Chapter Twenty
Hawkeye
Up ahead, Hawkeye spotted the smooth curve of a man in a deadman’s float.
Hawkeye hoped like hell the guy was just conserving his energy and would turn his head to take a gasp of air.
How long had he been face down?
The boat rescue had been going on for a while now.
It could be that this guy had stayed upright and breathing most of that time.
Dead or on the cusp?
As he got closer, Hawkeye was debating best practices when, in fact, he had none.
Earlier, when he’d come upon Roy, Hawkeye had reviewed the few ways he’d seen rescuers get people onto a board. And he wasn’t satisfied with any of them under these circumstances.
On his belly, this man would be a recovery. There was no way he’d make it to shore alive. Of course, that might be true no matter what Hawkeye did next.
If Hawkeye somehow got an unconscious man faced up and held in his legs the way he’d done with Roy, it wouldn’t be the same outcome.
The guy would be dead long before they reached the shore.
What this man needed was CPR. And that was impossible on the water without a hard enough surface to use to compress his heart and pump his blood manually.
Still thinking the situation through, Hawkeye drew up beside the man. “Cooper, jump.”
As the words left his mouth, Cooper was in the water, paddling up to the guy and nudging him.
Hawkeye appreciated the sharp barks because they would alert people on the shore that there was a find.
As Hawkeye got into the water, he flipped his surfboard upside down so the fins were facing skyward. Immediately grabbing the man’s wrist, Hawkeye pulled it across the board and flipped the board back upright.
It was an easier maneuver than he’d imagined.
A child could have done that, he thought, as the board was once again turned down.
The man was on top, face down.
That was the problem with that particular technique.
If there was any chance of surviving, the man needed air.
Without mouth-to-mouth, there was zero chance for this guy. The distance to shore was too many minutes away. Minutes equal brain cells.
The guy’s wedding ring glinted from hands bloated by sea water as Hawkeye dragged the man’s arm above his head.
It wasn’t pretty what came next.
Hawkeye grunted, pushed, and tugged.
An arm here, a foot there. A head lolling. A leg in the water.
Yelling, “Come on! Come on!” as he worked and maneuvered, knowing that time was tick-tick-ticking.
Finally, Hawkeye had the man on his back. He peeled back the guy’s eyelid and touched his eyeball to check the corneal reflex, and by God, the man blinked.
Hope!
With his knees on either side of the man, contorting his body to align himself, Hawkeye did his best to give a first breath.
Then he untethered the board from his Ankle and held the cuff out to Cooper.
“Cooper, dude, get us to shore. Find Reaper. Cooper, pull. Find Reaper.”
Trusting his dog, Hawkeye hunkered forward, performing the possibly life-saving breaths, hoping someone back on the beach would see this and get involved.
Cooper had been trained on how to drag something in the water. But that had been in the Cerberus pool, or a few times on a lake.
He’d pulled a lightweight raft and a swim ring, nothing as heavy and cumbersome as two men on a surfboard. And certainly not through an agitated sea.
But Cooper knew what was needed of him.
There seemed to be a point on the beach that Cooper had targeted, and he was swimming with all his might.
Hawkeye kept up the breaths—pinching the man’s nose, sealing the lips, exhaling smoothly until he saw a rise of the chest. Turning his head and taking in more air, Hawkeye had never done this in real life. He’d practiced it on the vinyl dummies.
But never this long. Never in dire circumstances.
Like Cooper, Hawkeye just did the best he could with what he knew.
Reaper was calling something.
The sound carrying over the water was a staccato string of vowels and consonants that Hawkeye couldn’t make sense of.
Hawkeye rose up momentarily. He needed to make sure there wasn’t a warning in those words.
As Hawkeye rocked back on his heels, the man beneath him suddenly coughed and then was puking up lunch and seawater.
Hawkeye’s fingers fumbled and slipped as he tried to get the guy over to his side so he wouldn’t aspirate his vomit.
The volume coming out of this man’s mouth was mind-boggling like he’d tried to drink the entire sea.
Hawkeye knelt on one knee, his foot planted on the board, holding the man in place as Cooper paddled along.
Suddenly, people were crashing in the water toward the surfboard, coming to lend a hand.
As soon as they reached him, Hawkeye fell backward into the water, letting the others take control.
By the time Hawkeye walked out of the surf, Cooper was on the beach, shaking off. Then, Cooper spun and jogged to Hawkeye, who rounded down to give him a whole-body hug and gratitude scritches.
That’s when Hawkeye became aware that the phone in his waterproof carrier was ringing and ringing.
By reflex, he swiped and answered, “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Hawkeye? Man, where are you? Miss Armstrong is having an emergency. Did you get her message?”
“Petra? Emergency?” Hawkeye panted for breath. “Let me…One second.”
Someone pressed a towel into his hands, and Hawkeye sent them a grateful “Thank you.”
Hawkeye opened the messages app, swiping the screen, while movement pulled his gaze seaward.
The rest of Cerberus was heading to shore.
Halo had two people on his board. Levi had one.
Ash knelt on all fours, head down, as Hoover dragged him to shore.
There were citizens in the water ready to assist them, too.
That freed Hawkeye to read. Man in a blowhole? Won’t survive long.
She was at an emergency. She wasn’t the emergency. The relief that swept over Hawkeye was disorienting.
Petra needed him. She trusted him.
Per the message, he tapped the link to check the map showing where this guy was waiting, then Hawkeye lifted the phone to his ear. “Stay where you are, I’m on my way. Ten minutes tops.”