Executive Intent

“Ahhh!” a man shouted. Whack hadn’t seen the guy, sleeping nestled in the sand, covered in a rug, a bottle of something lying beside him. The man sat up, and Whack could see his eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. “Ma bifham la afham!” he shouted. He started to crawl away, still staring at the apparition in front of him in absolute terror. “Imshi! Imshi! Al-bolis! Al-bolis! Sa-iduni!”

“Crap!” Whack swore, and he sprinted away down the beach as fast as he could. He didn’t stop for about a half mile until he heard an approaching car on the highway, then found a good hiding place.

“You okay, Whack?” Patrick radioed.

“I tripped over some guy sleeping on the beach,” Whack said.

“Did he see you?”

“Yes. He looked like he was sleeping one off, and it’s real dark out, so maybe he’ll think it was the booze.”

Whack took his time making his way back along the shoreline, and was extra careful as he approached the lighthouse. A different surveillance car was in the same spot as the first. He hadn’t received any warnings from the motion detector, so no one had approached the house since he left it. He climbed back up the escarpment onto the patio and went inside.

Carefully and quietly, without using any lights, he signed off with McLanahan, undressed, cleaned the Tin Man armor and exoskeleton as best he could, and repacked it. The signals analyzer, disguised as a spare laptop AC adapter, was missing now, but hopefully the customs inspectors wouldn’t notice, or he could say it was lost or forgotten somewhere. Whack set all the Tin Man armor’s batteries in chargers in case he needed it again for an escape. He checked his path to make sure he hadn’t dragged in anything from the beach, took a sip of Scotch whiskey to settle himself down, and then went to bed about an hour before dawn. Mission successfully accomplished.

Whack was awakened by the sounds of low, hushed female voices outside in the kitchen. He looked at his watch-a little before seven A.M., right on time. The voices seemed to be getting nearer his door. The note from al-Jufri had said that if the lantern was still on, he wouldn’t be disturbed by his family preparing the house for the day, and he hadn’t extinguished it, so he wondered if it had blown out or was-

Suddenly the bedroom door splintered apart from its hinges and flew across the room. Whack had already thought about what he would do: He rolled away from the door onto the floor, lifted the bed up, and flipped it toward the door to screen his next move. But just before he was going to leap through the window, it exploded as a three-round burst of bullets fired upward into the ceiling…from the outside. Whoever it was, they had anticipated his attempt to jump out the window and were waiting for him.

“Stay where you are and raise your hands, Mr. Coulter,” a man with a thick accent-a Russian accent-said in English. Whack looked out the window and saw two men in black combat suits, helmet, web gear, and balaclavas, with AK-74 submachine guns aimed at him. The mattress and bed were pushed aside, and two more men similarly outfitted had weapons trained on him. They pulled him out of the bedroom into the living room, shoved him to the floor facedown, yanked his arms behind his back, secured his wrists with plastic handcuffs, then sat him up.

“What the hell is going on?” Whack yelled.

The toe of a boot came out of nowhere and landed on the left side of his head. Whack hit the floor hard, his vision completely blurred out, and he tasted blood and felt a loose tooth in his mouth.

“That will happen every time you speak out of order, Mr. Coulter,” the voice said. He was pulled upright by his neck. “Nod if you understand.” Whack nodded, slowly and carefully, fighting off nausea. “Very good. We were planning on meeting with you later today to ask some questions, but we received a curious report this morning from a local citizen about a sea creature that came out of the sea and tried to eat him. The police dismissed the citizen as a hallucinating drunk, but then I remembered something.”

Whack looked up and focused through the pain. The Russian, dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, black tie, and light brown trousers, was holding his Tin Man helmet. “An American carrying unusual scuba-diving equipment came through customs yesterday afternoon. Could this be what the man saw?” He paused, then gave the helmet back to one of his men. “You may answer now, Mr. Coulter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Whack murmured.

“So you are saying it was not you, Mr. Coulter?” the man asked. “You are saying you did not go out for a swim in your fancy diving gear last night?” Whack said nothing. “Mr. Coulter? You may answer now.”

“I wasn’t out swimming last night,” Whack murmured. “I’m hurt. I can’t see straight, and I feel dizzy. I think I need a doctor.”