Service dog desperately barks to woman… But when police revealed the shocking truth, it was far too late…

Requesting a unit and EMS to my twenty. Subject is pregnant and- Before she could finish, Clara stumbled. Her knees buckled.

Alyssa lunged forward just in time to catch her. Clara? Can you hear me? The woman’s face turned white, drenched in sudden sweat. She gasped, her hand clutching her stomach.

Max stopped barking. Now he whined, a deep, mournful sound, and pressed his snout against Clara’s belly. Paramedics arrived in minutes.

Alyssa rode in the ambulance, Max seated by her feet, still locked onto the woman like a guardian. Clara drifted in and out of consciousness, murmuring incoherent words. Alyssa caught a phrase that chilled her, They’ll come for it.

When the time is right. At Lenox Hill Hospital, a full medical team surrounded Clara. They monitored her vitals, checked the baby’s heartbeat.

It was strong. But during a routine scan, something odd appeared on the sonogram. There’s- There’s a foreign object near the womb, the OB murmured.

It’s not part of her anatomy. Looks metallic. What kind of object? Alyssa asked, heart pounding.

About the size of a coin, encased in tissue. It’s been there a long time. An emergency surgical team removed the object that night.

It was sealed in gauze, wrapped in a clear, artificial membrane, and tucked beside Clara’s uterus, deliberately, almost surgically implanted. It was a small silver locket, military issue, inscribed with two letters, JV. Inside was a single strip of what looked like microfilm.

The room went silent. What is this? A doctor whispered. Alyssa knew what it was.

Classified data, hidden inside a woman’s body. And the initials? Jonathan Vaughn. Clara’s father had disappeared in 1987, declared MIA from a top secret operation overseas.

Clara had no idea who he truly was. But Max did. He had smelled him.

And now, Alyssa realized, this was no routine bark. This was the first thread in a tapestry of betrayal, buried decades deep, about to unravel in ways no one saw coming. The hospital’s administrative wing wasn’t built for federal agents.

But by the following morning, it was crawling with them. Alyssa had counted no fewer than three suits with vague badges and sterile expressions lurking outside Clara’s room. Homeland Security.

CIA. Maybe even NSA. No one was being transparent, least of all with her, the officer who started it all.

Max sat at her feet, silent now, but alert. His eyes stayed fixed on Clara’s door, nostrils flaring slightly, as if he could still catch whiffs of something that Inside the room, Clara Vaughn lay propped up against pillows, looking pale but lucid. Her hand rested protectively on her belly, fingers splayed as though guarding more than just the child within.

Alyssa was finally allowed in after hours of waiting and routine debriefings that yielded little more than stonewalling. I’m not crazy, Clara said before Alyssa could speak. And I didn’t know it was there…