Trinity: Military War Dog (35 page)

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          

R
age 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.