Dale Brown - Armageddon

There was a man on shore about fifty yards away with an AK47. Zen went down beneath the waves as the man aimed and fired again. The rocks would make it almost impossible for the gunman to hit him unless he came out on the isthmus. A second gunman stood near the brush on the eastern end of the beach; Zen paddled to his right, finding a spot where he couldn’t be seen from that angle. He was safe, at least for a while.

Then he heard the motor of the speed boat revving in the distance. They were coming back.

When Breanna saw the object in the distance, she thought at first it was a large crocodile. She stopped mid-stroke, frozen by fear.

Then she saw that it was bobbing gently and thought it must be a raft. She started toward it, and in only a few strokes realized it was part of a dock that had been abandoned ages ago and now sat forlornly in the water. Abandoned or not, it was the first sign of civilization she had seen since setting out and she swam with all her energy, kicking and flailing so ferociously that she reached it in only a few seconds. She pulled herself against it to rest. As she did, she saw a small skiff maybe seventy-five yards away, the sort of small boat a fisherman might use to troll a quiet lagoon on a hazy afternoon. An old American-made Evinrude motor, its logo faded, sat at the stern. Breanna threw herself forward, stroking overhand in a sprint to the boat. She got to the side and pulled herself up.

The boat sat about five or six yards offshore, a line at the stern anchoring her. The shore here was lined with trees; Breanna saw a path at the right side, though it wasn’t clear what was beyond it.

‘Hey! Hey!’ she yelled. ‘Help! Help!’

She couldn’t see anyone. Breanna turned to the motor. It was old, possibly dating from at least the 1960s, with part of the top removed. It had a pull rope.

She grabbed the rope and yanked at it. The engine turned itself over but didn’t start.

Breanna stared at the motor, which had been tinkered with and repaired for more than thirty odd years. The motor seemed to be intact, without any fancy electronic gizmos or cutoff switches; even the turn throttle seemed to work. She tried the rope again and this time the engine coughed twice and caught. The propeller growled angrily as Breanna got the hang of the jury-rigged replacement mechanism that set the old outboard properly in the water. The boat jumped and started to move forward; she just barely managed to turn it in time to keep the craft from sailing into the rocky shore. She realized she hadn’t released the anchor – the boat groaned, dragging the rock along. She couldn’t steer and reach the line at the same time; since she was moving forward at a decent pace she didn’t bother pulling it in, concentrating instead on getting her bearings as she sped back to rescue her husband.

Zen pushed himself backward from the rock, ducking down under the water and swimming to the west. He stayed below for as long as he could, the pressure in his lungs building until it became unbearable. As his face hit the air he heard a cacophony of sounds – the motorboat, guns firing, a distant jet. He gulped air and ducked back, pushing again. He didn’t last as long this time. When he surfaced the boat was nearly on top of him. He pushed down and waited, the wake angry but not as close as he feared.

When he resurfaced, the crack of a rifle sent him back underwater with only half a breath.

Where was the infidel bastard? Sahurah leaned against the side of the boat, searching for the tourist in the water. The man had gone beneath the waves somewhere around here; he couldn’t have swum too far away.

Sahurah knew that it was the cripple who was shooting at them. How exactly he knew that – and surely that was not the logical guess – he couldn’t say, but he was sure.

So the moment of pity he had felt on the beach had been a grave mistake. A lesson.

He heard one of his men firing from shore and turned toward the east. A head bobbed and disappeared in the water nearby.

‘There,’ shouted Sahurah, momentarily using Malaysian instead of English. ‘There, over there,’ he yelled. ‘Go back. Get the dog. Run him down!’

Breanna stretched forward, trying to grasp the knotted line holding the stone while still steering the boat. She was about three inches too short; finally she leaned her leg against the handle, awkwardly steadying it, and grabbed the rope, pulling it back with her as she once more took control of the motor. The anchor turned out to be a coffee can filled with concrete; she pulled it up over the side and let it roll with a thud into the bottom of the craft.

A boat circled in the distance offshore. Breanna bent down and held on, steadying herself as she made a beeline for it.

Sahurah brought up his pistol to fire. His first three shots missed far to the right. As he shifted to get a sturdier position he felt the pain in his side again; the bullet had only creased the flesh but it flamed nonetheless.

He would have revenge. He aimed again, but as he fired, the boat jerked abruptly to the north.

‘What?’ demanded Sahurah, turning toward the helm.

The men pointed toward the west. A second boat was coming.

For a long moment, Sahurah hesitated. He felt his anger well inside him. Unquenchable thirst – frustration – rage.

He had failed.

‘Get the others,’ he said finally. ‘Get the ones on shore. Quickly.’

This time the pressure to breathe was so fierce Zen started to cough as he broke water, his throat rebelling. His body shook with the convulsions and he found himself twisting backward in the water, unsure where he was.

He’d saved Bree, at least, he thought. They might have gotten him but his wife at least was safe.

Zen heard the boat behind him. Surprised that it was there, he pushed his tired arms to turn him in that direction. But instead he slipped beneath the waves, his energy drained.

Breanna saw that the other boat was going in to the beach. She cut the throttle back but even at its low idle setting it still pushed the boat forward. She dared not pull the ignition wire or fiddle with the eccentric controls too much; instead, she put the boat into a circle, taking some of its momentum away before approaching the rock, about two hundred yards away.

She didn’t see Zen.

Did they have him already? Was that why they were going to shore?

‘Zen! Zen!’

Something bobbed to the left, about thirty yards away.

‘Jeff! Jeff!’

It was him. He started to swim for the boat, but he was moving in slow motion, not swimming as strongly as he normally did. She maneuvered to the left and right, but couldn’t quite get close enough on the first pass and still didn’t dare to turn off the motor.

‘I’ll circle around. Grab on!’ she called. ‘This is as slow as I can go.’

Breanna pushed against the throttle switch on the engine, managing to slow the speed a little more but still not entirely cut it as she came around. Zen grabbed the side of the boat, clamping his arms against it like a hobo pulling himself onto the side of a freight car.

‘What are you doing?’ he yelled as she pushed at the throttle, trying to get it to increase speed gently. ‘Let me get in for cryin’ out loud,’ said Zen, pulling up against the side.

‘Wait,’ she told him, fighting to keep the boat balanced and moving in the right direction as the engine began churning the water faster.

‘They’re going away,’ Zen told her. ‘It’s all right.’

‘It’s all right,’ she repeated, not quite ready to believe it.

Mack Smith looked at his watch again and shook his head. Everyone in the damn country ran at least a half-hour late.