Trinity: Military War Dog (57 page)

Aboard Helo, En Route to Bagram

I
ntubated, Heath lay on the precipice of death.

Darci lured a whimpering Trinity into her lap and wrapped her arms around the seventy-pound ball of fur, whose only attention lay on her handler. Her partner. Though Darci couldn’t hear it for the wind and rotor noise, she felt a whimper rumble through Trinity.

Pale. Heath was so pale. Darci covered her mouth. It pained her to see that thing sticking out of his mouth. The medics hovering, working. Death had never felt so close and violent.

How long had Heath been drenched and icy cold? He’d gone down that shaft for her, to save her. Was it going to cost him his life?

“Pupils dilated,” a medic shouted.

“Unconscious.”

Wary, Darci shivered uncontrollably, watching Heath slip from this world.
You can’t. Please … don’t leave me when I just met you. Heath …

“Drink.” A sergeant stuffed a thermos straw toward her.

She shook her head. “No …” Couldn’t drink with Heath fighting for his life.

“Drink,” he shouted over the roar of the wind and rotors, his expression cross.

She sipped, surprised as sickly sweet warmth slid across her tongue and down her throat. Painful yet … better. She took another draught.

“Two minutes,” came a shout from the cockpit.

“He doesn’t have two minutes!” the medic shouted back.

Warmth tumbled into Darci’s stomach, and she wasn’t sure it was the drink. Was he breathing?
Heath! Don’t do this to me. Not when I found someone worth knowing. Please …

“He’s going V-fib!”

Heath looked dead. His chest wasn’t moving—or was it?

The next two minutes felt like an eternity. Darci looked away, terrified Heath wouldn’t make it.
You owe me a kiss
. Warmth slid down her cheek as she felt the descent of the chopper. She glanced out the door, where three men sat in the opening. Buildings dotted the terrain a few miles out.

Even as they lowered to the ground, Darci saw the medical teams waiting. And a lot of soldiers.

Before the skids touched down, the three men launched out of the way. Settled on the ground, the chopper wound down as the medics hopped out, unlatching Heath’s litter.

Behind him rushed a team of six. They transferred Heath to a gurney.

A doc stood on the side of the gurney as the others shoved it away. They shocked Heath. Once. Twice. Three times. CPR. They were doing CPR.

That meant Heath wasn’t breathing.

He was dying.

            Forty-Three              

Craig Joint Theater Hospital
Bagram AFB, Afghanistan

A
window peeked out into the night. Snow, falling thick and angry again, drenched the compound. Little movement and even less traffic stirred throughout the American base. Walls creaked and groaned beneath the strong wind, pounding the building with its mighty fists. The last attack of the storm would slow Jianyu’s Yanjingshe fighters.

Hands behind his back, Haur stared into the dark night at the mercy of the blizzard. With the fighters delayed, he had more work to do. The bars and lock on the cell, the cuffs on his hands—they were impediments he must figure out how to overcome.

“It sounds bad.”

Haur kept his face impassive at the sound of Bai’s comment about the weather. On the surface it sounded benign, but when mentioned in light of recent events, he knew they referred to the situation.

“Did you hear, they got the girl out?” Bai’s bunk groaned as he shifted onto his side.

Haur said nothing.

“You are planning something,” Bai whispered as his dark shape drew closer to the bars on the right that separated them. “Why did you not go into the compound to capture Jianyu?”

Beyond their holding cell, voices rose and fell. The sound of someone approaching pushed him away from Bai. Away from the window. But further into the arms of the storm.

“It is time.”

Inside, Darci tried to locate where they’d taken Heath. She heard a flurry of voices and could see shadows and personnel hustling at the far end of the hall, but her team wheeled her into a bay. They laid warming blankets across her chest. Sitting upright a bit, she was ordered to consume more of the all-too-sweet and warm liquid.

“Heath.”

“Your core temperature,” a doctor attached a probe to her temple, “is just around ninety-three degrees.”

“Ninety-four,” a nurse announced.

“Good, but we need that higher.” He nodded to the thermos in Darci’s hand. “Keep drinking.”

“I want to see Heath. Where is he? Is he okay?”

“Don’t worry about him. If your temperature drops, you’ll run some very serious risks. That’s what you need to focus on right now.”

An orderly rushed in with a machine, which he set up beside her. A steady whirring filled the room, along with warm, moist air.

They were working and moving so fast that Darci took a moment to savor the fact that she didn’t have to move at all or jar her ribs. But her mind and heart were with Heath … wherever he was. Had she really gone mental on him, asking for a kiss? He’d taken it in stride. During her moment of panic, he helped her haul in the tattered edges of her courage.

The warmth burned a bit, but Darci knew it was just the bitter bite of the frigid temperature wearing off. She closed her eyes and focused on Heath. On seeing him again. Getting warm fast so she could scurry down the hall to where he was warming up, too.

“That’s it,” the nurse said. “You rest. I’ll be right back.”

Darci let the quiet descend … only, it wasn’t quiet. A bevy of noises a few bays down captured her attention. The
tsing
of a curtain jerked her gaze to the side. A nurse rushed down the hall and around a corner. When he did, the curtain slung aside. Just enough …

Heath!

Even from here she could see how white he was. Her stomach churned.

Drawn to him, she eased off the gurney but held the blue warm water blanket around her shoulders and trudged closer.

The doctors looked frantic. Nurses, too.

IV bags hung over him. Several tubes snaked into his arms and abdomen. What…?

“Get that heart-lung bypass ready.”

Hand to her throat, Darci stilled. Bypass? What did that mean?

“Up to eighty-four-point-two.”

Degrees?

“That’s progress.”

“The only progress we’ve had.”

“His heart rate is dropping.”

“Losing him!”

Darci dropped back against the wall, hand over her mouth. Tears streaming.

A nurse started out of the bay and stopped. “Oh.”

Blinking the tears away, Darci shook her head. Her knees wobbled.

“Help!” The nurse rushed her.

Arms caught Darci as she slid backward. Lifted her—pain stabbed her side—and hurried her back to her bay.

But nothing—
nothing
!—would gouge from her mind the image of Heath dying.

Back on the gurney, the man who’d carried her stood over her.

She looked up into green eyes. The dog handler owner who’d brought Heath over. In his gaze she saw her own pain reflected. Something pinched her arm.

Her vision swooned.

            Forty-Four