The Mackinac Incident

by Len McDougall

  Aziz was hungry and thirsty. He had a shoulder bag with fifteen pounds of C4 in an ammo box, wrapped around a ten-pound sphere of plutonium, but nothing to eat or drink. He didn’t even have a flashlight, and the moonless night was black as pitch. He couldn’t see the trail, and this green, mosquito-infested nightmare was the most horrible place he could imagine. If he got out of this alive, he’d never leave his beloved desert again.

  But Aziz wasn’t done yet. His best-laid plan had gone wrong from the start, but he had a number of backup and alternate plans, and he was nothing if not versatile. Mackinaw City had attracted a number of Muslims from Middle-Eastern countries in the past decade, and while most of them were devoted American citizens, there were a few friends of Islam that he could count on for support.

  It was his intention to return to Mackinaw City while it was filled with police and other civil servants, and thousands of tourists who’d become trapped there by the destruction he’d caused to the Mackinac Bridge. They’d never expect him to return, these stupid Americans, and they’d especially never suspect him to plant a second bomb. It was a given that they’d have a roadblock on every route into Mackinaw City, but it should be easy to infiltrate the village on foot. Posing as a tourist, he’d plant the second bomb in the Mackinac Point lighthouse tower, east of the Fort Michilmackinac tourist attraction. There, it would shower the crowded village with radiation. With any luck, he’d kill more than a hundred people with the initial blast, and contaminate thousands more with fallout for years to come.

  The going was very slow on this black night, and the cursed mosquitoes were relentless. He itched everywhere. Convinced that he wouldn’t be needing it again, he’d discarded his insect repellent, along with numerous other items, in a dumpster at the motel in Mackinaw City. He wished he had it now. Several times, he walked off the trail, and had to feel with his feet to find it again. He wanted to run; maybe if he were moving faster the mosquitoes wouldn’t be so bad. But if he broke into a run, he’d go off the trail again, maybe injure himself. The last thing he wanted to do now was to poke his eye out on a tree branch.

  A glint of reflected starlight up ahead caught his attention, and he heard the sound of running water. It was the Carp River. It had to be. There was no other water within miles of here. He could just make out the shape of the wooden, pedestrian bridge that crossed it, and the gleaming stars reflected in the running water below it. A quarter-mile past it was Cecil Bay Road, an asphalt ribbon that led to Highway US 31, which ran northward into Mackinaw City.

  But first he had to slake his terrible thirst. He’d been craving an ice cold Coca-Cola for the past three hours, imagining the burning of its carbonation against the back of his throat as he guzzled the brown liquid. He tried to lick his lips now, but his mouth felt as though it were filled with cotton balls. Unable to see clearly, he stumbled down to the river’s edge and fell onto all fours, his hands in the cold, running water. He lowered his mouth to the surface and sucked greedily until his stomach was filled.

  When he rose again, his thirst was gone and he felt much better. Almost refreshed. He tried not to think of all the aquatic parasites he’d just ingested. He was very tired, but filled with a renewed determination to reach Mackinaw City before dawn. The mosquitoes were unbearable here anyway, and that provided extra motivation.

  He crossed the footbridge and followed the trail to Cecil Bay Road with no trouble. When he reached the asphalt, the mosquitoes were fewer and more tolerable. He breathed easier, even though there was no doubt in his mind that the crazed survival instructor he’d shot at earlier in the day would try to follow—Aziz was sure his bullet had missed its mark. The man might be a skilled tracker, but surely even he couldn’t follow footprints on pavement.

  Aziz encountered a dozen cars before he reached US 31, at the end of Cecil Bay Road an hour later, but they’d all been easy to evade by simply ducking down into the grassy ditch. Several times, he’d heard a rustling back in the woods, and once a deer had crossed the road in front of him, but he was becoming less frightened by unseen animals in the shadows.

  There was no traffic at all on US 31. He hiked to the intersection where it merged with Interstate 75, and spotted a roadblock manned by one squad car and two officers from the Mackinaw City Police Department. They were preoccupied with their own worried conversation about being quarantined. Aziz skirted them in the woods at the roadside with ease.

  Dawn was breaking over Lake Huron, but even though it was well before normal business hours, Mackinaw City was bustling. The normally quiet community was filled with people who’d become stranded there by police order. Restaurants that normally closed had stayed open all night, and they were busy, as was the town’s only bar, and all of its motels. The village was inundated with police officers and a few resident National Guard members in uniform, but the influx of strangers who weren’t permitted to leave was defeating any attempts at heightened security. Once again, Aziz’s dark pigmentation caused him to pass for Native American, and no one gave him a second glance.

  He made his way to one of the few remaining public telephone booths and pretended to be looking up a phone number. In actuality, he was looking at a street map of the city. When he’d found the address he wanted, and committed its location to memory, he dialed a cell phone number that wasn’t in the telephone book.

  “Welcome to Jada’s Bait Shop,” a female voice said. “How may I serve you?”

  “Are there any tarpon in O’Neal Lake?” Aziz answered.

  “No sir, tarpon are a South Atlantic species.”

  “I see. What kind of bait would you recommend for them?”

  “Sir, maybe you’d best come here to see for yourself. Do you know where we’re located?”

  “Yes,” Aziz said, “I can be there within twenty minutes. I’ll walk over.”

  “How will we recognize you?”

  Shit! Aziz suddenly remembered that he was still wearing coveralls. He self-consciously turned his back to the telephone, away from the sight of any passersby who might recognize the logo between his shoulders.

  “I’ll be wearing a blue-and-white-flowered Hawaiian shirt with khaki Dockers slacks. I have dark hair and a goatee.”

  “We’ll see you in about twenty minutes,” the voice on the phone said. The line went dead.

  Aziz quickly slipped into a public restroom near the telephone. It was empty except for one man washing his hands. Aziz kept his back to him as he stepped into a stall, latching the door behind him. He unzipped the coveralls and stepped out of them. Beneath, he was dressed as he’d described himself on the telephone.

  He unlocked the stall door and cautiously looked outside. He was alone in the indoor bathroom, so he quickly stepped over to the swing-top wastebasket and stuffed the coveralls inside. Then, he stood at the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was dirty and scratched from his trek through the woods, and there were itchy mosquito bumps all over his body. He splashed water over his face to wash off some of the trail grime and blood. He didn’t have a comb, so he wetted his hair and smoothed it back with his palms. He tore off a section of brown paper towel and used it to dry his face.

  Aziz stepped back and studied himself in the bathroom mirror. He tucked in his shirt and smoothed the most major wrinkles out of his pants legs. Satisfied with the man he saw in his reflection, he pulled open the door of the public restroom and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  The sun was above the horizon now, bathing downtown Mackinaw City in a golden light that made the village look as quaint and as enticing to tourists as it had been designed to be. But this was no ordinary day, and these weren’t typical tourists. Some people were hurrying, as if they had someplace to be, but some were just milling about as if in a daze. The ferries to and from Machinac Island were, still in operation, still selling tickets and taking fares from people who were, in reality, going nowhere. Even the fudge shops were open with their wares arranged attractively behind large-paned windows facing the sidewa
lk.

  There were dozens of uniformed police, firefighters, and paramedics to be seen, and a few camouflage-clad National Guardsmen armed with obsolete M-16 A2 rifles. The show of force was pathetic, thought Aziz. These officials had no idea what they were protecting against, and from what Aziz could see, most were venting their frustrations by bullying the citizens they were sworn to protect. It was the same in every country he’d ever been to.

  Aziz put his bag over his shoulder, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and began walking nonchalantly away from the downtown area. He didn’t want to attract any attention to himself, but he was extremely conscious of the assembled bomb that was swinging from a strap over his shoulder. In his imagination, everyone was curious about it, even though no one seemed to give him a second look. They were, in fact, too busy trying to understand what had happened to make them prisoners in this suddenly overcrowded community. In this crowd, he was just one more confused, displaced tourist.

  City blocks weren’t as consistent or straight in Mackinaw City as they were in larger cities, but as near as he could calculate, the safe house Aziz had called from the pay phone was a little over a mile from the downtown area. As he’d told the woman he’d spoken with there, he could be there in twenty minutes—if no one delayed him. That didn’t look like it would happen, but so many unforeseen problems had come up, he was ready to expect anything.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  MACKINAW CITY

  It was about midnight when Rod reached the bridge over the Carp River. He spent several minutes in the shadows before he crossed the bridge, listening for any sound that might reveal an ambush. He’d be a sitting duck in the middle of the twenty-yard-long footbridge between the rails and with no cover. After several long moments of silence, he sprang from the shadows and loped across the bridge. His footfalls echoed hollowly against its wooden planking, each one sounding like an invitation to shoot him. He made it across, and then squatted in the darkness for several more minutes, listening intently.

  When he was sure that nothing was there that wasn’t supposed to be, Rod knelt at the river’s edge. He splashed cool water over his face to rinse away some of the crusted blood and grime. The water felt good. His nostrils were filled with congealed blood, and he was pretty certain the cartilage in his nose had been broken. It felt like there was a bump in it that shouldn’t be there, but the pain that shot through him when he tried to wiggle it was excruciating enough to convince him to leave it alone. Rod pulled a LifeStraw, ultralight water filter from his pack and filtered enough water to slake his thirst.

  When he’d finished washing his face, he walked the short distance to Cecil Bay Road. It was still very dark, but he couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, just frogs, fireflies, and the ever-present mosquitoes. Now, Rod had to determine whether the man he was pursuing had gone right toward Cecil Bay, straight across the road into the state forest along the North Country hiking trail, or left toward highway US 31.

  He put on his headlamp and pointed it at the ground. There had been several people through here within the past two days, but the tracks of the man he was following were easily identifiable from the rest: They had the sharpest edges and were on top of the previous imprints. The high contrast provided by Rod’s headlamp made it easy to see where gravel on the shoulder had been displaced when the man had twisted on the ball of his right foot as he turned toward US 31. When he’d stepped onto the pavement, sand granules that had been clinging to his hiking boot fell away to leave a partial outline of his sole. That was it; the man had headed toward the highway.

  Rod hiked as fast as he could toward the highway, his joints objecting at every step. He made it to US 31 in a little over an hour, just as the first dawn of a new day was lightening the eastern sky. There had been no foot traffic at all on the highway, and it took only a few minutes of careful searching to find his quarry’s footprints on the gravel shoulder, heading in the direction of Mackinaw City.

  Rod was reminded of the old axiom about criminals returning to the scene of the crime. That had never made any sense to him personally, but it sure looked like that was what this guy was doing. He was certain that the earth-shaking boom he’d heard when he was chasing the van on the two-track to French Farm Lake was a bomb detonation. What else could it have been? But if that were the case, surely the terrorists had done what they’d intended to do. If this guy he was now trailing was the last of them, as he appeared to be, maybe he just wanted to get away. But it would have made more sense to head south, where the population was denser and it’d be easier to disappear. Security around Mackinaw City would be high right now, wouldn’t it?

  Was it possible that the murderer intended to blow up something else? Maybe he had some other terrorist act in mind. Or maybe he had friends in Mackinaw City who’d get him out of the country. That probably made the most sense, because there didn’t seem to be a hell of a lot left in this area that would be considered a worthwhile terrorist target.

  Rod was surprised that there wasn’t more traffic on the road. In fact, the highway was downright desolate—no cars at all. That was weird, and a little spooky. Traffic here was usually moderately heavy all of the time, day and night. But he didn’t see a single car all the way to Mackinaw City. On the outskirts of town, there was a police car and a roadblock on the freeway. No doubt about it, that had been a bomb that he’d heard go off. The damage must have been pretty extensive for authorities to have closed the highways.

  He had no trouble slipping past the roadblock by going around it through the woods. In Mackinaw City, he saw lots of cops and National Guardsmen in uniform. They were apparently there to provide at least the illusion of enhanced security, but Rod didn’t have to think too profoundly to conclude that it was mostly for show. There was no way the authorities could know who was or wasn’t there. The town was jammed with people who weren’t from the area. Every restaurant or bar in town was filled to capacity, and there were hundreds of folks walking the sidewalks or just sitting on the curbs, talking. The authorities who were ostensibly providing security seemed mostly lost themselves.

  Ironically, Rod’s backpack and disheveled appearance made him fit right in with the crowd of tourists who’d found themselves stranded in this little town. Rod was sure that there was an All Points Bulletin out for him, but he doubted he’d be recognized. His reflection in a store window as he passed was a little shocking; his swollen nose and black-ringed eyes made him hard to identify among the multitude of other injured people.

  Besides, these cops had bigger fish to fry—even if they didn’t know what they were. Rod openly asked around on the street about what was going on, and before an hour had gone by, he was up to speed about the events of the past twenty-four hours. Everyone was eager to tell what they knew. It was probably cathartic for them. There was plenty of conjecture, but if half of what Rod was told was true, he was more convinced than ever that the killer he was trailing was one of the most dangerous people he’d ever meet.

  But Rod had to find him before he could stop him, and that was looking to be a daunting task. Rod didn’t know where to begin. He suddenly felt very stupid, and very disheartened. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and sank heavily onto one of the public benches that lined the main street of the town. He was exhausted. He ached all over, and his nose hurt like hell from the hammer blow Grigovich’s fist had landed on it. All he really wanted to do was rest. He was at the end of his proverbial rope, and he didn’t have any idea what his next step should be. He decided to call Shannon. He needed to talk to his best friend. There were still a few pay phones around the north woods where cell coverage was often spotty, even nonexistent.

  Shannon accepted the charges almost before the operator could ask.

  “Oh Baby,” she said, “where are you? I’ve been so worried.”

  For just a second, he pondered the pros and cons of revealing his actual location, and then it occurred to him that he really didn’t give a damn. The cops were prob
ably listening in right now, and they’d zeroed in on his location as soon as the number connected. He was sure they already blamed him for the murders on the Betsy River.

  “I’m at a pay phone in Mackinaw City,” he said. “The bridge is closed, and from what I’ve been told by people on the street, there was a helluva bomb that went off there yesterday.”

  “It’s been on the news,” Shannon answered. “And it’s worse than that: They just announced this morning that the bomb was a dirty bomb. It wasn’t nuclear, but it spread radiation all over—you’re probably in it right now. The news didn’t say how bad it’s supposed to be, but any amount of radiation can’t be good.”

  “I was afraid of that. I heard the explosion, figured it had to be a bomb. Didn’t know it was radioactive, though.”

  “Rod, they’re blaming you for the murders on the Betsy,” she confirmed. “I saw your boot prints at the scene. Please tell me you didn’t have any hand in killing them.”

  “Do you have to ask me that?”

  “No,” she said, sounding a little ashamed of herself, “I don’t. But I wanted to hear it from your lips.”

  “I did kill one man there, though,” he said with genuine sadness. “But he was a stranger; never saw him before. He had a gun, and he would’ve killed me. I killed another man on the bridge yesterday. Same circumstances.”