Scarlett hooked her hand onto the back of his pack and edged down the corridor, lining up behind the other passengers. RJ held her passport and visa in her hand, her mouth a grim line.
They exited the car and followed a line of people toward a kiosk, guards with weapons and brown uniforms eyeing them.
“Ford?”
He’d taken Scarlett’s hand and now squeezed it.
No one intercepted them, but her throat tightened as they stepped up to the passport control booth.
Ford handed over their passports. Stared at the man inside who inspected them.
Her heart dropped when the man raised his chin toward the soldiers.
“Idti-tooydah,” the guard said, and she remembered enough Russian to form comprehension. Come over here.
RJ wore the same cool expression as her brother. Sheesh.
They walked toward a building, and Scarlett glanced toward the edge of the platform, gauging the distance. They could make a break for it, jump off—
Ford’s hand tightened. “Trust.”
Oh, please let them not end up eating gruel and digging ditches.
The door opened to a tiny office with a desk and four straight-backed chairs. She didn’t see any bright lights, any dental equipment.
The guard motioned them over to the chairs. He closed the door behind him.
She tried to listen for the sound of a lock.
As Ford sat, his phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket. Glanced at Scarlett as he answered. “Ham.”
Scarlett might have held her breath, she wasn’t sure, but her chest certainly tightened when she saw Ford wince. “Ah, yeah, we’re already here… Okay. I’ll do my best.”
He hung up. “We need to stall. Ham’s guy is late. Trying to get us passes on a flight out.”
Scarlett nodded. Looked at the room. No windows, not even a vent. Probably so no one could hear them scream.
“God is our breacher,” Ford said quietly.
She looked at him. “What?”
“It’s what Ham said on the train. That we don’t have to figure everything out. God is already here, already stalling for us.”
She didn’t want to disagree, but hello… God? Here, in Kazakhstan?
Except, maybe that was her problem. She didn’t expect anything from God. But it just felt safer that way. Then He could never disappoint.
She glanced at Ford. He smiled down at her, no teeth, but definitely not despair on his face.
She could almost hear his voice, as if spoken aloud. Maybe that’s why God sent me into your life because whatever happens, I will show up for you, Red. Whatever happens.
Maybe that’s why God—
The door opened, and she braced herself.
Then the blood rushed from her body, her breath catching. A man stood in the doorway. He wore a leather jacket, a button-down shirt, and jeans. Tall, dark hair and matching eyes, and as he walked in, he shook his head, almost in disbelief. “Seriously?”
Then—she wasn’t sure who said it—she thought the word came from her mouth, but the twins on either side of her were in sync when they uttered his name.
“Roy?”
The good news was that they were so far under the radar, their path home so haphazard, that neither the CIA nor the FSB would be able to track them.
Frankly, Ford could barely keep track of where he, RJ, and Scarlett were. He had a sketchy memory of Kazakhstan from his training, remembered they were a former Soviet satellite—although the remnants of the Communist arm still embedded the country, from the Cyrillic alphabet to the architecture.
He’d never flown on Kazakh Air, but it couldn’t be worse than the Aeroflot flight to Yekaterinburg. He’d longed for the relative rugged appeal of a C-130—at least he knew the plane wouldn’t break apart with one significant gust and litter their bodies on the eternal steppe that spanned central Kazakhstan. He might have taken his chances on a camel or one of the magnificent horses tended by the many tribes in the country.
The thought had hung in his mind for too long, his hand folded into Scarlett’s as he closed his eyes, reached for some shut-eye.
He’d dreamed of the ranch, of their horseback ride so many weeks ago, of feeling her holding onto him. When this was over, he’d take her home, get her on her own horse, show her more of the ranch, and embed her into a family who could watch over her while he deployed.
And there he went again, dreaming up a future for them.
Except, I love you, Ford.
He let the words settle in. Fuel his plans. Of course they would include her kid brother—but also more kids and a house and—
“I don’t see a boat.”
Scarlett’s words brought him to the present, where they stood on a rocky, abandoned shore, staring out into the Caspian Sea. Endlessly blue, waves frothed the shoreline, kicking up spray as the water hit undersea boulders, the shoreline a wasteland of jagged-edged rocks.
He wanted to raise his hand and ask if anyone else thought this might be a crazy idea.
“The freighter is out there—York confirmed with the captain,” RJ said. “Keep looking.”
Apparently, Roy had been sent by York, and the fact that they still hadn’t heard from Ham after missing his contact at the railway station contributed to the knot in Ford’s gut. But he agreed with Roy—the Bratva could be watching the railways.
Roy. The guy had whisked them out of Kazakhstan control so fast they might be royalty. Or diplomats, per their new documents. It occurred to him afresh that RJ knew him, too, and it only set a burr inside Ford that his sister lived a life he knew nothing about.
Probably how she felt about his life, maybe.
Roy had hired a car and taken them to the airport outside the city where they boarded a small Kazakh Air regional plane.
Seven hours later, they’d landed in Aktau, the sun chasing them across the sky to drop into the far horizon. Roy had secured another vehicle and had driven them to a city 150 km north, Bautino, a seaboard town built in a bowl of seagrass, rimmed on every side by cliffs, scrub brush, and pastures. They’d passed more than one herd of camels, horses grazing, and Russian-style homes with red roofs and cement walls on their way to a secluded point just north of the harbor.
Ford didn’t ask why they weren’t taking a ferry, the answer obvious. But a low hum of worry buzzed through him as he stood on the rugged shoreline searching for their ride. The scent of the sea rose—a hint of salt in the air, the briny odor of fish, and the cool lick of a storm gathering in the far west.
“There it is,” Scarlett said, pointing as she held the glasses to her eyes. She had donned his jacket, now dwarfing her. “Just beyond those rocks.” She handed Ford the binoculars.
He found the freighter, a bulky, rusty orange cargo ship anchored just east of an archipelago of islands, maybe five miles offshore. He handed Scarlett the binoculars back and turned to Roy.
“And they’re expecting us.”
“According to York, he was able to stop them, make them wait for you. You have until just after sunset to get aboard—”
“And their destination port?”
“Azerbaijan.”
Ford let the fist in his chest release. “Okay. I know people there. That could work.” He eyed the skiff pulled up onshore, an outboard motor tilted up, a couple ratty life jackets soaking in brine at the bottom of the flat-hulled boat. Maybe ten feet long, it appeared as battered as the plane they’d just taken across the country, held together with glue and prayer.
Ford had practiced—and executed—onboarding procedures hundreds of times, but usually in a Zodiac manned by one of his teammates, or even a SWIK operator who knew how to work with the ebb and flow of the waves, the current that might dash them against the hull of the ship.
He should get back on a plane.
Except, with Ham gone radio silent…
Ford glanced at the black band of clouds hovering to the west. “Let’s get going.” He threw his pack into the boat, then grabb
ed a line and secured it. Turned to Roy. “You coming?”
“No. But if you need help—” He glanced at RJ. “You know how to find me.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Roy.”
“I never want to see you again.” But then he smiled, winked.
“Me too.”
Ford gripped the boat, and Scarlett came alongside to help him push it from the shoreline. Alarmingly lightweight, it floated free, and he put a hand on it as Scarlett and RJ climbed in. Scarlett picked up a paddle to secure it as he pushed off and climbed in. Ford tied his pack to a line attached to the boat.
Roy watched them for a moment, then turned to climb back up the hill.
Scarlett and RJ paddled them away from shore as Ford let down the motor. Secured it. He pulled the rip cord, but nothing happened.
Again, and this time he added the choke to it. It grumbled to life, coughing out a gaseous, acrid cloud. In moments, Ford had them headed out to sea.
They broke free of the shoals along the shore, the spray pelting them as he cut through the waves. The wind had started to whip up, the sun fading fast against the horizon. RJ held the binoculars to her eyes, shouting directions at him.
To the north, maybe five hundred feet away, an island rose, its jagged-edged shoreline like teeth. Waves hit the cliff walls with such force the spray thundered across the water, a violent protest to the beating.
He angled the skiff toward deeper water, where the freighter sat at anchor.
“Hang on!”
He preferred a Zodiac. A flat-bottomed skiff might beach well, but it turned into a board, slamming against the troughs of the open sea. A Zodiac bent with the waves and turned without much coaxing.
RJ nearly unseated as they pitched hard, jerking forward. “RJ! Get a life jacket on!”
She hated water and didn’t swim well—he, better than anyone, knew that. To his relief, she grabbed one of the jackets. Put it on.
“You too, Red.”
But when Scarlett grabbed for the other, it came up in shreds, the neck broken. She dropped it and shook her head, holding onto her seat. Winced as they hit again, hard. He felt as if his spleen was being ripped from his insides.
The orange hull had darkened with the setting sun, the oncoming storm turning the sky a deep amber. He had the motor wide open, but they barely made 30 knots, at his guess.
At this rate, it would be dark by the time they reached the freighter. And by then the sea would be boiling with the storm.
Okay, now might be a good time for God to show up. To calm the sea.
He’d even take a miraculous parting.
Ford shivered, his body soaked through now, and the wind tore at his shirt, took off his hat, and tossed it into the waves.
The sea turned black, milky with foam, the water chaotic and undulating as he fought to find a path through the water. He rode one wave over the edge, down the backside, then the next. Again. His arm had gone numb, the throttle buzzing it to the core of his body.
Please—
He spotted the freighter a hundred yards off and cut the motor, not wanting to come in too fast. “Scarlett—grab my Maglite. Get their attention.”
His gut was back to knotted as his brain tried to work out their boarding. Scarlett found the light and flashed it on the hulking ship.
He’d forgotten how big freighters could be. In the pitching sea, it loomed nearly eighty feet above them, falling to sixty as it rode the waves, which banged against the side, shattering in a spray of destruction. He’d have to work the boat close, but not enough to slam into the side. And should anyone fall into the drink, they could get sucked under the boat.
Yeah, they should have taken their chances at the airport.
Water drenched him as he motored closer. He made out a name—the Navoo—and shouted when a seaman directed his port side light at them.
A rope accommodation ladder swayed against the boat, running up the hull.
The bosun began dropping the gangway sideways down the ship to help with the boarding process.
He just had to get the ladies on the ladder. From there, they could climb it to the gangway.
The ladder dragged into the sea. If he could grab it, he could hold the boat steady against the hull.
“RJ, reach out and grab the ladder when I get close!”
He motored the skiff toward the side, grimacing as the waves tossed them. But he waited until they’d fallen into a trough, then opened the throttle, driving the skiff against the hull. A terrible crunch rattled his teeth, but RJ had grabbed hold of the ladder.
Ford nearly launched from his seat to secure her grip. His hand wrapped around the soggy rope, pulling the end into the boat. “Go, RJ!”
He grabbed her arm, and she scrambled onto the wooden slats. Beside him, Scarlett stood up, her balance careening as the ocean grabbed them. Overhead, the clouds cracked open and poured steely rain into the blackness.
The perfect storm.
“Go, go! RJ!”
The sea gathered beneath them as RJ fought to climb the ladder banging against the hull, fighting her efforts.
He should get behind her, climb with her, make sure she held on.
He grabbed the rope with his other hand and looked away as RJ nearly kicked him.
The sea crested beneath the boat, grabbing hold of the flat hull. It tore the boat away from him.
“Ford!” Scarlett dropped to her knees, holding onto the seat as the boat drifted free.
He hung from the rope, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the rungs. Glanced over his shoulder. Scarlett was hanging onto her seat, her face pale as the sea drove her back, away from the freighter.
The freighter fell, banging hard into the next trough. The movement jarred RJ, slamming her into the side, crushing her hand. She cried out and let go.
She dangled by her other hand, slipping.
“Hang on!” His arms burned as he trapped her against the ladder.
He glanced back at Scarlett. If he let go, he could catch the boat, motor it back.
RJ was fighting for her hold.
The sea engulfed them, pulling them under. Water burned his eyes, and he shook it away, his arms burning as he anchored himself on the ladder, his feet finding purchase.
RJ found her grip.
A glance behind him showed Scarlett climbing over the bench seats to grab the motor throttle. Good girl. Keep up—
The freighter started to move, the engines in the body rumbling the metal, growling against the angry sea. RJ found her footing, but the freighter lurched forward, and with it came another surge from the sea.
This time, the slam against the hull shook her free from the rope.
RJ took Ford out on the way down, ripping his grip from the rope. They splashed into the sea, the current gulping them down into the briny depths.
No—he wouldn’t die under the rusty hull of a boat. He wrapped one arm around RJ, kicked hard, and lunged for the rope. His fingers caught a rung, and he hauled them both upward, toward the ladder.
They surfaced, gasping. “Grab the ladder!”
RJ leaped for it and got her hand around the rung.
“You can do it!” Ford shouted, although his mouth was practically against her ear. But the sea and roar of the wind and the torrent of rain gobbled his words.
Over the din, he made out his name and turned just as RJ got her other hand on the rung.
The sea had rushed them into a deep trough, and he felt the water fall away, a giant vacuum pulling the freighter into trouble. He searched for the metal skiff and spied it near the stern of the ship. Scarlett was fighting with the motor, pulling the rip cord.
Of course it had died.
RJ had pulled herself up, securing her feet on a rung.
“Ford!”
He looked up and then followed her gaze.
Oh. No.
A massive wave swelled, maybe thirty feet high, tall enough to crest over the bow of the freighter.
RJ screamed.
&n
bsp; He glanced at Scarlett, still fighting the motor. “Red! Get down!”
The wind ate his words.
“Hold on!” he shouted as the wave hit the bow of the ship. He secured himself to the ladder, scrambling up behind RJ and clinging to it with everything he had inside.
And sure, he’d ridden waves and fought the surf and knew how to breathe and not let the sea take him, but for a moment, as the wave swamped him, he heard nothing but the tempest of the depths mocking him.
I’ll get you home. He’d said it to Scarlett, to RJ so many times, he thought it was all on him.
But clinging to the rope, his lungs burning, he realized just how far underwater he was.
Because in his head, God was his breacher, sure. But Ford was His backup.
And that very thought was laughable in the face of the storm.
He wasn’t the rescuer at all.
They finally broke the surface, and RJ gasped, dragging in breaths.
“Go—they come in threes!” At least that’s how it worked on the ocean.
As RJ moved, he searched the spotlight glare from the freighter on the black waters for their skiff.
His heart froze, his entire body jolted when he spied it.
Overturned, the flat hull glinted against the light just barely before it got pulled into the blackness.
“Go!” RJ said. “I can do this. Go!” She glanced at the skiff, then to him. “Hurry!”
He couldn’t leave her. Them.
RJ kicked him. “Move, sailor!”
Right. He pushed off hard into the sea in an overhand crawl toward the boat.
The sea kept knocking it out of view. A wave caught him up, buried him, and he came up sputtering. Lost the skiff only to find it again in the crackle of lightning.
He swam with everything inside him, but the current had taken the boat, spitting it out to sea.
The swell of another wave grabbed at him, and he dove under it, refusing to let it have him. But when he surfaced, the wave had carried him outside the perimeter of light from the boat.
“Scarlett!”
He turned, searching the sea. Nothing of the skiff.
The freighter’s light winked across the darkness.
Okay. Stay calm. Scarlett was a good—very good—swimmer. And if she was smart, she’d hang with the skiff. He just needed to get back to the freighter, get one of their lifeboats.
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