Page 23 of Ford

He frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a—‘Kilroy was here’? You know, from World War Two?”

He frowned.

“I thought you were American?”

“I am. My mother was American, my dad was German, and I lived in Russia until I was thirteen, and learned English as a second language.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Missionary kid.” He finished off his bread.

Huh. Really. Now that had to be a long story. She was about to probe when he folded up the rest of the cheese into the plastic.

“It’s getting dark out. Finish your bread and tea. We need to move.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m going to find out who wants you—and maybe me—dead. And then, Kilroy, I’m going to make sure you’renothere. It’s time for you to escape Russia.”

“I can get behind that,” she said, finishing her tea.

He took the cup from her, set it in the sink, then grabbed the bread and put it in the plastic bag. “Get behindthis. If you want to stay alive, you need to keep your mouth shut and do everything I say.”

Of course she did.

3

Ford couldn’t breathe.

The frigid, earthy taste of river water filled his mouth, crested over his eyes, and the current, like hands, yanked him under.

He fought the grip, beating against the rocks, thrashing—

“Dude! Wake up, for crying out loud!”

Hands on him, and Ford woke in a second, lashing out with a palm to the face of—

“Whoa!” Tate just narrowly dodged his thrust. He held up his hands in surrender in the early morning light. He was bare chested and wore just a pair of boxers, his brown hair mussed, his body striped by the slats at the window letting in the sunrise. “You’re safe, bro. Breathe.”

Breathe. A sweat sheened his body, and Ford lay back on the pillows of his too-tiny twin bed, gulping in the sweet air that filtered in through his open window.

Air that smelled of his mother’s climbing roses, the wildflowers off the mountain, the cattle in the pasture, and not a little lodgepole pine that grew like weeds across the Marshall Triple M ranch.

Home. “Sorry.”

“No problem. You were shouting, saying something, although I have no idea what.”

Help, maybe? But Ford didn’t offer a response.

“That’s a killer bruise, though. Two shots, huh?”

Ford didn’t have to look in the mirror to know what Tate referred to. Two deep circles where the slugs had hit his vest, one near his sternum, the other lower, just above his spleen. The bruising radiated out from yellow to red to purple, finally rimmed black.

“The vest took most of it.”

“Yeah, right. No wonder you were crying in your sleep. Couple cracked ribs?”

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