After all, it was for the good of the country.
President Addison grew more apprehensive the closer he got to Charlottesville. One of his agents had told him he feared a setup. Aston had gone to Tommy Levant of the Bureau and asked him.
The senior agent had denied any knowledge of any setup.
That should have rea.s.sured the president.
But it didn"t.
At the motel, it distressed the president to see the Rebels so military in appearance. They looked like a crack unit. He had wished-secretly-they would all look rag-tag, with beards and beads and unwashed bodies and blue jeans. Anything but this. But, he reminded himself, he should have known Raines would have a crack outfit.
The motorcade rolled up to a motel and stopped.
"Here it is, sir," a Secret Service man said.
"It isn"t even a nationally known chain," Addison muttered. "Figures."
"Sir?" the Secret Service man looked at him.
"Nothing," Addison said. He stepped out of the limousine into the cold air of late fall. No honor guard to greet him; no band playing "Hail to the Chief."
There was a squad of Marines present. But what Aston did not know was these Marines were actually part of Hartline"s mercenaries.
Three Rebels, two women and a man, lounged under the awning over the front of the motel office. They looked at the president of the United States with about the same interest an aardvark would give two c.o.c.katoos copulating.
One of the women jerked a thumb at a closed door. "In there," she said.
"You"re addressing the president of the United States," an aide said irritably.
"Excuse the h.e.l.l outta me," the woman replied.
"Let"s do it, Benny," Addison said. He pushed ahead of his man and opened the motel room door.
The beds and dresser had been removed, a large table taking that s.p.a.ce. Four men in field clothes sat at the table. A tape recorder sat in the center of the table. A rather pretty young lady sat off to one side, a stenographer"s pad in her hand.
Aston recognized Raines, Krigel, and Hazen. The fourth man was introduced as Major Conger.
No one on either side seemed terribly impressed with the other.
The president, his Secret Service men, a few of his aides crowded into the room. Aston shot a thought across the table to Ben: I had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Jerre Hunter, he feverishly projected the thought.
If Ben received the mental projection, his expression did not note it. He continued to stare at Aston Addison. Fourteen people in the room had less than one minute to live.
The man is scared to death, Ben thought. He is actually trembling.
Ben"s pistol-filled holster was chafing his leg painfully, rubbing a raw spot. He moved his hand downward to ease the pressure.
Maybe that will stop it, he thought.
President Addison watched the man"s hand slip toward the pistol b.u.t.t. He, along with several of the Secret Service men, had noticed the grimace pa.s.s across Ben"s face. They had all misinterpreted the movement.
He"s going to kill me! Aston panicked.
It"s a setup! a Secret Service man thought.
"Stop him!" Aston shouted, pointing to Ben. "He"s going to kill me."
The frightening suddenness of the president"s screaming jarred everyone in the room; except for the one Secret Service man who was supposed to initiate the killing. It scared the h.e.l.l out of him.
The government agents grabbed for their guns; the Rebels grabbed for their weapons. The stenographer, a combat-trained Rebel, dropped to the floor and grabbed an M-16.
The room exploded in gunfire.
President Aston Addison, who never really wanted the presidency in the first place, watched in a second"s horror as one of his own agents leveled a .357 magnum at him and pulled the trigger. Aston"s head erupted in a ma.s.s of gray matter, blood, and fluid. The president of the United States was dead before he hit the carpet.
General Krigel fired twice, one of his slugs. .h.i.tting a Secret Service man in the chest, rupturing the heart.
The other slug hit an aide in the side of the head, entering the man"s right ear. His head swelled as blood gushed out of his nose and eyes. An agent emptied his .357 into Krigel before Ben shot him in the face.
Major Conger fired his .45 into the knot of government men. He was still pulling the trigger when a half dozen slugs. .h.i.t him, slamming him to the floor, dead.
General Hazen was struck by a dozen slugs, but still managed to kill the turncoat service agent before he died.
The stenographer burned a full clip into the knot of government men before a slug hit her in the eye, pa.s.sed through her brain, and blew out the back of her head.
Ben dropped one agent with a gut shot and was flung to the carpet as a bullet hit him in the side. He killed the last remaining government man as he was going down.
General Ben Raines slumped against a wall, the only person left alive in the motel room.
The room was thick with gunsmoke and the stink of urine, sweat, and blood. Thirteen men and one woman had died in less than one minute. Outside, the battle took a little longer, but not much.
Several of the president"s aides died instantly, caught in a hideous crossfire between Hartline"s phony Marines, the Rebels, the government agents. Several Rebels, not knowing what had happened, ran around the corner of the motel, heading for the sounds of battle. They ran point-blank into eternity. Long after the battle was over, bits and b.l.o.o.d.y pieces of them could be found embedded in the brick of the motel wall.
A Rebel officer leaped into the back of a Jeep, spun the mounted .50-caliber machine gun in the direction of the phony leathernecks and cut them to ribbons. A Secret Service agent shot the Rebel in the chest. The agent was bayoneted through the neck a heartbeat later.
A Rebel sergeant, wounded, crawled up to a dead "Marine" and grabbed for his M-16. He noticed the dog tags around the neck seemed strange. He looked up just in time to see a Secret Service man pointing a pistol at him.
"Wait a minute, man!" the Rebel yelled. "I think we"re on the same side."
"What!" the agent screamed.
"Look!" the Rebel jerked the dog tags off the dead man, holding them out to the agent. "These guys aren"t Marines. They"re Hartline"s mercenaries. We"ve been set up-all of us."
"Cease fire!" the Secret Service man yelled.
"Kill "em all!" a merc yelled his reply. "They"ve all got to die to make it look good."
"To make what look good?" the wounded Rebel asked.
"The setup," the agent snarled. "We"ve all been had." He looked down at the Rebel. "Grab that M-16 and give me some covering fire."
"Will do."
Hartline had not counted on so many Rebels being in the area. With all sides no longer in contradictory fire, the fight was over in two minutes.
Ike, Dawn, and Cecil were the first to reach the bloodied motel room. Ben opened the door to face them. Blood squished under his boots. The carpet was soaked with it. A small river of thick crimson ran past the open door into the sidewalk.
"Ben!" Dawn cried.
"I"ve been hit worse," he told her. He looked around for a Secret Service agent. Found one. "One of your people killed Addison. Shot him in the head." He pointed to the body sprawled on the floor. "That one. He opened the dance."
"Baldwin," the agent said. "But ... why?"
"I don"t know," Ben said, stepping out of the stinking slaughterhouse. "It"s a double cross of some kind, though, I can tell you that. How many of your people bought it?"
"Too G.o.dd.a.m.n many," the agent replied. "Somebody is d.a.m.n well going to pay with their a.s.s for this."
"Ben," Ike said. "Let"s get you to the hospital."
In the distance, the sounds of sirens wailed mournfully, cutting a path through the traffic.
"The ambulances will be here in a minute," Ben told him, his face gray with pain and shock.
"We got a problem," a Secret Service man said, walking up to the senior agent.
"No s.h.i.t!" the senior agent looked at him, exasperation in the glance. The sounds of airplanes filled his head.
"Yeah," the man said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pointed up to the sky. "Look."
The sky was filled with blossoming parachutes.
"Has to be the 82nd," Ike said.
"But why?" the senior agent said.
"This fellow looks like he might know the answer," Ben said, nodding toward a bird colonel running with his M-16 at port arms.
"You people hold your fire but stand at the ready!" Ben yelled at his troops.
"No need for that, General," the colonel panted the words. "We"ve been standing by just a few miles out, circling until we got the word."
"What word?" Ben said. The pain in his side was momentarily forgotten as a strange feeling slipped into his head. It was a heady feeling of deja vu; but yet more than that. Somehow Ben knew all that had taken place was more than a double cross-it was more like a triple cross; or a double double cross.
"The word that things had gone our way," the colonel said.
"I don"t understand," the senior Secret Service agent said.
"Or that we had to come in and clean up the mess," the colonel added.
"I"m with him," Ben said, looking at the agent. "What in the h.e.l.l is going on?"
"We"ve taken over the government," the colonel said calmly.
"Oh, s.h.i.t!" Cecil blurted.
"But only for a few days," the colonel added, as more of his men crowded the parking lot. The medics among them were tending to the wounded.
Ben felt lightheaded. He put out his hand and Dawn slipped under his arm, taking part of his weight.
"We"ve got to get you to a hospital, General Raines," the colonel said. "If you can hang on, we"ve got a dust-off coming in smartly, sir."
"Are you British?" Ben asked.
"Yes, sir. British Royal Marines until the bombings."
"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Ben!" Dawn"s temper got the best of her. "Can we discuss nationalities at some later date?
You"re bleeding on me."
"Over here, lad!" the colonel shouted at a medic. "See to the general. Step lively now."
"You said "but only for a few days,"" Ike looked at the colonel. "What happens then?"
"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 pa.s.sed out.
PART THREE.
I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and c.o.c.kleburs 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."