Destiny in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  When Buddy and the SEALs arrived at the airport where they’d left the helicopters, they were met at the gate by the general in charge and the oil minister Buddy had dealt with before.

  “Ah, Mr. Raines,” the oil minister said, his face frowning. “So nice you could join us again. We’ve been worried about you since you didn’t return after your helicopter ride.”

  “Uh ...” Buddy said. “We, uh, decided to take a ride on the Gulf and kinda got lost.”

  “Yeah,” Stryker said, his lips turned up in a half grin, “we were lucky to find our way back at all.”

  “Have my men left yet?” Buddy asked while some soldiers loaded the Zodiac onto a truck and he and the team were escorted to a large SUV for the ride back to the base headquarters.

  “No,” the oil minister said. “They’ve been killing time making unnecessary adjustments to the helicopters until you could return.”

  Buddy tried to suppress a smile. The wily old minister had seen through their plan from the beginning.

  “In fact, I’ve just been informed,” the minister continued, “that there was a terrible explosion at one of the refineries in neighboring Iraq while you were gone.”

  “Is that so?” Buddy asked, wondering just how much trouble he was in.

  “Mr. Raines,” the minister said severely, looking over the back of his seat at the team, “I am not a fool, and I resent being used in this way so you could mount a strike against the Farrar family.”

  Buddy opened his mouth to speak, but the minister held up his hand. “In fact, I plan to file a formal complaint with the United Nations about your conduct in this affair.”

  Buddy sank back in his seat. Now the fat was really in the fire.

  “However,” the minister continued as he turned back around to face the front of the car, “my desk is extremely full just now, and it may take a while before I get around to preparing the paperwork necessary for such a complaint.”

  “How long a while?” Buddy asked.

  “Oh, a year . . . possibly two,” the minister replied. He looked over his shoulder and grinned at Buddy. “Our friends the Iraqis are sticklers for protocol, the bastards. I must make sure the complaint is worded exactly right, and these things take time.”

  Buddy looked at Stryker and grinned. They were in the clear after all.

  “I am sure your report will be most accurate, your excellency,” Buddy said.

  “Yeah,” Stryker said, “you wouldn’t want to make a mistake and spell any of our names wrong.”

  Back at base headquarters in the SUSA, Buddy shook hands all around with Stryker and his team. “Good job, men,” Buddy said.

  Stryker nodded. “All in a day’s work, sir.”

  “And Matt,” Buddy added.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m putting all of you, including the men who died, in for Bronze Stars for heroism.”

  Stryker stood up straight. “That’s not necessary, sir. We were just doing what we were trained to do.”

  “I know it’s not necessary, Matt, but you and your men earned it.”

  Stryker saluted, and left to report back to Mike Post about the mission and its success.

  In Mike’s office, Buddy filled him in on the mission, including the oil minister’s reaction to their little deception involving the helicopters.

  Mike grinned. “That is a relief. I was more than a little worried about how kindly Kuwait would take to being used in such a manner.”

  “Evidently they don’t have any more love for Iraq than we do, Mike,” Buddy said.

  “Well, you did a good job and your dad’s gonna be proud of you,” Mike said. “Now, why don’t you take a couple of days of R and R. I’ve got to fly back to Indianapolis and fill Ben and President Osterman in on the details. This is too sensitive to trust to transmission over open lines.”

  Mike was taken straight from the base’s landing field to a meeting of Claire Osterman’s cabinet and Ben and his team that was going on when he arrived.

  “Ah, Mike, glad you got here in time to join us,” Ben said, waving him to a seat.

  While he was getting settled, Coop got up from his chair, poured Mike a cup of coffee, and carried it to him.

  “We were just discussing the progress Claire’s country is making against the terrorist invasion,” Ben said.

  General Maxwell Goddard stood up. “To continue,” he said. “General Raines’s Scouts along with our Rangers have stopped the invaders’ advance. They’ve been contained along lines that they had forty-eight hours ago and haven’t moved significantly since then.”

  “From reports I’ve received from my Scout commanders,” Ben said, “the citizens have been more than a little help in containing the terrorists.”

  The general cleared his throat and glanced at Claire. “Yes, uh, that is my understanding also. While I still don’t agree with your plan of arming the ordinary citizens, General Raines, it seems to have reaped big rewards in defeating the invaders.”

  Ben grinned. “Yeah. I seem to remember an old document that says there’s nothing like a well-armed populace to make it tough for tyranny,” Ben said.

  “Well, as far as I can see, barring any reinforcements of men or matériel, we should have the last of the terrorists either killed or captured within a week at the outside,” the general said.

  Ben glanced at Mike. “You have any news for us concerning the possibility of reinforcements?” he asked.

  Mike nodded. “There will be no reinforcements of either men or equipment,” he said.

  “How can you be so sure?” Claire asked, joining the conversation for the first time.

  “The Farrar family has suffered a series of rather devastating setbacks recently,” Mike said, a small smile curling the corners of his lips.

  “What sort of setbacks?” Claire asked.

  “The main source of the family’s income, a refinery at Al Basrah, was destroyed two days ago by an explosion of undetermined origin.”

  “But surely they have other assets?” Claire asked, smiling at Mike’s choice of words.

  “Unfortunately, through an unexplained series of bank errors, all of their bank accounts have disappeared,” Mike said, openly grinning now.

  “Disappeared?” Claire asked.

  “Yes. It seems through a computer glitch of some sort, over three and a half billion dollars of their money was transferred to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, and no one seems to know what happened to it after that.”

  “So, the men who started all this are broke?” Claire asked with a smile.

  “Poor as the proverbial church mice,” Mike said. “In fact, the Canadian government has rescinded their leases on the lands off your coasts due to nonpayment, and informed Iraq the men and equipment left there are to be removed immediately, if not sooner.”

  “That’s a relief,” Claire said, “not to have them sitting there waiting to cause more trouble.”

  “Claire,” Ben said, “in light of this news, I’d like your permission to begin recalling my Scouts and replacing them with your regular troops. I’d like to get my boys home as soon as possible.”

  Claire glanced at General Goddard, who nodded. “Sure, Ben,” she said. “I think the general can handle it from here on out.”

  Ben and his team stood up. “But before you leave,” she added, “I’d like to give you and your men and women a little party tonight . . . as a token of our appreciation for what you’ve done. There’ll be dinner, drinks, even a band. We’ll have a real going-away party, so to speak.”

  Ben laughed. “Okay, as long as I don’t have to dance.”

  Claire made a pout. “Oh, and I was so looking forward to that.”

  After Ben and Mike and the team left the conference room, they headed for the barracks where they were all staying to get ready for the night’s celebration.

  As they entered the main doors, Mike held up his hands. “Hold on, gang. I’ve brought something for all of you from home.”

&n
bsp; He sat his briefcase on a nearby table and opened it up. Taking out a large stack of envelopes, he began passing them out to each of the team members, and even handed one to Ben.

  “Wow!” Jersey shouted after ripping her envelope open and pulling out a piece of paper. “What’s this for?” she asked.

  Ben opened his envelope and looked inside. There lay a check made out to him for thirty-five hundred dollars. The payer was a bank with an address in the Cayman Islands.

  He held up the check and waved it in the air in front of Mike. “Mike?” he asked.

  Mike grinned and shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is everyone on active duty for the SUSA got one in the mail. I don’t have a clue as to why.”

  Beth, standing at the back of the crowd, began to laugh out loud.

  Ben looked over at her. “Beth, you know anything about this?” he asked.

  She looked at him, tears of laughter in her eyes. “Ben, how many active-duty personnel do we have?”

  Ben shrugged. “Oh, a million, give or take a few hundred thousand at any one time. Why?”

  “And Mike, how much money did you say we stole from the Farrar family?”

  “About three and a half billion dollars.”

  “There’s your answer,” Beth said. “Our friendly computer expert had the bank in the Caymans divide up all the Farrar family’s money and send it out to all our troops.”

  “But we can’t keep this,” Ben said.

  “Why not?” Coop asked. “Who better to get it than the very people who had to risk their lives because of its owners’ actions?”

  Ben thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, Coop, I guess you’re right. Besides,” Ben added, “I’d hate to have to go to a million soldiers and ask them to give it back.”

  “The chances of that happening are slim and none,” Coop said.

  “And slim left town,” Jersey added, kissing her check.

  After the team filed out to go to their rooms, Ben turned to Mike. “I hope you’re keeping a close eye on this computer expert of yours.”

  Mike nodded. “I am, but why do you say so?” he asked.

  “Because I’d sure as hell hate to get him mad at us,” Ben said. “There’s no telling what the little shit would do.”

  Mike grinned. “Amen.”

  Forty-four

  The mood was one of desperation and gloom in the room where Abdullah el Farrar, Mustafa Kareem, and Osama bin Araman were having their final meeting.

  Farrar had been unable to contact most of his field commanders by phone after having decided that, even if the Americans were monitoring the frequencies as Ben Raines had said they were, he needed to find out what the status of his units was.

  The men he did manage to contact gave him terrible news. His field units were being systematically decimated by the Rangers of the U.S. and the Scouts of the SUSA, not to mention the unexpected ferocity of the American citizens who’d risen with a vengeance after being armed by the Scouts.

  When their FFA partners began to desert the cause in droves after the televised account of Farrar’s planned treachery, the Arab terrorists had no chance. They were in a strange land with even stranger customs, and they simply couldn’t make any headway against the combined forces of Army troops and armed and aroused citizens.

  Farrar put down the phone after his last call, a look of inevitability in his eyes.

  “I am afraid we are doomed to failure, my friends,” he said, his voice heavy with defeat.

  “There may still be a chance, my leader,” Kareem said. “Perhaps we can get more troops from home....”

  Farrar shook his head. “No, Mustafa. There comes a time when even the most optimistic leader must accept defeat at the hands of his enemy . . . for now at any rate.”

  Kareem slammed his hand down on the table. “It is all the fault of that infidel devil Ben Raines,” he said bitterly. “If it had not been for his intervention, we should even now be sitting in President Osterman’s chair.”

  Araman raised his eyes. “Mustafa is correct, Abdullah. We owe our defeat to one man and one man only, Ben Raines.”

  “Do not feel too bad, my friends,” Farrar said. “Once my refinery is back up and running and the money flowing again from the coffers of the infidels who have an unquenchable thirst for our gasoline, I will rise from the ashes of this defeat with a new and better Army and will avenge what has been done to us. It is but a matter of time.”

  “And we will be by your side again, Abdullah,” Kareem said.

  Farrar stared at his friend. “No, Mustafa, I have another, more important assignment for you. One which will take all of your courage to carry out.”

  “You have but to ask, my leader,” Kareem said, his eyes burning with the fervor of the true believer.

  “Here is what I want you to do....” Farrar said, leaning forward across the table.

  Six weeks later, with the Arabs defeated and all of their troops either dead or in prison, Ben and his troops and team were back home enjoying a much-needed rest from the rigors of their war experiences.

  It was just after dawn, and Ben was jogging along one of the roads of his base with his malamute dog, Jodie, running alongside him.

  He was sweating, his T-shirt and shorts dark with sweat as he pushed his body to the max, trying to get back in shape after going without running for the months he’d spent in America fighting against the Arab invaders.

  As he rounded a corner, he glanced to the side and saw a gaping hole cut in the chain link fence running along the road.

  “Uh-oh,” he muttered, slowing to a walk and catching his breath. “Looks like trouble, Jodie,” he said, bending over to pat the dog on its back.

  Suddenly the hackles rose on Jodie’s back, and she curled her lips back in a savage snarl and began to growl deep in her throat as she looked to the side toward some heavy weeds near a ditch.

  A dark figure, well over six feet tall, rose from the weeds, an AK-47 cradled in his arms as he walked toward Ben and Jodie.

  Jodie tensed, and Ben knew she was about to attack.

  “Jodie, easy, girl,” Ben said, not wanting her to get shot. “Sit! Stay!” he commanded.

  Jodie sat, though it was evident from the way she glanced up at Ben that she didn’t want to obey, sensing the danger her master was in.

  “General Ben Raines,” the figure said as he stopped fifteen yards away on the edge of the road, the barrel of the machine gun pointed at Ben’s midsection.

  “Yeah,” Ben answered, breathing slowly and deeply to replenish his oxygen level in case the man gave him any chance at all. “Who are you?”

  “I am Mustafa Kareem, second in command to the Desert Fox, Abdullah El Farrar,” Kareem said.

  “I see,” Ben said evenly, keeping his hands at his side. He had no weapons with him, not even a knife to defend himself with.

  “I guess your boss sent you here to kill me for kicking his ass ’cause he didn’t have the balls to do it himself,” Ben said, his voice filled with contempt.

  “How dare you speak of El Farrar like that!” Kareem screamed, raising the rifle and pointing it at Ben’s face. “He is a prince of Arabia!”

  “Hah,” Ben laughed. “A prince of cowards maybe.” He pointed at Kareem. “And look at you, aiming a gun at an unarmed man. You don’t even have the courage to face me man-to-man.”

  Ben leaned to the side and spat on the ground. “I spit on you and your cowardly leader! ”

  Kareem was so angry he trembled, the barrel of the AK-47 moving up and down as he shook. Finally, his face red and flushed, he lowered the rifle to the ground and pulled a wicked-looking dagger with a curved blade out of his belt.

  He took a deep breath. “You are right, Ben Raines. It will be much better if I return to El Farrar with your infidel blood on my blade to show him.”

  As he walked slowly forward, Jodie growled and started to rise. “Sit!” Ben commanded, not wanting her to get hurt.

  He moved away from the dog out in
to the center of the road, crouching and holding his hands low out in front of him as Kareem moved the knife from side to side, his lips bared in a grin.

  “Tell me something, Kareem,” Ben said, his eyes never leaving the knife Kareem was wielding. “Do you Arabs insist on your women being covered from head to toe because they are so ugly, or is it because it keeps the flies off them?”

  Kareem’s eyes widened and he growled as he lunged forward, furious at Ben’s degradation of Arabian women.

  Ben stepped lightly to the side, levered on his left leg, and swung his right in a powerful side-kick at Kareem’s right hand.

  Ben’s shoe connected, snapping Kareem’s wrist and sending the knife flying to the side of the road into the weeds.

  As Kareem whirled around, holding his right wrist with his left hand, and glared at Ben, Ben smiled. “I don’t know why that made you so angry, Kareem,” he said mockingly. “From what I hear, you Arabs all like young boys better than women anyway.”

  Kareem screamed and raised both his hands and ran at Ben, mindless in his anger.

  Ben stood his ground, ducked under the hands, and forming his right fist into a rik-hand, with the fingers bent and stiff, he rammed it up under Kareem’s rib cage with all his might.

  Kareem stopped as if he’d been hit by a truck, his eyes bulging and his mouth open as he gasped for breath.

  Ben whirled around and slashed with a flattened hand at Kareem’s exposed throat.

  A loud crunch could be heard as his thyroid cartilage was crushed and smashed back into his larynx.

  Kareem raised both hands to his throat and gasped and gurgled as he strangled on his own blood.

  After a few seconds, his eyes became vacant and he toppled forward onto his face.

  Jodie whined and inched forward, waiting for Ben to release her from the sit command.

  “Come on, girl,” Ben said, patting his thigh.

  Jodie ran over, stopped briefly to sniff at the already cooling body of Mustafa Kareem, then put her legs on Ben’s chest until he bent over and let her lick his face.