Destiny in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

Beth said she wasn’t particularly hungry, so she’d stand the first watch in their hotel rooms while the rest of the team went searching for a nearby restaurant where they could eat.

  Less than two blocks from the Hilton they found an eating establishment called Marinaro’s.

  “I could use some good Italian food,” Coop said, pointing at the restaurant’s sign.

  “I’ve never seen you turn down food of any kind,” Jersey said, “though Italian is all right with me.”

  Harley Reno shrugged. “Italian it is then.”

  They entered the doors and stood in a group, looking around at the room. There were about fifteen tables, all covered with the requisite red checkered tablecloths, with old bottles of wine fitted with candles as centerpieces.

  A short, rather fat man with a dark handlebar mustache and graying black hair hustled up to greet them.

  “Welcome to Marinaro’s,” he said with a thick Italian accent.

  Harley glanced around, noticing only one other table was occupied, by a well-to-do-appearing man and woman.

  “Not too busy tonight, huh?” Harley asked.

  The man shrugged. “Well, you know, with the recent cutbacks in salaries and such, not too many people can afford to eat out.”

  He adjusted the apron around his waist and gave the team an appraising look. “I am Marinaro, the owner of this restaurant.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the window to the kitchen, visible against a back wall. “I am also the head waiter, cook, and dishwasher,” he said with a small smile.

  “Table for six, please,” Harley said.

  Marinaro pursed his lips. “We have no tables for six, but I can push two together if that suits you.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “We’ll look at your menus while you get the tables ready,” Coop said, licking his lips.

  Marinaro raised his eyebrows. “Oh, we have no menus. Our selections of late have been . . . rather limited due to the shortage of food in the city.”

  “Oh?” Harley said.

  “Yes. But tonight, we are serving spaghetti and meat sauce, with garlic bread and salad.”

  Harley looked around at the team, all of whom nodded their agreement.

  “That’ll be all right,” Harley said. “Do you have any wine to go with that?” he asked the owner as the man pushed chairs and tables together in the center of the room.

  Marinaro gave another shrug. “Only a rather pedantic Chianti, I’m afraid.”

  “Bring us three bottles of that and some water, please,” Harley asked.

  “Aren’t you going to ask how much the meals will cost?” Marinaro asked, a worried look on his face.

  Harley stared at him for a moment, then pulled a wallet from his pocket and opened it to show the man a thick bundle of bills inside.

  “I’m sure you’ll be reasonable,” he said.

  Marinaro’s eyes widened at the sight of so much money; then he grinned widely. “Certainly, sir,” he said, and hustled off toward the kitchen.

  As they ate their salads, which consisted of rather anemic and wilted iceberg lettuce with slices of almost spoiled tomatoes and some small pieces of cucumber, Jersey turned to Harley.

  “Do you think it wise to show him how much money we have?”

  Harley leaned across the table and whispered. “Yes. I want him to know we are rich. It may help loosen his tongue when I ask him some questions about the area.”

  After Marinaro delivered the main course of spaghetti with a sauce that was mainly tomato sauce with very little actual meat in it, Harley asked him to join them for a glass of wine.

  “Thank you, sir. Don’t mind if I do,” Marinaro said, after glancing at the front of the restaurant to make sure there were no other customers.

  As the owner poured himself a glass of Chianti, Harley said, “We’re a medical team, sent here from the SUSA to help with inoculations against the plague.”

  Marinaro nodded. “I suspected as much. There are very few citizens who have the amount of money you do, and even fewer who are willing to spend it on eating out.”

  “I was wondering,” Harley said, leaning back in his chair and sipping his wine, “if you might be able to help us.”

  Marinaro smacked his lips over his wine and stared at Harley, a slightly suspicious glint in his eyes. “In what way?”

  “We have heard that there are some Arabs who have recently come to the U.S. who might have been exposed to the plague and who haven’t been inoculated yet.”

  Marinaro shrugged. “I don’t know. As you can imagine, I get very few Arabic customers here.”

  “Would you be able to help us locate the part of town favored by foreign visitors?” Harley asked.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to ask the government?” Marinaro asked.

  Harley smiled. “I’m afraid the government people spend very little time in the center city,” he said, spreading his arms. “They seem to know as little as we do about the various neighborhoods.”

  Marinaro nodded. “That’s true. The bastards refuse to spend any of our tax dollars here in the city where we need it. Instead, they do all their shopping and eating on the Army base, where they don’t have to pay taxes on their goods.”

  “So,” Jersey said, smiling sweetly at the man. “Could you help us?”

  Marinaro poured himself another glass of wine and thought for a moment. “Most of our foreign visitors, especially those who are not citizens, settle on the west side of town. It is a very poor section, even worse than the center city, and the rents are cheap and no one asks too many questions or requires papers showing citizenship.”

  “Is it safe to go there and search for persons needing their shots?” Corrie asked.

  Marinaro shrugged. “As safe as any other place . . . which is to say, not safe at all if you flash your money around. The people of Indianapolis have been hit very hard by the recent cutbacks due to the war. Hunger will make savages of the most law-abiding citizen at times,” he said apologetically.

  Harley asked what the charges for the meal were, and Marinaro told him, a worried look on his face as if he thought Harley might complain.

  Harley grinned and gave him his money, adding a twenty-percent tip.

  Marinaro’s face lit up in a wide smile. “Thank you, sir. You are most generous.”

  “We are going to be here for some time, and the hotel has no facilities for eating,” Harley said. He peeled off a few more bills. “If you would be so kind as to restock your kitchen, we would like to make this our main dining facility for the duration of our stay.”

  Marinaro counted the money and nodded rapidly. “With this, I will get you some veal and some beef for meatballs. You will eat like kings while you are here.”

  “Good,” Harley said, “but if you would, please keep it quiet. We don’t want to be bothered by beggars or thieves while we go about our business.”

  Marinaro grinned and put his finger against his lips. “It will be our little secret.”

  In a well-used apartment building on the city’s west side, Abdullah El Farrar was meeting with his second in command, Mustafa Kareem.

  “Mustafa,” Farrar asked, sipping orange juice at a kitchen table, “have you been able to find out the arrangements for President Osterman’s upcoming speech?”

  “Yes,” the big man answered quickly. “I found a member of her advisory staff who enjoys the company of young men. Akim was much to his liking, it seems, and was able to get him to talk without much difficulty.”

  Farrar nodded and gestured for Mustafa to continue.

  “I have located the caterer that is to provide waiters and serving staff for the dinner next week. I already have two of our group hired by them. When the time comes for the delivery, we will have little trouble stopping the trucks on their way and substituting our men for all of the other waiters and cook staff.”

  “Then all is in readiness?” Farrar asked.

  Kareem nodded. “It should pose no problem when it com
es time to exact our vengeance for what has been done to our families.”

  Farrar nodded, his gaze wandering to look out the window as he recalled his first meeting with Kareem. . . .

  The desert sun baked the streets of Baghdad, and the heat waves dancing upward through the sand haze in the air made the whole world seem to quiver. The teenagers playing in the streets seemed as insubstantial as ghosts outlined by the 110-degree glare in the haze. They were playing their usual game of taunting the U.N. soldiers, calling them names and throwing garbage and rocks at them as they rode by in their SUSA-supplied jeeps.

  Farrar, although a couple of years younger than the others, joined in and gleefully hurled a rock in the general direction of one of the jeeps. He was fully as surprised and scared as the soldiers riding in the jeep were when the rock struck the front windshield and shattered it. The jeep screeched to a halt and the soldier in the passenger seat jumped out, and began to chase the suddenly scattering boys.

  As he rounded a corner at full tilt, Farrar felt himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck and lifted off the ground. Screaming, shouting, and flailing out with his arms and legs, he was silenced by a ringing blow to the side of his head. With the world suddenly darkened, and as things began to shrink and swell in his vision, Farrar saw the grinning soldier draw back his fist for another blow to his face. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

  Out of nowhere, a tall skinny teenager barreled into the soldier, knocking both him and Farrar to the ground. Farrar lay in the garbage in the alley, trying to clear his still-spinning head. The boy and the soldier rolled over and over, each struggling for an advantage over the other.

  Finally, due to his superior size and strength, the soldier ended up on top, his hands locked in a death grip around the boy’s throat. Sweating with rage and exertion, his face a mask of hate, the soldier squeezed harder and harder until the young man’s face began to turn a shade of blue so dark it was almost black.

  In a panicked frenzy Farrar began to paw through the trash looking for anything he could use as a weapon. His hands locked on the neck of a discarded wine bottle. He scrambled to his feet and rushed toward the pair on the ground. Putting all of his weight behind the blow, he struck the soldier in the forehead, shattering the bottle and knocking the man to the ground. He stood over the fallen soldier and overcome with hatred, stuck the jagged neck of the bottle into his throat. With a squeal like a gut-shot pig, the young man grabbed his neck and rolled on the ground, crimson blood pumping from between his fingers, his eyes bright with terror and pain.

  Farrar pulled the young boy to his feet by the front of his shirt, then led his new friend through the alleyways as if the devil himself were after them. Later, after circling for hours to lose any possible tails, the boys approached Farrar’s house.

  The boy, who had introduced himself as Mustafa Kareem, grabbed Farrar and pulled him back into the alley just as he was about to run across the street to his house.

  “Look, Abdul, the U.N. security forces!” said Kareem, pointing to the black four-door sedan pulling up in front of Farrar’s house. There was no doubt that the two men in Western style suits were indeed members of the dreaded secret police of the U.N. No one else so dressed would have business with Farrar’s father, who insisted that anyone entering his house dress in the customary Arab fashion.

  As one of the richest families in Iraq due to their extensive oil holdings, Farrar’s family could do just about anything they wanted.

  “Do you think the soldiers recognized you?” Kareem asked Farrar.

  Farrar shrugged his small shoulders. “I do not know,” he said, “but if they think my father will care that I killed a U.N. scum soldier, they are very much mistaken.”

  “Do you think he will stand up to the U.N. security forces?” Kareem asked, his face a mask of worry.

  Farrar was confident. “My father is not afraid of anything, least of all these U.N. men who scurry around trying to curry favor with him.”

  Twenty minutes later, Farrar saw his father, mother, and younger brother dragged screaming out of the house and thrown into the rear seat of the car. It was all Kareem could do to convince Farrar that there was nothing he could do to help them.

  Farrar knew that even though his family would probably not be harmed, his life of privilege was over. The young boy stood in the alley, tears coursing down his cheeks as his world crumbled around him. In less than a day, he’d gone from one of the richest people in the world, to a hunted fugitive in his own land. He looked down at the soldier’s blood that covered his hands, and swore that it would not be the last blood that he would shed to avenge his family.

  “Come on, let’s see if they’ve gotten to your house yet,” said Farrar, brushing away the tears.

  “Yes, we must hurry if we’re to be in time to warn my family.”

  As it turned out, they weren’t in time. Kareem’s family, not as influential as Farrar’s, was never seen again. The two young fugitives were to be for many years the only family for each other. Farrar’s family’s oil holdings and company were taken over by the U.N. after the great war just as everyone else’s had, and the oil distributed to whatever country needed it the most, regardless of ability to pay.

  Farrar, however, retained access to his family’s huge bank accounts in Switzerland, and would from that day on use the money to finance his quest for revenge against the rest of the world for his family’s shame and degradation at the hands of the U.N. infidels.

  Six

  Claire Osterman buzzed Herb Knoff to come into her office. She was in the process of writing her speech for her upcoming talk to the influential men and women who were supposed to help her win the next presidential election.

  Herb stepped into the room and immediately went to the coffee machine in the corner of the office.

  “You ready for a refill?” he asked, holding the coffeepot in his hand.

  Claire glanced at her half-empty cup on her desk. “Sure,” she said, in a fairly good mood this morning, for a change.

  Herb emptied the cold coffee out of her cup into a sink, and refilled it with steaming-hot brew.

  “How’s the speech coming?” he asked, looking over her shoulder as he sipped from his own cup.

  She grinned. “Good, I think. The problem is to tell these nabobs what they want to hear, not necessarily what’s going to happen.”

  He laughed. “That’s easy,” he said. “All you have to do is tell them under your new Administration, things will go on as they always have. That is, the rich will get richer and the poor will stay the same.”

  “That’ll sure make these jerks happy,” Claire agreed, looking back at her speech. “The lower the government’s treasury has gotten, the more they’ve been able to sock away.”

  Herb shrugged. “Can’t be helped, my dear,” he said. “The movers and shakers in every government since the dawn of time have always profited from their support of the ruling classes. It’s just the way it is.”

  Claire leaned back. “You know, Herb. When I first took office, I was naive enough to think I could actually do something for the poor and downtrodden . . . actually make a difference in their lives for the better. That was the whole premise of the socialist/democratic movement.”

  Herb sat down across from her, shaking his head. “And then you found out what every leader has discovered since history has been recorded. The poor and downtrodden are that way for a reason. For the most part, they’re too lazy or stupid to prepare themselves to make a living in the modern world.”

  Claire nodded. “And the sad part is, they expect the government to provide everything they need without them having to work or sacrifice for it at all.”

  He gave her a sarcastic look. “Maybe they think that way because their leaders keep telling them there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

  She gave him a sharp glance. “Are you referring to me?” she asked archly.

  He smiled back at her. “Of course, dear. But I don’t bl
ame you . . . that’s what you have to say nowadays to get elected in the first place.”

  She relaxed again. “I sometimes think Jefferson was right.”

  “Thomas Jefferson?” Herb asked.

  “Yeah. When the Founding Fathers were discussing the Constitution, he recommended that only landowners and the wealthy should have the vote. He distrusted the masses, thinking they would be too easily led by their emotions.”

  Herb laughed. “I wouldn’t put that in your speech, Claire. It sounds an awful lot like the drivel Ben Raines preaches about personal responsibility being a prerequisite for voting.”

  “Jesus, do I sound that bad?” she asked, a wry grin on her face. “The last thing I want to do is sound like Ben Raines.”

  “Well, the good thing is all the arrangements have been made for the dinner Friday night.”

  “You’ve got the caterers lined up and there’ll be plenty of food?”

  “Yeah, and that took some doing, let me tell you. I actually had to go to the black market to get the stuff we needed.”

  She frowned. “Are things really that bad?”

  “Claire,” he said, “you need to get out more. There is practically no food to be had anywhere in the country. Those that have it, the farmers and growers, are hoarding it and selling it piecemeal on the black market. The food stores’ shelves are practically bare. If it wasn’t for the U.N. and SUSA and the food they’re sending over, there wouldn’t be anything for the average citizen to eat.”

  “That’s just it,” Claire said, an angry look on her face. “I thought the food they’re sending was ample for our needs.”

  “It would be, Claire, except that the people in charge of distribution are the very ones you’ll be talking to Friday, and they, like the farmers, are finding it much more profitable to sell the donated goods on the black market instead of putting them in the stores to sell at the regulated prices.”

  “So these bastards are getting rich by selling food given to us free by the U.N. and SUSA?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”