Page 43 of Shielding Instinct

Which meant that as Hawkeye leaned over the nose of the borrowed surfboard, plunging his hands into the water and dragging his arm back to his side, he was plowing ever forward toward some kind of crisis that he’d meet with the only thing he had—seat-of-his-pants strategy and enormous will.

As the team rounded the finger of land and could see into the next cove, each man popped up on his board, coming up on their knees to give themselves a moment to make sense of the chaos and to catch their breath before their next burst of effort.

Nobody liked that. It felt all kinds of wrong to stop the forward momentum.

But, like in any emergency, the first rule of rescue was not to become part of the problem.

Even before Ash pointed and called out his findings, Hawkeye had spotted the problem. By the look of the water with two deep blue lanes and foam cutting through the paleturquoise, those had to be two sections of rip currents that had caught people up.

At least those on the shore knew better than to dive in without a floatation device and try to swim out and help.

That could just double a family’s grief.

As those on the shore spotted the team, their screams turned from terror and anguish to hope, from gripping their heads as they knelt along the surf to leaping in the air with pointed fingers.

One woman came to her senses.

Thank goodness for that woman.

She rallied those around her, and as a group, the chant went up, “Six. Six. Six.”

“Six in the water, boys. Call them out when you see them,” Ash yelled to the team.

Here, where the sea was comparatively smooth, the men balanced with arms wide as they stood on their boards, working to gain perspective.

With hands shielding their eyes from the glitter of sunlight reflecting off the water's surface, they scanned with eyes well-practiced in searches.

None of the teammates called out a find.

Had the victims already gone under?

Hawkeye cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted toward the woman. “Find them! Show us!” He repeated this three times so that if the wind was snatching his words, someone could piece the message together.

The woman rallied the people around her again.

A moment later, groups ran to different positions on the beach. There were two, sometimes three people at each station, and every arm pointed at the swimmer they were marking.

It was brilliant.

“I have number six. The one on the far side,” Hawkeye called. “Once I have them, I’ll paddle south until I reach that boulder. It looks like it’s past the rip current. That’s where I plan to turn to shore.”

“Go, Hawkeye. Go! Go!” Ash called.

As Hawkeye threw himself down on his board, he heard Ash issuing orders behind him, “Levi takes five. Halo takes four, then three. I have the shortest paddle. I’ll go for one, then two, and see if Halo needs an assist with three. Get to shore and reassess.”

Hawkeye’s breathless “Wilco!” joined his teammates as he drove his board forward.

The lip of land had brought them out just far enough that they were past the current. There was a clear demarcation that Hawkeye tested before he pressed on.

He couldn’t risk being caught in the current, too.

First man out, his brothers would be watching his progress to see if that line of travel was safe.

So far, he wasn’t battling a cross pull out to sea, so he powered on.

It was tough as hell to pass the people in the water. He thought about the scenes at Quantico that Petra had described. In theory, it made rational sense.

In practice, it hurt like hell.

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