Fire in the Ashes

“I don't think so, buddy,” Ike said. “But I'm with the JCs on this: it's a setup. And I don't believe it's all Lowry, either."

“Then ...?"

Ike shrugged.

“I don't see I have a choice, boys,” Ben glanced first at Cecil, then at Ike. “The sooner we get this thing done, the sooner Jerre is freed."

“Unless it's a setup,” Ike persisted.

“You're a harbinger of doom and destruction, Ike,” Ben managed a grin.

“But other than that, I'm soooo lovable."

Cecil laughed and Ben had to join him in the humor. “All right, Cec, tell Addison I'll meet with him Monday morning. The Holiday Inn in Charlottesville."

“No!” Ike said sharply.

Both men looked at him.

“The first motel on the outskirts of town,” Ike said. “The first one on the right headin’ east. I don't want us to get boxed in."

“All right, Ike—if that will make you feel better.” He looked at Cecil. “What about our request to send people into Richmond to meet with committee heads of Congress?"

“Everything is A-OK, Ben,” Cecil assured him.

“Then I guess that's it,” Ben said.

Ike looked at his watch. “Seventy-two hours to launch,” he said. “One way or the other."

Six

The questions were almost identical, the answers almost word for word, only the connotation different.

Both meetings were held in Richmond. Both held at night. The meeting places only two miles apart. Both meetings held degrees of selfishness. Both meetings concerned the fate of Ben Raines. But only one was being conducted for the good of the nation and its people as a whole.

“Is it going to work?” the same question was asked at both places.

At one: “If Ben Raines dies."

At the other: “If Ben Raines makes it."

“I'll be glad to see that sob-sister Addison dead, too."

At the other: “I wish to God there was some other way to do this without sacrificing the president."

Same meeting: “He's weak; not the man for this time in our history. I don't like it either. But I can't see another way."

Same meeting: “I feel ... traitorous."

The other meeting: “Lowry will be forced to step down if you threaten to go public with that promise he made you."

Hartline grinned. “And then we'll just put you in the Oval Office."

The old man grinned. “That's the way it will be."

* * * *

Jerre sat in her cell at the camp of the mercenaries. She had not been harmed in any way. She had not seen Hartline since that afternoon he had returned her clothing and ordered her fed.

She wondered what was going to happen to her. She wondered about her babies and about Matt.

She wondered who that woman was that occasionally screamed from down the corridor.

* * * *

Sabra had been allowed to bathe and wash her hair. She was dressed in a dress that looked like a sack. But she really didn't care. She had managed in her feverish brain to put a name with the face that tormented her. She had it for a time, but it kept slipping away from her. Now she could keep it with her at all times: Sam Hartline.

She knew this Hartline had done something terrible to her, and to someone else, but she couldn't recall what it was.

Something elusive kept flashing through her brain: scenes of bloody bodies and nakedness and ugliness and perversion.

She screamed. No reason for her screaming; she just felt like screaming.

* * * *

“I wish Nixon were still president,” the head of network news spoke wistfully. “Or somebody like him. Then we could do like they did back in the ‘70s. We'd jump on him and stay on him until we rode him down."

“Yeah, that's really what a news department is all about, isn't it,” the spokesman for CBS said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

CNN looked at ABC. “I am so glad we were not a part of that disgraceful happening."

“Nixon or the news reporting during that time?” NBC asked.

“Guess,” CNN spoke with as much sarcasm as CBS.

“What are you, a Republican?” AP asked.

“Maybe she is just putting into words what we all secretly feel,” UPI injected. “That our dead colleagues just might have been something less than objective. But that is all water over the dam. Let's talk about what is confronting us at the moment."

“We have no proof the military is setting anyone up,” NBC said.

And that brought huge laughter.

When the laughter had faded into memory, ABC said, “That isn't the issue. The issue is are we getting tit for tat, or is it a better trade-off."

“Anything would be better than Lowry and Cody and Hartline. You all have heard, by now, about Sabra and her family?"

“Rumors of gunshots in the night. The apartment is sealed off. No one has seen any of them."

“At least Hartline can't use the tape,” NBC said. “We found it and destroyed it. It was disgusting."

“We're all still dancing around the point for this meeting,” CNN said. “Let's stop playing patty-cake and get down to it."

“I never heard of any proposed setup,” NBC said, standing up, slipping into his topcoat.

“I'm with that,” CNN said, rising to her feet.

In a moment, all were in agreement: they would not report on speculation, on news that had not occurred.