The Dog Cops: Operation Counterstrike

By Brian Barnard

Sergeant Ben Gibson and his son Cooper are gradually settling into life in the rural city of Clarkdale in Central Victoria having decided to make it their permanent home. As they slowly recover from the devastating death of Ben's wife and daughter, Ben begins to consider the possibility of finding love again.

In Operation Counterstrike Sen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Barnard
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780648991533

Brian Barnard

Sergeant Brian Barnard served with the Victoria Police Force in Australia for 24 years, 18 of which he spent as a member of the elite Victoria Police Dog Squad. Twenty years after leaving the force and after a successful foray into the corporate world, Brian finally sat down to write the first of a series of novels about "the greatest job in the world", being a police dog handler as told through the eyes of his composite character, Sergeant Ben Gibson. The Dog Cops Book 1 was published in October 2020 and received widespread acclaim, particularly from serving and retired police members for its authenticity and insight into the day-to-day life of being a police officer and a police dog handler. Book 2 in the series expands on the rich blend of characters featured in Book 1 along with more spine-tingling police dog action sequences, many based on authentic operational experiences.

Book preview

Chapter 1

With blue lights flashing and siren wailing, I drove my police van over the brow of a hill and caught my first glimpse of the scene. Down in the valley below about two kilometres ahead, it looked like a bomb site.

Debris was strewn all over the four-lane highway. A vehicle was resting on its roof in the middle of the northbound lanes. Two ambulances, a fire truck, a couple of State Emergency Service rescue trucks and a police car were parked around the scene with their emergency lights blinking feverishly. People swarmed around the crash site, and in particular around the overturned vehicle.

I was heading south towards Melbourne on the Central Highway, the major artery for traffic travelling to and from Clarkdale. A D24 operator had interrupted my lunch to call me out from home to attend the accident scene. He advised me it was just over twenty kilometres from Clarkdale at the intersection of Barnes Lane.

I focused my attention back on the highway just in time to realise the vehicles ahead of me were coming to a rapid halt. About five hundred metres further down the road one of the Clarkdale traffic cars was parked diagonally across the two southbound lanes. A traffic cop wearing a reflective green vest and waving a luminous orange baton was standing in front of his car. He appeared to be redirecting the approaching traffic onto a side road to detour them away from the scene.

Much to my dog Sabre’s relief, I killed the lights and siren as I carefully drove my van down the gravel verge to the right of the centre lane. Sabre hated the police siren and always felt it necessary to express his hatred by continuously howling like a wild coyote. As hard as I’ve tried, I have never been able to cure him of this annoying, eardrum-splitting habit, so he had been maintaining his protest since we left home thirty minutes ago.

The traffic cop saw me approaching and immediately raised his right arm above his head, and with an exaggerated flourish, extended his palm with fingers pointing to the sky, completing a perfectly executed stop symbol towards the approaching traffic. With his ‘stop signal’ still poised, he signalled me forward with his left hand. He slowly walked over to my van when I reached the front of the line of traffic.

‘Hi, Chris,’ I shouted, recognising him as one of the local Toggies, a name given to the members of the Traffic Operations Group. ‘Looks like a bad one.’

‘Yeah, Ben,’ he replied while still watching the line of traffic. ‘It’s a real mess down there. Reckon we’ll be here for a few hours.’

His interest suddenly peaked, and he stood erect like an ostrich who had just seen an intruder. His shoulders stiffened and his eyes blazed with fury. Without further comment, he strode purposefully up the highway.

‘Stop! You dickhead!’ I heard him shout as he stalked up the road.

A glance in my rear vision mirror revealed the problem. Another driver was trying to jump the queue by following me down the gravel shoulder. I continued to watch for a moment as Chris with a booming voice and exaggerated arm gestures gave the offending driver a tongue lashing.

I chuckled to myself as I drove around the traffic car and continued towards the scene.

I could never be a traffic cop.

As I drove closer to the scene, the debris on the highway began to take form. It was as though someone had dumped the contents of their house all over the road. There were pots and pans and various other kitchen utensils strewn everywhere. There was items of bedding and clothing scattered among splinters of timber panelling and what looked to be half a wall of a caravan with a shattered window frame.

Thirty metres beyond the field of debris was something that looked like a metal modern-art sculpture. I parked on the side of the highway and tried to make sense of the scene. The metal sculpture was actually the twisted sub-frame of the now demolished caravan, its two wheels looking like a pair of sad black eyes.

The car resting on its roof was a blue Subaru station wagon. At first glance, it didn’t look to be badly damaged, but I could see that the driver was still trapped in the car. An ambo was struggling to gain access to the injured driver via the rear door of the wagon. An SES worker was standing nearby cradling a jaws-of-life machine in his arms, waiting patiently to be called into action while two of his workmates were deep in discussion as they inspected the wreckage.

A young cop I recognised as one of the new trainees at Clarkdale,was standing near the driver’s door, looking very pale as he held an IV bag above his head with a tube running down into the wreckage. An elderly man with a blanket draped around his shoulders was sitting on the back step of one of the nearby ambulances. Two ambos were tending to the man’s injuries as he struggled with his violently shaking hands to drink from a paper cup.

Another twenty metres past the twisted metal sculpture was another station wagon, this one a white Toyota four-wheel-drive. It had come to rest nose first in a grassy ditch a few metres off the highway. All its doors were open and the bonnet was up, and I could see heads bobbing around the front of the vehicle.

According to the D24 operator, the call for assistance had come from the Clarkdale morning shift van crew. Angie, my sort of girlfriend, was working the day shift van so I knew there would be good reason for the request. Police dog teams were rarely called to accident scenes, particularly during the day. She wouldn’t call me unless it was absolutely necessary.

I spotted her near the front of the Toyota, so I decided to drive my van closer to her location, dodging items of debris as I went. Two firefighters, one carrying a pair of bolt cutters, stepped away from the front of the Toyota and started walking back towards the main accident scene.

‘That’s the other car involved in this?’ I asked as I got out of my van. ‘Yep,’ said the one with the bolt cutters. ‘It’s pretty stuffed, but at least now it won’t catch on fire.’

I turned my attention back towards the Toyota in time to see another woman come into view. She and Angie were deep in conversation and neither had noticed me approaching.

Maybe that’s the other driver?

She was wearing a pair of snug-fitting white shorts and a yellow-and-white striped top. She was taller than Angie and had short jet-black hair. Her muscular arms and long shapely legs were well tanned.

She’s cute.

‘Angie,’ I called to attract her attention as I walked towards them.

Both women turned to look at me and I almost stopped mid-stride. I can’t say for sure because my mind went blank, but I think my mouth was hanging open.

‘Cassie?’ I said in surprise. ‘I didn’t expect to see you until next week.’

Angie, standing slightly behind Cassie, looked at me almost as though she didn’t recognise me. My stomach muscles involuntarily tighten, and I felt blood rushing to my face as my boss’s words replayed in my head: ‘She’ll spend a couple of weeks getting herself settled in at her cousin’s place. She’ll be ready to start her training with you in a fortnight.’

The two women were looking at me with vastly different facial expressions. Cassie’s was an innocent ‘good to see you’ smile, while Angie’s was more confusing. Her mouth was forming a broad smile, but her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were piercing.

‘Hi, Ben,’ said Angie in a sickly-sweet tone I’d never heard her use before. ‘You know Cassie…don’t you?’

‘Yes…hi…Cassie,’ I said, sounding like a pre-pubescent teenager. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you…today.’

Angie’s smile disappeared and her lips formed a thin straight line as she persisted with the eyebrow thing and added a slight tilt of her head.

I should have told her about Cassie coming.

Chapter 2

‘Hi, Sarge,’ Cassie said cheerily.

She was totally oblivious to the look I was receiving from Angie standing just behind her.

‘I was bringing up a vanload of my gear when I drove into this mess,’ she said, indicating the accident scene.

Pull yourself together.

‘Did you see it happen?’ I said, using my best professional copper tone of voice.

‘No, but as I came around the bend, I heard the bang,’ she said, pointing back along the road towards Melbourne. ‘The dust and debris were still settling as I arrived here.’

‘She was the first car on the scene,’ said Angie, stepping forward.

‘So, this was the other vehicle involved?’ I asked, avoiding eye contact with Angie as I walked towards the Toyota.

‘Yes,’ said Cassie, following me. ‘By the time I pulled up, the driver was getting out of his car. I called out to him to ask if he was okay.’

I looked across the highway to where Cassie’s white unmarked Dog Squad van was parked on the gravel verge on the other side of the highway.

‘He nodded and waved,’ she continued, ‘so I ran to the Subaru to check on the occupants.’

‘It doesn’t look good,’ I said glancing back at the crash site where the emergency workers were still working frantically to extricate the driver.

‘No, she’s an elderly lady and she’s in a bad way,’ Cassie said, shaking her head sadly. ‘Her husband was uninjured and was already climbing out of the car when I got to them, but he was really distressed. He just kept saying This is my fault. I should never have let her drive. She’s never towed the van before. He was saying it over and over again.’

‘She’s pulled out onto the highway to turn right and the Toyota’s been coming down the hill and T-boned her,’ said Angie in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Silence followed as I imagined the moment of impact. I pulled my mind back to the present and scanned the immediate area around the Toyota.

‘So, where’s the other driver?’ I asked, looking at Cassie.

At that moment, it struck me that she bore a striking resemblance to a young Demi Moore.

‘Next time I looked over here, all the doors were wide open and he was gone. I should have kept an eye on him.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said quickly, ‘You did the right thing helping the other people.’

‘It’s not stolen,’ Angie said, ‘but the number plates don’t belong to this vehicle.’ She paused and looked at me to make sure she had my attention. ‘I thought the driver may have done a runner. That’s why I initially called you. But then a guy who arrived here just after it happened told my offsider, Andrew, that he’d seen the Toyota driver leave the scene in another car.’

‘What, someone’s picked him up?’ I asked in disbelief.

‘Apparently,’ Angie said. ‘He told Andrew he saw a black sedan pull up next to the four-wheel-drive. Two guys jumped out and helped the driver load some large cardboard boxes into the boot of the car. Then they all got back in the sedan and just drove off towards Melbourne.’

‘Yep, looks that way,’ said Angie calmly. ‘Unfortunately, he didn’t think to get a rego number of the sedan, but he thinks it was a Ford Falcon.’

I processed this information as I walked to the front of the Toyota. A large bull bar mounted to the front of the vehicle was bent back into the engine bay. The engine was still steaming from the ruptured radiator, with boiling water draining onto the grass below.

‘It’s all a bit suss, isn’t it,’ stated Angie, now standing next to me. ‘You were already heading here when I found out about the second car. I was going to cancel you, but then I thought—’

‘—it would be worthwhile getting Sabre to search the car,’ I guessed.

‘Exactly,’ replied Angie triumphantly. ‘Whatever he had in this car, he and his mates were very keen to get it out and away from here before we arrived.’

‘Did you get a good look at the driver?’ I asked Cassie. ‘Would you recognise him again?’

‘Well, he was only about fifteen metres away,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘So, I reckon I’d know him if I saw him again.’

‘Okay,’ I said decisively. ‘Give Angie as much detail about his description as you can while I go and get Sabre.’

I turned and headed back towards my van without waiting for a response. It was becoming increasingly uncomfortable being in their presence, so I was relieved to get away for a minute.

Why didn’t I tell Angie about Cassie?

I needed to have an answer to that question when she inevitably asked me. My thoughts were interrupted by the deafening noise of the air ambulance helicopter landing in a paddock next to the highway. The driver of the Subaru had finally been released from the wreckage and the paramedics were frantically working on her as they placed her on a gurney.

As always, Sabre was excited to be let out of his cage. He could see all the activity going on outside and wanted to be part of it. I walked back towards the Toyota with him prancing along beside me on his lead. Cassie was still giving a description of the driver to Angie who was writing the details in her notebook.

When I was still a couple of metres from them, Cassie stopped mid-sentence and her whole face broke into the biggest smile as she looked at Sabre.

‘I’ve heard a lot about the famous Sabre,’ she said excitedly. ‘Is there anything I can do to—

‘—no…thanks,’ I replied awkwardly, taking a sideways glance at Angie. ‘I’ll just give him a quick run over the vehicle and see if he picks up anything.’

In the meantime, Angie, anticipating my next step, was already closing all the doors of the Toyota.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said with a smug smile as I walked past her.

I settled Sabre into the sit position near the vehicle and uttered some quiet words of encouragement. This was an important part of the process I used to tune him into the exercise we were about to complete: a drug search.

I gave him the command and swept my right arm along the side of the vehicle while holding his lead in my left hand. He slowly moved forward, inhaling deeply as he ran his nose around the wheel arches and door frames of the exterior of the four-wheel drive. After each inhalation, he paused briefly while his olfactory glands assessed the captured air for familiar odours before rapidly exhaling. He repeated this process several times around the vehicle, dismissing each section with a dismissive snort.

As we moved to the rear of the Toyota, he ran his nose along the bottom of the rear door seals and I noticed a very slight flick of his head, like a moment of recognition. I encouraged him to check the doors again to see if he would give a stronger indication on a second pass. He took a few more sniffs in the same area but gave no further indications before moving on.

We worked our way along the driver’s side and then around the front of the Toyota, but he gave no further indications. I opened the passenger’s side front door and slipped Sabre’s lead while giving him the command to jump into the front compartment and continue searching.

He scampered around the cabin, manoeuvring himself into position to search under the seats and up under the dashboard. As he swept his nose under the driver’s seat, he gave a stronger indication. Whatever he was smelling created enough interest for him to do a double-take and sniff under the seat again. He paused and looked towards me, then sniffed under the seat for a third time but did not sit, which is the ultimate indication he has found a target substance.

My first instinct was to give him praise, but I had done enough searches with him to know this behaviour. He was smelling something that was curious, but it wasn’t one of the odours he was trained to alert. If I praised him too quickly, I would be giving him the cue that this odour was to be added to the list of those he was meant to find.

‘Come on, mate,’ I said in a steady tone, ‘work it out.’

After another quick sniff under the seat, he moved on and I made a mental note to take a closer look under the seat after we finished.

He searched the back seat area and quickly dismissed it before jumping into rear compartment. This area was immaculately clean, more like what you would expect to see in a brand-new vehicle.

As soon as his paws hit the floor of the rear compartment, his whole demeanour changed. He began sniffing the air, the floor, the interior walls and the roof lining.

He repeated this process two or three times before eventually standing still and looking at me. His face reflected a state of total confusion. If he could have spoken, I have no doubt he would have said, ‘Stuffed if I know what I’m smelling.’

I walked him back to my van, praising and patting him for his good work effort. I tried to sound genuinely happy but in reality, I was as confused as my dog was. I returned slowly to Angie and Cassie.

I said scratching my head. ‘There’s a couple of spots where he sort of indicated something, but nothing like the usual signs he gives me.I just want to check out the spots where he showed interest to see if I can make sense of it.’

I put on a pair of rubber gloves and headed back to the Toyota while replaying Sabre’s search in my mind. The brief indication on the rear doors could have been his recognition of human scent. As a cross-trained police dog, turning his mind off to human odour and onto drug odours was always a difficult task; the main reason why cross-training was not more commonly used within the Squad.

But the indications in the rear compartment were something different again. It was as though there was a large amount of odour in the area but he couldn’t pinpoint its source. Again, it was not going to be from one of his ‘alert scents’. Had that been the case, he would have sat, even though he couldn’t totally pinpoint its origin.

I opened the rear doors and thoroughly searched the interior including the various storage compartments where tool kits and first aid packs were stored. There was nothing out of place there and I couldn’t detect the slightest odour, not that that meant anything considering Sabre’s sense of smell was literally hundreds of times stronger than mine.

I shifted my attention to the front driver’s seat where Sabre had given stronger indications. Using a torch, I peered under the seat. Initially I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but then I caught a glimpse of something tucked up into the underside of the seat frame.

Despite moving into different positions, I couldn’t make out what the object was, so I tentatively reached under the seat with my right hand. After feeling around for a few seconds, my hand connected with the object.

A chill ran down my back as I instantly recognised what I was feeling. I removed my hand, stepped back from the vehicle and looked at Angie.

‘What is it, Ben?’ she said cautiously. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Call Bandy. We need the detective crew here now.’

‘What is it?’ asked Angie again, as she pulled her portable radio from the clip on her utility belt.

‘There’s a pistol in a holster mounted up under the seat,’ I said in a controlled tone of voice. ‘Whoever was driving this is up to no good.’

Chapter 3

By the time I drove back into the driveway at home, I had broken out into a cold sweat. It was like I was waiting to be sentenced for a crime I had committed. My mind kept nagging at me at every opportunity.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I was convinced that these would be the first words I would hear out of Angie’s mouth the next time we saw each other. Over and over again, I tried to come up with a half-reasonable explanation, but my mind rejected every suggestion. I was absentmindedly walking around the house talking to myself rehearsing my lines for the big moment when—

‘Dad!’

I jumped with fright and found my son standing right in front of me.

‘Dad,’ he said again in a voice more suited to a father talking to his naughty son. ‘Who are you talking to?’

Cooper had come home from school and I hadn’t even realised.

‘Hi, son,’ I said trying to sound upbeat. ‘I was just singing a song to myself that I heard on the radio today.’

‘Yeah, right, Dad,’ Cooper said cynically, ‘The only radio you listen to is the police radio.’

I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around him. ‘You cheeky little pup,’ I laughed as he tried to wrestle his way free. ‘How was school?’

My attempt at distracting him worked. He spent the next ten minutes telling me all about his day. I didn’t hear a word he said but I don’t think he noticed. I had a few hours to relax before I was due to start my evening shift. But relaxing was never going to be possible when I knew Angie was booked in to babysit Cooper.

I paced aimlessly around the house. I made three cups of tea and didn’t finish drinking any of them. I tried to watch TV with Cooper, but his kids shows were unwatchable, even on a good day.

I should have just told her as soon as I got back from Melbourne.

As I prepared for the start of my shift, I was willing my phone to ring. Sometimes she got delayed at the end of a day shift. Surely today would be one of those days.

With a bit of luck, she’s still clearing up the accident paperwork.

She’ll call any minute and ask me to get Mrs Nolan to take her place.

I had barely assembled these comforting thoughts in my mind when I heard the front door open.

‘Hi Coop,’ Angie called cheerfully as she passed through the lounge room heading for the kitchen.

‘Hi Angie, what are we having for tea?’ he replied, his first thought as always revolving around his stomach.

‘It’s a surprise,’ she said as she walked into the kitchen and put a bag of shopping on the kitchen bench.

‘Hi,’ I said in an overly cheerful voice. ‘Any more news on the accident?’

She paused for a moment as if considering what to say next. I felt the colour drain from my face as I waited for her response.

‘No, not really,’ she replied unemotionally. ‘The old lady is in a critical condition in the Alfred Hospital. Her husband is in hospital here, but he only has relatively minor injuries. Nick Ryan from CIB came out to the scene and arranged to have the Toyota towed back to his office. He took photos of the gun in place under the seat before removing it. It’s a Walther 9-millimetre semi-automatic pistol with ten rounds in the clip.’

‘Wow, that’s a serious weapon,’ I said thoughtfully, looking out the kitchen window trying to avoid eye contact.

It felt as though the oxygen was being slowly sucked out of the room. I could feel her looking at me, but I couldn’t return the favour. After what seemed like ten minutes but was probably only ten seconds, I spoke.

‘Well, I better get off to work. I’ll run by the CIB office and see if Nick’s still there.’

‘Yeah,’ she said calmly, ‘He said he wanted to speak to you tonight if possible.’

More silence followed. If I stayed in the room any longer, I was sure I was going to suffocate. So I took the only other option: I made a run for it.

I reached the kitchen door before she finally spoke.

‘Ben,’ she said evenly.

Here it comes.

I stopped and slowly turned towards her.

‘Cassie seems like a nice girl,’ she said with the hint of a smile.

‘Yes, she does,’ I replied. ‘That’s only the second time I’ve seen her…so I barely know her.’

‘Well, I’m sure that’ll change over the next six months.’

‘Okay,’ I mumbled as I turned to leave. ‘See you later.’

Chapter 4

A wave of relief surged over me as I drove away in my van. I had at least another eight hours to gather my thoughts, not that it mattered. I had no idea how I was going to explain myself to Angie.

I was pleased to arrive at the Clarkdale CIB office and see Nick’s car was still there. The Toyota Landcruiser involved in the accident was locked in a secure compound in the car park and was covered with a tarpaulin to protect it from the weather.

‘Hi Nick, it’s Ben,’ I called as I walked in the back door.

‘In the Mess Room, Ben. Come on through,’ came a voice in reply.

‘Want a coffee, mate?’ Nick called as I headed for the kitchen. He was a tall slender man in his early thirties with a shock of blonde hair and a bushy moustache that looked too big for his face.

‘Yeah, why not,’ I replied.

I immediately regretted my decision as I saw the open jar of the foul-tasting instant coffee on the bench that