Pedestals of Ash (33 page)

A short time later, Josh returned to Ben’s
house
and laid the modified shells right where they had originally rested on the table. He opened the double-barrel’s breech and replaced the two rounds that had been inside. As he closed the weapon and sat it next to the
doorframe
, he
thought,
“We did a good thing today, as long as he doesn’t have any spare ammo around.” Josh quietly left the house and
sauntered
home.

Agent Powell watched as an army private mopped the floor outside of the conference room. The lights had been turned up
,
and several men were busy cleaning up the last remnants of the firefight. Normally, the Secret Service would have immediately called in the FBI to process the crime scene, but the El Paso field office had ceased to function months ago. He had considered calling in experts from Washington, but every available government official in the capital was trying to rebuild the White House, Capital Building and other official offices that had been ransacked during the riots. The few FBI agents who did report for work were busy
running
down a long list of missing government officials, including the majority of the House and Senate. The military had established order two days after the White House had been overrun
,
and in reality the riot had pretty much burned itself out before the tanks had rolled into town.
 

While the Pentagon’s location had prevented it from being damaged, the number of soldiers and civilian staffers showing up to work had been next to zero. The riots had made several nearby streets impassable
,
and most people took the D.C. police’s orders to “stay in your homes” seriously.
Agent Powell
normally stood behind
the boss during status meetings and knew the number of people reporting for duty and work had been trickling higher since the outburst of violence, but still a vast majority of the federal agencies were non-functional.
A big part of the problem was the fact that practically every interstate and surface road within 50 miles of a major city was a parking lot of abandoned vehicles. Even if employees wanted to show up for work, there was no way they could drive to the office.

Powell remembered the president being upset after reading one such report at Fort Knox. The man had taken it personally and believed it some sort of measurement of loyalty, directed at him personally. Powell had been listening to that meeting from his normal post at the door. That misinterpretation had been one of the first signs the commander had shown
of cracking under stress. The s
ervice was trained to watch and observe for such reactions, but there had been few other incidents
,
and no action had been required. Powell was unsure, given the collapse of the government, what he would have done about it anyway.

The senior agent actually liked this president. Given his 31 years of guarding various heads of state, he had seen it all. While this man wasn’t the brightest person to occupy the oval office, he wasn’t the dumbest either. Truth be told, he was relatively honest and seemed to be truly motivated to do a good job for the country. His analysis ended immediately at that point.
It wasn’t the service’s job to decide if any president were effective, a clown, or a genius.
Their training and policies were very strict
,
and Agent Powell believed that narrow view was appropriate
,
given the
job of protecting the chief executive
at all costs. An agent was more likely to throw his body into the line of fire for a man he admired
,
than a man he despised. The agency realized this
,
and thus structured their training to avoid the personal
evaluation
of any specific president
's job performance
from entering the equation.

Now, the man he had sworn to protect was missing. Agent Powell had lead the counterattack against the assassins only to find a pile of bodies
,
and none of them belonged to the boss. At first, everyone assumed that the Independents had captured the president, but within
15
minutes the bound MP was found
,
and the facts became clear.

They didn’t even know the stranger’s real or full name. He had shown up at the
guardhouse
with valid papers and an attitude. Powell didn’t believe the messenger was involved in the assassination attempt. One of the Independents was found wounded and lying on the floor of the hallway. The man was dying and in a lot of pain. The morphine injection not only eased his suffering,
but also
loosened his tongue
,
and he claimed that the stranger was to be executed as well. The two dead bodies found in the room where the stranger had last been seen, added credibility to that information.

So this single man had shot his way through a death squad, rescued or taken the president
,
and escaped a major military base unseen. Agent Powell grunted and shook his head. The guy had been a smart ass according to all reports. He clearly had a large pair and some skills to back them up. Powell didn’t believe the president was dead. If the stranger had wanted to kill the boss, he could have done so a dozen times before leaving the base. If the guy’s story was to be believed, he had traveled across the desert to deliver the
Colonel’s
report, so he had some level of loyalty to the chief.

They had his fingerprints on
the documents delivered to the p
resident. They also had the serial numbers from his weapons and night vision. In normal times, Agent Powell would have known every single detail about the guy within 15 minutes. These were not
normal times. The usual finger
print identification systems were down. The Bureau of Alcohol
,
Tobacco and Firearms had burned to the ground in Washington, so tracing the serial numbers from the weapons was next to impossible. It was all maddening to the agent – all of his normal tools were unavailable
…
and just when he needed them most
.

Still, he didn’t think the guy wanted to hurt the boss.
He probably will show up at the gate with the president soon
, thought Powell.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he walked through that door with the chief in tow any minute now.

Powell couldn’t count on some guy he didn’t know. That wasn’t part of the job. They were going to be searching from the air with the two Blackhawks soon, but he didn’t hold out much hope for that being a success. Whoever this stranger was, he was smart enough to hide from an aerial search
,
and it was a mighty big desert out there.

Suddenly, t
he senior agent remembered the p
resident’s jacket. That was it! The GPS locator sewn into the collar should still function. The service had never used the system as no one had ever lost track of the chief executive
.
Powell rushed out of the room and down the hall to General Westfield’s office. Rudely barging through the base commander’s door, he blurted out, “General, can you get me in contact with the Air Force’s Space Command up at Peterson?”

The g
eneral brushed aside his annoyance at being interrupted and
replied, “I’m not sure. Those Air F
orce boys have had their head
s
buried in the sand since this all went down. They claim to barely be holding their own bases and protecting those precious flying machines of theirs. I’ll have communications see if they can raise them on the sat system. I’m here to tell you
though;
they aren’t going to give us any aircraft. They keep fussing and making excuses about
having
no spare parts or fuel or
flying blind without
weather reports.”

Powell shook his head, “The air assets I want are already up there
,
general. Let’s hope they answer.”

Smokey pointed to the large map of Alpha
,
spread out on the courthouse’s marble floor. The map h
ad been found in the Visitor’s B
ureau lobby and moved to its current location. Gather
ed
around the detailed representation of the small town were several of the head criminal’s lieutenants.

“We were too slow to enter the gap created by the garbage truck,” he began. “The holy rollers had too much time to react
,
and that’s what cost us.” Smokey looked around at everyone’s eyes, making sure his words were being taken seriously. “This evening, when we punch through their wall, we have to pour in like crazy. Once inside, don’t allow your men to bunch up or stop to close to the entrance. Spread out
,
and keep moving everyone forward.”

Again, his gaze
was
met with nods of understanding.

Smokey knew they had hurt the defenders badly. Had it not been for the last second heroics of that giant Russian, they would have overrun the church
,
and he would be having his fun with that Deacon Brown woman about now. He chuckled at the thought, “
If she lasts that long.”

It had taken his men some time to recover as well. Despite his better instincts, Smokey had discovered that even the most hardcore of men would fight better if they believed medical attention was available to the wounded. In the first few skirmishes with the church, he had ordered the wounded left in the field to die. The reaction from his followers had proven this to be a mistake. Smokey ‘adjusted’ his thinking on the subject
,
and since then the wounded had been treated as humanely as possible. Some
had healed and gone
on to fight another day. Now, the majority of his lieutenants boasted of gunshot wounds, showing off the scars to the men with less experience.

While they had killed several of their
foes
, they had suffered as well. A head count revealed 28 fewer men than had started the attack. It was the worst single day death toll so far, but Smokey knew he had to press his advantage and do so quickly.

Over the next 20 minutes, Smokey made every man repeat the plan back to him. He wanted to verify each
of his group leaders knew his
role and where everyone else was going to be. He had watched too many attacks peter out because of confusion or lack of communication. He wanted to get this over with while he still had enough
manpower
to control the town.

One thing that puzzled him was the report of a single truck sneaking out of the church compound early this morning. The observer couldn’t tell who was driving, but the vehicle sped southeast toward Meraton. Smokey’s people had raided the tiny town a few times, but had returned with little loot. At least the ranch a few miles north had ca
ttle and other livestock to stea
l and butcher. After he had mop
ped up that little chapel
and secured their water supply, he would focus his attentions on that ranch next
,
and then the little town if it suited him. For right now, he had to motivate his men to fight even harder and take apart those people at the church.