Out of the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Col. Sam Cooper, CO of the Hell-Hounds, was blunt with him. Blunt, but not unfriendly. He simply had his orders, and that was that.

  “I don’t know what’s going down, Ben. But it’s good to hear from you. I enjoyed your last book. Good stuff.”

  “Honestly, Sam? You really don’t know what’s happening?”

  “I’m leveling with you, Ben. To tell you the God’s truth, I can’t find anybody who knows what’s going on. Or at least who will talk about it.”

  Ben felt a chill move around in his belly. “Take care of yourself, Sam.”

  “Will do. You hunt a hole, partner,” the Hell-Hound said. “Keep your head down.” He broke the connection.

  Or somebody did it for him.

  “It’s firm, Hilton,” the senator’s chief aide told him. “The military is up to something. Lots of moving around and quiet talk. And I can’t even get in the front door at Langley. Certain units of the military are on some kind of low alert.”

  “Why?” the senator demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “President Fayers?”

  “He’s fat, dumb, and happy.”

  “You mean he doesn’t know what’s going on?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  TWO

  A fishing lodge in the Missouri Ozarks

  The banquet hall of the lodge had been cleared of all furniture not essential to the meeting. The building had been electronically swept for listening devices. Long tables had been placed end to end, side to side, forming a huge square, capable of accommodating fifty people in comfort. Pitchers of water, drinking glasses, pads and pencils, and briefing books were placed on the dark blue cloth, the items neatly arranged before each chair. A shredding machine stood silent in the corner.

  Tension, heavy and ominous, hung in the huge room as the room filled with men in groups of two or three. Although no nametag designated individual place, there was no confusion; each man seemed to know exactly where to sit. There was no unnecessary chatter, few social amenities were exchanged. The men looked at each other, nodded, then sat down.

  All of the men were military. That would have been evident to even the most uneducated in military bearing. Neatly trimmed hair, out of style; eyes that gave away nothing; erect bearing; no wasted motion.

  To the more knowledgeable, the men were line officers and combat-experienced sergeants and chiefs. All career men.

  The Army general and colonels, had they been in uniform, would have had Airborne/Ranger/Special Forces tabs on their shoulders. The generals and colonels of the Marine Corps are Force Recon—trained—Raiders. The general and colonels of the Air Force are combat pilots and Air Force commandos. The Navy men are UDT, SEAL, pilots, ships’ captains. The Coast Guard men are all career; they have all seen combat. There were fifteen sergeant majors and master chiefs making up the complement.

  During the past twenty-four hours, the men, all having arrived at night, had traveled various routes to get to the lodge. The real-estate agent who had rented them the lodge knew only that he was renting the place for a top-level think tank.

  Keep your mouth shut about this and we’ll be back next year. A handsome bonus for you. And don’t disturb us.

  Yes, sir, the agent had replied instinctively. Guy looked like his old drill sergeant.

  Guards were sentried about the two hundred acres. They were in civilian clothes and their sidearms were out of sight.

  Cigars, pipes, and cigarettes smoking, water glasses filled, the men waited for someone to open the ball.

  “Who ordered this low alert the press is talking about?” the question was tossed out.

  “Came out of the Joint Chiefs. It’s confused the hell out of a lot of units and caused several hundred thousand men to be shifted around, out of standard position. Goddamn, it’s going to be days before they get back to normal. We not only don’t know who issued the order, but why?”

  “Maybe to get us out of position for the big push?”

  “I thought we had more time—months, even.”

  “Something’s happened to cause them to speed up their timetable,” Gen. Vern Saunders of the Army said. “That means we’ve got to move very quickly.”

  “Hell, Vern,” Gen. Tom Driskill of the Marine Corps said, “what can we do ... really? We’re up against it. We all think we know where ‘it’ is. But we’re not certain. Do we dare move? If we do, what will be the consequences?”

  Admiral Mullens of the Navy looked around him, meeting all eyes. “I don’t think we dare move.”

  Sergeant major of the Army, Parley, stirred.

  “You got something on your mind, Sergeant Major,” the admiral said, “say it. We’re all equal here.”

  “Damned if that’s so!” a Marine sergeant major said.

  Laughter erupted.

  Parley said, “I don’t believe we can afford to move. But if we don’t, what do we do—just sit on our hands and wait for war?”

  “I think it’s out of our hands,” Admiral Newcomb of the Coast Guard said. “We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If we expose the location of the sub—where we think it is—we stand a good chance of a war. A very good chance. I think we’re in a box. If we expose the traitors, they’ll fire anyway. And we’re not supposed to have that type of missile.”

  “Which is a bad joke,” Sergeant Major Rogers of the Marine Corps said in disgust. “Russia’s still got us outgunned two to one in missiles of the conventional nuclear type. God only knows how many germ-type warheads they have.” He forced a grin. “Of course, we have a few of those ourselves.” He shook his head. “Jesus! Thirty damned guys control the fate of the entire world. Even worse than that, if our intelligence is correct, it’s a double double cross.”

  Master chief petty officer of the Navy, Franklin, looked across the table, disgust in his eyes. “Admiral? Do you—any of you—know for sure just who we can trust?”

  The admiral shook his head. “No, not really. We don’t know how many of our own people are in on this ... caper.”

  “You mean, sir,” a colonel asked, “one of us might be in on it?”

  “I would say the odds are better than even that is true.”

  “I wondered why I was jerked out of Italy so fast I didn’t even have time to zip up my pants,” the Ranger colonel smiled.

  “Well, you’d better zip ’em up, Pete,” a SEAL laughed at him. “You don’t have that much to brag about.”

  “How the hell do you know?” A marine chuckled. “You two guys queer for each other?”

  “I ain’t free,”—the Ranger grinned—“but I’m reasonable.”

  An AF commando laughed. “He bends over in the shower a lot, lookin’ for the soap.”

  The rough humor touched all the men. After the laughter had died, the men seemed more relaxed, able to talk without constraint. A Special Forces colonel said, “General? You think some of my men are involved in this?”

  “No,” General Saunders said. “Our intelligence people”—he waved his hand—“all services, seem to agree on one point: no special troops are involved. But”—he held up a warning finger—“this touches all branches of the service, not just in this country, but all countries. Russia included.” He smiled grimly. “I take some satisfaction in that. Those men in that sub have friends all over the world. That’s why they’ve been able to hide from us for so long.”

  “The Bull and Adams are really alive?”

  “Yes. I talked with Bull. It came as quite a shock to me.

  “I ... don’t really understand what they have to do with this . . . operation,” a master chief said, as much to himself as to the men around him.

  “Really . . . neither do we,” an admiral replied. “But we do know these facts, one of which is obvious: Bull and Adams faked their deaths years ago; we know they are both superpatriots, Adams more than Bull when it comes to liberal-hating. All right. We put together this hypothesis: Adams and Bull had a plan to ove
rthrow the government—if it came to that—using civilian . . . well, rebels, let’s call them, along with selected units of the military. Took years to put all this together. But . . . the use of civilian rebels failed; couldn’t get enough of them in time. We know for a fact that many ex-members of the Hell-Hounds turned them down cold.”

  “How many men do they have?”

  “Five to six thousand—at the most.”

  “That’s still a lot of people. And knowing Bull and Adams, those men are trained guerrilla fighters. How have they managed to keep that many people secret for so long?”

  The admiral allowed himself a tight smile. “You didn’t know the Bull, did you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “If you had known either of them, you wouldn’t have asked.”

  “I knew both of them,” a Ranger colonel said. “If they even suspected a member of any of their units was a traitor, they would not hesitate to kill him—war or peace.”

  “I see,” the man said softly. “So . . . Bull came up with the sub plan?”

  General Saunders shook his head. “No. It wasn’t his plan. We believe it was Adams’ idea. But I couldn’t discuss this with Bull. I only had two minutes with him. Besides, he and Adams have been friends for twenty-five years. But I did manage to plant a seed of doubt in his mind. Yes, we believe Adams has lost control; he’s slipped mentally. Mr. Kelly of the CIA shares that belief.”

  “There is something I don’t understand,” a Coast Guard officer said. “Obviously, this plan has been on the burner for a long time—years. To overthrow the government, I mean. Why have they waited so long?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. And we’ve got dozens of computers working on the problem right at this moment.” The general rubbed his face with his hands. “I didn’t get a chance to ask the Bull that. So many questions I wanted to ask. Men, I don’t think we have a prayer of stopping those men on the sub. I think we’re staring nuclear and germ warfare right in its awful face and there isn’t a goddamned thing we can do about it.”

  “I gather,” a Marine officer said, “the Joint Chiefs don’t know about this?”

  “We don’t know if they do or not,” Admiral Mullens said. “But we can’t approach any of them for fear one of them is involved.”

  “One or more. And which ones?”

  “That is yet another point to consider.”

  “And we can’t do to them what we’re about to do to each other,” General Driskill said, as an aide, as if on cue, wheeled in a cart with a machine on it.

  No one had to ask what it was; all the men present held the highest security ratings in America. They had all taken these tests before. The machine was the most highly advanced of the psychological stress evaluators. PSE. The same type the Bull and Adams used to ferret out informers.

  “Each of us will submit to a PSE test. Sergeant Mack is the best around.” General Driskill smiled as he laid a pistol on the table, in front of him. “This won’t take too long.”

  A few seconds ticked past. An Air Force colonel tried to light a cigarette. His hands were shaking so badly he finally gave up the effort. He looked into the hard eyes of the Marine general. “Save yourself the trouble, General. I don’t know where the sub is; I don’t know who on the JCs—if anyone—is involved in this operation; and I don’t know anyone who does know.”

  “You damned fool!” General Driskill snapped at him. “Don’t you people realize—or care—you’re bringing the world to the brink of holocaust?”

  “Oh, the hell with that!” the colonel said. “Let Russia and China fight it out. Let them destroy each other. We’ll pick up the pieces and be on top once more.”

  “So that’s it,” a man muttered.

  The Air Force colonel smiled.

  “I don’t believe that’s all of it,” General Crowe of the Air Force said. He pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at the colonel. “You traitorous son of a bitch. Which one of the Joint Chiefs is it?”

  The Air Force colonel was suddenly calm with the knowledge that he would never leave this room alive. He was not going to give the men in the room the pleasure of seeing him squirm. His gaze touched each man, then he lit his cigarette with steady hands. “I don’t know. And that’s being honest. I think it’s an aide, but I can’t be sure. You can test me; I won’t fight the machine.”

  He was tested. He did not know the name of the man on the Joint Chiefs, and his hunch that it was a top aide showed positive. He did not know the location of the sub, and had no further knowledge of it.

  “Explain it all!” General Crowe snapped. “I’ve seen men tortured before, sonny.” He still held the .38 in his right hand.

  “General, I don’t know much about the operation. That was deliberate on the part of the top man, or men. Not even the men in the sub know who the architect is. Least I don’t believe they do.” No one in the room believed him. “My orders are to report what I heard here, that’s all.”

  “He’s lying!” a master chief said.

  General Crowe said, “Colonel, make it easy on yourself. We can do this one of several ways. We’re not savages, but the fate of the world may very well rest in this room.”

  The Air Force colonel glanced at his watch. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. He gave the general a Washington, D.C. phone number.

  “Trace it,” Driskill told Sergeant Major Rogers.

  The colonel’s eyes hardened.

  “Let’s tighten up all the loose ends, Colonel. Too many ropes dangling, flapping in the breeze.”

  He looked at his watch once again and said, after a slight smile and a deep breath, almost a sigh of relief, “We—those of us in the operation—knew that Brady would eventually put things together and go to Fayers.”

  “Harold Brady of the CIA?”

  “Yes. We had hoped he wouldn’t put it together until after the elections.” He glanced at his watch.

  “Why are you always lookin’ at your goddamned watch?” an Air Force commando asked. “You takin’ medicine?”

  “He’s stalling!” a SEAL said. “Playing for time.”

  The Army Ranger hit the colonel in the mouth with a short, hard right, slamming him out of his chair. General Driskill kicked the man to his feet and shoved him back in his chair.

  “Now, speak!” the general barked.

  The Air Force colonel shook his head to clear away the cobwebs and wiped blood from his mouth. He smiled.

  “What do you find amusing about all this?” Admiral Mullens asked.

  The colonel’s smile broadened.

  “Because,” Admiral Newcomb said quietly, “there aren’t going to be any elections—right, Colonel?”

  The man’s smile faded. “That’s right, Admiral.”

  “Why?”

  He again glanced at his watch. “Because it’s 1207, that’s why.”

  “What?” Driskill barked. “What the hell has the time to do with anything?”

  “Brady put it all together much sooner than we expected. I should have received a phone call before 1145 hours. I didn’t. That means our computers have concluded that no one can beat Hilton Logan in the fall elections. It—they—have concluded that even if it’s close, too close, no clear majority, it’ll be thrown into the House. Logan will come out on top, and that liberal son of a bitch will find out we’ve built new nukes and order them destroyed.”

  “Son,”—General Saunders leaned forward—“don’t do this. Don’t do it to your country. Logan is just a man. Not much of one,” he grimaced, “but still a man. He’s not going to dismantle the nation. We’ll weather it.”

  “No, General. No, we won’t. This country’s had it.” His eyes were sad, his voice low when he spoke. “We’ve had eight years of conservatism, but everything Fayers has pushed through has been a battle. People aren’t interested in the long run; they’re only interested, concerned, with now. The gun-control legislation proved it; we’re moving back to the left, and we can’t allow that to happen. T
his way is the only way we can get back on top. China will give Russia every missile she’s had hidden for years, then pour half a billion troops across the border. They’ll destroy each other. The two-bit countries will blow each other off the map once we start the dance. Africa will go up like a tinderbox, the Mideast with it.” His eyes grew wild with fanaticism.

  “And what of America, Colonel?” General Crowe asked.

  “Oh, we’ll take casualties,” he admitted. “Somewhere in the seventy-five- to ninety-million range; you all know the stats. But we’ll come out far better than any other major power. And when we’re back on top again, this time, by God, we’ll stay there.”

  “You’re crazy!” Sergeant Major Parley blurted. “My God, man—think of all the innocent people you’re killing. You people are fucking nuts!”

  Rogers came back into the room. “I used the mobile phone in the car, General, just in case the phone here has a long-range bug on it. The phone company in D.C. got a disconnect order on the number he gave us. Got it about two hours ago. What’s happening here?”

  “Holocaust,” a buddy informed him.

  Driskill looked at the colonel. “I believe the colonel is about to give us all the details, aren’t you, superpatriot?”

  The Air Force man laughed in his face. “Sure, I’ll tell you. Why not? There isn’t a damned thing any of you can do about it.”

  Only blow your fucking head off when you’re through flapping your gums, General Crowe thought, his hand tightening on the butt of the .38.

  “There won’t be any elections,” the colonel said. “Not for a long time—a very long time. The military is going to be forced into taking over the country: suspending the constitution and declaring martial law. That’s all we wanted, all along. All we were doing, once we learned Brady was onto us, was buying time. Getting set. We’re five days from launch.”