Page 1 of Montana Delta Rescue
Chapter 1
Delta Force K9 handler Ricky “Rock”Trumbull hardly ever smiled. This was partly how he’d gotten his nickname. Deadly serious when on a mission, Rock always got the job done. Hercules, the five-year-old German shepherd who was part of their team knew how to get a smile out of Rock and the bond between the two was close.
As Rock checked the straps on Hercules, he was in serious mode. They’d be parachuting together, and Rock was going through their regular jump routine making sure nothing was missed. Though he’d checked the dogs equipment more than once, before the load out, this pattern ensured in his mind that nothing would go wrong on their jump.
It was standard operating procedure for a Delta Force soldier to check, clean, repair, and repack his equipment constantly. The goal being always to be in a state of readiness. This would be a night op which carried its own challenges, but they both had rehearsed and prepared for night ops and they were more than ready.
Rock and Hercules both liked patterns. Practicing led to the speed and the safety they both needed to complete the mission and to come back from it.
Hercules wagged his tail as the two made eye contact. Battle buddies, they shared a bond unlike any Rock had ever experienced, even with his first military K9, Razor, who’d been retired out of the service last year. There was something special about Hercules that Rock couldn’t have begun to explain to anyone. Their bond went beyond words.
He wasn’t Hercules first handler. “Peppers,” aka Raul Martinez had been, but he’d gone back to the Rangers from Special Forces when jump injuries, knee injuries and age caught up with him.
‘Go back to give back,’ he’d said, like many other good men had done before him.
Rock would consider doing the same when he hit his late thirties. While not old compared to those in the civilian world, the work they did was hard on their bodies, and even though they might not still be going out on missions, they could still serve for many years afterward, helping to prepare younger soldiers to move into the teams.
“Herc,” Rock said to his dog. “Steady boy.”
Hercules was trained not to bark or make a sound until Rock let him know it was okay. He stuck his cold, wet nose under Rock’s hand, and Rock’s lips twitched up in a grin. Herc had a way of sending this quick move of affection when Rock most needed one.
Often it seemed as if Hercules was determined to do things to make him grin. As if along with being the most awesome military working dog ever, he’d also assigned himself the job of making sure Rock found the occasional grin.
He put the dog’s goggles and ear protection on, equipment needed for a night jump.
Herc could hear Rock through the mic which came in real handy.
Rock thought not for the first time, of how much Herc was a part of the team, even down to their equipment.
Time moved fast as it always did before a jump and then they were jumping out into the dark night, to land unseen in a country Rock could never admit they had been to, on a mission he’d never be able to admit he had been on. The adrenaline was like no other feeling in the world. They were at the end of another three-month rotation and would fulfill their mission and then come home to train for the next one.
* * *
The Delta teamcrept through the Iraqi town moving from the first buildings on the outskirts to ones closer in. They were nearing a safe building a few streets over from where intel had said their target would be found, when Rock got a sudden feeling.
Something about the intel was off. As if something had shifted.
He sensed it the minute they moved into the alley beside the building. That feeling that things were getting tight and could go ugly any minute. The feeling crept up and over his spine, like an internal warming system screaming in his body.
Seconds later, “Utah”, the newest member of their team, and the youngest, stepped up into a doorway in the alley in the side of the building and motioned he would check the door. In the split-second Rock would have warned him to stop and wait, to let Herc check it out first instead, Utah had already pulled the door open a crack, triggering a wire.
Bang!
Suddenly they were blown up, by the booby trap, and Rock was thrown across the alley by the blast. His last thought before everything went black, was of Hercules.
* * *
Rock laybeneath a pile of rubble.
Hercules dragged himself by his front paws slowly and painfully to where his handler lay in the rubble. Up and over the debris he moved until he found Rock’s hand sticking out beneath a large piece of wood. Hercules nosed it aside and pressed his nose against Rock’s limp hand.
Rock felt that cold wet nose on the palm of his hand.
Hercules.
He couldn’t say his dogs name or the dust around him would have gotten into his mouth. It took great effort to breathe as the rubble pressed heavy on his chest.
“Woof,” the sound came low, along with another nudge, as Herc tried to get a response from Rock.
