CHAPTER 19

Kent Island, Maryland
 
“Dad, where are we going?” Zavier enquired.

“We were supposed to go out with the fishermen today.” Michael added.

“I was going to catch a YUGE fish, that would take up the entire freezer!” Zavier said, with his arms outstretched showing how big his would-be catch would have been.

Victor looked at his sons with a half head tilt, the way fathers do when their kids are acting up. “General Lyons has an important job for you two boys.”

Both of the boys looked worried as they wondered what kind of work they would be doing. “But why isn’t Curtis coming?” Michael asked, trying to share the misery with their older brother.

“Curtis has also been tasked by General Lyons with an important assignment.” Victor explained as he continued to walk forward, with an injured limp. “This is a very important job that could possibly save a lot of lives, mine included.”

Michael and Zavier looked at each other nervously, both dreading such a serious job that threatened of hard work. Then their ears perked up at a distant sound. “Are there dogs on this island?” Zavier asked.

“Our good friend Kevin in Lake City, has made an astonishing discovery.” Victor informed his sons. “Apparently, Grays fear K9s. And we are going to exploit that as a tactical advantage.”

Continuing up the road, they rounded a corner leading them to a doggie-daycare facility. “The Ranger unit assigned to guard USAMIIR has an experienced K9 handler that asked for assistance in training additional mission dogs. Do you boys want to help train these dogs to be Gray sniffers?” Victor asked.

Now thrilled with the idea of working with dogs, Zavier and Michael couldn’t hold in their excitement. “How long do we get to play with the dogs?” Michael asked.

“You’re not hear to play with them, you are here to teach them. But sometimes that goes hand in paw.”  Victor said smiling. “Get it? Hand in hand. Hand in paw? Never mind. But to answer your question, this will be your full-time job. Hopefully more dogs will be rescued from the cities, we will also need to start breeding them, so we will have a constant need for training.”

They continued towards the kennels where they met the Army Ranger who wore glasses and an impressive beard, way out of Army regulation.

“Hello” Michael said shaking his hand. “Michael and Zavier are reporting for duty.”

Victor also shook the soldier’s hand.

“Nice to meet you gentleman, my name is Derek. I’ll be teaching you how to train our K9s to be Gray radars. Our working dogs will be able to tell us when the infected are in the area way ahead of time which will give us a tactical buffer to hide or prepare to fight.” The Ranger told them.

“What kind of dogs do you have?” Zavier asked.

“Right now, we have some Labrador Retrievers, some German Shepherds and a Belgian Malinois. They are very good at being detection dogs. The Labs are a little easier to train, but the Shepherds are more protective in the field.” Derek told them as they toured the kennels.

“Why are Labs easier to train? Do they have better noses for smelling?” Michael asked.

“Oh no, they both have great sniffers. Blood hounds have the best noses, but they're too dumb for this kind of work. Blood hounds bark a lot and run directly towards a scent, and that wouldn’t do us much good in the field. You can imagine how that would turn out.” Derek said, shaking his head. “Golden retrievers also have great noses, but they are too snobby to be a working dog.

“We don’t use any sort of negative punishment. When the trainees do what we ask of them, we reward them with positive reinforcement. The best reward for Labs, is a kibble treat and the Shepherd’s reward is play time, like playing fetch. It’s just easier and less time-consuming during training to reward the Labs with food than take time to toss the ball with the Shepherds.”

“That can be my job!” Zavier offered enthusiastically. “I like playing with dogs.”

“And that, is precisely why you are here.” Derek said smiling. “But training isn’t all play time, there’s a lot of work to ensure they stay healthy and clean. You boys will help with that as well.”

Knowing what Derek had meant, Michael pointed to Zavier, “He likes picking up dog poop too!”
“No I don’t!” Zavier denied.

“Alright you boys, behave. Listen to Derek, he’s in charge.” Victor instructed them. “Work them as late as you need too.” He told Derek, then left them to learn their new duties.
 
----------BREAK----------
 
Frank had been a political campaign manager in DC when the world went dark. It had been a stressful job that had stolen many years of his life, and he did not miss it one bit.

His short and unsuccessful career in the CIA had been a dream job fresh out of Harvard University, that he had flushed down the toilet. While working as a case officer in Moscow, Frank had socialized pretty hard on the weekends. He rationalized in his mind that he was studying the indigenous culture, when in all actuality it was Russian FSB (Federal Security Service) that had been studying him.

An unmarked manila envelope had been slid under his apartment door in the late hours of the night while he slept. The envelope contained photos of him snorting cocaine in a night club’s VIP room. Unknown to him he had been surrounded by Russian FSB counterintelligence officers.

Had Frank confessed to being compromised right away, he would have been transferred to a less desirable duty station for a few years with a bad performance evaluation. But instead, he burnt the photos, and carried on at work like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately for Frank, one of the FSB agents at the nightclub, was also a paid CIA informant who snitched on him resulting in an immediate termination with loss of his security clearance, pension, everything. Because of the non-disclosure agreement, he could not even mention the agency on his resume.

But in DC, work is easy to find for ivy-league graduates who were morally flexible professionals, like Frank. He landed a temp job working for an incumbent Senator’s campaign who was projected for an easy reelection victory. It was then, that Frank learned the many faces of campaigning that were compartmentalized better than classified programs that he had worked for in the agency.

 The official face of a campaign, is a respectable public image painted by snappy slogans, colorful websites, perfectly produced commercials, rehearsed media interviews, designer yard signs, etc. And then there was the ugly clandestine unofficial side of the campaign, that was brutally cut-throat. Opponent spying, espionage, misinformation planting, false flag operations, yellow journalism, was all normal practice during a typical campaign. If the polls were +/- a percentage point, then standard procedure intensified with tactics that could land campaign agents in federal prison forever if caught. But election winners write the history books, and losers fade away with tales of cheating conspiracy theories.

When it came to personal political leaning, in the past Frank had voted in favor of an aggressive globalist agenda that aligned with his federal employers. After he looked behind the campaigning curtain, he realized both political parties were unethical to the very core. If a politician held any decent values at all, they simply could not survive a campaign season.

On election night, after months and months of intense battles fighting for fractions of public popularity percentages, Frank would celebrate the campaign climax buried in a pile of cocaine and teenage college interns. He didn’t even bother watching the election results on TV, because he honestly didn’t care. After a few relaxing months’ vacationing and deep water fishing on the Chesapeake Bay, he would jump onto another political campaign for the best paying candidate that would fund his drug addiction.

Frank had been at this exact same spot July 4th when the EMP attack hit. The only difference was that he didn’t have a boat full of intoxicated bikini wearing women. Besides that, minor lonely inconvenience, Frank preferred his new apocalypse life. A fishing hobby had made him a wealthy and popular man on Kent Island. His previous much smaller fishing boat, that had eventually drifted down the Chesapeake Bay and out to sea after the Dark Day, had been replaced with a beautiful forty-two-foot luxurious Scout 420 outrigger.

No more worries about paying an absurd mortgage for a house barely within commuting range to work. No more forgetting to pay the utility bills. No more keeping up with the latest and greatest mobile devices. No more social media or network media. All in all, he was living carefree.

And to top off his apocalypse dream life, the last remaining politician in DC was fulfilling his drug habit. Compared to campaign work in the past, his current political assignment was simple. All he needed to do was visit one of the four predetermined dead-drops per week. Dead-drop number one was used in the first week of the month, dead-drop number two’s location was used in the second week of the month, and so on.

Frank was cruising north up the Potomac towards the DC area being propelled by quad Mercury outboards offering fourteen hundred total horsepower. The four dead drops were all located near the river in the Arlington / Alexandria area. Dead-drops were all residential mailboxes that could hold larger packages that would contain the propaganda script to inject into the Kent Island community and a cocaine baggie. The amount of cocaine was determined by the information value reported by the fisherman.

All Frank had to do was jot down some notes about the community and military activities and wallah: it’s party time! He didn’t see what harm it could do, the island was established and only getting better. The only working community on the east coast, that he was aware of, wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If anything, whomever he was giving the information to, would probably govern the community better than the military dictator General Lyons.
 
----------BREAK----------
 
“So, how was work today boys?” Erica asked, setting a pitcher filled with a gritty mixture of MRE grape flavored beverage powder, onto the dining table. “Be sure to wash your hands before we eat.”
​
“I like our new job!” Zavier yelled from the bathroom while he quickly rinsed off his hands.

“It’s an interesting training regimen. The process is more detailed than I would have thought.” Michael said, sitting down at the table. “Not only do we have to teach them normal obedience commands, like; heel, stay, sit, and all of that, but we need to teach them the unique scent of Grays.”

“Do Grays smell differently than humans?” Victor asked.

“They do. I don’t know if the dogs smell a unique body odor, or the infections itself?” Michael said, pondering the question.

“Is that possible?” Erica asked.

“Dog are known to detect cancers and other disease in humans. Since the Gray disease is so unique, the K9s can easily dissect the scent. In fact, Gen 1s and Gen 2s smell differently also” Michael concluded.

“Yeah! Derek said that the dogs can smell in layers. Like when you make us cookies and I can smell them from the park. Well, the dogs can smell the specific ingredients in the cookie like sugar, flour, chocolate, and eggs all separately but at the same time!” Zavier proudly regurgitated his new knowledge.

“Did you know that the smelling sense makes up thirty-five percent of a dog’s brain, compared to only five percent for humans.” Michael continued enthusiastically. “And that humans have six million olfactory receptors in our nose, while dogs have three hundred million!”

“Yeah. That’s like, a whole lot more than us.” Zavier injected, nodding his head smartly.

“Sounds like you are learning a lot. Did you get to start any training today?” Victor asked, reaching for a glass of sugary grape drink.

“Yup, Derek has dogs in all phases of training. We started by introducing the target scent to the young dogs and then we would feed them a snack, just for smelling it. Derek said after a while, when the dogs get that scent, they will start salivating like Zavier does with cookies.” Michael said.

Zavier nodded his head. “I kind of feel bad though, the dogs don’t get a meal like we do, the only time they get to eat is when they get the scent.”

“But the reward is how they learn. If they are hungry, they are always hunting for the scent.” Michael reinforced. “So, the next phase is, we hide the scent in a row of empty coffee cans and then walk the dog by the row of cans. The dogs will always stop at the can with the scent, and then we feed them, or give them their toy if we are working with the Shepherds.”

“What happens if they stop at an empty can that doesn’t have the proper scent?” Curtis asked, genuinely intrigued.

“We don’t reward them, only when they find the correct can.” Zavier answered.

“At the next phase, we add more empty cans, and when the dog finds the scent, we tell them to sit while looking at the target can.” Michael said. “After a while, they get into the habit and automatically sit when they find the scent.”

“Why is sitting the preferred alert signal?” Victor had always wondered that.

“Derek said that is easily identifiable when in the field. Laying down might be confused when the dog is tired. When dogs are searching for explosives, you want them to be close enough to identify where the bomb is, but don’t want the dog to paw at the device that could accidently detonate, so sitting is the best signal.” Michael said proudly.

“It’s funny too, because when the dogs find a scent, even though it belongs to a dangerous Gray, they get excited and start wagging their tail and drooling because they know they’re going to get a treat.” Zavier said giggling.

“Kind of like you, when I tell you to wash your hands before dinner?” Erica said teasing.

“So tomorrow do you want to go fishing on the cold bay, or keep the K9 training job?” Victor asked, already knowing the answer.