beating the men to death with nightsticks. They had other plans for the women,” she said grimly. “One girl kept screaming: ‘Help me—help me. God, it hurts!’ Over and over. I don’t have to tell you what the men were doing to her. It was a pretty grim scene.
“They… tortured some of the women right in the room under us. I kept thinking: this is not happening. This is America. This can’t be happening. Bullshit. It was happening, all right.
“And they were taking pictures of it, still shots and rolling action. Some of the men were laughing and saying how much fun it was going to be to compare this to some of the other films other guys had taken. Jesus Christ. Did the Nazis do things like that? I’m sure they did.
“All we could do was lie as still as possible and pray—if there is a God,” she added bitterly. “And I don’t know anymore.
“It seemed like it went on for hours. Hell, it did go on for hours! Then we heard the men leave. We waited for an hour before we slipped down into the… carnage. It was unbelievable—what had been done to the people. It was something you’d see in some sort of… sex perversion movie. Really. I’m not going to get into that. But these guys—Hartline’s men and some of these agents—they must be crazy; all twisted inside. I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“The next day, some trucks came to get us. We all took different routes getting here. I was in the small convoy that wasn’t ambushed. I don’t know if I could have taken that; I was pretty shaky. We got here that night.”
She lapsed into a silence that was loud. Just when it seemed she would not speak of the horror again, she added, “That’s when I got involved. That’s when I got involved.”
No one had anything to add to that.
SEVEN
“This is it?” President Addison asked, looking around him at the handful of men and women gathered at the presidential retreat. “This is all?”
“I’m afraid so, Aston,” Senator Carson said glumly. “All that I know for certain we can trust, that is.”
Fourteen men and five women making up the group of twelve representatives and seven senators.
“It’s worse than I thought,” the president said, his voice no more than a shocked whisper. “I was sure Matt would be among the group.”
“They got to Matt,” Representative Jean Purcell said.
“They?” Aston questioned.
“Cody and Hartline,” Senator Stayton said. “We didn’t learn of this until just a week or so ago, Aston. We just could not understand how responsible men and women could change overnight. Oh, we knew many of our colleagues were the wrong people for the job, but their people elected them… nothing we could do about that. But we thought we had enough votes to keep you in power. Then we started polling. Quite a surprise.”
“Yes,” Representative Linda Benning spoke. “More like a shock to us. Then we found out why. To make it brief, Mr. President, Matt was set up… a young girl, a
“How old was the girl?” Aston asked.
Linda cleared her throat. “Ah… eleven.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“A very mature eleven,” she added.
“The others?” Aston asked.
“More or less the same tactics; some got rougher than others. Senator Borne’s wife was raped right in front of him—in their living room!” Senator Milton said. He wiped sweat from his forehead with a large handkerchief and said, “His daughters would have been next had he not agreed to go along with Lowry.” The man sighed. “This is movie stuff, right out of Hollywood. Or, when Hollywood existed, that is. It just doesn’t happen in real life. That’s what we all thought. Larry Barwell came to me last week, after I confronted him outside the chambers and called him a traitor. He came to my house, crying. They…”
“Goddamnit!” Aston snapped at the man. “Stop using they. Who the hell is
Anguish shone in Milton’s eyes. “Cody’s men. Hartline’s men. Lowry’s agents. God, Aston, we’re trying.”
“I’m sorry, Frank,” Aston patted the man’s arm. “I really am. I didn’t mean to snap. Go on.”
“They… those men—they threatened to, this is embarrassing… sexually abuse Larry if he didn’t cooperate. You know what I mean, Aston.”
The president sat down in a chair, his face was almost gray. “I get the picture. How did you people withstand the pressure?”
“I guess Lowry’s men just didn’t need us. They had enough votes to do things their way without us,” Representative Essex replied. “I’m glad they didn’t get to us. I’ll be honest with you, Aston: I don’t know what I would have done.”
Aston shook his head. “I can’t blame any of the men and women for doing what they did—under that kind of pressure. Well, at least you all have cleared up some matters this afternoon.”
“Aston,” Senator Poulson leaned forward. “Let’s take it to the military, lay it on the line for them. Ask them to move in and forcibly toss Lowry and his people out.”
Aston shook his head. “I thought of that. I even called in the Joint Chiefs and approached them with it. They laid it out for me. And the figures were disturbing. You all know how small our military is. Combining all the services, Cody’s FBI, Hartline’s mercenaries,
“And that is,” Senator Henson asked.
“Ben Raines,” the president reluctantly replied.
“Ben,” Ike walked up to him, smiling. “I think we got a break in this.”
“It’s about time. Put it on me, pal.”
Both men winced at Ben’s use of the noun. Ike sighed. “Yeah, Ben—he was a friend of mine, too.”
Ben and Juno were in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. Ben had relaxed by fishing in the late afternoon sun, catching more fish than he could possibly use, but having so much fun he was hesitant to quit. He had cleaned them and was about to cook them on his portable Coleman stove when Juno growled low in his chest.
“We’re friendly.” The voice came out of the brush. “I have some children with me.”
“Come on in,” Ben said, keeping one hand on the butt of his pistol.
A black man and woman with several kids in tow walked up to the cabin porch. The man stuck out his hand. “Pal Elliot.” He smiled his introduction. “This is Valerie. And these,” he pointed to the kids, “in order, starting with the oldest, are Bruce, Linda, Sue, and Paul.”
Two blacks, one Oriental, one Indian.
Ben shook the offered hands and smiled at the kids. “Ben Raines.” He sat down on the porch and motioned for the others to do the same. “You folks live around here?”
Pal smiled. “No, just passing through. Like a lot of other people. I was an airline pilot, based in L.A. Valerie was a model in New York City. We met about seven months ago, I think it was.”
“Six months ago,” she corrected him with a smile. “We picked up the kids along the way. Found them wandering.”
“No children of your own?” Ben asked.
“No. But he did.” She looked at Pal. “Lost his whole family. You?”
Ben shook his head. “I was—am—a bachelor. Lost my brothers and sisters and parents.” He grimaced in the fading light.
“Memories still painful?” Pal asked.
