Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga)

by Matthew Taylor

  When he finally finished, resenting the gratitude he owed to Ben for being lenient with the deadline, he emerged to find three stacks of fresh coveralls on the rusted steel sinks. Ben handed each prisoner a damp towel and a clean outfit, bidding them to wipe themselves down and change from their filthy and excrement-stinking clothes.

  Rashid’s skin rippled with goosebumps as the rubbed the towel over his body in the cold, cavernous restroom. He hurriedly put on the fresh clothes and hadn’t felt such relief from a change of clothes since his days fighting in the scorching deserts of North Africa. There was no time to savor the comfort, for Ben immediately signaled them over and bound their wrists again—still conspicuously avoiding eye contact with Rashid. Saanvi avoided eye contact with everyone, as Ben lined them up and started for the door.

  Slapped in the face again by the biting cold sweeping over the courtyard, Rashid took in the odd sight of the ragamuffin children now assembled in a semi-circle around the building’s officials. To a person, there was fear and blood-lust on their faces. He cast his eyes around until he found the chipped and faded sign near the double-doors.

  [Billings Home for Children]

  Ben’s earliest school of cruelty, he deduced.

  Rashid had seen this scenario play out more times than he could count over his many years traveling the globe—in every nation, across every culture, religion, race, and social strata. But only rarely had it ever played out the way the perpetrators envisioned. The catharsis it brought was invariably fleeting, and deadly reprisals, blood feuds, or violent stand-offs with security forces almost always followed. Ben and his men, he feared, were about to make a life-altering mistake.

  Rashid waited for the impending disaster when the V-plat on the convoy’s lead vehicle crackled and bleeped. It called out twice more before Ben snapped-to and paced quickly over to it. Straining to listen for more clues on his predicament, Rashid vaguely recognized the raspy Spanglish accent admonishing Ben, but he couldn’t make out the words. The conversation was one-sided and brief before Ben emerged from the vehicle with a grimace and took determined steps toward the waiting crowd in the courtyard.

  “Ben,” Rashid heard himself blurt out, “don’t do this.” But Rashid knew this was part and parcel of the of desperate misfortune of those who crawled on the savaged surface of the world. The thirst for justice overcoming the meager benefits of accepting one’s station. Relentless fear, anger, and despair crashing over hope.

  Rashid willed the young Ben Holland to favor his higher nature, when Ben took note of one of the prisoners, bound and gagged, who had started making a fuss. He then silently implored the well-dressed Asian man in his late forties—undoubtedly the head administrator—to be quiet, though he sensed that the man probably didn’t deserve his sympathy.

  Ben knelt down in front of the man, pulled the gag from his mouth, and stared him in the eye. They exchanged words in low voices. The prisoner next to the manager looked skyward in desperation from whatever it was he heard.

  Then Ben stood up in front of the man, removed his sidearm from its holster, and shot the man square in the forehead. There was a brief, eerie silence, save for the echoes of the shot and the splat of brains landing on the gravel. The man teetered and toppled forward with a crunch.

  Felipe then wasted no time, blasting the next prisoner from behind with his shotgun—blood, bone, and brain spraying onto the ground. Ben marched to the next prisoner in line and discharged a bullet in the woman’s head.

  A small girl, joined almost immediately by a handful of other children. But most just watched in grim satisfaction. Ben and Felipe went down the line of prisoners, shooting each in the head. Rashid and Saanvi flinched with every POP, but Ben’s crew looked on with grim, unbending stares.

  A massive black man made his way to his feet and hopped toward the children—possibly hoping for a hostage. But Ben took him down with kick to the back of the knee. As the giant lay face down, squirming in the gravel, Ben put a single bullet through the base of his skull.

  With the last adult felled, Ben holstered his pistol and approached the largest child in the group, leaning in to exchange a few words before handing the boy a bulging duffle bag. The boy peered tentatively inside, and his face lit up with the sight of its contents. Ben put a hand on his shoulder, uttered a few more words, and gestured to two of his men to set down two more duffle bags, brimming with guns and ammunition. Ben then turned to his crew and gave the signal to fire up the engines.

  The entire bloody event was over in minutes, and the convoy was rolling down the road again. Rashid rubbed Saanvi’s back in his gentle, fatherly way, in an effort to console the stunned girl. But he felt little comfort himself, profoundly afraid of whatever would come next.

  Chapter 53: Confession

  (Benjamin Holland)

  Ben Holland sat in a hard, plastic chair across from Ali Ibn al-Rashid and Sean Burger, a small heater under the table at their feet. Day two in the small, one-room dormitory, and shutting out the cold had shut in the smell of three men too long. The cinderblock walls glistened with beaded condensation.

  Ben ladled hot stew from a tin pot. Beef-flavored biotein—which Ben now understood to be a very poor substitute for the real thing—and root vegetables. He arranged small sides of cheese-flavored biotein—also a poor substitute—and drought-oat crackers.

  This must be a rude awakening for him, he thought of Rashid, an Ellie he knew to be accustomed to fine food and creature comforts. Partly sympathetic for his prisoner’s plight and oddly satisfied to see an Ellie brought to the level of an urchin like himself, Ben poured them each a cup of tea. Its spicy aroma mixed with his still unbearable body odor and the humid stuffiness of the room, making his stomach turn.

  Ben was still exhausted, and the week’s events hung in his mind like an unshakable waking nightmare. He had done his best to avoid talking with Rashid since his capture, despite their many hours together, while working even harder to keep Sean Burger from antagonizing the old man.

  Burger was relentless, though, frequently raising the story of his many relatives who—he alleged—were killed in the various Muslim terror attacks on the Commonwealth over the years, including grandparents who died in the Quad-Bomb attacks on Washington DC, Hollywood, Manhattan, and Palo Alto near the end of the High Times. Ben had his doubts, as even the most basic details of Burger’s life had never added up. He considered Burger to be like any of the millions of urchins, simpleminded and filled with ideology, anger, and suspicion.

  Burger spiked his taunts with deliberate references to “towel heads,” a holdover phrase from the High Times that always struck Ben as odd. Every ethnic group was a target of his venom—with terms of hate new and old—along with gays, Catholics, Jews, and “dirty sympathizers”— anyone who didn’t fit neatly into one his easily defined categories. To Burger, it was the end of the white race’s hegemony that had caused the unraveling of the old United States and the old-world order, leaving everyone in their desperate and chaotic position.

  Ben had seen far more tribalism and gang mentality than unity—or humanity—from the people with whom he had crossed paths over the years. He was no stranger to the anger. But he still struggled to understand how anyone could hate and blame so many people, in such sweeping ways. It seemed to Ben like there would be too many enemies and too few friends to survive long. He couldn’t count how many times Felipe and Billy had saved his skin.

  How that dipshit ended up in this outfit and not the White Light of Christ, I can’t even guess, Ben often thought to himself.

  Regardless, from Burger’s relentless provoking of Rashid, and his visceral hatred of middle easterners and Muslims, Ben figured Burger would happily kill Rashid at the first opportunity. With the shit-storm still rocking the Commonwealth—and Rashid’s unclear role in unleashing it—Ben wasn’t sure that killing Rashid wasn’t justified.

  Despite Ben’s efforts to change the subject or tell Burger to secure his bullshit, Burger also came bac
k to the upheaval, calling it a righteous native rebellion. Ben even detected some disappointment that the slaughter hadn’t gone further—and some thread of regret that Burger himself hadn’t played a larger role in the murderous bedlam. Still, he knew that Burger’s thinly veiled desire to kill Rashid wasn’t tied to any righteous retribution for what Rashid had done, but rather to satiate his base bloodlust.

  For his part, Ben felt he’d played far too large a role, and he was at his wits end running interference between a man he hated and another who likely deserved to be hated. He missed Alias, who was now god-knows-where. He missed Billy and Nanner, who were still (he assumed) in the Mid-Atlantic Province with Alias’ sister Jasmine. He missed Felipe, who had only been gone a day on an errand for Sherman back in the Salt Lake City shit-show. And he hadn’t slept in what seemed like days.

  “Please-Please, Burger, will you please shut your fucking pie hole for ten minutes so I can eat my stew in peace. If not for him, for me.”

  Before Burger had the chance to retort or launch into another rant, Ben’s wrist-plat jingled and blinked. They all went quiet as Ben gazed down to the screen, read the message, and silently tapped in a brief reply.

  “OK. Time to go,” Ben said, rubbing his tired eyes.

  “You heard the man,” Burger snapped at Rashid. “Get up, you fuckin’ heathen.” Burger was visibly pleased with himself. Rashid didn’t retort—he had said almost nothing since his chat with Ben the first night of his capture—presumably because he had realized that the value of his life might be less than that of Burger’s amusement.

  Ben considered admonishing Burger—again—but Burger seemed satisfied, and there were only so many battles Ben could fight in his exhausted state.

  They led Rashid through the cold wind, across a courtyard lined with two-story apartment blocks. Ben hated Sherman’s headquarters. Its old buildings, their pale-yellow paint chipped and peeling. Its gray splotches on every wall, marking the patched bullet holes, macabre reminders of the violence that was their past, present, and future. Ben noticed Rashid studying the area. The narrow roads leading into and out of the square. The antennae and satellite dishes on the roof of Sherman’s comms room. The armed guards pacing atop the lookout towers, peering over the rooftops.

  They ushered Rashid through steel double doors and into a dim room, where Farid Sherman sat waiting. Two technicians worked feverishly to clear the static on a wall screen, while Sherman sat stoically focused on a message on his wrist-plat. Sherman wore his standard winter attire: a thick, olive drab plaid shirt—clean and pressed—neatly tucked into olive drab cargo pants. Black boots. His fleece lined vinyl hat sat on the table, letting his stringy black hair, streaked with gray, hang to his shoulders.

  Ben felt wildly out of the loop—just as he had been when the full magnitude of upheaval unfolded. He resented feeling like the pawn that he was, no matter how profitable it was to be a good pawn.

  “Ali Ibn al-Rashid,” Sherman began, leaning back in his chair and bidding Rashid to sit down. He paused for a long moment before leaning forward to pour himself a cup of tea from the pot sitting in the middle of the table. “Welcome to my humble home. It’s no Nautilus or Ellie Estate, but it suffices.”

  “It is a decent enough stage for a marionette,” Rashid replied flatly.

  Ben’s jaw dropped at Rashid’s boldness. Rashid knew Sherman, a crime boss, mercenary, and warlord only suffered insolence when he had no choice. Which is to say, only when there was enormous profit motive or insurmountable firepower. Whatever Rashid had paid Sherman, the amount had been eclipsed, and Rashid was on unsteady ground. Ben found himself hoping Sherman didn’t pull the pistol he kept holstered at his hip to shoot the old man, as he had done more than once to others in his grasp.

  Why do I care? Ben wondered, though his sympathies for Rashid were growing.

  Sherman just leaned forward to take a small bite of a cookie beside his teacup. He chewed it slowly and blew ripples on the surface of his steaming tea before taking a careful, slurping sip. Rashid, realizing his barb had no impact, gestured at the tea pot.

  “By all means,” Sherman replied with a condescending graciousness.

  Moments passed painfully, as Rashid poured his tea and drew his own slow sip.

  Ben still tried to brace himself for Sherman to shoot Rashid dead on the spot.

  “May I ask how much you intend to ask for my ransom?”

  “Ransom?” Sherman chuckled. “I think maybe you’ve miscalculated. Again.”

  “Perhaps,” Rashid admitted. “But I do not recall hearing of you ever taking on a task this big. Fleecing so many important customers at the same time? Holding a representative of the Caliph—a diplomat to the Chief Regent and Consortium executive hostage? Strikes me as risky. Even for a man in your line of work.”

  Sherman chewed his cookie slowly. “I suspect I did take more risks than you envisioned when you lit this powder keg. But so far, so good, at least on my end.” Noticing the hint of surprise on Rashid’s face, Sherman continued, “Oh, I’d’ve thought a man of your standing and reputation would’ve figured more of this out by now.”

  “The pieces are falling into place,” Rashid replied, unable to completely conceal his annoyance.

  With that, Sherman leaned over to Rashid, put his hand on the old man’s arm, and whispered, “You need to decide now, Mr. Rashid, how the next few hours are going to go. It’ll determine how things end for you.” Sherman held him in his grasp for a moment longer and stared him down, making sure the full extent of his threat was understood.

  “I must admit, I really didn’t expect to be dealing with the likes of you on the other end of all this, but I cannot believe this nightmare is all your doing. Your puppet master really isn’t going to at least give me the respect of showing him or herself?”

  Sherman again refused to rise to the bait, and just smacked his lips on his cookie. “Well, my friend, time is short, and your role is limited, so we must be brief.”

  “The Caliph—” Rashid started in the most threatening tone he could muster.

  “The Caliph isn’t a forgiving man, from all accounts,” Sherman interjected. “News has reached his Grace—his Eminence?—whatever—about your hand in the little church experiment.” Ben watched Rashid freeze. “I understand he was most troubled to hear you were promoting a faith other than his ‘One True Faith.’ What's the mantra? ‘One God and Mohammed is his Prophet’? Anyhow, something about ‘takfir.’ I reckon you know what that means.”

  Rashid deflated. Trying to compose himself, Rashid reached for his teacup, but his shaking hands made it rattle against its saucer, so he set it back down.

  “The Caliph,” Sherman inserted, “has excommunicated you as an apostate. Your lands and assets are forfeit. You’ve been exiled from all of Muslim territory, or at least the bits he controls, on punishment of death.”

  Staring at Sherman in stunned disbelief, Rashid stammered, “m-my . . . my family?”

  “I’m confident an arrangement can be made,” Sherman replied with an indifferent tone. “Depends, I s’pose, on your cooperativeness in the next few steps.”

  Over the next half hour, Ben watched the deal between Rashid, Sherman, and Sherman’s unrevealed paymasters unfold. Rashid would sign over whatever assets the Sultan had not seized to Sherman.

  If he lives through this, he won’t live long. He’ll be destitute. Ben knew better than anyone there what it meant to have nothing in this world. But somehow that seemed better than what came next.

  Rashid would publicly expose the Consortium’s involvement in the upheaval, along with Thomas Baumgarten and a short list of other senators—many of whom Ben had never seen at the Nautilus or in the Gang of Seven meetings. Together, he would confess, they recruited the underground “Free Texas Volunteers,” the White Light of Christ, and a host of warlords and kingpins. He would accept responsibility for plotting with foreign agents to attack the Expeditionary Forces as diversions, including the fatwa that tr
iggered attacks on Commonwealth soldiers. Their intent, Sherman explained, was to weaken the Chief Regent, using the assets of the PetrolChurch to spread contraband and subversive materials to inspire rebellion.

  In return—though Sherman was conscious to point out that Rashid had no leverage—they would quietly secure the escape of Rashid’s family.

  If the family chooses to join him instead of denouncing him. But Ben didn’t know enough about the Caliphate to know if that was even a choice.

  Sherman would provide Rashid with simple accommodations in the fortress-village for a few months, until they could move him to a safe house in the Meso-American Republic, where he would live out his days without communication with the outside world.

  Ben knew, as they all did, that if Rashid broadcast such an admission, he would seal his fate as an apostate, a traitor, and prisoner—possibly a slave—to Sherman. His family was as likely as not to be killed before they could disown him or be exfiltrated from the Caliphate—assuming Sherman and his co-conspirators even tried to make good on their promise. He’d likely never make it to Meso-America, and he’d be a pariah the world over.

  He would also have signed the death warrants of the Baumgartens, and possibly the Goodwells, a thought that made Ben’s stomach churn.

  Before Ben had finished processing the risk to Alias and his family, or begun to reckon with his own role in the mess, Sherman was getting up from his chair to leave the room.

  He knows he’s just killed the Goodwells, and he knows about me and Alias, Ben realized. Even the perception of divided loyalty was enough to end him. And Sherman surely already knew about his revenge at the Billings Home—something Sherman had expressly forbidden him from doing since the day he arrived. I’m not safe either. And if he kills me, he’ll have to kill Felipe and Billy too. Probably Nanner as well.