Trinity: Military War Dog (36 page)

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 interfere. 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?

“Why would someone have your picture?”

Heath met the steady gaze of his new “partner.” A kindness wreathed Haur’s face, in contrast to the infuriated, arrogant gleam in Bai’s. “I have no idea.” Though he hoped he did—he hoped she had the same healthy curiosity about him that he had for her.

Something stuck to the back of the printout.

He slid his fingers between the two.

Hurried footsteps drew his gaze to the lopsided opening. Watters leaned in. “We got a lead on the two missing.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s the girl Burnett wants and”—he angled a dossier page toward him—“this guy. Peter Toque. Equipment supplier out of Ohio.”

“My man,” the spook reminded them.

Relief sped through Heath’s veins so swift and thick, he wanted to laugh. She was alive.

Watters tugged a phone from his pack and dialed.

While the sergeant radioed in, Heath glanced down to the papers in hand. What he saw made him stop. “What …?” Weird. What was Jia doing with a picture of him at Landstuhl?

        Twenty-Six          

Deep in the Hindu Kush
20 Klicks from Chinese Border

B
etween the overzealous colonel and the dropping temperatures, they had one hope to stay alive: he must become allies with Zheng. But that would take some convincing, and the only way to do that was to provide real information. Scattered around the circumference of the small site, Zheng’s men were alert and jovial. How they could be with the ragged claws of the icy winds and snow billowing around them, he could not fathom.

“I can help,” Peter braved, breaking his silence as Jianyu continued staring at the still-unconscious Jia. “I have information about her that would prove useful.”

“How can any information you have be useful to me?” The sneer seeped past Jianyu’s lips and infected his words.

“I know her real name.”

Snickers swirled through the snow.

“You know nothing!” Jianyu punched to his feet. “Do not attempt to become my ally. I have little use for you, American.”

“I’m not American,” Peter said, allowing the accent he’d hidden these long months.

Appraising eyes narrowed. “British. Spying on your own allies?” He seemed amused.

“Her involvement in the survey team had a smell to it.”

Wind whipping at them, snow drifting around their heads like angry halos, neither moved. Or spoke.

Then, without a word, the colonel turned toward Jia, squatted, and traced a finger down her face, tucking her thick, black hair away from her face. “What do you know of her?”

The man had a strange sort of obsession with the woman lying at his feet. Was it possible this madman—and yes, Peter knew exactly who this rogue before him was—loved her? What was their history? That was the lone hole in his knowledge.

“Her name is Darci Kintz.”

Jianyu stilled. Stood, his gaze still locked on her.

Feeding off the man’s apparent interest in the information, Peter pushed on. He
must get
this man in his pocket or he would be as good as dead. “She lives in New York.”

Someone coughed. A nervous one, that drew Peter’s gaze to the side, but he could not tell who had made the sound or why. When he looked back—