William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

There was a desperation in Cody’s eyes that Levant had never seen there before this. And more: the man seemed to be haunted by—Tommy didn’t know what.

“All those people killed out there in California,” Al said, as much to himself as to Levant. “Just to get one woman, to try to pull Raines out in the open, to do something rash. It won’t work. And God only knows what Hartline is doing to that poor woman.”

He startled Tommy by suddenly grabbing the man’s hands in his own. “Tommy,” he said, a wild look in his eyes. “I think we’d better pray.”

“What do you want?” the president asked Lowry.

“Peace.”

“With whom?” Aston was immediately suspicious.

“Both you and Ben Raines?”

“You’re not serious?”

“Very much so, Aston. I’ve been doing some hard thinking lately. Thinking about… myself and this nation. I don’t want to see it torn apart any further. I think you should meet with Raines and sign a peace treaty. Let him rebuild his Tri-States. Let’s put an end to this war. And I’ll step down as vice president.”

“You’d make a public statement to that effect?”

“Just as soon as you meet with Raines and get it all on paper. I give you my word. I’ll even put it in writing and sign it and date it; you can keep it.”

Aston thought about that. He didn’t trust Lowry, but a signed document… “Why, Lowry? Why now? Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I’m trying to make peace with myself, Aston. I… haven’t liked what I’ve become. Believe that or not.”

I don’t, Aston thought. But he nodded his head. “Draw up your paper, date it, sign it, have it on my desk first thing in the morning. As soon as that is done, I’ll send out feelers to Raines for a meeting.”

Lowry smiled, rose from his chair, and extended his hand to the president. “You won’t regret it, Aston. My God, I feel better already.”

Aston sat at his desk for a long time after the VP had gone. He wondered if Lowry was sincere. Wondered if the man would really draw up and sign that paper. If he would, well, this nation might have a chance of making it.

The president wondered about a lot of things.

“It’s all set,” Lowry told the old man. “Aston bought it. Do you have an agent you can trust in the Secret Service?”

“Oh, yes,” the voice said. “I’ll take care of all that.”

“Why wasn’t I notified of Hartline’s move in northern California?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know about it myself until I read it in the papers.

“No matter. I knew Hartline was going to do it, but I didn’t know when. Well, it’s done.”

He broke the connection.

The old man placed the receiver back in the cradle. He sat for a time, smiling. If it all worked out, not only would he get rid of Addison, but he’d get rid of Lowry, too.

And then what he had longed for and sought for years would be his. After all those years of kowtowing to niggers and spies and Jews, pretending to be the poor man’s friend; the great liberal.

With Addison and Lowry dead, the logical choice for the presidency would be one man.

The old man laughed aloud.

Sabra lay in her bed and listened to Hartline pleasure himself with her daughter. Nancy no longer cried out and fought the mercenary, just accepted her fate with a stoicism that was frightening in its repression.

“Come on, baby,” Hartline’s voice drifted to the mother. “Move your ass. I might as well be fuckin’ a log.”

Sabra slipped from her bed at an alien sound from the living room. She thought she heard a key being turned in the lock. Stubbing her toe on the dresser cost her several seconds of sitting on the bed and uttering quiet curses. A shout brought her to her feet, the pain in her big toe forgotten. Gunfire blasted and ripped the night, sparking in the dark house. There was a short bubbly scream, and the sounds of someone falling to the floor.

Sabra literally stumbled over the body of her husband, sprawled in a pool of blood on the den floor. She stood for a moment, the scream building in her, not quite ready to push out of her throat.

Hartline stood in the archway that separated hall from den, a gun in his hand. The mercenary was naked, and his phallus was slick from her daughter’s juices. The violence seemed to have enlarged him further, as if the act of killing was an aphrodisiac.

“I thought I heard someone prowling around,” Hartline said calmly. “Well, baby, you don’t have to worry about a divorce now.” He grinned at her.

Sabra began screaming.

Nancy dipped up behind Hartline, a wild look in her young eyes. She carried a softball bat in her hands. She was naked.

Some primal sense of warning dropped the mercenary to the carpet, in a crouch, just as the girl swung the bat. The bat hit the side of the archway, knocking plaster and wood into the air. She raised the bat high over her head, animal sounds coming from her throat. Hartline leveled the automatic and shot the girl in the stomach, pulling the trigger three times. A row of crimson dots appeared on the girl’s belly. She was flung backward against the wall and slowly sank to the floor. She began screaming.

Sabra joined in the screaming of her daughter. She ran toward the fallen child. Hartline slapped her, backhanding the woman, knocking her to the floor.

Sabra thought of the butcher knife she had secreted between her mattress and box springs; the knife she had not been able to use on the mercenary.

Through her screaming and the screaming of her daughter, Sabra heard the mercenary’s words ringing in her head. “I found the butcher knife, Sabra-baby. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Then, as her daughter died before her eyes, the woman felt her robe being ripped from her and a sharp pain digging into her anus.

Hartline was taking her like a dog.

As the stink of blood and urine from relaxed bladders filled her head, the woman’s frayed nerves finally popped. Her own screaming would be the last thing she would remember for a long, long time.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Lowry pouted, his lips pursed like a spoiled child. “I think she was beginning to really like me.”

Asshole, Hartline thought. With your vienna sausage-sized cock. You’d have to stick it up her ass before she’d know you had it in her. “It couldn’t be helped,” the mercenary said, brushing off the deaths and mental collapse. “Anyway, what difference does it make now? You want some strange pussy, let me know; just point her out and I’ll get her for you. How about some real young stuff?”

Lowry licked his lips, his mental deterioration becoming more evident. “How young?”

Hartline shrugged. “Name it.”

“You promise no one will know?”

Hartline laughed. “Yes, Mr. Vice President, I’ll promise.”

“General Preston’s people say Jerre is somewhere in Virginia, Ben,” Ike told him. “But they can’t get a fix as to exactly where he’s got her.”

Ben sighed heavily, his rage and frustration just scarcely concealed, lying fermenting just under the surface of the man. Ben had advanced his column of Rebels to within twenty miles of Waynesboro and had halted them while his other commanders geared up for the big push north. He had heard rumors about some proposed meeting between the president and himself, but so far nothing had come of that.

Cecil walked up to the men, a broad grin on his face. “Ben, communications just handed me this. It’s from the president. If you’ll hold your troops in their present positions, he’ll meet with you next Monday to sign a peace agreement.”