Fire in the Ashes ta-2

by William Wallace Johnstone

  Did somebody up there really like him?

  Ben decided it had to be a fluke.

  He looked at his half-eaten dinner, pushed it from him, and went into his bedroom. He showered, stretched out on the bed with a book, and was asleep in two minutes.

  SEVEN

  “The C-4 is placed, timers set to go in twenty minutes,” Ike was told. “We should kill or cripple fifty of Hartline’s mercs with that alone.”

  “Smoke?” Dan Gray asked.

  “In place. We stayed in radio contact with Ike’s group all the way. The smoke will go same time as the C-4.”

  “Okay.” Ike looked at Matt. “You and me, boy—we’re going heads up and straight in Hartline’s house. I’ll take the front, you come in the rear.” He glanced at two of Gray’s Scouts. “You two grab that Jeep-mounted fifty and get behind that block wall by the side of Hartline’s house. North.” He looked at two more Rebels. “You two on the south side. Rest of you know your jobs.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s do it, boys.”

  “Don’t forget us, you sexist pig!” a woman spoke from the darkness of the home. She chuckled.

  “’Scuse me, honey,” Ike grinned, glancing at the three women of Gray’s team. “I keep forgettin’.”

  “You didn’t forget last night,” she fired back, her white teeth flashing against the deep tan of her face.

  “Darlin’,” Ike smiled. “That was the most memorable moment of my life.”

  “Lying Mississippi bastard,” a woman muttered, no malice at all in the statement.

  The men and women chuckled, breaking the slight tension.

  “Let’s do it, lads and lassies,” Dan said.

  They moved out. It was five o’clock in the morning.

  * * *

  Sam Hartline buckled his web belt around his lean waist and looked at Jerre looking at him from the big bed. The only light was a small nightlight.

  “You’re a class act, Jerre-baby,” he said. “And I intend to keep you for my own. You understand that?”

  “I hear you.”

  He chuckled. “No other man will have you, baby. I promise you that. You’re mine. My property. Mine to do with as I see fit. Be honest—has it been a bad life?”

  She had to admit it had not. He had never laid a brutal hand on her. She had the best clothes, the finest food, the nicest treatment any prisoner ever had.

  But she was still a prisoner.

  Worse yet, she had to fight to keep from responding to his lovemaking, for he was skilled and had more equipment than she had ever encountered.

  And last night, the memories flooded back, her reserve had broken, and she had clutched at his shoulders as one raging climax followed another.

  And that shamed her.

  She still hated him.

  “Ta-ta, love,” he grinned at her. “You go back to sleep now and dream about my cock.”

  He laughed aloud.

  A huge explosion shook the darkness of early morning. Fire shot into the predawn skies as a fuel depot went up with a swooshing sound.

  His back to her, Jerre jerked the bedside radio from the nightstand and threw it at him, hitting the mercenary leader in the back of the head, dropping him to his knees, blood pouring from a gash in his scalp.

  The sounds of gunfire rattled in the morning, shattering the stillness after the blasts. The sounds of the front and back doors being kicked in ripped through the house. Hartline staggered to his feet and jerked his .45 from leather, aiming it at Jerre.

  He pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  Ben woke with a start. He thought he’d heard gunshots. He lay very still; but the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. Then he picked it up: the fall of rain. It must have been thunder he’d heard—not gunshots.

  But he couldn’t go back to sleep.

  He tossed and turned for half an hour, while the red luminous hands on his digital clock radio glared at him almost accusingly.

  Ben glared back. “Hell with you,” he muttered.

  He threw back the covers and fumbled for his jeans. Ben never wore pajamas and detested robes.

  He fixed a cup of coffee and two pieces of toast and took that into the den. He sat in the darkened den by a window, watching the rain gradually turn into sleet.

  * * *

  Dawn tossed and turned in her own bed, in an apartment across town. She had not heard Rosita come in, and she had not been in when Dawn went to bed. She wondered where her friend was. Something was just not right with Rosita. But Dawn couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The woman seemed… well, too sure of herself. She guessed maybe that was it.

  But she knew it was more.

  * * *

  Tina lay in her bed, in her apartment, and wondered how long it would be before her dad exploded and told some of his critics where to get off. And when he did, she knew it would be done in such a manner as to leave an indelible impression on the recipient’s mind—forever. If he confined it to a vocal explosion. He might just take a swing at someone and break a jaw.

  She was sorry she had pushed him into the job of president. Very sorry.

  She wished they could all just pack up and head west.

  * * *

  Roanna Hickman sat by her window, watching it sleet, a cup of steaming coffee by her hand. With a reporter’s gut instinct, she felt something was about to pop. Jane had suggested as much to her only hours before.

  But what?

  That she didn’t know.

  She picked up the phone and called the station, asking if anything had happened during the night.

  “Starvation in Africa. Plague in parts of Asia. Warfare in South America. Europe struggling to pick up the pieces. Some nut reporting seeing some half a dozen or so mutant beings in the upper peninsula of Michigan…”

  “What? Say that again.”

  “Mutant beings. Not quite human but not quite animal either. Very large.”

  “Did Chicago send that?”

  “No. We got it off AP. Oh, and there’s something else. Rats. Mutant rats being reported. Big ones. ‘Bout the size of a good-sized cat.”

  Roanna felt a tingle race around her spine. Where had she heard that before? Sabra! Sabra had told her that VP Lowry had mentioned… where had he heard it? From both Hartline and Cody. Yes!

  She fought to control both her fear and her excitement. “Okay, George. Thanks.”

  What a story. If true, she cautioned. Who could she send? She should call Chicago about the Michigan thing, but they’d probably laugh it off. No, she’d send someone from her own staff up there. Who? She mentally ticked off the list. All right.

  Jane had been itching to get out into the field. She’d send her to Michigan and… Bert LaPoint to Memphis. Urge them both to BE CAREFUL.

  She showered, dressed, and hustled to the office.

  * * *

  Rosita was in a stew. Damn Captain Gray for taking off. He had sent her here, in a roundabout way, for just this reason and then the man goes traipsing off. She didn’t know what to do. Dan had told her if it became necessary, to blow her cover and go to Ben Raines. But was it time for that?

  She didn’t know.

  She decided to wait one more day.

  She did not see the shadow of the man behind her as she turned the corner of the street. She walked swiftly toward her car, parked in front of an apartment building. Rosita maintained a small apartment in the building; there she stored her high-powered tranreceivers, her C-4, her assassins weapons—the tools of her trade. She hoped no one tried to force their way into the apartment, for if they did, someone would be picking them up with a shovel and a spoon. Once any intruder stepped into the door, placing just fifteen pounds of pressure on the carpet, a modified claymore, positioned above the doorjamb, directed downward, would send enough death to blow the head off a lion. And that was just one of several booby traps scattered around the apartment. All lethal.

  Rosita’s taillights faded into the rainy-sleety gloom of early
morning. The man walked to a phone booth and punched out the number.

  “She is not what she appears to be,” he said to the voice on the other end.

  Carl Harrelson, still smarting from the dressing-down he’d received from Robert Brighton—in front of a crowd, no less, asked, “What name is she using?”

  Jim Honing, a reporter for the Richmond Post who occasionally worked with Harrelson said, “Susan Spencer.”

  “Wait for me,” Harrelson said. “We’ll toss the place together. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  * * *

  Jerre rolled from the bed just as Hartline pulled the trigger, the slugs tearing smoking holes in the sheets and mattress.

  “Girl! Stay out of there!” she heard Ike’s voice shout.

  “Miss Jerre!” Lisa called.

  “Setup,” Hartline snarled.

  “Lisa!” Jake Devine called. “No!”

  Lisa appeared in the doorway just as Hartline jumped for the side window. He paused, spotted the girl, and pulled the trigger. The slugs took the girl in the face, blowing off half her jaw before twisting up into her brain. Dead when she hit the carpet.

  Hartline felt the shock of a bullet hit him in the left shoulder, turning him, spinning him, dropping him to one knee. He looked out the window at the savage face of Jake Devine, a gun in his hand. Hartline shot him in the chest and jumped for the shattered window. He hit the ground and rolled as slugs whined around him, cutting paths of death through the thick smoke from the smoke grenades.

  He was off and running, serpenting through the smoke and the mist. He jumped into a car and roared off, toward the airstrip.

  “To hell with him,” Ike yelled. “Find Jerre.” He stumbled over the dying body of Jake.

  “That bedroom,” Jake pointed. “Me and Lisa was going to get her at noon—try and… make a break for it. The kid’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “The girl I tried to stop from entering the house?” Ike asked, kneeling down beside the merc.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes. Hartline shot her in the face.”

  “Least she went quick.”

  The sounds of gunfire were fading as the Rebels went about the grisly business of finishing off Hartline’s mercenaries.

  “I was tryin’ to do the right thing for once in my life,” Jake said. “As usual, I fucked it up.”

  “No,” Ike said softly. “No, you didn’t, partner. You tried.”

  Jake held out his hand. “I’d like to shake your hand, mister. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Ike said, a catch in his voice. He looked up at Jerre, standing over them, tears running down her face.

  “She loved you, Jake,” Jerre said.

  Jake clasped Ike’s hand hard. “I loved her, too, Miss Jerre.”

  The hand went limp. The mercenary died.

  Captain Dan Gray cleared his throat. “I think we should give this one a decent sendoff.”

  “He’d like that,” Jerre said, shivering in the cold morning air. “I think he was a good man; at least toward the end.”

  Jake and Lisa were buried together, arms around each other. Captain Dan Gray read from Ephesians, a few verses about forgiveness, and the service was over.

  Jerre looked at Matt, young and tall and strong and fierce-looking with his new beard. She smiled at him.

  “Take me home, Matt.”

  “But, Ben…”

  She shushed him with gentle kiss while Ike and Dan and the others grinned and looked away.

  “Home, Matt. You and me—together. I want us to go home.”

  Matt blushed and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

  “Ain’t love grand?” Ike said.

  Captain Gray smiled. “Ah, love, let us be true to one another! for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams.”

  “Now that’s pretty,” Ike said. “I think I heard that on a Rollin’ Stones album.”

  Captain Gray looked horrified. “I rather doubt it,” he said frostily. “That was from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.”

  “Who’d he pick with?” Ike grinned.

  “Cretin!” Gray said. “Philistine.”

  Gray was still lecturing him, waving his arms and shouting about the lack of culture in America when Jerre and Matt slipped away from the group and headed for Matt’s pickup truck. They walked hand in hand, smiling at each other.

  One of the women in the group mentioned she thought the air about them was a bit steamy.

  EIGHT

  “You sure you know how to pick this lock?” Harrelson asked.

  Honing smiled patiently. “I worked for several gossip rags before I came to Richmond,” he said. “I haven’t seen the lock I couldn’t pick.”

  The tumblers meshed, clicked, the door swung open, the apartment yawning darkly in front of the men.

  “I still don’t understand why you’re so interested in this half-breed spic,” Honing said, pausing for a moment before entering.

  “She lives—supposedly—with Dawn Bellever, our president’s steady pussy. I saw her a dozen times at the White House when I was covering that. One night I was going home and passed this apartment, saw her entering, thought it was strange. I waited for several hours. She never did come back out. I thought at first I might blackmail her into working with me… using her shack job as the carrot, but I never could catch a man with her. That’s why I called you to tail her and find out as much about her as possible. I’ll do anything to get that no-good son of a bitch out of the White House. And maybe this will help.”

  “Well, let’s do ‘er,” Honing said.

  Together they stepped into the dark apartment.

  * * *

  It was seven o’clock before Ben received the news of Jerre’s rescue. For a time he allowed himself the luxury of sitting quietly in his den, savoring the feelings of joy welling up from deep within him.

  Ike had told him of her leaving with Matt, and Ben felt only a slight pang of regret at the news. He knew they had run their course months before and it was time for her to settle in with a good person who loved her and would take care of her and the twins.

  The twins.

  He would make arrangements for the twins to be sent to Jerre as soon as he knew they were settled in and safe.

  Ike was returning to the Tri-States, having told Ben Richmond was a great big pain in the ass, as far as he was concerned. He was a farmer and a fighter; fuck politics.

  Ben wished it was that easy for him. God! he wanted so desperately to chuck the whole business of big government right out the nearest window and get the hell back to Tri-States.

  But he knew he couldn’t. Knew he was not going to leave any job half done.

  He looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. He punched the intercom button.

  “How many waiting, Susie?”

  “An officeful, boss. Got four holding on the horn.”

  “Any of them important?”

  “No.”

  “Tell ‘em I’ll call back. Who is first?”

  “The surgeon general.” She paused for a second. “He’s kind of antsy, boss. Pale looking.” She whispered the last.

  “Send him in, Susie.”

  “You had your coffee, boss?”

  “I could use another cup.”

  “Coming up. Two cups.”

  Doctor Harrison Lane looked rough. Like he hadn’t slept well in a week. They talked of small things until Susie had brought the coffee and left the room.

  “What’s on your mind, Harrison?”

  “Rats.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Ben paused in lifting the cup to his lips.

  “I said rats, Mr. President. Of the family Muridae, genus Rattus. The big rat; I’m guessing it’s the big brown rat.”

  “The humpback?”

  “If that’s what you wish to call them, yes. You find them in sewers and in garbage dumps and alleys. Ugly bastards. Two—two and a half feet long from nose to tail. Filthy sons of bitches.” He sp
at out the last and lit his pipe with shaking hands. Ben could see he was wound up tight as a dollar watch.

  “But these are bigger rats. I haven’t seen them, Mr. President; only had reports of them. And I hope to God the reports are wrong. I can’t imagine a rat the size of a small poodle.”

  “Are you serious?” Ben asked.

  “One report said they spotted rats that stood maybe six to eight inches, weighing in at between five to eight pounds.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “The rats are only part of the problem, sir. It’s what they carry on them that worries me.”

  “Fleas.”

  “Yes, sir. One thing I have confirmed: they are carrying the plague.”

  “What kind?” Ben felt a cold shiver race around the base of his spine. The nation had been lucky in that respect. Despite the millions and millions of dead bodies and animal carcasses that rotted under the summer sun of ‘88 immediately following the bombings, there had been no serious outbreaks of disease. No anthrax or airborne deadly viruses.

  Yet.

  Until now.

  “We don’t know.”

  “Again, I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s… a type of black plague, sir. Bubonic… but it’s more. I wish to hell the CDC was bigger. When Logan relocated the people, the stupid bastard pulled out of Atlanta and left all that equipment to rot and rust.”

  Ben smiled. “We have it.”

  “Sir?”

  “I ordered my personnel to go in and get it. It’s in Tri-States. Most of it safely hidden in concrete storage bunkers, deep underground.”

  Harrison matched his smile. “Very good,” he said dryly. “Well, I have the microbiologists and epidemiologist in my department working on it. But… like I said, it’s more—much more. Hemorrhagic pneumonia.”

  “Meaning every time they cough, they spread it.”

  “Well… yes, you can put it that way.”

  “And the blood they spit up—and the phlegm—is contagious?”

  “God, yes!”

  “I wrote a book about this sort of thing years ago,” Ben said. “In my book the hero wiped it out using… let me think. Yes. Tetracycline, streptomycin, and… I can’t recall the other drug.”