Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Owen, I’m all for what you say,” the questioner said. “But killing them on purpose isn’t exactly what you would call collateral damage, is it?”

  “You may call it what you wish. But in fact, killing women and children is often one of the most effective tools of war, because it spreads rage and terror through the enemy population. No doubt you remember the terrorist attacks against the U.S. and Israel before the Great War. Those attacks were highly effective, because they generated unfocused rage. And unfocused rage and mindless terror can be our two biggest allies.”

  “I see,” the questioner replied.

  “Do you have a problem with that?” Owen asked.

  “No problem,” the questioner replied quickly, gulping in a quick breath.

  “Does anyone have a problem with that?” Roberts shouted.

  “No problem, sir!” the men answered as one.

  “Are there any questions about the mission?” Owen asked.

  One man put his hand up, rather tentatively, given what had happened to Withers.

  “You are?” Owen asked

  “The name is Nelson, sir.”

  “And your question?”

  “We are flying in, right?”

  “We are.”

  “How are we going to penetrate SUSA airspace without being seen?”

  “Oh, we will be seen,” Owen replied.

  The men looked at each other nervously. The SUSA had the best early-warning and antiaircraft defense system in the world. Penetrating their airspace in an unauthorized flight wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  Owen saw the expressions of concern on the faces of his men, and he laughed.

  “But don’t worry about it,” he said. “The reason we chose Newport News as our point of departure is that a civilian Lockheed Hercules airplane, International Flight 371, is due to depart Newport News at six o’clock tonight. International Flight 371 won’t be making the trip today. You will. You will fly the same route and maintain the same schedule as Flight 371. And because you will be in a C-130, which is the military version of the Lockheed Hercules, the radar signature will be exactly the same.”

  “That’s pretty smart,” Nelson said.

  “Yes, it is,” Owen agreed. “Now, gentlemen, before you depart this hangar and board your plane, I think it would be only fitting that you file by the late Mr. Withers to pay your last respects. It might be helpful for you to see what happens to someone who questions orders.”

  The first few men who filed by Withers looked down at the body without reaction. But the fourth man, perhaps to show his loyalty and support, spat on the body. So did the next, and the next as well, until several others decided that spitting was no longer enough and they began more forceful demonstrations, kicking him, then stomping him.

  A few even dropped down beside him to take a souvenir, and by the time the last person had passed by, Withers’s body was mutilated beyond recognition. Both ears were gone, as was his nose, half a dozen fingers, and finally, in the most audacious act, his penis and testicles were taken.

  By the time the men loaded onto the C-130, they were filled with a blood lust, a blood lust that, ironically, came from the death of one of their own.

  TWENTY

  Control Group Headquarters, Alberta

  “What the hell are we supposed to do with this woman?” Doyle asked. His arms were folded across his chest and he leaned back against the bar as he looked at the prisoner Pratt and his team had just brought in.

  “Well, I don’t know exactly,” Pratt replied. “I just thought it might be a good idea to bring her in.”

  “Where did she come from anyway?”

  “She bailed out of an airplane,” Pratt said. “I mean, one minute that plane was flying over, and the next thing you know, she was sailing down out of the sky, using one of those parachute wing things.”

  “A parasail?” Doyle asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, well, you should’ve killed her. Or else left her out there to die.”

  “I’ve got a feeling she wouldn’t die all that easy if we left her there,” Pratt said. “I mean, she looked like she knew what she was doing.”

  “What’s your name?” Doyle asked the woman.

  “My name is Parker. Carrie Parker.”

  “What are you doing in our woods, Carrie Parker?”

  “I didn’t know this was your woods,” Carrie replied. “I thought it was public property.”

  “There is no more public property.”

  “I don’t plan to argue the point,” Carrie said.

  “So, what are you doing here? What brought you parasailing down into our country?”

  “I was looking for my brothers,” Carrie said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s another thing. She claims to be a sister to the two men who were flying the plane,” Pratt explained.

  “Is that true?” Doyle asked.

  “Yes,” Carrie replied with a nod of her head. “I’m looking for them. Do you know anything about them?”

  “I know that your brothers are dead,” Doyle said callously.

  “Oh!” Carrie gasped. She felt tears stinging her eyes.

  “Well, come on, you didn’t really think they had lived through that crash, did you?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Carrie replied. “I had hopes that they had.”

  “Yeah, well, they didn’t. They are both dead. Unfortunately, their passenger, the son of a bitch we are really after, survived the crash and is still out there somewhere. He’s not only alive, he’s also killing our people.”

  Carrie shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Are you saying that my brothers’ passenger is wandering around out in the woods killing people?”

  “That he is.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps he’s a little pissed off because we are trying to kill him,” Doyle said with a giggle.

  At that moment, Tamara Lynch and Glen Burkett came into the room.

  “I heard some of our people brought back a prisoner. Is this her?” Burkett asked, glancing toward Carrie.

  “Yeah. She says she’s the sister of the man who was flying the plane.”

  “You don’t say. Well, I’ll say this for her,” Burkett said. He grabbed his crotch. “She’s one good-looking woman.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s a hell of a lot more woman than you can handle,” Tamara said.

  “More than I can handle? Ha! You think she’s one of your kind?” Doyle asked.

  “You never can tell,” Tamara said. She reached out to put her fingers on Carrie’s cheek. “How about it, honey?” she asked. “Are you the adventurous kind?”

  “Adventurous?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see what a woman can do for you?” Tamara asked as lightly, sensuously, she stroked Carrie’s cheek.

  For a brief second, Carrie had no idea what Tamara was referring to. Then she saw something in Tamara’s eyes that, prior to this, she had only seen in men’s eyes. She saw pure, unadulterated lust. This woman was making a sexual overture toward her.

  Carrie wanted to recoil in disgust, but fought against the urge.

  “I’m adventurous enough, I suppose,” she said, purposely meeting Tamara’s gaze.

  Tamara let her hand linger a bit longer on Carrie’s cheek. The pupils of Tamara’s eyes widened, and her skin grew flushed.

  “Leave this one alone,” she ordered.

  “She could be dangerous,” Doyle said. “I’m not totally convinced she is who she says she is. I don’t think it is such a good idea to keep her around.”

  “I said, leave her alone,” Tamara ordered again. “She belongs to me.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say. What do we do with her now?” Burkett asked.

  “Put her in the basement storeroom,” Tamara said. “But make her comfortable. They are more cooperative when they are comfortable.”

  “Cooperative? What kind of cooperation are you lo
oking for?” Doyle asked.

  “Just . . . cooperation,” Tamara replied. Then, with one last, unnerving glance toward Carrie, Tamara left the lobby, heading toward the elevator.

  “You heard the . . . lady,” Doyle said, setting the word lady apart from the rest of the sentence. “Put her in the storeroom.”

  As Jason Pratt led Carrie away, Carrie was too busy trying to figure out what her next move should be to notice the attractive young red-haired girl who was standing at the far end of the bar. Had she seen her, she would have seen a face contorted with jealousy.

  Tamara was in her suite, standing in front of her closet. She had already taken off her uniform, and was now wearing a hip-length dressing gown, held closed with a tie-belt. The top of the dressing gown gaped open, and in the V thus produced was a great expanse of bare skin.

  Her breasts, though not entirely exposed, were visible from the mound of flesh at their base all the way out to the tip of the cone. Only the nipples were covered, and even one of them was temporarily exposed as Tamara reached out to slide the hangers along the rack. She was trying to decide what to wear when she had the prisoner brought to her.

  I will obviously have to be the aggressor, she thought. I’m sure that sweet thing has never tasted the delights of woman-to-woman love before. But I don’t want to frighten her away by being too butch.

  Should she wear a dress, or a revealing pant suit? Perfume or not? She felt her blood running hot, and a churning heat in her loins. The anticipation of it was nearly as good as the event itself, and she had to fight against the urge to dip her own fingers into that moist center of sensation.

  She heard a light knock, and Tamara left the closet to answer the door.

  A young, beautiful red-haired girl stood there.

  “Kelly, what are you doing here?” Tamara asked, surprised to see her.

  “I, uh, just wanted to see you,” Kelly said. She had intended to tell Tamara that she had seen her reaction to the woman prisoner that was brought in, and to express her displeasure. But upon seeing Tamara, she changed her mind—first, because she was afraid, and second, because she had never seen Tamara looking more desirable than she did right now. The jealousy and anger left, to be replaced by pure lust.

  Tamara recognized the look at once, and although she had her mind set on seducing the woman prisoner, she decided that a little preliminary sexual play wouldn’t be out of hand.

  “You wanted to see me?” Tamara said.

  “Yes.”

  Smiling, Tamara untied the belt, then opened the dressing gown, revealing herself to the young redhead. “Is seeing enough?” she asked in a sultry voice.

  “No,” Kelly replied. “Seeing isn’t enough. I want more.”

  “Show me what you want,” Tamara said.

  “Inside,” Kelly said.

  “No,” Tamara replied. She took off the robe and spread her legs, then, reaching out, put her hand on top of Kelly’s head. Clutching Kelly’s red locks in her fingers, she pushed Kelly down to her knees, then pulled Kelly’s face to her. “Show me here,” she said.

  This was what Kelly wanted, and she cared not that they were in an open door, that anyone who might happen by would be able to see everything that was going on. Not only did she not care, she found that she was enjoying it, and she went eagerly to her task.

  Raines City, CD.

  Mike Post threw the rubber ball through the open door of his office. It bounced off the wall, then rolled down the hall.

  “Go get it, Jody,” he said.

  The malamute took off after the ball, running through the door so quickly that she slid down as she made the turn.

  “She misses Ben,” Coop said.

  “And Buddy,” Mike added. “She was staying with Buddy while Ben was gone.”

  “She has no idea they are both gone,” Coop said. “She thinks Ben will be back any time now.”

  “Maybe that’s good,” Jersey suggested.

  “You mean, that she doesn’t know? Yes, I agree. There’s no sense in her having to suffer through what we are feeling right now.”

  “No, I mean, maybe it’s good that she doesn’t know because dogs have a sixth sense about these things,” Jersey said. “If Ben were dead, I think Jody would know it.”

  Jody came lumbering back into the office, the ball in her mouth. She dropped it proudly at Mike’s feet, then sat on her haunches and looked up at him, eager for the game to continue.

  Coop reached down to rub the dog behind her ears, and she tilted her head toward him, giving him better access.

  “Maybe Jersey’s right,” Coop said.

  “Could be,” Mike admitted. “Sometimes dogs seem to have a deeper understanding about things than humans do. Maybe they do have a sixth sense.”

  Mike threw the ball again, and Jody ran through the door after it.

  “I wish I had a sixth sense that would tell me why Buddy was killed,” he said.

  “You don’t need a sixth sense for that,” Jersey replied. “It seems simple enough to me.”

  “Oh? And what would that be?”

  “Claire Osterman is behind it. Somehow, she has gotten word that Ben is missing. And in her pea-sized brain, she figures that taking out Buddy, on top of Ben’s disappearance, is going to throw us into such a turmoil that she will be able to walk in and take over.”

  “You mean by military invasion?” Mike asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Mike shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Intel has nothing on any troop buildup or movement in the U.S. If she was planning anything, we would know about it. Or at least, get some hint about it.”

  “Maybe she isn’t planning on using her army,” Jersey said.

  “If not her army, how?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I just know that I have a bad feeling about all this. Somehow, some way, Claire Osterman is planning on taking advantage of the fact that Ben is . . . missing.”

  “And you think she killed Buddy?”

  “I do.”

  Mike drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment. “Let’s see if we can get proof of that,” he said. “If I could be sure that she was behind Buddy’s murder, we won’t have to wait for her to do something. By God, we’ll go after her.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Control Group Headquarters, Alberta

  Satiated, Kelly left Tamara’s room, then moved through the shadowed halls and down the darkened stairway to the storeroom, located behind the kitchen. As she expected, a guard was posted in front of the door. He was sitting in a chair that was tipped back against the wall. Reading a comic book, he looked up as Kelly approached.

  “Hello, Kelly, what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Hi, Johnny. I seem to have gotten on the bad side of Colonel Lynch,” Kelly said. “She sent me down here to relieve whoever is on guard.”

  “Really? I just got here. I’m supposed to do four hours before I’m relieved.”

  “Aren’t you the lucky one, though?” Kelly said. “You’ll be all snug in your bed while I’ll be spending the next four hours sitting here.”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Nobody told me anything about this.”

  Kelly smiled. “You mean you don’t want me to relieve you? Great, I’ll just go on back up to my room then.”

  “No, wait,” Johnny said. “You say Colonel Lynch sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  Johnny smiled, then stood up and stretched. “Well, in that case I guess it’ll be all right. How’d you piss off Colonel Lynch? I thought you and her were . . . well . . . uh . . .”

  “You thought we were what?”

  “You know,” Johnny said. “Aren’t you and the colonel sort of . . .”

  “Are you asking if we sleep together?” Kelly asked, seeing the obvious prurient interest in Johnny’s question. “You want to know if we . . . do things to each other . . . if we are lovers?”

  “Yeah, that,” Johnny said. He rubbed himself as an obvious bulg
e appeared in front of his pants.

  Kelly laughed. “You like thinking about that, don’t you? Two beautiful women getting it on with each other? Rolling together, wet and naked.”

  “Oh, man, yeah,” Johnny said, his voice now thick with lust. “Two beautiful women together? I’d give anything to see something like that.”

  “How much?”

  “What?”

  “How much would you give to see me spread the colonel’s legs?”

  “Come on, quit teasing me.”

  “I’m not teasing,” Kelly said. She put her hand down on her own crotch. “As a matter of fact, it’s getting me hot just thinking about it.”

  “What? How? How would I get to see something?” Johnny said.

  “Ah, so you are interested.”

  “Damn right I’m interested. Just tell me how,” Johnny said again.

  “You know the broom closet, right next to Tamara’s room?”

  Johnny looked confused. “Yeah, I know it. What about it?”

  “If someone put a small peephole in the right place, they could see right into Tamara’s bedroom. I could make certain that whatever we did was easy to see.”

  “Why would you do that?” Johnny asked suspiciously.

  “Let’s just say that I might want a favor sometime,” Kelly replied.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m sure something will come up.” She laughed, then pointed to the front of Johnny’s pants. “Speaking of something coming up,” she said. “Something seems to have done just that.”

  Johnny looked down at himself. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it, uh . . .” The guard looked up and down the hallway. “Listen, I don’t suppose you ever go the other way, do you? I mean . . .”

  “Why, Johnny, are you asking me to have sex with you? Right here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to have sex with a lesbian? Doesn’t the thought of such a thing threaten your manhood?”

  Johnny smiled. “No,” he said. “Matter of fact, I might change you over.”

  “Oh, now, I don’t know if I want to be changed over. But I might be talked into sampling what you have to offer sometime.”