Fire in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  If Ben received the mental projection, his expression did not note it. He continued to stare at Aston Addison. Fourteen people in the room had less than one minute to live.

  The man is scared to death, Ben thought. He is actually trembling.

  Ben's pistol-filled holster was chafing his leg painfully, rubbing a raw spot. He moved his hand downward to ease the pressure.

  Maybe that will stop it, he thought.

  President Addison watched the man's hand slip toward the pistol butt. He, along with several of the Secret Service men, had noticed the grimace pass across Ben's face. They had all misinterpreted the movement.

  He's going to kill me! Aston panicked.

  It's a setup! a Secret Service man thought.

  “Stop him!” Aston shouted, pointing to Ben. “He's going to kill me."

  The frightening suddenness of the president's screaming jarred everyone in the room; except for the one Secret Service man who was supposed to initiate the killing. It scared the hell out of him.

  The government agents grabbed for their guns; the Rebels grabbed for their weapons. The stenographer, a combat-trained Rebel, dropped to the floor and grabbed an M-16.

  The room exploded in gunfire.

  President Aston Addison, who never really wanted the presidency in the first place, watched in a second's horror as one of his own agents leveled a .357 magnum at him and pulled the trigger. Aston's head erupted in a mass of gray matter, blood, and fluid. The president of the United States was dead before he hit the carpet.

  General Krigel fired twice, one of his slugs hitting a Secret Service man in the chest, rupturing the heart. The other slug hit an aide in the side of the head, entering the man's right ear. His head swelled as blood gushed out of his nose and eyes. An agent emptied his .357 into Krigel before Ben shot him in the face.

  Major Conger fired his .45 into the knot of government men. He was still pulling the trigger when a half dozen slugs hit him, slamming him to the floor, dead.

  General Hazen was struck by a dozen slugs, but still managed to kill the turncoat service agent before he died.

  The stenographer burned a full clip into the knot of government men before a slug hit her in the eye, passed through her brain, and blew out the back of her head.

  Ben dropped one agent with a gut shot and was flung to the carpet as a bullet hit him in the side. He killed the last remaining government man as he was going down.

  General Ben Raines slumped against a wall, the only person left alive in the motel room.

  The room was thick with gunsmoke and the stink of urine, sweat, and blood. Thirteen men and one woman had died in less than one minute. Outside, the battle took a little longer, but not much.

  Several of the president's aides died instantly, caught in a hideous crossfire between Hartline's phony Marines, the Rebels, the government agents. Several Rebels, not knowing what had happened, ran around the corner of the motel, heading for the sounds of battle. They ran point-blank into eternity. Long after the battle was over, bits and bloody pieces of them could be found embedded in the brick of the motel wall.

  A Rebel officer leaped into the back of a Jeep, spun the mounted .50-caliber machine gun in the direction of the phony leathernecks and cut them to ribbons. A Secret Service agent shot the Rebel in the chest. The agent was bayoneted through the neck a heartbeat later.

  A Rebel sergeant, wounded, crawled up to a dead “Marine” and grabbed for his M-16. He noticed the dog tags around the neck seemed strange. He looked up just in time to see a Secret Service man pointing a pistol at him.

  “Wait a minute, man!” the Rebel yelled. “I think we're on the same side."

  “What!” the agent screamed.

  “Look!” the Rebel jerked the dog tags off the dead man, holding them out to the agent. “These guys aren't Marines. They're Hartline's mercenaries. We've been set up—all of us."

  “Cease fire!” the Secret Service man yelled.

  “Kill ‘em all!” a merc yelled his reply. “They've all got to die to make it look good."

  “To make what look good?” the wounded Rebel asked.

  “The setup,” the agent snarled. “We've all been had.” He looked down at the Rebel. “Grab that M-16 and give me some covering fire."

  “Will do."

  Hartline had not counted on so many Rebels being in the area. With all sides no longer in contradictory fire, the fight was over in two minutes.

  Ike, Dawn, and Cecil were the first to reach the bloodied motel room. Ben opened the door to face them. Blood squished under his boots. The carpet was soaked with it. A small river of thick crimson ran past the open door into the sidewalk.

  “Ben!” Dawn cried.

  “I've been hit worse,” he told her. He looked around for a Secret Service agent. Found one. “One of your people killed Addison. Shot him in the head.” He pointed to the body sprawled on the floor. “That one. He opened the dance."

  “Baldwin,” the agent said. “But ... why?"

  “I don't know,” Ben said, stepping out of the stinking slaughterhouse. “It's a double cross of some kind, though, I can tell you that. How many of your people bought it?"

  “Too goddamn many,” the agent replied. “Somebody is damn well going to pay with their ass for this."

  “Ben,” Ike said. “Let's get you to the hospital."

  In the distance, the sounds of sirens wailed mournfully, cutting a path through the traffic.

  “The ambulances will be here in a minute,” Ben told him, his face gray with pain and shock.

  “We got a problem,” a Secret Service man said, walking up to the senior agent.

  “No shit!” the senior agent looked at him, exasperation in the glance. The sounds of airplanes filled his head.

  “Yeah,” the man said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pointed up to the sky. “Look."

  The sky was filled with blossoming parachutes.

  “Has to be the 82nd,” Ike said.

  “But why?” the senior agent said.

  “This fellow looks like he might know the answer,” Ben said, nodding toward a bird colonel running with his M-16 at port arms.

  “You people hold your fire but stand at the ready!” Ben yelled at his troops.

  “No need for that, General,” the colonel panted the words. “We've been standing by just a few miles out, circling until we got the word."

  “What word?” Ben said. The pain in his side was momentarily forgotten as a strange feeling slipped into his head. It was a heady feeling of déjà vu; but yet more than that. Somehow Ben knew all that had taken place was more than a double cross—it was more like a triple cross; or a double double cross.

  “The word that things had gone our way,” the colonel said.

  “I don't understand,” the senior Secret Service agent said.

  “Or that we had to come in and clean up the mess,” the colonel added.

  “I'm with him,” Ben said, looking at the agent. “What in the hell is going on?"

  “We've taken over the government,” the colonel said calmly.

  “Oh, shit!” Cecil blurted.

  “But only for a few days,” the colonel added, as more of his men crowded the parking lot. The medics among them were tending to the wounded.

  Ben felt lightheaded. He put out his hand and Dawn slipped under his arm, taking part of his weight.

  “We've got to get you to a hospital, General Raines,” the colonel said. “If you can hang on, we've got a dust-off coming in smartly, sir."

  “Are you British?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, sir. British Royal Marines until the bombings."

  “Goddamnit, Ben!” Dawn's temper got the best of her. “Can we discuss nationalities at some later date? You're bleeding on me."

  “Over here, lad!” the colonel shouted at a medic. “See to the general. Step lively now."

  “You said ‘but only for a few days,'” Ike looked at the colonel. “What happens then?"

  “Well, by that time, G
eneral Raines will be up and about. Not a hundred percent, but well enough."

  “Well enough to do what?” Ben asked.

  The colonel lit his pipe. “Why, to be sworn in as president of the United States."

  Ben passed out.

  PART THREE

  I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.

  — W. D. Vandiver

  One

  “Let's go, partner,” Hartline smiled at Lowry. “We lost the ball game and the park is on fire."

  “What!” the VP shouted. “But that's impossible."

  In as few words as possible, the mercenary told him what had happened. Then, smiling, he unfolded a copy of Lowry's written promise to him; that damning document backing up Hartline in anything he wanted to do.

  Lowry felt his carefully structured and manufactured world falling around him like a house of cards in a strong wind. He felt lightheaded and sick at his stomach. His legs trembled.

  “Get yourself together,” Hartline told him. “We don't have much time."

  “Neither of you are going anywhere,” Al Cody spoke from the office door.

  Hartline looked at the Bureau director. Cody held a pistol in his hand. “Don't be a fool, man,” Hartline told him. “You're in this up your sanctimonious ass."

  “I'll take my chances. I feel better than I have in months just knowing I can tell all and purge my soul. Why, I can..."

  “Fuck you!” VP Lowry screamed, startling them all. He jerked a pistol out of a side drawer of his desk and began firing at Cody.

  Cody returned the fire as dots of crimson began appearing on his white shirt.

  Hartline fell to the carpet and crawled behind a sofa as the lead flew in all directions. When the firing stopped, both Cody and the VP were dead.

  “Well, now,” Hartline said with a smile. “Isn't this something?"

  “Sure is,” Tommy Levant said.

  Hartline spun and shot the agent in the chest with a .22 magnum derringer he carried behind his belt buckle. He put the second round in Levant's head, made sure the man was dead, then walked out of the presidential retreat, using the back door. He smiled at the sight of Secret Service agents standing with their hands over their heads held at bay by his own men.

  “You get the cunt from the barracks?” he asked.

  “The blond one. Left the crazy one."

  “Shoot them,” he told his men.

  Five seconds later the Secret Service men were dead or dying in bloody piles on the cool ground.

  “Let's get out of here,” Hartline ordered. “You get hold of Jake Devine up in Illinois?"

  “Yes, sir. Told him we were on our way."

  “Let's go."

  * * * *

  “What a terrible tragedy,” Senator Carson said. “I simply cannot believe this nation has endured so many crushing blows in so short a time."

  “That is true, Senator,” General Preston said. “But that does not answer my question."

  “What? Oh, yes, General. Of course I'll back Ben Raines. I believe he might be the only man capable of pulling this nation back together. A folk hero and all that. You can count on me, General."

  “What about the others?” General Rimel asked.

  “They will, I believe, rally around me at this time,” Carson assured them. “Those who threw their support behind Lowry are a badly shaken bunch."

  “They've seen the error of their ways?” General Franklin commented dryly.

  Senator Carson wasn't certain exactly how to take that dryly given remark. But being a member of Congress for more years than he cared to remember had its advantages. He was a master of doubletalk and gobbledygook. Carson had once used four hundred and eighty words to say No.

  “I believe, taking all the hideous events of the past few days into consideration, most of my colleagues would be only too happy to follow a leader who would strive to his utmost to bring this nation and its people back into the folds of a democratic rule of government. It is my belief that in Ben Raines—although his writings were a bit too racy for my old literary tastebuds to savor—we have found a man strong-willed enough but yet compassionate enough to placate even the most reluctant members of Congress."

  Admiral Calland resisted, mightily, an urge to tell Carson to go blow it out his tanks.

  “Thank you,” the admiral said instead.

  “You gentlemen are certainly welcome,” the old man beamed his reply.

  Things were working out even better than he had originally planned.

  Yes, Raines would do quite nicely.

  * * * *

  “No,” Ben spoke more sharply than he intended to the circle of friends. “I most certainly will not assume the presidency.” He was sitting in a chair, despite doctor's orders to stay in bed. “People, listen to me, for God's sake. Can you—any of you—even visualize me running this nation; arguing with a bunch of goddamn bleeding-heart do-gooders? No. You can't. And neither can I. Tell the Joint Chiefs to find someone else."

  “Ben,” Ike said, for once a serious expression on his face. “You have a duty."

  “Duty!” Ben yelled, and his side began aching. “Goddamnit, Ike, don't you start that duty shit with me. That's what got me into this mess in the first place; that's what the old Bull told me back in ‘Nam—about a thousand years ago.” He took a deep breath, calming himself. “Any word on Jerre?"

  “Hartline took her,” Cecil said. “We know that much. One of those Secret Service agents at the retreat lived long enough to tell us that."

  “Where did the bastard go?"

  “Somewhere in Illinois,” Ike said. “He went over there to link up with Jake Devine's bunch."

  “Getting back to the offer from the Joint Chiefs,” Cecil said.

  “No,” Ben repeated. “I'm tired of having to say that word. Seems after a while you people could get it through your heads I don't want the job."

  Both Ike and Cecil looked at Dawn. She smiled. Ben caught the look.

  “Oh, boy,” he muttered. “Now you're calling in the special troops, huh?"

  “We'll let him sleep on it,” Dawn said.

  “Nightmares would be more like it,” Ben groused.

  * * * *

  “Well now,” Captain Gray said to Tina. “Big news back in Richmond."

  She looked at him.

  “The Joint Chiefs of Staff have temporarily taken over the job of running the country—for a few days, according to the report."

  There was a twinkle in the ex-SAS man's eyes, and Tina knew she was being led up to something. She refused to bite.

  “Not interested, Tina?"

  “You didn't hear me say that, did you, Captain? Come on, give."

  “The Joint Chiefs are going to appoint someone to run the country."

  She waited. “Come on, you Limey misfit!"

  He laughed at her. “Your father."

  Tina sat down on the tailgate of the pickup truck. “Ben Raines!"

  “Yes. There is a bit of bad news with it, girl, so hang on."

  She waited.

  “The general's been shot...” She jumped to her feet “...but not bad, though. Wound in the side. I think the general needs all the help he can get right now, Tina, so I've a plane waiting at the strip to take you to Richmond. No sass, now, girl. Run on with you.” He waggled his fingers in a gesture of extreme impatience and watched her walk to her billet for a few things.

  There were other reasons why Captain Dan Gray wanted Tina gone, and when she learned of them she would be furious. But that couldn't be helped.

  She waved good-bye to Gray as she got in the Jeep that would take her to the small strip just out of the Kansas town.

  A burly sergeant walked up to Gray. “She's gonna pitch a screaming fucking hissy when she finds out why you sent her away."

  “I know,” the leader of the Scouts agreed with a grin. “So I hope we will
be out of her line of fire until she gets over it."

  “Has the team found Jerre yet?"

  “No. But they're closing. Should hear from them any day."

  The sergeant took a map from his battle jacket. He spread it out on the tailgate. With one blunt finger, he jabbed at a circle. “That's the last known position of Jake Devine."

  Gray nodded, then a slow smile worked its way across his face. “Hell, Larry—we're not tied down. Soon as Tina gets airborne, we'll pull out. Have the lads dress in civilian clothing. Let's head for Illinois."

  * * * *

  “Doctor Chase!” Tina cried, running the last few steps to the plane.

  He held open his arms and the girl rushed into them. “Good to see you, Tina. So good to see you."

  “But ...?"

  “Let's get on board, girl, then we'll talk."

  Airborne, Lamar Chase grinned and said, “You don't think I'd let Ben suffer at the hands of those Army sawbones, do you? Thought I'd better ease over that way and take charge."

  She laughed at his mock seriousness. “You'll never change."

  “I hope not, girl. You know the Joint Chiefs want Ben in as president?"

  “Captain Gray told me."

  “And..."

  “He'll never take it."

  “Then it's up to us all to change his mind, Tina."

  “But..."

  “He's got to do it, honey. It's his duty."

  She looked out the window at the clouds below them. “Sometimes I just hate that word."

  “I know,” the doctor said, taking her hand in his. “I do, too."

  * * * *

  “Well, now,” Jake Devine greeted Hartline and his men. “Are things lookin’ up or are they not?"

  His eyes were on Jerre.

  “That was a stupid fucking play moving against those bridges, Jake. I cannot believe you gave those orders."

  “I didn't, Sam. That was young Jefferson. He got ants in his pants and too cocky. We paid hard for it."

  “Give me a report."

  “Illinois and Indiana are ours. Parts of Ohio and Missouri. All of Iowa."

  “Lots of good land,” Hartline said.

  “If you're a farmer,” a mercenary bitched.