Escape from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Cain extricated himself from the plane, then, unzipping the bag, looked inside.

  “Bingo,” he said.

  “What is it?” Doyle asked.

  “Guns,” Cain answered, taking out a .45 Thompson machine gun and a TEK machine pistol. “A satellite phone, a GPS, and several packets of MREs. Also a thermal sheet.”

  “Ha!” Doyle said. “If he is still out there, we’ve got the son of a bitch just where we want him.”

  “What do you mean?” Burkett asked.

  “He’s wandering around without weapons, ears, or food. What was he wearing, did anyone notice?”

  “Just a long-sleeved bush shirt from what I could see,” Burkett replied.

  “Right,” Doyle answered. He held up the thermal sheet. “Without this, he’s going to get pretty cold tonight. You know, boys, this could be fun.”

  Fun? You know, Doyle, you have a strange idea of fun,” Cain said.

  “No, think about it. Haven’t you ever heard the story about the ultimate hunt? Where people pay money to hunt the wiliest game of all?”

  “What has that to do with this?” Burkett asked.

  “The wiliest game of all is a human being. Come on, let’s get back to headquarters. We’re going to organize a big-game hunt, and the game will be Mr. Ben Raines.”

  “Yeah, that might be fun at that,” Cain said. “Good idea.”

  “You know what would make it even more fun?” Burkett asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “If we put up a bounty for whoever brings him back, like, say, fifty thousand dollars.”

  “What if he is already dead?” Cain asked. “I mean, I still think we’ll find his body down on the valley floor.”

  “It doesn’t matter, dead or alive, we’ll pay them anyway,” Burkett said.

  “Hell, it doesn’t seem right to pay them if we’re the ones who killed him,” Cain protested.

  “No, Burkett is right,” Doyle said. “All we really care about is that he is dead. I don’t care whether we killed him or someone else does. The bottom line is, we want to go to the Gruppe Kommandant with the news that Ben Raines is dead. I think that is a good idea, Burkett. We’ll offer the reward.”

  “Think Tamara will go along with it?” Cain asked.

  “Fuck Tamara, we outnumber her,” Doyle said.

  “Fuck Tamara,” Burkett said. He laughed. “That’s a good one. I’ve been trying to do that ever since she joined the group.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not something that’s likely to happen,” Doyle said.

  Cain laughed. “You got that right.”

  “What about the airplane?” Burkett asked.

  “What about it?” Cain asked.

  “We going to just leave it here?”

  Doyle laughed. “Yeah, why, what did you have in mind? Flying it out of here?”

  “Not exactly,” Burkett said. “But I thought we might burn it.”

  “Yeah, Doyle, Burkett has a point. We should burn it,” Cain said.

  “Why?”

  “Just to keep Raines from using it in case he is alive.”

  Doyle thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah, that’ll take too much time and I want to get back to the headquarters. We’ve got his bag of goodies. I don’t see any way he could get this thing off the ground, even if he is alive. Come on, let’s go.”

  Doyle started back toward the woods with Cain and Burkett right behind him.

  SEVEN

  It was several hours before Ben allowed himself to return to the crash site, and even then he stayed at the edge of the trees for at least half an hour, studying the site very closely. He wanted to make certain that the three men who’d tried to kill him were gone. Not until he was absolutely convinced that the coast was clear did he venture out.

  Ben still had no idea who the men were or why they were trying to kill him, but he had learned a lesson from the experience. From now on, until he could figure out what was going on, he would be much more hesitant to show himself to anyone.

  Reaching the airplane, Ben started poking through the wreckage to find something he could use. A thorough search turned up nothing of value. There was no food, no water, no weapons, no means of communication.

  It didn’t seem logical that they would be flying over such remote country without some sort of survival kit, yet he could find nothing. That could only mean that the people who shot at him took whatever survival gear there might have been.

  Why did they take it? Did they need it for themselves, or did they take it to prevent him from surviving?

  Considering the two options, Ben decided it was the latter.

  All right, if there was no survival kit on the airplane, then what was there that he could use? He went back into the plane for a second look, this time broadening his search parameters. He would take anything that might be even remotely useful.

  Ben found a toolbox.

  “Jackpot!” he said happily. Opening the toolbox, he took inventory of what it offered:

  Pliers, diagonal, side-cutters.

  Set of socket wrenches, with driver.

  Common screwdriver.

  Cross-point screwdriver.

  Tin snips.

  Ball-peen hammer.

  Spool of safety wire, .032.

  Pocket knife.

  File.

  Cigarette lighter.

  Ben tried the cigarette lighter, and was gratified to see that it worked. “Well, now, bad guys, whoever you are,” Ben said aloud, “it would appear that you didn’t leave ole Ben in quite as desperate straits as you might have wanted.”

  Going back onto the flight deck, he found the charts and the log. According to the log, they had taken off From Port Hardy, British Columbia, at 0700 this morning. The clock on the instrument panel was smashed at 0830. An hour and a half. Figuring that this airplane had a normal cruising speed of about 250 miles per hour, that would mean they had come about 375 miles.

  Using the edge of the logbook for a rule, Ben made an arc of 375 miles from Port Hardy. Then, comparing the topography of where he was with the topographical symbols on the chart, he decided that he must be somewhere in the Maligne Mountains. That would make the nearby lake Maligne Lake, and the rapidly running stream nearby would be the Athabaska River.

  He smiled. He no longer had to ask where he was. Thanks to a little deductive reasoning, he knew where he was. The only questions he needed to ask now were: Who was he, and why was he here?

  He figured it wasn’t necessary to ask why those men were trying to kill him. If he knew the answer to those two questions, he was pretty sure he would know that as well.

  The charts and the flight log were kept in a clear plastic container that could be completely closed with a zipper. That, in turn, was in a canvas pouch that hung from the back of the pilot’s seat.

  Ben folded the chart and stuck it into his pocket. He would need it to navigate his way out of here. He discarded the logbook, but he kept the pages, tearing them out and stuffing them into the little canvas pouch. Then, finding a way to tie the pouch around his waist, he removed the tools from the toolbox and put them in the pouch as well, thus making it much easier for him to carry them. Next, he removed the magnetic compass from the instrument panel. The chart showed the magnetic declination here to be 18 degrees east. Knowing the declination would enable him to use the compass to navigate his way through the forest.

  Finally, he took the plastic bag outside and crawling up under the wing, reached up to the spring-loaded drain plug. He drained fuel from the tank, filling the clear plastic bag. He had no idea why he might need gasoline, but it seemed prudent to take some. He put the bag full of gasoline into the pouch.

  Now it was time to arm himself. Returning to the airplane, he used the tools to take out one of the long stringers. He cut it to the size he needed with the tin snips and diagonal side-cutters, then with the file, put a sharp point on the end. Using the duct tape, he fashioned a handle, and soon was armed with a crude but
wicked and quite effective sword.

  Finally, he took some sections of control cable, removed a bell crank, and extracted the spring from the battery box cover. With his improvised survival gear packed away, he paused to pay a moment of respect to the men who had flown him here, then started his trek through the woods.

  Base Camp One, Louisiana

  Mike Post lifted the yellow “Do Not Cross” police-line tape and stepped under it. He picked his way through the rubble of the badly damaged Ben Raines Middle School.

  “Sir, you can’t come in here. This is the site of a police investigation,” a young policeman said, calling out to Mike.

  “It’s all right, Simmons. Can’t you see who that is?” Police Chief Rick Adams said. “That’s Mike Post. He is cleared for top-level access anywhere he wants to go.” Adams had been looking at information on a clipboard, and he handed it to one of the other officers, then hurried over to meet Mike.

  The young policeman who had challenged Mike came to attention and saluted. “I’m sorry, Mr. Post,” he apologized. “I didn’t recognize you at first. I guess I just didn’t expect anyone as high up as you are to come down here.”

  “That’s all right,” Mike replied, returning the young officer’s salute. “You were correct in challenging me. How is the investigation going, Chief Adams?” he added as Adams arrived.

  “Grim,” Adams said. “We found the three missing children. They were under the back wall.”

  “Dead?”

  Adams nodded. “All three of them.”

  “So that makes the total, what? Sixty-four?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those sons of bitches,” Mike said.

  “Oh, we found the truck VIN,” Adams said.

  “Have you run an ID on it?”

  “Yes, sir. It belonged to Moving Ventures Rental Company. We are checking now to see who rented it.”

  “It was rented by an organization called Die Kontrollgruppe,” Mike replied.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because this was a Die Kontrollgruppe operation,” Mike said.

  Adams shook his head. “Surely you aren’t basing your suspicion entirely upon the testimony of a frightened bank teller? All because she thinks she saw a tattoo? A tattoo that nobody else could confirm, I might add.”

  By now, Mike had a lot more evidence than the tattoo, but it wasn’t anything he was ready to share with anyone outside his immediate organization. “I have a hunch that she was right,” he said.

  Chief Adams shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Post, but as a professional law enforcement officer, I don’t have the luxury of operating on hunches,” he said. “And if you will pardon me for saying so, I think this investigation would better be left to professionals.”

  “Do you now?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, I do. I know that you have an interest in the outcome, and I will keep you posted. But this is a police matter, after all, not a matter for the national defense. We haven’t been invaded by a foreign army.”

  “The bombing of this school was an act of terror,” Mike said. “That involves us all.”

  “Your position in government is higher than mine, so of course I have no authority to demand that you to step aside and let me do my work,” Adams said. “But I do think our country would be better served if you left this whole thing in my hands.”

  Mike had run across men like Rick Adams before, officious martinets who were overly protective of their own turf. He let the subject drop.

  “They sure did a job here, didn’t they?” Mike asked, looking around the wrecked cafeteria. He saw a school math paper on the floor. There was a happy face drawn on top of the paper, along with the words Good work, Sam!

  “Yeah, it’s a shame,” Adams said. He was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. “Pardon me,” he said, holding up a finger. He flipped open the phone. “This is Chief Adams.”

  As Adams talked, Mike walked through the wreckage of the cafeteria. Most of the damage was toward the rear of the large dining room. The entire kitchen had been taken out by the blast, and every cook, server, and dishwasher had been killed, as well as one of the teachers and all of the children who were seated nearest the kitchen or standing in the serving line. The damage continued on at diminished levels until it reached the front of the cafeteria. Amazingly, a portion of the front of the dining room was untouched, and the tables looked as if the children had just gotten up and left their trays behind them. Mike could see what they had had for lunch, and felt a sense of sadness at realizing this was the last meal the dedicated kitchen staff had prepared: meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, apple sauce, and rolls.

  Mike smiled, a bittersweet smile, as he noticed that, on virtually every tray, the broccoli was left uneaten.

  On an undamaged wall of the cafeteria, in raised letters, were these words:

  For some time I have had this theory that we should start from scratch. Gather up a group of people who are color-blind and as free from hate and prejudice as possible and say: All right, folks, here it is.

  Ben Raines

  Many institutions, groups, and civil and social organizations had wanted to honor Ben Raines by naming things after him, from post offices to buildings to streets. There was now a movement to name Base Camp One, their capital, Raines City, and though the general had squelched every attempt so far, Mike knew that, this time, it was going to go through, with or without Ben’s approval. The airport was already named for him, as was this school. And the only reason Ben had let both the airport and the school be named for him was that they had been done deals by the time he found out about them.

  “You shouldn’t have anything named after you until you are dead and buried,” Ben had told his chief of staff.

  “Ha,” Mike had answered. “What makes you think you are going to be buried? You aren’t going to be buried, you are going to become a national icon.”

  “Good Lord! You don’t mean like the Communists did with Lenin?” Ben had replied.

  “No, not like that. They’ll probably just dip your carcass in a vat of molten bronze, then stand you up on a pedestal somewhere.”

  Ben had laughed, but he had allowed the airport and school to be named for him, and Mike knew that, secretly, he even enjoyed the idea of a school bearing his name. It was no wonder that he had taken the bombing so hard that he’d insisted on conducting a one-man hunt to bring justice to the perpetrators.

  “Mr. Post?” Captain Adams said, coming toward him.

  Mike looked around. “Yes?”

  Adams smiled smugly. “That phone call was from headquarters. They traced the rental of the truck to a man named Wayne Howard.”

  “You don’t think it is possible that Wayne Howard is a phony name?”

  “It could be phony,” Adams admitted. “Also, for your information, we are still investigating the possibility that Die Kontrollgruppe had something to do with it. We are trying to find out where they are located. As you know, they are a very secret organization with exceptionally good security.”

  “Their largest cell is in Northwest Canada,” Mike said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “We have our sources. They are somewhere in Alberta.”

  “Alberta. I see,” the chief replied. “All right, good, we’ll have to get permission from the—”

  “Not necessary,” Mike interrupted. “General Raines is already taking care of things.”

  “Oh, good,” Captain Adams replied. “With General Raines getting personally involved with the warrant and extradition, that should speed things along.”

  Mike shook his head. “No warrant, no extradition,” he said.

  “If there is no warrant and no extradition, how do you intend to get them back here for trial? Assuming that they are involved.”

  “No trial,” Mike replied ominously.

  Captain Adams looked confused. “I thought you said the general was taking care of things.”

  “He is taking
care of things.”

  “I don’t understand. How?”

  Mike packed down the tobacco in his pipe, then lit it and stared pointedly at Adams before he answered the chief’s questions. “By . . . taking care of things,” he said slowly and deliberately.

  EIGHT

  Alberta

  At one time the sprawling, three-story log-built building on the banks of the Athabaska River had been Tredway House, a resort hotel. It still had that resort look and feel about it. It was completely encircled by wide porches and fronted by a landscaped lawn and curving driveway. The driveway curved around a circle of white stones at the center of which was a flagpole. At the top of the flagpole, an orange flag fluttered in the breeze. In the center of the orange flag was a white triangle, and in the center of the triangle, a black skull.

  Inside on the ground floor, a wide, open area was dominated by a huge, stone fireplace that rose from one end of the room. During the building’s halcyon days as a hotel, the fireplace and adjacent bar had been a favorite gathering area for the guests. It was still a gathering place, though the men and women who were here now weren’t hotel guests. Today the population of what was once Tredway House was made up of soldiers who belonged to Die Kontrollgruppe. At least 220 of them had permanent quarters in the building.

  As a result of the several revolutions in the recent past, dozens of quasi-military organizations had been formed on the North American continent, further dividing the people who’d once called themselves Americans and Canadians.

  Most of the recently formed organizations were built around some societal goal, running the gamut from extreme right-wing militant conservatives to those extreme left-wing organizations who still insisted that Communism had never really been given a chance.

  Die Kontrollgruppe didn’t fit into either of those categories, for it made no claim to improving society. In fact, there were within Die Kontrollgruppe men and women of both political extremes. What Die Kontrollgruppe really stood for, and what united its diverse members, was the simple premise of money.