William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

A Rebel officer leaped into the back of a Jeep, spun the mounted .50-caliber machine gun in the direction of the phony leathernecks and cut them to ribbons. A Secret Service agent shot the Rebel in the chest. The agent was bayoneted through the neck a heartbeat later.

A Rebel sergeant, wounded, crawled up to a dead “Marine” and grabbed for his M-16. He noticed the dog tags around the neck seemed strange. He looked up just in time to see a Secret Service man pointing a pistol at him.

“Wait a minute, man!” the Rebel yelled. “I think we’re on the same side.”

“What!” the agent screamed.

“Look!” the Rebel jerked the dog tags off the dead man, holding them out to the agent. “These guys aren’t Marines. They’re Hartline’s mercenaries. We’ve been set up—all of us.”

“Cease fire!” the Secret Service man yelled.

“Kill ‘em all!” a merc yelled his reply. “They’ve all got to die to make it look good.”

“To make what look good?” the wounded Rebel asked.

“The setup,” the agent snarled. “We’ve all been had.” He looked down at the Rebel. “Grab that M-16 and give me some covering fire.”

“Will do.”

Hartline had not counted on so many Rebels being in the area. With all sides no longer in contradictory fire, the fight was over in two minutes.

Ike, Dawn, and Cecil were the first to reach the bloodied motel room. Ben opened the door to face them. Blood squished under his boots. The carpet was soaked with it. A small river of thick crimson ran past the open door into the sidewalk.

“Ben!” Dawn cried.

“I’ve been hit worse,” he told her. He looked around for a Secret Service agent. Found one. “One of your people killed Addison. Shot him in the head.” He pointed to the body sprawled on the floor. “That one. He opened the dance.”

“Baldwin,” the agent said. “But… why?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said, stepping out of the stinking slaughterhouse. “It’s a double cross of some kind, though, I can tell you that. How many of your people bought it?”

“Too goddamn many,” the agent replied. “Somebody is damn well going to pay with their ass for this.”

“Ben,” Ike said. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

In the distance, the sounds of sirens wailed mournfully, cutting a path through the traffic.

“The ambulances will be here in a minute,” Ben told him, his face gray with pain and shock.

“We got a problem,” a Secret Service man said, walking up to the senior agent.

“No shit!” the senior agent looked at him, exasperation in the glance. The sounds of airplanes filled his head.

“Yeah,” the man said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pointed up to the sky. “Look.”

The sky was filled with blossoming parachutes.

“Has to be the 82nd,” Ike said.

“But why?” the senior agent said.

“This fellow looks like he might know the answer,” Ben said, nodding toward a bird colonel running with his M-16 at port arms.

“You people hold your fire but stand at the ready!” Ben yelled at his troops.

“No need for that, General,” the colonel panted the words. “We’ve been standing by just a few miles out, circling until we got the word.”

“What word?” Ben said. The pain in his side was momentarily forgotten as a strange feeling slipped into his head. It was a heady feeling of déjà vu; but yet more than that. Somehow Ben knew all that had taken place was more than a double cross—it was more like a triple cross; or a double double cross.

“The word that things had gone our way,” the colonel said.

“I don’t understand,” the senior Secret Service agent said.

“Or that we had to come in and clean up the mess,” the colonel added.

“I’m with him,” Ben said, looking at the agent. “What in the hell is going on?”

“We’ve taken over the government,” the colonel said calmly.

“Oh, shit!” Cecil blurted.

“But only for a few days,” the colonel added, as more of his men crowded the parking lot. The medics among them were tending to the wounded.

Ben felt lightheaded. He put out his hand and Dawn slipped under his arm, taking part of his weight.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital, General Raines,” the colonel said. “If you can hang on, we’ve got a dust-off coming in smartly, sir.”

“Are you British?” Ben asked.

“Yes, sir. British Royal Marines until the bombings.”

“Goddamnit, Ben!” Dawn’s temper got the best of her. “Can we discuss nationalities at some later date? You’re bleeding on me.”

“Over here, lad!” the colonel shouted at a medic. “See to the general. Step lively now.”

“You said ‘but only for a few days,’” Ike looked at the colonel. “What happens then?”

“Well, by that time, General Raines will be up and about. Not a hundred percent, but well enough.”

“Well enough to do what?” Ben asked.

The colonel lit his pipe. “Why, to be sworn in as president of the United States.”

Ben passed out.

“Let’s go, partner,” Hartline smiled at Lowry. “We lost the ball game and the park is on fire.”

“What!” the VP shouted. “But that’s impossible.”

In as few words as possible, the mercenary told him what had happened. Then, smiling, he unfolded a copy of Lowry’s written promise to him; that damning document backing up Hartline in anything he wanted to do.

Lowry felt his carefully structured and manufactured world falling around him like a house of cards in a strong wind. He felt lightheaded and sick at his stomach. His legs trembled.

“Get yourself together,” Hartline told him. “We don’t have much time.”

“Neither of you are going anywhere,” Al Cody spoke from the office door.

Hartline looked at the Bureau director. Cody held a pistol in his hand. “Don’t be a fool, man,” Hartline told him. “You’re in this up your sanctimonious ass.”

“I’ll take my chances. I feel better than I have in months just knowing I can tell all and purge my soul. Why, I can…”

“Fuck you!” VP Lowry screamed, startling them all. He jerked a pistol out of a side drawer of his desk and began firing at Cody.

Cody returned the fire as dots of crimson began appearing on his white shirt.

Hartline fell to the carpet and crawled behind a sofa as the lead flew in all directions. When the firing stopped, both Cody and the VP were dead.

“Well, now,” Hartline said with a smile. “Isn’t this something?”

“Sure is,” Tommy Levant said.

Hartline spun and shot the agent in the chest with a .22 magnum derringer he carried behind his belt buckle. He put the second round in Levant’s head, made sure the man was dead, then walked out of the presidential retreat, using the back door. He smiled at the sight of Secret Service agents standing with their hands over their heads held at bay by his own men.

“You get the cunt from the barracks?” he asked.

“The blond one. Left the crazy one.”

“Shoot them,” he told his men.

Five seconds later the Secret Service men were dead or dying in bloody piles on the cool ground.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hartline ordered. “You get hold of Jake Devine up in Illinois?”

“Yes, sir. Told him we were on our way.”

“Let’s go.”

“What a terrible tragedy,” Senator Carson said. “I simply cannot believe this nation has endured so many crushing blows in so short a time.”