William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

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.