Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sometime? What do you mean, sometime? We could do it right here, right now. It wouldn’t take that long.”

  Kelly reached down to unzip his pants. Grabbing hold of him, she gave it a couple of pulls.

  “No, wait . . . wait, not like that, not . . . oh . . . oh . . . uh, shit!” he said as he spewed hot cream into her hand.

  Kelly laughed again. “You were right. It didn’t take long,” she said. She wiped her hand on his shirt.

  “Damn it, woman, what the hell got into you? I didn’t want to do it that way,” Johnny said.

  Kelly smiled sweetly. “Well, you should’ve said something, honey,” she said. “I just wanted to make you feel good, that’s all.” She began to unzip her trousers. “All right,” she said. “We’ll do it your way.”

  “Shit,” Johnny said. “You know I can’t do it now. I mean, not after this.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot,” Kelly said. “Men are onetime wonders, aren’t they?”

  “Listen, you aren’t kidding about the peephole, are you? I mean, if I put one in the broom closet, you’ll fix it so I can really see something?”

  “Honey, after your performance here, are you sure you are up to watching a couple of women?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure. You just drill a peephole in the broom closet. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “All right, I’m going to do that,” Johnny said. He started to leave, then looked back toward Kelly. “You’ve got the watch here, right? I mean, I’m not going to get into trouble for leaving?”

  “I’ve got it,” Kelly said.

  Kelly watched Johnny until he was gone; then she sat in the chair he had been using. She stayed there for about ten minutes, just to make certain he, or someone else, didn’t come around to check.

  Kelly had put on the entire show with Johnny just to make certain that he trusted her enough to leave her here alone with the prisoner. She was jealous of the fact that Tamara was obviously attracted to this woman. She didn’t know if the woman was a lesbian or not, but she also knew that didn’t matter. If Tamara wanted to have sex with her, she would have her. That was the nature of Tamara’s power.

  On the other hand, if the prisoner was killed while trying to escape, that would eliminate the problem. Kelly pulled her pistol, chambered a round, then opened the door and stepped inside.

  Shortly after Carrie was locked into the storeroom, she managed to work her way out of the handcuffs. That accomplished, she climbed up one of the shelves, then reached over to unscrew the lightbulb. Now, as the door was opened, she stood in the darkest corner of the room, holding the lightbulb in her hand.

  “Where are you?” a woman’s voice asked.

  A woman? Carrie was glad it was a woman. Even if it had been a man, she was prepared to attempt an escape. But the fact that it was a woman made the odds more even. She hoped it was the same woman who had put her hands on her shortly after she was brought here. The woman’s obvious sexual designs had made Carrie’s flesh crawl, and she would welcome the opportunity to let the woman know, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t interested.

  The woman who had come into the storeroom flipped the light switch several times. The light didn’t come on.

  “What the hell?” Kelly asked.

  She flipped it again.

  “What the hell is wrong with the light?” she asked.

  Carrie threw the lightbulb across the room. It popped loudly when it hit the wall, and Kelly spun toward the sound. That gave Carrie the opening she was looking for and, pivoting on her left foot, she slapped her right foot across Kelly’s temple.

  Kelly went down with a grunt, and Carrie slipped quickly through the open door, then closed and locked it behind her. Looking around, she found herself in a long, narrow hallway.

  At one end of the hallway was a set of stairs, going up to the main floor. Carrie went to the foot of the stairs, thought for a moment about using them, then saw, high up on the wall at the other end, a window that appeared to lead outside.

  The window seemed the better option, so Carrie went back to the door of the storeroom, took the chair, and carried it down to the window. Using it, she climbed up, opened the window, and wriggled outside. A moment later, she found herself outside. Carrie crouched over and darted through the dark toward the edge of the woods. If she could get in there without being seen, she was fairly certain she could get away.

  She ran quickly, feeling the branches and leaves slapping against her face. Once she tripped over a root and was sent sprawling. She felt the pain of a rock cutting her face, and got a mouthful of dirt, but she didn’t cry out for fear of being heard by one of the people who had captured her.

  Carrie ran for at least half a mile before she stopped, then sat down beneath a tree and listened to see if she was being chased. She put her hand to the wound on her head, then pulled it down to look at it, trying to judge how serious it was. There didn’t seem to be too much blood.

  Her wound wasn’t a problem, and she now believed that her escape was successful. But it was cold, much colder than it had been during the day, and she suddenly had the unpleasant thought that she might have escaped captivity only to die of exposure.

  “Don’t be afraid,” a man’s voice suddenly said.

  “What?” Carrie gasped, jumping up at the sound. She saw a man in front of her. He didn’t appear to be one of those who had taken her prisoner, or at least, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. Actually, he was wearing a bearskin, and she wondered for a moment if he was some wild man who lived in the woods. “Who are you?”

  The man chuckled and shook his head. “I was sort of hoping you would recognize me.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize you. Who are you?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben answered.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You aren’t making sense.”

  “None of this is making sense,” Ben said. “I thought perhaps you had come for me, but I see that isn’t the case.”

  “Come for you?”

  “To rescue me,” Ben said.

  “You aren’t one of them, are you?”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing out here? Do you live here in the woods?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” Now Carrie was getting very confused by the direction this conversation was going.

  “Look,” Ben said. “The truth is, I don’t remember anything any further back than a couple of days ago when I came to in a crashed airplane.”

  “It was you!” Carrie said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You were my brothers’ passenger!” Carrie said.

  “Yes!” Ben said. “Yes, now we’re getting somewhere. Okay, so who am I?”

  “What? Why do you keep asking that question?”

  “Because if you know that I was your brothers’ passenger, then I was hoping you would know who I am.”

  “You don’t know who you are?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t know anything about the people you escaped from, or why they are trying to kill me. I don’t even know why I was in your brothers’ airplane. If you don’t know me, do you by any chance have any idea where they were taking me?”

  “I think to Edson,” Carrie replied.

  “Edson?”

  Carrie stared at him for a long moment. “You . . . you have amnesia, don’t you? Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? You have amnesia from the crash.”

  “Apparently I do,” Ben said. “One of the pilots called me Ben.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes. Does that mean anything to you? Did you ever hear your brothers say my name?”

  “No.”

  “What is your name?” Ben asked.

  “Carrie. Carrie Parker.”

  Ben smiled. “You aren’t married.”

  “What? No. How do you know that?”

  “Well, I don’t know my own name
, but I do know your brothers’ names. I read it from their pilots’ licenses. Gerald and Edgar Parker.”

  “Yes, that’s them,” Carrie said. “Then you are telling the truth. You were with them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know anything about them? Do you know where they are?”

  The expression on Ben’s face answered Carrie’s question.

  She was quiet for a moment. “Both of them?” she finally asked in a choked voice.

  Ben nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so. I’m sorry, Carrie,” he said.

  “I knew it. I suspected as much when I examined the airplane. Then these people, these uniformed Nazis who call themselves Die Kontrollgruppe, told me they were dead. But I was still hoping, irrational as that might be.”

  “Hope is never irrational,” Ben said.

  “Did these people kill my brothers?” Carrie asked.

  “No. They were killed in the crash. Both of them. If it is any consolation to you, they didn’t suffer.” He didn’t tell her that Gerald had lived for a few minutes beyond the crash.

  “If they were killed in the crash, then Die Kontrollgruppe did kill them. They told me they shot down the plane.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” Ben said. “I knew we crashed, but I didn’t know what caused it.”

  Carrie shivered.

  “You’re cold,” Ben said. He took off the bearskin coat and handed it to her. “Here, put this on.”

  “I can’t take that from you,” she said.

  “Sure you can. You need to get warm.”

  “It looks big enough, maybe we can share it,” Carrie suggested.

  Ben smiled. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “When I get back, maybe we’ll do that.”

  “When you get back? When you get back from where?”

  “I have some business to take care of,” Ben said. He slipped the bearskin around Carrie’s shoulders and she pulled it to her, grateful for its warmth.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “You stay here,” Ben ordered. “By the way, do you know how to use a gun?”

  “Yes,” Carrie said.

  Ben pulled a pistol from his waistband. “Here,” he said. “Just in case you need it.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever it is you are about to do, please be careful,” Carrie said. “Somehow, it’s comforting to know that I’m not all alone out here.”

  “I would say that careful is my middle name,” Ben said. He laughed. “That is, if I knew my middle name.”

  “Ben Careful,” Carrie said, laughing with him. She sat back down beneath the tree. “Don’t leave me out here all alone, Ben Careful.”

  “I’ll be back,” Ben promised.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Raines City, C.D.

  It was just before the shift change when Chief of Police Rick Adams came into the station. The desk sergeant looked up in surprise.

  “What are you doing here this time of night, Chief?” he asked.

  “Oh, I just thought I would drop by. How are things going, Sergeant Quinn?”

  “Quiet,” Quinn answered. “Not even a domestic disturbance tonight.”

  “Well, that’s the way we like it, isn’t it?” Adams asked.

  “Yes, sir, you got that right,” Sergeant Quinn answered.

  Adams went back into the squad room and spoke to some of the officers who were just going off duty, as well as those who were coming on. Then he went into the communications room and, reaching around behind the junction box, placed a thermite device. At exactly eleven o’clock, the thermite device would ignite, cooking all the wiring and taking out all telephone and wireless communications. Because it was heat instead of explosive, it would be silent and the police would know nothing about it, until they tried to communicate.

  Leaving the communication rooms, Chief Adams next visited the arms room. Except for the side arms carried on the officers’ persons, all the weapons were kept in the arms room. There, Adams squirted a few drops of acid into all the locks, freezing them so that they couldn’t be opened. That done, he started back out front, once more passing Sergeant Quinn as he left.

  “You aren’t going to stay for the watch change?” the desk sergeant asked.

  Adams shook his head. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I think I’ll just go home and go to bed.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you,” Quinn replied. “I sure wouldn’t be down here tonight if I didn’t have to be. I’d be home with my wife on our tenth wedding anniversary.”

  “You don’t say,” Adams said. “Well, congratulations.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  Rick Adams went out to his car. For a moment, but just for a moment, he had second thoughts about what he was doing, and he paused just before he got into the car.

  No, he thought. What he was doing was right. This would bring about a reunification of the SUSA and the USA. And in the new USA, he was promised the position of head of a national police force.

  What he was doing was patriotic, and future historians would recognize that.

  What he was doing was also profitable. Today he had received verification that half a million dollars had been placed in a Swiss account under his name.

  * * *

  It was 11:30 P.M. when the C-130 put down at the Ben Raines Airport. When the plane turned off the active and taxied away from the terminal instead of toward it, the tower operator called the pilot.

  “International Flight 371, this is Ben Raines Tower. Say now your purpose for exiting the active before the taxiway.”

  “Ben Raines Tower, International Flight 371. I have a brake overheating on me,” the pilot replied. “I need to let it cool or it might lock up on the runway.”

  “Do you require assistance, International Flight 371?” the tower asked.

  “Negative,” the pilot answered. “We’ll just sit here for a few minutes.”

  “Do you require a bus for your passengers?”

  “Negative. Thank you for your offer, but we have only two passengers, and they have agreed to remain on board until the situation is resolved.”

  “Roger, I understand you have only two passengers and they will ROB?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “Please call before reentering the active,” the tower cautioned.

  The pilot snapped the talk button twice, interrupting the squelch two times by way of acknowledgment.

  “They bought it,” the pilot said to Derek Owen, who was standing on the flight deck just behind him.

  “Good, good,” Owen said. “Put the ramp down, then stand by.”

  “What if they send someone out to check?” the pilot asked.

  “If we do our job, there won’t be anyone alive to send out,” Owen said. “This is the best time to hit them. They have a minimum staff on duty.”

  Owen stepped back into the cabin of the plane, where his men sat, their charcoal-dark faces gleaming dimly in the red overhead lights.

  “All right, men,” he said. “Exit the plane and head toward the terminal building. It’s dark enough that we won’t be seen until we are right on them. Then open fire.”

  “Any specific targets?” one of the men asked.

  “Yes,” Owen replied. “Anything that is breathing.” Owen moved down the center of the cabin until he reached the ramp, then turned back toward his men. “Let’s go,” he said.

  It took about one minute for the dark-clad, blackened-faced men to sprint through the darkness toward the terminal. Through the windows of the terminal, they could see no more than two dozen people waiting for their flights. There were at least half a dozen men out on the flight line, tending to various tasks germane to operating an airport. They looked up in surprise and curiosity as one hundred apparitions suddenly appeared before them.

  “Hey!” one of the airport employees called. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”

  “Now!” Owen shouted.

  Suddenly the darkness of t
he night was lit up by one hundred men firing automatic weapons. Windows and doors were shattered under the onslaught, and the shocked passengers were mowed down in seconds, their bodies jerking and twitching under the impact from the bullets.

  There were three security officers on duty in the quiet airport, two men and one woman, and like the brave officers they were, they ran toward the sound of gunfire. They were cut down before they could get off one shot.

  “Check all the offices!” Owen shouted as they ran inside and picked their way through the bloodied and dead bodies. Owen ran up the stairs to the tower. The chief flight controller was standing at the head of the stairs, looking down, trying to figure out what was going on. Owen took him out with one short burst, then stepped inside the control room.

  Radars winked and blinked in the shadows of the room, but at the moment, none of the stations were manned. Looking around, Owen saw three men and two women standing toward one side of the room, their hands in the air.

  “Get down!” he ordered. “Get down on your knees and look toward the wall!”

  Quickly, and fearfully, the five did as they were instructed.

  Owen took the magazine from his weapon and put in a fresh one. Then, pointing the weapon at the kneeling controllers, he pulled the trigger and moved the gun back and forth, sending bullets toward them as if squirting water from a hose. Blood and brain matter sprayed from the exit wounds as they fell forward.

  Carl Roberts rushed into the control tower then.

  “How is it downstairs?” Owen asked.

  “Dead. All dead. What about the police station? Is everything set there?” Roberts asked.

  “If Adams did what he was paid to do, they are now without communication or weapons,” Owen said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  By now there was only an occasional shot here and there as his men found the few stragglers remaining and shot them.

  “I thought you said they were all dead,” Owen said to Roberts.

  Nelson overheard the question and he aimed his pistol at one of the men on the floor, then pulled the trigger. “They are now,” he said.