The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Twenty-six

CHAPTER TWO

“…I don’t want any Nano-bots in my medication to tell the government whether or not I’m taking my medication…”
Glen beck May 17, 2010



Doug had dozed off, slumped upon the sofa in the living room. It was less a fitful sleep than an exhausted one. The rain had moved off some time ago, leaving just the cold and damp ,which had worked its way into Doug’s Body. But it wasn’t the cold that wrested him from sleep, but rather Megan. She was shaking him. His eyes fought to open, finding her terribly alarmed. It was then he heard the pounding at the front door. Megan looked to the sound. That’s when Doug noticed the kitchen knife in her hand.

“Dad, wake up!” she exclaimed at hardly more than a whisper. “There’s a strange man at the door."

Doug groaned and forced himself to sit upright.

“Who is it?” he asked blindly. As if to underscore how dumb a question it was, Megan frowned and held up the knife.

Pain thundered in Doug’s head. The Brandy had taken a greater toll than he thought. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, taking the knife from her hand.

“Go upstairs and make sure your sister is okay.”

The knocking continued. It was urgent and loud. Still holding the knife Doug waited until Megan was safely upstairs then went to the door. He looked through the peephole and drew away quickly. Doug looked once more and took a moment, as if he wasn’t actually seeing what was there. It was impossible, he thought. Surely it was a product of the liqour, but when he looked a third time there could be no doubt.

Doug set down the knife and undid the bolt on the door. He turned the handle, pulling harder when the door stuck a bit. It had only opened a crack when Ahmed Fallahi burst through the door and into the front room.

“Hey!” Doug cried, his head suddenly clear. His mind was still fighting to accept all this. What was an Iranian spy doing in his living room and on a night like this? Fallahi was breathless and disheveled. He was dressed in a dark brown suit, which was almost black in the soft light. His black London Fog coat looked as if it had been slept in. Ther was mud on his knees and scratches on his face, probably from navigating the trees in the dark. More than that Fallahi was half out of his mind with fright.

“Douglas, forgive me,” Fallahi fought to collect himself.

“Ahmed, my girls are upstairs.” He took Fallahi firmly by the arm and led him across the room away from the stairs. Doug turned on the lamp beside the sofa. The golden yellow light threw their shadows through the picture window and out onto glistening wet lawn. Beyond that light the world faded to a silken darkness that seemed suddenly alive with danger. The nearest neighbor was better than a quarter mile away, well concealed by the forests and inky blackness of the Michigan night.

“You are the only person I can trust, Douglas.” He looked sharply to Doug. “Have you seen the news tonight?”

Doug fought a wave of emotion, as if tearing the words from his soul one syllable at a time. “I buried my wife today.”

“I am sorry,” said Fallahi, almost dismissively.

“Dad?” Megan appeared at the bottom of the stairs. In one hand she held her phone. She had already dialed nine-one-one, as she’d been taught. Her thumb hovered over the dial button.

“Its all right, sweetheart. There won’t be any trouble.” He looked to Fallahi. “Will there?’

“No, praise god, no!” Fallahi replied.

Doug nodded and Megan retreated back up the steps, leaving the men alone again. Doug sat on the couch. The headache had returned with a vengeance, finding refuge directly behind his eyes. It didn’t help matters as Fallahi anxiously paced the room. Doug felt suddenly queasy and thrust out a hand stopping Fallahi in his tracks.

“You are gonna have to stop that.”

“You understand I am an Iranian Patriot, completely deicated to the revolution that drove out the corrupt Shah and restored my country.”

“Ahmed, it is one in the morning and you are standing in my living room giving me a sales pitch from the Ayahtollah's tourist board.”

“I am sorry,” he said, turning and staring from the window out into the dark night and the wall of trees across the road. “I am so confused and…”

“What is this all about?” Doug asked.

Fallahi paused, and believed he saw something, an errant shadow, an unnatural movement among the trees across the road. He ignored, believing it the product of an exhausted and overburdened mind. He turned back to Doug.

“If our countries went to war legitimately I would fight with all my soul, and if necessary I would gladly martyr myself without hesitation.”

Doug shook his head. The pain behind his eyes was getting worse. “I’m trying to follow…”

“My old friend, make no mistake, our nations will go to war. Perhaps they are at this moment, but I must do everything to stop this war. If nothing else then everyone should know the truth.”

Doug stared blankly at the man. Fallahi was sweating profusely, his eyes darting everywhere, as if searching the room and the air for any answer. He was almost incoherent, a state Doug had never seen in Fallahi before.

“Doulas, I don’t know if I was followed here, but there isn’t much time,” Fallahi pleaded. "I thought several times someone…I tried to…Doug you must help me.”

“Ahmed, you’re not making sense!”

“Something happened today, Doug, but it is not what it seems. This is only the beginning. You must understand that what has happened, and what will happen will change the world as much as the discovery of fire!”

“I can’t…” Doug had heard quite enough. He stood and took Fallahi by the arm, but the man pulled away, almost throwing Doug to the floor. He caught himself and looked up, chagrined and angered to find Megan at the stairs again.

“Dad?” she still held the phone, her thumb still poised. It was up and away from her as if she might throw it or wield it as a weapon.

“Megan, please!” he said sternly, righting himself. “Go upstairs with your sister and close the door!” Doug fumed at Fallahi. “You’re frightening my children, Ahmed.”

But Fallhi’s attention was momentarily distracted, his gaze out the window and at the trees. He had seen something move there and knew what was about to happen. It seemed a proper justice, from some universl point of view, as if the years spent as hunter required balance and for him to become the prey. Strange, he thought, but a man who knows he is condemned feels nothing. He only felt remorse for leading them to a friend’s door, and resolved to lead them away if he could. What other choice did he have. He’d leave and go to his fate hoping that Doug would carry the story, andbegin the investigations and upheavals necessary to put the world to right again, or at the very least find some small justice.

“Listen to me, I haven’t much time,” Fallahi continued. “Just know that everything is a lie. We are being tricked into war for a greedy few, for a Frankenstein monster.” He looked again to the window, but seeing nothing was far worse. His brow crumbled as he turned to Doug again. “They have come for me.”

“Who has come for you?”

Fallahi skirted the question. “A month ago I received information from an informant within the opposition in Tehran. Douglas, a nightmare is about to be unleashed upon the world, a weapon that will shock and horrify beyond any measure of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Doug, do you remember Istanbul?”

“I don’t…” Doug squeezed his eyes, as if that would help him make some sense of all this.

There was movement again, much closer this time. A shadow slipped past the window with blinding speed. Fallahi missed it, but Doug saw clearly, though there was no chance to react.

Suddenly a man appeared through the still open door. He was dressed from head to toe in black, his trousers tucked into a dully polished pair of combat boots. A wool cap was pulled down tightly, so that only the man’s unblinking dark brown eyes and lips were visible. He was holding a pistol in a gloved and, and it was already pointed at Fallahi.

Two quick shot exploded in the room. The .45 caliber rounds struck the Iranian in the face and exploded the back of his skull, covering Doug with blood, bits of brain and sticky chunks of scalp and hair. Fallahi pitched backwards onto the couch and slid to one side leaving a broad crimson smear across the beige fabric of the couch.

Doug was frozen, unable to move. He was looking at the gunman with a mixture of dread and disbelief. He thought of the girls the instant before the gunman hammered him with a punishing roundhouse in the temple. The world flashed to white, the slug sounding like a freight train for the fraction of an instant before the white faded to a blackness as deep and dark and complete as death.