The man seated in the row of seats to their left chuckled.
"Dynamite? Why would you think that?"
"'Cause I've seen it on TV. Merlin the cat used to go fishing and couldn't catch any. He got hungry, and he stole dynamite, and he caught many fishes."
"Oh, I see, but Merlin is a cartoon character, and we are real, so we can't do that."
"Then what?"
"We are going bow fishing, Teddy, and that's going to be really fun, 'cause you see the fish from the boat and you shoot it with your bow and arrow, but only if you like it."
"What if I miss?"
"Well, if you miss, you get your arrow back and you try again. Remember how you used to train with Daddy, shooting at the target in the backyard?"
"Yes," Teddy nodded vigorously.
"It's just like that, only this time we train with fish. The better we are, the more fish we're going to get."
"Will they let us bring the fishes on the bus to take home to Mommy?"
"We'll rent a car for the trip home, son, so we can take all the fish with us."
"Bow fishing?" The stranger at their left intervened. "That's a new one for me. Where are you planning to go for that?"
"Near Destin, in the bay, maybe near Crab Island. Fish are everywhere, jumping out of the water. You can see it coming, you have time to take aim and shoot."
"I have to try that sometime. By the way, I'm Stan," the man extended his hand.
"I'm Zack — Zack Cooper, and this is Teddy."
"Very smart kid you have there, Zack, he's a pleasure to be around."
"Look, Daddy, a plane!" The boy's finger was pointing at something over the ocean.
"That's too low to be a plane," Zack said.
"That's not a plane, it's too small," Stan added.
"What is it, Daddy?"
"Looks like one of those military drones," Zack said, squinting to see against the sun.
"Daddy, what's a drone?"
"It's sort of a plane but without a pilot."
"The real question is why is it flying so low?" Stan's question reflected Zack's worry. The other passengers were also commenting on it, speculating about the potential reasons why a drone would be flying in this area.
"There's a military air base not far from here, I bet that's where it's going," one of the other passengers said.
"Yeah, but it's flying way too low and coming straight at us." In an instinctive gesture, Zack put his arm around Teddy's shoulders. The boy fidgeted to get away.
"Oh, my God," someone said in a high pitch, "it is coming straight at us!" The man got off his seat, panicked. "Hey! Hey!" He yelled trying to get the driver's attention. "Hey! Do something, for Christ sake; the goddamn thing is coming for us! Call somebody!"
"Can't be, we're on American soil," someone else said, sounding unconvinced.
"Oh, my God," Zack whispered, eyes fixated on the fast-approaching drone. "This can't be happening." He grabbed Teddy in his arms in a desperate attempt to shield him. "Oh, God, oh, God, please, no," he whispered, amid the escalating screams of the passengers.
…40
A young technician waited for Alex to come in. As she approached her office, the technician came forward and touched Alex on her arm to get her attention.
"Hi," she said shyly, "I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for me yesterday."
"Ah, it's all right, Melanie, you're welcome," Alex said, "Did it go well?"
"Not sure yet, it might have though, I still have hope for us."
"Good, that's good to hear, I am sure things will work out just fine," Alex said.
"May I see you in my office, Miss Hoffmann?" Sheppard's unexpected request startled her. She turned to follow Sheppard, while the technician disappeared in a hurry.
"What was that all about?" Sheppard asked, sitting down behind his desk. His voice was the usual hissing whisper, only somehow it sounded even more threatening.
"Oh, that? Melanie needed to leave early yesterday to go to a marriage counseling session. She and her spouse have some problems, and she's desperately trying to save her marriage."
"Marriage counseling," he repeated, punctuating every syllable with an almost imperceptible pause. Words dropped like stones. "What is this country's divorce rate, do you know?"
"I am not sure," Alex replied, bracing herself for what was to come.
"It's about 50 percent. Your employee's marriage is nothing else but just that — a marriage. They fail anyway."
Alex was not about to interrupt him and argue in her defense. She hoped this would soon be over and forgotten.
"So, why should we care, exactly? I don't care about anyone's marriage, family, or issues," he continued in the same threatening, yet calm, tone of voice. "I do not have to care. What I do care about is that you don't even have the basic leadership skills required for this job."
Oh, boy, she thought, this is going to get much uglier than I expected.
"What do you want from your employees? Do you know?"
Not sure if he really expected an answer, Alex hesitated. The silence persisted. "I expect them to work hard, be dedicated, loyal, focused, and creative," Alex replied eventually.
"If you want your employees focused on work, then aren't they better off without a spouse? Huh?"
Shocked, Alex was speechless.
"You aren't very smart, I'm afraid. We have no interest whatsoever to make even the tiniest of efforts to preserve our employees' marriages. It is illegal for us to favor singles for employment or to actively pursue actions to get married employees divorced. But I sure as hell don't want to do anything to keep an employee married. If she were single, she would spend more hours in the office."
Alex swallowed with difficulty. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. The viciousness in Sheppard's voice added to the cruel callousness of his words.
"I am urging you to spend time thinking what you want, and make up your mind about how you're going to do your job. If you're not ready to be the executive I hired you to be, please be reminded there is a door you could be exiting through. Don't hesitate to use that door if you are not ready, with every bone in your body, to give me what I expect." He paused, apparently thinking what to do with her. "You are not very smart, are you? I'm afraid I might have been mistaken about you. This job is probably too much for you to handle. From now on, please run all such decisions by me. You seem to lack every single useful leadership skill, even the basic ones. Dismissed."
Alex stepped out of Sheppard's office without a word. She was heading straight for the smoker's area, but her private cell phone's message warning beeped and stopped her.
The message read emergency meeting at agency hq — asap.
…41
Alex quickly entered the conference room at The Agency, after speeding on I-5, and paying no attention to the breathtaking landscape on her left. Between stoplights, she had managed to send Sheppard a quick email advising him that she was feeling sick and had to go home. She could see, in her mind, how satisfied Sheppard would have been at the receipt of that email, thinking he had rattled her to the point of making her sick, or even causing her to quit. Oh, I'll be back, buddy, don't you worry, Alex thought, as she was pulling out a chair to sit.
Tom entered the room, with a look of deep concern on his always-composed face.
"What happened?"