Sweet Fortune

our way.” Hatch started off immediately, followed by the other two.
    The night breeze rustled overhead in the boughs of the trees. Water slapped softly at the rocky shoreline. The soft sounds muffled their footsteps. Hatch glanced back once or twice, making certain Jessie had obeyed orders. She and the boat were soon out of sight as the three men moved into the thickly wooded landscape.
    It did not take long to reach the cove. Hatch put out a hand, silently halting the others as they reached the point where the trees thinned out. Not caring for the sparse cover in that region, he motioned Alex and David toward a jumble of tree-shrouded boulders. There they crouched, concealed amidst the drooping branches and disordered rocks, and scanned the beach.
    A tiny, blond figure dressed in jeans and a sweater huddled near the water's edge. She carried a computer-printout-size folder under her arm. Her back was to them as she anxiously searched the dark horizon.
    “There she is,” Alex said triumphantly. “ Susan . Over here.”
    “Shut up”, Hatch snarled softly, making a grab for Alex's arm. But Alex eluded him. He broke out of the trees and raced toward the figure.
    The blond whirled around. She was wearing glasses. Definitely Susan Attwood.
    “Green? Is that you?”
    “Yeah, it's me. Green. I mean, Alex.”
    “Dammit, Robin, come back here, you ass,” Hatch muttered under his breath, knowing that it was too late to stop the younger man.
    “I think he's in love,” David murmured. “Kind of touching, isn't it?”
    “Kind of stupid, is what it is.” Hatch watched as the pair on the beach dashed toward each other, arms outstretched. “Looks like something out of a television commercial. All we can do now is hope Susan is here alone.”
    “Hey, you don't think this is some sort of setup, do you?” David asked.
    “How should I know? I'm in the nuts-and-bolts business. This isn't exactly my field of expertise.” But he'd seen enough street fighting, both in and out of the corporate world, to know that it always paid to keep an ace in the hole.
    The couple on the beach were embracing now. Hatch could not hear what was being said but he was relieved when Alex turned Susan toward the trees and started forward.
    “Here they come,” David observed, drawing back deeper into the shadows. “We'll be out of here in a couple more minutes.”
    But at that instant a dark figure stepped out of the trees on the far side of the cove. He had his arm extended and there was no mistaking the object in his first. The gun glinted in the moonlight.
    “That's far enough, you two,” Rick Landis announced. “Hold it right there.”
    “Damn,” Hatch whispered. He felt David freeze beside him.
    “Christ, who's that?” David asked in the softest of voices.
    “One of Bright's people. A guy named Landis. I had a feeling he was more than a tour guide.” Hatch watched intently as Landies moved closer to his captives. “I knew this was not a good idea. Why in hell did I let Jessie talk me into this?”
    “Don't feel too bad about it,” David said consolingly. “Jessie can be very persuasive.”
    “Yeah, I know. Come on.”
    “What are we going to do? Go for help?” David followed as Hatch faded back into the forest.
    “I have a nasty feeling that by the time we got the authorities here, Susan and Robin would have disappeared.”
    “So what do we do?”
    Hatch made an executive decision. “Something simple and straightforward, I think. This is the shortest route back toward the mansion. We wait until they go past us and then one of us jumps down on top of Landis and bashes his head in.”
    David considered that. “Who does the bashing?”
    Hatch shot his companion a sidelong glance and made another executive decision. “You're the one who studied karate.”
    “Damn.” David sounded both thrilled and appalled. “I sure as hell never tried to use it on anybody.”
    “Did you learn enough to drop that guy?”
    “Well, yeah. Maybe. Theoretically. Under the right circumstances. Like I said, I've never been in a real fight.”
    “This won't be a real fight. If we do this right, Landis won't know you're on top of him until it's all over.”
    “What are you going to do?” David asked softly.
    “What I do best: supervise. And keep an eye out for a guy named Hoffman.”
    “Who's he?”
    “Someone who reminded me a lot of Landis. Quiet.”
    “Come on, you two,” Landis was saying in a loud voice. “Let's move. We