In the Weeds (+audio)

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“You’re joking.”
“Nope. That’s his name. And he’s yours now.”
Sergeant Linda Hamlin wondered quite what it would take to wipe that smile off Lieutenant Jurgen’s face. A 120mm round from an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank came to mind.
The kennel master of the US Secret Service’s Canine Team was clearly a misogynistic jerk from the top of his polished head to the bottoms of his equally polished boots. She wondered if the shoelaces were polished as well.
Then she looked over at the poor dog sitting hopefully on the concrete kennel floor. His stall had a dog bed three times his size and a water bowl deep enough for him to bathe in. No toys, because toys always came from the handler as a reward. He offered her a sad sigh and a liquid doggy gaze. The kennel even smelled wrong, more of sanitizer than dog. The walls seemed to echo with each bark down the long line of kennels housing the candidate hopefuls for the next addition to the Secret Service’s team.
Thor—really?—was a brindle-colored mutt, part who-knew and part no-one-cared. He looked like a cross between an oversized, long-haired schnauzer and a dust mop that someone had spilled dark gray paint on. After mixing in streaks of tawny brown, they’d left one white paw just to make him all the more laughable.
And of course Lieutenant Jerk Jurgen would assign Thor to the first woman on the USSS K-9 team.
Unable to resist, she leaned over far enough to scruff the dog’s ears. He was the physical opposite of the sleek and powerful Malinois MWDs—military war dogs—that she’d been handling for the 75th Rangers for the last five years. They twitched with eagerness and nerves. A good MWD was seventy pounds of pure drive—every damn second of the day. If the mild-mannered Thor weighed thirty pounds, she’d be surprised. And he looked like a little girl’s best friend who should have a pink bow on his collar.
Jurgen was clearly ex-Marine and would have no respect for the Army. Of course, having been in the Army’s Special Operations Forces, she knew better than to respect a Marine.
“We won’t let any old swabbie bother us, will we?”
Jurgen snarled—definitely Marine Corps. Swabbie was slang for a Navy sailor and a Marine always took offense at being lumped in with them no matter how much they belonged. Of course the swabbies took offense at having the Marines lumped with them. Too bad there weren’t any Navy around so that she could get two for the price of one. Jurgen wouldn’t be her boss, so appeasing him wasn’t high on her to-do list.
At least she wouldn’t need any of the protective bite gear working with Thor. With his stature, he was an explosives detection dog without also being an attack one.
“Where was he trained?” She stood back up to face the beast.
“Private outfit in Montana—some place called Henderson’s Ranch. Didn’t make their MWD program,” his scoff said exactly what he thought the likelihood of any dog outfit in Montana being worthwhile. “They wanted us to try the little runt out.”
She’d never heard of a training program in Montana. MWDs all came out of Lackland Air Force Base training. The Secret Service mostly trained their own and they all came from Vohne Liche Kennels in Indiana. Unless… Special Operations Forces dogs were trained by private contractors. She’d worked beside a Delta Force dog for a single month—he’d been incredible.
“Is he trained in English or German?” Most American MWDs were trained in German so that there was no confusion in case a command word happened to be part of a spoken sentence. It also made it harder for any random person on the battlefield to shout something that would confuse the dog.
“German according to his paperwork, but he won’t listen to me much in either language.”
Might as well give the diminutive Thor a few basic tests. A snap of her fingers and a slap on her thigh had the dog dropping into a smart “heel” position. No need to call out Fuss—by my foot.
“Pass auf!” Guard! She made a pistol with her thumb and forefinger and aimed it at Jurgen as she grabbed her forearm with her other hand—the military hand sign for enemy.
The little dog snarled at Jurgen sharply enough to have him backing out of the kennel. “Goddamn it!”

Initial Publication: January 31, 2018
Print Pages: 210
Audio length: 6:40
Narrator: Read by Author