Blood Lines

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›› Spider’s Tattoo Shop

›› Doggett Street

›› Charlotte, North Carolina

›› 2058 Hours

Shel lay sprawled on the parking lot. His color was bad. His normally tan complexion had turned the color of whey. Blood pooled across the pavement from his injured shoulder.

Max stood braced over him. His fangs were bared as he growled at everyone around him.

“If you can’t get that dog to calm down so the EMT can work on your buddy,” the FBI agent told Remy, “we’re gonna have to shoot him.”

“No.” Remy looked at Max and tried to focus on the fact that he could still see Shel’s chest rising and falling. But the motion was too slow and too shallow. “You can’t shoot the dog.”

“We can’t let that man die either.”

“Free my hands,” Remy said. He turned his back toward the agent.

“You’re in custody.”

Remy cursed. “Have you got concrete between your ears? Free my hands. If I’m not free, that dog isn’t going to listen to me. Do it now.”

“Do it, McKinley,” a gruff voice ordered. The salt-and-pepper-haired FBI agent came up beside the ambulance. Max growled at him.

McKinley unfastened the cuffs.

Remy massaged his wrists and went forward. “No guns,” he told the FBI agents. “Anyone pulls a gun right now, the dog may go for you. And he won’t let anybody close to Shel.”

They stood around him. The revolving red and blue lights striped the scene.

“Max,” Remy called. “Hey. Take it easy now.”

The Labrador kept his fangs bared. He straddled the big Marine’s midsection protectively. Only a dog that big could have done that job.

“Max. It’s me. Remy. We’re friends.”

Max gave him a sideways look.

Remy held his hands up to show he meant no harm and carried no weapon. He squatted down almost within reach of Shel but no closer. Max wouldn’t have allowed anyone to get any closer without going for a throat.

“Tango, Max,” Remy said. “Tango.” It was their secret word, the one that Shel had taught the Labrador that would tell him to obey Remy. Each member of the NCIS team had a secret word. If something happened to Shel, the dog wouldn’t leave his side unless someone else with a code word commanded him to.

For a moment Remy didn’t think Max was going to obey. He’d never used the word for real, never when Shel hadn’t been right there to enforce it.

Then Max lowered his head and tail. The liquid uncertainty in the dog’s brown eyes was almost heartbreaking.

Carefully Remy reached for Max, aware that the control word might not hold under the circumstances. “Shel’s hurt, boy,” Remy said in a soothing voice. “Shel’s hurt and we gotta let these people take care of him.” He curled his fingers in Max’s fur and gently pulled him off Shel.

The dog came reluctantly and sat beside Remy. Quivering and fearful, Max licked Remy’s face. Though he wasn’t a fan of dog saliva, Remy dealt with it. He patted the Labrador’s head and stroked his fur.

“Can we get him now?” the blonde EMT asked.

“Yeah,” Remy said. “And plug that shoulder wound. You’ve got a nicked artery in there.” He tried to say it calmly, but the idea of an artery hosing Shel’s blood out with every heartbeat was scary.

The blonde started to pick Shel up from the ground. “I hardly think-”

Remy stood without a word and kept hold of Max’s fur. The dog stood with him at once. “Back off,” Remy snarled. Anger settled into him.

The blonde EMT stepped back. “What makes you think you can just-?”

“Urlacher.” Remy focused on the medical supplies in the kit beside Shel. “Back them off.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Urlacher asked.

Remy hunkered down and popped open the first aid kit. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. “I’m a combat medic. This is a combat wound. I know what I’m doing. I’m saving my friend’s life. That’s what the Navy trained me to do.”

“He can’t-,” the blonde started to protest.

“He can,” Urlacher said. “He is. You step back out of his way and prepare to transport.”

Remy worked feverishly to pack the wound and staunch the bleeding. Once he had that done, the rest of it was in a surgeon’s hands. He blinked sweat out of his eyes as the black EMT knelt beside him to assist. When the man didn’t get in his way, Remy allowed it.

›› North Carolina Airspace

›› 2134 Hours

Tension knotted Will’s stomach as he flew through the night. He tended to the airplane’s needs out of habit and training rather than thinking, and he didn’t like that he was doing that. Flight was less risky than driving a vehicle on the ground-and, thankfully in this case, faster-but a pilot still had to pay attention.

Maggie sat beside him in the copilot’s seat. She wasn’t trained to fly, but she coordinated the communications loop so he wouldn’t have to. She turned toward him. “Director Larkin is online now.”

Before becoming the director of the NCIS, Michael Larkin had been a homicide cop and then division leader in New York City. His record and his no-nonsense handling of cases and personnel had won him his current position. Although they sometimes butted heads over procedure-especially in regard to the military way of handling things-Will liked and trusted the man.

“Will,” Larkin said quietly.

“Sir,” Will responded as he made an altitude adjustment. “Sorry to interrupt your trip.”

“It’s all right. I’m just glad we’ve got phone service out here.” Larkin had gone on a family fishing trip, and they were currently staying at a cabin in Cape Hatteras along the Atlantic shoreline. “How’s Shel?”

“I can’t tell you anything more than Maggie did, sir. Remy said the OR took Shel back about twenty minutes ago. We haven’t gotten any word yet.”

“Remy said it looked bad.”

“Shel’s been through worse.” Will had kept telling himself that from the moment after he’d received the news.

“I guess what I really want to know is how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine.”

“One of your men is in the OR,” Larkin said. “I know you’re not fine.”

Will silently admitted that. Shel’s getting shot, the severity of it, created painful echoes of the loss of Frank Billings. Frank had served with Will aboard the aircraft carrier where he had made commander, then followed him into the NCIS billet. When the business in South Korea had started up, Frank had been the first casualty Will’s team had ever suffered.

The only casualty, Will amended. God willing.

“I’m fine as I can be, sir.” Will stared through the plane’s Plexiglas windows and listened to the even throb of the dual engines. “There’s going to be some confusion in Charlotte.”

“I understand that. Apparently my answering service has already received several phone calls from Special Agent-in-Charge Urlacher. I take it he’s the point man on the confusion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did he get involved?”

Swiftly, with cool efficiency despite the tension inside him, Will relayed the story.

“Urlacher is trying to flip Victor Gant on his opium supplier,” Larkin said when Will finished.

“That’s the way I understood it.”

“Well,” Larkin said, “I suppose there’s not much chance of that now, is there?”

“No.”

“The rest of it, whatever Urlacher’s business is with Victor Gant, doesn’t concern us.”

“No, sir,” Will agreed. “I’m just going to Charlotte to bring Shel home.”

“Do that, Will,” Larkin said. “I’ll keep Urlacher off your back. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Larkin broke the connection.

“Will.”

Will glanced at Maggie.

“I’ve got Shel’s brother, Don, on the line. I still haven’t gotten an answer at Shel’s father’s house.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Will said.