Code Name: Baby by Christina Skye Read Free Book Online

little surge of satisfaction when Baby rolled over calmly in a gesture of trust, raising her head to meet his hand. The animals were well nourished and superbly groomed. Their coats were thick and smooth, their eyes clear. According to Ryker, none of the government’s in-house labs had produced dogs with anything close to Kit’s record of health and growth rate. Wolfe made a mental note to check the ingredients of the new food mix she had developed. He had already sent back photographs with a 12X zoom and detailed notes about her training methods. Clearly she deserved her excellent reputation.
    Ryker wanted to know how a civilian working alone in an isolated and meagerly equipped location could outperform highly paid scientists in state-of-the-art facilities. Some people were convinced that Kit’s parents had stumbled across a food additive to enhance the dogs’ training speed. Others had called it blind luck. For his part, standing face to face with Kit’s dogs, Wolfe suspected a different process was at work.
    Kit didn’t hesitate to crawl through the dirt on her stomach to show a six-month old puppy how to be silent in the brush. She didn’t hold back a laugh of pure glee when she jumped from a ladder into a mound of straw with two wriggling dogs in her arms. She offered unquestioning loyalty and her animals responded in kind.
    Wolfe wasn’t a scientist, but he sensed that Kit herself was the secret ingredient.
    He looked up to the scrutiny of chocolate-colored eyes. Baby continued to study him for what felt like a lifetime, sniffing his hand. Damn if Wolfe didn’t feel as if he’d been scanned, analyzed and dissected from forehead to big toe.
    When Baby nudged his leg, Wolfe winced. She was a little too close to the jagged cut he’d received during his insertion jump from a military chopper north of Taos. But he didn’t pull away, sensing the dog’s concentration.
    Seconds later Baby was nudged aside first by Diesel, then by Butch and Sundance. Each dog sniffed the area on his thigh where he had been wounded. When they were finally done investigating, they drew back into a motionless line.
    The seconds stretched out. Wolfe felt the dogs’ concentration grow.
    What in the hell was going on? Why did he feel as if he was being ruthlessly analyzed all over again? Suddenly Wolfe realized it was his wound that fascinated the dogs, possibly because they sensed something unusual—or familiar—about his blood chemistry. Another observation to go into his report to Ryker.
    Across the room, Kit twisted suddenly. Still asleep, she kicked free of her cover, her hand hitting the remote on the side table.
    The images on the screen multiplied, twelve small boxes of the same street scene.
    Curious, Wolfe moved closer. He’d never seen a complicated TV screen like this one. Back at the lab, facilities were tight and schedules strict. Training constantly, the team members had little time for entertainment, since they had to be able to deploy at a moment’s notice, day or night.
    It was fair to say that he had missed a few things, given his lifestyle. With Baby by his leg, he followed images of tanks rumbling through the streets of Paris. Against the haunting chords of a piano, he saw Humphrey Bogart’s ashen face when he was left alone for a second time.
    War was hell, all right. Wolfe could identify with that.
    Kit twisted again. Her other hand hit the remote, changing the display to one small box in the bottom corner of the screen.
    Fascinated by the technology, Wolfe picked up the remote and sat down in the far chair while he studied the unfamiliar control. He could rig complicated trigger units for every kind of explosive device, so he figured this equipment wouldn’t be much of a problem.
    He touched one of the buttons.
    The action froze on the big screen.
    He touched another button. In seconds he’d worked out how to resume action, mute the audio and