Crisis in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  For a few seconds, nothing else seemed to happen. “Damn,” Chuck Harris said. “It was all for nothing. It didn’t even affect the dam.”

  Ben smiled. “Give it a few minutes, Chuck.”

  Sure enough, minutes later, the dam seemed to collapse into itself with a mighty roar. As the dam broke apart and the river began to surge through the wreckage, the building came apart and fell into the river’s rushing waters. Within minutes, all that was left of the hydroelectric plant and the dam was a pile of twisted metal and concrete.

  “Jesus,” Lara said, awe in her voice. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “That ought to get Madam President’s attention,” Ben said, a satisfied look on his face.

  TWENTY

  When Ben and the others arrived back at the cabin, Jersey was waiting by the door.

  “I don’t have to ask how it went,” she said, glancing at the night sky on the horizon where the low-lying clouds were painted orange by the flames of the hydroelectric plant.”

  Ben nodded. “You’re right. All things considered, it went quite well, except for Beth, who’s gonna have some rather spectacular bruises from a run-in with the plant guards.”

  Coop smiled at Jersey. “I offered to rub some ointment on her chest, but . . .” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

  “That’ll be the day,” Beth said.

  “Just trying to be helpful,” Coop said with a shrug.

  “Ben,” Jersey said, “Mike Post has been on the horn trying to get in touch with you. I told him you’d bump him when you got back.”

  “OK, set it up for me, would you, Corrie?”

  “Sure thing, boss.” She sat before the radio transceiver and twiddled the dials until she had the correct frequency, which was changed on a daily basis and had a mathematical relationship to the day of the month.

  Finally, she handed Ben the microphone. “It’s all ready, Ben.”

  “Eagle One to Eagle Two, come in.”

  “Eagle Two here. I’ve got some news, Eagle One. There was an attempt on one of our covert operative’s life last night.”

  “Which one?” Ben asked.

  “L-two,” Mike answered, referring to Linda Lee.

  “Is the operative all right?”

  “Yes. L-two made contact immediately after the attempt, and arrangements were made to have one of the scout teams do an extraction.”

  “And was it successful?”

  “Yes. L-two is in the pipeline, headed for home.”

  “That’s good. Did Sugar Babe order the hit?”

  “Affirmative, Eagle One. However, the operative is certain that she was fingered by a spy on our team, somehow. She says there’s no other way they could have known about her.”

  “Are you checking it out?”

  “Yes. We’re going back through the security reports on all our personnel and rechecking their files.”

  “Good. Let me know what you turn up. And the package I’ve ordered for Madam President is on the way?” Ben asked, remembering his order for Mike to contact Sied Sadallah.

  “The package has been ordered, and we’re currently awaiting delivery.”

  “Let me know as soon as delivery is accomplished. Eagle One out.”

  He turned to his team. “Osterman must’ve found out about Linda Lee, our informer in their cryptology section. She ordered as assassination attempt, but it failed, and Linda is on the way back to SUSA.”

  “Thank God,” Anna said. She was a close friend of Linda’s, as was Ben.

  “We’re gonna miss her intel, but at least she made it out alive,” Ben said.

  Jersey stared at him. “What was all that about a package you ordered for Osterman? Are we sending her birthday gifts now?”

  “Not exactly,” Ben answered, with a sly grin. “This package is more a reminder that ordering assassins is a two-way street, and what goes around, comes around.”

  The Jackal, Sied Sadallah, watched the USA compound with an experienced eye. Trained in Libya, named after the assassin made famous fifty years earlier for his relentless pursuit of enemies of the East, a paid killer in the employ of Muammar al-Qaddafi, he took great pride in his hunting and shooting skills, if the target was human. He had killed enemies of the state on three continents, depending upon which government paid him the highest fee.

  And now his target was the President of the USA, Claire Osterman. In the dark, hidden by deep shadows, Sied had memorized the routes by which her limousine took her home every night, to the underground bunker where she’d been forced to live after the bombardment by SUSA Rebels of her command post in Indianapolis. Her drivers, trained bodyguards, took her home by different routes every night.

  But there was a moment, less than a minute, when she emerged from her command bunker to enter her bulletproof Mercedes limo. With his high-powered Ninnko rifle equipped with a night scope, Sied was sure he could take her down with the first or second shot—if her bodyguards did not suspect anything in the way of a trap.

  He whispered to Ahmed, who lay behind the fence beside him, a paid assassin in his own right with almost as far-flung a reputation as Sied’s.

  “Make sure you can hit her in a vital spot. This will be our only chance.”

  “I won’t miss,” Ahmed assured him. “All I need is one clear shot at her.”

  “The big bodyguard is careful. He sees everything, even though he is older. He stands in front of her until she enters the car.”

  “I know him,” Ahmed said. “He is Herb Knoff, the big fat German. He is past fifty now, but he will be very hard to kill. He always wears a bulletproof vest.”

  “Shoot him in the head,” Sied whispered. “He will die like any other man.”

  “Many people have tried, Sied. He seems to have a sixth sense for when a gun is aimed at him.”

  Sied chuckled soundlessly. “You have become too superstitious, old friend. No one knows when he will die. You listen to too many of the old stories about him. He is a mortal, like any other man.”

  Ahmed swallowed. “It is more than superstition, Sied,” he said. “I have tried to kill the big German once before. He came out of a building with Bruno Bottger in Africa, and even though there was no moon he looked right at me when I was two hundred yards away behind a tree. The night was as dark as pitch. Somehow, he knew I was there. I am unable to explain it, how he knew I was there.”

  “What happened?”

  “He pushed Bottger to the ground and opened up on me with an Uzi. I was lucky to escape with my life. He could not have known where I was, and yet somehow, he did. Some say he has eyes in the back of his head.”

  “It was luck, Ahmed. He heard you make some small sound or he saw you move.”

  “I did not even breathe when he came out of the bunker with Herr Bottger. I did not move. My rifle was cocked. I had him in my sights. There was nothing I did that could have warned him I was there. And somehow he knew we were waiting for him. He warned everyone, before a single shot was fired, and yet he could not have known we were there.”

  “Nonsense,” Sied replied. “He is just a man. He will bleed and die like any other, if you hit him in the right spot with a bullet.”

  “There are some who say Ben Raines is every bit as clever as Knoff.”

  “Raines is cautious, I agree,” Sied said. “He never turns his back on anyone . . . not even his most trusted associates. But why should we care? He is paying us to get rid of President Osterman in order to prevent a bloodier, more expanded war. His money is good, and he keeps his word. We are not being paid to assassinate him.”

  “You don’t think Raines will double-cross us?”

  Sied wagged his head. “Not from what I have heard about him. He is honest. But he is ruthless when someone betrays him.”

  “Then he will pay us our money? If we kill this Osterman woman?”

  “Without a doubt, just so long as we accomplish our objectives here tonight. We must bring down Claire Osterman and her advisers. If we can.
We are being paid to kill the President of the USA, and that is all we have to do to earn our money, according to General Raines. I have worked for him before, and I believe him. Osterman must die . . . tonight, and we will be the instrument of her death.”

  “She escaped the heavy bombing,” Ahmed remembered. “She may remain in her underground bunker until the SUSA attack from the skies is over. They are sending in specially trained teams from every quarter. Perhaps we should wait until the bombing is over in New York.”

  “It is over, for now. General Raines has called a halt to the bombing, to keep from harming more innocent civilians, we were told.”

  “Raines is a strange fellow. He believes in his cause, yet he is willing to end thousands of lives to stop President Osterman and the armies of the USA by bombing them. Most peace-loving leaders are too softhearted.”

  Sied saw a dark Mercedes limousine drive toward the front door leading to the underground headquarters of the USA government. “Here comes the president’s car. Don’t worry about Raines or his softheartedness. All we care about is getting paid to rid him of his nemesis, the bitch everyone calls Sugar Babe Osterman.”

  “I will crawl under this fence, to be closer, so my shot cannot miss,” Ahmed said.

  “Be careful of the landmines. We do not know where they are.”

  Ahmed grinned. “I have a nose for explosives, Sied. Do not worry about me.”

  He inched forward on his elbows and belly, pushing his way under an electrified fence with great care. Sied had already killed two of the perimeter guards silently, with a knife and a piano wire, leaving the way clear for them to crawl closer to the compound.

  Suddenly, Ahmed halted. “Who is that?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Sied studied the giant figure walking up the stairs from the underground bunker where President Osterman stayed during the day, her command headquarters.

  “That is Herb Knoff,” Sied whispered, examining a towering giant in a full set of body armor—a bulletproof face mask, vest, and bulletproof leggings—with an automatic rifle cradled in the crook of an arm.

  “That is Knoff,” he said softly. “Something has gone very wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Ahmed wondered.

  “He is wearing a full suit of bulletproof gear. He never does this. He suspects trouble here tonight.”

  “But who could have warned him?”

  “I don’t know. We were the only ones, other than General Raines himself, who knew this plan.”

  “Should we pull back?”

  Sied had to think about it a moment . . . all the trouble they’d gone through to get this far. “No. Let’s kill her now.”

  “Knoff . . . he is huge,” Ahmed said. “With full body armor he may be hard to bring down.”

  “Kill President Osterman,” Sied said, tightening his rifle against his shoulder. “This is the only way we can earn our money.”

  “I’ll move even closer,” Ahmed said, creeping forward again with his body pressed flat against the ground.

  “Be careful of the landmines,” Sied warned again. “They will surely have this place mined against an attack from the trees.”

  “I will be very careful,” Ahmed said, inching over the ground at a slow crawl.

  Sied keyed his small radio and spoke into it without waiting for a reply. “Eagle Two, this is Jackal. They were warned of our coming. They are ready for us, but I will attempt the assignment, anyway. Jackal out.”

  As he put the radio down and picked up his rifle, a soft, metallic click was the only warning Sied had that Ahmed had made a fatal mistake. In fractions of a second, the dirt around them exploded with a mighty roar.

  Ahmed was blown almost ten feet into the air by a powerful landmine, still gripping his rifle. He screamed as his body was tossed into the night sky.

  Sied Sadallah rolled quickly to his left to escape the full force of the blast, as dirt and tiny rocks showered him from head to toe.

  “Ayiiii!” Ahmed cried as his chest and abdomen flew open, spilling his guts and sprays of blood all over the earth where Sied lay.

  Ahmed toppled to the forest floor, moaning, grunting, his life flowing away from a gaping cavity in his midsection and a hole in his throat. Dark crimson rain fell down on Sied like a warm, late summer shower.

  Sied sleeved the dirt particles away from his eyes, just in time to see a towering man in a bulletproof suit and mask come racing toward him.

  “Fuck you, German bastard,” he snarled, letting go with a stream of bullets from his Ninnko rifle.

  The giant kept coming toward him at a run. Sied could not believe his bullets had no effect on Knoff or his body armor.

  A sound beside Sied made him flinch. He glanced over to Ahmed’s pulpy body, where the noises were coming from.

  Ahmed’s jaw had been blown off the bottom of his skull, and now his tongue, fastened deep in his throat, flapped back and forth on his chest like a bloody snake while the Libyan assassin tried to speak, free of his jawbone and lower cheeks.

  “Shit!” Sied hissed, turning his attention back to the big man lumbering toward him with the Uzi.

  Sied fired off the last of his clip at Herb Knoff, taking care to aim at vital spots. The giant kept on coming without slowing his strides.

  With his rifle empty, Sied leapt to his feet to begin a fast retreat into the woods, his heart thudding inside his chest as he ran.

  A cracking sound came from the middle of his spine, and, just as quickly, his legs refused to obey his commands. He willed his feet to move, and they would not, floundering underneath him, not able to support his weight.

  He tumbled forward into a tuft of blood-soaked grass, gasping for breath. A pain unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life raced down his lower body.

  I’m hit, he thought, still struggling to regain his feet in order to run.

  Another staccato of fire from an Uzi jerked his torso off the ground. His eyes bulged in their sockets. This was no way for the Jackal to end his career as an assassin . . . what the hell had happened?

  It was Ahmed’s fault, he thought as he began to lose consciousness. The stupid son of a bitch had crawled over a landmine. . . .

  He tried to roll over, but his body wouldn’t obey his commands. He lay there, facedown in the dirt, pain like a live animal crawling up his back toward his head.

  Claire Osterman was furious. She exited her command bunker in such a towering rage that no one dared try to stop her. She stalked over to Knoff, who was standing over the assassin’s body, smoke still trailing from his Uzi barrel.

  “What the hell is the meaning of this?” she shouted, causing Knoff to turn and look at her.

  “Madam President, you shouldn’t be out here until we make sure there are no others left,” he said, his voice muffled by his helmet and armor.

  “Screw that! I want to know how this bastard was able to get so close, and who sent him.”

  “He’s still alive. Would you like to ask him?” Knoff asked.

  Claire used the toe of her boot to turn Sadallah’s body over onto its back. She squatted next to him and slapped his face, back and forth, until his eyes flicked open.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice shrill in the night air.

  “I . . . I am Jackal,” Sied mumbled though lips covered with blood.

  “The Jackal!” Claire screamed. “Why you son of a bitch, I’ve hired you myself in the past. How dare you try to kill me?”

  Sied licked the blood from his lips and bared bloody teeth in a grin. “Nothing personal . . . it was . . . business.”

  She reared back and slapped his face so hard it made his eyes roll back in his head. “Who hired you? Who paid you to do this?”

  His eyes cleared momentarily. “Your old friend . . . Ben Raines. He said . . . he was sending you a message about . . . breaking the rules.”

  “Breaking the rules? Why you little shit! I’m the president . . . I make the rules.”

  Claire stood up an
d held out her hand to Knoff. “Give me your pistol, Herbert.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, handing her a Walther P-38 semi-automatic 9mm.

  She jacked the slide back and pointed it between Sied’s eyes.

  “One thing more,” the assassin mumbled, motioning her to come closer.

  She leaned over, and he spat a glob of bloody mucous in her face.

  Rearing back, she screamed, “You bastard!” and fired at point blank range, the pistol bucking and exploding in her hand.

  The bullet took Sied in the forehead, shattering his skull and showering Claire with blood and brains and tissue.

  She took a deep breath and calmly handed Knoff his pistol. “I’ll show that bastard Raines who makes the rules,” she growled as she walked back toward her bunker.

  “Herbert, get out of that suit and join me in my room. I have need of your services,” she said over her shoulder.

  Knoff glared at Sadallah, thinking that if he wasn’t already dead he’d kill him himself for causing Osterman to order him to her bedroom. He shook his head. It was a lousy way to make a living.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The chumming of helicopter blades was a drone in Tom Harrison’s ears as he came in low, dangerously low, under USA’s radar in the south of Indiana, where so many SUSA missiles had knocked out the most strategic radar installations SUSA intelligence reports could give them.

  The night skies would help hide him and the noisy Huey with its twin turbines. And an all-out war was going on, with General Raines attacking the USA base from the north, after successful raids in the northeast, as far away as New York and Vermont, and parts of Ohio.

  This could be the death blow to Osterman’s government, he told himself, using the stick and the rudder pedals to keep the big Huey on a low trajectory, armed with four ATG missiles that would level everything in their pathway for a quarter of a mile in any direction.