Trinity: Military War Dog (62 page)

It took two seconds for Darci’s mind to catch up with the fact that Haur sprinted after the general. They were going to save someone. The greatest Chinese asset.

“Ba!”

            Forty-Nine              

W
ith Trinity bounding ahead, just feet from Burnett and Haur, Heath ran after them. His heart spiraled into his throat. The infamous Li Yung-fa was here? On this base? Why on earth had Burnett brought the man here?

Beside him, Darci struggled—the ribs, no doubt—but she ran heedless of the pain that had to be punching the breath from her with each step.

As they bolted into the command bunker, Heath slowed at the ominous silence that hung in the building.

“What’s wrong?” Darci spun to him.

“It’s too quiet.”

Burnett hesitated. “He’s right.”

Candyman and Watterboy were right with them. “Everything okay, General?”

“Lock it down,” Burnett shouted as he rounded a corner. “Nobody gets out!”

Heath threw himself after the general as a grinding siren punctured the air. Emergency lights swirled.

Around another bend, Heath barreled over a body. He skidded and glanced back—just in time to see Watterboy and Candyman jogging toward them, armed and serious.

“Got him.” Candyman dropped to a knee beside Otte, who groaned.

“Got another one here,” Rocket called from the far left. “It’s General Early—unconscious.” He planted a hand over a wound and dug in his pocket.

At the sound of pounding boots, Heath spun. Darci vanished to the left. “Darci!” He propelled himself after her, praying harder than he’d ever prayed. His body wasn’t moving as fast as he’d like, but after being technically dead twice today …

Shouts and thuds reverberated through the hall.

Heath pushed himself. Trinity lunged ahead. A corridor stretched before him. Four doors, two on each side. All closed. No Darci. No voices.

“Trinity,” Heath said, looking over his right arm at her. “Seek!”

She zigzagged from side to side, checking doors. At door three, she sat and looked at him. A pat on his shoulder alerted him to the stacked team of ODA452. Heath nodded. He slid up to the jamb and took point.

Watterboy kicked the door in.

Heath stepped in. His split-second recon dumped ice through his veins. And that made him mad. He vowed to never be cold again. To the right, an older man he hadn’t seen before sat with a gun to his temple, compliments of the older man he’d seen at the village earlier: Zheng Xin. In that whipped-cream chaos of a moment, Heath couldn’t shake the haunting peace that filled the first man’s face. Was that Darci’s father, Li Yung-fa? Greatest Chinese asset?

A yelp hauled his attention and weapon to the left. Wu Jianyu held Darci in a stranglehold. Eyes ablaze and locked on Heath, he flared his nostrils. By the reddening of Darci’s face, Jianyu was squeezing with his arm muscles. Strangling her.

“Let her go.” Man, that sounded like a bad line from a B movie. Heath lined up the sights with Jianyu’s beady eyes.
“Don’t
move.”

Trinity’s snarling and snapping fueled Heath’s anger. Amazing how she’d taken to Darci, ready to defend her.

The hushed rustle of ODA452s swift filing into the room gave Heath little reassurance, especially with Jianyu strangling Darci and his father about to put lead into her father’s head.

“Get the dog to stand down,” Jianyu said, shielding himself behind Darci.

Coward.

“Nothing doing,” Heath said. Crazy. Confusing. So much happening. Burnett and Haur faced off with Zheng, who held Yung-fa captive. Heath kept his focus on Darci.

“Unlock the door,” Zheng commanded.

“Not happening,” Burnett said with a growl.

“I will end this happy reunion if you do not.”

“It’s already over, Zheng.” Burnett held fast. “No matter what happens, you’re not walking out of here alive.”

Heath knew ODA452 had lines of sight on the tangos … or at least they would if he wasn’t blocking Jianyu from them. He eased to the side, keeping his weapon on him, determined to place a bullet in the guy if he escalated.

Only as Heath weighed options did he notice Burnett’s hand. Signals. He was giving the SOCOM team signals. “You know this isn’t going to end the way you want it to, Zheng.”

“It will. Twenty years! I have waited twenty years.”

“You should have let it go nineteen years ago,” the man in the chair said, his voice strong, sure.

“Shut up, Yung-fa! This is my victory. You will not steal it from me.” The man’s face reddened. “Are you ready to die?”

The question drew Heath’s attention.

Jianyu looked around Darci to his father.

Her gaze locked with Heath’s. Meaning spiraled through those beautiful eyes. She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Trinity, go!”

Darci bent forward, hard and fast, driving her elbow into Jianyu’s gut.

Trinity lunged, between Burnett and Haur, straight at Jianyu.

Grabbed the man’s arm and yanked hard. As soon as Darci was out of the way, Heath fired. Winged Jianyu. He was not going to let this guy take anything else from Darci, especially not her life.

Another shot rang out.

Darci dropped, pulse rapid-firing.

ACUs filled her vision. Swarming. Shouting. Taking over.

She had one goal—Ba. She shifted. Backed up. Where was he? Why couldn’t she see him?

“Darci!” Heath plowed through the scene and slid to his knees. “Are you okay?”

“My father!” She scrabbled around the others toward her father. A tangle of bodies made it impossible to figure out what was happening. Shouts. Thuds of fists against bone. One colossal whoosh of action. Then quiet fell over the room.

Boots stepped aside.

Her father looked straight at her and smiled.

“Ba, what are you doing here?” As she scrambled to him, she saw the dark stain on his chest. “No!” She pressed her hand against his wound. “You’re shot!”

He held her hand, his goatee trembling. He reached past her. Darci glanced to where he reached and stilled. Haur squatted behind her. She looked back to her father, years falling off his face. “My children,” he said with watery eyes and a weary voice. “Together. At last.”

“Ba.” Haur knelt and bent down, embracing his father. “It has been too long.” Tears streamed down his face. “I kept my promise, Ba. I found a way home.”

Hand clapped around Haur’s neck, their father managed a smile. “Thank you.” He sobbed. “Thank you, my son.”

Choked at the scene, at the memory of their last time together, Darci let the tears slip free. Her father pulled Haur’s forehead to his, murmuring “my son, my son” over and over. Her heart melted at all the horrible things she’d believed of her father, when in fact, she hadn’t understood a single thing. His sacrifice—for her. For them. So huge.

A father’s love is great
.

In that moment, Darci felt an eternal love sprout in her heart. She realized what her mother believed held such depth, such beauty, such truth. Faith. Darci had believed to get out of the tunnel, to see her father once again …

And God made it happen.

Medics nudged into the room, taking over. Darci relinquished her first aid to the medics who pressed gauze to her father’s shoulder, then lifted him onto a stretcher. “We’ll be waiting for you, Ba.”

But something warm and sinister swept across her mind. How had Zheng and Jianyu gotten onto the base? Who helped them? A subtle move on the other side of her father’s stretcher ensnared her mind. The next few seconds ground to a slow but painfully fast pace. Someone held a gun along his leg. Her gaze traveled up his ACUs to his face—Otte!

He lifted the weapon toward her father.

Darci dropped to a knee and swung her other leg under the stretcher, catching the legs of the man on the other side.

Thud!

Shouts collided with her movement as she whirled around and dropped her elbow hard on the man’s face. A resounding crack shattered the noise.

Soldiers dove on top of them.

Flattened on top of Otte and under the special-ops soldiers, she saw the medics scurry her father to safety. Hands pawed at her, drawing her out of the fray and up onto her feet. Swung her around into the arms of Heath Daniels. She clung to him, trembling. “He was going to kill him.”

“I know.”

“He had a gun.”

“Shh.”

“But he was General Burnett’s personal aide!” She knew him. Trusted him. Talked to him. How…?

“You sorry piece of—” Burnett slammed his fist into Otte’s nose.

The man crumpled beneath the punch.

“Get him out of my sight,” General Burnett shouted, drawing Darci around. She looked over her shoulder as MPs cuffed and dragged Otte out of the room.

“Mei Mei.”

Tears blurred her vision at the “little sister” nickname. She tilted her head and looked at her brother. “I have not heard that name in a very long time.” She went into his arms.

Haur held her tight.

“I have missed you.” Clinging to him, to the piece of family she’d been without, she regained what she lost with her mother’s death.

He kissed the top of her head. “You look so much like our mother. How could I not know?”

“And you look like him.” She laughed. “You even sound like—”

Crack!