Ashes - Fire In The Ashes Part 36

"I hear you."

He chuckled. "No other man will have you, baby. I promise you that. You're mine. My property. Mine to do with as I see fit. Be honest-has it been a bad life?"

She had to admit it had not. He had never laid a brutal hand on her. She had the best clothes, the finest food, the nicest treatment any prisoner ever had.

But she was still a prisoner.

Worse yet, she had to fight to keep from responding to his lovemaking, for he was skilled and had more equipment than she had ever encountered.

And last night, the memories flooded back, her reserve had broken, and she had clutched at his shoulders as one raging climax followed another.

And that shamed her.

She still hated him.

"Ta-ta, love," he grinned at her. "You go back to sleep now and dream about my c.o.c.k."

He laughed aloud.

A huge explosion shook the darkness of early morning. Fire shot into the predawn skies as a fuel depot went up with a swooshing sound.

His back to her, Jerre jerked the bedside radio from the nightstand and threw it at him, hitting the mercenary leader in the back of the head, dropping him to his knees, blood pouring from a gash in his scalp.

The sounds of gunfire rattled in the morning, shattering the stillness after the blasts. The sounds of the front and back doors being kicked in ripped through the house. Hartline staggered to his feet and jerked his .45 from leather, aiming it at Jerre.

He pulled the trigger.

Ben woke with a start. He thought he'd heard gunshots. He lay very still; but the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. Then he picked it up: the fall of rain. It must have been thunder he'd heard-not gunshots.

But he couldn't go back to sleep.

He tossed and turned for half an hour, while the red luminous hands on his digital clock radio glared at him almost accusingly.

Ben glared back. "h.e.l.l with you," he muttered.

He threw back the covers and fumbled for his jeans. Ben never wore pajamas and detested robes.

He fixed a cup of coffee and two pieces of toast and took that into the den. He sat in the darkened den by a window, watching the rain gradually turn into sleet.

Dawn tossed and turned in her own bed, in an apartment across town. She had not heard Rosita come in, and she had not been in when Dawn went to bed. She wondered where her friend was. Something was just not right with Rosita. But Dawn couldn't pinpoint what it was. The woman seemed ... well, too sure of herself. She guessed maybe that was it.

But she knew it was more.

Tina lay in her bed, in her apartment, and wondered how long it would be before her dad exploded and told some of his critics where to get off. And when he did, she knew it would be done in such a manner as to leave an indelible impression on the recipient's mind-forever. If he confined it to a vocal explosion.

He might just take a swing at someone and break a jaw.

She was sorry she had pushed him into the job of president. Very sorry.

She wished they could all just pack up and head west.

Roanna Hickman sat by her window, watching it sleet, a cup of steaming coffee by her hand. With a reporter's gut instinct, she felt something was about to pop. Jane had suggested as much to her only hours before.

But what?

That she didn't know.

She picked up the phone and called the station, asking if anything had happened during the night.

"Starvation in Africa. Plague in parts of Asia. Warfare in South America. Europe struggling to pick up the pieces. Some nut reporting seeing some half a dozen or so mutant beings in the upper peninsula of Michigan..."

"What? Say that again."

"Mutant beings. Not quite human but not quite animal either. Very large."

"Did Chicago send that?"

"No. We got it off AP. Oh, and there's something else. Rats. Mutant rats being reported. Big ones.

'Bout the size of a good-sized cat."

Roanna felt a tingle race around her spine. Where had she heard that before? Sabra! Sabra had told her that VP Lowry had mentioned ... where had he heard it? From both Hartline and Cody. Yes!

She fought to control both her fear and her excitement. "Okay, George. Thanks."

What a story. If true, she cautioned. Who could she send? She should call Chicago about the Michigan thing, but they'd probably laugh it off. No, she'd send someone from her own staff up there. Who? She mentally ticked off the list. All right.

Jane had been itching to get out into the field. She'd send her to Michigan and ... Bert LaPoint to Memphis. Urge them both to BE CAREFUL.

She showered, dressed, and hustled to the office.

Rosita was in a stew. d.a.m.n Captain Gray for taking off. He had sent her here, in a roundabout way, for just this reason and then the man goes traipsing off. She didn't know what to do. Dan had told her if it became necessary, to blow her cover and go to Ben Raines. But was it time for that?

She didn't know.

She decided to wait one more day.

She did not see the shadow of the man behind her as she turned the corner of the street. She walked swiftly toward her car, parked in front of an apartment building. Rosita maintained a small apartment in the building; there she stored her high-powered tranreceivers, her C-4, her a.s.sa.s.sins weapons-the tools of her trade. She hoped no one tried to force their way into the apartment, for if they did, someone would be picking them up with a shovel and a spoon. Once any intruder stepped into the door, placing just fifteen pounds of pressure on the carpet, a modified claymore, positioned above the doorjamb, directed downward, would send enough death to blow the head off a lion. And that was just one of several b.o.o.by traps scattered around the apartment. All lethal.

Rosita's taillights faded into the rainy-sleety gloom of early morning. The man walked to a phone booth and punched out the number.

"She is not what she appears to be," he said to the voice on the other end.

Carl Harrelson, still smarting from the dressing-down he'd received from Robert Brighton-in front of a crowd, no less, asked, "What name is she using?"

Jim Honing, a reporter for theRichmond Post who occasionally worked with Harrelson said, "Susan Spencer."

"Wait for me," Harrelson said. "We'll toss the place together. I'll be there in half an hour."

Jerre rolled from the bed just as Hartline pulled the trigger, the slugs tearing smoking holes in the sheets and mattress.

"Girl! Stay out of there!" she heard Ike's voice shout.

"Miss Jerre!" Lisa called.

"Setup," Hartline snarled.

"Lisa!" Jake Devine called. "No!"

Lisa appeared in the doorway just as Hartline jumped for the side window. He paused, spotted the girl, and pulled the trigger. The slugs took the girl in the face, blowing off half her jaw before twisting up into her brain. Dead when she hit the carpet.

Hartline felt the shock of a bullet hit him in the left shoulder, turning him, spinning him, dropping him to one knee. He looked out the window at the savage face of Jake Devine, a gun in his hand. Hartline shot him in the chest and jumped for the shattered window. He hit the ground and rolled as slugs whined around him, cutting paths of death through the thick smoke from the smoke grenades.

He was off and running, serpenting through the smoke and the mist. He jumped into a car and roared off, toward the airstrip.

"To h.e.l.l with him," Ike yelled. "Find Jerre." He stumbled over the dying body of Jake.

"That bedroom," Jake pointed. "Me and Lisa was going to get her at noon-try and ... make a break for it. The kid's dead, isn't she?"

"The girl I tried to stop from entering the house?" Ike asked, kneeling down beside the merc.

"Yeah."

"Yes. Hartline shot her in the face."

"Least she went quick."

The sounds of gunfire were fading as the Rebels went about the grisly business of finishing off Hartline's mercenaries.

"I was tryin' to do the right thing for once in my life," Jake said. "As usual, I f.u.c.ked it up."

"No," Ike said softly. "No, you didn't, partner. You tried."

Jake held out his hand. "I'd like to shake your hand, mister. If you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all," Ike said, a catch in his voice. He looked up at Jerre, standing over them, tears running down her face.

"She loved you, Jake," Jerre said.

Jake clasped Ike's hand hard. "I loved her, too, Miss Jerre."

The hand went limp. The mercenary died.

Captain Dan Gray cleared his throat. "I think we should give this one a decent sendoff."

"He'd like that," Jerre said, shivering in the cold morning air. "I think he was a good man; at least toward the end."

Jake and Lisa were buried together, arms around each other. Captain Dan Gray read from Ephesians, a few verses about forgiveness, and the service was over.

Jerre looked at Matt, young and tall and strong and fierce-looking with his new beard. She smiled at him.

"Take me home, Matt."

"But, Ben..."

She shushed him with gentle kiss while Ike and Dan and the others grinned and looked away.

"Home, Matt. You and me-together. I wantus to go home."

Matt blushed and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Ain't love grand?" Ike said.

Captain Gray smiled. "Ah, love, let us be true to one another! for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams."

"Now that's pretty," Ike said. "I think I heard that on a Rollin' Stones alb.u.m."

Captain Gray looked horrified. "I rather doubt it," he said frostily. "That was from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. "

"Who'd he pick with?" Ike grinned.

"Cretin!" Gray said. "Philistine."

Gray was still lecturing him, waving his arms and shouting about the lack of culture in America when Jerre and Matt slipped away from the group and headed for Matt's pickup truck. They walked hand in hand, smiling at each other.

One of the women in the group mentioned she thought the air about them was a bit steamy.

Eight.

"You sure you know how to pick this lock?" Harrelson asked.