William Johnstone: Out of the Ashes

“And what of America, Colonel?” General Crowe asked.

“Oh, we’ll take casualties,” he admitted. “Somewhere in the seventy-five to ninety-million range; you all know the stats. But we’ll come out far better than any other major power. And when we’re back on top again, this time, by God, we’ll stay there.”

“You’re crazy!” Sergeant Major Parley blurted. “My God, man—think of all the innocent people you’re killing. You people are fucking nuts!”

Rogers came back into the room. “I used the mobile phone in the car, General, just in case the phone here has a long-range bug on it. The phone company in D.C. got a disconnect order on the number he gave us. Got it about two hours ago. What’s happening here?”

“Holocaust,” a buddy informed him.

Driskill looked at the colonel. “I believe the colonel is about to give us all the details, aren’t you, superpatriot?”

The Air Force man laughed in his face. “Sure, I’ll tell you. Why not? There isn’t a damned thing any of you can do about it.”

Only blow your fucking head off when you’re through flapping your gums, General Crowe thought, his hand tightening on the butt of the .38.

“There won’t be any elections,” the colonel said. “Not for a long time—a very long time. The military is going to be forced into taking over the country: suspending the Constitution and declaring martial law. That’s all we wanted, all along. All we were doing, once we learned Brady was onto us, was buying time. Getting set. We’re five days from launch.”

The men in the room, to a man, sucked in their guts. One hundred and twenty hours to hell.

“I should have gone to the president when my intelligence people first stumbled onto this… treason!” General Saunders said.

The Air Force colonel laughed. He lit a cigarette. His last one. “Well, General, I’ll salve your conscience a bit. It wouldn’t have made any difference. You couldn’t have stopped us. You didn’t really know what was going down until today. You couldn’t have gone to the Chinese to tell them the Russians were going to launch against them. No proof. Big international stink would be all you could have accomplished. Same if you’d gone to the Russians. It all boils down to this: an American sub will launch the missiles— American missiles. Both countries would have turned on you. And… I think most of you know what type of missiles we’re going to fire. Missiles so top secret not even the president knew of their existence. You clever boys got too clever, that’s all. We used your cleverness against you.”

“What type of missiles are you using?” a master chief asked.

“Supersnoop missiles,” Admiral Mullens answered the question. “Thunder-strikes. We started building them on the QT when we realized SALT 5 was becoming a reality. Yes, the Russians knew we were going to build them—before SALT was signed. That’s the main reason Russia agreed to SALT 5.”

“The president and/or Congress know of them?” he was asked.

“No,” he said tersely.

“The lid is being slowly nailed on our coffins,” a Navy officer said. He looked at the Air Force colonel. “What about him?”

General Crowe jacked back the hammer on the .38 and shot the colonel between the eyes, knocking him backward, out of the chair.

“Good shot, Turner,” General Driskill observed.

General C.H. Travee, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sat quietly in his office. He sat for a long, speculative time, drumming his fingertips on the polished wood of the desk top.

Too many rumors being whispered in this city. Entirely too many to ignore. Whispered rumors of a power play. Among the military? Too incredible to believe. Still…

Travee had tried to reach his old friend, Vern Saunders, just that morning—couple of hours ago, after Vern failed to show for their regular Saturday morning golf game. Travee had tried to track down his friend, but had hit a stone wall in every direction he turned.

Odd.

Then he heard rumors that General Crowe was seen climbing into the cockpit of a fighter and taking off for parts unknown. Odd. Crowe was entirely too old to go roaring off into the wild blue yonder like a young buck, cutting didos in the sky.

And General Driskill always worked in his office for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings. But not this Saturday morning.

Travee punched a button on his desk.

“Yes, sir?”

“Get me Major Bass from ASA. Tell him I want him in my office in thirty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Army Security Agency major was standing in front of the general’s desk in exactly twenty-nine minutes. There were questions in his calm eyes.

“What’s going on, Major?”

“Sir?”

“Come on, Major—you’re in the know. You’ve heard the whispers all over the town. Now you tell me .”

“I… don’t know, sir. We can’t even pinpoint who gave those low-alert orders.”

“But yet it came from the Joint Chiefs?”

“Yes, sir. Sir? We think it was an aide. But the one we have in mind has… disappeared.”

“I won’t ask you who you suspect. Just this: why would he do such a damned fool thing?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Travee nodded, then said, “I want you to do me a personal favor, Major. Find out where Gen. Vern Saunders was this morning. Pronto. And report your findings only to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sunday—four days to launch

President Fayers looked out the window of his office, wondering why any man would want the thankless job of president of the United States.

“It’s such a lousy job,” he said to his chief aide and good friend. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The massive responsibility for running a country this size should not be dumped onto the shoulders of one man. It’s too much.”

“Yes, sir,” the aide agreed, not really knowing what his boss was talking about. The president hadn’t been himself lately. He’d been depressed, complaining of sleeplessness, and the aide was worried the press would discover it and blab it all over the nation. Not that it was any of their goddamned business. No—the president is supposed to be perfect. Can’t ever be sick in private. Can’t be a human being. No, the president has to be superman.

“Ed,” the aide said, “are you all right?”

“Yes, of course I am. No, I’m not. Hell, I don’t know. I’m getting old, that’s what.” He sighed heavily. “What is on the agenda for this afternoon?”

“The meeting with the analytical and statistical chief of the CIA’s overseas intelligence operation.”

“Hal Brady, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Titles. Everybody has to have a title,” Fayers muttered. “When is the meeting?”

“Right now.”

“Send him in.”

Harold Brady limped into the Oval Office, carrying a thick briefcase jammed with papers. His limp was the result of his days with the old OSS during World War II; a leg broken during a jump into France and never properly set.

Brady glanced at the aide. “In private,” he said shortly, as was his manner. Abusive-sounding until one got to know the man.

The aide left the room.

“You look exhausted, Mr. President,” Brady said. “I thank you for seeing me on Sunday afternoon. I know you like to rest on this day. Are you feeling well, sir?”

“As well as could be expected,” Fayers replied, pouring them coffee. “Hilton Logan is privately saying he is unbeatable; he is our next president. God help us all, for he’s probably correct. The unions are bitching and striking—as usual. Every minority group in this nation is complaining—loudly—that I am discriminating against them… and my wife has had a headache for three weeks. At night. Calls me a horny old goat.” President Fayers smiled. “And you think you’ve got troubles.”