Out of the Ashes

The zero squads.

TEN

Senators Richards, Goode, Carey, and Williams were having a drink before their usual Thursday-night poker game in Richmond. They would never get around to playing poker, and it would be their last drink before death took them behind her misty curtain of sunless eternity. They all felt safe, knowing that three secret service agents were guarding them. The agents were there, but they were very dead, cut down by silenced .22 automatics.

Williams jerked up his head, the fresh drink in his hand forgotten. “Did any of you hear anything?”

Carey laughed. “Relax, Jimmy. You don't really believe in those so-called zero squads, do you?”

Sen. Jimmy Williams ran nervous fingers through thinning hair. He did not reply. Outside, a late-summer storm was building; heat lightning danced erratically and thunder rumbled across the sky, almost an ominous warning in cadence.

Senator Goode leaned forward. “Jimmy, it's been over three months since the Tri-states’ defeat. Ben Raines is dead. Eyewitnesses have reported it. If anything was going to happen, don't you believe it would have occurred by now?”

“No.” Williams spoke. “I don't. We allowed the women and kids to be killed—slaughtered like animals. Just like we did the Indians. They're going to get us. We're dead men and don't even know it.”

Senator Richards looked up into the gloom of the darkened hallway. “Oh, no!” he shouted. “Oh, my God!”

The senators looked first at their colleague, then into the faces of hate and revenge and death. Standing in the hallway stood two men and a woman. They held silenced automatics in their hands.

Goode fell forward on his knees and began to pray. A self-professed “good Christian man,” Goode had been the first to vote for war against the Tri-states.

Carey's face turned shiny from sweat and a trickle of spit oozed from a corner of his mouth. He began to rub his hands together and lick at his lips.

Richards dropped his drink on the carpeted floor. His eyes were wide and he urinated in his shorts.

Only Williams remained calm. “I knew you people would come,” he said. “I told them to leave you alone. I was against fighting you.”

“We know.” The woman spoke. “And because of that, you'll live. And the Tri-states will live again, too. Remember that.”

“Yes. Yes, I will.” Williams bobbed his head up and down.

The automatics began to hum their dirges. Richards, Goode, and Carey jerked onto the floor and died. The assassination team left as quickly and quietly as they had arrived. They had a lot of work ahead of them.

Williams sat for a long time, looking at the cooling bodies of his friends. His eyes grew wild and he soiled himself. The telephone rang and he ignored it. He began to giggle, childlike. The giggling changed to laughter and he howled his madness as blood vessels burst in his head. He fell to his knees on the floor and cried and prayed. A massive pain grew out of his chest—a huge, heavy, crushing weight. He screamed, his heart stopping its beating. He died.

General Russell called for more coffee. He was working late in his office. A sergeant brought him a fresh pot, poured a cup, and opened a packet of sugar, stirring it in.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes,” Russell said. “You may leave.” He tasted his coffee, added more sugar, and took another sip. He would be found the next morning, dead, his system full of poison.

Dallas Valentine and the first lady, Fran Logan, lay moaning and thrashing on the bed, both of them reaching for the final pinnacle of climax. Neither of them heard the door swing open. They were enjoying mutual climax as the Rebel with the silenced submachine gun sprayed them with .45-caliber slugs, turning the silk sheets red with blood.

The Rev. Palmer Falcreek answered his telephone. A voice said, “Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.”

“What the hell did you say?” Falcreek said.

“I said"—the voice rang in Falcreek's ear—"open the drawer in the middle right of your desk, you semi-sanctimonious mother-fucker!”

“How dare you speak to me like that!” Falcreek raged. He jerked open the desk drawer and half the house blew apart as the heavy charge was detonated.

Senator Higley worked late in his office. The storm didn't worry him and neither did the myth of the zero squads. He left his office at nine-thirty. Halfway down the steps of the Senate office building he sat down abruptly, twitched once, then slowly rolled down the steps, the hole between his eyes leaking blood and gray matter.

Senator Pough stepped out of his porch for a breath of cool night air. He heard a thump and looked down. Between his feet, on the porch, lay a hissing white phosphorus grenade. Pough had only a few seconds to feel panic, attempt to run, and scream just once before the grenade exploded and seared him to the house.