The Big Blue Sky: Forty-four

It was growing dark when Doug rounded the bend above little Munising. The bay was midnight blue, speckled with small whitecaps that grew and disappeared just as quickly. The freighter was still moored along the far shore, and the lights had been put up, so that the ship almost competed with the town for prominence among the black hills and forests. The storm clouds had spread across the sky, already reaching across Superior to the Canadian shore, fifty miles distant. The first furtive drops of rain fell, tapping hollowly upon the metal roof and hood of the old Ford.

Doug spotted the Jetta at the Clark Service Station in town, just down from the diner. Molly was just climbing from the car, lost to something on the blackberry in her hand. She went inside, leaving her partner to fill up the car with gasoline. Across the road, near a small gift shop, the black Suburban idled. Doug pulled up the collar of the jacket he’d bought from the old man, and turned off the highway into the station.

He pulled up close to the building, back a bit, but close enough that he could use the truck for as much cover as possible. He got out, hunched from the waist and feigning a limp. It wasn’t much of a disguise. In fact, it was dammed ridiculous, but what else did he have? Doug kept his head down, rubbing his nose with an open hand for a little extra measure of security.

Molly was at the back of the little store, where sodas, coffee, chips and the usual gas station junk food faire was sold. She was making her and Moon tall Styrofoam cups of coffee, her back turned to the door. Doug looked to the window. Molly’s partner was still filling the car. Past him, across the highway, the Suburban remained, apparently unsuspecting that anything was amiss.

Doug went right up to the counter where Molly was, keeping his face hidden as best he could. Molly politely moved aside for the stranger, stirring in a couple packets of sugar into Moon’s coffee, turning it a muddy brown.

“Gonna be a real pisser tonight,” he feigned a gravelly voice, letting it dissolve into a cough. As he did Doug let his hand slide across the counter, upending one of the cups of coffee, and dousing Molly’s slacks and shoes with the warm wet liquid.

“Hey!” she jumped back, more concerned about her clothes, than by the bent old fool fumbling with the tin napkin dispenser on the counter. “Look what you’ve done!”

“I’ll take care a…”

“Please!” she complained. “You’ve done quite enough already.”

Molly started for the women’s bathroom at the back of the shop, still fuming, and more than a little embarrassed by the wet stains covering the legs of her slacks. Doug followed, coming up quickly behind her. He pushed through the door behind her, knocking Molly forward. Without hesitation she turned, fading backwards away from the stranger and reaching for the weapon on her hip. Doug stood and removed his cap. Molly continued drawing her weapon, covering the trigger as she held it to her leg.

“Christ!” Molly, she exclaimed. Doug’s eyes went to the weapon.

He threw out his hands, as if to tell her not to be afraid, without so much as a word. He carefully opened the jacket wide, showing her that he wasn’t armed.

“You can arrest me if you want,” he said quietly, “in which case my girls and I are dead for sure, or you can help me, and maybe I get a fighting chance.”

“One minute.”

“All I’m asking, Molly?” he said. “First, give me your phone.”

“Why?’

“Give it to me,” he said forcefully, but still low.

She reluctantly handed it over to him, not at all certain it was the right thing to do. Doug pulled a plastic zip-lock bag from his pocket. He placed the phone inside, sealed it, turned faucet on in the sink and threw the phone under the running water.

“Are you crazy?” she shot back.

“You’re being monitored.”

“By whom?”

“Even with the phone switched off they can listen to every word we say. That’s how the CIA spied on the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

“Doug, you’re wanted for murder, at least, and maybe a couple dozen other crimes. Are you trying for an insanity plea?”

“I didn’t murder anybody,” he said. “Fallahi came to see me with this wild story. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. The next thing I know his brains are all over me.”

“What did he tell you?” she asked.

Doug rubbed his tortured forehead and paced the tiny room a moment. “He wasn’t making any sense. It’s all hazy and, and…He kept saying that we were being tricked into war. Something about a new weapon, and information he’d received from an informant with the opposition in Tehran.”

“What weapon?” Molly asked, still holding the pistol at her side. “What information? Doug, I can’t help you unless I have something concrete…?”

“I don’t know. Fallahi said someone was following him. Next think I know he’s dead and I’m out cold on the floor.”

“It’s pretty weak,” she said. “You’ve got to admit it…”

A knock at the door interrupted her. It was Moon. “Okay in there?”

There was a moment in which Molly had no idea just what she would do. She hesitated a moment before answering, as if unsure about Doug. Molly slowly holstered her gun.

“How do I find you?” she asked quietly.

“I’ll find you.”

“How do I know you won’t run?”

“I came to you, Molly,” he said. “I contacted you. I need your help if I’m going to keep my girls alive, but I have to stay in the shadows just a little longer.”

Moon knocked again, this time a little louder. “Molly, are you okay in there?”

Molly’s gaze narrowed on Doug. She looked to the door. “Um, yeah, I, uh, spilled coffee on myself. Wait in the car. I’ll be right out.” She turned to Doug. “I’m staying at the…”

“Sea Coast,” he finished.

“How did you know?”

He managed a stark and weary smile. “You only knew me when I wore sports coats and comfortable shoes. All those years running around wars, I picked up a few things.”

“Why did you have to be married?” she looked up into his eyes, finding that deep attraction she’d felt beside the Bosporus in Istanbul.

Doug wondered about what might have been. He knew he could have loved her, if not for Jane. That warm attraction was still there. There was a world in her eyes, and he was a wandering soul.

“Why’d you come along so late?”

“Hope she knew what a good man she married.”

“You were the only one that ever made me doubt my own character,” he said, wanting but refraining from touching her face. Doug shut off the water and handed her the bag abd phone. She put a hand on the nob and sighed.

“Despite my best efforts.”

“One last thing. You’re being tailed.”

“By who?”

“A black Suburban parked across the road. I think they’re with the guys who came after me and the girls on the island.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Doug watched her leave from the window, and smiled at the cashier before turning up his collar again and shuffling back out to the truck. The Suburban raced across the road, cutting off a camper, and drawing a loud horn blast. Two men climbed out, one of them pushing a hand inside his jacket to the holstered pistol there. Doug turned away as they passed, pushing through the door. Without looking back he climbed into the old Ford, gunned the reluctant motor and steered it onto the highway.