Soldier's Heart Part Four: Brotherhood Protectors World

by Ilsa J. Bick

  But I have to do something. Her hands, her ruined left, her still-strong right, fisted in frustration. For a moment, she forgot the cold, her pain. She had lost everything, everything.

  “But I’m here,” said Jack.

  My God. He was, but could she? Should she?

  “Well,” Jack said, “what do you say we find out?”

  Yes. Red, stinging anger flooded her veins. If she didn’t let it out, she would explode.

  “Yes, Jack,” she said, hoarsely. “Go—”

  “Six.” Her mouth was full of blood; she was choking on that and on grief and regret. She was dying—and become Death itself. “Mach ihn platt.”

  Six was off in a flash.

  Behind, there came a sharp, sudden gasp, and Kujo started. He turned, wondering what the problem was, and felt his heart slam against his ribs.

  Eyes bulging, Jean gawped in mindless horror. Her fingers scrabbled over her throat as if trying to tear away a garrote or a pair of strong hands relentlessly bearing down, crushing her windpipe. Her purpling tongue bulged.

  “Hey!” His training kicked in; he knew the Heimlich and he had to do something, fast. He took a single step toward her.

  Something planted a hand in his chest and shoved.

  Surprised, he reeled, tripped over his heels, went down on his ass. “What the—” His gaze snagged on something next to his right hand. The thing was black and stark against the snow. A pistol. His head snapped to Jean, who was down now, back arching, her feet kicking futilely as if trying to run. The pistol belonged to her?

  For no reason he could actually articulate, he twisted a look over a shoulder and past Six, still at attention, still riveted. Even that big gray was looking, and it struck him that the animals sensed what he could not. Hell, they might even see it.

  Half-in, half-out of the water like some exotic mermaid, McEvoy held herself up on both arms. Her green eyes blazed. The expression on her face was fury and determination and old grief and also something very close to…triumph? Yes. She was at one and the same time an avenging angel and something out of a nightmare, awesome and terrible and somehow almost too beautiful to bear. He remembered Hacker, the tracker in McEvoy’s brain, and Lord knew whatever else that was running around in there, and the realization broke through his mind in a white, stunning blaze.

  Whatever this was, McEvoy was its engine and she had just saved his life.

  He dragged up his voice from where it had fallen. “McEvoy, stop.” The words were hoarse, almost rusty as if he hadn’t spoken in a century. “McEvoy, she’s down. You don’t have to kill her. Let her go. We’re safe, everything’s going to be all—”

  A long black slash of shadow fell over him. “Well, would you look at that?”

  At the sound of that voice, something withered in Kujo’s chest. Yes, he was safe. So was Six. Jean, whose feet shuddered and jittered in a terminal dance, maybe not so much. As for McEvoy… “Don’t.” Kujo struggled to his feet. “She saved my life. She saved my dog; she did it twice, once in Afghanistan and now. Don’t do it.” He wanted to say you couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle but then reasoned that if any man could, Hacker was that guy.

  Tablet in hand, Hacker favored him with that bland expression, though Kujo detected a sudden spark in those gray eyes. That was probably all the satisfaction and glee a guy like Hacker would allow himself to show.

  “We all have our jobs, Mr. Kuntz,” said Hacker.

  Amir had no chance. In two great leaps, Six was on him. From where she lay, Kate couldn’t see, but she heard plenty—the clatter of Amir’s weapon, his screams, and then that gargling gurgle as Six clamped down with those murderous jaws and ripped out the man’s throat.

  In retrospect, it was probably lucky Six was such a good dog because when the medevac team reached Kate, they found Six, his face and ruff saturated with blood, lying contentedly by Kate’s side. As they neared, Six only thumped his tail in greeting. They still might have shot the dog, but there had been an eye in the sky and it had seen everything.

  Mach ihn platt.

  Kill him.

  “Hacker,” Jack said.

  She saw him. No matter. The job was done. She and Jack could rest, stop, let it go even though, curiously, she almost didn’t want to. She thought Jack might not, either.

  Her eyes found Six, so patient. A good animal. A well-trained tool. For a split second, she wondered if it had been the same for the dog. That the command had unleashed something so primal and pointed and the taste of rich, warm blood in his mouth and on his tongue had been so vital, Six had not wanted to stop, either. He obviously had. But she wondered how long the memory of that moment lingered and if that bringing forth of the ancient made a difference.

  But you need to go. Her gaze shifted to the alpha. She thought the animal had retreated a step but couldn’t be sure and the wolf’s scent was…indecisive, unsure. He didn’t want to leave her, and she wished with all her heart she could follow, but she couldn’t and knew it. They had her again because if Hacker was here, the rest of Vance’s people were not far behind. She had no idea how they might feel about a wolf and didn’t want to find out that one or two might be the type who hated wolves on sight. You need to get out of here, she thought, hard, and hoped that was enough for her own scent to shift and her meaning to get across. Go.

  “I love you, Kate,” Jack said—and for a split second, he was there, kneeling in the snow, his hands cupping her face. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Her eyes filled. “I got you killed, Jack.”

  “No, honey.” His fingers brushed her brow, her eyes, traced her nose, the high planes of her cheeks. “You just set me free.”

  “How did I do—” she began.

  The world went black.

  “There.” Hacker tucked his tablet into a pocket. “Now, that’s done.”

  CHRISTMAS

  Chapter 1

  “He get in touch?” Cell phone to an ear, Kujo watched from his bay window as Molly dropped a tennis ball into a boxy green and white contraption then pressed a button. He couldn’t hear the machine winding up, although he had in the store. The noise started low and went high, and from the way Six was dancing back and forth, eyes glued to the device, the dog knew what was coming. Sure enough, just before that final note, Six wheeled and dashed across the snow as a tennis ball shot from the launcher, rocketed up in a high arc, and then plummeted. Leaping high, Six snatched it neatly and on the fly. As Molly cheered, the dog raced back, dropped the ball into the box, and then waited, dancing, for the next launch.

  Kujo thought it was…cute. Nice, even, because a launcher never got tired and could lob balls all day. But he thought it was a little like watching parents playing with their phones while their kids stared at screens. The whole point was doing something together.

  “Yeah, he did.” Hank Peterson’s deep baritone held a note of satisfaction. “Just got off the phone, in fact.”

  “Oh?” Kujo’s brows raised. “And?”

  “He said yes. There are still a few complications. The bonus he spent, principally, and of course, going AWOL, but from what I gather, he’s got some help from on-high. After all, without him, those folks would be dead.”

  On-high. Vance, he bet. “They’re going to make the charges go away?”

  “They are. They were going to scrub the bonus he took from their records, but he said he needed to pay that back. I gather they’ll give him as many years as it takes.”

  “A regular paycheck will certainly help. When does he start?”

  “He has to move, get squared away here, find a place. Ten to one, he hangs his hat in Lonesome. Good a place as any.”

  “Glad to hear it. Say, anything from Matthews about the dog?” He’d toyed with taking Dax himself but thought one former military working dog was enough. “He take in Dax?”

  “Yup. Conrad wants to hang onto the dog and evaluate him a while but thinks he already knows the right family.”

  “Good.” He w
ondered about the girls but thought there might be nothing but bad news. They were illegal; they were mules, if not entirely voluntarily, and the current administration was, well, kind of coldhearted that way. So, instead, he asked, “What about that other thing?” He didn’t want to say a name. Cells were like radios. Anyone could be listening. “You catch any chatter?”

  “No. Keep hitting brick walls. Not too surprising.” A pause. “You need to give it up.”

  He knew that. He’d understood as much three months ago as Vance’s team and Hacker loaded a body bag and then McEvoy onto stretchers and then dusted off in their super-duper deluxe stealth chopper, leaving him and Six to wait for a ride. He only had a sketchy idea of what had happened to the girls, though he knew that one, who’d been with McEvoy, had been rescued as had one of Lambert’s men. The story was murky, but the general gist seemed to be a lot of money, several double-crosses, and a pre-arranged rendezvous: Jean and her guys on the snowmobiles against Lambert’s men. What with only Wynn to worry about, Jean probably thought she was home-free until Vance’s men crashed the party and the shooting started. Jean still might have gotten away with it; except for the girls, who were too terrified to talk, there were no witnesses. Just bad luck to have bumbled into him—and McEvoy.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah.” Back at the launcher, Six was making like a pogo stick, doing the gleeful stiff-legged bouncy-bouncy-bouncy as he waited for the ball to fly. “Just thinking.”

  “I figured, you know, from the smoke coming out of my cell. Listen, you and Molly going to drop by later? We got eggnog.”

  He hated eggnog about as much as he loathed the military’s MRE version of a veggie omelet. He’d often thought that if the U.S. was serious about killing off terrorists? Send them a couple crates of veggie omelets with maybe the beef enchiladas thrown in for good measure and a bit of Montezuma’s revenge. “Tell you what. I’ll come by only if I can have the eggnog without the egg or the nog and just the Jack.”

  “You got it. Okay, I got to go. Just…” Hank paused. “I’m serious, Joe. Let her go.”

  After they clicked off, he watched Six and Molly play. He couldn’t quite do what Hank wanted, and he thought his friend knew that. He’d told Hank what he could. He’d been vaguer with Molly because, well, there were eyes in the sky and a guy never knew.

  Hacker and Vance had their pet back, sure, but he’d been there; he’d seen what McEvoy could do. Hard to contain someone like that, a person only halfway in this world and a creature born of something new and almost unknown. In a way, he thought McEvoy was like that strange gray wolf, wild and yet on the fence. Unless she somehow got used to that cage. Then she’d be like those animals who’ve been in a zoo so long that even if you opened the door to their enclosures, they wouldn’t leave. Couldn’t. They’re that afraid of life beyond bars.

  When the chopper landed for McEvoy, that gray wolf had faded back into the woods but not gone far. Kujo could almost imagine it had watched McEvoy’s chopper go with a kind of longing. Perhaps the wolf wondered if and how it might follow. Once the chopper was gone, though, the wolf re-emerged and for a time, it was just the three of them, the gray on the verge, Six and he on open ground.

  That was when the wolf did something he’d only read about but never seen.

  It strode out of the woods, chest up and head high, long tail held nearly horizontal to its body. He’d been tempted to shout and chase it off, but didn’t. Six, he saw, wasn’t worried. Instead, his shepherd got to his feet and turned to look at him for permission.

  “Go on.” He didn’t know now why he’d said that. Wolves and dogs aren’t supposed to mix. But he sensed this wolf was like another he’d heard about, one in Alaska who hung around a town and played with the town’s dogs and never hurt a soul. The wolf was jet-black and odd because it seemed to understand that wild and a little bit tame could survive together, if only people let that be. The town had; a hunter had not. “Just be careful.”

  He watched as his dog and McEvoy’s wolf faced off, gave each other the once-over, and then, ever so tentatively, touched noses. He also discovered something new. Wolves wagged their tails just like dogs, and they liked to play and run. Six and the gray did that for a time until, too soon, the air thumped with the beat of rotors,: his ride, coming to take him back where he belonged. At the sound, the wolf ducked back into the trees. When they lifted off again, he looked hard for the animal but didn’t see it. But he felt it still there and for a brief moment, he wondered what those wild eyes saw and wished he could ask. He bet McEvoy knew.

  And sometimes…the damnedest thing, really…sometimes, when he was out in the woods, either by himself or with Six or, at times, even with Molly, he found his eyes straying to the woods. Stupid. That gray was miles away. But that didn’t seem to stop him hoping.

  And then he always had to wonder. Hoping for what?

  “Hey.” He turned to find Molly, cheeks rosy and nose red as Rudolph’s, at the door. Stamping snow from her boots, she gave him a quizzical look. “You’re a million miles away.”

  “Just thinking.” He let go of a long breath. “Hank called. There’s eggnog.”

  “Only if they hold the nog.” Her smile faded then, and a slight wrinkle appeared between her brows. “You still thinking about that job? The one you can’t tell me about because then you’d have to kill me?” When he nodded, she came to him and threaded her arms around his waist. “You need to let it go.”

  “Have you been talking to Hank?”

  “I’m serious. This one really got to you and I know you can’t say anything. I’m not asking you to. But you also can’t do anything more, and the ghosts will drive you nuts. You know that better than anyone. So, come on.” She gave him a little squeeze. “Come be with us.”

  So, he did. He went outside and they played with Six or, rather, they watched Six play with the launcher—and for a while, he didn’t think of McEvoy, his gaze didn’t wander to the woods, and a strange longing didn’t fill his heart to bursting.

  For a while.

  “Well, you look like the cat that ate the canary.” Shooting him a quick grin, Hank Cooper returned his eyes to the road. It had started to snow again, and the weather guy said there’d be another foot by morning. “Good news?”

  “Yeah.” Thumbing off his phone, Gabriel released a huge sigh. “That was Peterson. It’s really going to happen. I’ll be working again and they’ve dropped the charges, so it’s like, you know.” He let out a breathy laugh. “Kind of a spectacular Christmas gift.”

  “I’m really happy for you. Seriously, man. Your folks know?” At his nod, Hank arched a brow. “So, does this mean you’re actually going to, you know, darken your parents’ door again?” When he didn’t answer right away, Hank pressed, “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Easy for you to slay.” It was a lame pun and, really, there was nothing funny about it. His eyes flicked right and studied the face which looked back from the side-view mirror. His burn marks had long since faded. All that remained was a stripe of scar zipping along his scalp. The doctor said he’d never have hair there again, but he could cover it up pretty well if only he’d lose the military buzz. But Gabriel couldn’t. Or, perhaps, that really was wouldn’t. For the time being, he needed reminding of just how close he’d come to not seeing this or any Christmas again. “They’ll have a lot of questions. It’s been okay on the phone, but in person…” He let that die.

  “Face-to-face is always hard. That’s what makes it worth doing.” Hank changed the subject. “Listen, there’re going to be a couple other people there. Just two. One is, uh, this woman.”

  “Aw, jeez.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Tell me you are not setting me up on a blind date.”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” But Hank still uncomfortable. “It’s just…well, there’s some history.”

  “What, you invite your old girlfriend to your new girlfriend’s place?”

  “Are you kidding? That would be
easier.” Hank grunted a humorless laugh. “No, this is someone my brother met in Afghanistan.”

  Uh-oh. Gabriel slid a sidelong glance. “He got involved?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking. Samir was a translator for their unit. Her husband had been killed and all the guys in the unit watched out for her. But it was Pete who helped her put in paperwork for a visa. Thing is, he didn’t tell Sarah. I think he worried she’d get the wrong idea.”

  “Seems to me not saying anything makes it worse.”

  “No, what’s worse is you end up dead and your brother has a picture in his wallet of you and Samir and, oh yeah, the baby. Of course, I didn’t know about that until after the fact. Pete had me promise to help Samir see the process through if, you know, anything happened.”

  “And then something did.”

  Eyes fixed to the view beyond his windshield, Hank nodded. “I could say I don’t know why I never told Sarah, except I do know. I was jealous. Jealous of Pete for having Sarah in the first place and then, you know, when Pete died, I thought it was just too sad, me horning in on Pete’s girl. I guess I hoped she’d eventually come around, maybe see me. Only she didn’t. Whenever we were together doing anything, Pete was always in the way and he was my brother and I loved him. Anyway, I thought if I said anything, it would come out wrong. Petty and like this really bad romance novel. Like, see, he wasn’t such a great guy, he had his secrets.”

  They all did, Gabriel included. He had, for example, never mentioned Mac to Hank or Sarah or the doctors at Walter Reed. Of course, an impromptu debriefing in an off-the-books black site tended to reinforce that a faulty memory and tight lips contributed to a much longer, happier life. Not that he’d been threatened, not in so many words, but the way those guys had swarmed out of nowhere for the snatch and grab had impressed him. So he’d adopted a very Zen approach. Spock-like, almost, which he thought might have pleased Mac. He hadn’t lied to that colonel. He had merely omitted most of what he’d seen and what he knew—just as he also knew, he would never see Mac again.