Frank
finally stepped closer to the Princess and put his arm around her. They continued to stare at the former
Sir Terrance Lutts and ignored the remaining swarm of drones about their
heads. Finally, a group of military
robots and human soldiers came running. They were Israeli. I noticed that the ship had started to
lean to starboard.
I
think Frank recognized one of the soldiers as quickly as I did, which is a neat
trick for a slow working human brain.
It was Col. Mann running with his pistol in his hand. He came to a stop by the Princess and
Frank and said pointing his gun towards the body, “Glad to see you two are
safe. Who was that
bloke?”
“Lutts,”
Frank said simply.
“Sir
Terrance?” Col Mann said incredulously.
“Yes,
he was going to take us away by helicopter,” the Princess
volunteered.
“Impossible,
we captured Lutts in his Control Room on Deck 4. Come. Follow me, we have to get off this tub –
it’s sinking.”
Everyone
followed the Colonel to the back of the ship where there were several rubber
pontoon boats waiting at the bottom of some rope ladders. The Princess almost fell off the ladder
when another massive explosion went off inside the boat. An officer gave us each a life preserver
and the boats proceeded to take us in a southwest direction. We had traveled no more than a mile when
we saw a submarine surface. The
boats pulled over to the sub and several soldiers manhandled two bodybags from
the second boat. We got out with
Col. Mann, but most of the soldiers stayed and went back to Lutts’s sinking
ship. My guess is they were after
intelligence assets.
While
walking on the sub deck Frank turned to Col. Mann and asked, “I take it from the
two body bags you only lost two men.”
“No
sir” Col. Mann replied, “we did not lose anyone this time. Those are Lutts and Larson. We knocked them out. In about thirty minutes they will be
awake and we can ask these characters a few questions.”
“I’m
telling you, Colonel, Lutts is dead,” Marianne said in a very high pitched voice
to make herself heard over the din of ocean and machines.
“The
lady is not lying, Colonel,” Frank said.
The
Colonel yelled for Lutts’s body bag to be brought over to him. He brusquely pulled down the zipper and
reveals Dr. Tarrance Lutts sleeping like a babe.
“Colonel,
do me a favor and bring back that body and do a DNA analysis on it. This may be a look-a-like – a
double. Wouldn’t be the first time
the rich and powerful used doubles,” Frank told the
Colonel.
Col.
Mann barked into his headset and then told Frank, “We will look into it. Now come on down and tell me what you
were doing on that boat.”
We
followed Col. Mann down the hatch into the Israeli Class 6 nuclear sub. We walked single file to the front of
the boat and entered what looked like the officers mess. It was the only room that was big enough
for Colonel Mann, the sub Captain and the three of us to sit and be
comfortable. The Captain, whose
name we found out was Rabein, served as host and handed out coffee to all the
humans.
Finally,
Col. Mann put down his cup after finishing at least half of it and said to
Frank, ”So how did you get on that boat?”
Frank
scowled and said, “Like Lutts always likes to do. He drugged us and the next thing we knew
we’re on his stinking boat having dinner.”
“With
him?”
“Yes. He tried to convince us that it was in
humanity’s best interest to have religious tendencies
removed.”
“How
did that go?”
“Basically,
a standstill. I’m not sure what
your feelings are on religion, Colonel, but I agree with Lutts that it is a pile
of crap. However, I firmly believe
in free choice. I would rather have
a person become an atheist of their own free will and not brainwashed or mutated
against their will. Lutts did not
have a good counter argument about free will other than he thought it was
worthwhile to push the species forward.
He felt it was time humans evolved beyond the need for
religion.”
“Okay
so you had a free meal and the hidden cost was having to listen to his
monologue. I get it. Did he say what his immediate plans
were?” the Colonel asked.
“Not
precisely, but we assumed he is close to setting his nano-vectors loose on the
world.”
Suddenly,
our coffee in our cups started to show vibration waves as we heard some muffled
sounds. Captain Rabein went over to
the phone and called up the bridge.
He asked what caused the rumble and then listened to the answer. After a short pause he asked if all the
men were off Lutts’s ship. Another
pause and then he said, “Once the boats are secured bring us down to 500 feet
and head for Devonport.”
Capt.
Rabein turned towards Col. Mann and said, “Lutts’s ship is on its way down to
Davy Jones locker. All personnel
are accounted for as well as the seven humans we found on the
ship.”
“I’ll
interrogate them later, Captain,” Colonel Mann responded and then he took
another long sip of coffee. He was
quiet for about a minute and said, “I wish I had a place for you to clean up,
but space is a premium right now. I
need to shift you to another area while I deal with the intelligence
evaluation.”
Finally,
the Monsignor spoke up, “Do you think, Colonel Mann, that you have stopped this
mad man?”
“I
don’t know. He could have this
whole thing set up like some doomsday machine. I have the best intel people here on the
ship so I should have some answers in a couple of hours.”
With
that said, the Colonel had us moved to the Captain’s quarters which had a small
meeting room where the humans could sit and drink more
coffee.
Once
they were all situated, Frank asked the Monsignor, “You know more about military
intel than I do. What do you think
they will find?”
“Beats
me, Mr. Huntington. Sir Terrance
has been pretty good at outguessing the Israelis. They finally got him in their hands
along with Dr. Larson. I doubt they
will get much out of her. They had
enough time to take out the computer storage and hopefully they have some
friends at the CIA to help them break in.
What do you think about this double?”
“Lutts
one and two? Might just be a vanity
thing. I’m starting to wonder how
many times I really met Lutts.”
“I
wonder how many times I have fucked the real Lutts? Marianne quipped with a sour
look on her face. No doubt she was
wondering if her marriage to Lutts was just a ploy for something Lutts
wanted.
“You
don’t think the bastard is that cold a fish that he would let his double do his
marital duties? I mean the Lutts we
spoke to was intelligent and seemed to know everything, but it is queer that the
Lutts they apprehended was in the main control room. You would think that is where the real
Lutts would have been.”
The
Monsignor only threw up his hands in confusion. This brought on an even longer scowl
from the Princess. I felt that only
time would sort this out. The
Israelis would certainly check out who the dead and living Luttses were. Humans can be so impatient for an
adventure to end. Things quieted
down and none of the humans was in a mood for simple conversation. That is one thing my programming spent a
great deal of code on – namely when to not talk to your human. Several communication sub routines told
me this was not a time for jibber-jabber to take their minds off of all the
pressures they felt.
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