Page 57 of Static/Cling

“I might have… well.” He sighed. “I told him we’re going to find a bad guy, and I was going to throw his ball, and he had to run after it and bring it back.”

“Stupid dog,” Sal muttered.

“No. Not his fault. I didn’t explicitly say bring the ball back. I said ‘it.’ He maybe went to bring the bad guy back.”

“What bad guy?” Kassian growled. “There is no bad guy.”

“There’s always a bad guy.”

“But this mission?—”

“Dogs know bad guys,” Roger interrupted. “And this is an army base. He’ll find one.”

“Oh, for fuck sakes.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Leif said. “It accomplished what we wanted, and eventually, that other guard will bring the dog back to you, and you take it into the conservation area and wait for us.”

“Roger that.”

“Roger, Roger,” Kassian muttered, unable to keep the affection out of his voice, as exasperated as he was.

“We have bigger issues right now,” Leif reminded him. “We can’t just sit here forever. We have to find a spot where you can break cover and go inside, use that fake ID to get into wherever you have to, retrieve the file and get the hell out.”

“I know the plan.”

“So.”

“Fine. You two, stay put. I’ll go see where I can get in.”

“Maybe you should stay together,” Sal said.

“Too dangerous for all of us to be moving around if we don’t have to. Better for me to go and find a place I can break cover and act like I belong here. That’s the whole point, right?”

“Yes.”

“Sal.” Kassian turned his back on Leif and Bjorn, though they would still be able to hear him. “Take a breath. Roger is fine. He’s under guard. Nothing can happen to him. As far as they’re concerned, he’s some yahoo who can’t control his dog, yeah?”

“Heisa yahoo who can’t control his dog.”

“Sal,” Leif said, “give him a break. He said himself he’s not fluent.”

“Yeah but ‘it’? He couldn’t have been more specific?”

“Let’s just deal with where we are, yeah?”

“Yeah.” They sniffed. “Yes. Of course. Kassian, there’s a storeroom along the back wall. You can probably slip out of thehedges there and take the covered path that leads towards the main building.”

“How do you know where anything is inside a secret military base we didn’t even know existed yesterday?” Bjorn asked.

“Nobody works at SPAM by accident,” Sal said. “Kassian? You ready?”

Having been reassured that Roger would be fine, Sal was back to all business.

“Lead on, Sal. I’ve got this.”

“We’re just going to let him go?” Bjorn asked. “Alone?”

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