Ashes - Destiny In The Ashes Part 15

"Then we either have no mole, or he's got bigger b.a.l.l.s than I do," Ben said.

Finally, the general agreed to the plan, and all of the senior officers, the only ones who would be in a position to give out the information that was leaked, were called into G.o.d-dard's office.

"Gentlemen," he said, "we have discovered there is a mole in our senior staff."

After the excited buzzing from the a.s.sembled men died down, he held up his hand. "There is only one sure way to deal with this problem in order to keep any more of our troops from being lost due to compromised battle plans. To- 145.

145.

morrow, at 0700, General Raines here and his men, who are experts at psychological warfare, will take each of the senior staff and do interrogations under chemical guidance."

"What do you mean, chemical guidance?" a man with a name tag on his chest that identified him as Major Benson asked.

"We'll start with sodium Pentothal," Ben said, "and proceed with stronger and stronger drugs until we get a confession."

"Max . . . General G.o.ddard," Benson said, "I really must protest this a.s.sault on our loyalty."

"Protest all you want, George," G.o.ddard said, his face firm. "We lost over a hundred of our best-trained Rangers the other night because someone in this room is a traitor, and I don't intend to rest until we find out who was responsible."

When Benson opened his mouth again, G.o.ddard held up his hand. "We know that under certain circ.u.mstances," G.o.ddard said, glancing at Ben, "theremight be good reasons for the traitor to have done what he did. If that is the case, and he admits to his wrongdoing prior to the interrogation tomorrow morning, we might be inclined to grant him some leniency. But if we have to find out through drugs, he will be summarily court-martialed and shot before the day is over."

A couple of the other men registered some mild disapproval, until Ben stepped forward.

"If any of you men who think we are acting unwisely have any better ideas to ferret out the mole, speak up," he asked, looking around at the group.

When he got no answer, he added, "So, I feel the loss of some of your dignity is worth the saving of hundreds of Rangers' lives, don't you?"

he challenged.

Most of the men nodded slowly, while others just dropped their eyes.

146.

William W. Johnstone "So, we go with the interrogation in the morning. I'll see you then,"

Ben said, a hint of warning in his voice.

After the men filed out, G.o.ddard shook his head. "d.a.m.n, I hated to do that," he said.

"Was it harder than writing all those letters to the families of the men the traitor killed?" Ben asked gently, knowing that of all of his duties that one was the most painful for him.

G.o.ddard stared back at him. "No, when you put it that way, I guess it wasn't."

147.

Because they were unknown to the senior officers of General G.o.ddard's staff, Ben a.s.signed members of his team to shadow the officers when they left the base after the announcement of the upcoming drug interrogations scheduled for the next morning.

Jersey was a.s.signed to follow Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Madison, the a.s.sistant to G.o.ddard's Chief of Intel, while Coop, Beth, Anna, Harley, and Reno shadowed the other members of the senior staff.

G.o.ddard went along with the exercise, but he didn't have high hopes of its success.

Colonel Madison left the base at five-thirty in the afternoon and headed south toward his home in the Oak Hills subdivision. Jersey had a copy of his personnel file, and knew where he lived and that he had a forty-four-year-old wife and two children, a fifteen-year-old son and a thirteen-year-old daughter, both of whom lived at home with their parents.

Jersey, driving a nondescript staff car, had no trouble keeping the colonel in sight, though traffic was light because of the strict rationing of gasoline in the United States since the last war.He drove at a normal rate of speed, and made no unscheduled stops along the way. Jersey was disappointed. The man 148.

was acting perfectly normal, and she'd been hoping for some action to come her way.

When he pulled into the driveway of a ranch-style house on a residential street, she parked several houses down around a corner in front of an empty lot so her car would be out of sight of the house, just in case anyone was watching.

Madison hadn't acted suspiciously on the trip home, though she thought he drove rather slowly for someone heading home to his family. Perhaps he wasn't in any hurry to get there for some unknown reason, she thought.

Jersey hunkered down in the car so she wouldn't be visible from the street and cause the local residents any worries, and waited for darkness to fall.

While waiting, she glanced around, wondering if the residents of such a white-bread sort of neighborhood had any idea of the momentous struggle going on for control of their country. Probably not, she figured, or they'd be up in arms at the idea of some Arabs from halfway around the world possibly being the next leaders of their destiny.

As soon as it was full dark, she got out of the car, checked her Beretta to make sure it was loaded and a sh.e.l.l was chambered so all she'd have to do to fire was to pull the trigger. She stuck the pistol in the waistband of her black jeans and let the tail of her s.h.i.+rt fall to cover the b.u.t.t so it wouldn't be too obvious to anyone she might meet on the street.

She walked casually down the sidewalk, letting her eyes roam from side to side to make sure no one was paying her any mind, until she came abreast of Madison's house.

It was set back about twenty yards from the street, with a series of low bushes fronting the house and extending around the side of the yard.

She slowed and stretched and yawned, using the movement to cover her checking to see if she was observed. When she saw no one, she crouched and ran silently up to the corner of the house, and squeezed in among the bushes next to a side window.

149.

149.

Moving very slowly, she cautiously raised her head until her eyes were just above the windowsill. Blinds were drawn, but there was a gap of about an inch she could see through.

Jersey's breath caught in her chest at what she saw in the living room of the house.

Madison, his wife, and two children were sitting in a row on the couch, with three men standing before them across a coffee table. The teenage girl had tears in her eyes, and the boy was staring sullenly at the men,a look of hatred and fear on his face.

Madison seemed to be arguing with one of the men, speaking earnestly, waving his hands as if he were desperately trying to convince the man of something.

As Jersey studied the men, she noticed the b.u.t.t of an automatic pistol sticking out of the belt of one of them, while the other two wore shoulder holsters with pistols in them. She felt sure she'd found the mole.

Jersey eased back out of the bushes and made her way around the house, looking in each of the windows, trying to get a mental picture of the way the house was laid out. She needed to decide whether to intervene on her own or to call for backup.

She thought about it for a moment, wondering if backup could be arranged silently enough not to alert the men in the house. Better not to risk it, she thought, or the entire family might be killed.

As she squatted out of sight near an oleander bush, a small sedan pulled down the street and stopped three houses down from the Madisons'. It had a Domino's Pizza sign attached to the roof, and a young man got out, carrying a large square box.

Before he could get to the front door, of the house three houses down, Jersey sprinted down the sidewalk and called softly to him, "Hey, you."

He stopped and turned around, a quizzical expression on his face.

150.

"Come here a minute," Jersey said, keeping her voice soft so as not to alarm the young man.

"Whatta you want?" he asked suspiciously.

"You want to make twenty bucks?" Jersey asked.

The boy thought about it for a moment, looked around to make sure no one else was with Jersey, and then walked back up to her.

"Sure," he said, his eyes roaming over Jersey's body and his voice becoming a bit more c.o.c.ky.

Jersey pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket and held it out in front of the boy.

"Let me borrow that pizza and your hat and car for five minutes," she said.

"What?" he asked, his eyes widening at the craziness of her request.

Jersey smiled her most seductive smile. "I want to play a trick on my boyfriend," she said in a conspiratorial tone of voice. She turned and pointed at the Madisons' house just down the street. "He lives right there, and I want to go up to the door carrying a pizza and give him a surprise."

"But . . . what about these people who ordered this pizza?" the boy asked. "If they complain I could get fired.""It'll only take a minute, then you can have the pizza back," Jersey said, moving a little closer to the teenager. "And I'd be ever so grateful," she added, raising a hand and patting his cheek.

"Uh ... I guess it'd be okay. But you got to hurry so the pizza don't get cold."

He handed her the pizza and she gave him the twenty dollars. She reached up, took the paper hat with the Domino's insignia on it off his head, and placed it on her head.

"Wait right here and I'll be right back," she purred, and he grinned.

"All right."

She got in his car, made a U-turn, and drove the three houses down the street to the Madisons' house.

151.

151.

Getting out, she opened the pizza box, put her Beretta on top of the pizza, and laid her K-Bar a.s.sault knife next to it.

She took a deep breath and walked up the sidewalk to the front door.

Reaching up, she unscrewed the lightbulb in the porch light, and then she rang the bell.

When she'd checked out the house through the windows, she'd noticed the front door opened onto an alcove that couldn't be seen from the living room. With any luck, she'd be able to get one of the men there, and then take out the other two before they became suspicious.

The front door opened a crack and Colonel Madison stuck his face out.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" he asked, looking over her shoulder at the pizza delivery car parked in front of his house at the curb.

"I have a pizza delivery," Jersey said in a bored tone of voice.

"We didn't order any pizza," Madison said in an aggravated voice.

"Look, mister," Jersey said, letting a little anger into her voice, "all I know is I was told to bring this pizza to this address."

"What's going on here?" one of the men from the living room asked, stepping into the doorway and shouldering Madison aside.

Jersey noticed he had his hand over the b.u.t.t of the pistol in his belt.

"Nothing's goin' on, I'm just tryin' to deliver this pizza," Jersey drawled in her best imitation of a Midwestern accent.

The man glanced at Madison suspiciously, and then back at Jersey. "What address were you looking for?" he asked, taking charge of the conversation.

Jersey made a show of trying to read the receipt on the front of the pizza box in the darkness. "Uh... I don't know, I can't read it in the dark. Could you turn on the porch light?" she asked, trying her best to look helpless.152 The man reached up next to the door and flipped the switch several times, to no avail.

A voice called from inside the house. "Hey, Bud, what's going on out there?"

The man looked back over his shoulder. "Nothin', we just got a lost delivery girl. I'll take care of it."

He turned back to Jersey and stepped back into the alcove. "The porch light's out. Come on in here where you can read the address."

"Gee, thanks, mister," Jersey said, and stepped into the doorway.

As she moved past him, she slipped the box open, grabbed her K-Bar, and as she turned around she buried it in his throat.

His eyes popped open and he reached up to his neck, but the blade had severed his vocal cords so he couldn't cry out.

In one fluid motion, Jersey shoved Madison, who was standing there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide, aside and pulled the Beretta out of the box as she dropped the box on the floor.

Three quick steps and she was in the living room, her arms outstretched before her, the Beretta held in both hands moving back and forth, covering both of the men in front of her.

"Don't make a move!" she growled at the two men standing there. When they saw her, and the gun she was pointing at them, they both took an involuntary step back and squared around to face her head-on.

They stared at Jersey for a moment, and then looked back at each other.

Finally, both men made the fatal mistake of grabbing for the pistols in their shoulder holsters, one of them diving to the side as he drew his gun.

Jersey didn't hesitate for a second. She squeezed off four quick rounds, two to the chest of each of the men, driving them backward to land spread-eagled on their backs, their eyes still wide open but staring at nothing as scarlet blood 153.

153.

pumped out onto the Madisons' beige carpet, turning it an ugly shade of brown.

The acrid smell of cordite hung in the room as Jersey whirled and covered Madison with her pistol, just in case he wanted to get involved.

She still wasn't sure of just how committed he was to the Osterman program. He wasn't even looking at her; he was staring at the couch where his wife and children were sitting.

At the sight of the two men being killed, the girl and her mother both screamed and threw their arms around each other, while the teenage boy dove to the floor, covering his head with his hands.Madison, after a quick look at Jersey, ran to their sides and put his arms around their shoulders, hugging them tight to him.

Jersey, seeing he would be no problem, ran back to the front door to check on the man she'd stabbed. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his legs outstretched in front of him, as dead as yesterday's news.

As Jersey pulled her K-Bar from his throat and wiped it on his s.h.i.+rt, the pizza boy burst into the doorway.