse me?” Aronson’s brows lowered like thunderclouds.
