Fire in the Ashes ta-2

by William Wallace Johnstone

  At the other: “I wish to God there was some other way to do this without sacrificing the president.”

  Same meeting: “He’s weak; not the man for this time in our history. I don’t like it either. But I can’t see another way.”

  Same meeting: “I feel… traitorous.”

  The other meeting: “Lowry will be forced to step down if you threaten to go public with that promise he made you.”

  Hartline grinned. “And then we’ll just put you in the Oval Office.”

  The old man grinned. “That’s the way it will be.”

  * * *

  Jerre sat in her cell at the camp of the mercenaries. She had not been harmed in any way. She had not seen Hartline since that afternoon he had returned her clothing and ordered her fed.

  She wondered what was going to happen to her. She wondered about her babies and about Matt.

  She wondered who that woman was that occasionally screamed from down the corridor.

  * * *

  Sabra had been allowed to bathe and wash her hair. She was dressed in a dress that looked like a sack. But she really didn’t care. She had managed in her feverish brain to put a name with the face that tormented her. She had it for a time, but it kept slipping away from her. Now she could keep it with her at all times: Sam Hartline.

  She knew this Hartline had done something terrible to her, and to someone else, but she couldn’t recall what it was.

  Something elusive kept flashing through her brain: scenes of bloody bodies and nakedness and ugliness and perversion.

  She screamed. No reason for her screaming; she just felt like screaming.

  * * *

  “I wish Nixon were still president,” the head of network news spoke wistfully. “Or somebody like him. Then we could do like they did back in the ‘70s. We’d jump on him and stay on him until we rode him down.”

  “Yeah, that’s really what a news department is all about, isn’t it,” the spokesman for CBS said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

  CNN looked at ABC. “I am so glad we were not a part of that disgraceful happening.”

  “Nixon or the news reporting during that time?” NBC asked.

  “Guess,” CNN spoke with as much sarcasm as CBS.

  “What are you, a Republican?” AP asked.

  “Maybe she is just putting into words what we all secretly feel,” UPI injected. “That our dead colleagues just might have been something less than objective. But that is all water over the dam. Let’s talk about what is confronting us at the moment.”

  “We have no proof the military is setting anyone up,” NBC said.

  And that brought huge laughter.

  When the laughter had faded into memory, ABC said, “That isn’t the issue. The issue is are we getting tit for tat, or is it a better trade-off.”

  “Anything would be better than Lowry and Cody and Hartline. You all have heard, by now, about Sabra and her family?”

  “Rumors of gunshots in the night. The apartment is sealed off. No one has seen any of them.”

  “At least Hartline can’t use the tape,” NBC said. “We found it and destroyed it. It was disgusting.”

  “We’re all still dancing around the point for this meeting,” CNN said. “Let’s stop playing patty-cake and get down to it.”

  “I never heard of any proposed setup,” NBC said, standing up, slipping into his topcoat.

  “I’m with that,” CNN said, rising to her feet.

  In a moment, all were in agreement: they would not report on speculation, on news that had not occurred.

  But no one really said what was on their mind, what lay like a dark hairy creature in the far corners of the brain: The end will justify the means.

  They had to believe it.

  After all, it was for the good of the country.

  * * *

  President Addison grew more apprehensive the closer he got to Charlottesville. One of his agents had told him he feared a setup. Aston had gone to Tommy Levant of the Bureau and asked him.

  The senior agent had denied any knowledge of any setup.

  That should have reassured the president.

  But it didn’t.

  At the motel, it distressed the president to see the Rebels so military in appearance. They looked like a crack unit. He had wished—secretly—they would all look rag-tag, with beards and beads and unwashed bodies and blue jeans. Anything but this. But, he reminded himself, he should have known Raines would have a crack outfit.

  The motorcade rolled up to a motel and stopped.

  “Here it is, sir,” a Secret Service man said.

  “It isn’t even a nationally known chain,” Addison muttered. “Figures.”

  “Sir?” the Secret Service man looked at him.

  “Nothing,” Addison said. He stepped out of the limousine into the cold air of late fall. No honor guard to greet him; no band playing “Hail to the Chief.”

  There was a squad of Marines present. But what Aston did not know was these Marines were actually part of Hartline’s mercenaries.

  Three Rebels, two women and a man, lounged under the awning over the front of the motel office. They looked at the president of the United States with about the same interest an aardvark would give two cockatoos copulating.

  One of the women jerked a thumb at a closed door. “In there,” she said.

  “You’re addressing the president of the United States,” an aide said irritably.

  “Excuse the hell outta me,” the woman replied.

  “Let’s do it, Benny,” Addison said. He pushed ahead of his man and opened the motel room door.

  The beds and dresser had been removed, a large table taking that space. Four men in field clothes sat at the table. A tape recorder sat in the center of the table. A rather pretty young lady sat off to one side, a stenographer’s pad in her hand.

  Aston recognized Raines, Krigel, and Hazen. The fourth man was introduced as Major Conger.

  No one on either side seemed terribly impressed with the other.

  The president, his Secret Service men, a few of his aides crowded into the room. Aston shot a thought across the table to Ben: I had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Jerre Hunter, he feverishly projected the thought.

  If Ben received the mental projection, his expression did not note it. He continued to stare at Aston Addison. Fourteen people in the room had less than one minute to live.

  The man is scared to death, Ben thought. He is actually trembling.

  Ben’s pistol-filled holster was chafing his leg painfully, rubbing a raw spot. He moved his hand downward to ease the pressure.

  Maybe that will stop it, he thought.

  President Addison watched the man’s hand slip toward the pistol butt. He, along with several of the Secret Service men, had noticed the grimace pass across Ben’s face. They had all misinterpreted the movement.

  He’s going to kill me! Aston panicked.

  It’s a setup! a Secret Service man thought.

  “Stop him!” Aston shouted, pointing to Ben. “He’s going to kill me.”

  The frightening suddenness of the president’s screaming jarred everyone in the room; except for the one Secret Service man who was supposed to initiate the killing. It scared the hell out of him.

  The government agents grabbed for their guns; the Rebels grabbed for their weapons. The stenographer, a combat-trained Rebel, dropped to the floor and grabbed an M-16.

  The room exploded in gunfire.

  President Aston Addison, who never really wanted the presidency in the first place, watched in a second’s horror as one of his own agents leveled a .357 magnum at him and pulled the trigger. Aston’s head erupted in a mass of gray matter, blood, and fluid. The president of the United States was dead before he hit the carpet.

  General Krigel fired twice, one of his slugs hitting a Secret Service man in the chest, rupturing the heart. The other slug hit an aide in the side of the head, entering the man’s right ear. His head swelled as blood gushed
out of his nose and eyes. An agent emptied his .357 into Krigel before Ben shot him in the face.

  Major Conger fired his .45 into the knot of government men. He was still pulling the trigger when a half dozen slugs hit him, slamming him to the floor, dead.

  General Hazen was struck by a dozen slugs, but still managed to kill the turncoat service agent before he died.

  The stenographer burned a full clip into the knot of government men before a slug hit her in the eye, passed through her brain, and blew out the back of her head.

  Ben dropped one agent with a gut shot and was flung to the carpet as a bullet hit him in the side. He killed the last remaining government man as he was going down.

  General Ben Raines slumped against a wall, the only person left alive in the motel room.

  The room was thick with gunsmoke and the stink of urine, sweat, and blood. Thirteen men and one woman had died in less than one minute. Outside, the battle took a little longer, but not much.

  Several of the president’s aides died instantly, caught in a hideous crossfire between Hartline’s phony Marines, the Rebels, the government agents. Several Rebels, not knowing what had happened, ran around the corner of the motel, heading for the sounds of battle. They ran point-blank into eternity. Long after the battle was over, bits and bloody pieces of them could be found embedded in the brick of the motel wall.

  A Rebel officer leaped into the back of a Jeep, spun the mounted .50-caliber machine gun in the direction of the phony leathernecks and cut them to ribbons. A Secret Service agent shot the Rebel in the chest. The agent was bayoneted through the neck a heartbeat later.

  A Rebel sergeant, wounded, crawled up to a dead “Marine” and grabbed for his M-16. He noticed the dog tags around the neck seemed strange. He looked up just in time to see a Secret Service man pointing a pistol at him.

  “Wait a minute, man!” the Rebel yelled. “I think we’re on the same side.”

  “What!” the agent screamed.

  “Look!” the Rebel jerked the dog tags off the dead man, holding them out to the agent. “These guys aren’t Marines. They’re Hartline’s mercenaries. We’ve been set up—all of us.”

  “Cease fire!” the Secret Service man yelled.

  “Kill ‘em all!” a merc yelled his reply. “They’ve all got to die to make it look good.”

  “To make what look good?” the wounded Rebel asked.

  “The setup,” the agent snarled. “We’ve all been had.” He looked down at the Rebel. “Grab that M-16 and give me some covering fire.”

  “Will do.”

  Hartline had not counted on so many Rebels being in the area. With all sides no longer in contradictory fire, the fight was over in two minutes.

  Ike, Dawn, and Cecil were the first to reach the bloodied motel room. Ben opened the door to face them. Blood squished under his boots. The carpet was soaked with it. A small river of thick crimson ran past the open door into the sidewalk.

  “Ben!” Dawn cried.

  “I’ve been hit worse,” he told her. He looked around for a Secret Service agent. Found one. “One of your people killed Addison. Shot him in the head.” He pointed to the body sprawled on the floor. “That one. He opened the dance.”

  “Baldwin,” the agent said. “But… why?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said, stepping out of the stinking slaughterhouse. “It’s a double cross of some kind, though, I can tell you that. How many of your people bought it?”

  “Too goddamn many,” the agent replied. “Somebody is damn well going to pay with their ass for this.”

  “Ben,” Ike said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  In the distance, the sounds of sirens wailed mournfully, cutting a path through the traffic.

  “The ambulances will be here in a minute,” Ben told him, his face gray with pain and shock.

  “We got a problem,” a Secret Service man said, walking up to the senior agent.

  “No shit!” the senior agent looked at him, exasperation in the glance. The sounds of airplanes filled his head.

  “Yeah,” the man said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pointed up to the sky. “Look.”

  The sky was filled with blossoming parachutes.

  “Has to be the 82nd,” Ike said.

  “But why?” the senior agent said.

  “This fellow looks like he might know the answer,” Ben said, nodding toward a bird colonel running with his M-16 at port arms.

  “You people hold your fire but stand at the ready!” Ben yelled at his troops.

  “No need for that, General,” the colonel panted the words. “We’ve been standing by just a few miles out, circling until we got the word.”

  “What word?” Ben said. The pain in his side was momentarily forgotten as a strange feeling slipped into his head. It was a heady feeling of déjà vu; but yet more than that. Somehow Ben knew all that had taken place was more than a double cross—it was more like a triple cross; or a double double cross.

  “The word that things had gone our way,” the colonel said.

  “I don’t understand,” the senior Secret Service agent said.

  “Or that we had to come in and clean up the mess,” the colonel added.

  “I’m with him,” Ben said, looking at the agent. “What in the hell is going on?”

  “We’ve taken over the government,” the colonel said calmly.

  “Oh, shit!” Cecil blurted.

  “But only for a few days,” the colonel added, as more of his men crowded the parking lot. The medics among them were tending to the wounded.

  Ben felt lightheaded. He put out his hand and Dawn slipped under his arm, taking part of his weight.

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital, General Raines,” the colonel said. “If you can hang on, we’ve got a dust-off coming in smartly, sir.”

  “Are you British?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, sir. British Royal Marines until the bombings.”

  “Goddamnit, Ben!” Dawn’s temper got the best of her. “Can we discuss nationalities at some later date? You’re bleeding on me.”

  “Over here, lad!” the colonel shouted at a medic. “See to the general. Step lively now.”

  “You said ‘but only for a few days,’” Ike looked at the colonel. “What happens then?”

  “Well, by that time, General Raines will be up and about. Not a hundred percent, but well enough.”

  “Well enough to do what?” Ben asked.

  The colonel lit his pipe. “Why, to be sworn in as president of the United States.”

  Ben passed out.

  PART THREE

  I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.

  — W. D. Vandiver

  ONE

  “Let’s go, partner,” Hartline smiled at Lowry. “We lost the ball game and the park is on fire.”

  “What!” the VP shouted. “But that’s impossible.”

  In as few words as possible, the mercenary told him what had happened. Then, smiling, he unfolded a copy of Lowry’s written promise to him; that damning document backing up Hartline in anything he wanted to do.

  Lowry felt his carefully structured and manufactured world falling around him like a house of cards in a strong wind. He felt lightheaded and sick at his stomach. His legs trembled.

  “Get yourself together,” Hartline told him. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Neither of you are going anywhere,” Al Cody spoke from the office door.

  Hartline looked at the Bureau director. Cody held a pistol in his hand. “Don’t be a fool, man,” Hartline told him. “You’re in this up your sanctimonious ass.”

  “I’ll take my chances. I feel better than I have in months just knowing I can tell all and purge my soul. Why, I can…”

  “Fuck you!” VP Lowry screamed, startling them all. He jerked a pistol out of a side drawer of his desk and began firing at Co
dy.

  Cody returned the fire as dots of crimson began appearing on his white shirt.

  Hartline fell to the carpet and crawled behind a sofa as the lead flew in all directions. When the firing stopped, both Cody and the VP were dead.

  “Well, now,” Hartline said with a smile. “Isn’t this something?”

  “Sure is,” Tommy Levant said.

  Hartline spun and shot the agent in the chest with a .22 magnum derringer he carried behind his belt buckle. He put the second round in Levant’s head, made sure the man was dead, then walked out of the presidential retreat, using the back door. He smiled at the sight of Secret Service agents standing with their hands over their heads held at bay by his own men.

  “You get the cunt from the barracks?” he asked.

  “The blond one. Left the crazy one.”

  “Shoot them,” he told his men.

  Five seconds later the Secret Service men were dead or dying in bloody piles on the cool ground.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Hartline ordered. “You get hold of Jake Devine up in Illinois?”

  “Yes, sir. Told him we were on our way.”

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  “What a terrible tragedy,” Senator Carson said. “I simply cannot believe this nation has endured so many crushing blows in so short a time.”

  “That is true, Senator,” General Preston said. “But that does not answer my question.”

  “What? Oh, yes, General. Of course I’ll back Ben Raines. I believe he might be the only man capable of pulling this nation back together. A folk hero and all that. You can count on me, General.”

  “What about the others?” General Rimel asked.

  “They will, I believe, rally around me at this time,” Carson assured them. “Those who threw their support behind Lowry are a badly shaken bunch.”

  “They’ve seen the error of their ways?” General Franklin commented dryly.

  Senator Carson wasn’t certain exactly how to take that dryly given remark. But being a member of Congress for more years than he cared to remember had its advantages. He was a master of doubletalk and gobbledygook. Carson had once used four hundred and eighty words to say No.