Tracker by James Rollins Page A

two smaller figures, entered from a street to the north. They were all dressed in trench coats. The leader was black haired, well over six feet, hugely muscled, and, from the prominent pocking over his face, a chronic abuser of anabolic steroids.
    Tucker noted bulges under the trench coats that suggested concealed weapons.
    The woman didn’t notice the group, her eyes glancing right over them.
    So she knew someone might be looking for her, but she didn’t have the skill or knowledge to pick them out. Yet she had the instinct to stay around other people.
    She hurried past his location, a whiff of jasmine left in her wake.
    Kane tilted his nose up to her scent.
    She headed toward the doors of the massive Matthias Church, with its towering stone-laced gothic spire and fourteenth-century reliefs depicting the Virgin Mary’s death. The doors were still open, waiting for the last of the day’s tourists to straggle out. She headed inside, casting a final look around before ducking past the threshold.
    Tucker finished his coffee, left a tip, and stood. He grabbed Kane’s leash and exited just as the trio of hunters swept past. As he followed them, bundled in his jacket and coat, he heard the tallest of the three give quick orders in Hungarian.
    Local thugs.
    Tucker shadowed the group as they moved toward the church. One of the three glanced back at him, but Tucker knew what he would see.
    A man in his late twenties, taller than average, sandy blond hair worn a little shaggy, walking a dog outfitted in a brown sweater. Tucker hid some of his muscled height by slumping his shoulders and hunching down. His clothing was already nondescript: worn jeans, a battered olive green coat, a wool cap tugged low. He knew not to avoid eye contact—that raised as much suspicion as staring. So he merely nodded politely back and showed disinterest.
    As the other turned around, Tucker touched his nose and ticked his finger toward the mountain of a man in the middle.
    Acquire that one’s scent.
    Kane had a vocabulary of a thousand words, understood a hundred hand gestures, making the dog an extension of himself. The shepherd trotted forward, sniffing behind the man, close to his heels, nose near the edge of the trench coat.
    Tucker pretended to ignore his partner’s efforts, staring off across the square.
    Once Kane secured what he needed, the dog dropped back and waited for the next command. His ears remained stiff, his tail high, expressing his alertness.
    As the trio reached the church, more orders were passed brusquely in Hungarian, and the group split up, spreading out to cover the exits.
    Tucker stepped over to a park bench, crouched down next to Kane, and tied the end of the leash loosely around its iron leg but unclipped the other end. He merely tucked it in place behind Kane’s collar, making it look as if the dog were secured there.
    Next, he slid his fingers under the brown sweater to the camouflaged K9 Storm tactical vest. It was waterproof and Kevlar reinforced. His fingers flicked on the built-in camera and snaked up its fiber-optic lens, smaller than a pencil eraser, hiding it between the dog’s pricked ears.
    “Stay,” he ordered.
    Kane sat in the deep shadows of the church, just another dog waiting for the return of its master.
    With a final scratch at his partner’s ear, ensuring the Bluetooth earpiece was secure, Tucker leaned forward, bringing his face close to his dog’s. It was a ritual of theirs.
    “Who’s a good boy?”
    Kane reached his cold nose forward and touched his.
    That’s right. You are.
    A tail thumped good-bye as Tucker straightened. Turning, he watched the huge man stride toward the church’s main entrance with the full confidence of a hunter whose prey had been trapped.
    He followed, freeing his modified cell phone—courtesy of the military, as was the tactical vest, both stolen when he had left the service. For that matter, so was Kane. But after what had happened at that village outside