Living Fiction Project

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-five

2010-09-16T22:35:00.000-05:00

Commentators would comment for days to come at how utterly exhausted the President appeared. No amount of make up or lighting could erase the terrible toll it had taken on him, and upon everyone who had struggled through the crisis. Was this the end, or the end of the beginning. Sitting at the desk in the Oval office, his back was straight and his brow furled. He brought a hand to his mouth, cleared his throat and blinked twice before beginning.

“My fellow Americans, this evening I intended to announce the commencement of military operations by land, sea and air against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Instead, I have ordered our armed forces in the Gulf back to a cautious but defensive, rather than offensive, posture. The Iranians have also pledged to stand down as both our nations step back from the brink. In the interests of peace, knowing full well that a war would result in untold destruction and deaths, the United States is taking the Iranian Government at its word.”

With those words the president seemed almost relieved.

“Let me be clear. Without a doubt, the American people have longstanding and substantial grievances against the government of Iran. They should make no mistake that we will seek redress for those grievances. We have demanded, and we will not rest until there is a full and complete accounting regarding the deaths of our service men. Just before this address I received assurances from the Chinese government, acting as an intermediary, that the surviving member would be released immediately. At this moment a Georgian aircraft is in route to Tehran to fulfill that gesture by the Iranians. Through our Chinese partners Iran has agreed to an independent commission which will conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.

He paused and took a deep breath, gazing into the cameras at the whole world for a painfully long moment. It was as if the words to follow were tortuous to him.

“It has come to my attention that a plot by a small number of people was enacted for the purpose of drawing the nation to war for the purpose of personal profit and greed, without regard to the loss of life in both nations. International arrest warrants have been issued for a number of individuals, as well as Umberto Shosa. So rather than a call to arms, tonight this is a call to action for the American people to take back their nation from the corporate interests that have only their bottom line and not the nation as their ultimate interest. Americans can no longer be passive observers to the political process in their nation, without losing all that has been fought and bled for over the last two and a half centuries.”

He took a deep breath, appearing as troubled as he was tired. The President stood, unbuttoned his suit coat as he came around and leaned on the desk. The words came as much as a confession as a concern.

My fellow Americans, I cannot do this for you. Your government has become so entangled with the interests of big business that each of us who holds public office are guilty, if not directly then by association, by accepting the status quo. We, in public office, have lost the purity of our Constitutional ideals. I cannot change this alone, and without real grassroots actions I cannot state too strongly that you will lose your country and become slaves to corporate and business interests.”

He stood straight, pushing a hand in his pocket.

“This night we grieve our dead and count our blessings that, for now, war has been averted, because in the end war is the failure of all good reasoning. Tomorrow turn the rage and passions whipped up through these last few days into resolve against the true enemy. Not the enemy against whose flag and land and people we prepared to meet in battle, but against the enemies of truth and clarity and the individual. Thank you, and good night…”

THE END

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-four

2010-09-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

Waverly pushed through the circle of worshippers and went right up to Doug. He pulled away the cap and leveled the pistol at Doug’s forehead. Their eyes met and Doug knew there was nothing more he could do. Doug climbed unsteadily to his feet and breathed deeply, resolved and resigned to his fate.

“Can we do it away from these good people?” said Doug, feeling like it was a final request.

Waverly looked around at the group, an eclectic mix of folks who had lost hope, and had lost hope that hope still existed in the world, except among one another, and most particularly in this small group.

“Good people?” Waverly scoffed. “I feeling scummier just being near them.”

“That’s enough!” Reverend Steve stepped between Waverly and Doug. “Not in my church, and not while I have anything to say.”

“Want to be a hero?” said Waverly “I’ve got more than enough bullets.”

“That’s what it will take.” With that a tough lady named Diamond, who’d cut her teeth on these hard streets, struggled with addiction and a thousand and one other trials moved beside the Reverend. A fellow named Roland, struggling through cancer was there next. They were soon joined by the rest.

“You’re gonna have to kill us all,” said Diamond, defiantly.

“You’ve lost,” said Doug. “How far are you going to take this?”

“Till the end.”

“What end?” Doug winced at the pain. He was caught by a chain smoking Blues bassist named Warren.

“Because I’m a soldier, and I am honor bound to finish this fight.”

“For Umberto Shosa, or the money? What does any of that matter now?”

There were sirens in the distance, coming closer by the moment.

“Then all I have is honor.” The gun faltered in his hand. He regained it, his face breaking from emotion, from shame and fear and uncertainty and so much more. Waverly shook the weapon. His voice rose, almost breaking. “Now standing fucking aside!”

Across the park, over Waverly’s shoulder, the street was suddenly filled with police vehicles. Dozens of officers piled out, approaching the would-be worshippers, Doug and Waverly with weapons drawn. Molly was among them, her shoulder hastily bandaged. Doug closed his eyes and opened them once more, believing his eyes and the loss of blood were playing ticks on him. The sight of her gave him strength and filled him with emotion.

The Reverend waved them off and stepped forward until the short barrel of the Bushmaster pressed to the center of his chest. His eyes found Waverly’s and held them firm. “I don’t know you, brother, but I know myself in you. I know where I’ve been and what sins I’ve done. And I’ll tell you this, that, ‘I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

“I don’t care for your god-bullshit,” Waverly said, his voice low and anything but certain.

“Then care for your own soul, brother. Pray for it, as all of us will pray for yours. Pray for the strength to be a better man, to beat the hate and evil in your heart right now.”

Waverly pushed the barrel harder into the Reverend’s chest. The man stood firm. There were tears threatening in Waverly’s eyes. “Enough! I swear…”

“Swear to god,” said the Reverend. “Swear to him that you still have righteous and love in your heart, and swear that you will be as brave in seeking redemption and forgiveness as you have been in war.”

“I won’t go to jail.”

“There are worse things,” said Diamond.

“Like what?” said Waverly, emotion tearing at his heart.

“Like dying alone,” she said. “I know, I almost died once, before I was saved, and I was never more alone.”

“Let me have the gun.” The Reverend slowly reached up and started to pull the gun from Waverly’s hands. He held it a moment, finding the reverend’s eyes on his own.

“Let me die,” he said weakly. The Reverend pulled the gun from Waverly’s hands. The police came forward, closing a circle, their weapons trained on Waverly.

“It’s called rock bottom,” said the Reverend. “Only one way to go from here.”

Doug found Molly, and noticed the badge around her neck. It had taken one of Waverly’s bullets, but had saved her. She fell into his arms. Behind them Waverly was pushed to the ground by police.

“I thought you were dead.”

“You’re hurt,” she said, noticing the blood at his side.

“We’ve got to get to that Press conference,” he said.

“Doug…” she protested. He cut her off quickly.

“We’ve fought too hard, Molly, and too many have already sacrificed too much.” Doug touched her face, pleading with her. “Can you live with yourself if we had a chance to stop this war and we squandered that chance?”

He was right. She knew he was right. She recalled his words that first day in Istanbul, where she hung on every word, as if each was new and undiscovered. How he saw the world in such vibrant colors, with bright white highlights fading at the edges and rich black shadows punctuating forms, because those were the hues and shades and lines that made up the world, rather than soulless black and white or undisciplined color. He was indeed a hopeful realist, just as he described himself at Ground Zero, and that was perhaps what she was coming to love more than anything about him.

A policeman came up and helped Doug to a squad car. He slid into the back seat and fell against her, where Molly cradled him in her lap.

“You hang in there, pal,” said the cop. “We’ll get you to a hospital right away.”

“No,” said Molly. “North Branch and Division.”

“What’s there?” asked the cop.

“A chance for peace.”

As they pulled away Molly wondered if he would fall in love with her one day. Could Molly rightly expect that? For now it was enough they were both alive. As for tomorrow, well, it was enough that she could hope…

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-three

2010-09-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

Doug managed to put some distance from Waverly. Suddenly Doug found himself staggering, his strength falling away, his legs sluggish and unsteady. His left leg trailed stiffening and wanting to give out altogether. It was wet there, the wetness spreading along his side and back, running along his leg and filling his shoe. Doug paused at a parked car, feeling at his hip. Blood soaked his shirt and trousers, bubbling through a small finger-sized hole just above the hip. A stuttering heartbeat later the pain came flooding in.

Behind him Waverly stepped into the street and took aim once more. Doug half tumbled, half slid behind a car and let out a groan, hoping to force some life back into his legs. There was a park up ahead, and the blue lake waters beyond. Beneath a tree a preacher read scripture to a circle of parishioners. On a bench nearby a drunk was sleeping off a bad night. Doug lifted the man’s tan cap and a red flannel shirt and made his way to the group.

Doug slipped on the cap, pulled it down tight and found a chair among the others, covering his injured side and leg with the jacket. Waverly appeared a moment later, hiding the weapon inside his jacket, his eyes scanning the park and beach for his injured prey. Doug slunk down into the chair. Someone handed him a Bible. He opened it and held it before him, saying a small prayer for his girls as he did.

It was an odd sort of group. These were the sorts that grew fear when encountered in a dark alley. They were the dregs passed out on sidewalks, begging for change, slowly succumbing to AIDS, bad livers and drug addictions. They were prostitutes, thieves and the forgotten. Somehow, in that little group Doug found safety and, for want of another word: Love.

They rallied to the words and passion of an unassuming Black Reverend, with a fiery manner, and bold, somewhat anguished brown eyes. In cargo shorts and a red and white striped shirt, he hardly fit the image of a holy man, but there he was, preaching the word from a Bible he gave himself body, mind and soul to. And, in that circle, beneath an old Oak, among the parks and benches and alleys many of them called home there was a goodness, as if they joined with the Reverend and one another some part of themselves where love and family and hope refused to relinquish.

“Welcome, brother,” said the Reverend, politely. “Participate if you like, the only rule here is respect. Respect yourself, respect God and respect everyone else here.” The reverend slipped a pair of eyeglasses back on and found his place in the scriptures once more. “Everyone turn to One Corinthians Thirteen.”

Doug pretended at turning the pages. For just an instant he took his eyes off Waverly. When he looked back the man was gone. Doug closed his eyes against waves of pain from the bullet hole in his side. He wasn’t bleeding as bad now, at least that he could tell. His head was light and he wished only to lay down and sleep. He fought it, focusing on the girl’s faces, knowing full well that if he gave into that need he might never see them again. But Doug found he couldn’t concentrate for long on anything. With the darkness threatening he clung to the Reverend’s words, like an anchor to the world and life. As he did Doug found something in those words, as if he had been called to this spot at this moment to hear them.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,” the Reverend began, rocking on his heels and challenging the sky with an upraised finger, his voice resonating across the park, “ but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love…”

The reverend’s words trailed away to a strangely uncomfortable silence. Doug looked over to the man beside him. The man’s eyes went wide with fear. Doug knew in an instant, lowering the Bible before him. Injured as he was, Doug knew the fight was over. He had fought as much as he could, and perhaps more than most, but now all seemed lost.

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-two

2010-09-15T19:23:00.000-05:00

The brutal realization that this was all but over found Waverly all at once. That he this former American hero was now shown to be a traitor was the bitterest pill. Doug noticed it, as if cloud had passed across him, as if the air had suddenly left him. He seemed to age in an instant and had now become, in Doug’s eyes, decrepit. A man’s sins always find him.

But ego makes fools of men. The once-upon-a-time patriot was now a fugitive with rapidly dwindling options. Still, Waverly was hardly ready to concede defeat, even in the face of it. He was desperate for the retribution his crimes would bring, for his own life and for the sudden wish to take all this back from the place where everything had gone wrong. a cornered man is a dangerous man, but a man who traps himself against the world will fight to the end rather than face his crimes.

He still held the gun on Doug, resting it in his lap, a finger covering the trigger. Doug felt distant from the world outside the car, which seemed oblivious to the coming calamity. To one side of the street the great expanse of Lake Michigan, its blue-green waters touched by tiny white caps from a strengthening wind. It was warm enough that there were joggers and bicyclers about. On the other side of the road, facing the tall white stones of Calvary Cemetery, like some peaceful city of the dead, a city Doug feared he might soon join.

“I know everything,” said Doug. “It will be simple for anyone to follow that trail, and all of this will be exposed.”

“Look like I give shit what you know?”

“No feeling for starting a war and destroying the lives of millions for money?”

‘’it is about the money!” Waverly pounded the dashboard. The war is the marklet, death and misery and refugees on CNN the selling points.”

“How can you justify that? How do you live with yourself?”

“You know everything, like you said. You figure it out.”

The road bent, running straight among the deep canyon of old brownstones, apartment buildings and full gold and rust autumn trees. The traffic deepened and slowed through carefully staggered and timed traffic lights.

“And you see me as the enemy?” asked Doug, steering around a truck waiting to turn.

“Anything standing in the way of what I want is the enemy.” Waverly motioned off to the left, towards a narrow side street and an alley running behind a small Italian restaurant. Iy was an abrupt act, as if Waverly had thought of it only that moment. “Turn down that alley. This is where you and I come to the end our road.”

Doug had to break hard, the back end of the little white Honda fishtailing a bit. The action drew angry shouts and honks from passing cars.

“Going to kill me?” Doug split his attention on the oncoming traffic and figuring a way to escape. Waverly snapped back the bolt on the submachine gun.

“Needed you for a hostage, that’s all,” he said. “Now you’re a liability.”

But Doug wasn’t ready to die just yet, and not without a good fight. He hit the gas and swung into the path of an oncoming delivery truck. But the driver swerved at the last second. Rather than smash through Waverly’s door it tore away the front end in a stunning eruption of glass and motor parts and metal. The Honda spun away like a top and was smashed from the rear by a second vehicle.

Even tensed and expecting the collision, Doug was stunned by the force of it. The airbags exploded in the men’s faces, with the force of an openhanded slap. The gun flew from Waverly’s hand, winding up at his feet beneath the collapsing dash.

Doug instantly went for the door handle and pulled hard. The door refused to budge. He cried as panic rose like a torrent and threw himself against the door until it fell open, spilling Doug onto the hard pavement. Behind him, Waverly was just coming around, momentarily knocked unconscious by the wreck. He looked over to where Doug fought and kicked to untangle his legs from the seatbelt. Waverly reached for the gun, pushing against the dash to reach it. He found it just as Doug managed to break free, now fighting for his feet in the road.

Waverly managed a long burst from the Bushmaster, blowing out the windshield as he sprayed the street with bullets. They skipped off the street around Doug, and slapped into the delivery truck, wounding the driver and ricocheting everywhere. Doug stumbled and fell, as Waverly struggled from the wreckage, but as up quickly and running down the street and out of sight.

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-one

2010-09-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

The clock was ticking steadily down to war, which with each passing moment seemed more and more inevitable. It grew beyond its human creators, fed by the cruelty, impatience and ignorance of their hearts. It grew out of all proportion, until nothing more could be seen, and peace was a naïve and cowardly alternative. And like rogue militias looting a captured village, each nation angled for the greatest benefit.

The Syrians were only too eager to give the Americans fly over permission. Closer to the West, they stood to benefit greatly throughout the region following a predictable Iranian defeat. They would emerge as the regions superpower, an opportunity they had waited for decades to achieve. My contrast, America’s Israeli allies declined permission, not wishing to provoke any sort of Arab backlash, despite that they were eager so see Iran crushed.

From Moscow to Beijing to Washington diplomats worked desperately at ever changing tasks and goals. What had been an effort to find a resolution was now an endeavor to shore up alliances, to win concessions from countries sympathetic to Iran and to keep the conflict from becoming a wider issue. Indonesia, a moderate Islamic nation would receive economic considerations for not having an official view of the war. A pending arms deal would be sped up for Egypt, which, in a quid pro quo, undertook a crackdown on radical groups. Turkey, straining socially from the economic downturn used the crisis to strengthen its European Union ties, while the US convinced Iraq to crackdown on Kurdish separatists using Northern Iraq as staging areas for incursions into Turkey.

That ticking clock was apparent nowhere as great as in the Gulf. On the Allied side, soldiers, airmen and sailors consoled themselves with death and exhorted one another to victory. Every moment became its own philosophy, alte3rnating with hope, preeminence and fatalism. They said goodbye to one another, to themselves and to the world. With that they surrendered their fate to god and the universe. It was no different on the Iranian side, for the militiamen digging trenches and building bunkers, for the airmen and seamen who faced almost certain death in the coming hours, and the thousands fleeing cities and coastal areas. But fate hinges upon the small perhaps as much as the large, and the fate of millions depended upon a desperate fight taking place thousands of miles away.

The Big Blue Sky: Seventy

2010-09-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

“Get up,” Waverly ordered.

“You might as well pull the trigger,” Doug said. He felt sure Molly was dying, and was helpless to do anything for her. He was exhausted and beaten and couldn’t find the strength to give a damn any longer.

“You’re my ticket out of here, right now.”

Waverly shoved Doug through the classroom, and past the body of the young contractor, a bullet hole through his forehead, a surprised expression frozen upon his pale face. The hallway was quiet and deserted. There was more gunfire, far off across the campus. It began with a brief exchange, building quickly to a blistering and sustained fusillade before ending abruptly.

“Sounds like it’s about finished for your men,” said Doug. He groaned in pain as Waverly jammed the barrel of the Bushmaster into his back, forcing him into a stairwell.

The fire exit at the bottom of the stairs was unguarded. Down on the street a young rookie cop stood behind the door of a white and blue Evanston police cruiser. His attention was off in another direction. Doug nearly cried out, but Waverly had a clear shot and could have taken the boy down easily. There was a parking lot close by. They used the cars for cover and were across the grassy lawn quickly. Crossing the road the pair cut across tennis courts and commandeered a little white Honda. Waverly forced Doug behind the wheel and climbed in beside him. They headed south into the city, passed by a steady stream of emergency and police vehicles headed towards the university. The shooting was over now. All the contractors and one campus cop lay dead.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-nine

2010-09-13T20:38:00.001-05:00

“What are we doing here?” Molly asked. She held the pistol at her leg. Her heart thundered madly. Every errant sound in the big empty hallways made her jumpy and anxious.

“Looking for someone.”

“Care to share a little?” Molly complained.

Doug stopped before a large directory. White plastic letters were pressed into a black board set into the wall and covered by glass. Doug touched the glass, running his finger down until he came to a name.

“Louis Purvich, Professor.” He said.

“Who?”

“When I called my old editor he said we should talk to his son-in-law.”

“And this is important at this moment?”

“I need some information or I’ll look like a fool at that Press conference. I have one shot. I have to put all the pieces in place.”

Molly nodded. “We better hurry then.”

They ran down the hall and up two flights of stairs, finding a small office at the back of lab. They lab itself was like something from a tinkerers dream. The machines seemed haphazard and strange. Doug was by no means an uneducated man, but he could not make sense of any of them.

“Looks like a hi-tech junk shop,” Molly remarked for the both of them.

There was a small wood-cut sign on the door. It was simple, like a child had created it. A crudely etched tin-can robot frowned while sniffing a daisy. There was a question mark over the robot's square head. The sign read:

DEPARTMENT OF CYBER-ETHICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

Doug didn’t bother knocking. There was no time. He reached for the doorknob. It turned easily. He pushed it open, startling the professor inside. Molly pushed past Doug and went to the phone on the Professor’s desk, lifted the receiver and dialed the emergency operator.

“This is Agent Karaman again. I phoned in the emergency. I am located on the third floor of the Technological Institute, North End in one of the labs. I have a Federal witness with me and will need security immediately to protect him.” She hung up the phone, took the badge from her pocket and hung it around her neck where it would be seen plainly. “No need to get shot by friendlies.”

Doug looked to the astonished young man. He couldn’t have been older that thirty, though a deeply receding hairline made him look a bit older at a glance. It was offset by long straight blond hair. He was skinny and t all, and a awkward, with bright blue eyes and a two day growth of beard. The office was a mess, dominated by a chaotic bookshelf filled with reports, hastily stuffed files and an eclectic mix of philosophy and computer books.

“Professor Purvich?” asked Doug.

“Doug Springer? Arnie said…”

“Is there another way out of here?” asked Molly, returning to the door, now holding the pistol in both hands.

“If you can fly or bounce!” the Professor replied, sarcastically, but quickly thinking better of it when she glared at him. “What’s going on?”

“We don’t have much time,” Doug began. Molly moved across the lab to the door. “I’m trying to put together the pieces of a weird puzzle…”

“Nano-weapons.” Purvich said abruptly, taking Doug a little aback.

Doug looked curiously at the sign on the door. “Cyber-ethics?’

“The digital revolution is overwhelming us,” said Purvich. “It’s evolving faster than humanity’s ability to understand it. Some would call it a new life form, maybe the replacement form for humanity. Twenty years from now machines will be autonomous, self replicating and doing things we cannot even conceive of. Question is, will they perceive us as their Adam and Eve, as nuisances or enemies? Will we perceive them as enemies, God’s or both? The ethics of all this is that we need to find a way to program basic ethics and morality into our machines, or they will fashion their own, and we must come to some understanding and perspective in machines of our creation which, one day, will likely not need us to exist.”

“How does that work for nano-weapons?”

“It doesn’t,” Purvich said simple.

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re not asking the right question,” said Purvich. “What happened in Iran two days ago has all the hallmarks of a Nanobot attack. No ethics, just machines programmed to function on its designer’s shifting sense of ethics. Nanobots are simple, dumb things.”

“Nano-what? You have to forgive my ignorance.”

“Not your fault,” he said. “Nobody knows about this stuff. Nobody in the government and nobody in military, that for sure. Nano-technology is not on anyone’s radar yet, but it is definitely the future. If we’re smart it will change humanity forever. If we ain’t it’ll hit us like a bullet between the eyes.”

“Fallahi said it was like the discovery of fire; a Frankenstein monster.”

“Purvich nodded. “Not far off the mark. What we’re talking here is infinitesimally small, on the scale of millionths of an inch. By contrast, the diameter of a human hair is colossal by comparison. But the applications are infinite; phenomenally better processors, incredibly efficient fuel cells, revolutionary medical applications, like little robots that would hunt down and eradicate tumors before you knew you had them, un-dreamed of textiles and fabrics and warfare.”

“And how would those applications work for weaponry?”

Purvich chuckled. “How good is your imagination? Right now we’re sort of theoretical with carbon silicon Nano-tubes a thousandth the width of a human hair, with a sort of tube and soccer ball configuration, but from that we can build and program and amazing array of nano-machines.”

“How difficult are these to produce?’ asked Doug. Molly was listening from the door, while keeping a wary eye on the hall. Outside the sirens had risen to a racket. There was gunfire in the distance. Purvich led Doug across the room to an odd looking machine. It was hardly bigger that a small chest of drawers.

“A couple of geeks, a million and a half dollars and an internet account to buy a thimble full nano-tubes and you, my friend, could bring the world to its knees.”

“And where does one logon to but nano-tubes?”

Purvich went to a blackboard and quickly scribbled out a formula:

It’s simple, anyone can create so-called forests on nano-tubes in a substrate growth rate in a really simple formula, H(t)=βTo(1-e-t/To), where β is the initial growth rate and T sub zero is the catalyst’s lifetime.” He could see that he was losing Doug a bit in the techno stuff. “It’s simple. Very simple.”

“Anyway to detect one of these nano-weapons?”

“Honestly? Depends on the technical expertise of the designer. They could disappear, breakdown on command, dissolve, or burn up.”

Molly looked away from the door. “Burn up?”

“Sure,” said Purvich. “You could actually generate a substantial amount of heat.”

“Enough to say, burn through human tissue?” Molly pressed.

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“And how would you deliver these?” asked Doug, with a knowing look to Molly.

“God, the possibilities boggle the mind.”

“In a glass of water?” asked Molly.

“I suppose,” the Professor replied.

There was a sound at the door. Molly wheeled around, bringing the pistol up as Waverly and the other man stormed inside, unleashing a hail of bullets. Molly returned fire, dropping Waverly’s partner. Doug fell on Purvich, shoving him back into the office just as two bullets slammed into Molly. She grunted and tumbled to the floor, her pistol skidding away across the floor.

“Molly!” Doug cried, scrambling over to her. Dark red blood spread beneath her body. Molly’s head was turned to the side, and covered by her long dark hair. Just as he reached for her Doug felt the press of a cold hard gun barrel at the back of his head.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-eight

2010-09-12T18:30:00.000-05:00

Waverly clutched the plastic stock of his Bushmaster submachine gun so tightly his knuckles were white. Things were spinning rapidly out of control. His men had become wolves, and he was the leader of that ravenous pack. They were almost blind as he was to the consequences of their actions. But it had become far more than business. Archer Waverly meant to kill Doug Springer if it was the last thing he did.

The campus was more or less deserted for a Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t certain whether or not that was an advantage. It was what it was, he thought, tugging the bolt back and chambering a round.

“This ends here,” he told the men, standing in more or less of a defensive posture. “Teams of two. Ten thousand on top of the current bonus for the team that takes Springer out.”

“Then what?’ asked one of the men.

“Then I don’t care,” he growled in reply.

“Just get it done.”

Waverly and one of the other men waited as the first two teams headed off in different directions. When they were gone he motioned to the Tech Institute. Already he could hear sirens in the distance, coming from several different directions. He knew exactly where they were headed.

“Our boy is in there.”

“How do you know?” the young veteran contractor, a former artillery spotter, asked.

“We don’t have much time,” said Waverly. “Let’s get this done so we can get out of here and enjoy that money.”

“What about the others?”

Waverly looked at him with a cold empty stare. “What others?”

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-seven

2010-09-12T18:29:00.000-05:00

Just north of Chicago, Northwestern University felt like less of a campus than an organic amendment to the Idyllic suburb of Evanston. Attractive ivy covered buildings, joined by meandering walkways and curious sculpture gardens are shrouded in the sheltering shade of oak and maple and tall pine. The university borders Lake Michigan and a pretty lagoon to the east, the lake’s deep waters adding a drama and thoughtfulness to the intimacy of the place. Doug had been here before, long ago, researching a story. He knew it well enough to believe it was their best chance at evading their would-be killers.

The old Ford finally quit just across from the University. It just quit, as if understanding that it had given all it could to Doug and Molly and their cause. Molly checked her weapon once more. She had a full clip in the pistol and a spare in her coat pocket. It would be nothing against the contractor’s firepower, Doug paused before climbing out, patting the gray vinyl dash affectionately.

“Rest in peace, baby,” he said.

“We should go,” Molly urged, looking off along the street. The Yukons would be upon them shortly. It was a simple deduction to figure where Doug and Molly had gone.

They hurried across the street, just reaching the white stone, sprawling Technological Institute when the Yukons screeched to a stop beside the still smoking Ford. They counted six men, piling out onto the street, each in dark black jackets and cradling automatic weapons. Doug recognized Waverly from various news articles and the Bernstein congressional hearings into First Thrust.

“We’re gonna need help,” said Molly.

“These guys are ready for war,” Doug remarked. “I don’t see this ending good.”

A student passed, just pushing through the glass and metal doors of the Institute. It was a young blond coed, cell phone pressed between her chin and shoulder, babbling about some hot guy in her Biomedical Engineering class. Molly flashed a badge and yanked the phone away, lifting the receiver to her mouth.

“She’ll call you back,” Molly abruptly hung up on the person at the other end. Quickly Molly dialed nine-one-one. The emergency operator answered immediately.

“This is Agent Molly Karaman of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am on the Northwestern campus at the Technological Institute. I have a weapon. There are six gunmen, white males, at the University, all wearing black jackets and carrying automatic weapons. Please send help.”

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-six

2010-09-12T18:27:00.000-05:00

The order had already gone out to Allied forces throughout the Gulf. The order to attack Iran would come in less than seven hours, just before the President addressed the nation. The British and French protested vociferously, but had been appeased with economic concessions over the post-war Iranian State. There was no interest on the American side in occupying the country. This was punishment pure and simple. The Iranian state would be hammered with a ferocity that would have stunned Saddam in the last days of his reign. The pieces would be left for others to squabble over.

Twelve thousand Marines were moving from Kuwait and would strike over land to cut off Iran from her fuel supplies. Another five thousand would secure Gulf Islands to prevent the Iranians from using them as bases to attack the American fleet now largely trapped in the Gulf. Using the cover of an anti-Taliban built up two armored divisions would drive south out of Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan, where they would support the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions in seizing Iran’s Ports on the Gulf of Oman.

A massive cyber attack would shutdown the country hours before the attack commenced, sowing chaos and terror. From bases in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and from three different carrier groups, the country would be steadily dismantled from the air. Secondary strikes would degrade communications, support and supply efforts by the Iranians. Cities would be isolated quickly by severing power lines, targeting roads and bridges and disrupting cell phone communications. The Islamic Republic of Iran had precious little time left, if the attack went forward. Iran would continue, as Iraq had after Saddam, but what that would be was impossible to know for sure.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-five

2010-09-11T10:29:00.000-05:00

The ancient Ford was no match for the Yukon’s big two hundred fifty-five horsepower, V-eight engines. They barreled down on the Ford, struggling to get long either side of the Ford. For a time, racing at a deadly speed, weaving in and out of heavy traffic Doug managed to keep just ahead of them.

The Yukons caught a pocket and roared ahead, coming along either side of Doug and Molly. For a terrifyingly long minute they bumped the Ford between them, like wolves toying with a prey. Waverly was driving the first, a murderous steel to his eyes as he swung the Yukon sideways, slamming against the Ford and tossing Doug and Molly around inside. He was indeed toying with them, but toying to a predator is only prelude to a kill, and the time to kill was at hand.

“Can you get off a shot?” Doug cried above the grinding of metal and the whining of straining engines.

But Molly couldn’t get off a shot, not as the Ford was rocked and hammered violently about, and not without be sure she wouldn’t hit an innocent driver nearby. There was a garbage truck ahead. The Yukons pressed the old Ford between them, intent and running it hard into the truck. Doug yanked the wheel left and them right with every ounce of strength he possessed, knowing full well when the Yukons intended. He cried out against the strain, Molly still fighting for a clear shot and knew they had just seconds before disaster.

So that was it, he thought. This is how it would end. Doug would never see his girls again. Whatever god he might have believed it once seemed all the more cruel and terrible to take both parents from girls who had never harmed a soul. For an instant, just an instant he was ready to concede everything, so stopping fighting powers and forces much larger than Molly and him. For just and instant he could simply close his eyes and go peacefully to death.

Time slowed suddenly. Bits of glass, papers, a cell phone, a coffee cup seemed to tumble lazily in the small cab, as if suspended and independent of gravity. Cascades of bright orange sparks spit from the sides of the truck. Past the Ford’s windows, all but obscuring the assassins in the Yukons a pocket opened up. Doug looked to Molly. She was still in the fight, refusing to concede a single breath. Past her, beyond the monstrous hood of the big white Yukon traffic parted as people fled as best they could the battle among them.

It was that, a glimmer of hope, that brought time to its properly feverish pace. Doug felt fight and resolve return to him like a force of nature, and slammed a foot on break pedal. The ripping of steel and metal was horrendous as the Ford wrenched loose, grinding to a halt as the Yukons sped forward. Doug gunned the engine and something exploded under the hood, sending clouds of oil smoke that covered the windshield. Behind them the Yukons were picking their way through knots vehicles to continue the chase. Doug vowed to put as much road as possible between them, knowing full well he couldn’t outrun them forever.

“We can’t fight these guys,” he said, running hard, charging through a red light.

“Don’t see another way,” she said. “But I have to know you are in the fight with me, Doug.”

He reached over and held her hand, squeezing it tightly. “Till the end.”

Doug hit the gas and pulled the wheel to the right. The Ford lurched across three lanes of traffic, banged down a grassy embankment and tore through a chain-link fence, nearly overshooting a narrow side road.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-four

2010-09-11T10:28:00.000-05:00

It was a war council, a meeting to discuss strategies of attack rather than opportunities for diplomacy. Any pretext of peace was simply to assuage the pride and ego of the nation, and to portray the coming storm as a righteous one. It was a war council, though the men and women wore the finest suits, and were attended by aides in perfect uniforms. All were well-manicured and held advanced degrees from the finest educational institutions known to man. They were constant on blackberries, running to this conference or that committee meeting or media interviews. And despite their wealth and accoutrements they were no different from the tribes gathered at fires on the African plain a hundred thousand years before. They were the same as the ancient Hittitites, Illyrians and Huns, or the Germanic tribes that raged against Rome.

War had been decided, as much by ignorance as by the inconsolable tide of anger by the American people over the still mysterious deaths of the captives. The efforts by the Administration to find a diplomatic solution were abandoned the moment the two freighters were sunk in the Strait of Hormuz. An oblique claim of responsibility by an Al Qa’eda franchise could not be completely verified. Given the strategic peril US forces in the Persian Gulf faced, the President couldn’t take the chance of losing an entire carrier group to a possible Iranian ruse.

Allied forces in the Gulf were already on a war footing. The latest urgent preparations were certain to alarm the already jumpy Iranians, who undoubtedly were monitoring every Allied movement and unguarded communication. From the moment the freighters exploded the carrier group off the Saudi coast was prepared for an attack. Though the Iranians fully comprehended the American response, it was not something they could ignore.

They prepared for an immediate American retaliation. Neighborhood civil defense teams mobilized in every Iranian city, while tens of thousands began evacuating to the countryside and mountains. The Iranian air force scattered throughout the country, hiding in long prepared bunkers among villages, in farms and elsewhere. The Iranian navy left ports for protected coves and coastal areas, from which they prepared to launch a massive assault against the Americans.
Terror cells already activated across Western Europe and America had fallen one by one by sudden police raids. But not all of them had been discovered. These remaining cells prepared to carry out attack against civilian targets the instant the attack against Iran began.

The President leaned at the conference table in the Situation Room staring up at the satellite image of the Gulf and Middle East. This was the historic crucible of mankind’s legacy of war and violence. He appeared exhausted and hopeless, rubbing at the intractable tension now a permanent feature to his brow. The staff, joint chiefs and cabinet members sat pensively, not wishing to disturb thoughts upon which would weigh history forever.

He had hoped to stop a war, and had even run on that promise as a presidential candidate. But peace is not a decision, just as stopping a war is not a decision. Both are living creatures, and like living creatures must be starved or fed or killed just as surely as any other creature. The saddest thing was that peace was the most difficult to nurture and the easiest to kill, for a good peace could die from simple neglect. Peace was fed from the soul. It was heavenly and spiritual and antithetical to the hate and revenge and greed and ego that fed war. He had hoped to stop a war, and now felt as if he had filed the nation, the world and even the innocents in Iran who would suffer so terribly.

He stood and turned to the others. “I want an ultimatum to the Iranians. I’ll call the Chinese Premiere myself to make certain the message is delivered immediately.”

“They’ll need time to debate the points, Mister President,” said the Secretary of State. She had come to the job a little reluctantly, after running as candidate in a long and bitter election. But she had taken to the job at a historic moment, facing a daunting array of International issues, from multiple wars, a resurgence of high-seas piracy, a global recession, the environment and Nuclear proliferation.

She leaned back in her chair, a peach suit coat bunching slightly at the shoulders, her short blond hair lightly brushing the collar of a simple white blouse. The secretary’s eyeglasses teetered at the end of her nose. She was looking at the President, wondering how she might have managed all this if she had won the Presidency. The Secretary could hardly imagine weathering the crisis any differently.

“Time they don’t have,” the President replied.

“I think an ultimatum forces a situation,” said the defense secretary. “It backs everyone into a corner, and that gives us limited opportunities.”

“If see your point,” said the President, “but I do want to give the Iranians fewer options, with an expiration date.”

The secretary of State drew away her eyeglasses, holding them out before the notes and paper before her.

“My suggestion, if I was sitting in that chair,” she shared a warm smile with the President, precisely what was called for at that moment. “Carrot and stick. Offer them something they need with an expiration date which will undercut their international support if they refuse.”

The President sat on the table beside her. “I’m listening.”

She leaned back, finding for the first time that she truly liked the President, and that she had always respected him, but never quite realized it, or admitted it to herself before now.

Behind the scenes we deliver the message through the Chinese, making it abundantly clear the clock is ticking down to zero. We also play this fully in the Press and win the game on that court.”

The President folded his arms and chuckled. “Total bullshit.”

“The secretary laughed. “Welcome to the world of International diplomacy.”

The Living Fiction Project: Sixty-three

2010-09-09T22:08:00.002-05:00

Molly shook the officer’s hands. They politely touched the brim of the hats and nodded. Half way to the truck she waved once more. Molly climbed back inside beside Doug with the strangest expression, somewhere between relief and nervousness. Doug gave up trying to decipher it. One of the State cruisers pulled around in front of them. The first remained behind them, lights blazing.

“Gonna tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“Apparently one of the contractors spilled his guts last night. Word’s getting around that we’re on a mission…” Doug cut her off, as he started the truck.

“Mission from God?”

“You might say that.”

“It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago,” he quoted a line from an old movie, “we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

The State cops escorted Doug and Molly as far as the Illinois state line. They pulled to the side of the road. The cop that had first pulled them over told how he had a son that had just enlisted in the Army, and that he had no interest in seeing his only son go off to war. They couldn’t guarantee anything past the Wisconsin line, but Doug and Molly were grateful for having seen them this far. As they crossed into Illinois they had no way of knowing that Waverly and his teams were already tracking them from the moment they were pulled over outside of Milwaukee. Waverly and his men were waiting for them, and they didn’t have to wait long.

Doug and Molly failed to notice the two white Yukon Denalis parked at an onramp. Doug was lost in the rightwing drumbeat to war on the radio. In between the hysterical outrage and knee-jerk foolishness, the news was filled with anecdotes of war preparations and protests around the world. Wars are a product of building tension in the minds and souls of each individual. The tension that is built is not easily dissipated, and is most easily dissipated in the violent predisposition of the human animal. It was a lesson those who have been to war understand, and a lesson Doug had seen again and again.

It was Molly who noticed the Yukons coming up quickly behind them, running side by side. She knew in an instant and had a sinking feeling things were about to take a very bad turn. She drew her pistol and pulled the slide back to chamber a round. Doug looked over sharply.

“We’re being followed,” she said.

Doug checked the mirror and shook his head. “These guys don’t give up, huh?”

“Still think we can pull this off.”

“Do we have a choice any longer?” he replied.

She checked the mirror again. The Yukons were looming, almost upon them now. There could be no doubt about their intention.“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

“For history.”

“And if no one ever hears?”

Doug pushed the gas pedal down hard, briefly putting space between them and the Yukons. “For my girls, and for my soul.”

“Worth dying over?” she asked.

“Can’t think of a better purpose.”

The Living Fiction Project: Sixty-two

2010-09-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

Molly and Doug were making good time on the long empty stretch of highway between Sheboygan and Milwaukee. Rolling hills and farms shimmered as the morning frost burned away beneath the endless embrace of blue Wisconsin sky. Deer peeked cautiously from clusters of autumn woods flanking the gray two lane ribbon of highway. Molly was looking out the window, sort of leaning against the door. Her gaze was distant, brow furled as she fought with Moon’s death, and if she might have done something differently to save him. Doug reached over and laid a hand upon hers, in a feeble effort to comfort her somehow. She looked over at him, struggling to smile, rescued by his touch. She held his hand in hers, filling them both with a warm rush of electricity.

“You’re not afraid?” she asked.

“For my girls, for my country…” his words faded away. Doug’s eyes were fixed upon the road ahead, as if it was some sort of metaphor.

Molly squeezed his hand. She could see herself loving him.

“Think we’ll make it?” she asked.

“Hope so.” He drew his hand away. It still felt like a betrayal to Molly that he should have these feelings for another woman, and so soon after Jane’s passing.

“If there’s still enough time.”

“That’s life,” he said, hoping to break the tension of the moment somewhat. “All about the timing, when to stay in and when to pull out.”

“Seven billion people on the planet,” Molly observed, managing a smile.

“So obviously timing is not humanity’s strongpoint.”

“So what’s this company’s connection to Iran?” she asked.

“Still trying to figure all this, but the best I’ve come up with is that somehow First Thrust is, I don’t know, some sort of operations wing for Shosa.”

“And the Nano-weapon angle?”

“Delivery?”

Operations, delivery and security all in one package,” She said.

Doug nodded thoughtfully, straining at the missing parts to the puzzle, parts he either couldn’t figure, or which were so terrible he refuse to accept them. Lost in all this he failed to notice the Wisconsin State patrol car half hidden behind the pylon of an overpass. Doug spotted the cruiser coming up fast in the rear view mirror, and had a sudden sinking feeling at the mars lights came on. He swore under his breath. Molly noticed too, straining her neck at the rear window.

“Best laid plans,” he muttered.

“Pull over and let me handle this,” said Molly.

Doug pulled the Ford off onto the shoulder, but left the motor running. It grumbled and skipped, and fought to keep from dying altogether. Doug doubted, even if the cop let them go, that they could make it to Chicago.

The cop approached cautiously, resting hand on the .45 at his hip. He was middle-aged, and of average height and build, with neatly trimmed blond hair. A pair of mirrored sunglasses beneath a wide-brimmed hat made him look ominous and omnipresent. He paused at the back of the Ford and glanced into the back. The man came up just shy of the cab, leaning warily across Molly’s window until he could see Doug as well.

“Afternoon,” he said dutifully. “Where you folks headed?”

“Chicago. I’m a Federal officer,” said Molly, out of deference to the officer pointed to her jacket. “I’m going to reach for my ID.”

The cop nodded. “Please, ma’am.”

“I’m working an investigation,” she reached for her badge. “I could use some courtesy here.”

“Are you armed, ma’am?”

“I am,” she said. “My service weapon.”

“I appreciate you honesty,” said the cop. May I have both your IDs? I’ll need to verify…”

“Can’t do that,” Molly cut him off.

“Sorry?”

She motioned to Doug. “This man is a murder suspect, but at the moment he is critical to my case.”

She slipped her Bureau ID card from her pocket and handed it over to the officer. He studied it a moment, never once taking his hand off his weapon, his eyes moving continuously between Molly and Doug. When a second cruiser pulled up the officer relaxed a bit.

“Why don’t we step back at my vehicle, Agent Karaman, and continue the conversation where it’s safer?”

Doug watched as Molly conferred with the two officers. He could tell nothing from their faces, and by rights expected to be arrested. And that would be the end of it. The war would begin, like a monumental tidal wave obliterating all reason and perspective, for there was only one thing to do in an inundation: swim desperately for life.

The Living Fiction Project: Sixty-one

2010-09-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

If the world’s economy had an Achilles heel it is undoubtedly at the Strait of Hormuz. Hardly thirty miles wide, as it bends from the Gulf of Oman into the Persian Gulf, less than a third of the straits are navigable. The great tankers, feeding fully forty percent of the World’s oil, pass through sea lanes six miles wide, pressed between the horn of Oman to the south and Iran to the north, with a series of islands from which they could stage lightning attacks against shipping. When, just twenty-four hours before the President of the United States was to address the American people, two tankers exploded and sank, sealing off the Gulf, Iran was the logical suspect.

The first, a South Korean freighter exploded without warning, just as the first honey-orange sunlight appeared above the Iranian coastline. Listing sharply, the ship caught fire. Billowing black plumes rose thousands of feet into the blue morning sky. Forty minutes later a passing South African ship exploded, the sound turning heads in Dubai and Sharjah forty miles away. The force of the explosion split the seven hundred foot vessel in two. It sank in only six minutes with all forty-two hands, spreading a fiery oil slick over several square miles. On the Korean vessel twelve of the Filipino crew escaped, rescued by the Iranian navy.

Iran had threatened a thousand times before to seal off the Straits and trap American ships. When the second ship exploded, eliminating any possibility of a random accident, the Americans might have unleashed fury upon the Iranians. Certainly they possessed the firepower to leave every Iranian city a smoking heap of rubble, reminiscent of the Allied bombings of Hamburg and Dresden, or Tokyo and Nagoya during the Second World War. But the Iranians appeared just as surprised and befuddled by the attacks as most everyone else. When a Saudi Al Qa’eda-affiliated group claimed responsibility both sides were equally relieved that conflict had been averted, if only for a short time.

It wouldn’t matter who ultimately was responsible. The damage had been done and would resonate through the global economy in untold ways. The world, despite illusions and national hubris, is a fragile place. Gasoline prices would skyrocket to eight Euros per liter in Europe, tipping countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy into bankruptcy and civil unrest. France and Germany’s economies were thrown into chaos, forcing emergency cuts to all but essential services. Bread lines appeared Across England as unemployment would near an average eighteen percent.

The Myanmar junta, long isolated for their brutality and human rights violations, would divert crucial fuel reserves to continue their campaign of cruelty against refugees and rebels. The diversions would cause mass demonstrations and infighting within the military. Street battles would erupt before the first of the year, and by February a new junta “for the people” would be in power.

In the US, right-wingers would criticize the administration, blaming millions of new jobless claims and a stock market in freefall on the failure to immediately seize and defend the Straits. Slowly the message was getting out that conservatives who controlled fully ninety percent of radio talk shows, inundated the internet and book stores with their screeds and who dominated cable television were the mainstream Press, and that their message dominance had not served to do anything but splinter the nation, embarrass it before the world, undermine American influence, plunder its economy and resources and interfere with governance. It would cost them dearly at the polls that November. Not that the American people were satisfied with the Democrats, but at least their policy wasn’t one of belligerence while in power and obstruction while in the minority.

The news from the Gulf fully eclipsed the investigation into Fallahi’s murder, and the full confession by McCullough. His revelations about a possible conspiracy to steer the nation into a new war, and then reap the profits for a new but untested weapon was lost in bureaucratic channels. Eli Germaine, the State Police inspector in Munising called a Press Conference, but all that bothered to show were a couple of local reporters, someone from The Mining Journal, up at Marquette, and a college intern from Democracy Now. The national Press was fixated on the coming war, which they had collectively decided was a fait accompli. All that had been accomplished was that as news spread among police throughout the Midwest, an unspoken support for the fugitives who were now somewhere between Green Bay and Chicago.

The Living Fiction Project: Sixty

2010-09-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

Doug felt a little foolish, pouring quarters into a pay phone beside a back road Shell gasoline station. How much the world had changed in only a few years. The digital revolution a dead before was still stumbling, pulling the world into an addiction to technology. Like any technology it came with its good and it’s bad. The Stone Age gave man the flint and the arrow to hunt with, but also the first weapons of war. The wheel helped carry man across the planet, while giving rise to the chariot. The pay phone felt like a throwback to another age, and yet it allowed him to evade the ever-tightening matrix by which anyone could be watched or monitored at any time and in any place.

The air was cool, but not cold. A brisk wind chases fat gray clods through a mostly blue sky. Molly was inside getting them coffee and something for breakfast. Doug dialed the one number of the only man he could trust to help them. Arnie Hamlin picked up almost immediately. Doug looked around to be sure no one else was near.

Interested in talking with the most wanted man in America?” he said.

“Jesus, Doug! What the hell is going on?”

“The less you know right now the better.”

“The whole damn world is looking for you.”

“Still golf with the Attorney general?”

“What are you into?”

“Tell him that I contacted you, and I’m prepared to discuss terms of my surrender in the next forty-eight hours, but I need protection for me and a friend.”

“Doug, I…”

Molly came out of the station with coffee and rolls. She wore a pair of cheap sunglasses she’d purchased as well. They did little to hide the dark bruise covering the side of her pretty face. Doug took a coffee. He felt enlivened almost by the bitter-warm scent steaming up from the Styrofoam cup.

Arnie, listen to me. Put someone on Shosa Industries and First Thrust.”

“What am I looking for?”

Anything. Everything.” His eyes found Molly’s behind the sunglasses. She touched his arm, stroking it reassuringly. “Check background on the company, political connections, and any details about their Nano-weapons research.”

“Give me a hint?”

“I think we’re going to war over a lie.”

“Doug, I can’t be a party to any crimes. I won’t do anything to jeopardize this paper. Just so we’re clear on that.”

“Arnie, I swear that I haven’t broken any laws, except where I had to protect my family. Let me ask you this. Ever known me to beg?”

“Never,” said Hamlin.

“Well, I’m begging.”

There was a long pause, as wide as a canyon, and every bit as deadly if Doug took a wrong step along a cliff’s edge.

“”I’ll give you twenty-four hours,” Hamlin said gravely. “The president is addressing the nation tomorrow night. The Iranians have broken off all contact. The word is he’s giving them an ultimatum. “

The news hit Doug like a sledgehammer. Could he stop a war in time? It seemed all but certain now. So what was there to fight for now, but the girls? Doug pressed his forehead to the polished steel cover around the telephone and leaned heavily against it. He kicked at some stones and pursed his lips.

Doug stood straight, suddenly filled with a greater determination. Later he would recall that it seemed holy, as if something pure and perfect had seized him and urged him on, like sunlight washing over a darkened field of grass, like a pure rush of wind or a cool drink in the desert. At once Doug knew what he must do.

“I want a Press Conference tomorrow on the steps of First Thrust. I need some heavy weights there, but I need this kept a secret until then. Can you do it?”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Hamlin. “My sister-in-law’s son teaches at Northwestern. Purvich, is his name. He’ll be expecting you. One shot here, Doug.”

Doug took a deep breath and felt the full weight of all this. He looked to Molly and found inspiration there. “Hopefully, that’s all I’ll need.”

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-Nine

2010-09-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

Archer Waverly swept a hand over the pale flesh of his neatly shaved head. He was dripping with sweat, still wearing the workout clothes from his personal gym in the back of the unassuming offices FIRST THRUST leased out of an office park in Suburban Chicago. At sixty-three Archer was still in spectacular shape, with hardly an ounce of fat. He had the physique of a body builder, and blue eyes with the intensity and fire of a cage fighter. He stood in the center of his spacious office, kept constantly at seventy-two degrees, the thunder of his breathing filling the dark room.

The shades were drawn tightly, and the curtains pilled close to prevent any light from the outside. His laptop was open on the antique oak desk. The blue light from the screen-saver bathing various papers, and a loaded pistol. The only other light was upon a portrait of Jesus from a gift shop in Rome. The light was above the six by nine inch painting, sparkling upon the gold inlay behind the Savior’s handsomely bearded face.

There was a kneeling pad beneath the picture. Archer would pray there. Beneath Jesus were autographed pictures of Sarah Palin and Oliver North. Who, Waverly liked to quip, would have made the perfect parents, if only God had thought through Time a bit better. Near the drapes, nearly hidden in the deep shadow of the room was a framed Time Magazine cover with Arpel Bernstein holding a photograph of Waverly wearing dark sunglasses and cradling an Ak-47. A bold yellow caption in FRANKLIN GOTHIC HEAVY letters read:

GOOD VS. EVIL?
A Crusader takes on America’s War Industry

It wasn’t as simple as that. Nothing ever is. There is no evil, at least not in the religious sense of the word. God and the Devil hashing out their differences through the mortal puppetry of flesh and blood human beings is a cartoon. There is no evil, only the heart’s stubborn refusal to understand the processes and histories of an act. It was an argument Waverly would certainly not subscribe to, unlike ethics, the negotiation of pain and injustice between people, which he believed was completely in the eye of the beholder.

War was a simple thing to Waverly. It was so simple he could not understand how anyone could see it differently. The bottom line was that in war someone had to win, and someone had to lose. War had long ago ceased to be about honor and country and religion. Those excuses were still employed to mask the true intention of conflicts, which was the exchange and theft of vast fortunes. War is a business transaction, a very loud and violent transaction, but a transaction nonetheless. For fools and the poor it was still a cause and a crusade.

Weaker men risked ruin in the market for a chance at wealth and power. They found the inherent danger seductive and undeniable, most particularly the risk of failure and destitution. Nothing, however, could compare with the ultimate risks and rewards of war, and nothing was more powerful than weighing a man’s fate through the sights of a gun or at the point of a sword. Those were the risks, and he lived for them, knowing full well his own misstep, providence or the supremacy of an adversary could bring about his own end. Never before had he faced a situation as dire and hopeless.

Waverly had been in tough spots before. He had survived ambushes in Vietnam and Laos, an assassination attempt in Columbia, gun battles in Iraq and a bloody knife fight with two Al Qa’eda operatives in a Syrian Marketplace. He’d beaten a serious bout with cancer and financial ruin. When his drinking and abusive nature got out of hand some years back Waverly’s wife walked out with their two young boys. One followed his dad into the military, but was distant and a far different man than his father. The other could not forgive as easily. He moved East, disavowing his father altogether.

This was different. He was trapped, all at once confronted by crimes against his own nation, all in the name of profits. He had wagered everything in framing Doug Springer for Ahmed Fallahi’s murder, all crimes against his nation, a fact which no amount of rationalization or true-bending could undo. Now that all that had gone horribly wrong it was natural to assume the full weight of the law and the nation would be upon him. When the phone rang and Waverly saw the number there was a moment when he was undecided which to pick up, the phone or the pistol. Death was preferable to disgrace and a life in prison-which he would surely face.

Waverly reached across the desk. His fingers moved across the smooth body of the pistol, reaching past it for the phone. He hit the talk button and lifted it to his ear.

“Yes, sir,” Waverly said low and dry.

“Quite a mess.” Umberto Shosa’s voice was unmistakable.

“That it is,” said Waverly, focusing briefly on the shattered glass on the floor across the room beneath a light brown bourbon stain. It was the result of a phone call from First Thrust’s legal advisor about the calamity in Michigan, and the arrest of Brower and McCullough.

It was second nature that both men would speak in vagaries. Despite all sorts of security precautions, there was always the likelihood of someone listening and recording. As such, those recordings would be inadmissible in a court of law, but they might pop up elsewhere; a call girl, an acquaintance with legal troubles, a disgruntled ex-wife or business partner, a fellow conspirator, ex-employee or a neighbor struggling to meet and IRS tax bill.

Waverly slumped heavily into his high-backed leather chair. He shook his head with a frown, and was glad Shosa couldn’t hear what Waverly was thinking. His hand lay beside the pistol. The glass covering the desk was cool to the touch.

“None of this comes back to me.”

“What do you suggest I do?” asked with a hint of contempt. He lifted the pistol and imagined pressing it to Shosa’s temple.

“I don’t suggest, Mister Wave? First Thrust employs thirteen hundred military contractors worldwide. I need those logistics, and their expertise. They are to be the operations arm of Shosa Industries. Tomorrow a team will meet with the Pentagon over a major contract bid for our Nano-weapons effort. Eight bungling fools will not risk all that. You will fix the mess you made or I will find someone who will.”

“Understood.”

“I’m leaving for my villa in Greece in a few hours.”

Waverly weighed the pistol in his hand. He knew Shosa was getting out, flying off in his private jet before things got too hot in the States. Greece held no extradition treaty with the United States. A hand full of strategic and highly publicized philanthropic efforts, a large donation to the Police Union in Athens and a longstanding friendship with the Prime Minister guaranteed Shosa would remain untouchable. He had a way out. There was no such escape for the coming storm for Waverly.

The line went dead. Waverly sighed and closed the phone and let it slide across the table. He pulled the slide back on the pistol to chamber a round, believing there was no other choice, as he certainly would no spend the rest of his life behind bars. It would be an honorable death, a soldier’s ending, rather than the humiliation of being disgraced and imprisoned. Strange but he didn’t feel anything. Lifting the pistol and pressing it to his temple, Waverly didn’t feel remorse or regret. His eyes rose to the portrait of Jesus on the wall as his finger tightened on the trigger. Waverly closed his eyes and started to recite the Lord’s Prayer and ask forgiveness before God. The phone rang again, the sound stabbing through him like a cold knife. Lowering the pistol he reached for the phone, surprised to find his hand trembling slightly.

“Waverly,” he said, not bothering to coceal a steadily sinking mood.

“I have some information,’ said the man’s voice at the other end. Waverly recognized it as a former Navy Seal that had come to the company about the same time as McCullough. Jonas, Pinkerton had earned the nickname “Injun Jonas” over his penchant for wearing the scalps of Taliban fighters.

“I’m listening.”

“A Michigan State Police cruiser thought he spotted our friend and his lady leaving a cheap motel in Rapid River up on the Lake Michigan shore.”

“He’s moving south.”

“That’s my bet.”

“Coming here?”

“I can have a couple of teams ready in an hour,” said Pinkerton, always just a step ahead.

“You take a team and I’ll take the other,” Waverly replied, a cool rush of relief washing through him, as though he’d received a reprieve from execution.

“Copy that.”

Waverly hung up the phone and went slowly around the desk, pushing the pistol into the waistband of his gray sweatpants. He adjusted a light jacket over it and knelt before the image of Jesus. He thanked the Lord for this second chance, not to change to a different path, but for one more opportunity to conceal his sins. But Arlen Waverly saw no hypocrisy in that act. Before the day was done, he vowed, Doug Springer would be dead. Already the legal department was cleaning up all evidence of connection between them and First Thrust. Brower, McCullough and the others would be characterized as rogue employees acting off the reservation. A Press Release was already being drafted concerning the mental stability of Brower for a bout with depression some years back. The others would have their reputations eviscerated in a public relations campaign designed to paint the company as the true victim.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-eight

2010-08-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

It was still cool and crisp when Eli Germaine stepped outside for a cigarette. The sun was just coming up as a fat chartreuse disk above the hills to the east. He stretched with a weary groan, having spent the night as McCullough poured out every detail of a fantastic story. Germaine’s head was still spinning, trying to make sense of it all.

The door opened behind him, as one of the Federal Agents joined him, looking every bit as exhausted and bewildered. The man was tall and blond, with athletic Ivy League looks. He was in a dark brown suit, a blue and white silk tie folded and tucked in the pocket of his bright white dress shirt. Germaine offered him a cigarette. The agent politely waved it away.

“Trying to quit, thanks.”

“Heard all that?”

“Do we buy it?” asked the Agent.

“Hundred percent,” Germaine replied, pushing a cigarette into his lips. He fumbled in a pocket for the lighter. The cold air helped rouse him. “At least that he believes everything he told us. Whether or not it’s true…The kid was almost relieved to get it out.”

“Question is, what do we do with this?” The Agent, born and bred in Arizona wasn’t as accustomed to the cold. His hands were buried deep in his pockets, as he rocked on his heels, as if that would help to warm him.

Germaine flipped the top on his silver Marine Corps lighter and brought the tapered golden flame up to the cigarette. “That I leave to you Federal guys. I’m going to get some breakfast.”

“I’ll need a copy of his statement?”

“Anything you need,” Germaine replied.

“I’ll send this to Washington.”

“Time enough to stop a war?”

The Agent shrugged. His words were hollow and cold, more a product of a lack of sleep than anything. “I don’t know anyone in Iran. Do you?”

Germaine frowned. The Agent couldn’t see it, but Germaine knew only too well the horrors of war and didn’t all appreciate the Agent’s flippancy. “We may all know someone in Iran before long.”

The Agent was silent for a moment. A chill ran through him, one deeper and very different from the chill of the Michigan morning. He felt a little foolish for the comment and could almost feel Germaine’s dissatisfaction. It wasn’t like him so say something that irresponsible, but trapped in the moment, he didn’t see any good way back. The moment hung heavily for a long moment.

“Pretty impressive how you connected with McCullough,” the Agent said, humbly.

“Bond between men who have been in combat,” said Germaine, with a half smile, taking a subtle shot at the lawyerly Fed. He took a long drag on the cigarette and flipped away into the frost-touched green grass. “Somehow he got all turned around and misplaced his loyalty. I was just helping a fellow Marine and a good American find them again.”

“We’ll see.”

Germaine was less than pleased with the reply, though he knew it to be an honest one that was perhaps accurate. Still, he took all of this very personal. As he started for the door Germaine stopped and laid a hand heavily on the man’s shoulder, specifically intending to make a point.

“Whatever comes of this,” he said, “I expect that to weigh heavily on this man’s case. Are we clear?”

“And Brower?”

“We gave him every opportunity. He made his choice.”

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-seven

2010-08-28T23:18:00.000-05:00

To the Iranians America’s imperialistic hands were fully around their throats. It was unavoidable that some would perceive that as a death grip. Those men were determined to strike a blow, however feeble, against their aggressors. Revenge is never about the truth, but always about the heart. In it they could level any accusation. America’s support for Israel blossomed into a conspiracy that was almost mythical in its size and scope and treachery. There were tales of oil, of racial and religious hatreds, historical hyperbole, of a new crusade and more. In the end, however, war, like politics and marriage, is always about revenge.

This was truest for the power elite, the wealthy and ruling class, of course. They held no long view of anything, and particularly not of the conflict or history. All that they could see was the view to protecting their own power and privilege. There was no real belief in the “eternal” nation. That was a tattered flag they waved to arouse simple sensibilities, nationalist hearts and to stifle dissent. And where that failed, the promise of oppression and violence sufficed.

Fractures and fissures grew quickly through the government. It was quickly apparent within the military command, betraying long simmering animosities, ideological, ethnic and national tensions. These were present in all governments, but had remained far more hidden in coercive and tyrannical environment of the Iranian Republic, and the more coercive a government the more subversive its dissenters.

The corrupt were the most vicious, secretly ordering the arrest and executions of political rivals and critics where they were able, and engaged in outright murder when they were not. They were busy settling scores throughout that first day, while the defense and survival of Iran was secondary, at best. People disappeared off the street, from the halls of government or were dragged from t heir homes, sometimes to be executed in the street like a wild dog. War hadn’t been declared with America yet, but Iran was already at war with itself.

In was much the same within the ranks of the military. Henchmen who had risen to prominence through treachery and brutality ( a relative small number of men who were prominent in the Islamic revolution of the late Seventies) found themselves threatened and suspect by career military commanders, professional military men whose loyalty, secretly, lay more with the people and the country than to the regime.

In Bushehr, non-commissioned officers shot dead their political commander and had seized a barracks. Local commanders ordered to put down the rebel noncoms but when faced a complete mutiny decided instead to negotiate a deal. There were similar incidents throughout the country. Some were left to stand, at least temporarily, others were quickly and brutally put down. Despite the hopes, and in a few instances the instigation of Western agents, outright rebellion against the Tehran regime were absolutely the exception, as for every deserter and mutineer there were hundreds that volunteered to defend the country.

Still there were signs of hope for a negotiated resolution to the crisis. Just after dawn, Washington, an Iranian Il-76 transport, landed at Baku in Azerbaijan on the Caspian Coast with an Air Force General, his family and two parliamentary ministers. The two nations shared a long history, and had majority Shia Muslim populations. That their relations had strained through the latter twentieth and early Twenty-first century over Ngorno-Karabakh, the Caspian Sea and relations with Israel seemed more cosmetic than fundamental. That was clear when in 2005 President Aliyav refused US a base from which they might attack Iran.

General Ali Reza Khorasani immediately demanded an audience with the American ambassador. Taking no chances that this might be a trick or ambush of some sort, or that Iran might stage a raid to capture or kill the General Khorasani was flown immediately to a Georgian base on the outskirts of Tbilisi, while his staff and family were transferred to the US base at Inzirlik Turkey with guarantees for their safety

The news was treated with all due interest in Washington and around the world. Khorasani did not speak for the Mullahs or Tehran, and the President made the mistake of second-guessing his first instinct. In a statement the White House overstated Khorasani’s influence, as they had down with Ahmed Chelabi in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, playing him as an reasonable voice that reflected the true sensible nature of the Iranian people. The Administration could not have been more wrong, as the majority of the people believed war inevitable. They knew from Iraq and Afghanistan that even the finest and best trained military in the world could be held up and exhausted in an endless guerrilla war.

Unexpectedly Iran’s patron, Russia, protested loudest over Khorasani’s defection. They charged that the United States had kidnapped the General and demanded his release. Not that they were willing to go to war over the incident, but they were not about to let the West seize yet another potential warm water access. That, in a private communiqué to the President, they made quite clear. To underscore the point, the Russians ordered two aging but still lethal Akula Class Nuclear subs to the Gulf. Russian Jets and attack helicopters violated Georgian and Azerbaijani airspace in clearly calculated threats. The crisis was quickly spiraling out of control, expanding and reaching far beyond the Gulf and the borders of Iran.

In Afghanistan the Taliban prepared a major offensive to capitalize on the situation should war erupt. Increased security measures and skyrocketing fuel costs would force a number of airlines into bankruptcy and cost thousands of jobs worldwide. Hate crimes against Arabs increased in the US, while hate crimes against Jews went up across Europe. Markets tumbled and would continue to tumble. The hardships of war would resonate around the world, and far beyond the actual frontlines.

Even if two battered and hunted souls, half way around the world, managed to uncover the truth, the chances of getting anyone to listen and stopping the war grew less likely by the minute.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-six

2010-08-25T17:39:00.000-05:00

When Doug awoke just before dawn, in the cheap no-name motel along Route Seven, just outside Rapid River, Molly was in the shower. Doug was still dressed, still wearing his shoes, just as he had when he collapsed upon the bed sometime after two that morning. He had no recollection of Molly getting up, or even getting into bed with him. From the moment is head hit the pillow Doug was out cold. He awoke disoriented, only the soul shattering fatigue and pain burning through his body reminding Doug that all of this hadn’t been some terrible dream.

Doug’s body ached from the night before. The soft mattress felt like a glove, his arms limp beside him, his head in the too-soft pillow and the pillowcase that smelled faintly of bleach and fabric softener. He was content not to move for as long as he dared, knowing that it would awaken a torrent of pain.

He’d managed to convince the elderly Pakistani proprietor that he and Molly were rushing to see an ailing relative and didn’t have a credit card. For an extra fifty bucks cash he rented the room under an assumed name. Set upon a hillside overlooking the northern shores of Lake Michigan the pair dragged their battered and weary bodies inside.

The room was small, filled almost completely by a single queen-sized bed, with two simple pillows and an olive-green fleece blanket. A brown and red floral comforter was folded and laid across the foot of the bed. There was an old box Panasonic television on a small bureau in the corner. The air was stale and laced with the soft damp scent of mildew, and cigarettes that seemed imbued into the thin paneled walls.

The door to the bathroom was partly open, the pale golden light falling upon the brown carpet and across his legs. He could see the mirror on the wall in the bathroom, partly covered in the collected steam from the shower, and reflecting the white cloth shower curtain.

Molly swept the curtain aside and stepped from the shower. Doug could see her smooth pale flesh, be-speckled with shimmering beads of water. She stood there a moment, pulling back her long wet hair, the motion accentuating the curve of her breast. A bluish bruise had grown from he cut to her cheek, extending back towards her dark hair. Noticing the door was open Molly moved to close it, and noticed Doug watching her from the bed. His gaze was tortured, not in a voyeuristic or leering sort of way, but as if he had stumbled into a strange and alluring land. Lost and adrift alone in the world Doug knew he might find a home and refuge in that new land, though for the moment that consideration felt like a betrayal of that lost land. She paused there, holding his eyes with hers and felt suddenly warm with breathless anticipation of him. Doug looked to the window and closed his eyes. Molly wrapped herself in a towel and sat at the corner of the bed beside him.

“I suppose I should get us some breakfast,” he sat up, refusing to look at her.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly. “About last night?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I was coming to find you, turn myself in.”

“My partner was a good man. He didn’t deserve what they did to him.”

“believe I’m innocent now?”

Doug turned, finding himself close to her, enough that he felt any semblance of self-control collapse completely. His lips fell softly upon hers, drawing in the warm of her breath, and feeling awakened and aroused by it. He lingered there, feeling as though he could lose himself fully in her. Afraid, he stopped and drew away. There was confusion in her eyes. Doug’s heart went out to her. He touched her cheek.

“You are so incredible,” he said. “I just need time.”

“It’s all right.” Molly whispered, holding his palm to her cheek.

“You’re not upset?”

“Do I at least have reason to hope?”

He searched her eyes, or at least pretended to. More than that he was searching his own soul, his heart softly breaking as each moment seemed to erase a little bit more of Jane. He missed her so terribly, and could have thrown himself into Molly’s arms to rescue him from this terrible longing. He could have but that would have been cruel to Molly, and Doug just couldn’t do that, at least not yet, and not now. Life can be long for the lonesome heart, and Doug would make no predictions for the future, only that if it came to it, and the time was right, he hoped it would be Molly waiting there for him.

Doug nodded and pressed his cheek to hers, and says softly, “Yeah.”

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-five

2010-08-23T13:40:00.000-05:00

The Sherriff’s station in Munising was almost hidden in the shadow of the tall autumn forests shrouding the steep hills at the back of the town. It faced the hockey rink, and a small service road leading up to the football field, which overlooked the town and bay from a small bowl among the hills. The station appeared out of date, an unassuming place of brown brick, so flat and small that one could easily miss the place unless otherwise searching specifically. Bordered by neatly trimmed evergreen shrubs, this night it was bustling with activity, as never before, crowded with county sheriffs, a State Police contingent, investigators, cops and Chiefs from Munising to Marquette, and a hand full of Federal Agents from a half dozen different agencies.

Despite outward appearances, inside the station was outfitted with all the modern law enforcement gadgetry that could be afforded, or which the Feds and State had provided to modernize and standardize Police departments State-wide. There were the standard holding cells and interrogation rooms, secure evidence lockers, a conference center, state-of-the-art computers and adequate surveillance capabilities. Munising’s police force, small as it was, were hardly a bunch of country bumpkins.

From a crime perspective Munising was not a quiet little backwater to the world, an oasis of pure innocence and peace, nor was it as crime ridden as say Detroit of Chicago. Like any community it had seen its fair amount of the ignorance, desperation and selfishness which has eternally plagued the human soul. Murders were thankfully few and far between, and most often the consequence of soured relationships between friends and lovers, and usually spurred by liquor or drugs. Drunk driving, domestic battery and theft were the usual faire, but never had Munising seen anything the like of the last few days. The carnage of the battle on M-28 left even the most experienced cop shocked beyond words. More than that, they saw the hubris to wage war here deeply personal.

Molly’s plan had worked, at least in part. Under the guise of a routine traffic stop the State Police pulled Brower and McCullough over just outside of town. They pulled over believing it was some sort of mistake, or perhaps an over-zealous cop with a hard-on for out of towners. When four more squad cars appeared, the officers climbing out and leveling weapons at the Black suburban, both men knew they were caught. They were taken without a struggle to the sheriff’s department and placed in separate cells.

Lieutenant Eli Germaine of the Michigan State Police had been on the case since Ahmed Fallahi’s body was discovered by responding officers at Doug Springer’s house. Average height, he had shaved his head for a fundraising event a couple years back and left it that way. At forty-seven, the former Marine captain still maintained an athletic build. Eli had served in Panama, the First Gulf War and later in Somalia, as part of the peace-keeping mission there. He had faced the darkest side of mankind, bit had managed to keep a perspective on it all, in no small part due to his deep Christian faith. Deep dark green eyes gave him an honest, sympathetic quality that portrayed trust and infinite approachability.

The prisoners had been separated from one another almost from the moment of their arrest. It was a classic interrogation both men anticipated from their training. It was always in the back of every warrior’s mind that he might, through no action of his own, fall into enemy hands. These men had trained and prepared for that possibility throughout their military careers and into their work as military contractors-the new Public Relations created term for Mercenary. And make no mistake, Brower and McCullough saw themselves at a war without boundaries, in which loyalties went to the highest bidder, though somewhere in each man was something truer and purer.

Up to now Brower and McCullough’s silence frustrated the police. Germaine had been in on both interrogations, but had remained as silent as his subjects, studying each man carefully and with the precision an anthropologist might objectively dissect a different culture. But these men were professionals, still fully engaged in their mission and completely committed to their crimes. All he kept coming back to was the one specific difference between the two men. Given his own history, it was all he had to exploit.

Germaine sat at a long metal desk across from McCullough, playing at this aloof attitude, repeating again and again how he didn’t know a thing, and that he and Brower were old war buddies up for a fishing trip. The two men were alone. Germaine looked over the man’s military file for the longest time, allowing the uncomfortable silence to work on McCullough a bit. When Germaine looked up at the man, the ploy didn’t seem to be having the desired effect. McCullough repeated again that he was only on a fishing trip, to which Germaine rattled off an impressive list of weapons found in the Suburban.

“you guys had enough firepower to start a war,” said Germaine. McCullough remained silent. “First Marine division, Iraq, huh?”

There was no reply. McCullough folded his arms and turned his face to the ceiling.

“Times I think I’m still digging sand out,” said Germaine, with a melancholic smirk. “Sand fleas were the worst.”

“You were there?” said McCullough, quietly.

“First Gulf war. Guess you guys were the sequel, huh?”

McCullough chuckled. Germaine undid the sleeve on his uniform shirt. There on his forearm was a blue and green Marine Corps globe and anchor.

“Marines?” McCullough said, somewhat surprised.

“Semper Fi, right?” said Germaine. “How many tours?”

“Two.”

“Contracting better?”

“Different.”

“Aside from the money?” Germaine smiled.

McCullough laughed. “I work with pros, guys I know got my six, and no UCMJ!”

“How do you figure that?”

“Looser rules of engagement, without having to worry if I’ll end up in some bullshit court’s martial for popping a civilian here and there.”

Germaine nodded. “I can see where that would have some advantages.”

“McCullough scoffed. “Won’t be me going home in a body bag.”

Germaine laughed, shaking his head, drawing a frown from the prisoner.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just thinking,” Germaine began, “if we had this much firepower back in Ninety-one we’d have gone all the way to Baghdad. Damn sure could have used this on the run across Kuwait Airport.”

“Heard about that fight,” McCullough commented, notably impressed.

“Look at this.” Germaine unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, pulling it aside to reveal the white suture scars in the center of his chest.

“Got hit?”

“Piece of shrapnel from and RPG round. Vest stopped it, but it shattered my sternum.” Germaine closed his shirt and leaned closer to McCullough. “I’ll level with you, son. One Marine to another. We all make choices. Some are clear, and some ain’t so clear. In war they pound the same shit into you over and over: Mission, mission, mission-Team, team, team. Its mission, team, god and country, but you’re given a mission and you fight for your team. You pray to God and swear an oath to the country.”

Germaine sat back and drew a deep breath. McCullough was silent, but clearly torn by all this.

Germaine went on. “With your record I’d say you’ve got a chance here, son, and as a fellow brother in arms I am bound to see you get every chance coming to you, but you have to make the right choice here.”

McCullough took a deep breath and folded his arms tightly, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He pondered the tattoo on Germaine’s forearm. Pursing his lips, McCullough swept a hand across his head and nodded solemnly as he met Germaine’s eyes.

“Can I get a soda?”

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-four

2010-08-20T15:07:00.001-05:00

CHAPTER THREE

“Once Iran gets the bomb, they’re gonna use it…”
From the Michael Savage Program, August 19, 2010

Events were moving more quickly now, gaining their own momentum, like a stone tumbling towards a cliff’s edge. The dangers of fate and history are many, those sometimes still waters in which mankind could wallow in his arrogance and drown in ignorance. In that arrogance man could pretend he was the captain of his fate, but true fate has countless captains, each vying and scratching for their own prominence and significance. In the end, the specter of war is the destroyer of the illusion those captains pretend from their selfish fate.

Indeed, war is a storm, conjured by incompetence and foolishness. Those burning winds are whipped, and fat with the embers of cultures and communities betrayed by the propaganda of their leaders. And the Press, sometimes the tool, sometimes the victim fans the flames of that growing storm. Networks competed viciously and newspapers lost readers to the laziness of the internet, a laziness disguised as democracy. From the crumbling ruins of the so-called “old” media, rose the “new” media of the Twenty-first Century, interested more in personality and advocacy for corporations or political parties. It was a realm in which facts were less important than hyperbole and the lawyerly character of an argument.

As the world edged closer to war, in Congress and Senate, and on talk radio the direction and tone of the discourse changed notably. Newscasts, blogs and articles filtered in replacement words. Overnight Iran became “the enemy,” just as they had in the days before NATO’s actions to stop the butchery of the Serbs. To the average citizen, perhaps not taking enough interest, the words seemed to appear over night, like some team sport. There was talk of targets and tactics, and analysis of the military capabilities on both sides. Old animosities were recounted so often that almost anyone on the street could rattle off a litany of Iran’s transgressions; real, exaggerated and fabricated. Selling war is surprisingly easy because it engages the natural aloneness each soul struggles with and comes to individually.

It was no different in Tehran, perhaps more so, as small nations always feel their lot more tenuous, especially in the looming shadow of a larger nation. Preparations for war began apace, amid a continual deluge of images of allied bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq at the start of those conflicts. Mixed with images of mutilated civilian casualties, it was impossible to retain any reasoned perspective to events. Demonstrators filled the streets in cities throughout the Muslim world, with particular hysterics in Tehran and Shiraz and Mashhad. Regular alerts, and forced conscriptions to construct token defenses (anti-tank trenches were pointless in the face of cruise missiles and smart bombs) fed the strangling siege mentality gripping Iran. People taped windows, moved valuables to weekend houses in the mountains and stocked up on food and water. Everywhere there were fears and accusations of spies.

Countries do not find themselves at war. There isn’t peace one day and violence the next. Nations evolve into war, as much from within as without. It grows to become the norm, supplanting the everyday until peace, such as it was feels like naïve innocence, like a rape victim might look back upon her childhood with certain bitterness, as if she might have foretold her fate somehow. That evolution is lost to the final spark that sets that kindling alight into a great conflagration. The reasons for war become that moment, without any regard to all that came before.

The deaths in Iran became that catalyst. It preceded a string of events, more a character of fear and growing tension that seemed to underscore to the world that Iran had in fact declared war upon the West. In Raunheim Germany a young Persian student drove through a crowded café, killing six. In Skokie Illinois, a Muslim man shot dead a Jewish shop keeper, while two middle eastern men were arrested in New Jersey over an alleged plot to bomb a shopping mall. They were all signs to the West of Islam’s malicious intentions. Many Iranians could well understand the frustration that could cause some to snap and lose their minds.

Tensions in the Gulf caused oil prices to skyrocket worldwide. Markets tumbled, imperiling fortunes of those who could directly influence government and media. Airlines stocks collapsed, bludgeoned by spiking fuel costs, while the stocks defense firms blossomed overnight. War, and all that came with it, became the intention of the world, and was evolving to a point in which no one would be able to prevent it from happening.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-three

2010-08-20T14:52:00.001-05:00

Molly slipped in and out of consciousness as Doug headed south through the forest, racing to put as much distance between them and the lakeshore as possible. The truck had taken a pretty fair beating. The grill had held, mostly, and the bumper was bent up and back, enough that he’d needed to bend it back with a tire iron to turn the wheel. One of the headlights had shattered. Only one remained, the light feeble in the forest. Wind shrieked through the bullet holes in the windshield, eclipsing some NPR program on the radio.

Molly was against him, her face against his chest. He had an arm around her shoulders, holding her close against the banging and bouncing of the uneven ground of the dirt logging road. The cut in her cheek had stopped bleeding some time ago. Her breathing was steady and even, almost as if she was asleep. He felt confident she hadn’t been badly hurt.

Doug took hope in having her there, like he was no longer in this fight alone. The comrades of the men he had killed would come looking for him. He had no doubt about that, but for now time and distance were his greatest adversaries. Molly moaned and stirred beneath his arm.

He thought about that night beside the Bosporus, and how he was so tempted to taste her lips, knowing full well he would not have been able to stop there. It would have been nothing to go up to her room, but he could never be unfaithful to Jane, and simply the temptation ravaged his conscience and soul to the day he sat holding Jane’s hand as she took her final breaths. He was tearing himself apart for even considering infidelity for a moment. It drove a halting and painful moan when her hand tightened briefly in his and then went limp. And now she was here beside him, her nearness only calling to mind all those old feelings and eternal guilt.

The decision to head south was as much a pragmatic choice as a deliberate one. They would have to head south to Chicago. For Doug, it was the surest way back to his girls, and that was all that mattered right now. Molly pushed away, falling slowly back against the door. Her eyes opened grudgingly to him, seeming at first as if she didn’t recognize him, or was sizing him up somehow.

Doug drew the truck to the side of the road and shut off the engine. The cold and silence of the night surrounded them. Molly sat up, wincing as she brushed her cheek while pulling back a lock of hair. He turned to her. There was confusion in the dark pools of her eyes.

“We were driving to, to…” Molly struggled to piece together her shattered thoughts. “All of the sudden…”

“Its okay,” he told her, his voice low and even. “You had…I’m sorry about your partner.”

She looked up at him quickly. Her expression was fluid and broken. “He was a good man, Doug. He didn’t deserve to die…”

“We are going after the people who did this,” he told her. “I’m tired of running and hiding.”

“Doug, they mean to start a war. Shosa and these mercenaries, they’re behind this, I’m sure.” Molly swallowed hard, her throat burning from thirst. She needed water, and a moment to sort out some things. Doug could help her with the former, and reach past her. He pulled open the glove box and pulled out a plastic bottle of water. He barely got the cap off when she took the bottle and gulped down two long swallows.

“Whoa,” he drew the bottle from her lips.

Molly nodded appreciatively. “I was investigating the death of Senator Bernstein. The official cause of death is acute brain hemorrhage. But there was more. The hemorrhage, it was as if the vessels had been burned away, hot enough to blister the flesh and leave a black residue.”

“I don’t get the connection.”

Two others died in an identical fashion, a US Attorney and a pentagon Colonel, both with their sights on…”

“FIRSTTHRUST INC!” Doug exclaimed.

“And Umberto Shosa.”

“Change the world as fundamentally as the discovery of fire.”

“Sorry?”

“Something Fallahi said right before he was killed,” said Doug. He turned to the wheel and started the truck. The engine came to life with a roar. With the motor the radio came to life, just as the news came on. Molly reached over and turned up the volume. The female announcer’s voice was even and emotionless:

“Iranian officials are accusing the US of waging a biological sneak attack for the deaths of all but one of the American captives, as well as scores of others in that country. IRNA, the Islamic republic News Agency reported that scores of people had died mysterious and sudden deaths, including that of an entire village near the sight where Iranian forces brought down two American helicopters on a rescue mission. White House and Pentagon officials did not immediately comment on the rapidly moving events in the Gulf, or regarding Iran’s accusations, but did say the President will give a rare Eight a.m. address to the nation tomorrow about the rising tensions between Iran and the United States. This is NPR.”

“Nano-weapons,” said Doug heavily. “That’s what killed Bernstein and the others. They’re testing the weapons against live targets in Iran.”

“God help us,” said Molly.

Doug pulled the truck back into the road. “If there ‘s a God, he’ll damn the human race for this abomination for sure.”

“What are we going to do?” Molly asked. “We have to tell somebody.”

“You aided and abetted a felon,” said Doug. “Our only hope is to create enough of a ruckus that it makes everyone pay attention>”

“How do you propose to do that?”

He looked over at her, finding her so beautiful by the soft green light of the dash. “Figure that out on the way to Chicago.”

“Chicago?”

“They’ll expect us to run away, but we are gonna take the fight right to their doorstep.”

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-two

2010-08-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

Doug yawned and shook the lingering sleep fogging his thoughts and weighing upon every movement. The window of the old Ford truck was down, the cold wind and errant drops of icy rain helping to revive him. Doug cried out and pulled at the wheel, doing everything he could to speed that process, and battle the confusing cascade of broken thoughts of Molly, the girls, Jane and more.

He rounded a wide bend, descending a long hill. There was something in the road ahead, but it was far away, and impossible to tell for sure. At first it appeared to be a terrible accident. The smaller of the two vehicles had taken a terrible broadside and had skidded off onto the shoulder. Parts of the vehicle lay scattered across the road: plastic and metal parts. The right front tire was missing, the rear tire flat on its side beneath the rear panel. The passenger side had clearly taken the full force of the impact, and was crush from the front fender clear to the rear bumper, all of it driven nearly to the center of what remained of the vehicle. Doug muttered a small prayer for anyone inside, until he saw someone climb from the larger vehicle, cocked at an angle, and partly on the steep slope at the side of the road, with an automatic weapon in his hands.

He hadn’t recognized the big black Suburban at first, but now knew instantly what had happened. The driver remained inside, apparently dazed from the impact, and leaning over the steering wheel. It was the man seated behind the driver with the weapon, now standing dead center in the road, leveling the gun at Doug and the on-rushing Ford, waving it back.

Doug jammed his foot down hard on the accelerator without thinking. Even as the gunman raised the weapon to his shoulder and prepared to fire, Doug could see the expression flee the man’s face, resigned fully to the realization he was about to die. Doug ducked precisely the instant bullets skipped off the hood and slapped through the windshield, burying themselves in the vinyl seat above him.

He was only vaguely aware of the initial impact, a sickly wet thump as the Ford and gunman met suddenly. The impact carried the man violently backwards, his chest already crushed, his vital organs rupturing in a spray of bright red blood from his mouth and nose. It was eclipsed by the abrupt calamity of the Ford hammering the Suburban sideways, severing the dying gunman’s legs, and mortally wounding the grizzled veteran within.

The Suburban slid sideways and tipped, tumbling down the steep embankment, where it came to a rest against a tree on one side. The tires spun impotently in air, the engine revving momentarily, as if in a final dying gasp. The riotous sound, the scrape and crash of the impact fled, echoing among the trees and night, replaced quickly by absolute silence; the aftermath of a terrific battle.

Doug sat up, looking out from the bullet riddled windshield of the old Ford to the smoking heap of the suburban, half amazed to be unhurt let alone alive. He climbed out and picked up the automatic weapon lying in the road beside the bisected gunman’s still quivering body. From the Suburban a single figure climbed from the driver’s shattered window. Doug, without a shred of emotion or remorse (both would come later) slid the bolt back to chamber a round and fired once. The figure grunted and tumbled backwards from view. Doug tossed the weapon aside and turned towards the shattered remains of the Jetta.

Molly fought for consciousness. Time came as fragmented as the bits of glass in her lap. Shards peppered her hands and face, trickling silky-warm blood. She had only the vaguest impression of what had happened, and little more of the press of a body against her. Pain, such as it was, hadn’t come yet, but still remained hidden behind a shroud of shock and bewilderment. A feeble whimper escaped her blood speckled lips.

There was someone above her, and though she sensed an urgency in some distantly familiar voice, it was still far too much far too soon to process properly. All at once, with that voice the world and an ocean of boiling hot pain came flooding in upon her.

“Come on,” Doug Springer cried. “We have to get out of here.”

Doug strained to open her door, which had jammed during the impact. The sickly sweet bite of leaking gasoline filled the air, strong enou8gh that Doug fought a growing panic, as he pressed a foot to the car for leverage and gave one last mighty heave. The door snapped open, groaning loudly on its hinges, the edge grinding into the gravel at the side of the road. Molly slid sideways from the vehicle, falling into Doug’s arms as he pulled her free and laid her gently on the grassy shoulder.

“My partner,” she moaned, tensing as Doug pulled a bit of glass imbedded in her cheek. Dark red blood gushed immediately.

“Don’t move,” said Doug. He looked back along the road, past the carnage and over the deserted highway. It wouldn’t be long before someone came along, but he was afraid to move Molly before he was certain she wasn’t seriously injured. He looked over carefully, touching her limbs, pressing gently on her stomach and lower ribs, relieved that she didn’t appear to be seriously injured, but for some cuts and bruises.

Moon,” she said blankly. Her eyes stared into the whispering rain and swiftly moving storm clouds and knew. “Is he?”

“I’m sorry, Molly.”

She looked up into his eyes. He slowly drew his hand from her forehead. The blood flowing from the wound in her cheek had slowed. She pulled the sleeve of her jacket over her hand and pressed it there. She tried to sit up, falling back with a groan. He helped her, holding her shoulders. Molly fell back against his chest, felt suddenly safe there.

“Can you stand?”

“I think so, but we’d better hurry,” she said, “before I pass out.”

Molly wished to stand, but her legs were having none of it, and Doug caught her once more. He lifted her into his arms, stepping over part of the gunman. Molly looked at him as if he was a savior or some sort of guardian angel. A moment later she passed out cold.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty-one

2010-08-15T21:59:00.000-05:00

The bodies lay in the alley, not twenty yards from bristling coils of razor wire strung across the street and around the long apartment block in both directions. The man was face down, appearing as though he had been frozen in mid run. He was dressed in a loose fitting beige kafiya. His body dipped unnaturally in the middle where dark blood pooled, as if it was held in a bowl. One arm lay close to one side, the palm turned upward. The other had suffered the full weight of the man’s falling body and was bent cruelly just above the elbow.

Beside him lay a middle aged woman. She was sprawled on her back, one arm outstretched and pleading. Her handsome Persian face was pale, and painted with a mixture of agony and confusion. She was dressed in a pink terry-cloth bathrobe, now open to expose a white blood spattered slip beneath. A loosely tied hijab covered the woman’s long dark hair, which was streaked with rivulets of silver. The young Azeri conscript who had fired the fatal wounds became so inconsolable that he had to be hospitalized.

The entire block had been cordoned off, trapping a number of people within. Razor wire and flood lights went off, the perimeter secured by soldiers, police and guard dogs. It had been simultaneous, four of the six American captives died almost immediately. A fifth was clinging to life in a military hospital, unconscious and without any notable brain activity. The last, a young Army Staff Sergeant, who had been held alone in a bank vault near the airport was apparently unaffected. All of the officers who had taken part in the battle and had accompanied the Americans to Tehran, seventy soldiers as well as an entire village near the crash site and simply dropped dead, as if someone had flipped a switch. Given the circumstances, a shoot to kill order for anyone attempting to escape the quarantined area was arguably unavoidable.

The bodies were the human face to the unfolding tragedy. The quarantines all around the country had proved nightmarish to pull off. People fled in panic, trudging through sewers, disappearing into the night or slipping through cordons as they struggled to close off whole blocks amid urban sprawl. Police and soldiers and doctors were allowed to pass after viewing the bodies, and few if any precautions were taken once the order was given to move the dead. If the deaths had been caused by a pathogen that was easily transmitted from person to person, the initial response might well have spread it throughout the population already.

The mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths drove the Iranian leadership into a near panic. Within an hour Iranian airspace was closed and the military thrown into chaos. The immediate reaction was that this was indeed a biological attack by the Americans, some long feared sneak attack of some sort. But it couldn’t be confirmed, and after several hastily conducted autopsies no one was any closer to an answer. In truth, in all but one of the seven independent post mortems, only one had correctly identified severe brain hemorrhage as the cause of death, and only because that was conducted in a hospital with CT Scanning equipment, as opposed to the others done at military bases, outlying clinics, and in one case, a woefully outdated local mortuary. What was sure was that it was well beyond any reasonable chance that all the deaths, occurring at precisely the same moment were a coincidence.

From the Islamic revolution during the late Seventies, Iran saw the United States as its greatest enemy. It began a long covert war between Iran and the West, with assassinations, sabotage and open hostilities. Almost immediately the new Iranian Islamic Republic adopted Hamas in Lebanon, as well as their patrons, the Palestinian Liberation organization under Yasser Arafat, joining a common front against Israel and the West. In response, the Americans aided Iraq against Saddam’s war against Tehran.

Cyber warfare against the West had been in the works for years, targeting US companies, satellites, power grids and the like. Sleeper cells had been in place since the first months of the Islamic revolutions, prepared to unleash waves of terror attacks against soft targets around the globe and across the United States. Some would attack shopping malls and public gatherings to terrorize the population, while others would target infrastructure: bring down a bridge, blow up a railway line and bring down a hand full of highway overpasses in any American city and it would become paralyzed for weeks or months.

The operatives had lived and worked in the US and the West for years, often decades, awaiting orders or the signal to undertake a given operation. Those orders would come through foreign news sources, local classifieds, coffee house message boards or Facebook. Some were ex-patriots and émigrés; others were sympathizers, criminals, and even some willing to make a fast buck.

Simultaneous to terror attacks Iran would scuttle several large freighters in the narrow Straits of Hormuz, cutting off sea-going traffic in and out of the Gulf, and effectively trapping two American fleets. Combined air and sea suicide assaults by the Iranians would turn the Gulf in a cauldron. Bridges and roads all along the Iraqi border would be mined and blown up. Already there was an alarming number of Iranian troop movements into the mountains, while others began dissolving among the population all around the country for the inevitable insurgency against an expected Allied invasion

Once the order was given, the government would scatter, or flee to sanctuaries. Iran and its people would suffer America’s punishment and the years of hardship to follow. That was their history, far more of the people than the government. The nation had lasted five thousand years, from the advent of farming through the Iron and Bronze Ages. They survived Alexander’s armies, the Mongol hordes, the Shah’s abuses, Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs. This they could surely endure.

But the order wasn’t given, at least not yet, despite the desperate pleas of the army and the apocalyptic fatalism of the ruling party. In the end, it was the Mullahs, the nation’s religious leaders that called for prudence. If it came to war, they said, the Mullahs would offer their unanimous support, but given the terrible destruction that would rain down upon the Iranian people, a moment’s pause, at the very least, was justified. There was still time to prevent a war, but the moments remaining grew scarcer and more precious each second that passed. No one could have known that best hope for stopping war were fighting for their lives on a lonely rain-swept stretch of road among the wilds of Northern Michigan seven thousand miles away.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifty

2010-08-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

Moon watched the Suburbans pull away, turning east back towards town. He waited until they disappeared behind the hill before climbing from the rocks and trees beside the beach. He jogged across the road to the motel where Molly waited, covering his crossing from the corner of the Inn. The rain had returned, whipped by sharp frigid gusts off the lake that howled, bending small trees back. Showers of wet autumn leaves joined the rain.

“I’m ready to turn the table on these guys,” Moon said, almost eagerly.

“Nothing good about these guys. Time we got some answers.” Molly opened her Agency jacket and checked the weapon holstered there. She wondered if all this would come to shooting, and hoped that it wouldn’t, but she wouldn’t retreat from that possibility either. Obviously, by the weapons found with the bodies on the island, these men were fully prepared for that eventuality.

“Looks like they were headed back to Munising. I’ll drive,” said Moon, jangling the keys in his pocket.

Molly held out her hand. “I’m pulling rank.”

He nodded and dropped him into her open palm. “Have to learn that I ain’t gonna be the knight come to rescue the fair maiden.”

“This fair maiden kicks ass when she has to,” said Molly, patting the pistol under her arm.

They climbed into the Jetta, giving each other a long encyclopedic look. Moon reached into the back seat for two bulky blue Kevlar vests and handed one over to Molly. She slipped her on over the thin Agency jacket she wore, noting as Moon set his on the floor at his feet. She said a silent prayer that they wouldn’t need the vests. Both knew the potential danger they were heading into. Neither had any illus ions about the men they were after.

The Jetta spit gravel as Molly pushed the gas pedal to the floor, turning east onto the dark two lane road. The agents had a determined look. Not in some sort of Rambo sort of way. Neitherof them had any intention of forcing a confrontation. Molly pulled the phone from her pocket and quickly dialed a number. The Operator at the State Police in Munising answered immediately.

“This is Agent Karaman with the Federal Bureau of Investigation…” Molly described the vehicles and the men, adding that they were likely armed. Her plan was simple enough. The State cops would stop the vehicles just outside town. That was the plan, at least. Molly and Moon were still nearly a half hour away, and a lot can happen in that little bit of time.

Molly wished that he had Doug’s number. She looked over at Moon, deciding.

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

“Let me guess,” he replied. “You spoke with Springer.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“You care about this guy?” he studied her, even as she didn’t answer right away. He was impressed by her. He was amazed at her thoughtfulness, and a certain sympathy Moon wondered wasn’t a better quality to her sex, because it struggled in him.

“Think its clouding my judgment?”

“Hope not,” he said simply, staring out into the night.

Molly looked over at the lake, painted in deep blue hues and breathed deeply. “Me too.”

The road left the lakeshore. It rose, allowing sweeping views of the coastline behind them. Ahead, in the distance, the textured expanse of Grand Island floated upon that midnight blue lake.

Molly was thinking about Doug. She smiled recalling that philosophical smirk that October Day at Ground Zero. Her thoughts tumbled invariably to Istanbul and how she wished to kiss him so desperately that night. Molly looked again at Moon, his attention fully on a web page on the tiny glowing white screen of his phone.

It was reasonable, she thought, that he might assume Molly’s feelings for Doug were a potential risk. If things were reversed about a suspect, Molly might feel the same way. That he didn’t spoke volumes about the trust he placed in her. For her part, Molly might have recused herself from the case once Doug became a suspect and fugitive in Fallahi’s murder. But she was more convinced than ever of his innocence, and knew that he was probably his last good hope.

“Anything interesting?” she asked. Molly fumbled with the phone in her lap.

“Just reading about this arms dealer, Shosa,” he said.”He’s moving heavily into this Nano-weapon technology market.”

“Nano-weapons?”

Machines, weapons that work on a molecular scale. They can be programmed to work independently, or with a trigger of some sort.”

“Like a cell phone ring tone?” she asked thoughtfully, her mind teetering on something.

“I suppose,” said Moon. “Anyway, real nightmare stuff. He’s been buying up congress people, buddy-ing up to the Pentagon and schmoozing the Administration.”

The image of Bernstein’s X-ray flashed in her mind, as if a light had suddenly come on, illuminating a terrible evil only now making itself apparent. She knew. She didn’t know everything, but Molly knew enough. Ay that instant the phone in her lap rang, startling her.

Molly held it up before her. She didn’t recognize the number. It was a local number, and she knew in an instant who it was, as if they were thinking the same thing at that very same moment. Molly pressed the receive button nd lifted the phone to her ear,

“Doug,” she began, almost breathless with nervousness. “Where are you? I need you to get to Munising as fast as you can. Go to the State Police…”

From the corner of her eye she saw the dark shape rushing towards her. It was huge and metallic, Molly’s mind struggling to make sense as it bore down upon the little Volkswagen Jetta. Moon saw it an instant later, but had no time to react before their world was abruptly and violently interrupted by the crushing of metal, of exploding glass, of shattering bone and screeching tires.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-nine

2010-08-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

After leaving Molly at the Clark Station Doug had slipped quickly down a narrow alley just off the highway, cutting his lights immediately, and coasting through the alley and out of sight without using his brakes. He watched the Suburban pass, and then headed inland, finding a deserted old logging roads through some of the deepest and darkest wilderness in the country. Bouncing and banging over deep ruts. Even with headlights they were often indiscernible from anything that could be even liberally considered a road. Deer crossed lazily in front the truck, at the limits of his headlights, eyeing the would-be interloper to their private domain curiously. In places the grass and weeds grew tall, only hinting at some sort of navigable lane through dense tunnels of overhanging trees whose branches and leaves scraped and slapped against the sides of the truck.

Such places might have evoked all sorts of dangers conjured by the conscious and sub-conscious mind. Doug might have felt lost or trapped here. He might have believed these dark woods were indeed inhabited by the spirits of ancient Ojibwa warriors and demons. But this is where he had grown up. The forests surrounded him protectively like a dear old friend. He could feel secure in the knowledge that no one could find him here, for there were uncountable trails such as this, running for thousands of miles through these forests. An army could disappear in the Hiawatha, or, in Doug’s case, it would take an army to find a single man.

These roads were completely disorienting, especially in the dark, even for Doug, who was accustomed to this place. When he came to Au Train Lake, just off the highway a brief bought of threatening panic at being lost subsided. Doug pulled across the highway into a tiny cemetery and pulled out the phone Carol and Geoff had given him. His heart breaking softly, Doug quickly dialed the ten digit number and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Sea Coast cottage,” a man’s voice answered quickly. “Geoff speaking.”

“Geoff, its Doug,” he said, afraid he might simply dissolve into tears at any moment. An owl cried lonely into the night from the tree above. “Are the girls all right?”

Geoff lowered his voice. Doug could hear the screen door open and close as Geoff went out onto the enclosed porch of the cottage.

“Doug,” he began, “don’t you worry now. Your girls are just fine. I’m cooking them up a couple of burgers. Carol ran out to Marquette and got them a few things; Pajamas, clothes, that sort of stuff.”

“Not sure I can ever…” Doug began. Geoff cut him off quickly.

“Nonsense,” he said, almost scolding. “You just clear all this up and come back to these girls safe and sound. Want to speak with them? I know they’re worried sick.”

Doug was quiet for a moment. He knew the technology, and knew these men had the capability of scanning a fair number of calls at once. Out here that didn’t leave a great many folks. As badly as he wanted to hear the girl’s voices, to tell them how much he loved them, and a thousand other things, but it was just too risky. Every second he spent on the phone exposed him and the girls to greater danger, and Doug just couldn’t risk that.

“Tell them I contacted you and that I’m okay, and will sort all this out soon.” The emotion caught in his chest. Doug paused, fighting through the moment. “And tell them…tell them I love them both more than life.”

“I will.” Said Geoff.

Doug switched off the phone and slid the battery from the back of the small plastic body. He slipped them into his pocket and shut his eyes for a moment. Sleep overtook him like a thief, as Doug, pushed well beyond simple exhaustion, was helpless to hold it back.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-eight

2010-08-08T09:33:00.000-05:00

Brower pulled up beside the others. The other Suburban was parked beside the road a mile or so east of the Sea Coast Inn. It had grown quite dark, and the worst of the rain had moved off, leaving a frigid drizzle that coated and glistened upon everything. McCullough was beside him, as reserved as ever about his private misgivings. Brower rolled down his window, which was speckled with rain drops, and glared silently at the other three men for a purposely long uncomfortable time.

He wasn’t happy, and if he failed to make that clear before, Brower intended to leave no doubt whatsoever now. Again, they had allowed Springer to slip through their fingers. All the high tech gear that could track and trace most anything on the planet, the ability to access and monitor cell phone calls and text messaging, wi-fi internet connections, access to BCI- the Federal Bureau of Criminal Identification, credit card and debit card transactions and databases, credit histories and real time satellite imagery, and still he managed to get by men who’d benefitted from the greatest military and intelligence training on the planet.

The dome light was off in the other Suburban, all but concealing the three men in shadow, and the ambient light of a deepening night. Brower could still see their stony faces. Even if he couldn’t have seen them he could feel their embarrassment and frustration, and not a small amount of trepidation at facing the full fury of their pissed-off boss.

“Really?” Brower shook his head in supreme disappointment. “I bet a pack of snot nosed cub scouts could find this guy quicker than you men.”

Brower could push, but he knew he could only push so far. None of them, not even Brower could pretend they weren’t part of a much larger conspiracy. No longer was the mission to train Iraqi cops, illiterate Afghan militias or protect Western oil workers and executives in Nigeria against rebels. The mission had moved into questionable territory, only made palpable for the legally tax-free cash each man was paid. Indeed, the nature of the mission was the only thing separating them from being an outright criminal enterprise. Maybe they could argue and convince themselves there was a higher, even patriotic purpose, but at the end of all rationalism were they shared crimes.

The mission now had changed and grown, something often called mission creep, which happened when facts on the ground necessitated changing the fundamental aspect of an operation. Brower’s training an experience eschewed so-called mission creep, and he took great pains in avoiding and minimizing it, but now he could feel it all getting away from him in the worst way. What had been a mission to shadow Fallahi to see who he contacted had grown at the last minute to an ad-hoc scheme to discredit and frame Doug Springer for Fallahi’s murder. He’d given the authorization to eliminate Springer after he’d escaped the first time. That he had made contact with an FBI agent who had let him walk away without notifying her superiors was perhaps most disturbing of all. What had he told her, and why was she keeping quiet about it?

Brower didn’t wait for, nor want an answer from the men in the other Suburban. He pulled a phone from his pocket and pressed the redial button. Despite the late hour it rang only once. The voice on the other end was familiar and low, as though not wanting to be heard.

“Please, tell me the mission is complete,” the voice said, with notable exasperation. He was Archer Waverly, the founder and director of FIRST THRUST INC, a stoic and resolute man, a deeply devout Christian man, who saw the company as far more than a military contracting business, but also a spiritual and political crusade.

“Need a little guidance on company policy,” said Brower. “Threat assessment criteria?”

Unchanged,” said Waverly.

“In a non-hostile environment?” His tone was purposely misleading.

“All environments are potentially hostile, Mister Brower. The deployment of your team and the mission presupposes a hostile environment. Are you unclear on the mission?”

“Clear, sir,” he replied. “Mission. Company. Team. God. Country.”

“That’s the order. Will this be concluded tonight? Things are ready to hit the fan in a big way, and this is one loose end that definitely needs cutting.”

“That loose end got a bit longer tonig…” said Brower.

“Are you a bunch of fucking new recruits?” Waverly erupted in anger, enough that the men in the next vehicle could hear as well. But for a furl of the brow, Brower made no reaction. “I want this concluded tonight. Mister Shosa will meet tomorrow with the president’s assistant National Security Advisor and several congressional leaders. Finish this, now! Before you left I authorized additional resources for you. This would be the time to use them.”

The line went dead abruptly. Brower looked off into the dark night and let it slip slowly to his lap. He looked over at McCullough and gave him a reassuring nod. They would deal with Springer, while the others handled the agents. He swallowed a yawn and looked over at the three men.

“Chicago authorized an additional five thousand dollar bonus for each man if this is concluded tonight.”

“By concluded?” asked the grizzled veteran, leaning uncomfortably across the driver, with an almost sexual sort of eagerness.

“McCullough and I will be on Springer. He can’t be far. By your report he’s dropped his girls somewhere close by. He’ll try to make contact with them or with the agent. The clock is ticking on all this, and Mister Springer understands that as well as we do. You men will be on the agents. All loose ends are to be cut, with no traces left behind. Clear?”

“Fuckin’ eh!” snarled the old veteran, pushing over the driver’s door and practically shoving the guy out the cab. “I’m pulling rank. I’ll drive.”

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-seven

2010-08-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

“We have breaking news out of the Middle East,” the CNN announcer began, in the gravest possible tone. “There are unconfirmed reports that several of the American personnel held by the Iranians are dead. The report comes from a credible source within the Iranian foreign ministry, speaking with the Arab-language network, Al-Jezeera, said that four of the detainees were dead, but gave no immediate details. That same source indicated that a number of others had also died. CNN was unable to confirm the reports independently, and it is still too early to speculate that this might have been part of some possible rescue plan. The united States maintains a substantial military presence in the region, and it is not out of reason that a rescue mission might have been launch from Iraq or Afghanistan, an act, CNN’s military consultants agree, would be risky…”

The news swept through the nation. It was picked up hot off the wires by Rightwing talk Show hosts, who immediately speculated about all sorts of wild and unsubstantiated theories. One syndicated host out of Utah, a demegoging,-self inflating, ex-Top Forty Disc jockey who jumped on the Talk syndication bandwagon in the late nineties, accused the President of outright cowardice for not immediately carpet-bombing Tehran. A Republican loudmouth former Congressman renewed a post-September-11 call to Nuke Mecca. The Major News networks, the so-called Liberal Media according to Right Wing hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and the blustering imp, Mark Levin, were already using terms like enemy and adversary to describe Iran, to the delight of their corporate parents who were heavily invested in the weapons and war industry. They would belittle the spontaneous anti-war protests that would spring up around the country, choosing the most foolish among them for their broadcasts. Viewers around the nation would see a rabble of students, long haired teens, hysterical and ragged kids, never seeing the professors, doctors, housewives and veterans protesting the coming war. The video of two anarchists throwing a newspaper box through a Starbucks window in Baltimore would play again and again.

Even the government spoke with competing voices; one side talking of restraint and rationality, the other almost hysterical with cries for war and vengeance. Strange that the rational side never quite got to the proper arguments so many thinking Americans came to immediately. Just as they had during the lead up to the war in Iraq, those “proper” arguments would wait until the war, or something like it, was well under way.

All this was, of course, an endless circle, like two snakes feeding off one another. The media is a pimp; as much disease as a symptom of a misdirected society. It fed off a population that, insulated from the desperation of much of the world, could afford knee-jerk reactions to international turmoil. When the results of those reactions washed up upon her shores, America could rightly claim to be a victim. They were as woefully ignorant of the outside world, as many around the planet were of the average American. It was easy to grow frustrated and impatient with a world that seemed to intrude upon the blissful excess and blindness of American life. The world was a place to be feared, or so they were told. Foreigners, the media decried, were as the invading hordes and barbarians falling upon Rome’s beleaguered frontiers two thousand years before. It was echoed and promoted by the media, but the nation’s citizens were just as culpable in its reach and its abuse. Despite the pretend blustering of talk show hosts and personalities. The media was not the traitor of the people, but one in the same with them.

But the lessons of nationalist fervor are never learned on the eve of war, just as man never questions the excess of his pleasure during an orgy. Nationalism is the self-inflicted perversion of true patriotism. It is means to an end for someone, and the road to an end for the gullible populace. With history as a lesson, like a long stroll through a graveyard, it wasn’t certain the nation would make those same fatal mistakes, but with each passing moment that reality became a little more certain.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-six

2010-08-05T13:23:00.000-05:00

“Have you seen this man?’ asked the grizzled veteran, to the nervous cashier at the Clark Station in Munising. The cashier was a round middle aged woman, with short snow-white hair and white-framed eyeglasses. She was not at all accustomed to such rudeness. It wasn’t normally something she’d tolerate either, but the fury in the man’s eye made her blood run cold. They were the eyes of a demon, of a creature that saw little value in life other than its own.

“Jesus!” she gasped. The man shook the picture impatiently closer to her face, enough the image began to blur into a blend of pale and indistinguishable color.

“Don’t have all day!” he growled, his equally threatening partner blocking the door. The woman leaned away, straining her bad back, until she could make out the face clearly.

“He passed you when you came in!”

“Who?’

“He had a limp, a dark cap…”

The two men rushed out into the lot and onto the highway, looking up and back along the road. The rain came harder now, big fat drops that sent up a racket, coming in waves off the lake. A lone trailer truck rumbled into town, and an old pale-green Chevy Caprice turned down main Street. The grizzled old veteran ignored the rain and spit, fuming, as though this was all a personal affront. His jaw tightened, lips pursing almost painfully hard, forcing furious breaths through his nose like an enraged bull.

“Son of a mother…!” he snarled, ignoring a camper brushing past by mere inches.

“What the hell is going on?” his partner inquired. The third man jumped from the Suburban and joined them in the street. He cradled a half open laptop they had used to monitor Molly’s cell phone. It was partly protected inside his jacket. He held an arm across the thin black body.

“He was right here!” the grizzled veteran growled, grinding his teeth

“Where?”

“The hobbling old coot,” said the vet. “That was Springer!”

“I knew it was him, when the cell phone signal garbled,” said the man with the computer. “She was speaking to someone, but it was too low to make out clearly.”

“Yeah,” said the vet, ushering the others back to the vehicle, “well, he just made a serious mistake, because now we know what he’s driving. And when we find him, I’m gonna take great pleasure of relieving that liberal journalist head from his body. “

They climbed into the vehicle and roared out of town in pursuit. As they rounded the bend, leaving the town and bay behind, the heavens unburdened themselves in torrents. Lightening danced across the sky, chased by great rolling thunderclaps. Inside the Suburban the three men paid little mind to the gathering fury, instead gave fully currency to their own.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-five

2010-08-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

The presidential limousine pulled quickly into the underground garage of the Walter E Washington Convention Center In Downtown Washington. There were protesters on the street, their shouts and chants aver Gay marriage echoing hollowly. There was a veritable army of security between them and the President, a sad comment on the evolving concept of modern democracy, in which for reasons of security the man appointed by the people was completely insulated from them. It was ironic that the nature of government was to protect the weak and give voice to the powerless was surrounded and secured by abusive and powerful corporatists.

The car had hardly stopped when a Secret service agent, smart in a dark black suit was already out of the front door and reaching for the silver handle of the President’s door. As the door opened a phalanx of secret service converged around the door. A dozen pair of eyes searching the shadows and pillars for any sign of a threat to their client. On the ramp, hardly thirty yards away, two activists had somehow slipped into the basement, or had hidden there, and ran shouting towards the president, just now climbing from the Limousine. He hardly noticed as they were tackled, still shouting protests.

“Gay rights are Human Rights!” one of them cried.

“All men are created equal!” the other, a slight, attractive young woman, quoted the Constitution, before a knee to the side from an officer hammered the wind from her lungs.

An Aid met the President as he stood o straighten his suit coat, pressing herself through that formidable wall of security. They knew her, of course, allowing her a minimal gap to get through. Her name was Allison Danon, or “Ali D.” to friends and close colleagues. She was small, but strongly built. Not in an unattractive way, but her passion for triathlons was evident in toned physique and deeply focus unstoppable energy. A Harvard lawyer by trade, it was her passion and talent for poetry, and an internship with a prominent Washington Public Relations firm that won Ali a position on the President’s staff.

“The Iranians attempted to reach us through an intermediary about an hour ago, sir.” She said, with notable urgency.

“Legitimate?”

Ali fought to keep pace, scribbling notes as the President entered the hotel through a loading bay door and into a waiting freight elevator.

“We believe that it is. Mister President.”

“Let’s get out a strong statement,” he said. “My hope is that we can bring this to a fairly quick resolution.” He was thinking of the three Americans backpackers arrested for hiking inb the border region of Northern Iran. They were still in custody, while quiet, albeit painfully slow negotiations continued. There was a much higher priority with the servicemen that carried the specter of war and much greater tragedy, and involved a number of International players. That was the plan anyways, and plans have a way of going terribly awry. The elevator door opened to a backstage area behind the auditorium. The President stepped from the elevtor. Ali remained frozen, holding one more piece of news.

“One other thing,” Ali said, dimly.

He stopped dead in his tracks. The President turned, taken aback by the grave expression on the young woman’s face.

“Not good news, is it, Ali?” he asked.

“Mister President, the information is that four or more of the hostages are dead.”

The President weighed her words carefully a moment. “Dead or killed?”

“Sir, I…”

“Does the Press know about this yet?”

“Not sure” she replied. “No one has repeated it yet. A BBC reporter in Tehran asked if we could confirm the rumor. We cautioned him about any premature release of uncorroborated information, but that we would confirm our position with him first.”

“Can we hold onto this for a while?” he asked.

“Hard to say?” she replied, swallowing hard.

The President laughed dryly, rubbing the ever deepening tension from his forehead. His mind spun through a thousand different scenarios. “I have to face an auditorium filled with Veterans of Foreign Wars. How the fuck…?” he took deep breath, straining against the supreme pressure of the moment. “Shit.”

“Sir?”

“Feel like we are getting steamrolled into war?”

“Yes sir,” she said dutifully, not quite sure what he was talking about. For that matter, neither was he.

One of the Secret Service agents interrupted. “Mister President, you are about to be introduced.”

He nodded and turned back to the mortified young woman. “What’s our confidence level on this?”

“I won’t say one hundred percent,” she replied. “It comes from a very high level Chinese source, who quoted the Iranians as damn near begging forgiveness.”

The President looked to the stage, just visible through great blue flowing curtains. A gray-haired Vietnam veteran, a silver sash across the navy blue suit coat, metals sparkling upon his chest was well into an energetic introduction. Camera flashes painted the front of the man’s body. The President took a breath and checked his blue and red striped tie.

“We have no choice but to give them the benefit of the doubt until we know something for sure. At the end of the day, the Iranians are responsible for the lives of those young people, and no matter what we will absolutely hold them accountable.”

“Are you going to announce, sir?”

“Have to,” he said. “Send a message back as soon as have confirmation.”

She flipped over a notebook, but fumbled to find a pen. The President pulled one from his jacket pocket. It was shiny and blue, with a little Presidential seal on the side. He started dictating right away.

“This event…” he began, picking the words skillfully. “This grave event carries potentially grave repercussions…”

“Sounds too vengeance-ee,” she corrected respectfully, following up with a bashful smirk.

“…consequences for both our nations, and for the International community. The American people expect, scratch that. The American people demand a full accounting of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of their fellow citizens while in Iranian custody. I am sworn, destined, charged…”

“Compelled,” she offered, scribbling madly.

“…compelled to deliver that accounting.” He pursed his lips, thinking. “It needs something.”

“We expect?”

“We demand!” he said with emotion.

“Too ultimatum-ish, and you already used demand once.”

“We expect,” he nodded, “the full cooperation and transparency for an immediate and thorough multilateral investigation into the deaths…”

“Trial in US courts?” she suggested.

“Too much, too soon,” he said. “Hmm. “I am assembling a delegation…”

“How about just, ‘a delegation will,’ and give the impression we are always a step ahead on this?”

“Good,” he touched her arm. The veteran was concluding his introduction. The applause had already begun, thundering from the hall. “…a delegation to Geneva on Tuesday to meet with their Iranian counterparts and, and…”

“Assess the situation?”

He shook his head once. “…to assess the seriousness of their intentions. We expect that they will be as committed to that full and open accounting as the American people are, and though we pray and work for a peaceful resolution, the United States will use all means at its disposal to bring about-to bring those responsible to justice. That’s it.”

He turned on his heel and jogged the last few steps to the stage. He emerged from the curtain, waving and nearly obliterated by camera flashes, the hall shuddering with riotous cheers and clapping. He stood at the podium, looking out across thousands of veterans from a dozen different conflicts, spanning nearly a century and wondered if he wasn’t about to add a whole new generation to the auspicious club if at all possible. With each passing hour, it seemed, the chances for peace seemed to fade. The President formed a smile, nodding to a hand full of donors and familiar faces nearest the stage. In the end, no small part of being Commander-in-chief was marketing.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-four

2010-08-04T17:35:00.000-05:00

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.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-three

2010-08-01T21:05:00.000-05:00

A storm front was moving in. The darkening thunderhead spread across the western sky above the Keweenaw Peninsula like a great gray-blue hand. As it spread across the face of the sun great golden rays of light reached out like an iconic halo. At that moment Doug could not have escaped thoughts and memories of Jane. Even with all if this, she was constantly with him. And though he longed to look in her eyes once more, to hear her voice and taste her lips Doug would almost feel she was beside him.

There were other thoughts. He wondered about their love. Jane loved to say how she knew they were meant to be together, that they were soul mates, as if the whole Universe had weighed their happiness in its impossibly complex equation. But Jane was gone now and Doug remained at the start of a new and long life ahead. Was it a betrayal of their love if one day he found someone else? The thought tore a hole in his chest, and no amount of strength he could muster could hold back the inevitable tears.

Could he love again, john wondered. Was living the ultimate test of his love for Jane? If he loved again, was he being selfish? And if something of a body persisted beyond life, who would be remain beside for eternity? Would finding love again hasten the fading of her memory? Was it reasonable that he should spend life alone? And what of the girls? These were hardly questions that stood any chance of being answered any time soon.

Her watched as Geoff ushered the girls into a car and climbed behind the wheel. In a moment they were gone, heading west along the highway to a secluded cottage Geoff and carol rented to artist and writers and lovers, or those wishing to escape the world for a time. Doug knew they would be safe and sound there, even as his heart went after them. As the car disappeared in the distance, it was more than Doug could bear any longer.

It wasn’t a sobbing sort of cry, and it certainly wasn’t the first since losing his wife. But the tears came in unstoppable rivers, and the breaths shuttered and caught in his chest. Doug wiped away the tears again and again, gripping the cold plastic steering wheel of the truck and taking it hard. Doug moaned through gritted teeth, and if not for the girls, would have wished for death that instant. That’s when he noticed the Jetta pull into the motel and come to a stop in front of one of the rooms.

Molly climbed from the driver’s seat and tossed the keys to her partner. Doug studied him for a moment, and found something in his movements that made him believe the guy couldn’t be trusted. He would have to get Molly alone somehow, but didn’t have a clue how that might happen.

She remained outside, alone, strolling thoughtfully up to the highway and looking out across the stormy lake. Doug watched her pretty face, as stormy as the Superior, and recalled that moment of temptation in Istanbul. He failed to notice the black Suburban, and the three men within watching her from a lakeside overlook just up the road.

Molly’s partner returned a moment later. She turned and returned to the car, climbing in on the passenger side this time. As they pulled out and turned off onto the highway Doug spied the Suburban as it swung around to follow at a good distance. Doug waited until they were both nearly out of sight before pulling out onto the highway behind them.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-two

2010-07-28T12:39:00.000-05:00

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!”

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-one

2010-07-28T12:25:00.000-05:00

“Lufthansa Six-oh-one just diverted to KWI,” the deputy NSA through the door, using the airline three letter designation for Kuwait International Airport. There was an urgency to his tone that thoroughly annoyed George Osborne.

Osborne drew the round spectacles from his face and rubbed his tired eyes. He had a deafening headache, driven in no small part by absolute exhaustion. He’d hardly slept or eaten a thing since the crisis began. He’d held up well at first, thanks to his military training but it was all piling up on him now. Prone to terrible migraines, it was all he could do not to curl himself into a corner and suffer its full fury and storm. He felt nauseous and dizzy and badly needed sleep. He could hear his wife admonishing him for being a pig-headed fool at not taking better care of himself. He took a deep, measured breath and looked up at the excitable young man, Osborne’s eyes noticeably blood shot.

“Stop the presses,” he replied flippantly.

He was still trying to sort out the magnitude of damage and danger the unexpected leak of some ninety thousand pages of documents relating to the Afghan War on some European website He’d never heard of before. The Press would focus on Pakistan’s assistance to the Taliban, a supposed betrayal of their would-be alliance with the United States. That was hardly a revelation, as a whole range of transgressions by the Pakistanis had been “accepted” rather than have the nuclear-armed country dissolve a fractious civil war. What concerned Osborne most was that previously unreported incidents of civilian deaths that would be exploited for propaganda throughout the Mideast and the rest of the world, threatening local alliances. Here at home, the item was a distraction from the Ian issue, the economy and the Gulf oil leak.

“Who in God’s name is Wikileak?” he asked, frustrated.

“A European anti-war site, sir,” the deputy replied, clearly distracted from the original purpose of his visit. “They did the Sarah Palin emails too.”

“What can we do to this guy, just for being a little piss?”

“Maybe the CIA could plant a bomb in his dog’s ass, and the next time the pooch takes a shit…ka-blew-ee!”

“How about I just fly over there and kick him in the nuts real hard? I like dogs. Its people that bother me.” Osborne groaned against the pounding waves of pain in his head. “What do you got?”

“Turkish Airlines, Austrian Air 872, Aeroflot out of Moscow, and Azal out of Baku, all turned around.”

“No mood for games,” grumbled. If you’ve got…”

The whole international bank into IKA, Tehran Airport. They’ve closed their airspace,” said the deputy. “Something’s happening. I called the State department. They’ve been working through the Turkish Consulate as an intermediary. They were meeting with the head of the Iranian national security Services when he received a message.”

“Do we know what that message was?” asked Osborne.

“NSA’s working on it, but nothing so far. In fact, everything in Tehran suddenly got very quiet. Spooky quiet.”

Osborne pushed himself away from the desk and stood. He felt unsteady on his feet, not unlike being a little drunk. The difference was that brutal pounding in the front of his brain, accompanied by a sickly-warm throbbing that drove his head down in a steady rhythm. All at once the room began to spin. Osborne groaned and caught himself at the edge of the desk. The deputy rushed forward to support him. George Osborne looked up at him, momentarily confused, more so as the room spun wildly around him.

“Sir, can I…” the deputy began. Osborne didn’t hear the end of that sentence. The world faded to black and he crumbled to the floor.

The Big Blue Sky: Forty

2010-07-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Good friends ran a quaint little roadside motel about a dozen miles or so down the road. The “SEA COAST INN stood beneath sheltering pine, which made the place feel comfortably serene and protected from the outside world. The unassuming sign stood out front, beside the highway, in front of a simple long gray building with white trim and shutters. Doug and Jane had spent a fair number of romantic escapes locked away in the comfortable rooms within that deceptively simple building. The owners, a kindly, deeply spiritual couple named Geoff and Carol, lived in a comfortable home out back. There was a garage beside the house. The woods deepened at the back of the property, the afternoon sunlight falling in patches through the thickening trees and brush.

Doug pulled around behind the motel, leaving the girls in the truck. Across the road waves thundered against the shore. Carol was just coming around the garage, relying on a cane for a bit of support. A small woman, with pewter hair, Carol wore an ankle length denim dress and orthopedic shoes. She caught Doug half way to the office, hooking her hand in his arm, as much for support as for their long and close friendship.

“Douglas,” she said sympathetically, “so terribly sorry to hear about Jane. Geoff and I were just devastated.”

He touched her hand and stroked it softly. “I know.”

“We were just sick that we couldn’t be at the funeral.”

“Thank you for the flowers. You remembered that red Geraniums were her favorite.”

Doug reached for the door and opened it for her. Carol paused and gave him a serious look, then nodded knowingly. She knew everything. Doug could see that she knew everything that had happened, and he returned the look. He understood the risks for involving her in any of this, but could see no other way.

The office was small and cluttered. A simple reception desk was situated between the stairs leading up to their home, and the door down to the basement. Beside the door was a plate of pastries, small cheeses and some fruit left over from their usual breakfast offerings for guests. Doug hadn’t eaten a thing since the night before and felt the twist of hunger in his gut. There were racks of postcards, area tourist maps, and locally made candles. Beside the desk was a coffee grinder. Geoff selected and sold his own exquisite coffee blend that Doug long to taste at that moment.

On the countertop the guest ledger was open. Doug saw that Molly’s was written next to one of the room numbers, and wondered if it was for his phone call. It gave him a rush of cautious hope. It was too much to expect that she would help him, but it was enough to hope. What else remained to him, and to the girls? At the end of all hope is desperation, and a desperate man is a dangerous man, but as much to himself as anyone. Doug was becoming desperate.

Carol’s husband came through the door at that moment. He was cradling an arm full of bed linens from one of the rooms. Geoff was tall and slender, with patchwork curly silver and white hair. His smile was hospitable, and his eyes endlessly considerate. Geoff slouched a bit, in a humbling sort of way, as if never wishing to put anyone ill at ease. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see Doug, which was likely more a product of a soul that tended to take life as it came. Geoff adjusted the bundle in his arms and gave Doug’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“Just sick about your beautiful Jane.”

“Appreciate that, Geoff.”

“Want you to know, we don’t put much faith into what we hear on the news.”

Doug met each of their eyes, finding something deeper than friendship, which he believed was more a quality of these good folks than of his own corrupted heart. Doug had so much he needed to say to them, but then he didn’t have to speak a word. All that was confirmed when Carol laid her hand over his.

“Sorry to involve you guys with this,” he said.

“Where are the girls?” Geoff piled the linens into a basket.

“Out in the truck.” Doug took a deep breath and reach for the five hundred he’d parceled earlier for this, leaving him just enough to get by on. “I need a week.”

He held the bundle of fifties and twenties out, still folded. Geoff frowned sympathetically and waved him away.

“Put that away,” he said. “Don’t worry, the girls’ll be fine. Now you best get moving. ‘Couple of Federal agents in one-oh-four.”

Doug laid the cash on the ledger and patted it quietly. “In case the girls need something.”

He sighed started to leave, laying a hand on Geoff, as if using his strength and decency for much needed momentum. Carol stopped him, pulling a cell phone from her pocket. “You take this. The girls will need to hear from their dad.”

Doug took it, fighting back emotion. “Don’t know I can ever repay…”

“Get,” said Geoff, shooing him out the door. “Get going and take care of this mess.”

The couple followed him out to the truck. The girls climbed down, warmly embraced by their new hosts. Doug paused at the door of the old Ford for one last look.

“If the authorities ask,” he said to Geoff and Carol, “tell them everything you know.”

Geoff managed a smile and nodded, in this sort of Mark Twain-esque sarcasm. “Then it’s a good we don’t know anything!”

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-nine

2010-07-25T10:47:00.000-05:00

Doug used the cover of the freighter to cross the harbor to the mainland. He “borrowed” a fiberglass canoe leaning at the back of the old wooden lighthouse. The girls crouched in the front of the boat until they came ashore along a driftwood strewn stretch of deserted beach. It was a short hike up from the beach through the forest to the small Sand Point ranger Station.

The station was a simple two-story white house, with a green shingled roof just beside the coast road leading south to town. It was shielded on two sides by trees. To one side it faced the bay. Doug waited until the lone officer, clad in shorts and a tee-shirt stretched with a yawn and went inside. Doug dodged across the road and crept carefully from vehicle to vehicle. There were three official vehicles parked side by side just past the door. Doug paused and heard the shower begin from one of the upstairs windows.

The last vehicle was a Jeep Wrangler, with its ubiquitous bright white color and forest green letters on the side. The door was unlocked. Doug searched the glove compartment and the visors but came up empty for the key. Under the floor mat beneath the driver’s seat Doug discovered a single key.

The jeep started easily. Doug dropped it into reverse and backed it across to where the girls were waiting, keeping a cautious eye to the house. Doug waved the girls over and they climbed inside. As Doug swung the jeep onto road he said a small prayer. There was a single road all the way to town, and then he’d have to get past a State Police outpost. If the jeep was discovered missing before then he and the girls hardly stood a chance.

“Jane, if you can hear me,” John muttered under his breath, “I need you now more than ever.”

“Dad, are we going to be in trouble?” Dana asked.

“Guys, we’re already in trouble.”

There was no point in hiding the truth. The road narrowed, bounded on one side by steeply wooded hills, and dropped sharply towards the lake on the other. He might have enjoyed once how beautiful and secluded this place was, but now it only felt like a trap.

“What if the police catch us?” Megan asked.

“If that happens,” he said, “you’ll tell the police everything” He looked to the girl’s reflection in the mirror and saw their turmoil. Megan was holding her sister’s hand, clutching it tightly in her lap. The State Police post was just ahead; a small brown building just beside the road. The freighter was already offloading a mountain of coal just across the road.

“We’ll get through this,” Doug said.

“Is it terrible that I’m glad mom isn’t here?” Megan said soberly. Dana looked up at her, her chin quivering with emotion

The words crushed him.

“No, honey.” He found her eyes in the mirror. “But I hope that she’s watching over us right now.”

The passed the post without incident, and passed quickly through town. The two-lane highway more or less followed the lakeshore. In places it climbed to heights offering sweeping views of the lake and forests. Where they came together was akin to two great armies crashing headlong in eternal battle, their meeting marked by ranks of heavy white waves crashing upon timber-strewn beaches.

Always dominating this pristine view was the great expanse of Grand Island. Doug could make out the tattered haze of smoke hovering over the southern end. He’d watch from a distance, safely hidden among the woods as the men approached the house. The man at the back kicked in the door and charged inside. A moment later, with a blinding explosion that knocked Doug backwards, the house disintegrated. There was little doubt as to the fate of the three men. They had come to kill Doug and the girls, and Doug had intended that they would die before they could harm Dana and Megan. Still, those deaths weighed on him. They tore at his heart for the families left behind, for their pain, and for the waste of it all. Wrong or right, those deaths would feel like a stain upon his soul for all time.

This was still a primitive land settled by stalwart souls who carved tentative parcels in some hard scrabble existence between the modern and pioneer worlds. These tentative places dotted the road, seemingly symbiotic with the surrounding wilderness. These folks were oddities to the outside world, and nefarious to out of town visitors unaccustomed to life in these parts. Truth was they were a mix of folks from the poor, anti-government types, loners, and aging hippies to people who just didn’t wish to be found.

Below the road, almost hidden from view among a thick bank of trees was one of those ramshackle little houses. It looked to have been patched together with tar paper and old boards. The small shack leaned slightly to one side, where it was braced hastily with a number of two by fours of varying lengths. Several of the he small windows on the one story structure were missing, replaced with heavy plastic or pieces of plywood. There was an ancient-looking outhouse out back and a clothesline. The yard was crowded with rusting tools, engine parts, and an old plastic lawn chair the front chassis of a 72 Chevy Impala. What caught Doug’s eye was the Sixty-five Ford F-100 pick up for sale in the grass beside the weedy driveway. It was hand painted a dull black and the rear bumper had been replaced with a single wood plant bolted to the frame. Doug swung the Jeep around to the opposite side of the road and got out with the girls. They hurried across the deserted highway and scrambled down the embankment to the shack.

The girls remained beside the old truck as Doug approached the shack. Nearly to door when a hobbling old man came out of the woods with a rifle and a big Canadian goose he shot for supper. Swimming in a dark Navy Pea Coat from an army surplus store, he glared suspiciously from beneath a bright orange hunter’s cap.

“Help you, Mister?” said the man, abruptly. He was leery of the strangers, nothing in particular to do with Doug and the girls, just that the old loner was naturally wary of all strangers.

“Interested in the truck,” Doug replied. “She run?”

“Looks like hell, but she’ll get you where you need to go.” He laid the dead goose over a stump, and set the rifle against the crooked house. He reached over and shook Doug’s hand, looking him straight in the eye. It was as much a test as a courtesy. “Got a three fifty-two, V-Eight under the hood, rebuilt carburetor, decent brakes, patched-up radiator. She looks like hell, but she’s solid.”

“I need a…”

“The old timer stopped him quickly. “Don’t much care what you need it for. By the looks of you and your girls, must be some sort of trouble. Want it, or don’t ya?”

“How much?”

The man studied Doug a moment, the girls no doubt weighing into whatever calculation he was making. “Whatever trouble you’re in ain’t none of my business, especially if you don’t make it any of my business.”

“Just need a truck, that’s all.”

“Four hundred. Firm.”

“Five hundred, and throw in the hat and coat.” said Doug.

“Got yourself a deal.”

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-Eight

2010-07-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

Molly bent and looked into the Honda. It had been ransacked thoroughly enough that she doubted there would be anything of use in it any longer. The State Police boat was just unloading the bodies from the island. Each was carried off the boat in heavy black-plastic body bags, and laid along the small metal pier. The house on the island, or what remained of it, still smoldered. The gray-white smoke drifted oblique through trees and out over the bay.

Agent Moon was looking over a file on his Blackberry, a military record for one of the two tentatively identified bodies. The third was so badly burned that positive identification would require a DNA test. Moon squinted into his PDA at the files uploaded from the Milwaukee office. He read parts of it aloud, though Molly was only half listening, as she wondered how Doug had gotten involved in all this.
“…distinguished service, eight years special forces, two tours in Afghanistan. This guy was a friggin’ hero,” said Moon. “Various connections to military contracting firms. Last three years he was a CTM…”

“CTM?” asked Molly.

“Combat Tech Manager, for a company called FIRSTTHRUST. I know that company, real cowboys. They’d go after local bad guys in Iraq, but they’d tear up a neighborhood in the process. No rules of engagement. They’d roll in, do a job, kill a lot of people and undo a year’s worth of work winning hearts and minds.”

“What’s he doing here in Michigan?” Molly asked. She tapped Moon on the arm and motioned towards the small metal pier and three black body bags. They started for the pier.

“Interesting little aside,” said Moon. FIRST THRUST was just bought by this upstart tech firm out of Chicago with connections to an international arms dealer.”

“Umberto Shosa?”

“Great guess,” Moon replied, surprised. “How’d you know?”

“Buying their own army?”

“Probably just like the idea of an unending cash flow courtesy of the American taxpayer.”

“Dead Iranian diplomat, fugitive reporter and three dead mercs,” Molly said thoughtfully. She knelt beside one of the body bags and looked across at the island. “Doug Springer, what did you get yourself into?”

More than a mile away a big coal freighter entered the bay. It’s great dark gray hull slid past the eastern limb of the island, dwarfing a small wooden lighthouse on the shore, and eclipsing the mainland beyond. The rhythmic clunking of the ship’s massive rudders, as it slowed and made a wide arc past the island, echoed from the surrounding hills and island cliffs. The ship turned slowly, picking its way through the deeper channels to bring coal before the winter snows all but cut the town off from the outside world. At three hundred feet the ship was a behemoth in the little harbor. Molly watched the freighter for a moment before reaching for one of the body bag’s zipper. She thought better of that, realizing there was little point in it. She stood and walked to the end of the pier. Moon followed.

“How’d these guys get up here so fast?” Molly turned suddenly as the thought struck her.

“Don’t follow?”

“Think he’s guilty?”

“If your boy is innocent, why hasn’t he turned himself in?”

It was a valid question. Molly watched the ship as it seemed to drift powerless in the bay, framed by the mottled autumn trees beyond. The scene seemed to coax deeper thoughts from her, as if all the world was a river predicted by unseen currents deep beneath the surface.

“Let’s say this was a hit,” she began. “Maybe Doug Springer was supposed to take the rap, but instead he gets away, and now he’s a loose end?”

“I saw that episode of CSI Miami.” He quipped.

“Seriously.”

“To what end?”

“What if we, the country are being steered into a war with Iran?”

“By who?”

“I don’t know. Wealthy industrialists? Arms dealers? Umberto Shosa buys a military contracting firm, and then these guys end up here?” Before us?”

Moon scoffed with a chuckle. “Forgive me, but maybe aliens and Dick Cheney brought down the Twin Towers.”

“Wow,” she shot back. “That’s cynical.”

“Just saying, a bit conspiratorial, don’t you think?”

She thought a moment, feeling that this was one of those critical moments upon which a career or a life changes. Almost a mile away the big freighter sort of slid sideways past the Munising City dock.

“Trust me?” she asked, standing and wiping her hands.

“Sure.”

“I think he’s being set up, and I think if we get to him first we should be very cautious about who knows that.”

“Agent,” he said formally, “let me remind you he’s a suspect in a federal case.”

“There’s something else here,” she said, drawing him away from the State cops and the county coroner. “I’m just asking that you give this all as much of a benefit of a doubt as you can.”

“He’d be safer in custody.”

“He’ll be in our custody.”

“I don’t know.”

“I know this man,” said Molly.

Clearly torn, Moon sighed heavily. He looked across at the smoke drifting from the island and shook his head. “I’ll make you this promise. Let’s find your boy. If there’s something there, we’ll see.”

She motioned to the three black body bags lined up along the dock. “Hopefully before their colleagues do.”

“Certain they weren’t alone?”

“The waitress at the diner said 6. I have to believe there are at least three more.”

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-seven

2010-07-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

Tehran. Eight-Thirty p.m. Amir and Sayed Armanjani were patriots. They believed in another Iran, one less adversarial to the West. But patriotism, at its core, is blinding. It is a volatile mix of personal narcissism, national egotism, manufactured sentimentality and emotionalism. The Armanjani bothers raged with their own desires for freedom, an exalted wish for Iran’s proper place in the world, fantasies of grand Persian heritage and the demands for justice against the regimes outrages against its own citizens.

Amir was the smallest of the pair. A studious sort, he was a bit on the overweight side, with a scruffy dark beard, thick curly hair and soft green Oriental eyes. He was a genius with computers, at least as much s the kid from a working class family could be, quite unlike the older Sayed, who was clean cut, self-confident, mechanically gifted and good with girls. Sayed looked after his excitable younger brother as best he could. It was that deep and unwavering relationship that bonded them so fully to the movement, and carried them unquestioning and unwavering to their mission.

They were from a good family. Their father taught economics at Azad University, dabbling a bit in politics as he neared retirement. He’d run on the reformist ticket for a parliamentary seat, losing to a more conservative candidate, who exploited his son’s “extremist” activities. Despite his own progressive views, he and the boys would erupt in blistering arguments over politics, religion and the regime. Their mother, a well-respected Gynecologist, was far more tolerant, always managing to diffuse each fight in favor of the fact that they were a family, which was the most important thing. It was less the substance of her words than the love and pleading in her pretty face that broke the hearts of all three men, and led them to understand they were carrying it all too far. That was how it was until the June riots, when everything changed. They moved out of the house, considering themselves more than protesters, but rather combatants in a war.

The brothers had given everything to the opposition, and were prepared to sacrifice everything, if necessary. Amir was on the street on that steamy June day in 2009 when an Iranian police bullet found a pretty young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan. As she bled to death before the world, her stormy and pleading eyes finding a nearby camera man, there could be no doubt this was absolute murder. He vowed at that moment, to fight the regime with his last breath. Sayed would not betray his brother, and vowed to remain at his side even at the cost of his own life.

Night climbed like a demon from the city, pulling itself from the umber shadows where it coward by day to meet the lavender sunset. Tehran’s ambient pollution, the burden of eight million souls and Mehrabad Airport all but shrouded the Alborz Mountains, rising behind the city, from view. Even here in Zafaraniya, among the wealthy homes, stylish boutiques and thoughtful parks, the city’s pollution was unrelenting. To the east, rush hour traffic along the Medarres Highway was only just beginning to abate. The opposing lines of pale headlights and scarlet tail lights appeared as through a dingy gray fog. It came as a cacophony of light and sound that blurred together, like shapes and colors blurred of form a reality upon an Impressionist’s canvas. There was a chill to the air, and a scattering of the brightest stars overhead.

There was a danger within that scene. The Iranian authorities hunted opposition activists relentlessly, calling them a fifth column working in concert with Western governments to weaken the Republic. The Iranian government shut down the internet when it suited them, blocked and interrupted networking sites, monitored cell phones and created false links to trap or harass the opposition. All of this to little effect until two US helicopters crashed in the desert and the specter of immediate war all but eradicated the opposition in favor of paranoiac nationalism. But overt State censorship is by its very nature self-defeating, and fully at odds with individual human nature, that is unless an individual can be tricked or cajoled or pressured into self-censorship. Freedom is best suppressed when suppressed by one’s own heart and mind.

The message had come only a short time before. ”Inshallah,” God Willing, was all the text message said, from their unknown contact. It came to Amir’s phone as he was buying bread at a neighborhood market. He looked at it oddly for a long fluid moment before hurrying down the street to the third floor one-room apartment he and Sayed had rented since being approached for this mission almost a year before, while the government’s crackdown was still uncoordinated and chaotic. An acquaintance from the University approached them with a promise that they would play a historic part in bringing down the regime and bringing true democracy to Iran. The bothers accepted immediately despite the dangers and within a month had begun training at a safe house very near the spot Neda was killed.

The brothers only knew their part of the plan. They had no clue to the broader scheme. Not that it would have mattered. Not that it would have mattered that their action would bring the country to the brink of war, and perhaps beyond. The costs in blood and lives was inconsequential, as once they resigned their own lives to fate everyone else’s life was negotiable as well.

Amir hurried down the street, and had just reached the flat when two Mercedes police vans rounded the corner. He dove inside and sprinted up the stairs as they screeched to a halt in front of the flat. The rear doors of the vans burst open, disgorging a dozen heavily armed VEVAK commandoes in full battle armor. They stormed into the building, charging up the stairs, tipped by an anonymous source that two would-be terrorists were plotting an attack.

Sayed was at the window, smoking a cigarette, his thoughts lost somewhere among the hazy lights of the city, when Amir burst through the door. The stark and nearly empty room, lit by a single bare light, made him appear forlorn and tragic somehow. He turned, startled at the sound, framed by the window and the city. Amir was holding the phone, fighting for breath, fighting for a clear thought. Sayed knew immediately and leapt to his feet. Amir was already scooping up the laptop from the kitchen counter.

“The Police,” he managed somehow, to his dumbstruck and frozen brother. Amir already had the laptop open and had pressed the power button. There was a connection cable on the counter. Amir pushed the flat end into the USB port on the side of the computer and looked again to Sayed, still staring at him.

“They’re coming,” Amir snapped. “Get the fucking gun!”

There was a grenade in the cupboard. Amir stuffed it in his pocket and followed Sayed into the hall. Two commandoes appeared at the end of the hall. Sayed chased them back with two poorly aimed shots and followed Amir up to the roof.

“Send the signal!” Sayed cried. Amir was already in the farthest corner of the roof, on his knees behind a metal vent. His handsome young face was awash in the pale blue-white glow of the laptop’s thin screen. His fingers weren’t working properly. Fear and excitement made them do dumb things that be instead blamed on the computer.

“Not taking my fucking password!”

Near the door Sayed could hear the VEVAK commandoes on the landing below. Chambering a round in the Iranian-made Zoaf pistol, he threw open the door and emptied the clip into the stairwell, turning his head away as he fired. With the last round he shoved the door closed and dropped to his belly as the anticipated storm of AK round chopped through the wooden door. Showered with splinters and bits of wood, Sayed dropped the empty clip and immediately shoved his last full clip into the handle. There was no chance for escape, and no illusion of it any longer. The brothers would die upon that roof. No it was simply a matter of revenge for Sayed and Amir.

“Sayed!”

“Hold them back!”

Amir took a breath and tapped in the eight letter password one last time, this time getting it right. A single small box appeared that said simply:

LAUNCH PROGRAM
YES. NO. CANCEL

Without hesitation Amir slid the cursor over and clicked YES. Behind him the VEVAK fire tore the door from its hinges and hammered it to one side. It was all Sayed could do to roll clear. He came up a few feet away, already aiming the pistol at the door. He looked to his brother, who gave a thumbs up without looking, his interest fully into the task at hand.

Amir thought he might scream at how slow the upload was. Time was almost at an end, at least for him and Sayed. That much he was certain of. He could only pray that this would begin the end of the regime as well, and heralding the start of a new and democratic Iran. The gunfire was deafening and close now, as his brother exchanged point blank fire with the VEVAK.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE

The screen read, with a single command box.

EXECUTE

Amir clicked the box and looked to Sayed. He drew a grenade from his pocket and slid a finger through the firing pin. Sayed, down to his final bullets, realized there was little need to fight any longer. He stood and took aim with his final shots. They went high as a commando stepped into the open and fired a burst from the shoulder. Hot AK rounds stitched a line from Sayed’s hip, shattering his pelvis, across his body, eviscerating him in a spray of blood and gore. Amir spun around, independent of his legs, his final vision of the lights of Tehran and the mountains beyond.

The commandoes were through the door now and already firing at Amir. He screamed as Sayed was cut down. His cry carried a mixture of anguish and bottomless hate. He was still crying as he pulled the pin on the grenade and held it in his lap. Suddenly one of the VEVAK commandoes was over him, leveling a weapon. The man’s eyes went wide with terror seeing the grenade in Amir’s hand. It was the last thing he would see as it went off an instant later.

The American President feared another Sarajevo 1914, in which a peasant boy stepped from a crowd, a seemingly random act. But there was nothing random on that June day and nothing random about the death of the two brothers on that Tehran rooftop.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-six

2010-07-20T20:02:00.000-05:00

The wind had come up with a vengeance. It howled off the lake, driven beneath deepening clouds, whipping leaves and branches against the two men crouched in the brush opposite the small house on Grand Island. Their MP-4 Assault rifles covered the small white house, ready as the third man returned from reconnoitering the seemingly deserted place. He dipped back into the brush beside his comrades and gave a satisfied grin. The men wore tan canvas clothing, camouflage hunting pants, black gloves and dark ski caps, nothing that would distinguish them from the weekend hunters that flocked to the area each autumn, except these men were not hunting deer.

They relied fully upon the good government training of their former military careers. There was, however, a fundamental difference. There was a vast philosophical difference between the military and the business of war. Not that the former could not be perverted, if wielded imprudently, but among the ranks of paid for soldiers, in which finance not freedom was paramount, military discipline became blunted. Camaraderie was not expressed beneath a flag and history and shared community, but through something that needed to be invented and manufactured, and which at its very core was corrupted by money and greed.

“He’s inside,” said the third man, in hushed tones. “He’s waiting in the front room, set up on the floor in the north east corner. He’s prone behind a leather chair with a blanket over him. Looks like he’s got a twelve gauge with a pretty narrow kill zone. I’ll breach the back door and throw a flash bang. You two enter the front door and take him out. Clear?”

The two men nodded and waited for their comrade to cross to the side of the house. As he moved cautiously around to the back they slipped across the yard to the front step. Through a rip in a window shade they could see the figure on the floor. The head and shoulders were hidden from view behind the brown leather chair. The shotgun barrel extended out from the chair, the twin barrels propped upon a hand full of stacked books. The figure’s short legs extended along the floor in a pair of faded brown corduroy slacks, protruding from beneath a thin black and red checkered fleece throw, where they ending in a pair of big rubber galoshes.

Upon closer inspection something about the figure just wasn’t right. It took a moment to sink in for the two men. The galoshes on one foot were cocked at an unnatural angle. The toe of the other was bent under the rubber boot in such a way that the toes would have to have been broken completely. The arch of the figure’s back was far too severe. It was then they noticed the gas canisters near the fireplace, the nozzles opened completely.

“Smell gas?” one of the men breathed in deeply, catching just a whiff of the sickly sweet aroma of propane gas.

They shared a fatal glance and realized they were absolutely helpless. They had been led into a trap and had taken the bait fully. At that moment the man at the rear door slammed through the door, flinging a flash bang grenade into the house in the very same motion. It was barely out of his hand, momentum still carrying him across the small kitchen when he too smelled the gas. It was too late. The grenade exploded, and with it the house, disintegrating in a massive fireball. It thundered across the bay and turned heads five miles away.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-five

2010-07-20T19:56:00.000-05:00

A mile and half to the Southeast, as the crow flies, lays the little town of Munising. Wrapped around the end of the bay, the town was hardly more than a smudge of pale color against the forested hills of the Hiawatha National Forest. State Road 28 cut a pathway along the coast from Marquette through the town, running east towards Mackinac and Saute St. Marie. Hundreds of miles of unrelenting wilderness separated the town from those destinations. Twenty-eight ran past the navigator restaurant, a pleasant little diner overlooking the bay and Grand Island beyond.

Molly Karaman and her partner had left Washington during the night, flying into Green Bay on a chartered American Airlines flight. It took the better part of four hours to reach Munising. As they found a table looking out across the bay neither agent took much note of the motor boat bumping and bouncing towards the island.

Molly’s partner was a rookie named Charlie Moon, a full blooded Chippewa native from Duluth. He was an energetic sort, tall and powerfully built, with short black hair and exotic green eyes. Moon had graduated from Annapolis, doing a tour in Iraq in 2002 before joining the FBI. Molly didn’t look upon him as rookie. She knew only too well from her time in the Mideast what he had gone through, and knew he was more experienced, and better prepared for a fight than half the more senior agents in the Bureau. He was competent and bright, and she was happy to have him along.

Molly opened her laptop and turned it as an old waitress limped over with pot of coffee and a pair of menus tucked under one arm. Her white orthopedic shoes squeaked slightly along the tiled floor, in an odd rhythm to her limp. A pen was tucked behind one ear, and half covered behind shoulder length gray hair, which was more akin to a dry tumbleweed than a hairstyle. But she had a warm sincere smile, and Molly was instantly endeared to, as if she was long lost relation.

“Get you kids some coffee?” she asked, already reaching for Charlie’s cup. It was turned upside down on the saucer. She turned it over and filled the cup with the strong steaming brown liquid. As she reached for Molly’s cup the waitress happened to notice the Federal badge on her belt.

“Say, how many of you folks they got up here?”

“Sorry?” said Molly, turning from the computer screen.

“Federal agents and such?” the waitress repeated.

“Why do you ask?” said Moon.

The old waitress shrugged, and laid the menus down on the table. “Half dozen fellas in here yesterday. Said they were up here to fish, but I watched ‘em leave. They were parked over there, just down the hill, with all this military type stuff in the back.”

“Lot’s of militia and survivalists up in these parts,” Charlie observed, while subtly pressing the issue a bit.

“Naw,” she said. “They were talking about that fella from Marquette. I heard some, but they shut up real quick when I came over to take their order.”

“Stood out that much, huh?” Molly asked.

The waitress laughed. “Get a lot of characters come in here, but not many that pay with a corporate credit card. Worst part is, they ate a ton and had me running for this and that, which don’t fly so good with this bad hip. And then, don’t ya know, they didn’t even tip!”

“Maybe you still have a copy of that receipt?” asked Molly.

“Think I just might.”

The waitress returned a minute later with a carbon copy of the receipt. As Molly and Charlie looked it over carefully the waitress explained she didn’t normally run carbon imprints of credit cards like folks used to once upon a time, but she didn’t much like those guys and thought it prudent to be on the safe side, just in case the card came up stolen. Molly held her blackberry over the receipt and snapped a couple of pictures before handing the receipt back. The company name at the top of the receipt was light and hard to read, still Molly could make out the letters well enough. It read: FIRSTTHRUST, INC.

“I was right, wasn’tI” said the waitress. “Something wasn’t right about those guys!”

“Molly smiled sympathetically. “For one, I waited tables in college, and I hate people who don’t tip.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-four

2010-07-16T13:56:00.001-05:00

“Okay, you guys,” Doug told the girls, “do you remember that night we went hiking on the other side of the island a couple years ago and that storm came up?”

“It totally poured,” said Megan. They were standing in the woods just behind the house. The roar of a motor boat sounded, coming across from the mainland. It was interrupted by the whumpf-whump-whumpf as the boat bounced heavily over growing wave tops. The wind built steadily, sending showers of gold and red leaves. Doug was running out of time. His only concern now was for the girls.

“We took shelter in that old abandoned inn?” Dana recalled.

“Out by Murray Bay,” said Doug.
“By that old cemetery in the woods, right?” Megan asked.

“Do you guys think you could find it?”

“Alone?”

“Men are coming and I have to try and stop them or you girls won’t be safe.” Doug lifted a nap sack with cash, canned food, water, matches, a big camping knife and a rolled up blanket. “If I am not there in the morning you two are to keep going to the old lighthouse. The guy who lives there will call the police. Tell them who you are, and give them this card.”

Doug pulled Molly’s card from his pocket and handed it to Megan.

“Dad, what do you mean if you…?”

“Listen to me,” he said quite seriously. “Who knows what could happen, but no matter what we have to have a back up plane, right?” The girls nodded solemnly. “Keep to the woods as much as you can. Don’t let anyone see you.” He hugged them both, and searched their frightened eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

Doug watched them go, his heart leaving with them. When they were out of sight he started for the house. He could hear the boat’s powerful motor change in pitch as it slowed into Grand Island’s only public pier. Doug had fifteen or twenty minutes at best to get ready. He prayed it was enough time. At the back door he glanced at the woods one last time and prayed to see his girls again. Failing that, he prayed for their safety.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-three

2010-07-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

The President had hardly slept all night. A couple of fifteen minute naps and ample amounts of bitter black coffee had helped him keep abreast of the rapidly changing events in the Gulf. He was standing at the window of the Oval Office. His striped blue neck tie lay across the big leather chair behind his desk. He was in a white shirt, still buttoned to the top button. The sleeves were rolled up along his forearms. A fine layer of sweat spread across the back of his neck, lightly staining the collar of the shirt. His shoulders were hunched against the ample tension growing there.

Bright morning light poured through the windows and long white curtains, warming his face. Rush hour traffic built steadily along Pennsylvania Avenue. Out beyond the crisp green lawn, just outside the wrought-iron fence, the National Press was lined up and preparing for the morning news shows.The President folded his arms tightly and sighed.
Behind him advisers, cabinet members and joint chiefs rustled notes, scoured intelligence reports, feverishly texted on Blackberries or hushed through phone calls. The President turned from the window, cleared his throat and stifled a cough.

“Ready?” he said. “Let’s get started.”

Everyone took their places in chairs arranged in a semi circle before the grand fireplace, beneath a fatherly portrait of George Washington. The room was bright and comfortable. A fresh bouquet of red and yellow flowers had already been arranged upon a small coffee table. The President and Vice President sat side by side with their backs to the fire. As he looked around the room the President noted that if the meeting in the situation the night before was severe, this was grim. Major General Keil was as tense as a caged animal, only feigning at civility, which was exactly what the President would have expected from his chief warrior. Keil wasn’t advocating invasion, at least not as vociferously as he was the night before. Neither Ambassador Spurlock nor Secretary Burger had slept at all overnight, and look exhausted. General Bernaski was tense and statuesque, his blue Air Force uniform perfect as always, one leg crossed over the other. His posture seemed strained, as if he might tip back and start snoring at any moment. George Osborne, the NSA, was calm and intense, and the only man in the room who appeared to have gotten a decent night’s sleep.

Overnight the Iranians still had not displayed their prisoners to the Press. Most were still scattered around the country. There had been limited information from official sources. Al Jazeera looped poor quality video of wreckage, broken and charred bodies, captured weapons and goat herders with a tail fin. The Pentagon had surreptitiously released to the networks the names of several of the soldiers from the lost choppers. Interviews and appeals from the anguished families hit the air on CNN International in Europe and Africa for the evening news. The war of public opinion was already well under way.

“We need to take this away from the Iranians and the Muslim World,” said the President, “and take control. And I mean really in control. We don’t want another Sarajevo 1914 getting away from us.”

“Serbian national mud,” said Osborne.

“Sorry?’ the Vice President leaned forward as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Keil, who had spent time in Bosnia prior to the NATO action in Ninety-five was smiling broadly.

“General Putnik,” said Keil, taking a sip of water. “My strategy is to place between my enemy and her impediments, Serbian national mud.”
“Precisely,” said Osborne.
“Refresh my memory,” said Secretary Burger. “My knowledge of Balkan history isn’t quite so keen.”

Keil deferred to Osborne with a nod. “The Serbs Knew they couldn’t take on the Austro-Hungarian Army in a conventional war. Half of Putnik’s army had quit and went back to their fields. His last option was to exploit terrain unfamiliar to his enemy: Serbian national mud.”

“Forgive me,” Ambassador Spurlock, interrupted, “but isn’t that a lesson into rushing into war? If memory serves, from the Sarajevo murders to the ultimatum, to the invasion was a very short amount of time.”

The President listened to all this carefully, weighing everything that was being discussed. He would rein in the discussion if it strayed too far, but for now he found it quite instructive.

Osborne nodded. “There was a long history of tensions between Serbia and Austria, and every more between Germany and Serbia’s patron, Russia, which was making great strides to industrialize and extend their influence into the Balkans. After the Archduke’s murder in Sarajevo the Germans, fearing some so-called pan-Slavism in Europe, pressed the Austrians into giving Serbia a 10 point ultimatum.”

“Interesting,” said Keil, “the Serbs agreed to nine of the ten. The final point called for Austrian officials to catch and prosecute conspirators on Serbian territory, a violation of their national sovereignty.”

“The tenth point,” said Osborne, “the Serbs were willing to put up to international arbitration.”

“But the ultimatum was unconditional,” Keil continued. Osborne nodded in agreement. “If any part of it was rejected, for any reason, the Germans and Austrians considered it a flat out rejection.”

“And Austria invaded,” said the President.

“They invaded,” said Keil.

“But the Serbs lost the war on the battlefield,” Burger observed.

“But they won it in the peace,” Osborne replied.

“We’re talking as if we had decided on war,” the Vice President interjected.

Bernaski shrugged. “We have to be unequivocal with Iran and our allies that war is an absolute option.”

The president paused a moment to sum up. “I think the key here that we don’t get trapped into an option, and that the decision of whether or not to go to war is ours alone, and their options grow more limited by the moment…”

But events have a will all their own. The instant an event is transformed from possibility to history depends as much as the unrelenting tide of humanity as by the hubris of men who believe history will succumb to their will in moments when it rises as a storm.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-two

2010-07-14T17:07:00.000-05:00

CLASSIFIED REPORT:
…a five year plan from 2010 through 2015 that intends to make Iran the preeminent regional power. A multi-faceted effort by the Iranians is already underway to strengthen and broaden regional and international relations, a critical aim of the so-called Five year Plan. The Iranians are aggressively strengthening their military’s deterrent capabilities, as well as expanding offensive capabilities.

This effort could be controlled by a policy of containment and through continuing support for a growing internal opposition. The assessment of this report indicates that time favors the opposition over the current government. It also cautions against a direct attack against the religious ruling authority to prevent offending moderate Iranians who could eventually support the opposition against the political regime. A continued effort must be made to support and strengthen moderates among the religious ruling authority.

The Iranian’s have no illusions about winning a conventional war against the United States and her allies. If threatened or attack they will fight war of attrition and/or terrorism. Through embassies and internationally protected diplomatic channels they have built a substantial global network throughout the West capable of sowing substantial damage in a protracted asymmetric warfare strategy. Iran’s substantial ideological, financial and material support for such groups as Hezbollah is part of that international network. Although it is beyond the scope of this report, the assessment of the West’s ability to prevent such attacks from occurring would be a failure. Though a number of these cells are currently under limited surveillance the resources available to stop multiple simultaneous attacks in progress would meet with only limited success. In that regard, it must be said that Iran would not activate these cells unless faced with an active attack against its sovereignty. Bus stations, shopping malls, airports, sporting events, and any place Americans gather in numbers would be considered targets of choice. In a country of three hundred million it would be impossible to prevent possibly very substantial civilian casualties. An assessment of potential casualty figures, should 10% of the cells reach their targets, could reasonably exceed…

Doug woke with a start, the shotgun almost spilling from his lap. He sat forward and wiped a cold clammy sweat from his face, wincing when he brushed across the gash at his temple. The pain had faded, retreating to the area immediately around the gash. It was deep enough that most any movement of his face, touching his nose, blinking, raising his eye brows brought a wave of needle sharp pain. It was enough to stifle a yawn, drawing instead a teeth-gritting groan.

The girls were still asleep, dressed in the clothes they had worn from the house. Dana was turned to one side. She was covered protectively by her big sister’s arm. There was a big sliver butcher knife on the end table beside the sofa bed where the girls swept. Doug hadn’t noticed it the night before. He wondered if Megan had placed there and he had missed as he tucked them in, or if Megan got up to get it during the night.

The fire had gone out, and the morning cold had crept into the house. The wind had come up as well, rushing across the bay from the mainland. It whistled through gaps in the old windows and pushed branches noisily against the house. Waves thumped against the bank, joined in the constant soft chorus from the lake.

Doug went into the kitchen hoping to find a bit of coffee before getting some wood for the fire. He set the shotgun beside the door and stretched an uncomfortable sleep from his body. Doug checked the cupboards, but could only find canned goods, pancake mix and a couple of cans of soda. Under the sink was a bottle of propane, matches and another box of shotgun shells. Doug removed a couple of extra shells and slipped them into his pocket.

It was bright and clear when he stepped outside. An early golden sunlight painted the small birch trees along the shore line. Waves splashed against the island, sending up fat white sprays of water. Doug rubbed the sleep from his eyes and bent to gather up several pieces of firewood from the pile beside the house. That’s when he noticed the two black Suburbans parked near the pier on the mainland.

He ducked quickly out of sight and slippeded back inside the house. There were a pair of old binoculars on top of the refrigerator. Doug snuck past the sleeping girls to the front window and pulled aside the shade. He kept back from the window, poking his head out and lifting the binoculars to his eyes, sweeping the far shore as best he could.

He counted eight men in all. Several were armed with pistols strapped to their thighs. Two of the men hovered near the top of the road. They cradled military-style automatic weapons. Through a gap in the trees Doug could see that a third Suburban blocked the entrance from the highway. One man strode slowly along the beach, a pistol held against his leg. He was searching the bank carefully, while the others tore apart the inside of Jane’s Honda. They looked military, with severe haircuts, but with the opulence and arrogant swagger of military contractors. Whoever they were, Doug had no illusions about their intentions.

It was quite certain that they weren’t law enforcement. The passenger-side window of the car had been smashed. The trunk was open as well. The contents, tools, a blanket, camping stuff and an old bag of recycled magazines and news papers were strewn across the ground. There was no careful collection of evidence. These men were hunters, and Doug was their prey. His heart raced haphazardly, the chill of fear and dread washing through his body. It was a nauseous feeling. He glanced back at the girls, as if renewing his resolve for the fight to come, then back to the window.

The man on the beach bent, peering into the fallen log where Doug had stashed the cell phone. He called several of the others over, each taking their turn to look while being careful not to touch it in any way.

“Dad?” It was Dana. She was still dressed, standing in her stocking feet on the cold floor. Her blue ski jacket was undone, but pulled tight around her.

Dad, it’s cold,” she complained, being careful not to disturb her sleeping sister.

“I know, honey,” Doug replied.

Doug turned back across the channel. The men stood along the beach looking back across t the island. It would be a relatively simple process of elimination to deduce where Doug and the girls were hiding. The lake was choppy, boiling to small white caps. Not enough to prevent anyone who truly wished from crossing to the island. And these men would come. Doug knew they’d come.

The Big Blue Sky: Thirty-one

2010-07-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

The survivors of the failed rescue mission, fearing annihilation if they continued fighting, had surrendered to the advancing Iranian army. Over the next twenty-four hours they would suffer the obligatory abuse of disgraced combatants; isolation, delayed medical care, little food or water, humiliation, summary beatings, sleep deprivation and mock executions. Their training into abuse and deprivation would help them to an extent. In that training there was always the promise that the nightmare would end, and that the abusers were comrades who would not cross certain lines. There would be no ultimate line here, but the line of death. Nothing could prepare a man for the prospect that the freedoms he had long enjoyed and defended were gone, and that he might never see home or family again.

The prisoners were separated almost immediately. The wounded were moved to the Baghiyyatollah al-Azam military hospital in Tehran. The others were scattered around the country to prevent any attempt at rescue by the Americans. Eventually all the captives would be moved to various locations around the Iranian capitol. There they would be kept in different locations throughout the city, and brought together where they could be paraded and humiliated before the World’s Press. There was no hint of the terrible time bomb each of them carried. There was no indication that they were as much pawns as guinea pigs for a new kind of war. For now they would be trophies for the Iranians, as proof of America’s disregard for the sovereignty of dissident nations.

There would be little point to the exercise, except some sad assertion by the Iranians of emasculated power. Grainy washed-out images of prisoners in white jumpsuits eating at a prison table in a window-less room, or seated together along a wall beneath artificial light all but erasing their captors abuse, would be shown around the world. The images would do nothing to change hearts in the West. Those in the Muslim world that harbored a bias against the West would cheer Iran’s David and Goliath defiance. Others in the Muslim world, who saw Iran as an ideological enemy almost as loathsome as America, would be searching for angles.

In Washington, the American President charted a course across the impossibly complex Chess match of International diplomacy and one-upmanship. In that game history could be changed as easily by generals and heads of state, as by sudden acts by obscure souls. The Germans and Austrians had learned that lesson only too well in 1914 when a boy of sixteen stepped from a crowd on a Sarajevo street to gun down Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Within months Europe was embroiled in a war that would cost the lives of more than ten million. The president was struggling to learn the lessons of history and to keep a proper perspective. In the days and weeks to come it would take every ounce of discipline he could muster not to take every slight, every diplomatic rebuff, and every act that upped the ante towards war personally.

By contrast, long smoldering anti-Western sentiments in Tehran roared to a conflagration. Decades of contrived paranoia, combined with potent Middle Eastern emotionalism erupted onto the streets the following day. A fear of Western aggression against Iran and Muslims, stoked and inflated by insular clerics, was personified by the bruised and pale faces of the captured Americans. It robbed the opposition of support and resolve, as many rallied to defend the nation. Men flocked to volunteer for militias and civil defense centers by the tens of thousands. The American President was burned in effigy amid hyper-agitated crowds. The Canadian Embassy was sacked, while diplomats and their families were spirited from the country by the Iranian high command.

There were calls for war in Congress and in the Iranian parliament. Another naval task force was ordered into the region, joining the two there already. For the moment cooler heads were prevailing, but peace is a child’s toy and nationalism a child on the verge of a tantrum. The leaders, seeking to thread their way towards peace, were burdened in knowing that prudent preparations for war steadily tipped the scales towards make war an eventuality. Among the American people fears of sleeper cells and impotent frustration rose to join cynical calls for war and retribution. There seemed to be little regard for the ultimate costs and predictable outcome of a war in either country.

Short of all out war, all the Iranians could hope for would be a bargaining position gained from their hostages. It would be a treacherous and dangerous road, risking war and greater isolation for the nominal admiration of peasants and stagnate Islamic states. The United Nations would condemn the taking of hostages, and echo the President’s demand for their unconditional release. No sanctions would be eased. There would be no quid pro quo over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The CIA would quietly agree to stop encouraging Iranian officials to defect-for a time. A couple of spies would be unceremoniously released away from the glare and hype of the Press, and a contract to upgrade Iran’s power grid by a Serbian firm would be allowed after the crisis had abated. In the end, to most of the world, Iran’s reputation as a peasant nation fraudulently asserting itself among responsible developed nations would be confirmed, that is if it did not come to war. With each passing moment the likelihood of war increased dramatically, with some who actively worked to guarantee it would come about.

The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Thirty

2010-07-14T16:42:00.000-05:00

At just under twenty thousand souls, Marquette is a veritable metropolis among the wide and unyielding wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The wilderness gave way to strip malls, fast-food restaurants and motels on the western approaches, where the growing city encroached and pushed back the forest. Front Street rose from this modern assertion against nature’s sovereignty. There the original town still clung to the Superior shore, perched upon hills and bluffs above an open harbor and the massive ore dock below the town.

Doug turned the car onto Front Street, where the businesses and shops were closed up for the night. Two squad cars racing up Main Street. Doug had heard the sirens and slipped into an empty space in front of the old Ironwood Theater. He shut off the lights, ducking out of sight with the girls as the sqauds raced past.

When it was clear Doug pulled back onto the street. He went quickly through the dark and sleeping town. Following the lakeshore, it took the better part of an hour to reach the mainland dock opposite Grand Island. It was just off the road and hidden from view by trees. To the east the first sliver of pale orange daylight fought a curtain of turquoise clouds, silhouetted like some army of giants trudging off to war. It would be daylight in a few hours.

The Island was separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. To one side was Munising bay, and the other side, the open waters of Superior. The lake was like polished obsidian, reflecting a hand full of lights from the island. Grand Iland was as much of a fortress as Doug could hope for. High cliffs and treacherous surfs protected it from three sides. A stalwart but widely dispersed collection of loners and survivalists inhabited the island, each hidden away and isolated by dense primeval forest. This time of year, most folks abandoned the island for the mainland. With Autumn, storms came up sudden and fierce, the combined assault of screaming winds, sudden squalls and thundering waves cutting off the island for days or weeks at a time. Doug could not imagine a better place to hide out.

There was an aluminum skiff nearby, with a single blond-wood oar inside. Doug dragged it to the rocky little beach as the girls piled whatever they could inside. That done, he pulled the creased and faded business card from his pocket and quickly dialed the number into his cell phone. The phone rang twice at the other end. A woman answered her voice groggy and filled with sleep. Doug quickly hung up without a word. He carried the phone over to a hollow log, teetering on the bank above the shore, and placed the phone inside. That done Doug returned to the girls, shoved the boat into the lake and climbed inside.

Doug carefully pushed the oar into the icy cold water, careful not to make any more noise than necessary. Sounds could carry great distances over the lake. Rowing slowly, pushing the oar smoothly into the dark water and pulling back firmly it took a little better than twenty minutes to reach the island. The house was just across a small yard. It was small, with white trim and a small fireplace. A family of tall birch with fiery yellow leaves all but hid the place from view. The owners were old friends who were away for the season. Doug knew the place would be well stocked with food and supplies. Best of all, from here he could see anyone approaching the island from almost anywhere along the mainland coast. There was a shotgun and a hand full of shells in the house, kept to ward off scavenging black bears inhabiting the island. As Doug helped the girls up from the beach he was confident the girls could be safe here, at least for a while.

Doug hauled the boat onto the bank and covered it with branches and an old tarp. Careful to leave nothing behind, he followed the girls up to the house. There was a key hidden beneath a planter beside the back door. It had been weeks since anyone had lived in the place. The house seemed to exhale as Doug shoved the door open with his shoulder, the stale air escaping into the cold clear night. Doug started a fire and pulled out the sofa bed for the girls. He found the shotgun, dropped two shells into the twin barrels, fell back in a soft leather chair beside the girls and fell quickly to sleep with the gun cradled in his lap.

The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Twenty-nine

2010-07-11T15:07:00.000-05:00

When Doug awoke it was still dark. He could hear the girls whispering in the back seat. Doug pulled himself up, feeling weak and momentarily disoriented. He pulled the mirror aside and found the girls looking up at him.

“How long was I out?” he asked, his throat parched and sore. The stabbing pain in his temple had not subsided, but instead was replaced by a nauseous thumping pain.

“Dad, you need to go to a hospital.” Megan slid forward and gingerly ran her fingers across his hair. Dana leaned forward beside her.

“Remember when I was a little girl,” Dana began. “When I fell off the monkey bars and the doctor said I shouldn’t sleep for a day because I might never wake up?”

“Right now,” said Doug, “I’m more concerned about you two.”

Doug turned and explored the girl’s faces with his fingers, as if they were rare and precious works of art. Their expressions were strange. They were calm and committed, and Doug wanted to sweep them into his arms as his heart swelled nearly to bursting from pride.

“Dad, we’re worried about you too.”

In glimpses Doug could make sense of bits and pieces. How they all fit together, and how they related to Fallahi would remain unanswerable for a time. The bigger picture eluded him for now. The best he could figure was that whoever wanted Fallahi dead benefitted from framing Doug for murder. What else would explain why he and the girls weren’t dead already? Doug doubted that whoever was behind the murder believed that Doug would escape before the police arrived. No doubt they would come looking for him now. Doug resolved to be ready for them when that eventuality arose.

“Okay, then,” he turned and started the engine. Doug rolled the window down and let the cold night air bring him around. He groaned and washed his hands across his face, then guided the Honda back onto the muddy road.

They headed south through the forest, and caught Forty-one east. Just outside Marquette he pulled into a drive-thru ATM. Doug emptied the account of fifteen hundred in cash. There was a security camera above the ATM. On the back of a bank slip he hastily scribbled a simple note, and held it up. It read:

I AM INNOCENT

The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Twenty-eight

2010-07-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

The girls were down quickly, dressed in jeans and tennis shoes. Coats and blankets were bundled in their arms. Dana cradled an old Alf stuffed animal that had once been Jane’s. Doug took very little. He had his cell phone, a bank ATM and credit card and a single business card he’d kept since that blustery October day at ground zero. Doug took one last look around the house before ushering the girls out the back door. He paused momentarily to consider the pistol one last time before turning away leaving it behind. No doubt he would be considered a fugitive, but the last thing he wished to be considered was armed and dangerous.

They could hear the sirens approaching, out past the low curve of the two lane road. Doug swung Jane’s silver Honda Civic out of the driveway, spitting gravel. Running without lights, he pushed the gas pedal towards the floor. He could see the flashing blue lights splashed across the dark canyon of tall pine. The girls held each other in the back, watching as the lights faded before being swallowed by the night as Doug raced away in the opposite direction.

He hated to think what this might do to the girls. After all they had been through, it wasn’t right they should suffer this too. He cursed Fallahi and the men who brought their violence into his home. Someone would have to pay for that. But now they were running. They were running for their lives, ripped from the peace and privacy of their mourning. Doug fought to keep his rage from getting the better of him. He gripped the wheel until he felt the blood leave his knuckles and did all he could to keep the girls see that he was all but coming apart inside. He turned onto a muddy old logging road, nearly overgrown with grass. It was all Doug could do to stay focused and not pass out again. That he was being tracked through the deep and dark Michigan forest was simply not a consideration at the moment.

Still, Doug felt safe here. He knew these roads well. He’d hunted these forests as a boy, and hiked them a hundred times with Jane and the girls. This is where he came to escape the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the undeclared Pakistani Civil War and the Intifada in Gaza and the West bank. He knew where the roads softened under bubbling springs and where they were rutted the worst. He knew by heart the twists and sharp turns, where they doubled back, where they ran to dead ends, or where they crossed hidden creeks and cut through all but impassable thickets.

In the back Dana and Megan were quiet. They were smart and level-headed girls. Jane had given them the foundations to become competent women. Doug would have liked to take some credit, but felt he had spent too much time away. They were fully aware of the gravity of the situation, and came to it with a maturity Doug was awe by.

He worried, though. He worried what all this would mean to them. He worried about the scars it might leave. Foremost in his mind was the thought that every mistake he made through all of this would be magnified immeasurably in their young psyches. For now his primary concern was in keeping them safe until he could properly sort this all out. Just how he would accomplish that was still open to debate.

Winning the debate at that moment was his injury, which wasn’t critical, but serious enough that he just wanted to close his eyes and be done with the pain thundering in his head. Since leaving the house Doug was holding onto consciousness by threads. Rounding a narrow bend, limbs and branches scraping the car loudly, and skidding along a muddy decline, Doug could feel that tenuous hold slipping away. He pulled off the road into a small. Grassy clearing, and with the last ounce of strength remaining looked back at the girls.

“Sorry,” he said, “ but I have to pass out for a while.”

The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Twenty-seven

2010-07-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

“Dad! Dad!” It was Megan’s voice.

She was calling to him, but it seemed a thousand miles away. Her voice was hollow and distant, as if he was lying at the bottom of a deep well and covered in water. As he came around Doug would have wished to remain submerged in the dark and emptiness, as suddenly the pain fell upon him like an avalanche. A nasty gash had been opened at his temple. The side of his head was sticky with drying blood that stained the floor beneath him. He would have wished for the brandy induced headache rather than the abusiveness of this new injury.
.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus on Megan’s face. Her hand was on his cheek. Dana was standing over Megan. There was a look of utter terror in their eyes, such as he had never seen before. It helped to bring him around a bit more.

“What, I…”he began, his mind unwilling to form complete thoughts just yet.

“Dad, we called the police.”

“Police?” he repeated the word as if it was a strange language.

Doug started to lift his right hand, but it felt heavy at first. It took a moment, as he turned to one side, to realize there was something heavy there. Doug groaned and rubbed his eyes again, this time finding the pistol in his hand. He looked sharply at the girls, and then turned to the body sprawled upon the sofa.
“Oh my god,” he moaned.

“Dad,” Megan knelt beside him, “he must have attacked you with a gun and you…” she looked back at her sister, who seemed in shock.

“There was a man…” he said confused, looking at the gun and then at Fallahi again.

“What man?”

“You didn’t…?”

“I came down and found you on the floor.”

“And the gun?”

“It was in your hand,” said Dana. Tears began streaming across her cheeks. She wiped them away and hugged herself. Now and again she would glance nervously towards the door.

Doug dropped the weapon and pushed it away, as if it was poison. His mind, such as it was, raced at a dizzying pace, enough that he feared tumbling back into unconsciousness. He looked wildly about the room, then back to Megan.

“You called the police?” he said, alarmed.

“They’re on their way. I’m sorry, it…”

“How long?’

“I don’t know, a minute or two before you came around.” she replied.

Doug searched the air, figuring things. The thoughts came as slow as cold honey. The house was some distance from Marquette under the best of conditions. It was a bit better than a twenty minute ride to town, maybe twenty-five on such a dark and blustery night. But for the occasional State cop cruising by on patrol, it was rare to see the police in these parts.

“Dad, what is going to happen?” Dana teetered at the edge of falling apart.

Doug stood, steadying himself on Megan’s shoulder. His knees threatened to give out completely. He needed a moment. He needed to take stock and figure out exactly what was happening. He noted the gun and Fallahi. Doug was still covered in his blood and body parts. Visions of those final few moments before Fallahi was killed rampaged through his brain like panicked horses; the door, grabbing Fallahi’s arm, stumbling, and Megan at the stairs. He knew instantly. The realization struck him fully in the chest.

“Oh god!” he gasped.
“Dad, what is it?”

“Girls, grab some clothes, coats and blankets, and hurry. We have to go now!”

Dana began to cry, immobilized by the moment. It infected Megan, who was fighting to hold back her emotion. “Tell us what is going on?”

He knelt and held the girls before him. Something in his expression, perhaps a reflection of the gravity of all this brought Dana around. She choked back tears, still he could feel her trembling terribly.

“I’ll explain everything once we get in the car, but right now I need you to grab clothes, blankets, boots, your coats and hats. Don’t bring anything electronic. No computers, MP3s, and absolutely no cell phones.”

“Dad,” said Dana, forcing a deep breath. “Did you kill that man?”

“No, honey,” he said simply. Now go and we’ll all talk in the car.”

“Where are we going?”
“For tonight, Uncle Dan and Aunt Sandy’s cottage on the island.”

He stood and watched them hurry up the stairs. Doug looked back at Fallahi’s body and the gun on the floor. Five minutes. Five minutes was all he had to prepare, but what to take? What would he and the girls need to survive until all of this could be straightened out? Five minutes, that was all he had. Five very short minutes.

The Big Blue Sky: Chapter Two-Twenty-six

2010-07-05T11:40:00.000-05:00

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.

The Big Blue Sky: Twenty-five

2010-07-05T11:14:00.000-05:00

The mood in the White House Press Briefing Room was explosive. This late at night the bleary-eyed reporters, many of whom had already put in a thirteen hour day, squinted against the harsh lights of the windowless room. It was unprecedented that the President would call a Press conference so late. But as developments from the Gulf leaked out steadily there was little doubt as to the subject. Cable news channels picked it up live just after eleven thirty on the east Coast. CBS interrupted David Letterman’s monologue, his usual retinue of devoted fans suddenly staring at an empty presidential podium , a jumble of news cameras and unidentified heads moving back and forth and in and out of focus, as if it was some confused game of musical chairs. They were still milling about and chattering when the president strode unannounced across the plain stage and went directly to the podium without any announcement.

“Just over eight hours ago,” the President began, the reporters caught off guard and quickly scrambling to their seats and camera spots. The President’s expression was as weighted and severe as the moment. At the back of the room the CNN reporter kept talking, some inane nonsense about the rarity of a late night Presidential announcement and missed the first few moments of the speech before being poked in the thigh by a BBC journalist.

“Just over eight hours ago a distress signal was intercepted by one of our ships. That signal contained encrypted information that led Naval personnel to believe they were in fact dealing with a downed American aircraft inside Iran.”

A wave of shock swept through the room, a mixture of gasps and murmurs.

There were heated discussions between the President and his staff prior to calling Press Conference. There were those who thought that the administration should remain quiet and see what hand the Iranians and the republicans would play on this issue. Others believed he should be strong and unwavering, giving the Iranians what amounted to an ultimatum. The opinions were varied and loud, but it was the President’s that won in the end.

The Press and opposition would get the news soon enough and spin or misconstrue the situation to, what he believed would be, a dangerous degree. Moreover the Iranians were awakening and surely would have their own spin on the situation, and would have nearly a day’s lead on the story in Asia and Europe. In the President’s opinion the situation depended upon who got out first and loudest, and he wasn’t about to be second best here. He continued.

“Subsequent information corroborated that conclusion and a decision was made to send in a rescue team. All indications are that Iranian forces ambushed that rescue mission with significant loss of American life.”

The room fell silent. ABC and NBC broke into regular programming a moment later.

“I have subsequently placed all our forces throughout the region on the highest alert. Details remain sketchy, but there have been survivors and they are currently in Iranian custody…”

“Are you considering military action?” someone yelled.

“I can tell you that all options are on the table,” said the President.

“Are any military operations under way?” cried another reporter, a woman from MSNBC.

The President Ignored the question. “We expect the Iranian authorities will adhere to the International rule of law, especially in light that this was in fact a rescue mission, and not a military incursion. We have already made that clear through diplomatic channels directly to the Iranian government…”

“Have you spoken with President Ahmadinejad?”

“We are already using all means at our disposal for the safe and immediate return of our personnel. The full power of the United States military and the Federal government has been mobilized to bring a speedy resolution to this manner, and return our people safely to their families. Thank you.

The room erupted into an uproar as a deafening crescendo of questions chased the President as he strode quickly from the podium.

“Is the US and Iran currently in a state of war?” shouted the man from FOX.

“What about the downed pilot?” asked reporter from the Washington Post. But without acknowledging a single person the President left the stage and was instantly engulfed and ushered away by a phalanx of aides and Secret Service.

The Big Blu Sky-Twenty-four

2010-07-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

They stood beside the Bosporus, not far from Molly’s hotel. The lights from the Asia side blinked like so many stars in the building humidity, crowded upon the hillside and silhouetted against the curtain of black night. To the west a storm was growing, tendrils of bright gold and blue lightening reaching across towering thunderheads. The thunderheads built until the jet stream tore away the tops in ghost-white shrouds. The hum and chatter of the living city was silenced in gusts that drew snow-white tassels upon the black waters of the channel. Molly and Doug were leaning on a rail. She felt electric at the warmth of Doug’s arm so close to hers.

She was thinking that it would be nice if Doug kissed her, though she would never have dared to utter such a thought out loud. He was so attractive and interesting, and so married, and Molly wondered if she could ever be the “other” woman. Still, there was a connection that was impossible to deny. Whether or not she would act on that attraction was still an open question.

He was away in thought. Molly looked up at him and noted that far away expression. It was as if he was struggling with something.

“Care to share, Doug?”

He shook the thought away.

“Thinking about Shosa and Fallahi. On some levels I can understand the Iranians positions and motivations, but then they do all this stupid shit that erases any sympathy for their position.”

“The nuclear thing?”

“Truth of it is, a few technologically advanced nations are wrong to prevent new technologies from reaching less advanced nations. Its quite impossible really. It would be akin to banning the piston engine because they might produce tanks instead of automobiles.”

“Don’t you think that the technologies that provide weapons of mass destruction to rogue or irresponsible states is different?”

"Maybe."

"So what is Fallahi's part in all this?"

“Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their embassies provide a support network for international cells funneling money, messages, supplies, weapons.”

“Like the CIA.”

“You argue like a lawyer,” he smiled.

“Got my law degree at John Marshall.”

“"I'll concede that there’s a fundamental difference. The Iranian government is loaded with former Revolutionary Guard commanders; Minister of Energy, Welfare and Social Security, Housing and Urban development, Labor and Social Affairs. The Minister of Education headed the Secret Police in Tehran at one point.”

A virtual military junta,” Molly observed.

“Exactly.”

“And Fallahi?”

“Listen, I have no illusions about Fallahi.” Doug folded his arms and leaned back against the rail.

“What is that relationship, if you don’t mind me asking?” she said.

“Not asking as a federal Agent?”

Molly smiled. “Off the record.”

He breathed deeply. “We use one another, and there is an implied respect in that.”

"But you don't completely trust him?"

“Two Years ago three men murdered an Iranian-Kurdish dissenter in Lindsborg, Sweden. Reportedly Fallahi was in Sweden at the time and closely matches the description of one of the assassins.”

“Anyway,” he stood to face her. “Enough of politics.”

In flashes on distant lightening, the city lights sparkling in her eyes, Doug was taken by her dark beauty. The wind tugged a lock of hair across her cheek, and it was all he could do not to push it away. He knew too well where that could lead, but still the temptation remained. He imagined kissing her soft lips, drawing her into his arms. It had been so long since he had felt a woman. He thought of Jane, struggling with cancer and felt so ashamed simply for the thought, but Molly was here and so beautiful.

“Want to come up for a bit?” she asked, her eyes like deep dark beckoning pools. He looked away, towards Asia. He smiled and, when he felt a bit stronger, found her eyes once more.

“Maybe its best that I just say goodnight.”

The Big Blue Sky: Twenty-three

2010-07-02T16:15:00.001-05:00

“Don’t let this tool for the American government fill your head with propaganda and lies!” The man smiled cordially, as if it was simply a joke, though not entirely. His accent was clearly Middle Eastern, though he could have passed easily at a glance for a Caucasian on any small town street in America. His hand fell warmly upon Doug’s shoulder. Doug looked him up and down and couldn’t contain his reaction.

“Ah, I see the Iranian delegation to Shosa industries has arrived as inconspicuous as ever.”

“Laugh, my friend,” the Iranian shot back, motioning to Doug’s Soviet get-up, “America will soon join the other failed relics of the Twentieth Century on the junk heap.”

“Molly, may I introduce my favorite Iranian spy, Ahmed Fallahi. Molly is with the federal Government.” Doug offered a thoroughly sarcastic grin and winked. “You two should talk!”

Fallahi was clearly surprised at the introduction, but didn’t miss a beat. “And all along I thought you were just a nice innocent Turkish girl.”

“Turkish by heritage. American by birth,” she replied, as he offered her his hand with a polite bow. “And I am indeed very nice and very innocent.”

Fallahi gave a cocktail party laugh. “You should really keep better company, my dear. Your friend here loves to invent stories for his readers, and for you, it seems. It is far too boring for him that I am simply with the diplomatic service.” He smirked in Doug’s direction. “Not his fault really. The product of America’s shameful education system, I’m afraid.”

“Interesting that a diplomat would be at a party for an arms dealer,” Doug shot back. “Buying or selling these days?”

“There you see,” Fallahi said to Molly. “The American Press, always for drama over substance.”

“I happen to think Doug is an amazing writer,” Molly defended, sipping her drink.

“Oh, I fully agree,” he replied. “Like your Stephen King or Sydney Sheldon; pure fiction!”

“You’re terrible!” said Molly, touching Doug’s arm reassuringly. She let it linger there, only drawing away when it seemed to make him uncomfortable.

Fallahi relented a bit. “You are right. Actually my good friend here is well respected in my country for his depth and fairness, despite the handicap of his nationality.”

“In that regard,” Doug capitalized fully upon the moment, “care to respond to reports that Iran is aiding the Iraqi insurgency?”

Fallahi frowned at the question, and weighed his answer carefully. “All I can say is what I read in the Western papers, and perhaps some rumors, but I think you will also find American soldiers illegally acting within our territory. Your President has invaded countries to either side of us.”

“So reports of armor piercing Improvised Explosives, reportedly made in Iran, and Iranian operatives in Iraq you would consider retaliation or self defense?”

Doug knew he was bating Fallahi, and was please to provoke the tension building in his brow. Molly could see it as well, and recognized the signs of a person who is trapped. She’d see it in interrogations a hundred times. Fallahi pursed his lips, then forced a smile.

“My country has been exceedingly restrained for these illegal incursions, but every tolerance has its limits.”

“And the operatives working with the insurgency?”

“I am only a diplomat, my friend, but we can also have a significant interest on what happens with our neighbors.”

“Clearly Iraq and Afghanistan were problems that needed to be addressed, and after September Eleventh, well...” said Molly.

“”We in Iran were as shocked and disgusted by the attacks as you, Miss Karaman, and we are no friends to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. It is well known that Mister bin Laden is an enemy of the Iranian State. But imagine if China invaded Mexico with an army of occupation. How would America feel for that, uh?”

Molly nearly took the bait. It would have been nothing to unleash a litany of Iranian violations against the International community, as well as numerous other accusations regurgitated by the Press daily. She might have argued from a point of American exceptionalism, that the United States, by fate or providence had become a force for good in the world. Who was Fallahi to Molly really? Her blood warmed steadily towards a boil, until she noticed the smirk on Doug’s face.

“Oh, you two are terrible!”

Fallahi laughed and excused himself. Doug and Molly watched as he made his way to Shosa, who greeted him as if he and Fallahi were old and dear friends.

The Big Blue Sky: Twenty-two

2010-07-01T16:40:00.001-05:00

It was opulence of the sort Molly had never experienced. Set against the city lights on the far shore, the tall and sleek Marmara hotel shone like some modern palace. She paused, climbing from the little red Mercedes taxi, her expression reflecting that awesome first impression.

She was dressed like an early Eighties Punk rocker, in a faded British flag tee-shirt, frilly lace skirt, striped leggings and thrash boots. Her air was purple and neon-green molded and formed with copious amounts of styling gel by an "artist" at By Retro. Molly felt light and young, finding it impossible to contain a smile. Doug climbed out behind her. He was dressed in the same Soviet sailor’s outfit he’d ogled earlier. Molly couldn’t help but laugh as they followed a parade of party goers wearing all manner of absurd costumes.

“Little ironic, don’t you think?’ she remarked. Doormen in long black coats with polished gold buttons held the door, nodding politely.

“What’s that?’

“Didn’t you say we were here to see the future?”

“Indeed.”

“Looking like a couple of refugees from the Eighties.”
It was like a dream inside. Stunning and colorfully embroidered whirling Dervish outfits were framed about the large and elegantly decorated lobby. Sturdy white-marble columns were cooled by moss green oriental carpets and maroon furniture, all beneath a monstrous chandelier.

Twenty stories above Istanbul’s streets the elevator doors opened to a party room so magnificent, so surreal that Molly gasped in amazement, placing a hand over her madly beating heart. Doug, beside her, smiled with delight at her reaction.

“This is amazing,” was all she could think to say.

The servers were all dressed as Charlie Chaplin’s little hobo, in bowler hats, tuxedo jackets, baggy trousers and tramp shoes. Little black mustaches were smudged beneath their noses. Balancing trays crowded with champagne-filled flute glasses on finger tips, they move deftly among the crowd. Molly laughed at the wild and absurd scene before her. Darth Vader had an arm around a harem girl, while two clowns argued finance with Austin Powers and a samurai warrior. At the bar a zombie flirted with a nun. There were cowboys, Indians, Princes, princesses (female and male) hippies, a captain Kirk, a short and pudgy Mister Spock and half a dozen Klingons. Mixed among them were numerous others wearing ornate carnival masks. They wore formal dress and seemed content to keep their identity a mystery.

There was a sign at the entrance. Molly studied it curiously a moment. The words written across the beautiful print of a Fifteenth century Bosnian Bridge, built during the Ottoman, era read:

KICK OFF AND COSTUME BALL
Sponsored by
SHOSA INDUSTRIES:
SECURITY AND DEFENSE CONTRACTORS
“WE’RE THE GUYS RIDING IN WITH THE BIG WHITE HATS…”
Umberto Shosa, Director and Chief Executive Officer

“So who is Umberto S-osa?” Molly asked.

“Sh-osa,” he politely corrected her, pointing to an accent mark above the “s.” He drew her attention to a small man in a perfectly tailored Italian tuxedo making rounds through the crowd. An assistant, two stunning Turkish starlets and a massive Croatian bodyguard surrounded the man. “He’s a rising star in the International arms trade.”

“Legal or illegal?”

“The Hague wanted him for the massacre of a Serbian village during the Civil War. By the time the warrants came down he’d already amassed a fortune dealing arms in Africa. A few well placed bribes, a good PR campaign, a UN official here a couple parliamentary ministers there…13 years ago he was looting villages, now he’s worth an estimated three and a half billion.”

“A lot of money in war.”

“All cash business, if you can separate conscience from the bloody crop your product yields. Do that and you can have all this guilt free.”

A waiter passed. She was a small fair-skinned teenager. Her long blond hair was stuffed almost comically into the bowler hat, and held firm by a matrix of hairpins. The square little mustache under her nose was partially smeared. Doug watched her moving through the crowd and was reminded of his eldest daughter, Megan. He waved to her, scooped away two glasses of pale bubbling champagne and replaced them with a ten Euro note.

“Thank you,” she said in thickly accented English, before disappearing through the crowd before Doug could reply.

He handed her a glass. They touched the rims together. As they did she looked up into his eyes, finding that they so beautifully reflected the lights of the party.

“What are we toasting to?’ she asked, not taking her eyes from his.

“To peace,” he replied, looking away for fear of being swept away by her physical beauty.

Molly looked over at Shosa. “I’ve worked mob cases convicting hit men with better ethics and morality.”

Doug took a long sip of champagne, and suddenly felt guilty for it, knowing that this was all paid for in blood and misery and violence. “If you are wealthy enough and connected enough, there are virtually no laws against waging and supporting warfare around the globe.”

“So what is this party all about?” asked Molly.

“Pure theater,” he said. “But if you were to check passports in this room, I bet you’d find someone representing a side in almost every conflict worldwide, and probably a few characters representing more than one side.”

A man approached, smiling awkwardly, and dressed like an Ottoman sultan, in a gold jacket, proud red turban, white flared trousers that came to the knee and the caricature slippers turned up at the toe. There was something Molly didn't distrust about the man, not in a criminal way, but in a sort of arrogance and cynicism about humanity men deep within the intelligence apparatus of each government holdn It was the consequence of working in the murky depths between the black and white letters of law, and the illusions of apparent morality.

The Big Blue Sky: Twenty-one

2010-06-30T17:36:00.001-05:00

“Where are we going?” asked molly. Doug threw down ten Euros for the Tea and followed Molly out onto the sidewalk.

“We are going to a cocktail party tonight.”

Molly laughed. “I don’t have anything to wear for a cocktail party,” she complained. “And my hair, and, Doug it is impossible…”

“Trust me,” Doug waved down a taxi. “I’ve got it all covered.”

They took the taxi across the Bosporus, leaving the thrusting spires of the Hagia Sophia, old Istanbul and the tree crowded bluffs of Topkapi behind. The Galata Bridge spilled into the haphazard streets of Beyologu, where history and modern commerce met in a sort of semi-controlled chaos. The streets grew as canyons. The brushed Oriental buildings lining those canyons were a patchwork of light and shadow, criss-crossed by flowing banners and bright red Turkish flags swimming in the funneled breeze of Istiklal Caddessi. Deep-set windows threw iridescent light across the deepening shadow of the street. There was meat grilling somewhere, an errant whiff of sweet perfume and the salty taste of the sea. A tram rattled by, parting afternoon shoppers at the fashionable boutiques and cafes lining the boulevard.

Doug led her down an alleyway just off the boulevard, where the sunlight only teased the upper floors of buildings, but left the hidden shops there submerged in the concrete chill and shadow. A short walk along the alleyway, tall golden Oriental letters adorned broad mirrored windows reading:

BY RETRO

“What is this place?”

Doug gave a beaming smile, hardly able to contain his excitement. “A fantasy.”

Inside the air was thick with pungent cigarette smoke, drifting and nebulous among an orgy of colors and shapes and textures. It reminded Molly of the long forgotten, and somewhat neglected attic of an Off Broadway pack rat. Indeed, the air was musty and cool, reminding Molly of an aunt’s root cellar. There were shoes, costumes and cascading fixtures burgeoning with handbags. Shimmering beneath an ancient crystal chandelier were cabinets of vintage sunglasses and eyeglasses, like some hidden treasure trove.

“Oh my god!” Molly gasped, opening her arms and sweeping them through the clothes hung to either side of the crowded isle.

There was just so much packed into the place that at once is seemed claustrophobic and endless; a place Molly could have died to be lost in. She turned to Doug, her eyes as wide and excited as a child’s on Christmas morning.

“How do you know about this place?” she asked. Vintage treasures covered the walls clear to the vaulted ceiling, running the gamut from the elegant to the absurd.

“I come to Istanbul to get away from the tragedy du-jour of the Middle east. Sometimes I come for background.”

“How so?’ Molly swept her hand across racks of garments, cataloguing a dozen different garments and textures with her fingertips.

“This is a metropolis at the center of any number of hotspots, currently and historically. There are Bosnians here, Chechens, Kurds, Iraqis, Palestinians.”

Upon a countertop she cupped her hands and lifted jumbled multi-colored and multi-jeweled necklaces, as if they were water tumbling from the fixture.

“God, this place is amazing!” she said. “So where are we going tonight?’

Doug paused, his attention drawn to a simple fabric mannequin adorned in an old Soviet Naval uniform, complete with white cap and the iconic striped shirt. He smiled and looked up at Molly.

“The future,” he said. “A glimpse of the future.”

The Big Blue Sky: Twenty

2010-06-28T13:47:00.001-05:00

Istanbul, Turkey. June, 2006. Molly shook away the memory of that terrible place, the cold and sadness lingering in her a moment. The images and raw emotions had never completely left her. They never left the nation, instead remained boiling below the national skin, like an abused child's eternal angst, awaiting a spark to set it off. Molly turned her thoughts to better things.

It was one of the few real pleasures of travelling abroad, Molly thought, sitting in the bright and comfortable hotel dining room. European breakfasts were luscious affairs of eggs, fruit, cereals, hearty rolls, yogurts, juicy European sausages, cheeses and fruits. She could have gorged herself at the buffet. It was a temptation to gorge upon everything, but Molly kept to a modest sampling of brie, a fiery Soppressata, spicy red pepper Ajvar-a sort of Balkan and Mediterranean spread , figs and sour slices of Elma, or apple.

The dining room was pristinely kept and cheery, with blond paneled walls and a view to the shaded street beyond. As guests came and went the white clothed tables were briskly cleaned by a staff that was as efficient as any elite military unit. The place was chaotic with Japanese students on a class trip. An Armenian business man gulped down food, anxiously pouring over a report while checking his watch frequently. An elderly German couple looked over a tourist map at another table.

Molly lifted a tiny cup of potent Turkish coffee to her lips, almost shuddering at a bitterness no amount of sugar could abate. Beside her were two Newspapers' the International herald Tribune and The Times. She turned over The Times. Near the bottom of the page was the first part of an article titled: DISPATCH FROM ISTANBUL: BAGHDAD UNDER THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, by Doug Springer. It began as a study between the desperation and dilapidation of Baghdad and the sunny cafes and bustling boutiques of Istanbul. The piece progressed through rare historical perspectives, observations about Christianity, Islam, oil, empire, Communism and Capitalism.

Molly rummaged through her purse until she found the business card Doug had given her in New York. She felt a bit silly for keeping it all this time. The card had outlived most every other business, a picture of David card and several department store credit cards. She drew the cell phone from her pocket and nervously weighed dialing Doug’s number. Her heart pounded crazily as she dialed and lifted the phone to her ear. Molly dialed quickly. It rang several times before he picked up.

“Springer?”

“Hi, um, Doug, my name is Molly, Molly Karaman with…”

“Ground Zero,” he said. “The FBI agent.”

“You remember!” she replied. “Impressive.”

“How did you, where are you calling…”

“It’s a bit crazy, but I’m in Istanbul on a case and I saw that you were here and thought, well…”

“How about lunch?” he said quickly. “Shall we say one-thirty-ish?”

A few hours later Molly was sitting at a sunny sidewalk café, looking along a busy postcard street towards TheE golden Medeival walls of Topkapi Palace. A warm salty breeze off the sea tugged the hair from her shoulders. That warm was tempered nicely by the shade of sturdy maroon umbrellas above the tables of the sidewalk cafe. Puffy white clouds spotted an otherwise pristine cerulean sky. It was all so perfect, as if the day refused to be forgotten.

Molly grew more nervous as the hour approached, as if she was a school girl on a date. She wondered was he still married, her mind drifting away in some silly romantic memory. Molly was still lost in the moment, a smile coming lightly to her that she failed to notice Doug as he strode lazily up the street until he was standing before her.

He was dressed in an embroidered white shirt as loose as the breeze off the sea. His slacks were khaki and neatly pressed. In sandals her hardly looked the part of a war correspondent. His hair was cut almost severely short, now brushed with a distinguishing hint of silver. As he drew the inexpensive glasses from his nose Doug’s eyes maintained a cautious view of the street. He smiled warmly as she rose to meet him.

“Doug?” she struggled to reconcile his memory after so many years.

“Agent Karaman,” Doug shook her hand cordially.

“Call me Molly.”

“Okay, Molly,” his eyes moved along the busy avenue again, as though it held a thousand and one dangers. “What do you say we grab a table inside?”
Though she loved the view Molly conceded readily and was already gathering her purse and things from the table. “Sure.”

They found a corner table inside the tiny storefront café. It was intimate and comfortable, the midday sun falling oblique through intricate white-lace curtains. In the center of the table two fat red carnations diverged from one another from narrow blue tulip vase. There was a counter along the back wall where lean waiters in clean beige shirts and black slacks readied drinks and various coffees. The air was filled with the scent of warm fresh bread and meats grilling in the tiny kitchen out back. A ceiling fan turned slowly above a hand full of small tables.

“Hope this is all right,” said John, politely out Molly’s seat. “Makes me nervous being on a busy street unless I can watch everything.” He smiled painfully. “Too many years covering the Middle East.”

“I’ve read some of you articles about the war.”

Doug started to speak. He paused, leaned back in his chair and smiled. There was definitely an attraction. Physical beauty aside, Doug found himself drawn to her. It was worth a mild flirtation, Doug thought, as long as he was careful to keep it just that.

“When you called it took me a second...”

A waiter arrived, interrupting him. Molly swept a lock of hair behind one ear and took the opportunity to look over a small green drink card, helping her to conceal a smile. They each ordered a tea. Molly waited for the waiter to leave.

“You know, I found your card and I remembered what you said that day at Ground Zero.”

“Good memory,” he replied. “Better than mine.”

“Know what it was.” Molly paused when the waiter returned with their drinks. “In my profession everything becomes black and white. It is rare that I hear someone speak about all this with color and depth and something more, more…human.”

Doug chuckled, a little embarrassed. “Now I wish I remembered exactly what I said. It must have been amazing!”

Her smile deepened. “I see it in your writing from the war. It is so…” she stopped herself from gushing. “Well, I really enjoy your work.”

“Thank you,” he said simply.

Molly noted that Doug wasn’t wearing a wedding ring any longer. There was no tan line, no telltale indentation on his finger. Molly felt a warm electric rush of excitement.

“Your family must worry terribly.” The question was a test meant to satisfy her curiosity.

“I don’t tell them everything,” he began. “A week after the invasion Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“Your wife?” she replied hiding her disappointed.

“Its in remission now, but I think she and the girls have enough to worry about.”

“It must be difficult.”

“I hope she forgives me for that.” He let out a long slow breath, seeming to deflate a little. “Looking forward to a time when I won’t have to run around war zones, and I can catch up on all the time lost.”

“They don’t get the behind the scenes stuff?’ she smiled.

“Six months ago I was grabbed off a street in Mosel by members of the local mafia hoping to sell me off to the highest bidder. Could have been Al Qa’eda that paid the ransom.” He touched the side of his hand to his neck and gave a fatalistic grin. “In which case I’d be about this much shorter.”

“They could have killed you.”

“But I wasn’t. A Marine patrol happened upon me. I got lucky.”

“You never told them?”

“Never told anyone, until now.”

“Wouldn’t it have made a great story for your readers?”

“I wrote it,” he said, “but then one day I visited a neighborhood where insurgents had rounded up all the men in the neighborhood and beheaded them. A policeman said it was the same all over the city. Made my little adventure seem very insignificant.”

“You’re not wearing a ring.”

“Makes me a bit less of a target.” The weight of his words languished between them a moment. Doug touched her arm gently. “Enough of all that. So what brings you to Turkey?”

She took a sip of her piping hot tea. “An extradition case. My mother was Turkish, and I always wanted to come here, so I volunteered.”

“Istanbul is an amazing city.”

She thought a moment, fascinated as he poured a bit of sugar into his tea then dragged a spoon slowly through it. “I hope this isn’t out of place, asking a married man to have dinner tonight, but I really don’t know anyone else here.”

“I’ll do you one better,” he said. Doug stood and helped Molly to stand. “Come with me!”

The Big Blue Sky: Nineteen

2010-06-27T17:38:00.001-05:00

October 2001. Unending was the only way to describe this place. The grief and tragedy seemed to go on and on without end. The suddenness and cruelty of that warm abd bright September morning had faded to dull and obstinate pain. And the nation, instead of seeking some meaning or healing, turned inward, trading virtual and wisdom for bitterness and paranoia.

Molly watched as four exhausted firemen handed a flag draped litter along a line of construction workers and policemen from the tangled and shattered heap that was once the gleaming glass and steel twin towers of the World Trade Center. The remains, more wrapped than shrouded in the red and white stripes of a flag, was a bundle that ought to have filled the wire basket. One could scarcely believe that bundle was once a human being. They weren’t finding bodies any longer though. What was pulled from this place, this crime scene where three thousand had died, were pieces. It was torsos, hands, scalps and unidentifiable things.

Molly’s dark blue FBI jacket was zipped tight against the deepening cold. The sky had clouded up and looked like rain. That thickening blanket brushed the summits of Manhattan’s forest of skyscrapers, darkening steadily. From the pile smoke still rose to meet that sky after more than a month since the attack. The memory of that day only left Molly colder.

Something caught her attention. It was a man standing alone beside a fire engine that had been smashed and still remained half buried in debris. It was odd to see anyone alone at Ground Zero, and odder to see someone without an apparent job to do. Though a tight security cordon had been drawn around the sight now and then a grieving relative, the curious and vagrants would slip through. It was an understandable thing in the heart of New York, especially for the relatives of the hundreds still listed as missing-all those souls that on a bright September morning seemed to have simply disappeared in an hour of madness.

This was still a crime scene, Molly was thinking as she climbed down and made her way towards the man. He was tall, with thick dark hair and an inquisitive face. The collar of his maroon corduroy jacket was turned up against the cold. His jeans were torn just below the knee. It was hardly more than an inch or so long. There was a bit of fresh red blood staining the torn blue fabric.

“Hey there!” she called out, her hand covering a holstered .45 at her hip. She sort of led with that side, stepping over debris, making certain he could see she was armed.

He ignored her, the man’s eyes soberly following the body’s final journey down to a waiting ambulance.

“Excuse me ,” Molly said again, “this is a restricted area.”

“Sshhh,” he brought a finger to his lips without looking at her. In the same motion he drew a red Press pass from the jacket pocket.

“Journalist?”

He didn’t answer. His brow furled slightly. “Listen. It’s a living thing. It’s moving, changing, evolving. The groans, the sounds of things banging and falling deep inside. And the smoke, as if there was some great beast within pondering, struggling with vengeance, forgiveness, introspection, war and peace.”

Molly studied the man, fascinated and enthralled by such a mind. She had come to Ground Zero within a few weeks of the attack, and like most everyone else had watched in stunned horror as it unfolded on television, like some national collective cry. Never once did she allow her thoughts to conceive of this place as anything other than a crime scene.

A moment of uncorrupted sun broke through the blanketing clouds. It skidded across the monstrous pile, through trickling plumes of smoke, towering cranes and workers dwarfed in scale almost to insignificance.

“See there?” he began again. “The mood changes with the light and dark. The shadows wax and wane. At night there is the glow of fires from within, like some imprisoned sun, or the collective spirits of the victim fighting to escape. The pile is never the same moment to moment, like a woman upon a lover’s grave.”

Emotion suddenly rose in Molly’s chest. “Poetic.”

“Poems are declarations of love and passion and heartache.” He looked at her, pausing as he seemed to find something in her eyes, just as she found something in his. “I think I’ve come to love this place for its tragedy.”

“Agent Karaman, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Where are my manners? Doug was chagrined. “Doug Springer, with The Times.” He handed her a business card.

“I haven’t been able to think that, I don’t know, abstractly about all this,” she said, studying his card. Molly drew one of her own and handed it over, as if it was some sort of trade.

“Trying to find some bigger perspective, I guess. Some fuller definition and contest.”

“Wish I had that luxury.”

“No offence,” he replied, “but there is a part of me that’s glad you can’t. Some very bad people did this, and some very incompetent people missed the signs screaming at us for years. I’m guessing a philosophical soul isn’t necessarily a helpful attribute in bringing either to justice.”

“Odd juxtaposition to put yourself in,” she said with a seemingly glance. There was a challenge and not a small amount of flirtation.

Doug reached up and scratched his cheek. It was the first time she’d seen the wedding ring upon his finger. She suddenly felt foolish, but as she excused herself and walked away she couldn’t help but feel the meeting was somehow significant.

“Call me a hopeful realist,” he said.

They both looked across the pile once more. Clouds returned dulling the scorched and twisted steel.

“So where does all this lead?” she asked.

Doug sighed. “No place good.”

“Sounds hopeless,” she looked at him sadly. “Even for a realist.”

The moment might have been forgotten, but some folks feel like a destination. She had always found herself attracted to clever intelligent men, but there was something more to Doug than cleverness and smarts. Molly couldn’t say what it was, but the memory of that day would haunt and return to her in the years to come…

The Big Blue Sky: Eighteen

2010-06-25T14:07:00.001-05:00

Molly took longer than usual to reach home in suburban Falls Church, a pretty village of family homes and bright New England churches. The town was just far enough from the city to feel like an escape. She turned from East Broad Street onto Cherry, feeling as if she had finally escaped the madness of a world embodied in grueling traffic. The street was dark and quiet, bounded on either side by plain houses, well kept yards and natly trimmed hedges.

Half a block up, Molly swung her midnight-blue Honda Prelude down a dark and narrow side street, into the parking spot in front of her modest townhome. She turned off the engine, shut off the lights and looked apprehensively at the dark windows and white lace curtains of her townhouse. There was a time when the black shutters, rust-red door and young maple-now a fiery orange-was a sanctuary, a happier place.

It was almost a year since the divorce was final. She’d married David Blumenthal, a State department Employee Molly’d met after returning from the Mideast. Their lives were magically romantic for almost a year, until one day he came home and announced that he was being promoted and sent to Japan.

“Dave,” I can’t just pick up and move to Asia?’ She complained.

“This a huge opportunity for me,” he said without looking at her. “I already gave them my answer. Molly, I’m sorry.”

Molly suddenly felt foolish for all those little girl notions about ever-lasting love, of soul mates and growing old with someone. It was as if the air had been sucked from her body. There were no tears, only a stunned laugh, and the shock that he could walk away from their life so easily.

Molly sighed and pulled the Fallahi file from her briefcase. She was not at all in a hurry to go inside yet. As she went over yer file Molly noticed a kid standing near the corner of an apartment building across the street. He seemed entirely out of place. Instantly she began cataloguing every possible detail. He was almost lost to shadow in a loose-fitting jean jacket and dark trousers. A black wool cap was pulled down over his brow to just above his deep-set eyes. In darkness she could only tell that he was of fair complexion, slender and somewhere between seventeen and twenty. He seemed anxious, as though working up the courage for something. There was a party going on up the street. It was muffled, the silhouettes of partiers blending together against the golden light inside.

Molly went back to the file. It was thick and daunting. Something about the simple black and white photograph inside haunted her. The picture was recent, showing a handsome Persian man, with short dark hair and a full mustache brushed with silver. She knew him somehow, but struggled to recall where exactly.

Born in Shiraz, Fallahi had been educated in Tehran , abandoning his studies to fight in the war against Iraq during the mid Nineteen Eighties. There he was wounded twice and given a commendation for bravery. After the war he returned to his studies until being recruited by the Iranian Security Service, VEVAK. It was in Bosnia, covertly organizing weapons shipments and organizing foreign Islamic fighters, that Fallahi was first noticed by Western Intelligence agencies. There were names and addresses of contacts and associates throughout the country. They were mostly Iranian and Arabic in origin. There were Muslim organizations as well. One name, however, jumped out at her, enough that she gasped.

At that instant Molly saw a flash of movement behind her car. From the rear view mirror she noticed the kid slipping around the driver’s side. There was a flash of silver, a knife blade glinting from the porch light across the street.

Molly reflexively reached for the nine millimeter holstered under her arm. Just as he reached her window, lifting the knife, Molly swung around and brought the pistol to his chest.

The kid froze. Down the street the party was just letting out. They were laughing, completely oblivious to what was happening nearby. Molly’s finger tightened on the trigger. She imagined pulling the trigger. All that stopped her was the thought that a bullet might ricochet off the kid’s spine and hit an innocent bystander.

“What were you gonna do, Kid?” she said low and even. “Gonna rape me, or…”

“God, no lady,” he replied. “Just needed some money, I swear. So that is a real gun?”

She almost laughed. ”What do you think?”

“Shit,” he groaned quietly.

“I’m a federal agent. Show me some identification.”

The kid pulled a driver’s license from his pocket and, with trembling fingers, handed it over. Molly glanced at it, keeping the pistol on the kid the whole time.

“Arresting me?”

Molly thought a minute. “I’ve had a very long day. I’ll keep this. Go home and wonder if this is a second chance or the end of the road. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

He handed over the knife. Molly held it up, chuckling that it was nothing more than a dull butter knife. She took a cleansing breath and watched through the mirror as the kid hurried around the corner and disappeared.

Molly drew back her long hair and opened the file again. It only look her a moment before she finally remembered where she knew the name from. It seemed a lifetime ago, recalling a torrent of bittersweet memories.

The Big Blue Sky: Seventeen

2010-06-25T09:29:00.001-05:00

Traffic was heavy along Arlington Boulevard out of Washington. It was already dark. To the west, as if black ink had been spilled across the turquoise sunset, a storm was building. It was warm for an autumn day, but the scent of rain carried hints of a cold front behind the storm clouds. Molly’s gaze followed the ceaseless line of crimson taillights and felt father away from home than she had all day.

She flipped to the local talk radio station. After the awful news of the capture of 6 American servicemen, the Rightwing host touted the usual cartoonish drumbeat to war. It was always the same, she thought, diverting her thoughts from the frustration of stop and go traffic, that men who were too cowardly to go to war, or men who had never learned its lesson were its greatest proponents. They never quite understood that all human history had been an evolution from barbarism towards a world without war. On the radio the know-nothing host worked himself into a virtual sexual frenzy.

“…this Marxist Pacifist president! No doubt he’ll bow at the Iranian’s feet and apologize for America, as he does all over the world. What we should do is,” he began shouting, “TURN THEIR COUNTRY INTO AN ASHTRAY! Maybe we melt a few of their cities with Nukes. This country should demand the immediate release of all of our heroes, and reparations paid to all their families. And if they don’t, we toast a hundred thousand a day until they capitulate. But that won’t happen because we have a law professor for a President, and bureaucratic cowards commanding our military…”

Molly couldn’t listen any longer. It frustrated her and raised her blood pressure above the level normally inflicted by rush hour traffic, and seemingly brain-dead drivers. But she had seen all this before. She’d seen the nation evolve into war with Iraq. Spurred by the September attacks, a manipulative government, a corporate media and the war cry from Rightwing radio, a culture emerged in which questions or criticism was called unpatriotic and antimilitaristic heresy.

She flipped off the radio and let the relative silence fill in the gap. Sweet silence. Silence and unencumbered thought were the truest dangers to political talk radio on every side of the political divide. It was noise. It was know-nothings shouting and raging to obscure clear thought quite deliberately. That noise burned a hole through the mind, like looking into the sun, until unobstructed sight and insight was all but lost.

The silence brought to mind the horrors and tragedy of war, which Molly had glimpsed investigating various bombings throughout the Middle East, following the attacks in New York and Washington. In a war with Iran tens or hundreds of thousands would die. Many more would be maimed, both physically and emotionally. Millions would be uprooted. In this country there would be the widows and orphans of fallen soldiers. In this country men and women would return from combat missing limbs or faces, or made vegetable, or having become emotionally crippled. They would all be conspicuous for a time, then forgotten with greater time; the pornography of war. The nation’s economy would be strained from the waste of bullets and resources that produce nothing but death.

It all flooded in upon Molly until emotion knotted in her chest. When it became too much-a mix of rage and heartbreak-she flipped on the radio again, poking at the presets until she came to some progressive Rock Station. Molly turned it up loud. It was easier than thinking too much.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixteen

2010-06-24T11:15:00.001-05:00

Molly was anxious as she waited to see Director Hallman. She had hoped to have the preliminary lab results from Bernstein’s autopsy, but they had been held up without explanation. Without the results the case she was building for a deeper investigation into the Congressman’s death was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, and a few momentous leaps of faith. That Molly could see that a trail led somewhere definitely was based more on faith than fact. Still,Bbsed upon the evidence she had seen, Bernstein’s death was likely connected to the other two deaths Asgari had shown her. As flimsy as the evidence was, Molly felt sure she could still make enough of an argument to pursue a case, and at least stall for enough time to flush out a few leads until the lab results came in.

The Director burst through the door, as if the hall had exhaled and spit him into the office. Tall, with a linebacker’s shoulders, thinning blond hair and thin frameless eyeglass, he’d just come from a meeting with Homeland Security regarding the growing crisis in the Persian Gulf. The nation’s security network was taking the prospect of Iranian sleeper cells and saboteurs very seriously. The view was that they could be activated at any time, and given Iran’s own view of its chances, to wage war against the United States, NATO and perhaps Israel all at once.

Unconventional war would likely be their best opportunity to inflict any sort of meaningful suffering upon their enemies. A number of Iranian nationals and diplomats had already disappeared or had alluded their usual surveillance.

Urgency and concern was plainly visible on the Director’s face. He stopped on a dime and looked down at Molly, who was now thinking better of their meeting. Hallman pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing a bit, as if deciding her fate. He curled his index finger and beckoned her into his office.

Inside his comfortable office Molly pushed the door closed. Daylight poured into the office that had an appearance of a law office, with an impressive number of polished and pristine law volumes. Director Hallman slipped off his dark blue suit coat and sat quickly at the large oak desk. Over the director’s shoulder Molly could just see the stone white Washingtom Monument climbing through autumn colored trees into a pristine blue sky.

“Agent,” he began, tapping out something on his computer keyboard. His attention only partially on her. “I can give you three minutes. You’ll have to make your case quickly.”

“Of course, sir.”

Hallman checked his Rolex. “Hate to rush you, but the shit is hitting the fan.”

Molly took a breath and opened the file in her hand. She gave a brief background on Congressman Bernstein and drew all the connections she could find between the other two deaths. At the center, though there was no real evidence to support it, was the victims mutual interest in discrediting and defunding FIRST THRUST INC, which was being purchased by the international arms dealer, Umberto Shosa. She alluded to the lab results and the autopsies, and slid a comparison of the alleged causes of death for each man.

“Strokes?” Hallman pushed the paper back across the desk to her.

“Well…”

“Agent,” his tone was almost scolding, “this is Washington, where strokes and heart attacks are the biggest cause of death among government types. All of these men were middle aged and, statistically speaking, prime candidates for strokes.”

“Indeed, sir,” she pointed to each of the images, “ but this damage is hardly consistent with a simple…”

“It’s a stretch. “ Hallman leaned back in his tall brown leather chair.

“I understand, sir, but…”

“Let me stop you right there. If you haven’t heard the news from Iran you will soon enough.”

Molly shook her head, and felt so terribly frustrated.

“I’ve just come from a meeting with the Homeland Security Secretary. We’ve lost contact with a number of Iranian nationals we’ve been watching. I’ve got an Iranian diplomat who might be in charge of activating sleeper cells if we wind up going to war. I don’t think he quite meets the profile, but he is still unaccounted for. My sense is he’ll use the crisis to defect, and we’ll find him working as a cab driver in Duluth in six months. I need you to find this guy. His name is Ahmed Fallahi. I’ve sent you the file already.”

The name was familiar to her somehow, though for the moment, Molly could not place exactly where she knew it from.

“Why me, sir?”

Hallman came around the side of the desk and sat on the edge. “Because I can count on you to do the job right and help make the world a normal place again. You’re a smart agent who makes intelligent choices. That is exactly what is called for here.”

It was hard to be too disappointed at that. At some point the FBI and law enforcement was less a crusade than a job. She was an employee of the government and not a knight of the realm. She nodded and left. She wouldn’t abandon the case completely. If something changed, if there was something she could find that clearly pointed to a crime then she would argue for it again. Until then she would track down Ahmed Fallahi, not realizing the powerful implications it would have on her life and for the world.

The Big Blue Sky: Fifteen

2010-06-22T16:17:00.001-05:00

The Iranians have already protested,” said Ambassador Spurlock. “They are calling this a blatant and illegal infringement upon their national sovereignty.”

“Not particularly strong,” observed the President, “given the gravity of the situation.”

“I think everyone is giving themselves ample maneuvering room. Just like we saw when Israel seized the Turkish ship attempting to run their blockade of Gaza. This one will be fought as hard in the World Press as on the ground.”

“This was a search and rescue mission,” said secretary Burger. “We were responding to a distress signal from a downed pilot.”

“So we thought,” said Keil.”

Burger nodded, “So we thought.”

Veil wasn’t satisfied. “Looks like our guys were ambushed.”

The President went around to the monitor. “Doesn’t sound like something the Iranians would pull. Maybe I’m wrong to give them the benefit of the doubt. If I am we will hit them just as hard.”

“Rogue elements?” Veil continued. Not that he was itching for a fight, necessarily, but he took the plight of those poor soldiers deeply personal.

“A coup?” offered the Air Force. Burger shook his head.

“Tehran is quiet.” He said. “Their military is on high alert nationwide and they’re mobilizing civil defense units, but so far this seems pretty localized."

“I think our number one concern right now is shoring up allies,” Osborne offered. “And being mindful of retaliation in the form of sleeper cells at home and around the world. I don’t think we can expect the Iranians to fight fair.”

“Would you?’ asked the President.

“Absolutely not.”

The president considered all of this. He rubbed at the tension building at his brow and wished for more time. He wished for facts and broader perspectives, knowing full well God and history would judge him completely for his decision. And the weight of that decision was beyond comprehension. Not the least of which was the drama and tragedy of the survivors fighting for their lives that very moment. Were they worth the cost of war, of tens or hundreds of thousands of lives? The battle was waning. They would be overrun and out of ammunition well before any rescue force could reach them.

“Give the order, sir,” Keil was almost pleading. The Air Force nodded in agreement, “and we’ll punch a hole to our boys and set fire to southern Iran.”

Despite their resolve to fight he knew these men well enough they carried the discipline and respect to carry whatever decision was made forward, and he and already decided.

“Worth a war to you, General Keil?” he asked.

“That’s for politicians to ponder, sir,” he replied. “I am a soldier.”

The President nodded, drawing in a breath. “Put our forces on alert, but with crystal clear rules of engagement. No one fires a shot unless attacked by a clear and verifiable target. I don’t want to incite the Iranians, but I don’t want to be their bitch either. Zero defects, ladies and gentlemen.”

“And the survivors?’ asked Burger.

“I’ll talk with the Canadian Prime minister. We’ll need his people in Tehran as intermediaries to negotiate a release.” He motioned to an aide. “Have the State department see what kind of backing we can expect from China. Let’s talk with SOCOM in one hour. We need to put Iran back on its heels a bit, and get us off the defensive before the Press gets hold of this story. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s have us be the ones who write the narrative here.”

The Big Blue Sky: Fourteen

2010-06-22T09:36:00.015-05:00

It was perhaps a misleading word to describe the White House Situation Room as just that. It was a complex. On the ground floor of the sprawling West Wing, a busy operations center funneled information from around the planet, analyzing and prioritizing events twenty-four hours a day; a nerve center processing the unfolding history of the world.

Through the operations center was the iconic Situation Room, otherwise known as the Videao Conference Center. Just off the Situation Complex the Video Conference Center had suddenly become the hub of activity. Military and civilian aides came and went with frenetic energy, their faces as grave as if they themselves were fighting for life upon the Persian desert. That maddening pace came quite suddenly to a stop as the President arrived.

He was flanked closely by George Osborne, a white-haired curmudgeonly, but eminently capable, National Security Advisor. A former Green Beret turned spy, Osborne looked the part of a shadowy intelligence officer, with round spectacles, piercing blue eyes and an eternally clenched jaw, as if he was calculating the fate of the world at any given moment. In contrast to the President, Osborne seemed fully out of place in suits, bulging in places, sagging in others and swimming in still more.

The rabble at the door parted dutifully. The military men and women snapped smartly to attention, their civilian counterparts offering respectably corporate nods. Everyone in the room turned, their expressions stark and severe, as the president entered. He’d come straight from a donor’s dinner, begging an early leave after getting the news out of Iran from an aide. The room was narrow and claustrophobic. It was windowless, the dark paneled walls broken only by video monitors that connected all the major branches of government during a crisis wherever in the world they might be. There was another larger monitor on the wall opposite. A long conference table dominated the room. At the far end of the table, above the chairman’s position was a large Presidential seal.

Standing before a large video monitor were two of the available Joint Chiefs, General Bernaski of the Air Force, and Major General Keil of the Marine Corps. Next to Keil were Defense Secretary Burger, and the Vice President, a normally jocular sort, an Army veteran who seemed utterly devastated by the grainy satellite video on the monitor. UN Ambassador Spurlock arrived behind the President, begging her pardon and taking a seat beside Burger. She looked more like a college English professor, peering over a thick pair of eyeglasses at the President.

Aides and assistants came and went as the growing crisis drew in more and more of the government. FOX had already reported the crash of a US “aircraft on the Iranian mainland,” citing an unnamed source but could no other details.

The mood was predictably weighted and sober. It recalled the dark and uncertain hours of the September attacks in New York and the Pentagon, when this room became the nerve center for the nation. The President, aware that too much sobriety could skew perspective, sought to siphon off the tension of the moment, and offered a sympathetic smile.

“This is why all my predecessors went gray prematurely.”

There was significant danger in losing perspective. Fundamental was the knowledge that there were lives at risk on both sides. It would be easy enough for emotion to carry the moment. The terrible images unfolding on the monitor made that plain enough. It would be easy to feed more lives into the moment, to escalate and retaliate, but to what end? No, what was needed was to strike the proper balance between emotion and logic. Too much logic and the President risked becoming a pragmatist, and playing to the angles instead of humanity, and history was in the end a pronouncement of the participant’s humanity.

The President was tall, but not imposing. He seemed to slouch just a bit, as if worrying that his height might become intimidating. His almond skin projected a vitality not seen in the Oval Office since the Kennedy Administration. It was partly that quality that had helped him face a daunting number of crises, which any President would have found stunning and historic in the confluence. From the economy, to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to an unfolding oil spill devastating the Gulf Coast. He was collected and calculated, criticized by pundits and supporters alike for being too nuanced and not as cartoonishly condescending as the former office holder. Everyone took their seats around the table without taking their eyes off the monitor.

“How old is this?” asked the President.

“Live, Mister President,” replied the VP.

The President pursed his lips tightly, and chose his words carefully. “I’m sure we’ll get to the how and why later. Options?”

“Mister President,” offered General Bernaski, “the Air Force is prepared to rain hell down upon the Iranians. I can surround those boys,” he motioned to the monitor, “with a ring of fire in forty minutes.”

The President studied the terrible images. By the looks of things forty minutes was a luxury the survivors didn’t have any longer.

“I have five thousand Marines I can have on the ground in six hours, if necessary, “ said Keil. "If the Mullahs want a fight, we’ll give ‘em a fight.”

“How big a force are we facing right now?”

“Mister Osborne?”

The NSA cleared his throat. Since the start of the meeting, indeed almost before he was seated, Osborne was scribbling notes. The room fell silent for an uncomfortably long moment as he finished a brief note. He brought the pen up high and clicked the ball point pen demonstrably.

“My opinion is that we don’t over think this situation. Obviously we have only a hand full of sketchy details. My sense is the Iranians reacted as we would for a hostile incursion…”

“Please, Mister Osborne!” the Air Force complained. “Our boys were on a search and rescue mission, not a ‘hostile incursion.’ Who’s side are you arguing for? We were ambushed pure and simple. End of story. I’m certain the Iranians would realize three rescue helicopters hardly constitutes an invasion.”

“Absolutely!” Keil agreed, slapping his hand on the table. Osborne, who had fallen silent when Bernaski began, stared blankly passed the men, as if they were little more than an annoyance, an impetuous child not worth the energy of a scolding.

“As I was saying, Mister President,” Osborne continued, “ what is the end game here?”

Bernaski started to respond, but relented when the President held up a hand. “Go on, George.”

“By the time we mobilize any meaningful force we will be in a hostage situation, or fighting to recover bodies we would eventually get back anyway. No, the endgame has always been Iranian nukes. We monitor the situation and use this to further back the Iranians into a position that gives us the maximum possible leverage.”

“Secretary Burger, what are we facing here?” asked the President.

“They have a reinforced infantry battalion, two armored units and more on the way,” said the Pentagon Secretary. “Significant coastal batteries, naval and air assets. They would have to be eliminated before a rescue could be mounted. My apologies to General Bernaski, but Admiral Danzig estimated it would take two days to punch an adequate hole and secure a corridor, even still it would take a massive force, twelve to fourteen thousand on the ground to maintain that corridor. We ran the figures, tentatively, of course, and came to an estimated thirty-five percent casualties.”

The President’s attention was drawn fully to the images on the monitor as two soldiers dragged a wounded buddy closer to the smoking helicopter fuselage. Incoming rounds splashed at the sand around the beleaguered men.

“Sir, those men are dying,” said the Veil. “We go in hard and fast with enough firepower to sweep any resistance aside. Catch them off balance. By the time they recover we’ll be gone.”

“Any other options?” said the President.

“Always options, Mister President,“ the VP replied.

“Good ones?”

“That’s a different question.”

The emotion in the room peaked, driving it almost to the breaking point.

"With all due…” the Air force general began. The president raised a hand, cutting him off.

“The clock is ticking. I want a solid plan.”

“History favors the bold, Mister President,” the Defense secretary offered. “It is also a graveyard for fools. The difference all too often is a matter of blind fate and false perspective.”

The President took a cleansing breath. “How many of our people are down there?”

“Estimates are 13 KIA and 7 survivors.”

“Can we get them out of this without suffering unacceptable casualties or going to war?”

The secretary looked gravely around the room, then back to the President. “Short answer, Mister President? No.”

The Big Blue Sky: Thirteen

2010-06-21T16:29:00.001-05:00

Doug was sitting at the dining room table. The room was dark but for the ambient eggshell light off the porch sep. The light was softened by the rain that ran in rivulets upon the window. Through the open window a chill wind embraced Doug. The wind carried the thumping surf just beyond the tall pine and birch at the back of the yard. One arm was hooked over the back of the chair. In the other hand Doug swirled a snifter of amber Armagnac.

It was his third glass that evening, and the warm bite of the spirit perfectly reflected the autumn chill, as if they were lovers swept into a moment of attraction. Together they proved the appropriate juxtaposition to the numbness wrought by the week and the day. From the other room, almost lost to the wind and trees and surf, came a languishing Nick cave melody. It was one of Jane’s favorites. The word fell like fat raindrops, running away with the blessedly remorseful piano melody:

And no more shall we part
It will no longer be necessary
And no more will I say, dear heart
I am alone and she has left me

And no more shall we part
The contracts are drawn up, the ring is locked upon the finger
And never again will my letters start
Sadly, or in the depths of winter

And no more shall we part
All the hatchets have been buried…

He was thinking. He was thinking that one spouse would one day outlive the other was implied in marriage. It is the burden few dare entertain in youth, but grows steadily with the sunset of lives. A good loving man prays he will be the one left to fend alone, while quietly dreading the ultimate weight of that loss. Doug sighed at the thought, and sighed mournfully. He closed his eyes tight against threatening tears and downed the last of the Armagnac.

There was a sound from the family room behind him. Gentle hands fell upon his shoulders. Doug’s heart fluttered with emotion. For just a moment he expected to find Jane standing there, ready to console him. He looked up and in the half light that fragmentary illusion seemed complete. It was enough that he nearly burst into tears of joy.

“Startle you, Dad?” Megan asked softly, as if her voice was a quality of the wind and distant surf. Doug didn’t answer right away. He studied the empty glass in his hand for a moment.

“No, honey, just thinking.”

Megan went around to the window and pulled it closed, shivering at the cold. She was still in the dress she’d worn for the funeral. Megan slid into her usual chair at the long dining room table and sat.

“Want to be alone?” she asked, sweeping a hand across the smooth polished wood, as though exploring it. Her hand paused in front of her mother’s chair, as if expecting Jane’s hand to reach out. Doug weighed Megan’s words. It wasn’t an easy question.

“You okay?” he changed the subject.

“Worried about Dana,” she replied softly, tears threatening.

“Is she…”

“She’s up in your and…in your room.”

“I’m worried about you guys,” he said.

Megan’s brow faltered. For all her strength she was just holding things together. “I’m okay.”

“So proud of you through all of this, sweetheart.”

Megan chewed her lip, sporting that same refusal to be ruled by emotion that Jane used to criticize Doug over. She looked to the window. Doug watched a thought materialize in her eyes and waited in anticipation. Even still, he wasn’t entirely prepared for it.

“Will you ever get married again?”

The thought had not even occurred to Doug. Even after Jane was told she was terminal he had never once considered a time after. He never once imagined that he would one day have to take stock of his new life. What would it mean to the girls? Was it a way of selfishly assuaging his own loneliness and need? Did it break the vow he’d made to her the day of their wedding? Was ‘till death do us part’ only a mortal contract absolving and releasing the survivor upon the other’s death? These were not questions he could form a proper view of just yet, even as they assaulted him at every turn.

The Big Blue Sky: Twelve

2010-06-20T07:11:00.001-05:00

The Pave Lows took off separately. They dropped low, nearly to sea level, and swung north, using the ships for cover. Ten minutes later they rendezvoused north of the group before turning southeast, running hard and fast for the coast. West of Hendurabi Island, a featureless patch of sand, the Pave Lows corrected course once more, charging strait for the coast.

Everyone aboard felt the sudden lurch as the Pave Lows crested the ridge. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, the AK tracers and the ghost-white trails of RPGs rushed up from the valley. Even John McCallister, a man familiar with the fever and confusion of war, was stunned by the Iranian response.

There wasn’t time for thought, let alone reaction. McCallister would torture himself about not calling immediately for a fast retreat, but there simply wasn’t time. Almost instantly two rockets hammered the lead chopper, like a prize fighter taking a roundhouse punch. Swinging sideways, it turned over in mid air before breaking up. The pieces tumbled independent of one another throwing wreckage and bodies across the desert floor. McCallister’s response now was immediate and unequivocal.

“Abort!” he shouted to the other remaining Pave Low, breaking radio silence as a fat olive RPG round sliced a smoky trail right through the open bay doors, missing several men by mere inches. It seemed to underscore the Iranians knew exactly where the American intruders were. The narrow miss brought astonished and horrified looks from his well seasoned team.

Beside him, the door gunner opened up with a .50 caliber, slamming rounds at unseen targets below. Bullets chopped at the fuselage as the ship began a hard turn. The co-pilot howled in pain as a round smashed upwards through his foot, shattering bone before emerging from his thigh.

“Abort now!” McCallister cried once more, a moment too late.

He watched helpless as a rocket ripped away the tail rotor of the third ship. The Pave Low spun wildly in a rapid death spiral to the desert floor. In a final desperate act to save the men in back, the pilot brought the ship down nose first crushing he and the co-pilot instantly.

McCallister screamed in anger as the survivors spilled out onto the ground. He ordered the pilot to turn back despite the withering storm of fire coming up from the desert. But the pilot was already well into the turn, bent on avenging the deaths of men that were dearer to him than family.

They came in low, ignoring the fire directed almost exclusively against them now. The survivors on the ground, were already taking up defensive positions around the wreckage. Two hundred yards north a line of Iranian regulars advanced on the downed chopper. The remaining Pave Low chewed through the line with stunning accuracy. The clanging of the Fifty Caliber was punctuated by the earth shattering bang of rockets blasting the Iranian line.

But it only seemed to focus the resolve of the Iranians to bring down the remaining helicopter. It was suicide to remain in the fight, and would serve nothing to save the survivors below.

“Sir,” the pilot’s voice cracked with emotion of the intercom. In the background the co=pilot screamed in agony. “”I’m breaking off!”

McCallister knew it was pointless to remain any longer as they passed over the survivors now trading shots as the Iranian cordon tightened steadily around them. Despite the murderous fire McCallister leaned precariously from the bay desperate for one final glimpse of his beleaguered men. As the ship climbed the ridge, rushing for the open sea, McCallister wished a bullet had found its mark to spare him the shame and anguish he now suffered. Abandoning his men, which is precisely how he took it, was a fate crueler than any death.

There was more fire from the coast as the Pave Low streaked out over the sea. Two F-18s buzzed the coast, going to after burners. The resulting sonic booms exploded windows for miles, ruptured water pipes and shattered ear drums. The coastal fire ceased. As for the men stranded on the desert floor, short of all out war, there was nothing anyone could do for them.

The Big Blue Sky: Eleven

2010-06-19T08:24:00.001-05:00

The moment grew and deepened, with the specter of war and disaster looming at the edge of every decision. But nothing about this made any sense. No one could explain the distress beacon. Flybys confirmed an infra red strobe, the kind activated by downed flyers The latest satellite images only deepened the mystery, unable to see clearly through blowing dust. There was no wreckage, which wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility in such rugged terrain, which could quite easily swallow up and erase a single aircraft. The Iranians put out patrols along the coast and Highway Ninety-six to the east of the parachute and “body.” Strangest thing was that all aircraft had been accounted for in the area. Aside from the E2C Hawkeye and a pair of F-18 Hornets there wasn’t a damn thing in the sky. Even the Iranians, perhaps afraid of spooking the Americans into a fight, kept their aircraft on the ground.

Final approval for the operation came from the highest levels of the Pentagon. In Washington the President was informed as he returned from a cross-country speaking trip. Aside from constraints upon rules of engagement and potential escalation, he was satisfied with the military’s experience and prudence. In the end the final decision would depend upon three things; honor,a promise that no American soldier was ever left behind and Lt. Colonel McCallister, the man who would ultimately lead the mission.

Danzig found him on the flight deck. Before him three massive MH-53 Pave Low helicopters were silhouetted against the night sky. Magnificent and terrifying all at once, they were the most sophisticated and lethal helicopters in the world. At half a city block long and almost three stories in height it seemed comical that they had proved themselves in countless stealth and rescue missions. And when stealth failed as an option the Paves could open up on an adversary with 7.62mm mini-guns, a fifty caliber and an assortment missiles. It wasn’t an option McCallister intended to test on this mission. His teams had been fully briefed, and the crews well-prepared to charge across the sea at lightning speed and drop down to the desert before the Iranians knew what was happening. They’d be out and racing back for the safety of the CG inside forty minutes. Nice and easy. At least that was the plan.

Danzig stood next to him. Both men were quiet for a moment. McCallister was chewing on the end of an unlit Cuban cigar, a bit of a pre-mission ritual he believed brought good luck. They were looking off to the east, towards Iran.

“Give the word, Mac, and we’ll get this show on the road.”

McCallister breathed deeply, taking the cool salty air into his lungs.

“My team is ready, Sam.” The words sounded hollow almost from the moment they left him.

“Feels like our hands are a bit tied here,” said Danzig. “We’ll have a couple birds in the air, and more standing-by should you need them, but you will be alone for a while. Don’t fuck around out there.”

“I’d feel a bit better with some air support close by too.”

“Washington is telling me no dice. No one wants to start a war here.”
A sailor ran up with the latest intelligence of the target area. Even Danzig’s perfect poker face failed him as he looked over the report. He took a long breath and handed it over to McCallister.

“Looks like the Iranians are awake.”

McCallister looked over the report carefully. A column of enemy vehicles was on the move from the north. Another unit approached from the south along the coast. Add to that 2 Chinese Houdong class missile boats had been spotted north of Lavan Island moving south towards Chiruyeh.

McCallister nodded thoughtfully and gave Danzig’s shoulder a squeeze. “This is what we do.”

“Get home, Mac.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

His teams were already aboard the choppers. One by one they moved out onto the flight line as those General Electric twin turbo-shaft engines came to life. They cut a formidable image, so then why did McCallister have a nagging impression of the mission? Something made him anxious. He looked across the dark gulf waters. The business of war, he thought, was a craps game-eventually everyone's number came up. He couldn’t recall feeling this way about a mission before, and wondered if it wasn’t a sixth sense that had served him well all these years, or he was getting old and losing his nerve? They answers to those questions would have to wait.

Big Blue Sky: TEN

2010-06-17T13:29:00.001-05:00

John “Mac” McCallister was a small but solid man, with the broad shoulders and physique of a competive swimmer rather than a soldier with thirty-four years in the Special Forces. His face was carved as much by a lifetime at war as by the perspective that ultimately peace was the goal, and that the purpose of men like John McCallister was to become obsolete in the world. A round pair of reading spectacles, which he found himself relying upon more and more, gave him a studious appearance. The father of four girls, McCallister had been married to the same fiery and tirelessly faithful Israeli woman he fallen in love with while on tour in Lebanon back in Eighty-four. A study in contrasts, McCallister had a ready smile, endless patience, disarming gentleness and a penchant for excruciating detail. At a glance one might easily mistake him for a Little League Coach or Driver’s Ed teacher than man who had fought and killed men in battle.
He was dressed in his desert cammies and windbreaker as he stepped through the hatch into the CATCC. Chief Green offered a quick salute that McCallister returned naturally.

“What do ya got, Chief?” He asked.

“Well, sir,” Green began, “One of the ACs picked up a distress signal on the ground inside Iran. We’ve done everything we can to confirm that possibility. As you can see the satellite is inconclusive. There is no wreckage and we have no known missing aircraft; ours or allied. Chief Murphy in the CDC is compiling a threat assessment for that region of the country.”

“Thorough, Chief.”

“Aye, sir.”

McCallister went through the reports as carefully as he could. If indeed a pilot was down, and perhaps hurt, time was certainly of the essence. The Iranian response so far was virtually non-existent, which seemed to exclude a shoot down. The CDC assessment confirmed that several patrols were in the area. Their casual, even stoic radio traffic offered a picture that they had no clue what they were looking for. That would change with the coming daylight. For the moment, if in fact a flyer was down, McCallister and his team had a window of opportunity, one that he wasn’t about to squander.

“Great work, Chief,” he said.

“Just thinking how I would feel if I was down there,” said Green.

“Good man,” McCallister replied.

The captain and Admiral were awakened. With the commander of the air wing all four men began the grim discussions around which history would change forever. Each of them knew exactly how unforgiving history could be. Foremost was the possibility that it was all a trick by the Iranians, but the pathetic level of their response so far made that unlikely. As blustery and obnoxious as the Iranian military could be, flexing their muscles and acting as intimidating as they could get away with, their military leaders had no interest in provoking a war with an American Carrier Group. For McCallister that left only one option, which he argued fully for.

“My team can get in and out of their in forty minutes,” he told the group. “As long as I know you boys got my back.”

“Threat assessment?” asked Admiral Samuel Danzig. He was a shrewd and calculating man. As an Ensign he had started his career in Vietnam, shoving helicopters overboard to make room for others in the desperate withdrawal from Saigon in Seventy-five. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his square jaw. He would order that friendlies show ultimate restraint, even if fired upon by the Iranians. If the situation became untenable then he wasn’t willing to trade a series of escalating shots with the enemy. If his forces returned fire Danzig expected it to be concerted and strong enough to persuade the enemy they risked annihilation.
The CDC had set up the assessment as a Power point presentation.

McCallister reached across to the mouse on the table and clicked on the computer icon. A map of Iran popped up on the flat screen monitor at the end of the room Major military airfields and installations popped up all around the country. The Iranian navy was concentrated at Bandar Abbass to the south where Chinese-made missile boats, sporting ship-killer missiles, were docked. All along the coast the Iranians had deployed speed boats capable of slipping inside the carrier Group's defenses to ram ships head on. The coastline and islands bristled with anti-ship and anti-aircraft batteries. Further inland, medium and long range Shahab missiles and short range Fateh missiles could inflict terrible damage. The target area was bracketed by significant Iranian airbases at the coastal city of Bushehr to the north and Bandar Abbass to the south.

“The enemy could put a significant threat force into the air quickly from both locations,” said McCallister. “No surprise they are on a constant state of high state of readiness. To the south Bandar Abbass has two runways, Lamerd to the west with a single runway, and on Kish Island. I think even if they saw us coming I could get in and out before they could deploy.”

“Any word on military activity on their side?” asked the admiral. “If they are moving heavily I think this is a done deal.”

“Reports of a few patrols,” the CDC Commander cleared her throat. “Seems to be local cops and a few local Artesh, regular army, units.”

“Mac, said Danzig, “you’d better be damn sure. Those boys are on a hair trigger. You’ll be all alone for the better part of thirty minutes once you cross into their airspace.”

“The only other option is to abandon that flyer.”

“If there is in fact a flyer,” offered the Captain, a tall gray-haired Texan. “I’m still not convinced, and I’m not sure we are in the best position if this goes south and we end up in a shooting war.”

The fact of the matter was, the Gulf was a small place, and a carrier Group was like a bear conspicuous in a child’s pool. Given predictions of the Iranian order of battle, if it came to a fight they would have one chance to make the Americans pay. No doubt they’d scuttle tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, trapping the Group and then pummel the fleet with everything in their arsenal.

“Well,” McCallister put up the grainy image of what appeared to be a body curled beneath a bush, “we either go in and see for ourselves or wait for Ahmadinejad to parade him on al-Jezeera.”

The meeting was quick but thorough. Regardless of the decision to go or not to go, McCallister’s team was already gearing up, checking ammo and equipment, while the flight crews went over routes and scrutinized in greater detail any specific possible threats they might encounter along the way. Prayers for peace are better rendered through preparations for war.

Big Blue Sky: Nine

2010-06-16T11:44:00.001-05:00

Chief Petty Officer Green’s mind spun through a stunning volume of scenarios. In this room, this close to the hostile Iranian coast there was no room for error, and certainly no room for blind reaction. The United States was not at war, at least not a shooting war, with Iran. It might come to that, Green knew, but he wasn’t going carry on his soul a mistake or misjudgment that started it either. Not that he had ever shied from a fight. He’d had his share growing up in the Projects, but he had never once thrown the first punch. Beside him, the AC saw the tension in Green’s face.

“Okay, chief?”

He patted her shoulder and forced a smile.

“Listen up, everyone.” He began, drawing the room’s attention for a moment. There were no illusions. The gravity of this moment did not have to “sink in.” He knew from the moment he looked down at that radar screen. “I want everyone to pay close attention to the details here. There will be questions later if the shit hits the fan. Follow your training.”

Chief Murphy returned from the CDC with two grainy images from the satellite. Even from sixty miles up the satellites normally produced clear images. Murphy had hoped for better as they came off the printer, but a dust storm had kicked up over the target area giving everything a grainy, washed sort of appearance. Chief Green held them to a light and made a good-natured grimace to his friend.

“Eat your lunch on these?” he quipped.

“Winds picked up quite a bit of sand, but look here and here,” Murphy pointed to dark shapes scattered along the bottom of a shallow arroyo. An Air Force-issue parachute stretched across and over one bank. There were marks, as if someone had been dragged or had crawled deeper into the gulf. Beneath a scrub bush something dark was curled tightly. Roughly the size of a man, it was impossible to tell for sure.

“Is that a body?”

“We picked up an explosion in the hills just above this sight.”

“Plane?”

“I don’t know on this one, Darrell. So far the Iranians have been relatively quiet. Little dust up near Chiruyeh on the coast, likely smugglers squaring off with the local gendarme.”

“Chief,” one of the ACs interrupted. “The Hawkeye picked up the strobe.”

Green looked sharply to Murphy. Both of them had the same thought. Murphy nodded and breathed deeply.

“I’ll start putting together a list of all the enemy assets in the area.”

Green nodded and reached for the phone. He cleared his throat and paused for just a moment before dialing the number. He stood straight. Every eye in the room was on him at that moment. This was his team. Five good souls that Chief Green knew he could rely on completely. It gave him the courage he needed to face this moment, and in the trying hours and days to come. The phone rang twice on the other end. The voice there was gravelly and unsteady with interrupted deep sleep. But the character of it spoke of a man who knew immediately there was trouble.

“Hello?”

“Lieutenant Colonel McCallister, Chief Green in the CATCC. Sir, we have a situation here that requires your presence.”

There was a long pause.

“Sir?” said Green
“Yes, of course,” McCallister replied, “I’ll be right up.”

As Green hung up the phone he could feel the pace of things speed up. The weight of the world was suddenly on the young Chief’s shoulders. It was a daunting feeling that teetered on the overwhelming, but he did as generations of soldiers had done before him, many faced with far more difficult times. It was his training that rallied him. Even more it was the expectant faces of the five young ACs under his command. He was satisfied, as least as much as he could be. There was little more he could do to verify whether an American airman was curled up beneath a bush in an Iranian creek bed, but he was determined to do whatever was necessary should that prove true. McCallister would need information. Together with Chief Murphy in the CDC across the passageway, they would build a solid base from which all this would flow.

Big Blue Sky: Eight

2010-06-15T13:59:00.000-05:00

The Air Ops Officer in the CATCC leaned over the young sailor’s shoulder and studied the console gravely. His strong mahogany face was washed in the blue green light of the young Air controller’s monitor. Chief petty Officer Darrell Green was a career navy man, with better than a decade of experience. Tall and sturdy the kid who had grown up scrapping and gangbanging in Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods had a keen and analytical mind. The signal had just been activated, appearing on her screen just inland from the Iranian coast, a distress signal from a downed allied aircraft. She alerted the chief over immediately. They could feel the early morning chill from the steel bulkhead. The whisper of the ventilation system, that kept the Roosevelt’s Carrier Air Traffic Control center almost uncomfortably cool joined with the unending hum of the ship’s powerful Westinghouse A4W Nuclear reactors.
“How old is this?” he asked calmly. His mind was already running through a number of possibilities. Was it real, some sort of drill, a trick by the Iranians, a computer glitch of some sort?
“Just now, Chief,’ said the Air Controller Third Class, in a thick North Carolina accent.
“Did you check…” he started. She was already ahead of him.
“Checked, but no traffic anywhere near there that I could find.”
“A drill, maybe?”
The AC3 pursed her lips and shrugged. “We have a Hawkeye in the air.”
Any…”
Again she was just ahead of him. “That was the strange part, Chief. No TACAN and no IFF.”
The Chief stood and took a deep breath. It had been slow night, and he felt himself fighting the urge to sleep. He was awake now, his mind spinning at the reasons why the two critical identifying transponders had not gone off, if in fact and aircraft had gone down in the Iranian desert. There were two prominent identifiers, the TACON, and the International Friend or Foe system, or IFF for short. There were four modes that gave the country of origin, the aircraft type and whether it was commercial or military and the squadron for allied military aircraft. There was one more, an encrypted mode.
“Squawking Mode Four?”
“Not a peep, Chief.”
Just then Chief Murphy, “Murph” for short came in. He was a square Irish kid from Indiana, with bright red hair, who was always ready for a fight, which is what made him perfect for the CDC across the hall, the room from which the USS Theodore Roosevelt waged war. He and Green were hard and fast friends, having gone through basic together before winding up on “The Big Stick,” as she was called by the thirty hundred souls of the ship’s company. Murph had a cup of coffee in his hand. It smelled like heaven to green, who looked at the coffee first.
“What’s up, pal?” said Murph. “Quiet night?”
“Look at this,” said Green. “Picked up a distress signal five miles inside Iran. No IFF, no TACAN.”
“Squawking?”
“Don’t know if this is a drill, a glitch.”
“No drill that I know of. Could be a glitch.”
“Iran fucking with us?”
“Could be,” said Murph. “Could be we have assets on the ground in trouble. Give me the GPS coordinates and I’ll see what I can find.”
The AC3 quickly scribbled the precise longitude and latitude number, 26° 49' 20.62" North, 53° 48' 27.34" East and handed it back to the Chief. He gave it to Murphy, who looked it over carefully. As the CDC officer he had virtually memorized every potential threat, damn near every town and village in Southwest Iran.
“There ain’t nothing out there by desert and goat herders.” He’d check the satellites, which would give the final verdict on whether or not any friendlies were calling for help. If there was an American down there the satellites would damn near pick up the smile on his face, or so to speak. “Give me a minute to check the birds.”
Murph started for the hatch. Chief Green grabbed him by the sleeve and nodded to the half empty cup of coffee.
“Finish that?”
Murph smiled and handed it over. “You could use it more than me, pal. Something tells me this is going to be a long night.”

Big Blue Sky: Seven

2010-06-14T10:25:00.000-05:00

“…and welcome back to the program,” began the scrupulous quaffed FOX News host, like some manufactured TV-evangelist. “Could nuclear weapons only be the tip of the iceberg in Iran’s growing arsenal of Weapons of Mass destruction? Will the Iranian Mullah soon unleash a new and more terrible weapon against Israel and the West? My next guess says yes, and believes that the US and its allies are completely unprepared to deal with that looming threat. Umberto Shosa is the founder and CEO of MICRO DEFENSE SYSTEMS, and an expert in the field of Nano-tech warfare, which he says will be the next great arms race. Welcome to the show Mister Shosa.”
“My pleasure, Don. Let me correct you a little. There are no Nano-warfare experts, at least in this country, because no one has dared to be on that battlefield yet.”
“But you firmly believe that our enemies are preparing, and may even be ready for that eventual battle?’
“What we are talking about, Don, are tiny machines at the molecular and atomic scale. These sub-microscopic machines can incredibly complex to serve limitless functions, from medical technology to warfare. China and Russia are already years ahead of the US in this technology, which is relatively simple and inexpensive to produce. I have little doubt that a nation like Iran could quite easily harness this technology, at potentially great peril to the US and her interests.”
“A new more deadly type of WMD?” The segment had taken on the scripted tone of a late night info-mercial.
“Self repeating machines that can be delivered in drinking water, a simple ventilation system, seeded from aircraft or sired from a small shell. Nano-weapons can be programmed to lie dormant and undetected for days or months or even years, virtually untraceable and allowing the perpetrators to get away completely.”
“And these weapons can be relatively inexpensive to produce, isn’t that right?”
“For much less than a million dollars. Well within reach of countries like Iran, and certainly within reach of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.”
“So what is the solution?”
“This country needs to build an effective policy to prevent Iran and other belligerent nations from getting Nano-weapons technology, and it needs to become competitive with nations like China and Russia who have historically not acted with US interests in mind.”
“Scary stuff.” The host shook his head slowly, tapping a stack of papers on the desk. “I am sure we’ll be discussing this much more Umberto Shosa is a Nano-technology and warfare expert, and the CEO of MICRO DEFENSE SYSTEMS Mister Shosa, glad you’re on our side. Coming up next, a siteen year old dancing at a Texas strip club? Not only is it legal, but her parents are supporting her decision. We’ll be right…”

Big Blue Sky: Six

2010-06-11T15:56:00.000-05:00

“There’s a connection, Caspar?”
Asgari was clearly in turmoil. In his long and varied career at Bethesda he had never come across anything so explosive. The dimension ran the gamut from the political to the legal, and into darker place beyond the law. It sent a shiver down his spine, and caused him to think odd and unnatural thoughts, not the least of which was who to trust and who posed a threat. Even with Molly that danger gave him pause, calling briefly into question the motives of a dear friend.
“I think they are related somehow,” he finally said.
She looked up sharply, searching his eyes and finding a growing terror there. It was enough to shake her world, like someone feeling the world tremble beneath their feet for the very first time.
“Do you know what you are saying?”
Caspar shook his head and took a deep breath. “I think this is very dangerous information to have, Molly.”
“I think we should make this official.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
She looked again at the X-rays, as if there was a chance Asgari could have been mistaken. He was far too thorough, and even she could see the evidence plainly. But who? And why?
“Have you told anyone about this?” she asked.
“Seriously?” he scoffed.
Molly thought again, turning to look again at Bernstein’s body. She looked one last time at the Xrays and then to the Doctor.
“And nothing about what you’ve found in the notes or your report?” she asked.
“Only preliminaries, and that it appeared to be an aneurism.”
“Can we leave it as inconclusive a bit longer.”
Caspar’s lip quivered slightly, an indication of terror, but also a growing impotent rage. “A part of me would leave this be for good and forget any of this.”
“Let me get some perspective.” Molly touched his cheek and managed smile. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I hope,” he said, unconvinced. “I think this is only just beginning.”