Trinity: Military War Dog (43 page)

His captain stood over them, surveyed the shoulder-to-shoulder arrangement, then with a grunt he left.

Had that been done on purpose?

“A friend I knew had a dog like her,” Haur said over the howling wind.

Heath grinned. “Not possible.” He rubbed her ears. “With her pedigree and her training, other dogs don’t compare. Besides, she’s my girl.” As if in answer, Trinity swiped her tongue along his cheek, then leaned against him, closed her eyes, and lowered her snout to his arm. Power nap.
Atta, girl. Get some rest. You’ve earned it
.

“Do you have family?”

Heath paused before answering. Odd piece of dialogue in the middle of a mission. “Don’t we all? How else would we have gotten here?” But the bitter pill of truth caught at the back of his throat. His parents had been dead for years. His only father figure lay in a soldier’s home dying.

“Then you have your parents?”

“No, actually.” Heath chewed over how much to divulge. “Trinity”—her ears flicked toward him despite her closed eyes—“here is my family. I have an uncle I’m close to, but he’s … well, one war too many.”

Haur gave a slow, curt nod.

Family. Why on earth had he brought up family? To point out to Heath that he’d do anything to help his brother? What about his father, the general?

Something niggled at the back of Heath’s mind. Had since the guy first started talking. He looked to the Chinese man. “Can I ask you something?”

Keen, expectant eyes held fast to his. “Of course.”

“I’ve noticed you call Wu Jianyu ‘brother,’ yet you have never referred to General Zheng as your ‘father.’” When he didn’t respond right away, Heath resisted the urge to backpedal. “Or am I wrong?”

“No.” Haur’s face filled with an artificial expression, one that spoke of a deep hurt yet … something else. Respect? Maybe, but that seemed too … good. “General Zheng has treated me well. I owe him great respect. He is a great man in China. To have him provide shelter for me when I was alone, when my family was not there … many in China say I owe him my life.”

Heath cradled Trinity, but his mind was trained on his talk with Haur. “China says, but not you?”

Haur tucked his chin. “I owe him a great deal. I am very grateful.”

“But not thankful?”

“China is my homeland. Of course I am thankful.”

“But not to Zheng?”

Haur looked to the right, which drew Heath’s attention to Bai, who sat staring into the swirling chaos.
Ah. Got it
. “It’s obvious with the loyalty you show that Zheng has no reason to doubt you.”

An appreciative smile was his reply.

“When one’s father betrays your country, it is hard to be trusted.” Emotions twisted and writhed through his words. “I have worked hard to ensure that my name and reputation smother any doubt.”

“Gather up, people,” Watterboy said as he circled a finger in the air.

Heath nudged Trinity up, then hoisted her onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry so she could have a little more rest.

“Okay, round that bend is a flat plain. It stretches out then drops into a valley. The village there is believed to be the site where the woman is being held.”

“And my man is there, too.”

“Right.” Watterboy shifted to Putman, who shook his head. “We’ve lost coms, so we’re winging this. Probably another two klicks to the supposed site of the village.”

“Not supposed. It is the last known location of my agent.”

“In other words, no shooting the Brit?” Candyman asked. Then shrugged when the spook glowered. “Just making sure I know my priorities.”

“Our priority,” Watterboy said, “is getting Jia back.”

Heath nodded. About time they mentioned that.

“We want our man as well.” Steady, Haur met everyone’s gaze. “If at all possible, we want him taken into custody, not killed. He will be removed to China and dealt with there.”

“This is getting muffed up,” Candyman said. “Too many hands …”

Watterboy nodded. “Agreed.” He towered over the others by a half foot. “Bai and Haur, we understand your concern, but our orders are STK. If we are being fired upon, we will shoot back.”

“If we encounter Chinese soldiers, let me or Bai handle it. They are our people, under our command. We can convince them to listen.”

Watters and Candyman shared a look that told Heath they weren’t happy, but conventional wisdom said the plan made sense. That is, unless Haur and Bai weren’t on the right side of convention, which was something Heath did not believe of Haur. He couldn’t say the same of Bai.

Camp Loren, CJSOTF-A, Sub-Base
Bagram AFB, Afghanistan

“What do you mean we’ve lost communication?” Lance pulled himself from the dregs of sleep and off the mattress. Cold shot up through his stocking feet and pinged off his bones. He stuffed his feet in his boots and yanked the strings taut.

Otte, looking like a bloated sausage in his winter gear, shifted near the door. “The weather, that’s what they’re saying. The storm is interfering with communication.”

Lance fingered his hair, glad in this angry weather that he hadn’t gone bald like his father. It paid to have Cherokee blood, even on the days that made it boil. Like today. “What was the last confirmed relay?” He threw on a thick sweater, then reached for his heavy-duty jacket.

“The village location.”

Shoving through the door, down the hall, and into the bitter night, Lance searched his memory banks, nodding. But against the fog of sleep deprivation—two hours on a sofa prevented minds from operating on all cylinders—he knew something wasn’t right. Village … what else—?

He wove around vehicles cluttering the road that separated his home away from home and the command bunker. “Daggummit, where’d all these vehicles come from?”

“They pulled in the teams from FOBs Murphy and Robertson. The storm is going to bury the tactical teams.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Asking about all the traffic was just his way of venting his frustration. Of off-loading the foreboding that dumped on him as fast as the elements. And playing host to—

“The general.” He stopped as an MRAP turned into his path to enter the motor pool, and when the driver saluted, Lance threw him one back, then moved on. “That message about Haur. Did it make it?” Inside the command bunker, he shook off the snow from his jacket and boots.

Papers rustled as Otte consulted his notes. Seconds fell off the clock. Slowly, his semibalding head swung back and forth. “No, sir.”

Lance leaned into the major. “Are you going to sit there and tell me those men don’t know Haur is a traitor?” His boots squeaked against the vinyl floor as he trudged through the hall so quiet they seemed partnered with death tonight.

“No, sir.” Otte blinked. “I mean, yes, sir—they don’t know. Or at least, it’s not confirmed.”

Half the lights were killed, and loneliness clung to the walls. “Where in blazes is everyone?” When he stepped into the command center and the same eerie silence met him, Lance cursed. He slowed, annoyed at the quiet that draped the room that should’ve been buzzing with keyboards, coms chatter, and general chaos. Instead, only two of the eight monitors were manned.

He turned to a specialist, her hair pulled back tight. “Where is everyone?”

“The storm,” the nervous specialist looked up from her station. “Most of the teams have been called back, and there’s little to do, so Colonel—”

His pulse pounded. “Little to do?” He thrust a finger back and to the side, in the general direction of the mountains. “We have a team of twelve men, two Chinese soldiers, a spy, and a dog handler stuck in the mountain tracking down what they believe to be a rogue Chinese colonel, and you’re going to tell me there’s little to do?”

“With all due respect, sir—”

“Shove your respect—”

“Sir,” Otte said. “General Early ordered Colonel Hastings to shut things down, give the men downtime.”

“I don’t give a rip.” Lance waved a hand over the room. “Wake them up. Everyone, including Early. Get everyone in here who can operate a machine. We need to find our men and stop them from getting killed.”

Wide-eyed, the woman stared at him.

“Specialist, unless you want an automatic six-month extension added to your tour, get moving.”

“Yes, sir.” After an obligatory salute, she flew out of the chair and out the door.

“Otte.” Chest puffing, Lance moved to a computer. “Find my girl.” Misery groped for a foothold with him. “Bring her home. I don’t want to have to tell her father China won after all.”

Deep in the Hindu Kush
15 Klicks from the Afghan-China Border

Trust. A sliver-thin film that stretched over relationships like food wrap. Flimsy enough to be broken. Strong enough to protect. Twenty years he had worked to prove his trustworthiness. Twenty years he’d lived beneath the shadow of his father’s actions, his father’s betrayal. No one bore the brunt of that betrayal more than Haur. Left alone in a country without a mother and father. Left to face the authorities who’d beaten him unconscious several times in the first few weeks. When they finally decided the fifteen-year-old boy left behind didn’t know anything, they turned their efforts toward obtaining convincing proof that his father had committed the ultimate betrayal. Soon after, he was shown pictures of burned bodies. His father and sister. Dead. Their betrayal cost them their lives.

“Where is your loyalty, Li Haur?”

Standing before the minister of defense, stripped of honor and name, he’d screamed at Zheng Xin, raged that they’d stolen his life. Demanded to see his father again. Told them he refused to believe the charges. That he wasn’t going to turn on his own family. Or believe their deaths.

Not until the officers showed him a video of his father and
Mei Mei
entering a building but never leaving … then another image of a man and little girl in London who bore a striking resemblance … not till then.

He’d cried. He fought. Then pulled himself together.

The next day, he was delivered to the minister’s palatial home. Shown to a bedroom on the second floor. Told to shower and clean. He was then escorted to the minister’s private office. In that room in the heart of Taipei City, his life changed. General Zheng said Haur’s fire was borne out of anger at being abandoned, at being left behind by his own father. The same father who had betrayed his friends, including Xin.

Haur vowed his loyalty to homeland China. To the Rising Sun. A brutal fight with Jianyu created not a lifelong enemy, but a lifelong brother. They became allies, battle hardened through life and the daunting weight of being in the public eye on a regular basis as the sons of Zheng Xin.

Even now, that film of trust had stretched taut … between him and America, but also—and more important—between him and his own people. It did not escape his attention how Bai monitored him, tracked his moves, never gave him more than a few minutes alone with the American elite warriors.

They know
. Both the Americans and Chinese doubted his loyalty. Each for different reasons. His father’s choice twenty-plus years ago cost Haur more than he could’ve ever imagined.
I will never escape this black mark on my life
.

“You seem friendly with the Americans.”

Haur slanted a glance to Bai, who watched the men crawling up to the crest of the incline. “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” With that, he crouch-ran forward, then dropped to his knees in the snow. He crawled up to the dog handler, Daniels.

“Down,” Daniels said, then returned his attention to the night-vision binoculars he held.

Haur peered over the lip.

A village smiled up at him, its buildings sunk beneath the heavy snowfall. Roofs peeked out, but the road into the village had been beaten down by large-wheeled vehicles that grouped in the middle of the structures. The mountain resembled a cup with one side, the southernmost, missing. To the left of the team, a rocky incline swooped down toward the base of the village. Probably compliments of a landslide during rainy seasons. The rocky slope would be the best tactical entry point. Able to hide among the boulders and use the color variation to their benefit.

Since the snow had let up, the moon peeked through the clouds, bathing the pristine blanket with a blue hue. That aided him in seeing with the naked eye, but not much.