Page 137 of Ford

Ford closed his eyes, the voice, the touch so real he could weep. He lay like the dead, not wanting the sense of it to fade.

“Ford! Wake up!” The voice, strident and angry, roused him, and he blinked his eyes open.

The dawn crested bright behind his rescuer, and he made out the shadows, the planes, so familiar so… “Tate?”

His brother smiled, nodded. Glanced over his shoulder. “He’s alive!”

Voices, footsteps, and he looked past Tate to see figures running toward him. Frogmen in wet suits…

“Yeah, I found him, Scarlett,” Tate said, looking at Ford. “You were right.”

Scarlett?

His breath whooshed in, and he wheezed hard, rolled over, and began to cough, his insides fighting to spill out.

“Whoa, bro, easy.” Tate’s hand landed on his back. “Breathe.”

His body shook out the debris, and Ford fell back hard into the packed sand. He put his hand over his chest, fighting the ache. He might have broken a couple ribs hitting the rocks, and his shoulder had begun a slow scream. “Scarlett.”

“She’s okay. We found her. And RJ.”

He breathed out, the heat dissipating.Thank you, God.

Stand back and see what I will do.

“Just can’t stay out of trouble, can you, Marsh?”

His eyes opened, and his vision cleared.

Except—maybe he was dead, because— “Nez?” His master chief was kneeling beside him.

Then, another voice. “Sheesh, bro. Always showing off.”

“Wyatt?”

His brother wore a baseball hat and crouched beside him, grinning.

No. This couldn’t be right. Because his hockey star brother couldn’t be on a beach in—Kazakhstan? Turkmenistan? Russia?

“What—?” Ford looked at Tate.

“He got it in his head that maybe Coco was with you,” Tate said. “Tried to turn into a super hero.”

Wyatt’s smile dimmed, his lips pinched into a tight line.

Ford met his gaze. “I’m sorry, bro.”

“She’s not dead,” Wyatt said stiffly. “RJ got an email from this guy York who said they were headed to Vladivostok.”

That might not have been a terrible idea. Maybe Ford should stop trying to figure everything out on his own.

Or trying to show up to help God along.

He took a breath, wincing. “How’d you find me?”

“A drone,” Nez said. “Scarlett’s been looking for you all night. She spotted you a couple hours ago, but then lost you when the riptide carried you out to sea.”

The riptide. It had cycled him out, then back into a spit of sandy beach.