Rex Dalton Thrillers: Books 1-3 (The Rex Dalton Series Boxset Book 1)

by JC Ryan

  Rex spoke into his throat mic to Frank. “Well, it looks like the coast is clear. Let’s move into the house and setup a welcoming committee for them.”

  Frank agreed.

  So, instead of having to kill guards and break down doors and windows to get in, they all slipped in quietly, one by one, through the front and back doors.

  They were all inside by 10:30 p.m.

  Rex had quickly inspected the house and placed men in each of the rooms that had furniture in it. They were to wait for the prearranged signal and then all rise at the same time, pointing their weapons at whoever was in the room. Rex posted himself behind some furniture next to the wall at the closest spot to the back entrance. He figured if there was to be a drug delivery as he’d been told, the truck would pull around behind the house, and the drugs would be taken in that back entrance to avoid witnesses, and if there were several men doing the delivery, he trusted himself the most to take them out silently and alone.

  Now that he had a chance to see the house on the inside, albeit in the illumination of a small flashlight, he saw the furniture in each room was what one would expect in an office environment; desks, tables, filing cabinets and such. But there were no computers, no printers, no paper, definitely not a typical American office, but then again, TIA.

  There would be time later, after their guests arrived, to get a look at the contents of the filing cabinets.

  The members of the team each had a coms unit in his ear, Digger included. Trevor watched the iPad from his position in the first room at the front entrance. Now they had only to wait for the invitees to arrive before the surprise party could start.

  Digger patrolled outside, night vision camera on his back, earphone is his ear, ready to alert Trevor of any arrivals.

  The next half hour set everyone’s nerves on edge as they waited for something – anything – to happen.

  Chapter Twelve

  Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan

  BY 11:00 P.M. the team was getting impatient. They’d expected the guests to be there already, or at least the first arrivals. Rex sensed their jumpiness and told them to take a few deep breaths. He explained that normal people would usually turn up a little early for meetings, it was good manners, but reminded them about TIA. He also explained that these were important and rich people; they had their own rules and pecking order. Among them, the more power one wielded, the later one could, in fact, should turn up for a meeting. It demonstrated authority. So, it could be that they were all in the vicinity but playing chicken — to see who would be the first one to show subordination to the others and enter the house.

  The team seemed to settle down after Rex’s little pep talk and his own thoughts became occupied by his missions over the years. It had been exactly as the CRC instructors told him during training. Endless traveling, followed by lengthy periods of mind-numbing boredom, interrupted by bursts of absolute violence and terror. And then there was also the waiting. Infinite, soul-destroying, nerve-wrecking waiting. Waiting for the right time, waiting for a contact to turn up, waiting for someone to complete a task before the next one could begin. And then there was the waiting for Afghan drug lords and Taliban leaders to turn up at a scheduled meeting.

  It was 11:30 p.m. when he looked at his watch. They’d been in place for an hour, and there was no indication a meeting of any kind, not even a family gathering was going to take place here tonight. Being so late for such an important meeting as the CIA made it out to be, irrespective of wealth, standing or power, made no sense. Unless, of course, the CIA made a mistake with the location, or the date, or the time, or all of it.

  Every ten minutes or so, Trevor reported when Digger had completed another pass around the property and found nothing.

  At 11:35 p.m. Rex thumbed his throat mic. “Frank, I’m thinking it’s a bust. I knew something wasn’t right when I scouted this afternoon. Let’s roll. Nothing’s going to happen. Do you concur?”

  A click, and then Frank’s voice came through. “I don’t know, buddy. It’s your mission, and your call, but my guys are okay to wait a while longer.”

  No one contradicted him.

  “I’ve been thinking all day that something’s hinky. I’ve got this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. Not like there’s someone drawing a bead on me, but that I got bad intel.”

  Rex felt restless. The effects of adrenaline – butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms, raised heartbeat – all of those he’d become used to on missions over the years. But restlessness was a new one.

  What the hell is bugging me? Brandt specifically said eleven p.m. was the meeting time.

  Just then, Trevor reported. “Digger’s done the rounds. Nothing. Not so—”

  Trevor never finished the sentence. A ball of fire erupted in the house, a noise like the end of the world, and then nothing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan, 11:45 p.m.

  DIGGER’S EARS HURT, and a noise like that made by his alpha’s phone when it was wake-up time would not stop. Digger whined and crouched on the ground, rubbing at one ear and then the other to try to stop the noise. It wasn’t coming from the thing in his ear where his alpha spoke to him. He stopped rubbing that ear when he heard sounds coming from his alpha, but it was not orders. It sounded like nothing he’d ever heard before.

  The other noise in his ears made it hard to hear anything else. Digger opened his eyes and saw the fire, where the house had been before the big noise had knocked him down. Limping toward the last place he’d seen Trevor, Digger lifted his nose to catch his alpha’s scent. All he could smell was fire, and meat cooking. He snorted, clearing his scent receptors.

  Eddies of heated air confused his sense of the direction from where the scents came. He lowered his nose to the ground and followed the scent, though his natural inclination was to follow air scents. He smelled blood, human blood, but all mixed up with other scents. He followed this trail and that, but none of it led to his alpha. Finding human arms, legs, and unidentifiable bits disturbed him, and he began whining as he hurried from one to another. He recognized the scents of his pack, but they were dead or injured.

  Digger was distressed. He sat down, lifted his nose, and howled plaintively. His wolf ancestors would have understood and rushed to help their packmate, but Digger’s pack had been destroyed.

  With soft, whining sounds, he began his search again, ignoring all scents except his alpha’s. He finally found him in the room in the front of the house. His alpha was there but he couldn’t reach him under the rubble. Digger began circling the spot, but couldn’t find a way in.

  Search and rescue dogs can detect a human scent when the person is buried up to twelve feet underground. Digger had been well-trained, but not to rescue humans buried under rubble. Nevertheless, having slept with or near Trevor every day of his life from the time he was a pup, Digger knew Trevor was under the rubble at that spot. He began pawing frantically, but it was too heavy for him to move. He sat again, studying the situation. Then he did what Trevor would have commanded, had he been able. Digger went to find help.

  He trotted outside the immediate blast area and began searching for other human scents, circling farther and farther out, until he picked up one he knew. This scent had not been strong in or near the house. It wasn’t the scent of blood, but it was a pack-mate. Rex! As soon as Digger recognized it, he ran straight to Rex behind a pile of wall rubble.

  Rex was still, but he was breathing.

  Rex could help him to help Trevor.

  Rex was asleep. He had to wake him up.

  Digger began licking his face.

  ***

  REX FELT HE was drowning, and then a slimy sea creature was eating his face. Frantic to escape, he fought for consciousness. But when he woke up, or thought he was awake, the nightmare was worse. A giant black beast was eating his face.

  The surge of adrenaline shocked him all the way to consciousness, and he tried to back away. Only when h
e regained focus did he realize the beast was Digger, and he was only licking, not biting. Still, his pounding heart took a minute to slow down as he stared at the wailing dog.

  “Digger, what are you doing? Where’s Trevor?”

  Digger stopped trying to reach his face for more licks, sat down, and whined.

  At first, Rex didn’t realize the dog was trying to communicate with him. He was disoriented and unsure of his physical condition, so he ignored the whining and took stock. Why was he asleep? And, where was he? His head hurt, and his ears were ringing. He didn’t seem to be otherwise injured. His legs worked – the rapid retreat from Digger’s ministrations proved that. Likewise, his arms. He didn’t seem to be bleeding. So, what had happened?

  As his initial panic subsided, the smell assaulted him. Burning… meat? What? And then, the memory rushed back. The fire… the noise…

  Oh, my God! The house exploded! The team! An ambush!

  Rex scrambled to his feet and saw the ring of rubble that was all that was left of the house. Patches of still-burning debris overwhelmed his night-vision goggles, and he ripped them off, but the night was too dark to see much. He had to find his team!

  Rex recognized his mental fog as a concussion, but the recognition didn’t help him shake it off. He staggered forward and then felt a tug at his pants. Digger had hold of them between his teeth and was jerking him, backing as far as he could, and jerking him again.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll follow you.”

  The dog let go of his pants and raced away. Rex lost him in the surrounding blackness. Where the hell is the moon when I need it? He pulled the goggles back on, squinting against the bright flares he knew really could be tiny flames.

  There! Digger was on top of a heap of rubble, pawing at something. Trevor?

  At the same time as Rex tried to get his legs to move, Digger raced back and leaped at his chest, almost knocking him down again. To his horror, Digger caught his hand in his mouth and tugged. But after less than a second, Rex understood, the dog wasn’t biting him. He was urging him, leading him… to Trevor?

  Rex stumbled forward, and Digger let go, racing back to the same spot. As Rex gained control with each step, he noticed that some of the dark shapes burning on the ground had a more pungent smell than others. He swallowed convulsively. His team… blown to pieces. He wanted to throw up, but he shook his head. He could do nothing for these lumps of disembodied flesh, but Digger had found someone. Maybe he would be alive?

  Digger let go of his hand and started pawing at the rubble, whining constantly. Rex fell to his knees and began throwing large pieces of rubble off the spot. After what felt like an hour but was in reality no more than ten minutes, under a ceiling beam that had fallen over what looked like the remains of a table, they unearthed a hand. Digging as far as he could reach with his fingers, Rex found the wrist it was attached to and felt for a pulse.

  The thready flutter he felt was both good news and bad. The hand and wrist were still attached to an arm, which had to have been attached to the body it belonged to. That was the good news. The bad news was that whoever it belonged to was badly injured, perhaps dying. The pulse was too weak to assume otherwise.

  Rex redoubled his efforts, with Digger helping and sometimes getting in the way. Rex forgot his fear of the dog and pushed him back when he needed to. Digger didn’t growl. Another interminable five minutes passed while Rex carefully followed the arm upward, freeing it from the debris that was pinning it, until he found the shoulder and from there, the head he’d somehow known he’d find.

  Trevor was in bad shape, as Rex had assumed. His chest was pinned by a piece of the stone wall, too heavy for Rex to lift without some kind of help. Even if Rex could have lifted it, that might have been the worst thing he could do. While he was debating how to free the rest of Trevor’s body, Trevor’s eyelids fluttered, and he opened his eyes. Digger lunged for him, licking his face frantically.

  Rex gently held Digger back. Incredibly, Trevor was smiling.

  “Hey, buddy,” Rex said. “Hang tight. We’ll get you out of here.”

  Trevor slowly blinked. “No good…” He took a shallow breath. “Promise…”

  Rex took the hand they’d freed first and squeezed. “Don’t talk like that. I’ll leave Digger here with you and go get some help.”

  “No… too… late. Take care… Digger. Promise.”

  Rex swallowed. He fought to keep the memory of finding his sister barely alive from overwhelming him. Through his tight throat, he forced the words, “You take care of your own dog, you bastard. You know I…”

  The desperate look in Trevor’s eyes stopped him.

  “Please,” was on Trevor’s lips, but they were turning blue, and there was no voice to go with the movement.

  Rex squeezed his hand again. “I promise. I’ll take care of him. I promise, buddy. God, I’m sorry.”

  A flicker of a smile, and then Trevor was gone. Digger gave one, long, eerie howl, and laid his head on Trevor’s shoulder.

  Rex fell backward onto his butt and slumped in defeat. He didn’t know how long he sat there with an empty mind.

  Eventually, for the first time since he came to, the thought crossed his mind that there’d be a response to the explosion sooner or later. He looked at his watch, which was miraculously still working. It was almost 12:30 a.m. He was surprised he hadn’t heard sirens already. Slowly, his training kicked in and he hardened his emotions to deal with what had happened.

  Were there any others alive? He couldn’t find them on his own. “Digger, scout,” he said. Digger didn’t respond.

  “Come on, you damned dog, find them!”

  Digger snarled.

  Rex felt helpless. He’d promised to take care of the dog, and he intended to keep the promise, but what the hell was he supposed to do if the dog wouldn’t obey commands? At the moment, he couldn’t remember the commands to use. He stood up and began searching in the rubble for any indication that others were buried under it.

  “Come on, Digger, please! Scout!”

  At last, the dog reluctantly left Trevor’s side and began sniffing, stopped and sat down every time he found part of a human.

  When he’d scoured every inch of the blast site as well as he could, he called the dog to him.

  He and Digger were the only survivors.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Koh-e Shir Darwaza, Kabul, Afghanistan 1:13 a.m.

  DIGGER HAD RETURNED to the side of Trevor’s body and settled in his alert position, on his belly, head up, legs tucked under him. He seemed ready to remain there, for how long, Rex couldn’t have guessed.

  “Come on, boy,” he urged. “Please. We have to get out of here.”

  Digger rose and started toward Rex. A cool breeze had begun blowing, and Digger lifted his nose, whipped his head in the direction from which the breeze was blowing, and swerved.

  “What is it, boy?” Rex asked. Digger paid no attention. He kept going, jumping easily over a low point in the wall surrounding the house. That was when Rex ran after him. “Wait!”

  Damn, that’s not the command. What does – did – Trevor always say?

  “Digger, scout, hide.”

  The dog slowed and lowered his body but kept going.

  I’m going to have to teach him sneak if he’s going to be any use to me.

  He crouched as well and followed the dog. There was no cover, and Rex felt cold prickles down his spine because of the exposure, but he dismissed them. There was nothing behind him for miles, except a destroyed house and the bodies of his friends.

  But based on Digger’s behavior, which he had observed on past missions, there was a tango in front of them somewhere.

  Rex fell further behind as he darted in a zigzag to Digger’s straight line, and then he realized he’d lost site of the dog. He should have searched Trevor’s body for the mic, because he didn’t dare say a command in more than a whisper, and he was certain Digger wouldn’t hear it. He kept going in the direction where
he’d last seen Digger, and suddenly found himself on the crest of a hill.

  Digger was about halfway down it, and at the bottom of the draw was a mud hut, with lights in the windows. Rex risked a stage-whisper. “Digger, stop.”

  He was sure that wasn’t the right command, but the dog stopped in his tracks and hunkered down, disappearing in the darkness, Rex thought, unless one was wearing night-vision, like he was. Careful not to make a sound, he made his way to where Digger waited.

  “What is it, a haji?” he asked rhetorically. But when Digger’s ears stood straight up at the words, Rex got it. Inside that hut was someone who’d been in the house where the explosion happened. Digger had picked up the scent and followed it here. The bastard who set off the bomb in the house?

  For a moment, Rex’s rage blinded him. The son-of-a-bitch was going to pay. But first he was going to talk.

  “Get him. Capture, hold.” Rex wasn’t sure which of his words got through to Digger, but before he could get to his feet, the dog had shot off like a rocket.

  Rex prayed the haji wasn’t pointing a rifle at them as he followed. He’d lose the element of surprise as soon as the dog burst through the door, which was going to happen in about five seconds.

  He got his feet moving and followed.

  If Rex hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it. He was still a few yards behind when sixty-five pounds of seriously pissed-off Dutch shepherd demolished the wooden door as if it was made of paper.

  A scream, followed by a stream of panicked Arabic, destroyed the night’s silence. Rex was there in seconds, and the sight would have doubled him over with laughter if he hadn’t been so angry.

  A small Afghan man lay tangled with a chair on the floor, Digger standing on his chest. The man was babbling as if insane, but Rex understood the prayer he was reciting as he cried. He was begging to be saved from the demon sent to devour him. Sorry he’d killed those men, and others. If Allah would save him, he would devote the rest of his life to good works.