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  Clara wouldn’t radio in her results yet, even though she was certain the area was clear of any other potential bombs. With this first one turning out to be nothing, she was beginning to think it might be a prank by kids. It wouldn’t be the first time that a teenager would put a box by a public building then call in the threat to the place, thinking it would be funny. Often, they would sit across the street and watch the chaos of the target being evacuated.

  They turned the corner at the edge of the building, and only walked another ten yards before another box came into view. This time, it looked to be a shipping box. Rebel did his job and quickly determined, with his keen sense of smell, it also was not a bomb. She looked inside to confirm it, but she knew Rebel wouldn’t make a mistake. Up a little further, she saw a third box, followed by several more. As Rebel inspected each one, they quickly realized that all of them were empty. Then Clara noticed that behind a tree there was a shopping cart half-filled with cans and bottles, a sleeping bag, and a random assortment of more boxes filled with various objects. The collection of junk made it clear that the shopping cart had once belonged to a homeless person at some point. It looked abandoned now, almost as if whoever had been using it, had been chased off by someone else. In the chase, items had fallen out until it was abandoned completely. That would explain why there had been a trail of packages that led right to the cart.

  Clara pressed the button on her radio. “All clear, there are no explosive devices. We found an abandoned shopping cart, most likely belonging to a homeless person. The boxes came from there.”

  “Roger that, Handler Burnette, come on back,” Sergeant Young said over the radio. “Officer Miller didn’t find anything on his end. We can let the movie theater know it’s safe to resume business.”

  Clara bent down and rubbed between Rebel’s ears. “Good boy, you earned this,” she said, handing her partner a doggie treat. Once he gobbled it up, she gave him his favorite blue ball. Immediately, Rebel’s tail started wagging as he went to town on the chew toy.

  By the time they returned to the academy, Clara was exhausted. At least she had one more day before the new trainees showed up. She was going to need it, too, because it was always hectic when a new class arrived.

  Three

  As Adam pulled through the gates of the Disaster City Search and Rescue facility, he was immediately taken aback by how big the place was. Multiple massive buildings were set on at least twenty acres.

  He climbed out of his truck, then went around to the passenger side and got Valor out. “You ready for this? I know it’s scary, but we got this.” Adam knew he was trying to convince himself as much as Valor. Though it was his dream to train at the elite academy, now that he was there, he hoped he didn’t make a fool of himself.

  “You must be one of the new trainees,” a man with a thick New York accent, black hair, and gray eyes said, as he came up to Adam. “I’m Officer Joe Griffin, one of the instructors here at DCSRA.” The other man looked to be about a decade older than Adam and had an air of command around him like he’d seen a lot of action in his career.

  “Nice to meet you, Officer Griffin. I’m Staff Sergeant Adam Reynolds, and this is my partner, Valor,” Adam said, gesturing to the K9 next to him.

  “We don’t use rank or title around here on a regular basis, except when we call the Sergeant and Captain of our unit, Sarge and Cap. Other than that, we usually just use last names. It makes it a lot easier since we have instructors and trainees from all branches of the military including TSA and ATF, as well as police and sheriff departments across the country.”

  Adam nodded. “Understood.”

  “Man, you have military written all over you. It’ll be good for you to get a little of that stiffness out of you,” Joe said with a smirk.

  “Let me guess, you’re not military,” Adam said, trying to hide his irritation at the man’s obvious disapproval of his need to be respectful at all times due to his military training.

  “No, I was a search and rescue officer in New York for twenty years before I got offered my position here at DCSRA.”

  “Twenty years?” Adam asked with surprise. “That means you were there for the search and rescue efforts for the Twin Towers, doesn’t it?”

  Joe’s lighthearted nature that had been present previously disappeared at the mention of the towers. Instantly, Adam wished he had thought about it before he brought the subject up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You would think after all these years, it would get easier to talk about, but it hasn’t. That was, and will probably always be the hardest assignment of my career.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of several more people driving up in their various vehicles joining the group in the parking lot. Joe told all of the new recruits to follow him. They made their way into the building that had a sign that read Auditorium across the top.

  Adam took a seat in the second row towards the middle. As more and more recruits entered the building, he kept count. By the time the orientation meeting was moments from starting, fifty-two men and eight women had filled the rows around him. He couldn’t tell much about any of them since they were in plain clothes like himself. He figured he would find out more about them and which departments they hailed from as his time in the academy progressed.

  Twenty instructors filed onto the stage and made two rows. He noticed the team was almost all men with the exception of one petite brunette woman who stood at the end of the front row. Even though she was the only woman instructor, she didn’t seem to let it affect her. She looked confident as she stood straight in her blue cargo uniform.

  A gray-haired man with a face filled with wrinkles came forward. “Good morning, new trainees. I’m Captain Bill McCormick. I’m in charge of overseeing the elite Disaster City Search and Rescue Academy, better known as DCSRA. For all intents and purposes, our academy is an all-inclusive mini-city. This auditorium is used for orientation, guest lectures, and graduation ceremonies. We have a male and a female dormitory for trainees, as well as a set of apartment buildings and small houses for the permanent staff. We also have a cafeteria with a cook, a full gym with weight equipment and an indoor pool, and the Training Center that has several rooms for classes as well as the staff offices. Additionally, we have a fully staffed kennel and veterinarian hospital for our K9 partners, a permanent medical clinic, and a janitorial staff. What that means for each of you is that while you are here, you won’t have any excuse to not meet and exceed the standards expected of you in order to graduate from our academy. Though this class is only one month long, I can assure you, it will be the most intense month of your life. It will test your limits, challenge what you think you know about search and rescue, and put you in situations you’ve never considered. I’m going to bring forward Master Sergeant Trevor Young, who will be overseeing the day-to-day operations of your class, to introduce the rest of the staff here at DCSRA.”

  The captain moved to the side, and a middle-aged man with salt-and-peppered brown hair came forward. “As the captain explained, I will be in charge of making sure each of you learn the latest techniques and skills by our highly-qualified instructors. When you finish your time here, you will be the top search and rescue officers and soldiers in the world. We have six areas of S & R with two instructors per division, plus an additional eight instructors assigned to specialized areas.”

  Adam quickly did the math and realized that meant for every three trainees, there would be one instructor. Every trainee would receive a lot of hands-on guidance by the most elite teachers in their field.

  “Officers Matthew Knight and Ray Carlson oversee narcotics training, Gunnery Sergeant Justin Ford and Officer John Lee run tracking and scouting, Officer Paul Smithen and Sergeant Major Juan Perez handle cadaver training, Officers Clara Burnette and Ben Miller are in charge of bomb detection.”

  Adam looked at the lone female instructor and realized that she would be one of the instructors directly overseeing his trai
ning. He wasn’t sure what to think of that. Female K9 handlers were rare, let alone any that made it to the level that it took to become an instructor, especially at this elite academy.

  “Officer Reggie Collins and Staff Sergeant Alex Murray provide training for missing persons, and Officers Sean West and Dylan Burke handle patrol and sentry training. The final eight instructors oversee specialized terrain training; Master Sergeant James Franklin and Officer Ross Canter train in the nearby mountains for avalanche and snow conditions while Mason Fredericks and Tom Powell train at the lake for water rescue. Finally, Officers Terrance Bilmont, Jesse Dixon, Rick Buckworth, and Joe Griffin oversee urban disasters such as terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters which include mudslides and earthquakes.”

  Sergeant Young spent the next half hour going over the rest of the staff at the facility, and the schedule for the first day. It was a long list of information. By the time it was over, Adam was glad it was time for them to head to the dorms and settle in for the night. He wasn’t sure what the first day was going to bring when he woke up the next morning, but he knew that as long as he stayed true to himself and maintained his faith, he would be able to handle anything that came his way.

  The next morning, Adam and Valor lined-up with the other five men and their K9 partners. He wasn’t sure what to expect from the bomb detection instructors, but he wanted to be ready for anything. He had pressed his DCSRA uniform and polished his boots the night before. Today, he wore it with pride, determined to finish the academy at the top of his class.

  He glanced down the row of men. They all looked to be of various ages; the youngest man was probably in his late twenties and the oldest in his early forties. All of them wore their uniforms like him, but he noticed one of the men in the middle hadn’t taken the time to iron his uniform. It wasn’t his job to correct the other man, but he sure didn’t think it made a good first impression.

  As Adam waited for the instructors to arrive, he made sure to stand up straight, his chin lifted high. After all, he was representing the United States Army. He couldn’t be anything less than professional.

  “Good morning, trainees, welcome to your first day at the most elite, most prestigious bomb detection school in all the world,” Instructor Miller said, coming to stand in front of the group. The female instructor, Burnette, joined him. “Let me make one thing clear, no matter how good you think you are at detection, no matter how many rewards you’ve won or lives you’ve saved, none of that means anything here. Here, there is only one thing that matters. Our house, our rules. What that means is that everything you’ve learned and implemented over your career, you’re going to set aside. We are the best of the best, which means we don’t want to hear about how you do it at your department in Indiana, what you’ve learned from your time in Afghanistan, or how you’ve read on the internet that a certain technique is the best. We have all the answers, we are the beginning and the end, the absolute authority on all things explosive—think of us as your all-knowing Mother and Father for the duration of your training.”

  Of all things to happen, Adam hadn’t expected a Top Gun speech at their first meeting. What was this guy thinking? Was he trying to intimidate all of them? Was this a tactic to weed out anyone who wouldn’t be able to handle the training? All of them had already been through a police academy or boot camp, plus bomb detection school by their various departments. There wasn’t a need to make that type of speech; however, he knew better than to say anything. It wouldn’t prove beneficial to infuriate his new instructor if he wanted to stay on his good side. Instead, he remained quiet, waiting to find out what was going to come next.

  Four

  Clara sized up the six new trainees and their K9 partners standing in front of her. All of them seemed capable, but it was rare that a candidate was accepted into the academy who didn’t present as such. When her eyes fell on one of the men in the middle who decided to show up for his first day in a wrinkled uniform, she realized she had a rare one standing in front of her who needed to be taught a lesson straight out of the gate.

  She stepped forward to stand only inches in front of the man, narrowing her eyes. “Is there a reason you didn’t feel the need to press your uniform?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realize we were going to be judged on the condition of our uniform. I mean, we’ve already proven ourselves or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Instructor Burnette or Mother, if you prefer,” she corrected. “And you should know, you’re going to be judged on everything. If you can’t take your appearance seriously, how can we expect you to take anything else we teach you seriously?”

  The man shifted his stance, moving his weight from one leg to the other. He mumbled out, “It won’t happen again.”

  “Good, because from the moment you step onto the DCSRA training grounds, you’re going to be tested. It’s only through our vigorous process that your true grit will be revealed. About a third of you will voluntarily quit, another third will barely squeak by, and the final third will flourish in this environment. It’s up to you to determine which third you will end up being in.”

  Each of the men seemed to be taking in her words and contemplating them. She let the words sink in. They needed to know the odds they were facing in successfully completing this course.

  Ben continued to go over training guidelines and what they would be expected to do every night to be prepared for the next day. As he went over their expectations, Clara continued to inspect the men. Besides Wrinkly—or Bernard as his name tag read across the left-side of his chest—there were two men older and younger than he was, along with a man who seemed to be the same age as she was. The older two men seemed cocky, which Clara knew Ben and she would easily be able to train right out of them; the younger ones looked scared. The one that piqued her interest though, was the final man. His name tag read, Reynolds. He seemed confident but not conceited. He was good-looking, too, but she quickly shook that thought from her head. As a woman in a mostly male-dominated profession, she knew it was never a good idea to get involved with a fellow bomb detector—even if the man in question might be the handsomest guy she’d ever laid eyes on.

  “Today, we will start out in our mock airport terminal as a means to see what you and your K9 partners are capable of doing. We want to know what we are working with,” Ben said with a stern look. “And like Mother said, you will be judged.”

  The group made their way into a room that was filled with a conveyor-belt that had suitcases, duffle bags, and car seats rolling around on it. There were also bicycles, shrink-wrapped pallets, golf bags, strollers, and wheelchairs scattered throughout the space.

  “Here are the rules for this exercise. There are eight mock-bombs scattered throughout this area. You are to conduct your inspections and determine where they are without setting them off. There are decoys, and there are traps, so don’t make a mistake or you’ll regret it,” Ben said as the instructors took their positions in the center of the room with their K9 partners.

  The trainees were surrounding them, watching them, and Clara wondered if they were actually going to start. They did this the first time to see who had the initiative to get to work versus who sat back waiting to be told what to do.

  Reynolds looked around the room. He kept glancing from the items to the instructors and back. Most of the other men kept their eyes on the instructors, but he was already sizing up what he should do. He must have decided to take a chance, because he quickly gave his K9 the command to search. They were off and working their way along the conveyor-belt of luggage pieces. His K9 partner was doing his job, checking for chemical vapors—or “volatiles”—that would give away a bomb to a K9.

  Once Reynolds found the first bomb and correctly identified it, the other five trainees scrambled to join him in the search. The team of dogs was searching the undersides and metal frames of each object in the room, moving along the rows.

  She could hear the sniffing and snorting of the dogs as they eliminated
objects and identified others that had mock-bombs inside them. The K9s’ wagging tails coupled with their quick and eager searches made it clear this was their idea of a good time. If trained right, a bomb dog considered searching playtime rather than work. The key was to make sure they understood the rules of the game they were playing so no one got hurt accidentally.

  The sudden popping sound drew her attention to one of the older trainees named Westerly. He was standing over a suitcase that had exploded and he was now covered in green paint. Apparently, he found one of the traps.

  “Westerly, you’re out,” Ben said with a dissatisfied look on his face. “Go get cleaned up before mealtime.”

  The officer scurried off with his dog by his side, his head hanging low at the embarrassing demonstration of his capability. The rest of the teams continued searching. By the end of the exercise, most of the other teams fared better than Westerly, finding one bomb each except Foster. He didn’t find any bombs but instead only decoys. At least he didn’t set off a trap, which Clara supposed meant he did a little bit better than Westerly.

  Two teams stood out with finding two bombs each, Reynolds and Rogers. They proved to be the most efficient of all the trainees. Clara was secretly impressed by both of them, but most of all Reynolds. He also didn’t fall for any decoys while Foster’s team was tricked by one. That one mistake could mean the difference between life and death, which meant Reynolds team had the rawest talent.

  “Good job, trainees. Mother and Father approve of your work today,” Ben said with a nod. “That concludes our first day of training. You’re dismissed.”

  As Clara watched the teams file out, she wondered what the rest of the month was going to bring. Was this batch of recruits going to prove themselves worthy of being at DCSRA by learning important skills from them, or would they test them as they progressed through the training? Only time would tell.