William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

Cody closed his eyes and willed his slight erection to go away. It’s for the good of the people, he reminded himself. All this… perversion is for the good of the entire nation.

The end will justify the means, he thought. Got to keep that thought in mind. The end must justify the means. Who said that? Hell, I don’t know!

“Come on, baby,” Hartline’s rough voice cut into Cody’s thoughts. “We’re almost there.”

It’s all for the good of the people. Cody kept that thought.

“Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your rocks, too, Sabra-honey…”

The good of the people. Raines must be stopped…

“…you’re slick as 10W40.”

…by any means possible. And if that entails something as…

“You’re not shivering from the cold, Sabra-honey. It’s…”

…disgusting as this is, then so be it. This nation must…

“…just that you like my cock, right, baby?”

…endure.

“Ah—that’s good, Sabra.”

Must endure.

“How’d you like to mount that from behind, Al?”

“What?”

Cody opened his eyes just as Lowry was turning up the lights, turning off the Betamax.

“She’s still a good-looking piece of ass, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Cody sighed. “Yes, she is, Weston.”

For the good of the nation.

“I think I’ll ask Hartline if he’ll…”

Cody swallowed hard.

“…bring Sabra to me. We can use the retreat. I like women in…”

We? Good God, does he think I want a part of this filth? I couldn’t do…

“…their forties. All that maturity. And did you see those tits—the way her nipples…”

…anything like that! I was raised in the church. I…

“…stuck out. God! that turned me on, Al. You and I—I’ll get Hartline to get you that blonde-headed reporter that you…”

…just couldn’t do anything like that. Disgusting! It’s…

“…once said was so sexy-looking.” VP Lowry laughed. “I bet you she could give you head you’d never forget, Al. You know, Al—we go back a long ways, don’t we, ol’ friend? We know the American people have to be controlled, just like the press. Reviewing history, say, oh, from the early ‘60s on… well, I think—believe—that if the press had been muzzled and the people controlled a bit more firmly, none of this tragedy would have occurred. I sure do believe that, Al. Yes, sir, Al, you know as well as I, it’s all for the…”

…good of the country.

“…good of the country.”

“What kind of game are you playing, Miss Hickman?” Ben asked her.

They were seated outside, a cool but not unpleasant breeze fanning them. Roanna had seen Dawn and the two women embraced and chatted for a few moments. Dawn now sat beside her on one side of the camp table, facing Ben and Ike and Cecil.

“No game, General,” Roanna said firmly. “Game time is all over. We’re all putting our lives on the line this go-around. For the women, our asses, literally.”

She brought the men up to date on what Hartline was doing, and had done.

“If this is true,” Cecil said, “and for the moment we shall accept it as fact, Ms. Olivier is playing a very dangerous game.”

“And you, as well,” Ike added.

“More than you know,” Roanna said bitterly. “Sabra’s husband said if she saw Hartline again, he was leaving. She couldn’t explain what she was doing, for fear Hartline would torture the truth out of Ed—that’s her husband. He walked out day before yesterday. Took the boy, left the daughter behind. I wish it had been reversed. Sabra’s told me Hartline is looking at Nancy… you know what I mean.”

“How old is the girl?” Ike asked.

“Fifteen. Takes after her mother, too. Gorgeous.”

Ben studied the woman for a few seconds. “You mind taking a PSE test?”

“Not at all,” Roanna replied. Then she smiled, and her cynical reporter’s eyes changed. She was, Ben thought, really a very pretty lady. “What’s the matter, General; am I too liberal for your tastes?”

“Liberals are, taken as a whole, just too far out of touch with reality to suit me,” Ben said. He softened that with a smile.

“I’d like to debate that with you sometime, General. Yes, that might be the way to go with this interview. Hard-line conservative views against a liberal view.”

“I’m not a hard-line conservative, Miss Hickman,” Ben told her. “How could I be a hard-line conservative and believe in abortion, women’s rights, the welfare of children and elderly… and everything else we did in the Tri-States?”

“You also shot and hanged people there,” she fired back at him.

“We sure did,” Ben’s reply was breezy, given with a smile of satisfaction. “And we proved that crime does not have to exist in a society.”

“I seem to recall you ordered the hanging of a sixteen-year-old boy, General.”

“I damn sure did, Miss Hickman.”

“You all know where we stand on issues. The people have voted on them, all over this three-state area. We’ve been holding town meetings since early last winter on the issues and laws we’ll live with and under,” Ben said. “Now, ninety-one percent of the people agreed to our system of law. The rest left. And that’s the way it’s going to be or you all can take this governorship—that I didn’t want in the first place—and I’ll go back to writing my journal.”

“Ben—” Doctor Chase said.

“No!” Ben had stood firm. “I came into this office this morning and there was a damned paper on my desk asking me to reconsider the death penalty for that goddamned punk over in Missoula.”

“He’s sixteen years old, Governor,” an aide said.

“That’s his problem. His IQ is one twenty-eight. The shrink says he knows right from wrong and is healthy, mentally and physically. He is perfectly normal. He stole a car, got drunk, and drove a hundred fucking miles an hour down the main street. He ran over and killed two elderly people whose only crime was attempting to cross a street… in compliance with the existing traffic lights. He admitted what he did. He is not remorseful. I would reconsider if he was sorry for what he’d done. But he isn’t. And tests bear that out. He has admitted his true feelings; said the old people didn’t have much time left them anyway, so what the hell was everybody getting so upset about? Well, piss on him! He’s a punk. That’s all he would ever be—if I let him live—which I have no intention of doing. If he puts so little emphasis on the lives of others, then he shouldn’t mind terribly if I snuff out his.”

Ben glared at the roomful of silent men. “So, Mr. Garrett,”—he looked at a uniformed man standing quietly across the room—“at six o’clock day after tomorrow, dawn, you will personally escort young Mr. Randolph Green to the designated place of execution and you will see to it that he is hanged by the neck until he is dead. The day of the punk… is over.”

“Yes, sir,” Garrett said. “It’s about time some backbone was shoved into the law.” He left the room.

Ben looked around him. “Any further questions as to how the law is going to work?”

No one had anything further to say.

“And you felt that was the right and just thing to do?” Roanna asked.

“I did and do.”

“And that is the type of justice you plan to prescribe for the entire nation? If you are victorious against Lowry and Hartline?”

“Oh, we’ll be victorious, Miss Hickman. I have no doubts about that. But as to your question, no, that is not the type of justice I plan for the entire nation.”

“But your Tri-States…”