by J C Ryan
Search and rescue dogs can detect a human scent when the person is buried up to twelve feet underground. Digger had been well-trained, but not to rescue humans buried under rubble. Nevertheless, having slept with or near Trevor every day of his life from the time he was a pup, Digger knew Trevor was under the rubble at that spot. He began pawing frantically, but it was too heavy for him to move. He sat again, studying the situation. Then he did what Trevor would have commanded, had he been able. Digger went to find help.
He trotted outside the immediate blast area and began searching for other human scents, circling farther and farther out, until he picked up one he knew. This scent had not been strong in or near the house. It wasn’t the scent of blood, but it was a pack-mate. Rex! As soon as Digger recognized it, he ran straight to Rex behind a pile of wall rubble.
Rex was still, but he was breathing.
Rex could help him to help Trevor.
Rex was asleep. He had to wake him up.
Digger began licking his face.
REX FELT HE was drowning, and then a slimy sea creature was eating his face. Frantic to escape, he fought for consciousness. But when he woke up, or thought he was awake, the nightmare was worse. A giant black beast was eating his face.
The surge of adrenaline shocked him all the way to consciousness, and he tried to back away. Only when he regained focus did he realize the beast was Digger, and he was only licking, not biting. Still, his pounding heart took a minute to slow down as he stared at the wailing dog.
“Digger, what are you doing? Where’s Trevor?”
Digger stopped trying to reach his face for more licks, sat down, and whined.
At first, Rex didn’t realize the dog was trying to communicate with him. He was disoriented and unsure of his physical condition, so he ignored the whining and took stock. Why was he asleep? And, where was he? His head hurt, and his ears were ringing. He didn’t seem to be otherwise injured. His legs worked – the rapid retreat from Digger’s ministrations proved that. Likewise, his arms. He didn’t seem to be bleeding. So, what had happened?
As his initial panic subsided, the smell assaulted him. Burning… meat? What? And then, the memory rushed back. The fire… the noise…
Oh, my God! The house exploded! The team! An ambush!
Rex scrambled to his feet and saw the ring of rubble that was all that was left of the house. Patches of still-burning debris overwhelmed his night-vision goggles, and he ripped them off, but the night was too dark to see much. He had to find his team!
Rex recognized his mental fog as a concussion, but the recognition didn’t help him shake it off. He staggered forward and then felt a tug at his pants. Digger had hold of them between his teeth and was jerking him, backing as far as he could, and jerking him again.
“Okay, okay, I’ll follow you.”
The dog let go of his pants and raced away. Rex lost him in the surrounding blackness. Where the hell is the moon when I need it? He pulled the goggles back on, squinting against the bright flares he knew really could be tiny flames.
There! Digger was on top of a heap of rubble, pawing at something. Trevor?
At the same time as Rex tried to get his legs to move, Digger raced back and leaped at his chest, almost knocking him down again. To his horror, Digger caught his hand in his mouth and tugged. But after less than a second, Rex understood, the dog wasn’t biting him. He was urging him, leading him… to Trevor?
Rex stumbled forward, and Digger let go, racing back to the same spot. As Rex gained control with each step, he noticed that some of the dark shapes burning on the ground had a more pungent smell than others. He swallowed convulsively. His team… blown to pieces. He wanted to throw up, but he shook his head. He could do nothing for these lumps of disembodied flesh, but Digger had found someone. Maybe he would be alive?
Digger let go of his hand and started pawing at the rubble, whining constantly. Rex fell to his knees and began throwing large pieces of rubble off the spot. After what felt like an hour but was in reality no more than ten minutes, under a ceiling beam that had fallen over what looked like the remains of a table, they unearthed a hand. Digging as far as he could reach with his fingers, Rex found the wrist it was attached to and felt for a pulse.
The thready flutter he felt was both good news and bad. The hand and wrist were still attached to an arm, which had to have been attached to the body it belonged to. That was the good news. The bad news was that whoever it belonged to was badly injured, perhaps dying. The pulse was too weak to assume otherwise.
Rex redoubled his efforts, with Digger helping and sometimes getting in the way. Rex forgot his fear of the dog and pushed him back when he needed to. Digger didn’t growl. Another interminable five minutes passed while Rex carefully followed the arm upward, freeing it from the debris that was pinning it, until he found the shoulder and from there, the head he’d somehow known he’d find.
Trevor was in bad shape, as Rex had assumed. His chest was pinned by a piece of the stone wall, too heavy for Rex to lift without some kind of help. Even if Rex could have lifted it, that might have been the worst thing he could do. While he was debating how to free the rest of Trevor’s body, Trevor’s eyelids fluttered, and he opened his eyes. Digger lunged for him, licking his face frantically.
Rex gently held Digger back. Incredibly, Trevor was smiling.
“Hey, buddy,” Rex said. “Hang tight. We’ll get you out of here.”
Trevor slowly blinked. “No good…” He took a shallow breath. “Promise…”
Rex took the hand they’d freed first and squeezed. “Don’t talk like that. I’ll leave Digger here with you and go get some help.”
“No… too… late. Take care… Digger. Promise.”
Rex swallowed. He fought to keep the memory of finding his sister barely alive from overwhelming him. Through his tight throat, he forced the words, “You take care of your own dog, you bastard. You know I…”
The desperate look in Trevor’s eyes stopped him.
“Please,” was on Trevor’s lips, but they were turning blue, and there was no voice to go with the movement.
Rex squeezed his hand again. “I promise. I’ll take care of him. I promise, buddy. God, I’m sorry.”
A flicker of a smile, and then Trevor was gone. Digger gave one, long, eerie howl, and laid his head on Trevor’s shoulder.
Rex fell backward onto his butt and slumped in defeat. He didn’t know how long he sat there with an empty mind.
Eventually, for the first time since he came to, the thought crossed his mind that there’d be a response to the explosion sooner or later. He looked at his watch, which was miraculously still working. It was almost 12:30 a.m. He was surprised he hadn’t heard sirens already. Slowly, his training kicked in and he hardened his emotions to deal with what had happened.
Were there any others alive? He couldn’t find them on his own. “Digger, scout,” he said. Digger didn’t respond.
“Come on, you damned dog, find them!”
Digger snarled.
Rex felt helpless. He’d promised to take care of the dog, and he intended to keep the promise, but what the hell was he supposed to do if the dog wouldn’t obey commands? At the moment, he couldn’t remember the commands to use. He stood up and began searching in the rubble for any indication that others were buried under it.
“Come on, Digger, please! Scout!”
At last, the dog reluctantly left Trevor’s side and began sniffing, stopped and sat down every time he found part of a human.
When he’d scoured every inch of the blast site as well as he could, he called the dog to him.
He and Digger were the only survivors.
14
Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan 1:13 a.m.
DIGGER HAD RETURNED to the side of Trevor’s body and settled in his alert position, on his belly, head up, legs tucked under him. He seemed ready to remain there, for how long, Rex couldn’t have guessed.
“Come on, boy,” he urged
. “Please. We have to get out of here.”
Digger rose and started toward Rex. A cool breeze had begun blowing, and Digger lifted his nose, whipped his head in the direction from which the breeze was blowing, and swerved.
“What is it, boy?” Rex asked. Digger paid no attention. He kept going, jumping easily over a low point in the wall surrounding the house. That was when Rex ran after him. “Wait!”
Damn, that’s not the command. What does – did – Trevor always say?
“Digger, scout, hide.”
The dog slowed and lowered his body but kept going.
I’m going to have to teach him sneak if he’s going to be any use to me.
He crouched as well and followed the dog. There was no cover, and Rex felt cold prickles down his spine because of the exposure, but he dismissed them. There was nothing behind him for miles, except a destroyed house and the bodies of his friends.
But based on Digger’s behavior, which he had observed on past missions, there was a tango in front of them somewhere.
Rex fell further behind as he darted in a zigzag to Digger’s straight line, and then he realized he’d lost site of the dog. He should have searched Trevor’s body for the mic, because he didn’t dare say a command in more than a whisper, and he was certain Digger wouldn’t hear it. He kept going in the direction where he’d last seen Digger, and suddenly found himself on the crest of a hill.
Digger was about halfway down it, and at the bottom of the draw was a mud hut, with lights in the windows. Rex risked a stage-whisper. “Digger, stop.”
He was sure that wasn’t the right command, but the dog stopped in his tracks and hunkered down, disappearing in the darkness, Rex thought, unless one was wearing night-vision, like he was. Careful not to make a sound, he made his way to where Digger waited.
“What is it, a haji?” he asked rhetorically. But when Digger’s ears stood straight up at the words, Rex got it. Inside that hut was someone who’d been in the house where the explosion happened. Digger had picked up the scent and followed it here. The bastard who set off the bomb in the house?
For a moment, Rex’s rage blinded him. The son-of-a-bitch was going to pay. But first he was going to talk.
“Get him. Capture, hold.” Rex wasn’t sure which of his words got through to Digger, but before he could get to his feet, the dog had shot off like a rocket.
Rex prayed the haji wasn’t pointing a rifle at them as he followed. He’d lose the element of surprise as soon as the dog burst through the door, which was going to happen in about five seconds.
He got his feet moving and followed.
If Rex hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it. He was still a few yards behind when sixty-five pounds of seriously pissed-off Dutch shepherd demolished the wooden door as if it was made of paper.
A scream, followed by a stream of panicked Arabic, destroyed the night’s silence. Rex was there in seconds, and the sight would have doubled him over with laughter if he hadn’t been so angry.
A small Afghan man lay tangled with a chair on the floor, Digger standing on his chest. The man was babbling as if insane, but Rex understood the prayer he was reciting as he cried. He was begging to be saved from the demon sent to devour him. Sorry he’d killed those men, and others. If Allah would save him, he would devote the rest of his life to good works.
“Digger, leave it.” Rex couldn’t think of what Trevor always said when he meant for Digger to stand down, but he did remember the command for the dog to leave something alone, typically a piece of trash on the ground. He thought it was appropriate for the situation, and apparently Digger did, too. He got off the man but sat near him, staring.
The man didn’t try to rise. He brought his hands together in an entreaty and spoke to Rex in Arabic, apologizing and thanking Rex for saving him.
Rex answered in Arabic. “Get up. Do exactly as I say, or I’ll let the demon devour you.”
Ammoniac odor rose as the man’s bladder control failed him. “Please. I beg you. I’ll do whatever you want. Kill me yourself, but please do not let the demon have me, I beg of you.”
Rex took a deep breath to get control over his temper. “Stand up, you piss-ant. You triggered that explosion. Who helped you?”
The haji found enough courage to claim he’d done it on his own. He was lying, and Digger started growling.
Rex said, “The demon says you’re lying, and he says he’s hungry.”
“I only followed orders,” the man stuttered. “The house was to be demolished…” He stopped talking and wailed as a hand signal Rex found somewhere in his memory brought Digger to his feet, his upper lip pulled back in a silent snarl, his teeth bared.
“Tell the truth, or it’s breakfast time for the demon,” Rex said. He was impressed with himself for remembering the signal for ‘threaten’, and with Digger for following it without balking that it was Rex who ordered it.
“Please, make it stop. I will tell you.”
Rex said, “Leave it.”
Digger let his muzzle relax, backed away one step, and sat down again, never taking his eyes off the man. Occasionally a low growl rumbled from his throat.
Rex spoke again, this time to the haji. “Start talking and leave nothing out.”
Stumbling over his words in his eagerness to comply, the Afghan spilled the plot, named the two men who’d rigged the explosives and then left.
He pointed out the bunks in which each had slept and stressed that they were acting on the orders of Usama the Lion. They were to rig the place with explosives and leave only one to trigger it, which he’d done. He had no idea where Usama lived; he only spoke to him on the phone twice – once when he got instructions to rig the house with explosives, and once when he reported the explosion. The two men who helped him worked for Usama.
It didn’t surprise Rex. Despite still being a little concussed and hazy, he’d already figured out that one or more drug lords gave the orders to blow the house up. What he wanted to know was how it all fit together. This was just part of the big picture. One didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that someone in America had a finger in this pie.
But the haji had no information about that. Not even Digger was able to get that information out of him. Simply because he didn’t know; he was only a lowly bomber.
The haji soon told him that he had to make a call to an Afghan cellphone number after triggering the explosion, which he dutifully did. He was told to not visit the site after the explosion or be seen in the proximity.
The Director of the CIA gave the order to John Brandt, who gave the order to Rex. Rex would not believe the Old Man to be corrupt until he had incontrovertible evidence to that effect. The DCIA corrupt? Maybe, maybe not – he didn’t know the man. Anyone else? Possible, actually, highly likely. Rex didn’t think that the DCIA, if he was part of this treachery, would be directly connected to the Afghan drug lords. Whoever was involved, one thing was certain, Rex and his team had been sold out. To protect the Afghan drug trade.
There was no one he could trust now, not even the Old Man or anyone at CRC. The people he could trust, Frank and Trevor, plus the rest of the team, had been killed to protect the Afghan drug trade, and he was supposed to be dead with them.
He’d been cut off from everyone and everything that was part of his life so far.
Rex shook his head. He’d have time to mourn lost friends later. He’d have time to wreak his rage and vengeance on this cabal of conspirators. For now, though, he knew he needed a plan, a watertight one.
Therefore, step one for Rex was he had to stay dead. The problem was at the site there were only seven bodies, there needed to be eight. It had been a couple of hours since the explosion, but he’d heard no sirens. Someone had been bribed and police weren’t coming. It gave him time to take care of his problem and disappear.
Only a few minutes had passed while Rex thought at the speed of a supercomputer. Now his attention returned to the inside of the mud hut.
> Rex looked at his captive and then at Digger and said, “Stay. Guard.”
Digger took a step closer to the man and screwed on his terror face. The haji closed his eyes and shivered. He kept his eyes closed.
Rex quickly searched the place for any documents and anything else that might lead him to the other bombers and their leaders. There were no documents or computers, but he found the cellphone, switched it off and took the battery out so no one could track it down. He found C4 wrapped in a plastic bag inside a tin and three detonators in another tin and a remote trigger in another.
Rex walked over to the two bunks pointed out by the haji as the place where his bomber friends slept and called Digger over.
The haji kept his eyes closed and remained unmoving apart from the uncontrollable shaking.
Rex placed the cellphone, the battery, the three tins with explosives, detonators, and the trigger in his backpack.
“Let’s go,” Rex ordered as he unceremoniously pulled the haji up by his hair and shoved him out the door.
Digger rose and followed.
The three walked up the hill, but as soon as the man saw the destruction, his steps slowed.
“Keep going.” Rex’s voice was implacable. He encouraged the man to go faster by shoving him in the back with the muzzle of his silenced SIG Sauer P226 every few steps.
Arriving back at the site, Rex picked a spot, one of the craters left by the explosion before. To relieve a little of his rage, he decided the man would be treated to a little of what his fellow terrorists would do to their enemies.
“On your knees.”
He’d have preferred to let Digger rip out his throat, but it might have set a bad precedent to allow the dog to kill when he didn’t have to.
He pointed the pistol at the back of the man’s head and pulled the trigger.
