Anarchy in the Ashes (16 page)

She was dead.

Hartline's eyes were cold and savage-looking. The smile hadn't left his lips. “Before I'm through with you, sweetmeat, you'll be begging me to go ahead and kill you.”

Peggy rose to her full height. She spat in Hartline's face. “I'll never beg to you, you son of a bitch.”

“Oh, I think you will, pretty thing. I really think you will.”

 

 

Two years before, Sam Hartline and his men, backed by FBI agents with warrants charging several newspeople with treason for refusing to cooperate with the congressional mandate to submit all news copy for review and censorship before airing, entered the Richmond offices of NBC. This was to be the test network.

Hartline, carrying an M-10 SMG, shoved the elderly security guard away from the doors, knocking the man sprawling, and marched into the executive offices. Hartline jerked one startled VP of programming to his feet and hit him in the mouth with a leather-gloved right fist. The man slammed against a chair and fell stunned to the floor.

A news commentator rushed into the room. “Here now,” he shouted. “You can't do that.”

One of Hartline's men socked the man with the butt of his AK. The man's jaw popped like a firecracker. He was unconscious before he hit the carpet, blood pouring from the sudden gaps in his teeth.

“Where is the bureau chief?” Hartline said. “Or whatever you call the boss. Get him in here, pronto.”

A badly shaken young secretary stammered, “It isn't a him – it's a her. Ms. Olivier.”

“Well, now.” Hartline smiled. “That's even better. Get her for me, will you, darling?”

Before the secretary could turn, a voice, calm and controlled, spoke from the hall. “What is the meaning of this?”

Hartline lifted his eyes, meeting the furious gaze of Sabra Olivier. He let his eyes drift over her, from her eyes to her ankles and back up again. She felt as if she had been violated. “You're kind of a young cunt to be in charge of all this, aren't you, honey?” he asked.

“Get out!” Sabra ordered.

The words had just left her mouth when Hartline's open palm popped against her jaw, staggering her. She stumbled against the door frame, grabbing at the doorknob for support.

“Dear,” Hartline said,
“you
do not order
me
about.
I
will tell
you
what I want, then you will see to it that my orders are carried out. Is that clear?”

“You're Sam Hartline,” Sabra said, straightening up, meeting him squarely, no backup in her. “Vice President Lowry's pet dog.”

Hartline never lost his cold smile. He faced the woman, again taking in her physical charms: black hair, carefully streaked with gray; dark olive complexion; black eyes, now shimmering with anger; nice figure; long legs.

Sabra turned to a man. “Call the police,” she told him.

Hartline laughed at her. “Honey, we
are
the police.” Sabra paled slightly.

The man on the floor groaned, trying to sit up, one hand holding his broken and swelling jaw.

“Get him out of here,” Hartline ordered. “Toss him in the lobby and have that old goat down there call for an ambulance to come get him.” He looked at Sabra. “We can do this easy or hard, lady, it's all up to you.”

“What do you want?”

“For you to cooperate with the government censorship order. And no more taking the Rebels' side in this insurrection.”

“No way I'll submit to censorship,” Sabra said.

“Then you want it hard,” Hartline said, the double meaning not lost on the woman, as he knew it would not be.

Her dark eyes murdered the mercenary a dozen times in a split-second. Her smile was as cold as his. “I never heard of anyone dying from it, Hartline.”

“Oh, I have, Sabra baby. I have.”

Hours later, Sabra Olivier's spirit shattered. “All right,” she said to Hartline. “Stop it – stop your men. I'll cooperate.”

The moaning and the screaming of her female employees had finally broken her reserve. As Hartline had known it would. And he had not touched Ms. Olivier – yet.

The students at the University of Virginia, after hearing of the takeover of the NBC offices and studios in Richmond, had marched in protest. But this was not the 1960s and '70s, with constitutional guarantees protecting civil disobedience. Now all police were federalized, and the FBI was nothing like that old and solid organization of the past.

The students were met with live ammunition and snarling dogs. Many were killed. Hundreds more were arrested, and in the process, beaten bloody. VP Lowry ordered the university closed.

Hartline smiled and nodded to a man standing by the door to the office. Within seconds, the screaming and sobbing ceased.

“You see.” Hartline smiled at her. “That wasn't so difficult, was it?”

If looks could kill.

Sabra watched, a curious look in her eyes, as a minicam was brought into her office, carried by an agent. She did not understand the smile on Hartline's lips.

Hartline pointed to a TV set behind her desk. “Turn it on,” he told her.

A naked man appeared on the screen. One of her anchormen. She knew with a sudden start this was live action, not taped. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I told you I'd cooperate.”

“Insurance, Sabra baby,” Hartline replied. He picked up a phone from her desk and punched a button. “Do it,” he ordered. He looked at Sabra. “Watch, darling.”

She swung reluctant eyes toward the screen. A cattle prod touched the man's naked buttocks. His scream chilled her. The prod touched his thigh, then his genitals.

“Stop it!” Sabra shouted.

The man screamed and ground his teeth in pain. Several teeth broke off, bloodying his mouth.

“Goddamn you, Hartline!” Sabra yelled. “Stop it.”

“You'll cooperate with us?”

“I said I would, Hartline.”

“Anything I say?”

“I have your son ready to perform for us. Would you like to see that?”

“God
damn
you!”

Hartline laughed. He spoke to the minicam operator. “Start rolling it.” He unzipped his pants. His flaccid penis hung out. “Come here, Sabra baby. This one is for VP Lowry. And if you ever fail to obey an order, if you ever let any copy air without government approval, this tape gets played – in its entirety – on the six o'clock news.”

“You goddamn low-life, miserable son of a bitch!” Sabra cursed him.

“Strip, baby. Take it all off while facing the camera. Let's give Lowry a really good show. That's it. Play with your puss a little bit. Good, good, now you're getting into the spirit of things.”

Naked and embarrassed and trembling with anger, Sabra faced the mercenary.

He hefted his penis. “In case you have it in mind to take a bite of me, Sabra baby, bear in mind your son is now bent over a table just down the hall. You get hinky with me, he gets gang-shagged. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Kneel down here, baby. On your pretty dimpled knees. You know what to do. You probably sucked cocks getting to where you are in the network anyway.”

She took him as the camera recorded it all.

Just as Hartline climaxed, the semen splattering the woman's face, Hartline laughed. “It's just so fucking easy when you know how. Just so fucking easy.”

 

 

The tiny hamlet of Vienna was deserted, completely void of any type of life, human or animal.

“Strange,” Ben muttered, conscious of Gale's eyes on his face. “I don't recall ever seeing anything like this.” He ordered scouts out to give the place a quick once-over.

Gale put her hand on Ben's thigh. “This place scares me,” she admitted.

Ben, as usual, kept his emotions in close check. At least outwardly. Inside, he felt a little shaky. This place was, he concluded, a place of death – but somehow much different from all the other towns he had seen.

A Rebel jogged toward the pickup, his words breaking into Ben's deep thoughts. “You gotta see this, General. It's unreal.”

Ben, with Gale in tow, followed the Rebel on foot to a weather-beaten old frame church. The church had once been painted white. Now the paint was almost gone, the wood rotting from years of abuse from the harsh elements of sun and wind and cold.

“The door is locked, sir. From the inside. I looked through the window around here at the side. But you both better brace yourselves for what you're about to see. It's tough, sir.”

The scene grabbed at Ben's guts. Fifty or so people – or the skeletons of what had once been people – filled the pews. Many of the ladies still had rags of what had been their Sunday hats perched on their white, bony skulls. About half of the worshippers still sat upright, grinning grotesquely and staring through sightless eyeholes at the bones of a man who sat in a chair directly behind the rotting pulpit. He would wait forever to deliver his Sunday sermon.

“Look at the watch on that guy's ... wrist,” the Rebel said, pointing to a nearby skeleton.

Ben rubbed at the dirty windowpane and stared. The watch was a LCD type and was still silently exhibiting the time in the House of the Lord, to pews full of bones.

“What happened, Ben?” Gale asked in no more than a whisper, almost breathlessly. “I mean, how could this be?”

“I can't answer that, honey,” Ben said, his eyes still fixed on the scene before him.

“I can,” Lamar Chase said.

“Jesus Christ!” the young Rebel blurted, jumping about a foot off the ground.

“Naturally, he can,” Ben said dryly, but with a grin.

Lamar glanced at the badly shaken young Rebel. “I warned you about keeping late hours, son. Bad on the nerves.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said, grinning, red-faced with embarrassment.

“It was airborne,” Lamar said. “At least some strains of it.”

“Airborne, Lamar?” Ben said. “The plague?”

“What the hell do you think I'm talking about?” the doctor said. “Gonorrhea? Yes, the plague. The only answer I can give is there must have been several strains of it. Very short-lived. What are you going to do with these . . . remains?”

“Leave them right where they are,” Ben told him. “I can't think of a better resting place than this, can you?”

“Yes,” Doctor Chase said with a sour grin. “Don't die.”

 

 

“Little sweetmeat,” Hartline said, stroking the unwilling flesh of Peggy. His touch made her skin crawl as if covered with thousands of lice. Somewhere in the old warehouse-turned-interrogation-center for the IPF, a human being was wailing in agony. Gender was not identifiable by the hoarse yowlings.

Hartline raised his head at the sounds, a smile on his handsome face.

“That would be Mr. Linderfelt, I should think,” he said. “Would you be at all interested in knowing what is being done to him, sweetmeat?”

“No. I'm sure it's horrible and perverted. What are you going to do with me, Hartline?”

“Oh my, sweetmeat, that does present a dilemma. Yes, it does. Quite a dilemma. You see, I just haven't made up my mind as yet. How about you calling the tune, dear.”

“Your humor is sick, Hartline. Just as sick as the rest of you.” She struggled against the leather straps that held her to the operating table. She was naked, her legs spread wide.

Hartline's right hand was busy between her legs, his middle finger working in and out.

He laughed at her struggles.

“Let me tell you what is being done with Mr. Linderfelt, dear.”

She screamed and fought against the straps. She struggled until her slender body was bathed in sweat, light bronze shining under the harsh lights that hung above her. Hartline stood and watched her, a smile on his lips. She finally ceased her futile writhings and glared up at the mercenary.

“You see, my dear Miss Jones,” he said, returning his hand to its busy work between her legs, “it was I who finally convinced General Striganov he was making a terrible mistake by sterilizing all the minorities, inferiors that you are. I said to Georgi, ‘Georgi, just think what we can do for the generations of scientists yet to come. What a contribution we could make in the field of genetics.' ”

A woman began screaming down the long hall in the sectioned-off warehouse. The woman was howling in pain and fright, begging to someone not to do this to her. To kill her. To please have mercy on her. That this was inhuman. She just could not . . .

Her scream changed in timbre, ending in a series of heavy, painful grunting sounds.

“Hartline . . .”

“Be quiet, dear. What is happening to ... whatever is that woman's name? It escapes me at the moment. No matter, as I was saying, it won't happen to you. You have already been – how to subtly say this – spayed like the dog-bitch you are.”

He threw back his head and howled out his laughter.

Something in the warehouse growled.

Peggy had heard that sound before. The realization of what was taking place in the experiment rooms struck her with all its savagery. “Hartline . . . you didn't! I mean, you can't be serious?”

“Oh, but we are serious, sweetmeat. Really. Look at it this way: We are making real contributions in the field of genetics. It is as I told Georgi: ‘Take the inferior races and start a program of breeding them to the beasts. Male mutant to female human inferior. Female to male human inferior.'