Chapter 23 - Blood on the Folded Stars
The mud sucked at my work boots, every step threatening to throw me headfirst onto the rain-slicked asphalt. My cracked rib felt like a jagged piece of glass grinding against my lungs with every breath, but I didn't slow down.
The sniper in the fuel shed was blind without his lights, but he had thermal. Through the sweeping red flash of the helicopter's tail beacon, I saw the green muzzle flash of his rifle tracking toward me.
*CRACK.*
The bullet tore through the meat of my left shoulder, spinning me half-around. The shock was cold at first, followed instantly by a searing wave of heat that felt like someone had driven a red-hot iron rod through my deltoid. I hit the ground hard, rolling through the muddy ditch, the Remington flying from my hands and splashing into the silt.
I lay in the reeds, gasping for air, the rain driving straight into my open eyes.
Fifty yards ahead, the silhouette of the sniper shifted in the fuel shed window, working the bolt of his rifle to chamber another round, leaning out to sight down on my position in the ditch. He had me cold. I had no weapon, no cover, and my left arm hung completely limp, deadened by the nerve shock of the bullet.
Then, out of the black water behind the fuel shed, a phantom rose.
Rex didn't make a sound. He didn't splash. He came out of the ditch like a predator breaking the surface of a dark pond, his massive body lunging upward in a single, explosive arc.
He cleared the three-foot sill of the shed window in a heartbeat.
A muffled shriek of pure terror was instantly cut short by the sound of breaking glass and the violent thrashing of two bodies inside the corrugated iron shed. A rifle discharged wildly through the tin roof, sending a single tracer round streaking harmlessly into the storm clouds. Then, the shed fell deathly quiet, save for the steady drum of rain against the metal.
Three seconds later, Rex leaped back out through the shattered window, his muzzle painted dark with fresh blood, his gait steady and relentless.
He trotted directly to my side, planting his broad chest between me and the open airfield, letting out a sharp, urgent whuffle.
"Good boy," I wheezed, digging my right hand into the mud to drag myself upright against the wet concrete curbing. "Good boy, Rex."
Blood was soaking through my jacket, dripping down my sleeve and mixing with the rainwater on the asphalt. I reached into my coat with my working hand, pulling out the folded triangle of my father’s burial flag. The heavy cotton was damp, the gold fringe at the edges catching the intermittent sweep of the helicopter’s strobe.
*Monofilament optical fiber.*
Harold had said the thread was the proof. If Campbell destroyed the helicopter or ditched it in the Atlantic, this flag was the only thing left that could prove my father hadn't died a madman—that could bring down the men who had turned loyal soldiers and noble animals into disposable weapons.
Across the tarmac, the Sikorsky’s engines roared to full takeoff power. The landing skids lifted six inches off the concrete, the nose tilting down as the pilot prepared to transition into forward flight.
Campbell was standing in the open side cargo door, his arm in a sling, holding onto a nylon ceiling strap with his good hand, looking down at the empty tarmac with a look of cold, untouchable arrogance.
He thought he was clear.
"Rex," I whispered, pointing my trembling right hand at the rising landing gear of the helicopter. "Get him."
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Rex didn't look at the size of the machine. He didn't fear the deafening roar of the twin turbines or the hurricane-force wash of the main rotor blades.
He lowered his head, dug his claws into the asphalt until stone chips flew from his rear pads, and sprinted straight into the gale.
