Chapter 3 - MY NAME ON THE FORM
Security did not arrest Mason.
It did separate him from me.
The hospital's duty officer ordered him to wait in an administrative conference room while the physical-contact incident was reviewed.
Mason protested.
Rank does not eliminate hospital authority inside a treatment area.
Especially when cameras just recorded you shoving a patient on crutches.
He went.
Emily took Rex and me into a small consult room.
Rex remained beside my chair.
His mobility cart barely fit between the exam table and wall.
I kept one hand on his collar.
Emily reopened the record.
“Let's do this slowly.”
The discharge entry showed:
MWD REX — ID 7K-441
Correct.
Unit:
Correct.
Handler:
SSG COLE CARTER
Correct.
Disposition:
Discharged from inpatient K9 rehabilitation. Temporary medical retirement processing initiated.
Receiving handler:
COLE CARTER
I stared.
“Medical retirement?”
“Yes.”
“I never requested that.”
Emily scrolled.
A digital acknowledgment appeared.
Receiving handler accepts temporary custody pending final retirement decision.
My name.
My unit.
My DoD identification number.
A signature block.
I leaned closer.
“That isn't my signature.”
“It looks electronic.”
“I was on a medical flight yesterday.”
Emily checked the timestamp.
4:42 p.m. Eastern.
I tried to calculate.
“I was over the Atlantic.”
“Can that be documented?”
“There were about eighty people on the aircraft.”
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“Good?”
“Good for the record question.”
Fair.
Then I noticed another line.
Handler declined continuation of inpatient K9 rehabilitation.
I almost laughed.
“He can barely use his back legs.”
Emily looked at Rex.
“I noticed.”
“Why would I decline rehab?”
“I don't know.”
Then she opened the veterinary imaging tab.
Nothing.
“That doesn't make sense either.”
“What?”
“A discharge after inpatient rehabilitation should have treatment imaging.”
She searched by service number.
One radiograph appeared.
Pelvis.
Hip.
Emily enlarged it.
Then stopped.
“That's not Rex.”
I looked at the screen.
I was not a veterinarian.
I knew my dog.
Still, an X-ray did not look like a dog to me.
“How do you know?”
She pointed.
“There is an old orthopedic screw in the right femoral head.”
Rex had never had right-hip surgery.
Emily pulled Rex's current overseas films.
No screw.
She looked at me.
“The dog discharged yesterday was not Rex.”
The room went very still.
I thought about Mason saying:
Known manifest problem.
Then Emily opened the intake photograph attached to yesterday's record.
Poor angle.
Dog lying on a blanket.
Malinois.
Dark face.
One pale scar along the muzzle.
I knew him.
“Oh, hell.”
Emily looked at me.
“Who?”
“Atlas.”
Another military working dog from our detachment.
His handler was Sergeant Tyler Evans.
Atlas had been injured two days before Rex and me.
Mason told the unit he had a minor paw injury.
We were told he stayed at the forward veterinary facility in Germany.
The dog in Emily's photograph was definitely Atlas.
May you like
And apparently Atlas had crossed the Atlantic before we did.
Under Rex's identity.
