The Big Blue Sky: Seventy-five

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

“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

“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-seven

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

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-four

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-two

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

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 Big Blue Sky: Fifty-Nine

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-four

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

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-one

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

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

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

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-six

“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

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

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

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

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!”