Fire in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Lisa appeared in the doorway just as Hartline jumped for the side window. He paused, spotted the girl, and pulled the trigger. The slugs took the girl in the face, blowing off half her jaw before twisting up into her brain. Dead when she hit the carpet.

  Hartline felt the shock of a bullet hit him in the left shoulder, turning him, spinning him, dropping him to one knee. He looked out the window at the savage face of Jake Devine, a gun in his hand. Hartline shot him in the chest and jumped for the shattered window. He hit the ground and rolled as slugs whined around him, cutting paths of death through the thick smoke from the smoke grenades.

  He was off and running, serpenting through the smoke and the mist. He jumped into a car and roared off, toward the airstrip.

  “To hell with him,” Ike yelled. “Find Jerre.” He stumbled over the dying body of Jake.

  “That bedroom,” Jake pointed. “Me and Lisa was going to get her at noon—try and ... make a break for it. The kid's dead, isn't she?"

  “The girl I tried to stop from entering the house?” Ike asked, kneeling down beside the merc.

  “Yeah."

  “Yes. Hartline shot her in the face."

  “Least she went quick."

  The sounds of gunfire were fading as the Rebels went about the grisly business of finishing off Hartline's mercenaries.

  “I was tryin’ to do the right thing for once in my life,” Jake said. “As usual, I fucked it up."

  “No,” Ike said softly. “No, you didn't, partner. You tried."

  Jake held out his hand. “I'd like to shake your hand, mister. If you don't mind."

  “I don't mind at all,” Ike said, a catch in his voice. He looked up at Jerre, standing over them, tears running down her face.

  “She loved you, Jake,” Jerre said.

  Jake clasped Ike's hand hard. “I loved her, too, Miss Jerre."

  The hand went limp. The mercenary died.

  Captain Dan Gray cleared his throat. “I think we should give this one a decent sendoff."

  “He'd like that,” Jerre said, shivering in the cold morning air. “I think he was a good man; at least toward the end."

  Jake and Lisa were buried together, arms around each other. Captain Dan Gray read from Ephesians, a few verses about forgiveness, and the service was over.

  Jerre looked at Matt, young and tall and strong and fierce-looking with his new beard. She smiled at him.

  “Take me home, Matt."

  “But, Ben..."

  She shushed him with gentle kiss while Ike and Dan and the others grinned and looked away.

  “Home, Matt. You and me—together. I want us to go home."

  Matt blushed and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

  “Ain't love grand?” Ike said.

  Captain Gray smiled. “Ah, love, let us be true to one another! for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams."

  “Now that's pretty,” Ike said. “I think I heard that on a Rollin’ Stones album."

  Captain Gray looked horrified. “I rather doubt it,” he said frostily. “That was from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach."

  “Who'd he pick with?” Ike grinned.

  “Cretin!” Gray said. “Philistine."

  Gray was still lecturing him, waving his arms and shouting about the lack of culture in America when Jerre and Matt slipped away from the group and headed for Matt's pickup truck. They walked hand in hand, smiling at each other.

  One of the women in the group mentioned she thought the air about them was a bit steamy.

  Eight

  “You sure you know how to pick this lock?” Harrelson asked.

  Honing smiled patiently. “I worked for several gossip rags before I came to Richmond,” he said. “I haven't seen the lock I couldn't pick."

  The tumblers meshed, clicked, the door swung open, the apartment yawning darkly in front of the men.

  “I still don't understand why you're so interested in this half-breed spic,” Honing said, pausing for a moment before entering.

  “She lives—supposedly—with Dawn Bellever, our president's steady pussy. I saw her a dozen times at the White House when I was covering that. One night I was going home and passed this apartment, saw her entering, thought it was strange. I waited for several hours. She never did come back out. I thought at first I might blackmail her into working with me ... using her shack job as the carrot, but I never could catch a man with her. That's why I called you to tail her and find out as much about her as possible. I'll do anything to get that no-good son of a bitch out of the White House. And maybe this will help."

  “Well, let's do ‘er,” Honing said.

  Together they stepped into the dark apartment.

  * * * *

  It was seven o'clock before Ben received the news of Jerre's rescue. For a time he allowed himself the luxury of sitting quietly in his den, savoring the feelings of joy welling up from deep within him.

  Ike had told him of her leaving with Matt, and Ben felt only a slight pang of regret at the news. He knew they had run their course months before and it was time for her to settle in with a good person who loved her and would take care of her and the twins.

  The twins.

  He would make arrangements for the twins to be sent to Jerre as soon as he knew they were settled in and safe.

  Ike was returning to the Tri-States, having told Ben Richmond was a great big pain in the ass, as far as he was concerned. He was a farmer and a fighter; fuck politics.

  Ben wished it was that easy for him. God! he wanted so desperately to chuck the whole business of big government right out the nearest window and get the hell back to Tri-States.

  But he knew he couldn't. Knew he was not going to leave any job half done.

  He looked at his watch. Eight o'clock. He punched the intercom button.

  “How many waiting, Susie?"

  “An officeful, boss. Got four holding on the horn."

  “Any of them important?"

  “No."

  “Tell ‘em I'll call back. Who is first?"

  “The surgeon general.” She paused for a second. “He's kind of antsy, boss. Pale looking.” She whispered the last.

  “Send him in, Susie."

  “You had your coffee, boss?"

  “I could use another cup."

  “Coming up. Two cups."

  Doctor Harrison Lane looked rough. Like he hadn't slept well in a week. They talked of small things until Susie had brought the coffee and left the room.

  “What's on your mind, Harrison?"

  “Rats."

  “I beg your pardon?” Ben paused in lifting the cup to his lips.

  “I said rats, Mr. President. Of the family Muridae, genus Rattus. The big rat; I'm guessing it's the big brown rat."

  “The humpback?"

  “If that's what you wish to call them, yes. You find them in sewers and in garbage dumps and alleys. Ugly bastards. Two—two and a half feet long from nose to tail. Filthy sons of bitches.” He spat out the last and lit his pipe with shaking hands. Ben could see he was wound up tight as a dollar watch.

  “But these are bigger rats. I haven't seen them, Mr. President; only had reports of them. And I hope to God the reports are wrong. I can't imagine a rat the size of a small poodle."

  “Are you serious?” Ben asked.

  “One report said they spotted rats that stood maybe six to eight inches, weighing in at between five to eight pounds."

  “Jesus Christ!"

  “The rats are only part of the problem, sir. It's what they carry on them that worries me."

  “Fleas."

  “Yes, sir. One thing I have confirmed: they are carrying the plague."

  “What kind?” Ben felt a cold shiver race around the base of his spine. The nation had been lucky in that respect. Despite the millions and millions of dead bodies and animal carcasses that rotted under the summer sun of ‘88 immediately following the bombings, there had been no serious outbreaks of disease. No anthrax or airborne deadly
viruses.

  Yet.

  Until now.

  “We don't know."

  “Again, I beg your pardon?"

  “It's ... a type of black plague, sir. Bubonic ... but it's more. I wish to hell the CDC was bigger. When Logan relocated the people, the stupid bastard pulled out of Atlanta and left all that equipment to rot and rust."

  Ben smiled. “We have it."

  “Sir?"

  “I ordered my personnel to go in and get it. It's in Tri-States. Most of it safely hidden in concrete storage bunkers, deep underground."

  Harrison matched his smile. “Very good,” he said dryly. “Well, I have the microbiologists and epidemiologist in my department working on it. But ... like I said, it's more—much more. Hemorrhagic pneumonia."

  “Meaning every time they cough, they spread it."

  “Well ... yes, you can put it that way."

  “And the blood they spit up—and the phlegm—is contagious?"

  “God, yes!"

  “I wrote a book about this sort of thing years ago,” Ben said. “In my book the hero wiped it out using ... let me think. Yes. Tetracycline, streptomycin, and ... I can't recall the other drug."

  “Chloramphenicol,” the doctor finished it.

  “Yes, that was it."

  “Tests indicate the ... disease will respond to any of those drugs. But if the victim has already been exposed—already has the disease in his or her system, the success ratio is drastically reduced."

  “I see,” Ben said, shaking his head. “Suppose we initiated a crash program of inoculation—say, oh, tomorrow morning. How long would it take?"

  “Weeks, if we're lucky and have enough of the drugs. But ... this is moving much too fast for any ordinary type of plague. Anyway we're using streptomycin and chloramphenicol, together, in full therapeutic doses as the antibiotic. It isn't stopping it if the victim has been exposed."

  “You saying that as if Jesus had suddenly lost the power to heal. What's the matter with tetracycline?"

  “Nothing. It's a good antibiotic. It's just that we wanted to really punch this disease out so we used the two I told you we were using. Should have stopped it cold. It didn't. A hundred reported cases so far. Incredible!"

  “In layman's language, Harrison, please."

  The surgeon general rose from his seat to pace the carpet. He stopped, whirled around, and glared at Ben. “I'll tell you what it means, Mr. President. It means we've got a stem-winding son of a bitch on our hands. If we had the drugs to pop everybody in America, and if we could somehow do it in a month—which is impossible. We'd still lose half the population—if we were lucky! One infected person can infect five hundred, a thousand others. One person on a bus, a plane, can infect 75 percent of the other passengers. They in turn infect everybody they come in contact with. And this is moving faster than anything I have ever seen. Three days from contact to death."

  Ben jumped to his feet. "Three days!"

  “Three days, sir. First twelve hours brings a fever and coughing. Next twelve hours brings pneumonia, bloody phlegm spraying everybody close. Then huge sores in the groin and armpits, running with pus. High fever, blackouts. Unconsciousness—death."

  “You should have been a writer, doctor,” Ben told him. “I don't recall anything quite so graphic."

  “Or deadly,” Harrison said.

  Ben buzzed his secretary. “Cancel all appointments for the rest of the day. Tell the people I'm not feeling well. Get Cecil in here."

  “Mr. President? Where is the washroom? I've been up all night and my eyes feel like they are full of sand."

  Ben pointed. When the bathroom door had closed, he jerked up the phone and dialed the emergency number in the Tri-States. Somebody manned that constantly since Ben took over as president.

  “Yes, sir?” the voice two thousand miles away said.

  “This is General Raines. Don't talk, just listen. Close the borders immediately. Start a rodent eradication program right now! But for God's sake, be careful and don't handle any of them. I don't know how far a flea can jump, but I'm betting it's two or three feet. I don't want a panic; just tell Doctor Chase—within the hour—that the Middle Ages is upon us with all the blackness that period brought. You have ample supplies of vaccines in storage. He'll know what to do. Tell him I'll call him at 1800 hours, his time. You got all this?"

  “On tape, sir."

  Ben hung up just as Doctor Lane walked into the room. Cecil opened the office door just as Lane was sitting down.

  “Tell Cecil what you just told me,” Ben said. “I've got some calls to make from the outer office."

  The Joint Chiefs were meeting when Ben called. General Rimel was on the phone in seconds. “Yes, sir, Mr. President?"

  Ben put it on the line for the men, knowing his voice was on the table speaker. “I want all airline flights canceled immediately. Ground every plane in America except military and emergency medical flights. Inoculate your people and have them cordon off the cities. Nobody gets through. Understood—nobody! I'll have the state police in each state begin setting up roadblocks. I want the citizens to stay put. You people coordinate with the local police in this. I don't want one word of this to leak out until your troops are in place. If we all pull together we can save maybe half the population—maybe more if we're lucky. I want all interstate commerce halted by no later than 1200 hours today. No trucks, no buses, no cars, nothing. If I have to do it, I'll impose martial law to keep people home.

  “Get your people inoculated and have every available medic ready to go assist the private sector by 0600 in the morning."

  Then he told him about the bomb threat.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” General Franklin roared. “What kind of shit are these people trying to pull?"

  “I don't know what they want or what they represent,” Ben told the JCs. “And I don't have time to worry about it. You people get rolling and stay in contact with this office."

  He hung up and walked back into his office. Cecil looked shaken by the news. Harrison looked up at Ben.

  “I got a phone call, Mr. President. Six more cases confirmed in the past hour. So far it's confined east of the Mississippi River."

  “Don't count on it remaining so."

  “I'm not, sir."

  Ben told the men what he had ordered done.

  “But...” Harrison sputtered. “I thought Congress had to be consulted before something like that was done?"

  “I don't have time to consult Congress and have them jaw about it for two weeks. Those people would blither and blather and waste precious time arguing about ten dozen things before they made up their minds to do anything about it."

  A doctor from the joint military hospital located just outside Richmond walked in.

  “I called him,” Harrison said, responding to the unspoken questions in Ben's eyes.

  “Roll up your sleeves,” the doctor said. “This is going to hurt you more than it does me, I assure you."

  “You're not related to Lamar Chase, are you?” Ben grinned.

  PART FOUR

  One

  FROM SMOKE TO FIRE...

  “I demand an explanation for this!” Senator Carlise burst into the crowded Oval Office. He was waving a piece of copy from the AP. “This is the most blatant violation of..."

  “Sit down and shut up,” Ben told him. “If you'd been in your office this morning you'd have known I've called for an emergency session of Congress this evening to deal with this crisis."

  “What crisis?” the senator from Colorado yelled.

  “You'll know this evening,” Cecil said, trying to calm the man. He knew, as well as Ben, that as soon as the plague news touched the men and women of Congress it would hit the streets fast.

  But for now, all they were trying to do was buy a little time. Time. Time to get the troops in place. Time to set up roadblocks. Time to airship the medicine all over the nation. Time to let the drug companies roll 24 hours a day, mass-producing the life-saving drugs. />
  But they all knew they were quickly running out of time.

  More cases of the plague were cropping up. The press was screaming for information. Worse, the press was speculating, and the people were getting jumpy because of it.

  The airlines were shrieking to the heavens about the money they were losing—same with the bus companies. A few wildcat truck drivers decided to ignore the presidential order and roll their rigs anyway.

  After two had been killed while attempting to roll through a Marine roadblock and the rest of them tossed in jail, the truckers wisely decided it would be in their best interest not to fuck around with Ben Raines.

  Man meant exactly what he said. No give to him at all.

  Ben looked at Cecil. “Handle it for a few minutes, Cec. I've got to make a call."

  Cecil nodded. He knew who Ben was calling.

  “How's it looking, Lamar?” Ben asked over the long lines.

  “We're clean, Ben,” Doctor Chase said. “I'm shooting everyone with enough chloramphenicol and streptomycin to cause ears to ring. A few cases of deafness, but I think it's temporary—reaction to the drug. Have you been popped?"

  “In both arms and the butt.” He told his friend what he was doing to combat the situation.

  “It'll save some, Ben. But I spoke with our man at the CDC and this stuff scares me."

  “Is there a vaccine for this, Lamar?"

  “Yes, for the plague. Have to use it broadside, but it's a puny weapon against this stuff. I would recommend staying with what we're using. This isn't ordinary plague, Ben. It's moving much too fast for that. I believe it's a ... well, to keep it in language you'd understand, a wild mutant; probably undergone a forced genetic alteration from the bombings—taken this long to manifest. It's incredibly fast. I think it gets into the body before our natural immune factors even know the body's been penetrated. And it's going to get much, much worse before it gets better. If it gets better."

  “I was afraid of that."

  “I'm leveling with you, Ben. No point in pulling any punches."

  “Jim Slater and Paul Green out there?"

  “Yes."

  “Okay. You remember all that chlordane we had in storage?"