William Johnstone - Fire in the Ashes

They were gone in teams of three. They would circle the area and on the third day would move in simultaneously. The men drove ragged pickup trucks; but the engines were perfectly tuned and the rubber was new… They looked like movers and drifters, aimlessly wandering the countryside.

They were anything but.

Captain Dan Gray halted his team at Quincy. “Killing Hartline would be gravy on the potatoes,” he told them. “Just remember our primary objective is getting Jerre out. I have not been in contact with General Raines, but I have a gut feeling he’s sent others in ahead of us. So be careful; we don’t want to mistake any of them for Hartline’s men, or be mistaken ourselves for Hartline’s men. Let’s go, boys and girls. Good luck and God speed.”

And Jerre stared out at the snowfall in a small town just ten miles from Pekin, Illinois.

She waited.

Roanna Hickman and Jane Moore sat talking in the NBC offices in Richmond. Other reporters and commentators sat quietly, listening. All of them had a hard decision to make. Unpleasant either way they went.

“Have you been back to see Sabra?” Roanna asked.

“I can’t go back there; can’t look at her,” Jane replied. “It’s… I just want to cry.”

“The doctors say she’s going to be all right—in time.”

“She’ll never be back here,” Roanna said bitterly. “Never. We all know that. But we’re dancing around what we gathered to speak of. And it wasn’t Sabra’s mental health. Let’s discuss our… president,” she softened the last word.

“Son of a bitch is not my president,” a man spoke. “High-handed bastard is a dictator.”

“Is he?” Jane “Little Bit” Moore asked. “Seems to me it’s taken him less than a month to do more than anyone else has accomplished in a decade since the bombings.”

“And everything he’s done has been accomplished by spitting on the constitution,” the man countered.

“Oh, fuck the constitution!” Roanna lashed out, surprising no one. She had been a staunch supporter of Ben Raines since her return from the Smokies.

Several of her male colleagues wondered if Raines had gotten into her panties. Several other female colleagues wondered if she might have fallen in love with the Rebel general. The more objective of the group wondered if she saw something in the man they might have missed.

“Goddamnit, Jim,” Roanna continued, “he’s making things work again. He’s feeding the very young and the very old; he’s opening factories and creating jobs; he’s…”

“No one is denying any of that, Roanna,” a black reporter said calmly. This reporter had survived the bombings of ‘88 and continued to go about his business of gathering news and reporting it, fairly and objectively. “There is no in-between with Ben Raines… not among the people I’ve spoken with. It’s either love or hate. But the point is: Do we—as reporters and commentators—condone what he is doing, in other words ignore the gross violations of the constitution and the Bill of Rights, or do we report on those violations as we see them, without giving the man’s credits equal time? I certainly don’t agree with everything he’s done and doing, but by God, he’s got to be given some credit. And I, for one, intend to do just that.”

“Len,” a woman spoke. “Could the fact that he appointed a black VP have anything to do with your decision?”

She wilted under the man’s steely, unwavering gaze. “I won’t even dignify that with a reply, Camile. If you care to recall, sixty percent of those men and women he had hanged or will hang in the near future, are black.”

She sat down, but another woman picked it up. “Len, that is another point that can’t be ignored. He…”

“Ms. Daumier,” Len’s voice stopped her in midsentence. “Those people were murderers, rapists, terrorists—scum! They were not acting out of survival; not out of self-defense—they were behaving in a manner not even befitting a rabid dog! I, for one, do not care to return to the days of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when those types of people were slapped on the wrist and given sentences so light as to be ludicrous. Now, I have had my say. I will report on the president’s excesses and accomplishments. I am not being paid to editorialize or find fault. Good day.” He walked out of the room.

“I could not believe my ears when the president of the United States said, day before yesterday, if a person is attempting to break into your home, be it tent or mansion, feel free to shoot his ass off, because crime is not going to be tolerated in this nation.” The reporter allowed his outrage to overcome his overt liberalism. “Jesus Christ!” he blurted. “The son of a bitch is no more than a savage himself.”

“And you’re as full of shit as a Christmas goose!” Roanna told him.

“I beg your pardon!” the man’s eyes widened.

Roanna got to her feet. “I said…”

“We all heard what you said,” a man’s voice stopped the dispute before it got out of hand. The president of network news had entered the room quietly, without being noticed. Robert Brighton was another of the survivors of the bombings of ‘88—a man in his early sixties. Brighton was another of the objective-type of reporters. He had once stated, publicly, that anyone who satisfied themselves solely with TV news, would probably grow up to be a half-wit.

“We didn’t know you were flying in from Chicago, Mr. Brighton,” a reporter said.

“I didn’t fly in,” Brighton said. “I drove. I wanted to see for myself some of the horrors our president has perpetrated—according to some of my news reporters, that is.”

Several men and women began taking more careful note of their shoes, the ceiling, the walls, anything except the eyes of Robert Brighton.

“But, by golly, gang—guess what I saw?”

More shuffling of feet and averting of eyes.

“I saw smoke coming out of factory chimneys that have lain idle for almost twelve years. I saw men and women going to work for the first time in years. I saw men and women of Raines’s Rebel army giving food and warm clothing and blankets to the elderly and to those with small children. I didn’t see federal police—but I saw some of these new peace officers; talked with some of them. They seemed like pretty nice guys to me. Capable of handling themselves if need be, but also capable of using a large degree of common sense as well—something that has been lacking in our federal police for some years since the bombings.”

“Mr. Brighton,” a man got to his feet.

“Save yourself some grief, Harrelson,” Brighton frosted him with a glance. “And shut your goddamned mouth.”

“I don’t have to be treated in this manner,” the man’s face expressed his shock.

“Then carry your ass to ABC or CBS or CNN—if they’ll have you. Which I doubt. Now you people listen to me,” Brighton said. “Listen well.

“This is make-or-break time for our nation. Can you all understand that? Make or break! Yes, President Raines has and will do some things that will—if you all will permit the use of an outdated word—outrage your liberal minds. It’s a hard time, people. The world is still staggering about, many nations still on their knees; it’s doubtful if some of them will ever get to their feet.

“And you people are nit-picking. Nit-picking because a few are complaining while the majority is happy to be going back to work; happy that crime is dropping so rapidly the statisticians can’t keep up with the decline; happy to have a pay check in their pockets; happy to be alive . And you people are whining and complaining—setting yourselves up as the conscience of the nation; the upholders and guardians of liberty and freedom.