Page 19 of One Last Chance

“No. It’s a big house. Lots of room. But if being here is somehow keeping you from doing what God wants you to do?—”

“Bro. Step back Not everyone has your faith. Or wants it.”

Moose frowned.

“Listen. God and I aren’t at odds. It’s just that . . . I just . . . I feel like?—”

“You failed him?”

Axel leaned back into the cushions, picking up the remote. “Maybe. I don’t know. Or maybe God failed me. Sometimes it feels like both. But I don’t want to know the answer.”

“Faith is hard when you don’t trust the one you’re putting your faith in.”

“Leave it, Moose.” Axel turned the volume up to hear the reporter.

Upstairs, from Moose’s office, his pager rang.Oh,that couldn’t be good.

Moose headed up the stairs.

The reporter stood in the rain and gusts outside Air Station Kodiak, talking about the deployments of the current teams—four crews, three out on rescues, the other standing by.

Axel headed upstairs and stood outside Moose’s office, listening to Moose on his radio.

His chest tightened at the way Moose stared at the map, running his finger down to the Cook Inlet, near Homer. Nothing but rocky shore and underwater scabs there to hang up a boat.

“Roger, Sector Anchorage, we’ll deploy to the F/V Lady Luck. Will notify when we’re on site.”

Moose hung up the radio. “There’s a charter fishing vessel that’s adrift near the mouth of the Gulf of Alaska, west of Homer. Thirty-foot swells, ninety-knot winds, and they think they’re going to roll. The seas are too high to send out a cutter, and all the available Coast Guard teams are currently deployed, so they called us in for backup. You’ll probably get wet.”

“I’ll call Shep,” Axel said and headed for the door.

Moose picked up his keys. “Should have slept at the office.” He headed out the door. Axel grabbed his jacket and followed him out through the drizzle to Moose’s truck.

Overhead, thunder rolled, and as he got into the passenger seat, he was already cold.

But nothing compared to the gusts rolling into the deck of the chopper some ninety minutes later as Moose tried to hover over the pitching fishing boat. The thirty-seven-foot fishing vessel seemed like a bath toy in the dark, foamy water, violent waves crashing over the flybridge, ripping over the boat, and roiling into the deck cabin. The lifeboat swayed from the front, caught up in fishing line and rope, banging on the hull when the boat lifted out of the water.

Axel spotted people in orange life jackets clinging to the cabin inside even as one of them came out to wave at the Air One chopper.

Yeah, he was getting wet.

“Can you hover?” Axel said, attached to the chopper with the safety line, helmet on, garbed in his dry suit, gloves, a life jacket, and harness.

“For now. Let’s get you down there. Shep, check swimmer.”

Shep, their flight mechanic, checked Axel’s equipment, then hooked him into the line and grabbed the pendant. “Checking swimmer. Going out the door for load check.”

Axel pushed off and let the line hold him, Moose adjusting for the weight, then Shep gave him the thumbs-up, and he headed down to the dark ocean.

On the line, Axel spun, the wind trying to take him. He heard Shep barking distance and directions to Moose.Hit the deck, Moose. Hit the deck?—

A wave thundered down over him as his feet touched the boat’s deck. He slammed into the rail, caught it, held on as the boat pitched.

Even in June the water ripped out his breath at a bracing fifty degrees. The wave cleared and he turned, searching for the passengers.

Oh no,a family. A man, a woman, two kids, and the fishing captain.

Clearly terrified.

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