William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

Yes, Logan smiled, things were sailing right along. And, best of all, that damned Ben Raines was dead. That damned troublemaker was finally dead and through.

Or was he? The president frowned at the thought. His agents swore that Raines was dead; swore they’d shot him and a young blonde woman who was with him. Said they saw them fall out there in Washington, up near the British Columbia border.

“Damn it!” Logan swore. Why hadn’t they made more effort to retrieve the body and bring it back with them? Put the stinking, bullet-riddled carcass on public display, to show people that when the government says do something, by God this is what happens if you don’t follow orders.

The president stood and stretched. He walked out of his office and up the hallway. “Get my guards,” he told an aide. “I’m going for a walk.”

Logan tried to take a walk every morning at ten o’clock, rain or shine. He had missed his walk the past few days because of meetings and was irritable because of it. Now he would have his walk.

His last walk.

Outside the new White House, as it was still called, across the street in a public park, a young man sat, feeding the birds and the squirrels, enjoying the cool breeze of fall; a handsome young man, in his late twenties or early thirties. He looked very much the part of a highly successful executive, dressed in the height of fashion. He’d drawn the attentions of a dozen ladies strolling. The young man had smiled at them, then ignored them. Seemingly preoccupied with the time, he kept looking at his wristwatch.

Ben Raines gazed at the reflection of his face and upper torso in the still waters of the little creek in northern Idaho. He said, “Lord, man, you look like you’ve been dissected and rejected.”

Ben was now in his fifty-third year, completely gray. His face was lined and tanned; body still hard, eyes old.

“No…” A voice spoke from behind him. “Never rejected. Not by me.”

Ben turned, smiling, to look at the woman who had stood by him during the past very bad months. She returned the smile.

“At last count there were nine bullet scars in your hide.” She touched one of the newer scars, pink and dimpled. Her touch became more intimate as she moved her hand from his shoulder to his chest, touching her lips to his mouth.

“I have a meeting in an hour,” he reminded her.

She grinned. “General, there may have been a time when you could last an hour. But not since I’ve known you.”

Together, they laughed.

In the small park across from the White House, Badger Harbin put his hand on the briefcase. He had heard the newscast, some weeks back, that Gen. Ben Raines was dead. Badger wanted very much not to believe that. And a part of him did not. Gen. Ben Raines, Badger knew, was a hard man to kill.

The attaché case under his hand was ready. In that case he had carefully prepared and packed ten pounds of C-4 plastic explosive, to be detonated electrically, activated by a tiny switch located under the handle of the briefcase.

Badger smiled. It was similiar to the grin of the Grim Reaper.

Vice President Addison stood in the president’s now-empty office and fought a silent battle within his mind. The president had been his friend for more than thirty years. But Hilton had done so much twisting and changing in his social and political philosophy over the last years… Aston felt he no longer knew the man, and he was ashamed of himself for remaining silent at some of Hilton’s outrages toward humankind.

Aston had been sick at his stomach for a week after the slaughter of the Indians, and for longer than that after Tri-states was destroyed. There had been more than slaughter in both places: rape and torture confirmed. Hilton had brushed that news aside.

“Traitors,” he had said, and would speak no more of it.

The president’s own doctor had come to Aston, telling him of his strong suspicions that the president was rapidly approaching the point of being a madman. Aston didn’t want to believe it. But…

“Yes,” he muttered to the silent office. “His mind is sick.”

Aston then made up his mind: he would have that meeting with the members of Congress who felt the country was heading in the wrong direction. Certain military men would also be present. They would pool their ideas and thoughts, try to work something out. A bloodless coup, perhaps? But it would be difficult, for some units of the military, a lot of national guard and reserve units, and nearly all the newly federalized police supported Logan and his dictatorship.

Aston mused: Logan is no better than was Ben Raines. Actually, he grimaced at the thought, Logan is a lot worse.

Yes, Hilton was sick.

Aston paced the carpet, thinking: My God, how did this great nation ever come to this? What did we do over the years that was so wrong?

“We drifted away from the Constitution, you idiot!” he said aloud. He moved to the president’s desk. There, he seated himself and cursed.

He picked up the binoculars that Hilton used to study the faces of people who walked past the White House. He adjusted the glasses until he had Hilton in focus, striding across the lawn, toward the fence by the sidewalk. Lifting the glasses, he caught a movement across the street, in the park. He studied the young man as he moved slowly onto the painted crosswalk leading to the sidewalk in front of the fence. The young man carried an attaché case.

Aston suddenly felt he was having a heart attack. His chest hurt, he had trouble breathing, his head felt light.

“My God!” he yelled to the empty room. “That’s the bodyguard. General Raines’s bodyguard.”

He grabbed up the phone, punching a button for a line. He ignored the light signifying the line was busy. He punched another. Busy. Cursing, he ran from the room.

Outside, the guard had unlocked the gate, allowing the president to step through to the sidewalk. He was alone except for his contingent of secret service agents, some feet behind and ahead of him. One stood by his side, street-side. The president noticed a well-dressed young man walking toward him. The young man smiled; a nice, open, friendly smile, and Hilton returned the smile. Hilton wished everybody would like him. He only had the country’s best interests at heart. Hilton suddenly felt very good. It was a beautiful fall day.

“Paul, call that young man over here.” President Logan gave his last order.

When the secret service agent hailed him, Badger punched the button trigger of the deadly attaché case. It would blow in thirty seconds.

“Sir!” a secret service man called to VP Addison. “What’s wrong, sir?”

“Stop them!” Aston said, gasping for breath.

“Stop who, sir?”

Aston rushed past the man, ran down the steps. In his haste, he stumbled, rolling down the steps, gashing open his head, cracking his skull. He was flung into darkness. The secret service men ran to help him.

“Hello, there, young man,” President Logan said to Badger. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Badger grinned as he finished his silent count of twenty. He stepped up to the president, the force side of the attaché case toward Logan. “General Raines sends his compliments,” Badger said. And just before the heavy charge blew them all over the White House lawn and into history, Badger added, “You rotten son of a bit—”

Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you began; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to—my voice fails me; my inclination carries me no farther—all is confusion beyond it.