Executive Intent

“We are outta here,” the pilot said. “Radio the Rourke, have them make a ready deck, we’re going to be on fumes.”

The rescue swimmer Australian-crawled over to the buoy attached to the lanyard of the four-man rescue raft, attached the ring to his waist, then swam over to the survivors, towing the bigger raft behind him. One crewman was atop the other, and the one on top looked pretty messed up-maybe a broken neck. He felt for a pulse and didn’t feel anything, but survivors’ bodies immersed in seawater for long periods of time were known to shut down so much that a pulse was undetectable, only to be revived later. He rolled the crewman on top off the other one, letting him float by himself faceup using his own still-inflated personal flotation vest.

The one on bottom definitely had a pulse. He still wore his flight helmet, gloves, and survival vest, but he was sitting in seawater that had mostly filled the little raft. “Sir, this is Petty Officer Malkin, USS Rourke, United States Navy,” the rescue swimmer shouted. “Can you hear me?” The crewman’s head moved, he coughed, and his eyes fluttered. “If you can hear me, sir, listen up, I’m here to rescue you,” Malkin said. “You’re going to be okay, buddy. I’m going to get you and the other guy in my raft. My chopper will be back in no time. Hang tough and do what I tell you, okay? Are you hurt? Any broken bones? Do you feel any pain?”

The survivor coughed, spitting up a mouthful of water, then actually tried to sit up. He looked at Malkin…and it wasn’t until then that he could see that the he was really a she! Not only that, but she was an Air Force colonel, the equivalent of a captain in the Navy! She was by far the highest-ranking person he had ever rescued! The name on her badge below her command pilot’s wings read CAZZOTTA. “Can you hear me, Colonel Cazzotta?” he shouted.

Cazzotta coughed again, rolled to one side, then looked at him. “Thank you for rescuing us, Petty Officer Malkin,” she said, “but can you please stop yelling now?” Malkin couldn’t help but chuckle-here they were, bobbing in the Gulf of Aden hundreds of miles from help, and this zoomie colonel was cracking wise. She looked around. “Where’s Frodo?”

“Frodo?”

“The other crewmember-Major Alan Friel.”

Malkin looked at the other crewmember’s flight suit and verified the name. “He’s right here,” he said, “but he looks like he’s hurt bad. Let’s get you into the big raft first. Can you move? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“My neck and back are killing me,” Boxer said, “but I think I can move.” As Malkin pulled the big raft over, she tried to sit up and was rewarded with a shot of pain that sped through her neck and zapped her all the way down to her legs. But she was still able to get up far enough to grab the other raft, and with Malkin’s help she rolled herself off her raft and into the other, suppressing a cry of pain but thankful not to be lying in a raft full of water.

“Those cases on the side of the raft have bottles of water and survival blankets, ma’am,” Malkin shouted. “Can you reach them?”

“Get Frodo,” Boxer said. “I’m okay.”

Malkin returned to the second crewmember to do a more thorough examination. “I’m afraid he’s dead, Colonel,” he said a few minutes later. He brought the body over to the raft, climbed aboard, pulled him inside, then pointed out his injuries to Boxer. “I’m very sorry, ma’am,” he said. Boxer was too exhausted and dehydrated to cry anymore. Malkin had her drink a tiny bit of water, checked her over carefully for any injuries, wrapped her in a survival blanket, then covered the body with another survival blanket.

About twenty minutes later he heard on his radio: “Sierra, Trident Seven-One, standing by to authenticate.”

“This is Sierra,” Malkin responded. He looked at the code card secured to the radio and mentally computed the proper challenge based on the current time and the daily authentication code. This was a standard challenge-and-response security procedure for communications on an unsecure channel. “Authenticate tango-mike.”

“Seven-One authenticates ‘charlie.’”

Malkin computed the response on his card and came up with a matching answer. “Good copy, Seven-One.”

“Roger,” the helicopter copilot replied. “Sierra, authenticate yankee-hotel.”

Malkin did the reverse on his card and responded, “Sierra authenticates ‘bravo.’”

“Good copy, Paul,” the copilot of the second Seahawk radioed. “We’ve got a good DF steer and it checks with the GPS coordinates, about two minutes…”

Suddenly Malkin saw two streaks of white flash across the sky overhead…and a second later he saw a bright burst of fire in the sky to the east. “What the hell…?”

“That was a missile!” Boxer croaked through salt water-coarse lips. “Someone fired a missile!”