Burning Man Read Free Page A

a perfect spot in which to hole up, offering up a barrier to anyone seeking entrance. As we crawled closer, Sirius began doing his pointer imitation. He knew where his prey was. We moved another five feet forward. I wanted to be as close to my partner as possible when I sent him in. You never let your partner hang out to dry.
    We stopped and listened. Growing ever closer was the raging fire. It was difficult hearing anything over its roars. I raised myself from a crouch and gave the command that Sirius had been waiting for: “ Geh voraus !” Go ahead!
    Sirius charged into the undergrowth. I saw a blur of black and tan, and then out of the darkness it looked as if there was a rapid blinking of red eyes. I threw myself to the ground; someone was shooting at us.
    “ Fass !” I screamed. “ Fass !”
    People are always surprised to hear that police dogs need to be taught to bite. Thousands of years of domestication and breeding have taken the bite out of Bowser, but by using bite suits and training, and essentially making the biting into a game, K-9 handlers can reverse a dog’s inhibition to biting humans. I was calling for Sirius to bite. If there’d been a command to tear offthe Strangler’s head, I would have been shouting for that. My partner heard the urgency in my voice and tore through the chamisa.
    More shots rang out, at least a half dozen in rapid succession, and then I heard a man screaming “Call him off! Call him off!”
    By the panicked quavering of his screams, I knew he was being shaken around like a rag doll. I had been on the receiving end of attacking police dogs dozens of times, and I was always glad that the padding of the bite suit was between their teeth and me. It was a humbling—and frightening—experience to be in the grip of those jaws.
    The shaky screams grew even louder. The man was afraid he was going to be eaten alive.
    “ Pass auf !” I shouted; Sirius was now being told to guard.
    The screaming stopped but not the whimpering. Sirius would stay clamped down on the suspect and not let him move.
    I patted around for the dropped Maglite and found it. Only after starting to rise did I realize that blood was flowing down my leg. “Shit,” I said. I was hit. The adrenaline that was still pumping had masked the pain. That wouldn’t last, I knew. I was afraid of what the light would reveal and started sucking down air. What I saw made me breathe a little easier. The bullet had struck my upper thigh but missed my femoral artery. There was plenty of blood, but I didn’t appear to be in any danger of bleeding out. I took a few measured breaths, fighting off light-headedness. My partner didn’t need me fainting.
    With an effort I got to my feet and then started limping forward. I shone the light into the brush and caught the glint of Sirius’s eyes. Further maneuvering of the light showed that Sirius’s jaws were clamped down on a wrist. His captive’s face was so white as to appear spectral. Even the thick smoke couldn’t cover the man’s stink. Sirius had scared the shit out of him.
    I moved the light back to Sirius’s eyes. There was something wrong. His eyes weren’t sparkling.
    “T-tell your dog to let me go,” the man said. “There’s been some kind of mistake here. I’m a firefighter.”
    He moved his shoulders to show off his fireman’s slicker. I said, “Shut up.”
    I fought through the brush, ignoring the inconvenience of my leg. Branches grabbed and clawed at me; I took them on in a frenzy of panic, and what I couldn’t push through I snapped away, finally making it to Sirius’s side.
    My praise sounded so inadequate: “Good boy.”
    He was hit in several places but responded to my words with a wag of his tail. I tucked my flashlight under my arm and kept my gun up and ready. I scratched Sirius behind his ear where he liked it best and my fingers came back bloody.
    “Your dog broke my arm I think. It hurts like hell.”
    I didn’t reply other than to put the