Crisis in the Ashes Read online

  In secret, Maxwell sometimes wondered if Ben Raines and his SUSA policies might be closer to the true idea of a free society as it was meant to be. However, voicing anything of the kind was sure to have Maxwell executed, thus he made doubly sure he kept his opinions to himself. Even thinking such things made him break out in a cold sweat.

  This whole business, the USA battling SUSA over land that was once a part of the old United States, seemed foolish. This was another concern he would never dare voice to the president or her advisers. Even with his high military rank, going against Claire’s policies would get him court-martialed . . . or killed.

  It was one thing to have Ben Raines and his Rebel armies marching across Africa after Bruno Bottger—the Neo-Nazi movement had to be stopped. But the UN Secretary General, Jean-Francois Chapelle, was about as spineless as any man who had ever tried to govern a world organization. Vacillating, he was said to be a friend of SUSA, and Ben Raines. During those rare times when he attempted to restore world order by reasoning with Claire Osterman, she ridiculed him and threw him out of her office.

  “The UN’s about as weak now as a castrated kitten,” he said quietly, reaching back into the drawer for one more healthy shot of whiskey before he heard what this crazy Jap scientist had to say. The man had to be completely insane to suggest dropping sick rats—or was it sick fleas?—on SUSA territories.

  “Hell, maybe it is worth a shot,” he muttered, since nothing else they’d tried seemed to be working. Harlan Millard and Captain Broadhurst had sounded so sure of this man’s capabilities and the knowledge he was bringing with him from back in the 1930’s. Still, the whole thing sounded dumb, and in his experience, scientists’ ideas about waging war were rarely useful.

  “Dr. Ishi is here, General,” his aide said over the speaker box. “The others are with him.”

  “Send them in,” Maxwell sighed, preparing himself to listen to scientific hogwash.

  Yiro Ishi was barely five feet tall, with a shock of straight black hair almost covering his eyes. He bowed when he saw Maxwell’s three stars and extended his hand, while Broadhurst and Millard stood on either side. He carried a leather briefcase under his arm.

  “Have a seat, Dr. Ishi. I’ve already been given a little background on your proposal. I understand you believe that dropping bombs full of infected fleas can spread bubonic plague all over SUSA.”

  Ishi sat down, opening his case in his lap. “A very old form of bubonic bacteria, General. It was developed by my grandfather in Japan. Rats were injected with a most virulent strain of bubonic plague, then introduced to a very hardy strain of flea. The fleas fed on the rats’ blood, making them carriers of the deadly bacteria. They were placed in rather simple bomb canisters along with a medium of ordinary wheat flour, as a buffer.

  “The bombs were dropped on a village in China . . . I have all the details in my notes. Within three weeks, more than half a million Chinese died from the plague.”

  “We already know Ben Raines and his Rebel armies have been inoculated against bubonic plague, Dr. Ishi,” Maxwell said, tenting his hands on his desktop.

  “But not this particular strain, General,” Ishi insisted. “My grandfather, and then my father and I, have kept the strain alive in special containers for almost a hundred years. There is no inoculation available at this time to prevent the rapid spread of this bacterial form.”

  “Who the hell’s gonna handle it?” Maxwell asked. “Our own soldiers would be exposed.” He wondered if Dr. Ishi had thought of this.

  “Special protective gear,” Ishi answered. “It is all here in my notes, and my proposals to build the bombs. Everything is covered in detail.”

  “And just what the hell do you want out of this, Ishi? I know damn well you aren’t here simply because you wanted to help us . . .”

  “Money,” Ishi replied, clearing his throat, looking down at his briefcase. “A very modest amount of money, for the killing power my bombs will give your airplanes. If my instructions are followed, SUSA and its Rebel armies will no longer exist on this continent.”

  “How much damn money?” Maxwell wanted to get to the bottom of things right away.

  Ishi smiled for the first time. “You have not even asked to see my notes, General. How can you determine what a superweapon such as mine is worth without seeing every detail of how it will work?”

  “Let’s say you’ve worked it all out, that the bombs will do everything you say they will. President Osterman is gonna want to know how much this will cost. She’ll want the bottom line.”

  “I won’t discuss price with you yet, General. After you read about what my grandfather’s weapons did to the Chinese, I think, would be the appropriate time to discuss my price. I am sharing an old family secret with you, handed down for many generations.”

  “I’ll need a ballpark figure.”

  Ishi smiled. “As I said before, General Maxwell, I am not prepared to discuss price at this time. However, you might ask President Osterman how much it would be worth to end the fighting within no more than three or four months. A great deal of money would be saved on your present military budget. And I understand the war is not going well for the USA’s forces. There have been a few news reports.”

  Maxwell was certain of one thing . . . whatever Dr. Yiro Ishi believed he would collect for his germ warfare plans, he would not live long enough to spend. Claire would have him killed at once.

  “I have a few questions,” Captain Broadhurst said. “Let me take a look at the construction, the type of bombs we’ll need to deliver these . . . fleas.”

  “Of course,” Ishi said, digging into a dog-eared file folder for a sheaf of papers. “It is really a simple fifty-pound bomb from the World War II era. A few modifications would have to be made.”

  Broadhurst took the papers, glancing down several pages while the others looked on. “It seems almost too simple,” he said.

  Ishi smiled. “Very often, the simplest weapons are the most effective, Captain.”

  SIXTEEN

  Harlan came quietly into Claire’s bedroom. It was past ten and she was already wearing her nightgown, ready for him, her loins throbbing with warmth. The lamps were turned down low, the sheets on her canopied bed pulled back. A decanter of brandy and two snifters sat on a night-stand. She had the front of her sheer gown open just enough to reveal the cleft between her sagging breasts, resting limply like empty waterskins across the top of her rounded belly.

  “What took you so long?” she snapped. More than anything else, she hated to be kept waiting by a man—especially a weak man, like Harlan Millard.

  “I was listening to what Dr. Yiro Ishi had to say, and going over some of his notes,” Harlan replied, halting in the middle of the bedroom.

  She sighed, sitting down on her king-sized mattress to pour each a drink. “Take your clothes off, Harlan. I suppose I’ll have to listen to a bunch of shit about bombs full of fleas before we get to the real reason I sent for you. So tell me all about the goddamn fleas. But get undressed while you’re at it, and get in bed. I need a man tonight. And you’d best be ready to satisfy me.”

  “It just may work, Claire.”

  She gave him a puzzled stare. “You mean that thing hanging between your legs? It had better work.”

  “The bombs,” Harlan muttered, taking a seat at her dressing table to pull off his shoes. “Ishi is a brilliant fellow.”

  “There is no such thing as a brilliant Jap. They make TV sets. How smart do they have to be to make a goddamn television set that works?”

  “Dr. Ishi’s bombs might kill everyone in SUSA. He won’t reveal all of it—the details or the organisms his grandfather developed before World War II—but I’ve seen enough to convince me, and so have Captain Broadhurst and General Maxwell. Otis Warner still has his doubts.”

  “How much does the little Jap bastard want?” Claire demanded, drinking deeply from her snifter.

  “He won’t say.”

  “Won’t? He won’t set a pr
ice?”

  “Not yet. However, I believe it will be a substantial amount, in the millions.”

  She grunted. “What the hell difference will it make what he wants? As soon as we have everything he’s got, I’ll have Herb kill him. Herb will feed him to the sharks, and we’ll have our money back.”

  “He hints at having an insurance policy.”

  “Insurance?”

  “That’s what he called it. It’s a vaccine, to keep the same microorganisms from killing us.”

  “The little double-crossing Jap bastard—”

  “We’ll all have to be inoculated. A part of his offer is that he keeps the formula for his vaccine.” Harlan tossed his shoes aside and took off his socks, then his slacks. “He’s not dumb, Claire.”

  “Bullshit! He’s a Jap. They’re all stupid. They lost every war they’ve been in. The USA will be a better place when we’re rid of all of them, and the damn Chinese, the Mexicans, and blacks. Racial purity is the key to success as a nation, Harlan. We won’t be safe in our beds at night until all of them are dead, or outside the country.”

  “But what about Ben Raines?”

  “What about the son of a bitch? I hate the arrogant bastard, and I intend to wipe him off the face of the earth. If I wasn’t surrounded by idiots we would know where he is, and then we’d kill him.”

  “We haven’t done that well at killing him so far, Claire, if you’ll pardon the observation.”

  “Shut the hell up, Harlan! The last thing I need tonight is bad news. And you’d better be damn sure you perform for me like you never have before in your life.”

  Harlan dutifully stood up, unbuttoning his shirt, revealing his slender, bony chest and arms. When he dropped his shorts around his ankles, Claire made a face.

  “You don’t even have an erection yet? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Give me time, Claire. I’ve been in meetings with Dr. Ishi and our staff members for several hours. A drink of that brandy might help.”

  She scowled, wondering why she bothered taking Harlan to bed when she had other men she could order to perform the same task. She supposed it was because Harlan was such a wimp that she liked ordering him to do her bidding, no matter what it was. He had no backbone whatsoever.

  “Get it yourself,” she said, leaning back against a pile of pillows. “And make it quick. Something of yours had better get hard in a hurry besides your damn head.”

  “I’ll do the best I can, Claire.”

  Frustrated, she waited for Harlan to down a drink. “How many millions do you think Ishi wants?” she asked, for at the moment the USA treasury was virtually broke, and until more tax revenues came in it would probably stay that way. The war against Raines and his Rebels had been expensive, and without much result. And, it seemed damn near everyone in the country was trying to get on welfare. Doesn’t anyone want to work any more? she thought, recalling her last briefing when she’d been told tax revenues were down for the fifth straight year.

  “He refuses to specify any amount, any range, until he has a personal meeting with you.”

  “With me?” she snapped. “That’s out of the goddamn question. I won’t meet with the little Jap bastard. You can tell him I said so.”

  “Without it, we’ve got no deal.”

  “Then kill the son of a bitch. Order General Maxwell to do it.”

  “But Claire,” Harlan said timidly, sitting beside her on the bed, “that won’t get us the weapon we need to stop General Raines and his armies.”

  She glared at him. “Do you mean to tell me we don’t have a single scientist of our own who’s smart enough to figure out how to build a bomb full of sick fleas?”

  “There’s a little bit more to it than that, and we have to have the formula for the vaccine.”

  “I’d rather die than do business with one of the slant-eyed, bastards.”

  Harlan tried for a weak smile. “I thought the thing you cared about most was killing General Ben Raines and destroying the SUSA government.”

  She bit her lip angrily. Harlan was right, of course. Of all her objectives as President of the USA, getting rid of Ben Raines was at the top of her list. He’d made her look like a fool, an inept commander in chief, beginning with their meetings on talk shows before the war between SUSA and the USA began. He had embarrassed her publicly on radio and television, a humiliation from which she had never fully recovered. She wanted his balls handed to her on a platter. She’d dreamed of having his head mounted like that of a trophy deer to hang in her study, so she could look at his dead face whenever she felt the urge to savor her revenge.

  “I suppose I’d sleep with the devil himself to see Raines and his followers dead,” she said after several moments of quiet contemplation.

  “That’s what I thought,” Harlan said. “Listen to what Dr. Ishi has to say.”

  “I suppose I could,” she agreed bitterly, tossing back more brandy.

  “He could be the key to winning the war. Everything he has shown us appears to work.”

  “All right. Set up a meeting for me tomorrow. Tell the little rice-eating bastard I’ll only give him five minutes of my time.”

  “It may take longer to explain, Claire. It’s very complicated.”

  She bolted upright in bed. “I don’t give a good goddamn what his explanation is, or how the shit works! All I want is the price . . . his price . . . and when we get our hands on the formula for this vaccine that will protect the rest of us I’ll have his head cut off. After that, Dr. Yiro Ishi is a dead man.”

  “I’ll arrange the meeting for tomorrow morning,” Harlan said as he emptied his snifter.

  Claire lay back on her pillows. “Now get between my thighs, Harlan, and you’d better not make any excuses tonight. I want some action, and I want it now!”

  “You know I’ve always tried to please you, Claire. I’ll do my very best.”

  “One of these days, Harlan, when you fail me as you have in the past, I swear I’ll have you executed. Or I may just have you castrated, since your balls don’t seem to work when I need them. It’s the very least you can do for your country. What good are balls if they don’t function at the proper moment?”

  Harlan glanced down at his limp dick. “I may need a little bit more time . . .” he mumbled, thinking Or a lot more brandy!

  SEVENTEEN

  Claire Osterman was still in bed when a gentle knock came at her door. She hadn’t slept well the night before, since that spineless wimp Harlan Millard hadn’t been up to her demands. Men! Just let them know she needed them occasionally because of biological urges over which she had no control, and they let her down every time. Perhaps next time she’d try a cattle prod up his ass. Maybe that’d get his useless equipment performing like it ought to.

  The knock came again, a little more urgently this time.

  “What is it, goddamnit? I’m trying to sleep in here!”

  The door opened and Herb Knoff stuck his head in. “A phone call for you, Madam President. It’s General Maxwell, and he says it’s urgent.”

  She sat up in bed, letting the sheets fall and exposing her breasts to Knoff’s view. Watching him closely to see his reaction, she leaned over and picked up the phone next to her bed. Knoff’s face remained expressionless, though she thought she detected a slight red flush on his cheeks. Perhaps it was desire, she hoped as she spoke into the phone. “Yes. This is Claire Osterman speaking.”

  “Madam President, this is Max.”

  “Go on,” she said, glancing back at Knoff in time to see him try to hide a sneer.

  “I’ve just gotten some rather disturbing news. One of our spies in SUSA reported we have a spy in our midst as well, and phone taps have confirmed the identity of the traitor.”

  “A traitor, huh? Who is the son of a bitch?” she asked, sitting upright in bed.

  “Her name is Linda Lee. She’s a cryptologist on our headquarters staff, in charge of coded messages to our field commanders.”

  “And
you’re sure she’s disloyal?”

  “No doubt about it. We caught her radioing some vital information to SUSA headquarters regarding troop movements.”

  “I thought you said it was a phone tap.”

  Maxwell sighed. “The phone taps record any conversation in the room, even though the phone is hung up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Madam President, there’s more. Evidently, she warned Raines about the assassin we sent to kill him.”

  “Don’t tell me the bastard failed!”

  “Yes, ma’am. They were waiting for him and his team. The entire force was wiped out. How do you want me to proceed?”

  “Isn’t that obvious, General?”

  “No ma’am. We have two choices. Keep her working and provide disinformation to SUSA, or terminate her immediately as a warning to others who might be tempted to follow in her footsteps.”

  Claire thought for a moment, thinking of the lost chance to kill Ben Raines. “No, that’s too risky. Kill the bitch, and do it now!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Maxwell said, and hung up the phone.

  Claire placed the phone in its cradle and looked over at Knoff under hooded lids. “Herbert, are you busy at present?”

  Knoff’s face flushed again. “No, ma’am.”

  She threw the covers to the foot of the bed and lay back spread-eagled. “Good. Then be a good boy and come in and lock the door. I want to talk to you about a raise in your pay . . . and perhaps something else will rise as well.”

  Chris Bradley always worked alone, a special privilege he had been granted by General Maxwell, even though he was officially a member of the Black Shirts. Now, as he approached a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Indianapolis under a moonless sky, he knew who his target was.