Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Canada?” Millard asked. “What is he going to Canada for?”

  “Apparently, Canada is the headquarters for the organization that detonated the bomb. They are located in the northwest woods in Alberta.”

  “What organization is this? Do we know anything about it?” Ainsworth asked.

  “I am looking into it,” Owen replied.

  “Are they likely to be a threat to us?” Goddard asked. “I mean, are they something the military should be aware of?”

  “General, I can assure you, the military need not get involved. If the organization that bombed the Ben Raines School ever poses a threat to the U.S., I and the FPPS will neutralize that threat,” Owen promised.

  “I’m not sure that would be a FPPS responsibility,” General Goddard said. “If I get wind of anything—”

  “General, by the time those incompetent boobs who comprise your officer corps would get word of any threat, the FPPS will have already eliminated it.”

  That’s enough from both of you,” Claire said as Owen and Goddard glared at each other. “I’ll have no turf battles going on around me.”

  “How do you know Raines has gone to Canada?” Ainsworth asked.

  “I have a source,” Owen answered.

  “What sort of source?” Goddard asked.

  Owen looked at Goddard. “A very reliable source,” he said without giving any more information.

  Headquarters Building of Die Kontrollgruppe

  Cletus Doyle, Miner Cain, Glen Burkett, and Tamara Lynch gathered in the conference room, as had been directed by their telephone orders from the Gruppe Kommandant. They sat in comfortable leather chairs around a large, round table. Because all four colonels were equal in rank, they alternated chairmanship of the meetings. Tamara Lynch opened the meeting.

  “As I was chairperson of the last meeting, I now turn the chair over to Colonel Glen Burkett, who is next in the rotation,” Tamara Lynch said.

  Burkett nodded, then held up a piece of paper. “I assume that you all received a telephone call from GK?”

  The others nodded yes.

  The Gruppe Kommandant gave each of us a series of disconnected words, though each word had a number. Let us now begin to assemble our message. Who has word number one?”

  “I do,” Cain said. “It is General.”

  “Ben is number two,” Tamara said.

  “Raines is number three,” Doyle added.

  Over the next few minutes, the four colonels painstakingly assembled the order they had received from the Gruppe Kommandant. This unique way of delivering messages ensured that no one colonel would have the advantage over the others, and that all would be subservient to the Gruppe Kommandant.

  “All right,” Burkett said. “The message is assembled. It reads: ‘General Ben Raines left Base Camp One, bound for Port Hardy, British Columbia. There, he will charter an airplane from North Star Air Service. It is up to you to ascertain the type of aircraft, time of flight, and destination. Once you have all the information in place, take whatever action is necessary to eliminate Raines.’”

  Burkett looked up at the others. “Any questions?” he asked.

  “How are we going to do this?” Cain asked.

  “He didn’t say how, he just said do it,” Burkett replied.

  “Good,” Tamara said.

  The other three looked at Tamara. “What do you mean, good?”

  “I mean good because he trusts us to take care of it. I say we don’t let him down.”

  “Okay, does anyone have any ideas?”

  “Yeah,” Burkett said. He smiled at the others. “Yeah, I do have an idea.”

  The other three listened as Burkett outlined his plan.

  FOUR

  Alberta

  The area was wild and richly timbered, a forest that was still and redolent with the tang of fir and spruce. Snowcapped mountain peaks and massive glaciers towered over a crystal-clear lake, from which sprang a river that fed a roaring waterfall.

  The lake was on a plateau, three thousand feet above sea level, and the adjacent forest was inhabited by golden-mantled ground squirrels and bears, wolves, and moose. A moose, advancing toward the lake, slipped in and out of the trees, now visible, now invisible. When it reached the edge of the forest it sniffed the air, and satisfied that there was no danger, moved down to the aquamarine lake for a drink.

  Suddenly, the moose’s territory was invaded. A four-engine airplane, with three of its engines roaring and smoke pouring from the fourth, made a rapid but controlled descent from above. As it passed between two spruce trees, the engine noise was replaced by the loud wrenching sound of limbs being ripped away. The airplane, a vintage Douglas DC-4, slammed hard into the ground, sending up a shower of sparks, a billow of smoke, and a cloud of roiling dust. The crash sent not only the moose but all the other creatures scurrying away in fear.

  The airplane slid along the ground for several feet, screeching, popping, and snapping as it shed large pieces of sheet metal and other items of debris before finally coming to rest. Had it gone thirty more feet, it would have slipped over the edge of a precipice that would have dropped it another five hundred feet.

  The cloud of dust continued to hang in the air along the crash path, and though there were no flames, a small wisp of smoke continued to curl up from the right inboard engine of the broken and twisted craft. When the cacophony of wrenching metal and breaking glass ended, the natural sounds returned: the whisper of wind through the trees, the cry of an eagle, the distant call of a moose, the babbling sound of the river as it broke white and foaming over water-polished stones.

  Base Camp One, Louisiana

  At that very moment, over two thousand miles away, Mike Post stood at the window of his office, drinking coffee and looking out at a game of croquet taking place on the lawn. He smiled as he thought of how intensely the general took the game.

  On the road, just beyond the game, a platoon of basic trainees marched by.

  “Road guards, post!” the sergeant commanded, and the right and left guides of the second rank pulled out of formation, then hurried to the road junction, where they assumed the position of parade rest, head erect, eyes straight ahead and unblinking, legs set apart at shoulder width, the M-16s held at a forty-five-degree angle from their left shoulders to their right hips.

  “Double time, march!” the sergeant called.

  The platoon double-timed through the intersection.

  “Quick time, march!” the sergeant called, and the platoon returned to the regular march pace. “Road guards, recover!”

  The road guards rejoined the platoon at the rear rank.

  There were some in the new country who were already protesting the policy of universal military conscription, but like his boss, Mike believed that anyone who wanted to live here should be willing to pay for that privilege by serving two years in the military. It not only kept the country strong by ensuring a broad pool of trained men and women, it also avoided a disconnect between civilian society and the military.

  “Have you heard from the chief?” someone asked.

  Turning, Mike saw Cooper coming into his office.

  “No, Coop, I haven’t,” Mike replied. “But I don’t really expect to hear from him until he is on the ground and in position. He has the satellite phone with him. He’ll give us a call.”

  “I wish he would have taken an action team with him,” Coop said. “Or at least one of us: you, me, Buddy.”

  “You were at the airport with the rest of us, Coop. You heard the general. We tried to talk him into letting one of us go with him, but he would have none of it.”

  “I know,” Coop said. “Still, I would feel a lot better about it if he wasn’t trying to do all of this on his own.”

  “Trying to do it on his own? Come on, Coop, you know the general as well as I do. There is no ‘trying’ to it. If he says he’s going to take care of those sons of bitches, then you can go to the bank with it. He is going to take care of them.” />
  “Yeah, but look at the odds. You said it yourself. Intel suggests there could be as many as two hundred,” Coop said.

  Mike turned back toward the window and looked outside. He took another swallow of his coffee. “Two hundred? Well, I wouldn’t worry. I expect he took enough bullets with him,” he said.

  Coop chuckled. “You got that right,” he said. “When he left here, he was a one-man army.”

  “Hell, Coop, he was born a one-man army.”

  “When is he going quit?”

  “Quit what?”

  “Quit trying to carry the entire nation on his back,” Coop said.

  “Probably the day they put him in his grave. You know how he feels about the SUSA. He’s the father of the country, and he takes that tide literally.”

  “George Washington was the father of the old USA, but even he retired,” Coop said. “I mean, there comes a time when a person gets a little age on him. When you get old, you need to slow down.”

  Mike turned back from the window and smiled at Coop just over his raised coffee cup. “You want to tell him to slow down?”

  “Me tell him to slow down? No, why should I tell him? Thas’a no ma job,” Coop said. “Thas’a yo job. You’re his chief of staff.”

  Mike put his hand to his nose. “Tell me, Coop, do you think I’ve got a nice nose?”

  “What?”

  “My nose,” Mike said. “You know, this thing hanging between my eyes and my mouth? Don’t you think it looks pretty nice? Maybe not handsome or anything, but generally it’s okay, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not misshapen, mashed flat, pushed crooked, or anything like that There’s no collapsed septum. Everything seems to be . . . well . . . normal, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess,” Coop replied. “Mike, what the hell are you getting at?”

  Mike walked over to his desk and put his cup down. “Well, see, here’s the thing, Coop. I plan to keep it this way,” he said, putting his hand to his nose. “I’m not going to risk having it smashed by doing something dumb like . . . oh . . . say, telling the general that he needs to slow down because he is . . . what was it you said? Oh, yeah, it was he is getting old. I believe that is what you said, isn’t it?”

  Coop laughed out loud. “Okay, I see what you mean,” he said.

  Buddy Raines came into the office then, and seeing the two men laughing, asked what was going on.

  “Nothing,” Coop replied. “Mike was just giving me a few beauty tips, is all.”

  “Beauty tips?”

  “On care and maintenance of the nose.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for you two to be drinking?” Buddy asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Mike said. “What do you need, Buddy?” Although Buddy was heir-apparent, he never assumed an “attitude,” and thus was liked and respected by the others.

  “I was just wondering if you had heard anything from my father yet.”

  “No, not yet. But it’s still a little early. I doubt that he’s even on the ground yet.”

  FIVE

  Northwest Canada

  It was at least a half hour before he regained consciousness. What was he doing here? And for that matter, where was here?

  The immediate answer to the question seemed to be that “here” was the inside of a rather large airplane. There had obviously been a crash, because the floor of the airplane was badly buckled, several of the windows were broken, and it was sitting at an extreme angle on ground that definitely wasn’t an airport.

  Releasing himself from the seat belts, he looked out the window, where he could see twisted engine nacelles and propellers hanging askew. He was gratified to see that the airplane was not on fire.

  There did not appear to be any other passengers in the plane.

  “Hello?” he called, looking up and down the cabin. “Hello? Anyone in here?”

  Shouldn’t there be other passengers in a plane this large? Maybe there had been passengers who had already exited the plane. If so, why did they leave him? Could they not see him? Did they think he might be dead?

  Gingerly, he began a self-examination to see how badly he was hurt. To his relief he discovered that, aside from some cuts and bruises, he didn’t seem to be in bad shape. The examination done, he got up from the seat.

  He picked his way to the after cabin door on the left side of the fuselage, kicked the door open, then stepped outside. Because the plane was flat on the ground, he realized that the gear had either not been deployed, or had collapsed on impact. That made the step down from the plane a small one. He stood there for just a moment, trying to get his bearings.

  It was easy to see the direction from which they had come, because there was a trail of debris that marked the impact path. Some fifty yards away, the right horizontal stabilizer was on the ground, propped up against a large rock. Bits and pieces of sheet metal and Plexiglas completed the trail that culminated at the broken fuselage.

  The four engines were hanging crookedly in their mounts, the nacelles mashed and shredded, and the propellers badly twisted out of shape. As he looked at the airplane he saw that, while there was no fire at the moment, there apparently had been one in the right inboard engine. The cylinder cooling fins were melted and fused, and paint was blackened and peeling from the cowl, across the nacelle, over the top of the wing, and back along the side of the pale blue fuselage. The words alongside the fuselage—“North Star Air Service”—were badly charred, but still readable. The logo on the tail, a blue star outlined in red, belied the current condition of the airplane, because it was as pristine as if the airliner were parked at a loading gate.

  Why were there no passengers? And what had brought them down? Was it the fire in the engine? If so, the pilot had done a good job putting them down in the only clearing around.

  The pilot!

  It wasn’t until that moment that he thought about the pilot, and he hurried back to the twisted and ruptured fuselage. The nose of the airplane was badly concaved, pushed back toward the windshield like the grille of a wrecked car. The side windows of the cockpit were at eye level, thus affording him an easy way to look inside.

  The instrument panel was buckled, the control yokes badly bent, and the glass faces of the instruments themselves, as well as the panel and inside of the windshield, were all spattered with blood. He saw two men in front. One was obviously dead, but the other was moaning softly.

  “Hold on, I’ll get you out.”

  “It’s no use, I’m done for. See about Ed,” the injured man said.

  “You first.”

  Going back into the plane, he picked his way through the wreckage of the cabin, then opened the door to the flight deck and pulled the injured man from his seat. He carried him outside the plane and put him down. Clearing the pilot’s airway, he elevated his feet to treat him for shock, then looked for his wounds in order to stop the bleeding.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” the pilot said. “When that missile took out the engine, it started a fire that would have taken off the wing within another few minutes. There was nothing we could do but put it on the ground as quickly as we could. But there was nowhere to set her down, only this small ledge.”

  “You did a great job setting it down,” Ben replied.

  Ben. The pilot had called him Ben. It was funny, but until that moment, he hadn’t even thought about who he was. After all, who thought of himself in the third person anyway? But the moment the pilot called him Ben, he realized something significant.

  The name Ben meant nothing to him. It wasn’t that the pilot had called him by the wrong name . . . because no other name came to his mind. In fact, no name came to his mind at all. He must be Ben, but Ben who?

  How can it be that I don’t even know who I am?

  “Uh, listen, I know this is going to sound funny to you,” Ben said. “But who am I? You called me Ben. Ben what? What’s my last name? And what are we doing here?”

  The pilot didn’t answer.

  “For that matter, w
ho are you? And where are we?” Ben asked.

  There was still no answer, and when Ben examined the pilot more closely, he saw that he was dead.

  Sighing, Ben stood up and ran his hand through his hair. As he did so, he discovered a large bump on his head. His fingers also encountered something wet and sticky, and pulling his hand down to examine it, he saw blood.

  That was it. That explained why he couldn’t remember anything. He had sustained a major blow to the head and was probably experiencing trauma-induced amnesia.

  “Funny,” he said aloud. “I can come up with the term trauma-induced amnesia, but I can’t come up with my own name or why the hell I am here.” He looked around at the mountains, lake, and forest. “Wherever the hell here might be,” he concluded.

  Wherever this place was, it was certainly a beautiful area. Maybe he was here on a vacation, a camping or fishing trip. For the moment, though, where he was wasn’t as important to him as who he was. Why couldn’t he remember?

  The pilot had called him Ben. Ben what? Ben Franklin? Ben Cartright? Uncle Ben? Benji?

  In frustration, he shouted at the top of his voice. “Who the hell am I? Ben who?”

  “Ben who?

  “Ben who?” he shouted again.

  “Ben who?” the echo returned.

  Cletus Doyle, Miner Cain, and Glen Burkett trekked through the woods, heading in the general direction where they had last seen the plane. The three men were wearing black uniforms with orange armbands. In the center of the orange armband was a white triangle, and in the center of the white triangle, a black skull. Had anyone examined their left wrists carefully, they would have seen reproductions of the skull and triangle. All three men were carrying automatic assault rifles.

  “Maybe the damn thing didn’t go down,” Cain said.

  “It went down,” Doyle insisted.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because when I shoot at something, I don’t miss,” Doyle said.