Destiny in the Ashes Read online

  The attendant leaned over and took Jersey’s blood pressure. “You’d better let her rest,” he said, a slight grin on his face. “You’re driving her blood pressure through the roof.”

  Later, after the doctor on duty had cleared Jersey, letting her go with a warning to take it easy for a few days, she and Coop joined the others in a conference room at FPPS headquarters on the Benjamin Harrison Army base on the outskirts of town.

  When they entered, Harley gave them a sly wink and went back to talking to the lead investigator, who was sitting at the head of a long conference table surrounded by several other agents.

  “As I was saying, Mr. Pearson,” Harley said, “we were in the process of scouting the building for people who needed inoculations against the plague, when some men carrying automatic weapons tried to take us prisoner.”

  Pearson looked skeptical. “And, of course you and your team were unarmed at the time?”

  “Certainly,” Harley said with a straight face. “We’re a medical team, not commandos.”

  “And in spite of that, you were able to take the weapons away from these men and defend yourselves . . . and in the process kill three of the terrorists?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Harley said, leaning back in his chair and trying to look innocent.

  Pearson leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “I take it then that you and your team have had previous military experience.”

  “Of course,” Harley said. “As you may or may not know, Mr. Pearson, everyone in the SUSA serves in the military. It is part of our duty as citizens to help defend the country when needed.”

  Pearson nodded, but it was clear from his manner he didn’t believe a word of what Harley was saying. “We have had a warning from your country that your intelligence people have heard terrorists have threatened to assassinate President Osterman. Do you think these are the men who were sent to do that?”

  Harley shrugged. “I have no idea, sir,” he said. “All I know is we stumbled across a group of Arab types who were extremely well-armed and who seemed to have no hesitation in using their weapons. However, if that is what my country told you, I’d sure believe it.”

  “After all the trouble between our countries, why would Ben Raines try to help President Osterman?” Pearson asked.

  “Sir, I know Ben Raines personally,” Harley said, “and I’ve heard him say on numerous occasions he hopes President Osterman wins your upcoming election. He feels she is just what your country needs in the coming years.”

  Pearson grinned and chuckled, shaking his head. “Mr. Reno, if that is your name, I think you are as full of shit as a Christmas goose.”

  When Harley started to protest, Pearson held up his hand. “However, as far as I can tell, your men and women did nothing wrong other than try to defend yourselves. You are free to go ... but I warn you, the FPPS is going to be keeping a sharp eye on you and your activities.”

  Harley stood up. “I would expect nothing less, Mr. Pearson. Thank you for your consideration.”

  Pearson gave a wry grin. “And thank you for what you’re doing to help our citizens in our fight against the plague,” he said, and then he turned and left the room.

  When they got back to the hotel room, the team gathered in the conference suite.

  “I guess we’ll spend another couple of days here; then we might as well pack it up and head back home,” Harley said.

  “You’re just going to let those terrorists get away?” Coop protested.

  “We don’t have a lot of choice, Coop,” Harley explained. “With the FPPS sticking to us like fleas on a hound dog, we won’t be able to do much more looking. Besides, they’ve been warned and they’ve seen the evidence that terrorists are in the area and are heavily armed. If they can’t manage to protect their president, we sure as hell can’t do it for them.”

  “Well, I for one am ready to get back to the SUSA and some good food. I’m wasting away on this diet of poorly cooked pasta without any real meat,” Jersey said.

  Coop glanced at her. “Hell, Jerse, you can afford to lose the weight. What about me? I’m losing muscle mass.”

  “Muscle mass my ass!” Jersey said. “All you’re at risk of losing is that potbelly you call a stomach.”

  Coop looked at his abdomen, sucking it in as he looked back up. “What potbelly?”

  Eight

  Herb Knoff knocked, and entered President Claire Osterman’s private apartment off her office without waiting for a reply.

  He smiled and spread his arms at the sight of her in front of a mirror, checking her new dress out, turning and staring at herself over her shoulder like a model on a catwalk.

  “Claire, you look wonderful,” he said, walking across the room to embrace her.

  She stared at him, her eyes soft. “You really think so, Herb?” she asked, as coquettish as a schoolgirl.

  “Yeah,” he replied, standing back and looking her up and down. “Beautiful, yet sophisticated, just right for the speech you’re giving to the fat cats tonight.”

  She nodded and turned back to the mirror, smacking her lips as she applied a fresh coat of lipstick. “What about that terrorist threat the SUSA wired us about? Do you have any new information?”

  He sat in a corner chair and crossed his legs. “Some, but not much. Seems an SUSA medical team ran into a nest of Arab-type men with machine guns. There was a fight and three of the Arabs were killed, but the rest escaped out a back door.”

  She turned and looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “What about the medical team?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “One slightly injured, the others came out all right.”

  She pursed her lips. “Don’t you think that’s kinda suspicious, Herb?” she asked.

  He looked surprised. “Why?”

  She sighed. She liked Herb, and she loved having sex with him, but he wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. “Look at it this way, Herb. A team of medical people stumbles onto what is probably a highly trained terrorist cell. A firefight ensues, and three of the terrorists are killed and not one of the medical team is seriously injured.” She raised her eyebrows and spread her arms. “Doesn’t that make you the tiniest bit suspicious about the medical team?”

  He sat up straight in his chair, an alarmed look on his face. “You think the medical team is in cahoots with the terrorists?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No, dummy,” she said, but not unkindly. “I think the medical team is something more than a medical team.” She rubbed her chin as she thought. “I think perhaps they were sent here to find the terrorists by Ben Raines.”

  “Why would he do that?” Herb asked.

  She smiled. “Why, to protect me, of course. I think Ben wants me to win the upcoming election.”

  “Huh?” Herb grunted.

  “Yes,” Claire continued, turning to preen before the mirror again. “Old Ben and I, we have a history.”

  As she arrived at the hotel picked for her speech, President Claire Osterman was not happy and felt no need to hide her unhappiness behind social niceties. “Goddammit, Herb, you’re going to have more security men in the audience than dinner guests.”

  Herb Knoff, her bodyguard and head of security, shrugged apologetically at Claire and the two FPPS men with her. “I know, Claire, but the FPPS hasn’t been able to find those terrorists that surfaced last week and you’re a logical target tonight.”

  Claire pursed her lips in a pout. She didn’t for a minute think that some rag-head terrorists would try to attack her dinner party, not with the FPPS and Secret Service men all over the place. However, it wouldn’t hurt her election chances for the people to think she was so dangerous a candidate that the terrorists wanted her eliminated. She sat with her chin resting on her thumb and her index finger on her cheek, thinking how she might turn the FPPS’s overreaction to her benefit. When the makeup lady appeared with the towel to cover the neck of her new dress, she made her decision. Swiveling in her desk chair, she l
ooked at Bill Stanton, the head of the FPPS contingent working with Herb to ensure her protection. “Okay, here’s the deal. You can add the extra men, but they are to be deployed at the direction of Mr. Knoff here.”

  As Stanton opened his mouth to protest, the president held her hand up. “No, that’s the only way we’ll play it.” She turned to Herb Knoff. “Herb, put all the men you want around the building and in the halls outside. I want no more than one man at each doorway on the inside. In addition, I’d like you, Mr. Stanton, to be present when Herb gives an interview with the media.”

  As she stretched her neck so the makeup lady could position the towel around her neck, she cut her eyes over to Stanton. “I want the media to know of the terrorist threat and of my determination not to be intimidated by them. Okay?”

  Stanton tried, not entirely successfully, to keep his anger at being used in such a manner out of his face. “Of course, Madam President, if that’s how you want it.”

  Claire turned her attention to her makeup, dismissing the men curtly. “That’s not only how I want it, that’s how it’s going to be.”

  The applause following President Claire Osterman’s speech was not just polite, it was thunderous. Of course, after paying a thousand dollars per plate at the Socialist/Democratic fund-raiser, and being served two minuscule chicken breasts and some asparagus and rice, the folks needed something to cheer about.

  Osterman gave it to them with a rousing speech on the need for courage in government in dealing with terrorists, as well as the need for workers to be more effective in making the products the country needed, and which most of the audience happened to sell. To hear her speak, she would be ready to bomb Libya, Iran, and Syria if the terrorists so much as poked their heads up on this side of the Atlantic. In an American city, with Americans who would never, ever be called to do any actual fighting as the audience, this was like gospel music to an evangelist.

  As the people on either side of her at the head banquet table were congratulating her on a fine speech, the busboys and waiters from the catering company began to clear the tables.

  In the midst of people milling around and getting ready to leave, a shout rang out. “Allah be praised!”

  There followed in short order, first gunshots, and then screams as the busboys whipped out AK-47’s from their carts and began to spray the room with murderous fire. Food, drinks, and blood filled the air, mingling with the stink of cordite and fear as people began to jerk and dance under the impact of the bullets.

  The table in front of Claire Osterman seemed to explode as several of the guns were trained on her and her companions.

  Herb Knoff, in an act of heroism he never understood, dove over the table, knocking Claire back out of the line of fire and saving her life.

  Knoff took three 9mm parabellum shells in the back in the process, but managed to cover the president with his body.

  The screaming, terrified crowd all tried to get out of the room at the same time, preventing the security forces in the halls outside the dining room from entering the room and bringing their guns to bear on the terrorists for several minutes.

  Finally, as the crowd began to hit the floor, the security men started to take out the terrorists, one by one.

  Abdullah El Farrar, seeing the end was imminent, lobbed a smoke grenade into the melee and slipped out a side door. He ran through the kitchen and out the back door into the alley behind the building.

  Mustafa Kareem was waiting in a van with the motor running, and raced down the alley as soon as Farrar was inside.

  Inside, the hastily summoned ambulance crews were doing all they could to keep the death toll at a minimum, but the total kept climbing. At final count there were thirty-one dead, over one hundred wounded, and another hundred suffering from shock and smoke inhalation.

  President Claire Osterman, the primary target, had two wounds, one in the arm and another in the shoulder. Her press secretary made sure the news cameras filmed images of her being carried to the ambulance, lying on a stretcher and covered with blood.

  In the ambulance, Bill Stanton, sitting next to her with a 9mm automatic in his hand, asked with some bitterness if she regretted her decision not to have the security men in the hall during the dinner, since it had cost over thirty people their lives.

  She grinned through her pain and shook her head. “Of course not, Bill,” she said. “After all, my wounds are probably worth over a million votes each.”

  Herb Knoff survived the attack. When the paramedic was starting his IV in the ambulance, Herb asked him if he would call the president and let her know that he was all right, but that he might be late getting back to the office.

  Both because of the newness of terrorism to America and because of the wealth and importance of many of the victims, the media had a field day. The FPPS, the Secret Service, and the Indianapolis Police Force were all portrayed as bungling idiots, to one degree or another.

  E. William Stanton did not in the least appreciate this, and in some injudicious press releases reminded the press that the FPPS had tried to warn the Secret Service and the president about the terrorists and that they evidently had not listened.

  Unfortunately for Bill Stanton, when President Osterman heard his remarks on TV, she flew into a rage. Stanton was reduced in rank and assigned to foot patrol in the inner city of Indianapolis, a job only slightly higher in prestige than a street sweeper, but much more dangerous.

  Herb Knoff, on the other hand, was treated to the best medical care the government’s money could buy. The surgery to remove the bullets from his back was successful, and it was determined he would have no serious side effects, other than a slight limp.

  Claire had fresh flowers delivered to his hospital room every day.

  Nine

  Abdullah El Farrar and Mustafa Kareem did not bother to return to their hideout after the failed attack on Claire Osterman. With the few men who escaped the firefight at the hall loaded in the back of their van, Mustafa Kareem pointed the car to the northeast and traveled as fast as the speed limit allowed.

  As they moved down the interstate highway, swerving from side to side to avoid the potholes that hadn’t been repaired in years due to lack of money in the U.S. treasury, Kareem glanced sideways at Farrar.

  “Where are we supposed to meet the incoming troops, my brother?”

  “Portland, Maine,” Farrar said. “The troops have been gathering on five hundred acres just outside of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, that I purchased through intermediaries last year. By now, there should be over fifty thousand troops and five transport vessels waiting for my order to invade the U.S.”

  Kareem nodded thoughtfully. “And you think that will be enough?”

  Farrar looked at him, his eyes hard. “For this phase, yes,” Farrar answered. “When these troops hit the American Northeast, which has been sparsely populated since the destruction of the big war several years ago, all of President Osterman’s attention will be drawn that way. As soon as she commits a sizeable portion of her army to the Northeast, my men on the West Coast will land near Seattle. We will then have the country in a vast pincer movement that she will be hard-pressed to defend against.”

  “But we will still be vastly outnumbered, my leader,” Kareem protested, wondering if Farrar was making a mistake in moving so soon.

  “That will matter little, Mustafa,” Farrar answered, “since we will not be fighting a conventional war. Our men will not march against Osterman’s Army, but will spread out in small groups, no more than fifteen or twenty men, and will move through the countryside, spreading death and destruction by hitting and running ... hitting and running.”

  The Desert Fox smiled at his companion. “When the civilian casualties begin to mount up, Osterman will be forced to sue for peace with me, and then I will tell her my conditions.”

  “That is what I do not understand, Abdullah,” Kareem said. “I know you intend to offer her a government with both you and her in control, but how can you seriously
contemplate sharing leadership with a female?”

  Farrar’s smile turned to an evil grin. “She will not long survive the agreement, Mustafa,” he said. “I fear someone will assassinate her soon after she agrees to share her power with me.”

  Now Kareem returned the smile. Perhaps Farrar’s plan was no so farfetched after all.

  Claire walked into Herb’s hospital room, a large cup of espresso coffee in her right hand and with her left arm still in a sling.

  Herb looked up and grinned. “Oh, thank God!” he said. “I think there must be a law against caffeine in hospitals. The stuff they call coffee around here is so weak you can see through it.”

  Claire handed him the cup and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “How are you doing, Herb?” she asked.

  He took a deep draught of the dark, steaming liquid and sighed deeply. “Better now,” he said, shifting his shoulders as Claire fluffed the pillows behind his back.

  “The doctors say you’ll be able to be released in a few days. Evidently the bullets missed all your important organs.”

  He gave her a look. “Missing me already, huh?” he said.

  She looked around to make sure no one was listening, and then she nodded. “My bed is very lonesome without you to share it.”

  He winced as he changed position again. “Well, as for that,” he said, “it may be a while before I’m back up to speed on the lovemaking department.”

  She leaned forward and gently stroked his thigh with her good hand. “Don’t worry about that, Herb. I won’t mind doing all the work for a while, until you get your strength back, that is.”

  He looked down at her hand. “If you keep that up, I may get stronger faster than you think.”

  “I can’t wait to show you how much I appreciate your saving my life at the dinner,” Claire said.