Fire in the Ashes

“Well, by that time, General Raines will be up and about. Not a hundred percent, but well enough."

“Well enough to do what?” Ben asked.

The colonel lit his pipe. “Why, to be sworn in as president of the United States."

Ben passed out.

PART THREE

I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.

— W. D. Vandiver

One

“Let's go, partner,” Hartline smiled at Lowry. “We lost the ball game and the park is on fire."

“What!” the VP shouted. “But that's impossible."

In as few words as possible, the mercenary told him what had happened. Then, smiling, he unfolded a copy of Lowry's written promise to him; that damning document backing up Hartline in anything he wanted to do.

Lowry felt his carefully structured and manufactured world falling around him like a house of cards in a strong wind. He felt lightheaded and sick at his stomach. His legs trembled.

“Get yourself together,” Hartline told him. “We don't have much time."

“Neither of you are going anywhere,” Al Cody spoke from the office door.

Hartline looked at the Bureau director. Cody held a pistol in his hand. “Don't be a fool, man,” Hartline told him. “You're in this up your sanctimonious ass."

“I'll take my chances. I feel better than I have in months just knowing I can tell all and purge my soul. Why, I can..."

“Fuck you!” VP Lowry screamed, startling them all. He jerked a pistol out of a side drawer of his desk and began firing at Cody.

Cody returned the fire as dots of crimson began appearing on his white shirt.

Hartline fell to the carpet and crawled behind a sofa as the lead flew in all directions. When the firing stopped, both Cody and the VP were dead.

“Well, now,” Hartline said with a smile. “Isn't this something?"

“Sure is,” Tommy Levant said.

Hartline spun and shot the agent in the chest with a .22 magnum derringer he carried behind his belt buckle. He put the second round in Levant's head, made sure the man was dead, then walked out of the presidential retreat, using the back door. He smiled at the sight of Secret Service agents standing with their hands over their heads held at bay by his own men.

“You get the cunt from the barracks?” he asked.

“The blond one. Left the crazy one."

“Shoot them,” he told his men.

Five seconds later the Secret Service men were dead or dying in bloody piles on the cool ground.

“Let's get out of here,” Hartline ordered. “You get hold of Jake Devine up in Illinois?"

“Yes, sir. Told him we were on our way."

“Let's go."

* * * *

“What a terrible tragedy,” Senator Carson said. “I simply cannot believe this nation has endured so many crushing blows in so short a time."

“That is true, Senator,” General Preston said. “But that does not answer my question."

“What? Oh, yes, General. Of course I'll back Ben Raines. I believe he might be the only man capable of pulling this nation back together. A folk hero and all that. You can count on me, General."

“What about the others?” General Rimel asked.

“They will, I believe, rally around me at this time,” Carson assured them. “Those who threw their support behind Lowry are a badly shaken bunch."

“They've seen the error of their ways?” General Franklin commented dryly.

Senator Carson wasn't certain exactly how to take that dryly given remark. But being a member of Congress for more years than he cared to remember had its advantages. He was a master of doubletalk and gobbledygook. Carson had once used four hundred and eighty words to say No.

“I believe, taking all the hideous events of the past few days into consideration, most of my colleagues would be only too happy to follow a leader who would strive to his utmost to bring this nation and its people back into the folds of a democratic rule of government. It is my belief that in Ben Raines—although his writings were a bit too racy for my old literary tastebuds to savor—we have found a man strong-willed enough but yet compassionate enough to placate even the most reluctant members of Congress."

Admiral Calland resisted, mightily, an urge to tell Carson to go blow it out his tanks.

“Thank you,” the admiral said instead.

“You gentlemen are certainly welcome,” the old man beamed his reply.

Things were working out even better than he had originally planned.

Yes, Raines would do quite nicely.

* * * *

“No,” Ben spoke more sharply than he intended to the circle of friends. “I most certainly will not assume the presidency.” He was sitting in a chair, despite doctor's orders to stay in bed. “People, listen to me, for God's sake. Can you—any of you—even visualize me running this nation; arguing with a bunch of goddamn bleeding-heart do-gooders? No. You can't. And neither can I. Tell the Joint Chiefs to find someone else."