Crisis in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Why Mr. Ishi, one would think you do not trust us.”

  “Madam President, are you acquainted with the mating habits of the black widow spider?”

  “What?”

  “The black widow spider. When it is time to mate, the male brings the female a fly or other juicy tidbit to nibble on while they mate. He has to be very quick, for if she finishes the bug before he is through, she begins to feed on him even as they are copulating.”

  “And your point is?”

  “I am handing you a very tasty bug in the form of a way to end the war and destroy your enemies, and at a very economical price. I want to be far away when you are finished with it.”

  In spite of herself, Claire threw back her head and laughed at the analogy. She found herself liking this little bastard, even if he was a Jap. He thought a lot like her. Too bad she hadn’t made use of his guile before.

  “Very well, Mr. Ishi. I’ll see that you get what you deserve.” In spades, she added. “But since you are so fond of analogies, here’s one for you. I don’t intend to buy a pig in a poke.”

  Ishi looked puzzled.

  “I want a test first to see if your plague is effective against soldiers of SUSA who’ve already been vaccinated. We have some prisoners of war in captivity. Try it on them. If they come down with the sickness and die, you’ve got your deal.”

  Ishi nodded, though his expression was troubled.

  Claire turned to General Maxwell. “Max, make it happen.”

  The next morning, Maxwell had thirty captured SUSA soldiers moved to an isolated jail in the country, away from any possible contamination if they contracted the plague. One of Ishi’s scientists, dressed in a Racal decontamination suit, threw a handful of flour laced with infected fleas into the jail cell, then stepped back quickly and was sprayed head to foot with insecticide to kill any fleas on his suit.

  Within three days, ninety percent of the soldiers were sick with flu-like symptoms, coughing up purulent sputum and scratching at boils and pustules over their entire bodies.

  On the sixth day, all but two of the men were dead.

  General Maxwell brought in an Abrams M60 tank fitted with a flame thrower and torched the jail, burning it to the ground, trying to ignore the screams of the two soldiers that were still alive. Only when the site of the jail was a smoldering ruin, with even the bars of the cells melted to molten iron, did he call off the tank.

  Maxwell reported to Claire Osterman that the fleas had inflicted over ninety percent casualties on soldiers who’d been inoculated against every BW agent in their arsenal. “The test, Madam President, was an unqualified success,” he said, his face pale and drawn at the memory of the horrible deaths endured by the captives, and hating Claire for turning him from a decorated military hero into a monster.

  Claire rubbed her hands together. “Good,” she said, a joyful expression on her face. “Then get the son of a bitch his money and let’s go forward with the bombing as soon as possible.”

  “How do you want us to handle the transfer?” he asked.

  Claire thought for a moment. “As soon as the gold and jewels are ready, have Herb fly to Switzerland with Ishi. Once he has the plans for the bomb and vaccine in hand, tell him to terminate the bastard, with extreme prejudice.”

  “But that won’t get us our gold back.”

  “The hell with the gold. As long as Ishi pays for daring to blackmail me, I don’t care about the money. After all, as he says, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we’ll save in the long run.”

  She grinned, suddenly in a good mood. “I can’t wait to see the look on that son of a bitch Raines’s face when his soldiers start dropping like flies. I may even force the bastard to come up here and beg me, face-to-face, to give him the vaccine to stop the slaughter.” She actually looked heavenward, as if God himself had dropped this golden opportunity to humiliate Ben Raines in her lap. “Oh, what a glorious day that will be!”

  “Madam President,” Maxwell began, a troubled look on his face, “even after we get the plans for the bomb and the vaccine, it may be several months before we can have everyone in the USA inoculated against the plague.”

  Her face soured. “What do you mean everyone?”

  “Well, the inoculation of the armed service personnel will go fairly quickly, but manufacturing enough vaccine for all the citizens will take a lot more time, not to mention the logistics of getting everyone to take the shots.”

  “Fuck the citizens,” she said. “As long as my troops are protected, the others can get their vaccine after the bomb has been dropped. It’ll take the disease several weeks to make its way northward, and by then our people will have all had a chance to get the shots.”

  “But, Madam President—”

  “No buts, Max. I’ve waited for years to get Ben Raines right where I want him, and I don’t intend to wait a moment longer than necessary to finish him off. Now get out of here and get the gold ready for Ishi. I want this program to go forward within the next two to three weeks, and not a second later.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Maxwell said.

  He turned quickly toward the door to hide the expression of disgust on his face and exited the room. “Damn, but that woman would make a saint curse,” he muttered as he walked up the hallway, “and I damn sure ain’t no saint.”

  At the end of the hall, he picked up a phone and told the operator to find Harlen Millard for him. He slammed the phone down hard enough to crack the plastic and stalked off toward his office to start the process of transferring the gold bullion to Switzerland.

  NINETEEN

  It was close to midnight under a moonless sky as Ben Raines and his team led Lara Walden, Chuck Harris, and the rest of the Freedom Fighters through the woods toward the hydroelectric facility that fed power to Buffalo, New York. Jersey, because of her bad ankle, had been left behind to monitor the radio for any late-breaking news.

  They were dressed all in black with black greasepaint on their faces, so as to be virtually invisible in the inky blackness of the night.

  One of Lara’s team, Nora Smith, had been raised in the area, and she was point “man” on the expedition, leading them unerringly through the dense undergrowth around the station. She stopped on a rise overlooking the dam and river, and pointed ahead.

  “There it is,” she whispered, though there was no one within two hundred yards who could possibly overhear her.

  “All right,” Ben said, squatting next to her. “Anna, you take Lou, Val, and Dave with you and set your charges at the base of the dam, where it joins the bank of the river. Corrie, you and Lara and Chuck see if you can cross the dam and do the same to the far side. Coop, Beth, and I will see if we can get into the building and place our explosives around the plant itself.”

  “Make sure you get the big turbines, Ben,” Corrie said, “those are the most expensive and hard to replace components of the plant.”

  “Roger,” he answered. Corrie was the resident expert in all things technical, and he valued her input on how best to disable the hydroelectric plant and render it almost impossible to rebuild with the USA’s limited resources.

  “Okay, team, let’s go. Remember not to set the timers on the explosives. We’ll detonate them all at once from up here with the radio transmitters.”

  As he made his way toward the plant, Ben heard Coop give a low chuckle behind him. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “I was just remembering the look on Jersey’s face when you told her she was going to have to stay behind. She was really pissed.”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Ben said, also smiling at the recollection. “She’d never be able to keep up in this forest.”

  “Well, she sure hates to miss any action, that’s for sure,” Coop said.

  “Let’s hope there won’t be any action tonight. If all goes well, and the facility is as poorly guarded as the FF says, then it’ll just be another walk in the park.”

  Soon, they came upon the
outer reaches of the plant, where forest changed to concrete.

  “This is going to be the tricky part. We’ll be totally exposed when we cross the parking lot,” Ben said, “so crouch down and move at double-time.”

  “Roger that, boss,” Beth said. Coop just nodded.

  “We’ll go one at a time, so if there is a guard he won’t get a shot at all of us together.”

  “I’ll go first, and then give you and Beth cover as you cross,” Coop said in a low voice.

  “Okay. I’ll keep the Starlight scope on the building as you move out,” Ben said, referring to the light-gathering scope that enabled him to see in starlight as if it were high noon.

  Coop jacked a shell into his CAR and put his finger on the safety. He turned to Beth, gave her a wink and Ben a nod, and took off at a dead run across the cement parking lot of the plant. Ben kept his scope fixed on the building across the way, searching for any movement that would indicate they were under observation. Nothing moved.

  Once Coop was across and safe, he waved at the others and they followed him, one at a time, while he kept his CAR pointed toward the plant next to him. Any sign of trouble, and he’d open up on full automatic to give the others a chance to make it across.

  “See anything?” Ben asked when he got to where Coop was squatted down behind a hedge.

  “Uh-uh. Quiet as a tomb,” Coop replied.

  “Thanks for the analogy,” Beth said, her teeth flashing white in a grin as she scrambled up behind them.

  Ben made his way to the door and tried it. It was locked. He removed his K-Bar from his belt and stuck the hardened steel point in the keyhole and twisted. The softer steel of the lock mechanism gave way, and the door swung open.

  Coop and Beth and Ben filed into the darkened building, CARs at the ready. Ben turned on a penlight, and they walked down the corridor until they came to a large anteroom with several doors. Luckily, the doors all had signs over them telling where they led.

  Ben picked the one that said Turbine Room and soon they were in a huge open room with six large turbines, all whining as they produced electricity from the movement of water through their mechanisms.

  All three took off their backpacks and laid the charges of explosives on the floor. Each took a couple and made their way to the big turbine engines, placing the charges of C-4 plastique against the walls of the machines. Small detonator devices were inserted in putty-like plastique, and switches were flipped, activating them for the radio signal which would set off the charges later.

  Ben stepped back and dusted his hands off. “Well, team, this looks like a good night’s work. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge before we’re discovered.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Coop said.

  Beth opened the door to the turbine room and was blown backward by a burst of automatic rifle fire, spinning as a bullet ripped into her chest, knocking her spread-eagled onto her back on the concrete floor.

  Coop, who was right behind her, slammed the steel door shut just as another burst of bullets slammed into it.

  “Goddamn!” he shouted. “We’ve been made!”

  Ben rushed to Beth’s side and checked her out.

  “Shit, that hurt,” she said, rubbing her chest and taking deep breaths.

  Ben opened her BDU shirt and saw three 9mm slugs imbedded in her Kevlar vest. None of the bullets had penetrated the bulletproof material of her body armor.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She nodded, picking the lead out of the vest with her fingers. “Yeah. Thank heaven for technology,” she groaned as she got to her feet and picked up her CAR where it’d dropped.

  “What now, boss?” Coop asked. “Looks like they’ve got us pinned down in here.”

  Ben swung his penlight around the room. There were no other doors, and all of the windows were at least twenty feet high.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Coop. I don’t see any other way out of here. Damn! I should have stationed a guard at the door. Now we’re trapped in here. My mistake.”

  Coop grinned. “No sweat, chief.”

  Ben stationed himself next to the door. “Okay, Coop. On my mark, jerk the door open and I’ll sweep the corridor with my CAR. Beth, you stand behind me and see if you can tell how many we re up against out there. Be quick, ’cause we’ll only have a few seconds to get a count.”

  “Right, boss,” she said.

  Coop grabbed the door handle while Ben held his CAR at waist level. He nodded and Coop jerked the door open.

  Ben crouched and pulled the trigger, emptying his clip into the darkness and sweeping the barrel back and forth as he fired. The muzzle flash lit up the room, and Beth saw two men go down, clutching their chests, while another three opened fire at Ben.

  When she saw their muzzle flashes answering Ben’s, she grabbed him by the shirt and jerked him back into the room. Coop slammed the door shut just as the bullets slammed into it.

  “You got two, and there looked to be at least three more left alive,” Beth shouted, trying to be heard over the explosions of gunfire and the metallic sound of bullets crashing into the steel door in front of them.

  Ben jerked his empty magazine out and replaced it with a full one. “What a mess,” he said, his eyes flicking back and forth as he tried to figure a way out of the trap they were in.

  Lara Walden and Corrie and Chuck were just finishing placing their charges under the large steel I-beams that connected the dam to the ground on the far side of the river when they heard the sound of gunfire from the hydroelectric building.

  “Shit!” Corrie said. “It sounds like Ben’s run into some trouble.”

  Lara shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. This building was never guarded before.”

  Chuck frowned. “Maybe they’ve put some men here since the bombing by Rebel forces last week.”

  “Well, someone’s here now, and they’re firing at Ben and the others.” Corrie jerked her CAR around from her back, where it hung by its leather strap. Jacking a round into the chamber, she flicked the safety off and started back across the dam. “Let’s go see if they need some help.”

  “But the charges aren’t ready yet,” Chuck said.

  Corrie flipped him a handful of the detonators. “Here. Stick these in the plastique and then hightail it back across the dam. With any luck, it’ll all be over by then . . . one way or another.”

  Lara readied her M-16. “I’m coming with you.”

  Corrie nodded once. “OK. I figure we’ll try to get in the building from this side. Maybe that way we can come at them from behind and catch them in a crossfire with Ben’s team.”

  Just as they finished crossing the dam, they ran into Anna and her FF team. “Did you hear the shooting?” Anna asked, her CAR cradled in her arms and her eyes wide in the starlight.

  “Yeah,” Corrie answered. “We’re gonna go in this side of the building. Why don’t you and your team go in the same door Ben did? That way we’ll be coming at them from two different directions.”

  “Roger,” Anna said, turning and leading her FFs toward the door Ben had entered.

  Corrie walked to a side entrance door and tried it. It was locked. In too much of a hurry to wait, she stepped to the side, turned her head away, and blew the door handle out with her CAR. Kicking the door open, she crouched and ran through it, aiming her automatic rifle ahead of her into the darkness.

  Lara was right on her heels, her M-16 at the ready.

  Once inside, they squatted behind some desks in the corridor, and Corrie pulled out a flashlight.

  Lara said, “Wait a minute—won’t that let them know we’re coming?”

  Corrie shrugged. “Yeah. That’s the general idea. We’ve got to draw their fire from Ben so he’ll have a chance in case he’s pinned down.”

  Just before Corrie switched on the light, another burst of automatic weapons fire came from just around the corner ahead of them.

  Corrie put the flashlight in her pocket and pulled a grenade
from her belt. “This is a stun grenade,” she said, handing it to Lara. She pulled another one off her belt, “This is a phosphorous grenade. The stun grenade makes a loud sound, and the phosphorous one makes a brilliant flash of light. Together they ought to incapacitate whoever is shooting up there.”

  “OK.”

  “On my count, pull the pin and throw it as far up the corridor as you can, then duck your head, hide your eyes, and cover your ears. As soon as they go off, we’re gonna charge the bastards.”

  “All right,” Lara said, grabbing the grenade’s ring with her fingers.

  “One, two, three, go!” Corrie said and they threw their grenades at the same time and ducked their heads.

  A few seconds later, a tremendous flash of light was followed immediately by a loud explosion. Corrie and Lara were on their feet in seconds, running down the corridor as fast as they could.

  As they turned the corner, they saw several men staggering around, holding their hands to their faces, blood coming from their ears, their mouths open in silent screams of pain.

  Corrie didn’t hesitated. She opened fire at the same time as Lara, and sprayed the men with bullets. They spun and jerked in a dance of death, blown apart by the force of the twin streams of lead pouring into them.

  Seconds later, Ben and Coop and Beth dove through a door across the room, and their rifles joined in the fire-fight.

  It was over in seconds, a cloud of cordite and smoke filling the room. Ben got to his feet and walked among the dead, moving their weapons in case any of them were still alive.

  Anna and her Freedom Fighters arrived just after the fight was over.

  Once Ben had made sure there was no further danger, he turned to the others. “We’ve got to get a move on. They may’ve radioed for reinforcements.”

  The team jogged for the door, meeting Chuck Harris just as they left the building.

  “Everyone OK?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Let’s make for the hilltop over there and set off the charges before any company arrives.”

  Once they were a safe distance away, Corrie flipped a switch on her radio detonator and pressed a red button. The dam seemed to heave itself up as twin explosions roared. The building didn’t move, but smoke and fire exploded out of the windows to the turbine rooms.