Fire in the Ashes

“Let's roll it."

* * * *

On the morning the United States of America began to die, one hundred of the richest men and women in America were being bussed to various airports around the nation, all heading for one central location: a long-abandoned Air Force base in West Texas. There, four 747s were being made ready for flight.

Only the best of food and drink were carefully being loaded aboard the huge jets. Copies of the best movies spanning fifty years. Books of the best and most famous authors (although the latter does not necessarily symbolize the former), were lovingly and carefully packed away and stored in compartments.

Behind the big 747s, two dozen transports were being loaded with almost anything anyone could imagine for luxury living: portable generators, air conditioners, mink and sable coats, crates of bottled water (Perrier, of course), wines and liqueurs and whiskey. The sweating men loaded grand pianos, fine china and crystal, crates of gold and silver and cases of precious gems and boxes of paintings.

Then came the children of the rich; the special friends of the rich; the servants of the rich; the bodyguards of the rich; and finally, the rich.

They were jubilant. They had made it. These rich men and women (many of whom had not paid a dime's worth of personal income tax in years, due to what is commonly known as the world's most inequitable tax system ever devised, thank Congress for that) were going to live!

They were going to sparsely populated and untouched by germ or nuclear warfare areas of the world. There, with their wealth intact, they would live out their days.

And the manicured, pedicured, coiffured, diamond-hung ladies brought their poodles with them.

And the poodles brought fleas.

And had they been very quick of eye, the rich might have noticed the scurrying of creatures darting under the planes, leaping into open cargo doors. But they didn't see them.

The doors were slammed shut and the planes roared off into the cold blue, leaving the workmen on the ground. Who needs ‘em?

So, amid the clinking of champagne glasses and the tinkling of lounge pianos (every court needs a jester), the rich roared away.

Carrying into areas, which might have been spared the plague, fifty-eight huge mutant rats and about ten thousand fleas.

And the plague, known in its pure form as the Black Death, spread.

Worldwide.

* * * *

As thick, greasy smoke lifted up into the snowy skies over Richmond, Ben and his party stood in the deserted terminal and picked their vehicles. Fronting the column would be a pickup with a covered bed, twin-M-60s sticking out the front of the rear. The same type of vehicle would be at the rear of the column. In the center of the column, two new Greyhound buses the company had ordered and never picked up. Ben would be in a pickup truck directly behind the lead vehicle with Cecil in a vehicle at the rear of the column, the distance deliberately wide to prevent both of them from being killed in the same attack. If any.

Two tankers were spaced front and rear. Trucks with bottled water and food also widely separated. Communications people worked feverishly installing radios in all the vehicles.

A hard burst of gunfire spun the Rebels around, weapons at the ready. A mob was trying to break in and climb over the high chain-link fence surrounding the terminal. The first dozen to try now lay in bloody piles on the snowy blacktop.

Ben looked at the two women who had volunteered to look after the twins: the wife of Bob Mitchell and the wife of another agent. He smiled at them, silently calming the ladies.

“Get in the buses,” he told them. “All of you not needed out here, in the buses and trucks. Get ready to pull out."

A bullet whined off the brick of the building, another one a half second behind the first.

“You coward!” a woman shrieked at Ben. “You're deserting us when we need you. Filthy cowardly bastard."

Ben had neither the time nor the inclination to tell the hysterical woman he was not deserting them; he would attempt to run things from within the borders of the Tri-States. If they could get there. And if there was a country to run if they did make it safely.

When Ben spoke, his words were delivered as coldly as the air whistling around the terminal. “Captain Seymour? The next person who fires a weapon at this terminal, open fire on that mob and don't stop shooting until they are all down. Understood?"

“Yes, sir.” He barked an order and his personnel dropped down into a kneeling firing position, M-16s on full auto, pointed at the crowd of looters, many of whom were armed.

The mob wanted no part of these Rebels. They had all heard what type of fighters they were, and to a person knew they would not hesitate to shoot.

The mob slowly broke up, drifting into the early morning air, now murky from the burning city.

Ben looked at Cecil. “Where's Doctor Lane? I told him to meet us here."

“He went out in the field,” Cecil replied. “Said if he got lucky, he'd meet us in Tri-States."