Page 86 of Gravity
Genesis knew they were gone.
Which meant only one thing—
Stone was coming.
Stone spotted the trucks and the ring of tents out past the scrub. “Veer off.” He pointed north; the pilot banked the bird and peeled away.
“It looks like Tatum brought help.” Viper lowered his glasses, eyes narrowing at the horizon.
“Did you talk to Titus?” Stone asked.
“I did.” Viper’s jaw tightened.
“And you’re sure itwasTitus?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Viper swallowed, the remembered warmth of Titus’s voice still sat in his chest. Relief had hit him hard when Titus said he’d live—made him go lightheaded in a way he hadn’t expected. “I told Beckman to get him to Dave’s estate to lay low. Ace will take it from there.”
Stone nodded once, thumb finding the edge of his earpiece. “Real, you copy?”
There was only crackling silence.
“Real?” Stone growled.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. SecDef Caldwell arrived.”
“Tell him to get a team in the air—Tatum brought reinforcements.” He rattled off coordinates into the mic.
“On it,” Real answered. “He says we’ll be on your six in about eleven minutes.”
Stone turned to the pilot. “Wrap back around, come up from the west, put us down.” He then looked back at Viper. “We might be able to get Dave and Tatum before they reach the camp.”
Law’s voice cut in like a thrown knife. “If they haven’t already.”
“If they have, we take the camp.” Stone angled his face into the wind, the lenses catching the dusty terrain below. He let the words hang, a promise and a plan, watching men move like ants in the distance.
“There!” Boston shouted over the chop of the rotors.
Stone unclipped and slid to the open side, following the arc of Boston’s finger until his eyes locked on two figures a mile out.
Dave—jeans, boots, that wool pullover Stone had bought him last Christmas; the blue of it picked out the blue in Dave’s eyes. The other man moved beside him, big and quick.
The pilot read him, and the bird eased back, staying out of the kill zone.
“Get us about one and a half klicks from their location,” Stone told him. The pilot dipped the nose and bled off speed; tumbleweeds skittered under the downwash as the skids kissed the dirt. Dust and grit whipped past, stinging Stone’s face.
They hit the ground in a storm of flying rocks. Stone dropped to the soil, boots finding purchase. Rifles came free from racks, grenades tucked into vests—everything the Blackhawk carried and whatever had been grabbed before they left.
Law tossed him an M16. Stone checked the mag with two practiced snaps, thumb over the bolt, then pressed his earpiece. “Keep sweeping ahead of us,” he told the pilot and started into the heat.
The men fanned out behind him like a single living thing
Genesis to his left, YA on his right, they moved with the kind of quiet formation that meant only one thing—they were a force Tatum’s hired guns wouldn’t survive.
Stone’s jaw set.
He let the desert take him—the sun, the grit, the distance between them and Dave—and kept walking until he closed that space with intent.
“You think we’ll find him?” Stone heard Sage whisper to Law while tossing him darting glances.
