I stripped off my lightweight long sleeved shirt and stood by the truck in a t-shirt to don my XTREME body armor vest. I hate wearing it since it doesn’t breathe well and makes me sweat like a whore in church. However, I’d rather be sweaty than dead. I pulled my outer shirt back on and gave my damp forehead a good wipe with the sleeve. Whenever someone asks me why I wear a long sleeved shirt when trailing my dogs no matter how hot it is, I can’t think of a nice short answer to best respond to their question. Besides protecting me from bug bites and scratches from branches, it works great for wiping sweat off my forehead. I usually just grab the sleeve in my fist and wipe my nose with it as a reason for them; just like a little kid would do. I know that’s rude, but it makes them go away quickly and that’s usually what I wanted in the first place.

When they were ready for us at the wall from where the bricks had been taken, I asked the evidence technician to open the parcel containing the blood and tissue painted rocks. He then handed me a Zip-Lock baggie containing a smaller fragment of the scent article for me to carry along. I harnessed up Scout away from him and popped up and down on it a few times to rile her up as I asked her, "You wanna’ go get someone? You wanna go get him, girl?" She immediately began bouncing on the heat soaked patio and her pupils dilated in excitement. When she was sufficiently aware that we were going to be working a case, I brought her back over to him. Tony placed his hand on my right shoulder and gave it a squeeze to let me know he was ready. She gave the tech’s leg a good sniff then turned to the package in his hands. I gave her the command, "Find ‘em!!" and we were off.

I let her start at a run then slowly brought her back to a fast walk/ slow jog. This was the pace we’d work on all terrain providing good footing for now. We descended the mountain in a weaving pattern, Scout’s nose staying about 12" off the ground. As the first five miles passed quickly, I was startled to hear Santiago call out to me in a low voice, "Break!". I gave Scout the command to "Wait", and she reluctantly stopped. As we were in a clearing, I brought her over to some trees and tied her to one with her trailing lead. I attached the other end of the lead to her collar and removed her harness so I could wet her down. Sometimes, wetting her down made her work even harder despite the heat as it kept her cooler. Even though the sun had descended, the temperature was hovering at about 80 degrees.

Brown called in our location from the coordinates that Santiago provided to him, while I poured water for Scout into a collapsible watering bowl. She lapped her water greedily, and I waited 5 minutes before giving her more. I didn’t want her to bloat on the water, but I needed her to take in enough to prevent dehydration and hyperthermia. After 15 minutes, she’d had her fill and we were rested and ready to go again. Brown called out on the radio to inform them that we were resuming the search.

Tony’s hand fell back to my shoulder, and Scout was restarted on the trail. She took off along the same wandering path for about one more mile where she stopped to check out an area by some bushes. I told her to "Leave it!" and resume working the trail. If it was a critter she was checking out, she would have stopped goofing around immediately and continued trailing. Instead, she continued to work the area. As it was now totally dark, I switched on my head lamp to illuminate the area. Cielita came up to our position and investigated what Scout had found while I pulled her back. Lying in a pile under the brush were some bloody strips of cloth and a granola bar wrapper. Santiago fixed the coordinates for us so Brown could call the other members of the team to come secure the area. We couldn’t be sure that the bloody cloths belonged to the killer, but something had happened there to catch Scout’s attention. The way she circled the area once we restarted the trail led me to believe that this was a pool of scent from our quarry, but until I could ask him and know for sure, I wasn’t placing any bets just yet.

We continued for another hour through twisting paths and around fallen trees. It was hard trailing through the thick brush in the dark. We couldn’t turn on our head lamps because they would indicate our position to snipers. Santiago called out for us to "Break", which is where we stopped. As Bo was being brought to us, along with more water to replenish our reserves, Tony and I sat with our backs against some trees, legs outstretched. He and I both wiped sweat from our brows and panted just as hard as Scout did. When Tony spoke I was a little surprised. I had never heard this many words spoken from him in one stream, and certainly nothing before that would qualify as conversational speech.

"I run everyday at the track. Twenty miles every day. Here we are, only 10 miles into this trail, just jogging and walking, and I’m wiped out! Guess that’s what being 40 will do to you, eh?" His panting breath punctuated his speech leaving small breaks between the sentences.

I smiled wearily. "Hon, that’s a flat surface in running shoes. Look at us. We’re jogging up and down a mountain in Hi-Tec boots that weigh about 3 pounds each. We also aren’t doing this after a nice 8 hours of sleep. You’re doing fine. Hey, I’m not in the best of shape either, ok?" I added for good measure.

I could hear a vehicle moving about a half mile north of us and realized our troops were on the way after having found a service road to get closer to us. About 10 minutes later, I saw Bo Diddley crashing through the trees, dragging a poor agent behind him who was barely remaining on his feet. When Bo Diddley caught sight of me I realized he was going to kill his handler by dragging him to his death so I yelled at him to let go of the leash. I knew my dog would come right for me. As soon as the grateful agent released the leash, Bo Diddley flew to me to smother me in kisses then proceeded to work Scout over well for good measure.

My dogs love each other and the joy in their hearts when they saw each other was palpable. One of the agents came up to Tony and I and his excitement couldn’t escape our attention. By some miracle of charter flights and couriers, several sets of Night Vision helmets had been shipped to us. The agents brought over the green duffel bags and quickly unzipped them for us to inspect our new found treasures. Never to be left out on any occasion where gifts were involved, both Scout and Bo Diddley shoved several agents out of their way to inspect the duffel bags. I let them get a good sniff in then told them to get back so we could see what goodies we had coming to us. If you’ve ever seen a child be the last kid to be picked for a ball team, you’ll know what a Bloodhound looks like when they realize there are no gifts for them— just the humans. I’m a sucker for a sad face, so I reached into my sweat soaked pocket for some elk jerky to give them. With a goodie in their mouths, all was forgiven.

A quick look at these NV "helmets" assured me that I was looking at equipment not yet available to the general public. "Cool beans!" I exclaimed softly under my breath. The small opera-style glasses clipped onto my own eyeglasses and couldn’t have weighed more than an ounce. A strap stretched across the top of my head, while two others went over each ear to meet the top strap behind my head. Tony helped me adjust the lightweight device to my head so that it wouldn’t slip down my face like my glasses tended to. I’m afraid to wear contacts, if you must know. There’s just something about sticking a piece of plastic onto my eyeballs that gives me the willies.

Tony guided my hand to a switch on the side of the left lens which turned on the device. All of a sudden the world was presented to me in a sea of bright green. I shut my eyes quickly and told him it was too bright. Tony again gently guided my hand to a small dial below the switch. By turning it, I could filter out much of the light to see clearly and without being blinded. I looked around me at the men and women gathered before me adjusting their own equipment. I was again marveled by what I still think is impossible. An NV device magnifies the ambient light from the stars, reflections, etc... It magnifies it as much as desired to cause you to see in what appears to be almost daylight conditions. One of the big drawbacks was that everyone and everything appeared in a sickly shade of green, similar to Frankenstein. Never had I used such a small and lightweight version of NV.

The last time I had NV gear provided to me I was in the Ukraine. The Special Forces guys lent me a Kevlar helmet with an attached NV scope which only covered my left eye. I had to keep my right eye shut or I’d fall on my face when walking. That helmet weighed about eight pounds and as anyone knows, Kevlar does NOT retain heat well. We were trailing in 15 degree Fahrenheit temperatures with a wind-chill of about minus 20. I felt like I had an eight pound block of ice on my head for the duration of the trail. That day proved to me that there was a kind and merciful God. The trail was only 3 miles long and led right to our suspect who gave up quickly. When it’s that cold outside, even prisoners wanted to stay in their cells, grateful for the heat.

These nifty devices allowed me to use both my eyes and not lose my depth perception at all. A conservative estimate placed the value of my new headgear at about $100,000. Oh I was going to baby that gear like my paycheck depended on it. I also started thinking of ways to get one of these suckers to take home with me.

I geared up Bo Diddley, then knelt down to say goodbye to Scout. I hated saying goodbye to my dogs on a trail like this. I never knew when I would see them again and always wondered if they knew I was scared about it. Scout nuzzled my neck and gave me a good sliming before being led off to the waiting vehicles. After the others left our company and we were left to our mission, I knelt down next to Bo Diddley. I took a deep breath and whispered to him what we were doing and why. There’s a trainer in the states who routinely does this, and he says it helps get the dogs to work harder for you. It may be an old wives tale or it may be a fact, but this man I respected and felt blessed to have learned from. Bo Diddley was still too young to understand the enormity and seriousness of what we were doing. He always felt people should be happy to see him, and had to be watched when we got closer to suspects. Bo Diddley also didn’t understand that the noise at the gun range could have a bullet attached to it with his name on it. I understood that though and again wished I could get Kevlar protection for my Bloodhounds. An agent can be replaced easily. A handler can usually be replaced with a simple phone call. A great trailing dog is irreplaceable and priceless.