Trinity: Military War Dog

by Ronie Kendig

  Hooking his hand through the lead, he smiled as Trinity looked up at him. She had that “I’m gorgeous and you know it” look going on.

  “Daniels! Front and center.”

  Heath tugged Trinity forward as the team huddled with the general and suits in a corner. “Sir.”

  “Okay, listen up. This is Agent Bright with the SIS.”

  “Spooks.” Candyman spat.

  “That’s right,” the general said in a tone that explained how happy he was with this whole predicament. “So just shut it and listen up.”

  Agent Bright stepped forward. “Thank you, General.” Chiseled jaw with a scar over his left temple, the British agent slipped into his role with ease. “What I’m about to tell you is confidential.”

  “And if you tell anyone, you’ll have to kill us, right?” Candyman shot off.

  Bright seemed to chew down the stub on his frustration. “About five hours ago, one of our operatives activated his emergency code.”

  “That sounds real 007ish.” Man, Candyman was in his element antagonizing the spook.

  “Then you’ll know that Bond always gets his guy.” Bright rolled with it. “And so will we. The transponder emits a signal once every hour.”

  “What good is that?”

  “It keeps my man alive.”

  Candyman nodded. “Understood.”

  Spreading a map over his knee, Bright pointed to some marks. “His signal first emitted here.”

  “Geologist’s base camp.”

  Bright nodded. “Then here, here, and here.”

  “That’s only four,” Watters said. “Thought you said he went missing five hours ago?”

  “Next activation is in roughly fifteen minutes.”

  “And this means what to us?”

  “My agent was on that survey team.”

  “Why?”

  Bright smirked. “Even Bond never told all his secrets.”

  Candyman eyed the guy. “Which means you’d have to kill me—or at least die trying—if you told me.”

  “You’re almost smart enough to be a spook, Candyman.”

  “How d’you know my name?” The man’s face fell as he looked around, the others laughing. “How’d he know my name?”

  “Listen up, ladies,” General Burnett said in his booming, grouchy voice. “You know what we’re after. Head up to the camp. Send me the feeds. But then, I want you with the spook at the last-known location.”

  Watterboy hesitated, scratching his dark beard. “With the spook?”

  “My guy is missing, too, so I’m going,” Bright said.

  Several around them cursed, but the extra body could work in their favor. Heath understood the territorial nature and the belief that the more “new” you added to the mix, the more volatile that mixture became for the team. But the spook clearly had access to stuff the military didn’t. And for Heath, that increased his chance of surviving this, and if the spook was still alive and sending a signal, then it was possible Jia was, too.

  The building rattled as the wake of rotors rumbled in, around, and above the building.

  “Your ride’s here. Make it quick and clean. In and out. Let’s hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

  “Hooah!”

  Deep in the Hindu Kush

  20 Klicks from Chinese Border

  Hands plunged into the snow, Darci grunted. The icy accumulation bit into her hands, into her strength. She slumped back on her legs and tilted her head up. The gray sky mocked her. Not even a drop of sun to warm her face, beg off the stinging pain of freezing through.

  “Qîlái. Get up!”

  Jianyu stood over her, leering. The muffled sounds of boots to her left warned her. “Qîlái!” the elite fighter shouted as she locked gazes once more with Jianyu. In her periphery, she saw the man thrust his weapon at her.

  Fire and pain exploded through her side, the momentum of his strike shoving her sideways into the snow. She slumped and breathed hard, wishing the iciness could numb the pain. It hurt to breathe. If he hadn’t broken her ribs, he’d at least cracked one or two.

  “Líkāi w? bèihòu,” Darci muttered, knowing very well they would not leave her behind. She saw the gleam in Jianyu’s eye. Saw the delirious hunger in him to drag her back to his father, throw her at his feet, and regain his honor.

  Hands gripped her shoulders.

  World spinning, she looked into the eyes of Peter Toque. “Get up, Jia. No time like the present to live.” He dragged her onto her feet. His mouth brushed her ear, and out came a rush of warm words. “I have a tracking device.”

  A crack thundered through the sky.

  No—not the sky.

  She felt herself falling again.

  Peter slumped over her.

  “What, have you gained a new lover now that you have left my bed?” Jianyu sneered as he shoved Peter sideways with a boot. “How many have you had, Meixiang? Or should I call you Jia? Perhaps I should kill him the way you killed me in the eyes of my father.”

  “Yŏu méiyŏu qíā rén. Would he believe that there had been no others? She hoped so, because she would never sacrifice another’s life to save her own. Cradling her side, she braced herself against the mountain as she tried to pull herself up, but the pain shoved her down.

  Jianyu squatted, his left eye twitching as he stared into her eyes, their noses all but touching. There had been a time she’d found him intoxicating. His strong features, his charismatic manners. It’d been her job to break him.

  Instead, he’d broken her.

  And even now, she did not trust herself. Yes, a primal attraction existed between them. But so did his mean, calloused heart, his thirst for power and wealth. It hurt to love a man like him.

  He caught her face in his hand and forced her to look at him, nostrils flaring and war raging in his eyes. “What of our child?”

  Twenty-Five

  Rage colored the white landscape in a blanket of red.

  “There was no child.” Meixiang squeezed her eyes closed, cutting off his only avenue to probe her soul. See for himself if her words were true.

  It was a trap. She wanted him to believe the baby did not exist. He dug his fingers into her cheeks. “Lying whore!” He rammed her head back against the rocks. A solid crack snapped a yelp from her lungs. She reached for her head, but he saw that steel strength he’d been drawn to when he first saw her in Taipei City.

  “Sir—we need her alive.”

  Jianyu shuffled back, sliced his hand through the air, and nailed his officer in the throat. The man dropped, gasping for air. Quick as lightning, Jianyu pushed his foot against Meixiang’s throat.

  “I am not lying. There was no baby.” She gritted her teeth, her face reddening as she lay stretched against the path and the spine of the mountain.

  How did it feel, he wanted to ask, to have the very breath cut from you by one you trusted, loved? And now, she wanted to do it again? “You think I am a fool?” He shifted and grabbed her face again. “I saw the sonogram. I was there, do you forget?”

  Face pale as the snow behind her, Meixiang shook her head. Fingers reddened by the bitter bite of winter, she fought for her life. Tears slid free as she kept her teeth clamped tight, her tears a mixture of determination and fear.

  Yes, fear. He would have that fear multiplied so she trembled. So she realized the error in leaving him, in betraying him. But he would not—would not!—believe her lies ever again.

  Grabbing her by the neck, he hauled her to her feet. “What did you do with my son?”

  “It was fake!” Her legs wobbled, and she threatened to collapse again, but he pushed her against the rocks. Pawing at his hands with her own cuffed hands, she sagged and straightened. Sagged again. “The technician was paid off to go along with it.”

  It wasn’t true. He’d seen his son with his own eyes. “I saw it! I saw him move!” A path to redemption, to regaining his father’s favor was a son.

  Her brow knitted into an inverted V. “It was a video.
” The tears left streaks on her dirty, frozen cheeks and mingled with the heavy-falling snow. “It wasn’t real.”

  Jianyu pushed his body against hers, pinning Meixiang between the mountain and his rage. “You lie!”

  “It was the only way to keep you on my side, to stop you from betraying me.”

  Squeezing her face hard again, he crushed her beneath himself. “You mean, it was the only way to betray me.” With the fury roiling through his body, he shoved his hand, flattened, into her side, fingers first. The blow would devastate the injury Tao had inflicted earlier.

  Eyes popped open, mouth agape, Meixiang sucked in a breath. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Limp as a noodle, she slid from his grip. And he let her.

  He did not believe her. Would not believe that the totality of that situation had been something she’d conjured up. There were too many facts that said otherwise. Including the photograph of his newborn son.

  And now … now that he had her back, he would throw her at his father’s feet and demand justice. Demand his honor back. Demand his right as a son to rule.

  And if his father did not relent, Jianyu would take it from his cold, frozen heart.

  Of course, after he killed the old man.

  Parwan Province, Afghanistan

  Spotted like a dalmatian. Charred spots against the snow gave it the mottled appearance. It’s all Heath could think as the Black Hawk circled the campsite-turned-crash site. Uneven, a blanket of snow had spread itself over the scene, concealing whatever lay beneath. He’d worked recovery on a building in Kandahar, and it wasn’t pretty. The smell, the shock that hammers into your skull the first time you spot a limb. The revulsion that hits home when you realize the limb isn’t attached to anything.

  With a shudder, Heath prayed that’s not what they’d find here. Hogan had said she thought he was here for a reason, and now he saw the earmarks of Providence written all over this like the charred rubble in the snow.

  Or was that just him grasping for meaning and hope? Nah, he’d had too strong a connection to Jia to chalk it up to nothing.

  Between his feet, Trinity shifted and leaned toward the opening. The wind battered its fingers through her thick fur. She pulled her tongue in and stretched her neck even farther. The Doggles made it easy for her to look out the chopper.

  With the swirling snow compliments of the rotor backwash, the storm looked fiercer than it was. Yet. He’d seen the Doppler for the next several days. If they had to hike through this rugged terrain for long, it wouldn’t be pretty. He’d have to monitor Trinity, don the special insulated paw protectors.

  The helo swung around, its nose pulling up and to the right, shoving Trinity in the direction she’d leaned. She jerked and backpedaled. Heath couldn’t help but smile. The bird leveled, and he felt the lift as it lowered to the lip of the plain.

  Trinity leapt from the helo and onto the soft blanket of snow. Heath hopped out behind her and led her to the side, taking a knee until everyone had disembarked. As he did, he petted her, reassuring her—and himself—that everything would be fine. Under the control of the rotor wash, a torn piece of tent flapped as if telling them to hurry into its protection.

  As the bird pulled away, the tent flap seemed to grow frantic in its welcome.

  You’re losing it, man.

  Forcing himself to take a look around, Heath braced himself for the worst. Charred bodies to account for each member of the team. Including Jia. The general might believe she was resourceful, and Heath wanted to find her alive, but he’d seen elite warriors go down in flames enough times to struggle with the sovereignty of God yet yield to it.

  Heath couldn’t explain the connection to Jia and the subsequent ache to see her alive. There wasn’t even something special she did, like taunt or flirt with him. That’s because she is special—period.

  Yeah, okay, that sounded logical.

  The truly logical thought would be that if she’d somehow survived, it meant she was in a heap of trouble. And trouble was a lot easier to work with than death. Heath didn’t want to haul her body out of the rubble.

  Watch over her, God.

  Watters gave the advance signal as he swept the area with his weapon. He pointed to the two Chinese officers and told them to stay, then ordered a sergeant to keep their guests company.

  Heath led in a wide perimeter. Flaps of white had been chewed up by the flames and left black and looked moth-eaten. The hulk that had landed almost in the middle of the camp and had been the source of the explosion he’d seen from the FOB was indeed a Black Hawk.

  Weapons up, the team snaked in, out, and around the scene. Heath held fast to Trinity’s new lead on the Intruder and walked her through the site. Nose down, she trekked through the debris. Her head popped up, she wagged her tail, then sat quietly.

  “She’s got a hit,” Heath said.

  Two of the twelve-man team jogged over and started digging. One stood back and cursed. “One of ours.”

  As they cleared the dirt and chunks of metal, Heath could barely discern the flak vest with most of the material burned off.

  Heath tightened his lips and kept moving. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  Trinity barked again, tying Heath’s stomach in a knot. Another helo loomed over them, whipping the ash and dust into a frenzy. It deposited a cleanup crew, alleviating Heath’s fears that he’d have to locate more bodies. At the back, Watters and Candyman worked to prop up the tent that had tumbled forward, the post snapped as if a man with only one leg.

  Jibril. Heath had seen the worry in the man’s gaze as he left the hangar and boarded the helicopter.

  “Hey.”

  Heath looked up from where Trinity nudged aside some clothes waffling in the wind.

  “It wasn’t personal.” Watters shifted, his gaze darting around the campsite. “I had to speak up.”

  “I get it.” And he did. But it didn’t make the matter any less painful. “You did what you had to. I don’t belong here.” As the words slipped past his lips, Heath realized those words had taken on a different meaning. He just didn’t know what. “But I’m here. And I’m going to do everything I can.”

  “Hey, look.” Candyman knelt beside a locker near a crushed cot. He spread a handful of gadgets over the rubble-strewn ground. An electric razor, a small radio, shaving cream, and a brick phone.

  “She was working with the general.” Heath tried to keep his explanation vague.

  M4 propped over his chest and resting against his knee, Candyman stared at him, then frowned. “That’s great, but this wasn’t her locker.” He pointed to another one that lay split in two, contents—clothes, a handheld radio, and a pair of boots—spilled out. “That’s hers.”

  Watterboy lifted the radio from the pile Candyman studied. “Why would an equipment supplier need a military-grade satellite radio?”

  “Or more to the point,” came a heavy Asian accent. “Why would he need an electric razor and shaving cream?”

  Watterboy looked toward the opening where Zheng stood with his officer and a Green Beret. He tossed down the radio and picked up the shaving cream, assessed it, then cranked on the bottom. Pop! Hisssss. Watters upended the can into his hand. “HFIDs.”

  Why did the equipment guy have high-frequency identification discs?

  Watterboy cursed into the strong wind. “They’re used as short-range tracking devices.”

  The spook joined them. “The equipment supplier was my man.” He retrieved the HFIDs. “Thank you.”

  Climbing to his feet, Candyman squinted out over the blanket of white against the gray sky. “Who the heck were you tracking?”

  “Anyone he felt necessary.”

  “Is it possible your man placed one on the others?” Zheng Haur asked.

  “Sure.”

  Watterboy nodded to Candyman. “Can you have your people run them and see if there are any hits?”

  “Even if there are,” the spook said, “the weather and distance will interfe
re. And they don’t last long.”

  “We can try. Better have Burnett do some deep digging while we’re hunting down the missing.”

  Heath’s heart skipped a beat. “So, there are missing?”

  “Far as I can tell, with the woman back at camp—”

  “Alice.” Rocket nodded.

  Watters hesitated and frowned at his friend.

  “What?” Rocket shrugged. “We talked. She’s cute.”

  “She’s off-limits.”

  Rocket snorted. “Sorry, Charlie. She’s civilian and of age.”

  “She’s the only witness we have into the deaths of six SEALs.” Watterboy tapped his friend’s vest. “Until Command clears her, step off.”

  Heath wanted to choke them both. “So! How many are missing?”

  “Three.”

  “Found a body!”

  “Make that two.” Candyman slapped Watters on the shoulder and started out of the misshapen tent. “I’ll check it.” He jogged to where three men stood looking over a ledge.

  Heath watched the team moving around the camp with methodical, meticulous precision. He tucked aside the feeling of isolation within a crowd. What happened here was pretty extreme and thorough. Who had come into this territory and wiped out a team surveying rocks? And the bigger question—why?

  Watterboy started for the opening. “Let’s figure out who’s missing first, and we can extrapolate later, hopefully get us out of this winter mess before it sneezes rain and ice all over us.” He stepped out from beneath the tarp and joined the rest of his team, counting bodies and IDing them.

  Protected from the heavy snowfall by the tarp, Heath loosened his straw and stuffed the valve into his mouth and took a long drag on the water. Trinity looked up at him expectantly. “You too, huh?” He tugged the straw looser and aimed it at her.

  She lifted her head, and he squirted water at her. As the water splashed over the contents of Jia’s box, he cocked his head to look at a picture. A smile pushed through the depressive mood that had steeled over him. It was an image of him with Trinity. When had that been taken? He didn’t recognize it. He bent and retrieved it. When he did, something slid out and landed with a soft thud on the dirt. Heath retrieved it but hesitated as the red and gold ribbon registered. Prying them apart, Heath angled the picture of himself and stilled. Scanned the information. This was … pre-DD214. When he was an Army handler. Still in the Green Berets. How did she get it?