The Big Blue Sky: Forty-two

In the afternoon light the towering trees crowding the two lane county road through the Hiawatha forest formed a deepening channel of shadow. Autumn leaves drifted and tumbled, tossed by a strengthening west wind. Joined with the hymnal of rustling trees and the lonesome cry of a hawk, the road should have properly coaxed quieter and more eternal thoughts. The two men inside the shiny black suburban were instead thinking of war and revenge. The nature and beauty of the Hiawatha meant nothing to men possessed of such thoughts.

They’d come to help clean up an awful mess. They’d come to put out a fire before it grew into a conflagration. They came because they were told to come, and because the money they were paid made the moral and legal transgressions inherent in their mission easier to rationalize. They came because the company was their tribe now, much more than the nation or the Constitution. Money was their new religion, much more than the God to whom they once pledged their lives in defense of the nation and its lofty ideals.

The driver had been with FIRST THRUST since the NATO action in Albania, and was probably the most senior man in the company (Though not the oldest. Two men were Vietnam-era veterans.), behind the CEO, a Vietnam-era veteran who’d made a fortune training South and Central American militias. John Brower’s head was neatly shaved, shrewd and calculating eyes hidden behind dark round sunglasses, making him almost appear robotic and sinister. Brower was solid, and focused the three dead men, whom he viewed as sons as much as employees. Their deaths cut him deeply, and disappointed him as well. They had been murdered by civilian, he thought, which meant, as professional soldiers, they had become sloppy and unfocused.

Beside Brower was a young Irish kid from the hills of West Virginia named McCullough, his bright red hair trimmed severely. He had come to the attention of Brower during a firefight on a sun-baked Samara street. His Marine platoon ambushed in a narrow alley by insurgents, McCullough expertly turned the tables on the enemy and swept them from the alley without suffering a single casualty. Square-jawed and intense, the green-eyed kid could be cocky and headstrong, but with a temperance that allowed him to maintain supreme self-control where others lost theirs.

They’d driven most of the night, leaving Chicago almost immediately when word that Doug Springer had eluded his tail and disappeared. They were in Green bay when the call came of the deaths of their three comrades. The news only added urgency to the mission, and made it all the more personal. The clock was ticking on the mission, as events began to unfold in Iran. Forty-eight hours was all they had to conclude the mission. Doug Springer would have to be found and eliminated altogether, or their futures and fortunes would be lost. It wasn’t enough anymore to implicate and discredit him in the murder of the Iranian diplomat.

The Suburban crested a low hill and rounded a bend. There was another Suburban was just ahead, parked beside the road near a small brown-painted wooden sign that read: ECHO LAKE. The lake could be seen in glimpses through the trees.

The three remaining contractors stood anxious and wary beside the truck. Their expressions were stark, like men who had just suffered battle and the deaths of close friends, and who longed in their grief for vengeance. Brower fumed. He owned these men. At two hundred thousand tax-free Dollars a year-taxpayer money-they had sold themselves lock stock and barrel, and brower was damned if he wasn’t going to get his money’s worth.

Brower guided the truck off the road and behind the other Suburban. As he slid from the cab onto the soft ground the others came around towards him. In the military they would have snapped quickly to attention. Brower missed that aspect of military life, and wondered if that hadn’t contributed to the other’s death.

“Discipline!” he snapped, catching the men off guard. McCullough was behind Brower, happy to be out of the line of fire. “God damn if I don’t say it again and again. Let up on your training and discipline and this is what happens!”

“Sir,” said one of the men, “I don’t think they figured Springer would…”

“Bullshit!” he exploded. “This SOB eluded you, surveilled you and ambushed you. You got punk-ed by a Journalist, by a civilian because you were sloppy! You put the entire mission at risk”



“Sir…”

Brower cut him off. “This is what will happen. We will maintain strict discipline at all times. No cowboy shit, and no emotion. Clear?”

“Roger that,” the men said in unison.

“Okay,” he said calmly, with a cleansing breath. “So our guy is no dummy, but he’s alone and cornered, so he’ll need a lot of luck. Where that luck runs dry is where we’ll be waiting.”

They spread a large area map across the hood of the truck. Each man helped to hold it down against the wind. From within the first vehicle a police band radio chattered.

“Been monitoring police and fire all day.” One of the men pointed to the island on the map, running a finger across the channel to the Sand Point Ranger Station. “This is where the house blew. A few hours later a Ranger reported a jeep was stolen.” He tapped a place on the map a little further west, roughly half way between the island and Marquette. “The jeep turned up here about an hour ago.

“What’s there?” asked Brower. McCullough was beside him, intently taking it all in.

“Nothing,” the man replied. “Dense forest, a few squatters and survivalists. Couple of abandoned shacks, but nothing remotely habitable.”

“Somebody he’d likely go to?” asked Brower.

“Doubt it,” said a grizzled Gulf War vet. “Most of these folks pretty militant about being left alone. I think maybe he hot-footed it into the weeds.”

“McCullough shook his head. “With two young daughters, in this weather? No way.”

“How would you know, Junior?” The Gulf War Vet shot back, dismissing McCullough as if he was a young punk. McCullough chafed at the rebuff, but held his temper.

“Grew up in country like this, Pops,” he said coolly. “Takes preparation. Weather changes in a heartbeat. I don’t think he’d be that reckless.”

“Why is that?”

“He hasn’t so far,” said McCullough.

The grizzled Vet frowned and shook his head. Brower nodded. “I think McCullough is dead on. Leaves two options. He’s running, or he’s still close by.”

“So where is he?” asked another.

“Our boy made a call to a Federal Agent,” the man beside him said. “We monitored the number on his call. Real quick, then hung up.”

“Signal?” Asked Brower.

The guy shrugged. “The agent checked into a motel out on Highway Twenty-eight, not far from where the jeep was abandoned. Coincidence?”

“Okay,” Brower rubbed his brow. He needed a cup of coffee badly. “You guys get on that agent. If they haven’t made contact yet, they will. McCullough I will run down some other leads and check out the motel. We’ll hook up later tonight.”

“And if we find Springer and the agent together?” asked the Grizzled Vet.

Brower thought, looking through the trees to a moment of sunlight glittering upon the lake. He was thinking of the dead men, the company and the mission. “I want this concluded. Whatever you do make it clean and untraceable.”

The Grizzled Vet slapped McCullough on the back causing the kid to stumble, a cruel grin creasing his face. “Try and keep up, kid!”