Lee Child - MatchUp

“Max.”

The dog barked in recognition.

“Last name?”

Nothing.

“Date of birth?”

A curious look.

“Any prior arrests?”

More silence.

“Don’t lie to me, Max.”

The dog barked.

So it had come to this.

Talking to a dog.

He looked closely at the tag and saw the owner’s name. Bennie Rosato. There was no address, but there was a phone number with a 215 area code, which was Philadelphia. The dog certainly had not walked here from Philly, so the owner had to be in the area.

He sat cross-legged on the deck, looking into Max’s big liquid eyes. The dog stared back as if to say, You’re a nice human, but I’m lost and looking for my owner.

He punched Bennie Rosato’s number into his phone and petted the dog while it rang in his ear. There was static on the line, which meant that cell reception was weak. The call went to voice mail and a default computer voice said, “You have reached the cell phone of Bennie Rosato. Please leave a message at the beep.”

He waited for the signal, then said, “Mister Rosato, my name is John Corey and I think I found your golden retriever, Max, at Lake Wha . . . the lake. He’s safe and sound. Call me at this number.”

He hung up and said to Max, “That should do it.”

It was possible that Max would run off again. Then when Mr. Rosato called, he’d have to say, Sorry, pal, your dog skipped out. So he went inside the cabin and found a ball of twine in a junk drawer. He returned to the deck and tied the twine around Max’s collar and started to tie it to the rail. Then he had another thought.

“Maybe you could find your owner. You’re a retriever. Right?”

A bark seemed to agree with the observation.

“Okay, let’s take a walk while we’re waiting for the phone call.”

With Max at the end of the makeshift leash, he stepped from the deck and allowed the dog to lead him toward the lake. Then they turned left toward the other lit cabin a few hundred yards away. The shoreline was rocky and strewn with glacial boulders, and Max seemed easily distracted by any scent that he picked up, so they weren’t making much progress.

“Not much of a bloodhound, are you?”

Max seemed insulted.

“Sorry.”

He started to realize this was not a good idea. The dog was more interested in nature than in finding his owner, plus it was getting dark and cold and he was wearing only a sweatshirt. Also, he’d left his Glock on the kitchen table. Max was pulling at the leash, trying to ferret out something between two boulders.

“We’re going back,” he said.

But Max had become disobedient and pulled at his twine leash, which might snap.

“Come on. I’ll find you a dead squirrel for dinner.”

But Max wasn’t listening and he found himself out in the cold, dark night, unarmed and alone except for a hyper dog. This was how small bad decisions lead to big bad consequences. He pictured the headline in the New York Post.

“Bear Eats Fed.”

His instinct was to let the animal go and head back to his cabin. But he’d called Rosato, so he at least had to keep Max with him. The dog was lapping water from the lake, then he raised his hind leg and pissed.

He noticed that Max was now looking up the slope at the lighted cabin in the distance. “Is that where you live, boy? Where’s Bennie, Max? Let’s go find Bennie.”

The dog barked and began trotting along the shore toward the cabin.

“Good boy. Go to Bennie.”

Max tugged at his leash and Corey trotted along behind him toward the lit cabin.

He redialed Rosato’s number as he walked, but it went to voice mail again and he ended the call without leaving another message.

It was getting colder, and he was tired from the long drive, and he was feeling naked without his gun.

A thought popped into his head.

No good deed goes unpunished.

“MAX,” BENNIE CALLED OUT, AS she tore through the woods, frantic.

She waved her flashlight back and forth but didn’t see him in the thick brush. Max had been with her on the back deck, but she’d forgotten about him when Declan had called.

Tree branches tore at her bare skin since she was clad only in a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. A wave of guilt washed over her and she was afraid for Max’s life. She’d only had the golden retriever a few months, but she loved him and so did Declan. They’d rescued him together, and she couldn’t lose him up here in the middle of nowhere.

“Max.”

But heard no barking or panting anywhere.

The woods surrounding her were dense, dark, and cold, and she kept her hands out in front, clearing the branches with her hands. She wondered if Max had gone to the other house, the only lighted one on the lake, so she headed toward it in the distance. She kept going, threading her way through the pines and fall foliage. She felt her forearms getting scratched and cut, and she almost tripped on some tree roots, but she kept going, deeper and deeper. The lights of the cabin slowly became brighter and bigger, and she knew she was getting closer.

She called the dog’s name again and again, feeling tears come to her eyes. Anything could happen to him in these woods. Max was just a goofball, like most golden retrievers. They trusted everybody and loved everything. Plus he was a city dog and he had no idea what was going on in the country. She’d had him on a leash earlier because he’d been so distracted by all the different smells, and he’d gone nuts when he’d seen a squirrel.

She tripped, almost falling to the ground, which was when she realized something. The light was closer but she didn’t see the lake anymore. Somehow, when she’d teared up, she’d become turned around in the woods, drifting away from the lake, which was a mistake.

She whirled around in the darkness, casting the jittery cone of light around her in a circle. Which only confirmed her fear. The lake was nowhere in sight and she was surrounded on all sides by woods. If she wasn’t headed toward the lighted lake house anymore, where was she going? But there were lights ahead, and maybe Max was there.

She took a few steps through the trees, heading toward whatever lights they were, but something made her slow her step and proceed with caution. She found herself lowering the flashlight, then switching it off, because whatever she had reached in the middle of nowhere was putting out a lot of electricity.

But it wasn’t a house at all.

She remained motionless, peering out at the scene from behind a tree. The light was coming from a pole-mounted floodlight, which cast a harsh brightness on a clearing. All the trees had been cut down and the land leveled around a large modular building, like a windowless storage shed, but the strangest thing was that the building was covered with camouflage netting. A black pickup was parked outside the shed, and she thought it was running, but then she realized she was hearing the hum of a generator.

She’d been a criminal lawyer long enough to know when she was seeing trouble. The shed was in the middle of a thick forest, it had its own generator, and was camouflaged. She wondered if this was drug related, a meth lab, or maybe stolen goods. It was some kind of clandestine operation, and for a moment she wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to call 911 until she was safely out of the area. And she didn’t want to get out of the area until she was sure Max wasn’t near the building.

Or inside it.

She ducked down as the woods were suddenly swept with bright high beams, and she watched as another black pickup pulled into view from a dirt road on the other side of the camouflaged shed. She realized she was wearing a white T-shirt and flattened herself on the ground so she wouldn’t be easy to spot.