Chapter One
Bagram Air Base, Kabul, Afghanistan
“Major Kilcannon?”
The voice yanked Aidan out of the deep-state stare he’d been in for an hour, maybe two, making him blink at the sergeant behind the post-op desk. “Yeah?”
“Captain Spencer is in ICU recovery, sir.”
Recovery? Then Charlie wasn’t dead.
Aidan stood, the weight of a sweaty uniform and worry pressing on him as he looked down at the other man. “I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, Major. No visitors back there.”
“Five minutes. Three. One.” Aidan fisted his hands and leaned over the counter to get closer to the young sergeant’s face. “I’ve known him since we were fifteen. We went through ROTC together. We’ve done three tours together. We survived Green Platoon together.”
The other man flinched, maybe from the sheer force of Aidan’s determination, or maybe the fact that Aidan and the man he wanted to see were US Army Night Stalkers and they lived by one simple creed: Night Stalkers don’t quit.
And Aidan wasn’t about to quit until he saw Charlie Spencer again. He wasn’t going to accept that a pickup of special ops troops down in Nangarhar got so ugly, so fast. Not after Charlie had volunteered to sit in the co-pilot’s seat that night, since Aidan’s usual co-pilot was throwing his guts up with the flu.
In a year and a half with the 160th SOAR Airborne, Aidan had transported special ops troops in his UH-60 Black Hawk through way worse conditions than what they’d expected tonight. This job, to pick up SEALs from a raid in an ISIS hellhole and get them back to Bagram, was supposed to be routine.
A flipping joyride, Charlie had called it. Stuck his head right in his crazy-ass dog’s face and said, “I’m goin’ for a joyride, Rufferoni. BRB, big boy.”
But he hadn’t been right back, because that night nothing had been joyous or routine. A brutal wind shear had forced Aidan to fly lower than he normally would over that region. Then a pack of Taliban bastards decided Aidan’s chopper full of troops made for good target practice with their newly acquired ground-to-air weapons.
They started a bloody skirmish that the good guys won handily, but not without a price. That was paid by Captain Charles John Spencer, who jumped into the open door when the gunner was wounded. In true Charlie “There Ain’t Nothing I Can’t Do” Spencer fashion, the son of a bitch co-pilot managed to shoot three insurgents with master precision. But the fourth one landed a bullet right through Charlie’s chest.
“Just tell me if he’s on the CCATT list.” Because if Charlie was being taken by the critical care air transport to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, then the surgery had been successful. If he left Kabul alive, he had a chance.
Please, God, give him a chance.
But he knew that prayer might not be answered. They’d treated him in the chopper, and Aidan had managed to land at the airfield, where a team of medics had descended on the tarmac to whisk Charlie and the wounded door gunner to the base hospital. But Charlie’s injury was serious. A clean shot, through the lungs and out the back.
“All I can tell you is Captain Spencer is out of surgery, and a CCATT team is loading up a C-17 for the trip.”
“So he’s going to Germany.” As if saying it enough would make it true.
“I don’t know,” the man admitted. “There are two others in there, both wounded on patrol. Your door gunner is clear, but he’ll be in overnight. Hang on until they bring them out. If Captain Spencer’s on a gurney, I’ll make sure you can follow him to the runway. If he’s not…”
Then he wasn’t going to survive. Or, he might already be dead.
Aidan closed his eyes and changed his prayer. Don’t let him die.
Ten seconds later, the trauma unit doors smacked open, and the antiseptic stink and low-grade hum of horror rolled into the hall along with the first transportee. Three medics in brown coveralls marched out carrying a SMEED with a soldier so completely bandaged, Aidan couldn’t see the color of his skin. But he could see that the special evac device that usually supported the patient’s lower legs was being used instead of a gurney because…there were no lower legs.
Swallowing, he stepped way back and let them through, glancing into the trauma unit, which was packed with medical professionals and a few noncritical patients leaning against the walls, waiting to be seen.
The hall that led to the ICU was out of his sightline, so he waited until the next crew came through with a Marine on a gurney—Lance Corporal Rodriguez, according to his stripes and name tag, his hands completely bandaged, his eyes closed.
One of the CCATT medics passed by, her brown eyes holding Aidan’s gaze long enough to give him the impetus to step forward. “Any more?” he asked her.
“Not on this flight, Major. These are the only two going to Germany. ’Scuze me.”
That meant Charlie was staying. That meant Charlie was dying.
“Go on,” the door guard said, his expression softening as he no doubt came to the same conclusion. “You’ll need to stay out of the way, sir.”
With a nod of thanks, Aidan walked into the trauma unit, turned left, and followed the signs to the ICU bay. His pulse thrummed with every step, his whole body itching for a different ending than the one he might be facing.
Finally, he reached the bay and found Charlie covered with a sheet up to his chin. He had IVs in both arms, oxygen pumped into his nose, and a visible chest tube. Shit, that wasn’t good. Fluid in the lungs.
The room was eerily quiet, the only real noise the steady beeps of monitors and machines and the whispers of brief exchanges between nurses and doctors in and out of the ICU bays.
One of those doctors was a few feet from Charlie, looking at a clipboard, when Aidan approached.
“Can’t be in here, Major.”
Aidan peered over the man’s shoulder at Charlie. “Please.”
The doctor, with bloodshot eyes and two days’ worth of beard, tipped his head toward the bed in consent. “One minute before he’s moved.”
“To Landstuhl?” He couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice, the bone-deep belief that the transport medic had been wrong.
But the doctor gave a quick, nearly imperceptible shake of his head. “He wouldn’t survive that trip, Major. I’m sorry.”
Pain punched his gut, but he refused to flinch as he went to Charlie’s bed. Instead, Aidan took a good look at the familiar face he’d known damn near twenty years. From the moment he found the new kid lost in the cafeteria and learned he could play center field, Aidan Kilcannon and Charlie Spencer had been inseparable.
But one close look at his bloodless complexion and the way-too-slow beeps of the monitor hooked up to him, and Aidan had a sickening feeling that inseparable might be coming to an end.
He leaned over Charlie’s head to whisper, “Hey. Spence. It’s me.”
The faintest frown pulled at thick dark brows. He mumbled something, but Aidan didn’t catch it.
“You’re gonna be okay, man.”
One lid opened enough to reveal a slit of brown. “Shut up, Kil.”
Aidan understood that. “You shut up and get better.”
Charlie managed to move his head from side to side. “Not happenin’.”
“Oh yes, it is,” Aidan insisted harshly, glancing around so the docs wouldn’t make him leave. “You can do this. Don’t give up, man.”
“’S bad.”
Yes, it was. As bad as it could get. But Charlie ran on optimism and an acute refusal to fail. It was what made him a great friend and an even greater soldier. “I’ve seen you worse, Spence.”
He grunted.
“After Black Day? You barfed for two straight hours.”
Charlie flinched a bit, either in pain or at the memory of the hardest day during their six-week training at Fort Campbell, where they fought to earn the badge and right to be called Army Night Stalkers. But they both knew the rigors of Green Platoon had nothing on the fight Charlie was in right now.
“No’ as bad as spring break in Virginia,” he ground out, making Aidan smile.
“Damn, we got some memories, bro.” And he needed to live so they had more.
Charlie took a slow, deep, and agonizing as hell breath, the pain of it etched on every feature of his face and echoed in the black curse he muttered as he let it out.
“Lis’en to me,” he said, forcing the words out. “Don’t gimme shit.”
“I’m not giving you shit, Charlie, I’m telling you—”
“Ruff.”
At first, he wasn’t sure what Charlie had said. “Ruff? Your dog?”
He gave a slight nod. “You…get…Ruff.”
Aidan closed his eyes as he let the words sink in. Charlie knew he was dying, or he wouldn’t start making final requests about the stray he’d found four months ago when they’d dropped into a bombed-out hospital to airlift troops and injured locals. Somehow, Charlie managed to snag the doggo and break every frickin’ rule in the Army to keep him at their base. But Aidan wasn’t about to accept this as Charlie’s last will and testament. No way.
“I’ll take care of him while you’re laid up.”
“Get him home.”
He wasn’t sure what that meant, but Aidan leaned closer. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Start now.” Charlie got both eyes open and gave Aidan a harsh look. “Takes a long time. Lotta money.”
Getting a dog out of Afghanistan and back to the States? And not an official military K-9, but a stray found after a bombing? It took time, money, connections, and a few miracles, but every soldier who got attached to one over here knew that from the get-go. Still, Ruff was irresistible and had given both Charlie and Aidan hours of desperately needed destressing.
“Your dad can do it.”
Aidan inched back. His father? Come to think of it, if anyone on earth could transport a dog back to the States, it’d be Daniel Kilcannon. “Get better, and you can both go home. You weren’t going to re-up next spring. You and Ruff can go back to Bitter Bark and have the life you want, Charlie. You take over your uncle’s business, make pizza night and day, and Ruff’ll be right there with you.”
Maybe that old fantasy would make him fight for his life. Because Aidan could swear that the will to live was slipping away with each labored breath.
“You do it,” Charlie rasped.
Aidan snorted. “You know I’m a lifer, dude.” Although, without Charlie, what kind of life would the Army be? Boring as hell. Broken.
“You take Ruff,” Charlie repeated, his eyes fiery enough to be golden brown now. “He can live at Waterford,” he added, referring to the homestead where Aidan had grown up, surrounded by siblings and dogs.
“Only if you’re there, too, Spence.”
Somehow, Charlie managed a get real look and another agonizing breath. “I’m goin’ somewhere else, man. An’ it ain’t Germany.”
So Charlie knew the CCATT had left without him. He had to know what that meant.
Aidan squeezed his lids against an unwanted burn. “Come on, man. Fight.”
“Listen,” Charlie hissed, adding force and digging up some of that grit he had in spades. “You and Ruff…belong together. He’s me in dog form.”
Aidan smiled at their running joke, which was so damn true. Charlie and Ruff were both big, wild, loyal, funny, stubborn, and fearless as hell. And Aidan didn’t want a world without either one of them.
He put his hand on Charlie’s thick shoulder and leaned closer. “Night Stalkers don’t quit,” he ground out.
Charlie barely flinched at the motto that had been hammered into their brains and bodies during the grueling weeks of training and every day on this, their first tour of duty as Night Stalkers.
“This one is checking out.”
The words sliced Aidan in two. “Charlie.”
He looked up, a vacancy in his brown eyes that were always so light with humor or warmth. “Promise me.”
“Just get—”
“Promise me, Kil. You get Ruff home. Work on it now. Get him to Waterford. He belongs wi’ you. You. No one else.”
“No, man, he belongs with you. So I’ll get him wherever you are, I promise. He’s your dog.”
“Now…he’s yours. Ruff is your dog. Do it…for me.”
“Charlie, look—”
“Aidan. Your word, man. Gimme your word.” Charlie leveled his gaze, pain and hope and humor gone from his eyes. Maybe life, too. But they never went back on their word to each other. It had been their code, their deal, the lifeblood of an enduring friendship. “Give it to me,” Charlie insisted, battling for the breath to make the demand.
“You have my word,” Aidan whispered.
The machine attached to one of the ten different cords pressed to his body started beeping, loud and fast, as Charlie closed his eyes.
A medic called an alert. A nurse shoved Aidan away. The doctor hustled over and started firing off orders.
And someone grabbed Aidan by the arm and yanked him out of the way. “You need to go outside, sir,” a nurse said. “Now.”
He moved blindly through the doors, back to the cold fluorescent lights of the hallway, into the waiting room. There, vaguely aware of the sharp-eyed gaze of the sergeant still at his post, Aidan leaned against the wall and felt his whole body start to crumble, sliding toward the floor. As he sank lower, something snapped in his head. In his heart, maybe.
The smells and sounds of the base hospital swirled around him, like he was on psychedelic drugs and a bad trip. Grief rose up and strangled him, the way it had after his mother died. Regret. Remorse. Misery. Loss. Loneliness.
Every dark thing that he could feel closed in around his head, smothering him.
Just before he hit the ground, he launched up, so hard and fast his boots slid on the linoleum.
Without a word, he took off, running through the hospital hall and out into the dusty, filthy air of Afghanistan. He looked left and right, got his bearings, and headed straight to the yellowed adobe walls of base housing, breaking into a run so fast the air sang in his head.
When he got to the entrance, he powered through the common area, ignoring the sound of someone calling his name. He shot up the stairwell and threw open the door to Club 25, as they called the four-man suite. Immediately, a big brown head rose from Charlie’s bed, followed by a deep, baritone bark of greeting. Aidan threw himself at the boxer, arms around his neck, and put his face in fur that sometimes seemed like God made it to absorb silent, secret tears.
But Aidan didn’t hide these tears. They flowed hard, until Ruff put a massive paw on Aidan’s shoulder in the closest thing to a hug a dog could give. They both fell on Aidan’s bunk eventually, spent. Aidan didn’t even take off his boots but let sleep be his escape.
It was barely sunup when two officers came in and quietly opened Charlie’s locker, took a bag of his belongings, and stripped his bed without a word.
After a few minutes, Aidan got up, put a leash on Ruff, and took him out. Then he called his father, woke him up, and asked a special favor.
If anyone could pull strings and get a dog from Afghanistan to the US, it was the man they called the Dogfather. Yes, it would take money, which he’d happily pay. And it would take time. A long time. The only question was who would get out of this hellhole first, Aidan or Ruff?
Didn’t matter. They both would, and they’d have each other’s back just like Aidan and Charlie. Now it would be Aidan and Ruff, a couple of Night Stalkers who never quit.