“Good. No, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I meant is that we can use that as a sympathy spin. Make sure a couple of the agents are depicted as black even if they weren’t. Do you know how those crazy bastards were captured?”
“No, but..”
“Never mind, make them out to be heroes regardless of how it actually happened. And be sure to tell the reporters that the geneticist who dreamed this whole thing up was not from the United States. Tell the press we think he was killed in South Africa along with the agents who had captured him. The reporters…”
“Damn it, Lurline, you keep talking about reporters! Why in hell do you want the press in on this? It’s bad enough that all the perpetuators except for that fucking deranged scientist were from America. Why tell the world?”
“Because you’re going to order their public execution, right after a quick and dirty drumhead trial by the army. The sooner the better. I’ll get someone from the legal office to draw up the executive orders governing trials under martial law. We left that out originally. There’s precedents, but best to nail it down tight.”
President Marshall rubbed his chin. The more he thought about the idea, the better he liked it. Trust Lurline to come up with a way to divert public attention from the real issue, at least long enough for the military to get the country under control. A thin, measured smile grew on his face.
“Okay, we’ll do it. How about tomorrow night, prime time, for the execution?”
Lurline considered. “That’ll be fine, but make sure the press gets a transcript of the trial. I’ll use McAllister for that. He used to be a script writer. And make damn certain the players cited in the transcript don’t talk.”
The president smiled again. “I’ll take care of that part of it. No need for you to get involved.”
Lurline didn’t want to know how the lawyers and military judges would be kept silent, but she knew it wouldn’t be hard. Everyone has skeletons in the closet. Besides, she knew that whoever the president used would see to it that the participants in the trial knew what would happen to them if they did break their secrecy oaths. Skeletons would be the least of their problems.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Doug ran his hand over the soft smoothness of June’s bare breast from where he was propped on one elbow, admiring the perfection of her body. It looked perfect to him, at least, from the disheveled locks of her wavy brown hair down to her slim legs and small feet. Fading bikini tan lines drew his attention to her firm breasts with their small pinkish brown nipples and the flare of her hips guarding the lightly trimmed triangle of curls at the junction of her thighs.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And that was a beautiful experience. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”
She reached up and caressed his cheek. “It was good, Doug, although I wouldn’t know much about first times. You’re only the second man I’ve ever been to bed with.” Her eyes reflected a merry cheerfulness.
“And I’ll confess, I was afraid God would strike me down dead for climbing into bed with any other man than Charlie.” She pulled his head down for a short but emphatic kiss.
Doug laughed. “I’m glad he didn’t.” He stretched back out and curled her into his arms. Her breasts pressed against his chest then flattened as he pulled her closer. Within a few moments he could hear her breaths becoming faster and heavier, desire making the sounds clearly audible.
June tugged at his shoulder and shifted her position, silently urging him to make love to her again. She wanted it even more than she had the first time, wanted it to be slower and more intimate than their first urgent coupling. The anticipation was compelling as he moved over her and planted little kisses on her lips and nose and ear. She moved again, lifting her hips, and felt their bodies come together, then gasped as he slipped deliciously inside her. She curled her arms around him and held him close as he began to move. Her body responded eagerly, in almost perfect tune with his. A rising tide of desire flooded her senses, making her want him to be even closer. She locked her legs around him and felt and heard her breath coming in short little bursts of sound, matching the slowly increasing pace of his thrusts. It seemed to go on and on, becoming wonderful and thrilling; a floating, all- enveloping sensation that captured so much of her mind and body that she forgot everything else.
Doug heard June’s voice rise to a crescendo of unintelligible noises, culminating in one long, drawn out explosion of sound as she found her release. His own body was caught up in the muscle straining intensity of their second orgasm too, so much so that when it was over he barely had the strength left to move.
“Turn it off, Doug. I don’t want to watch!” June turned and buried her head against his chest. The big screen was showing a row of five scruffy looking white men dressed in orange jump suits tied to posts with their hands behind them. Three of them had badly bruised faces; the other two might also have been beaten, but they kept their heads hung down so that it was impossible to tell.
The impending execution of the perpetuators of the Harcourt virus had been on the news all day, though Doug and June hadn’t seen it that morning. Most of their day had been spent in a bewildering remembrance of the night before. Neither of them had talked much about it but frequent touches and kisses and sitting snuggled together while they talked said more than words could have. Doug was so happy to be in her presence that he could barely stand to let her out of his sight. He was even happier that June reciprocated his feelings in the little womanly ways of showing affection he had missed so much.
The rather strong Bloody Mary they had each consumed before breakfast compensated for the bit of overindulgence in wine after dinner the night before. It was just enough to get them smiling and touching each other even more, and had sent them off to bed again right after eating. The noon newscast was when they first heard of the trial and scheduled execution.
Doug could understand the psychology behind making it public, and using a firing squad rather than lethal injection. Not allowing blindfolds was another psychological touch. He suspected that the bruises were a calculated exhibition, meant to be noticed. When the sword was raised for the countdown of the order to fire, he zapped it off.
June’s body quivered as he held her. He stroked her temples and kissed the top of her head until the trembling stopped.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve already seen enough violence, even though I can’t feel one iota of sympathy for those brutes. I’m glad they had a military trial so the damn lawyers didn’t get involved and string it out forever.”
Doug stroked her back. “I am, too, even though that transcript of the proceedings we downloaded was fake.”
June sat up straight. “A fake? How do you know?”
“I was in the military, remember? I served on a court-martial once for an enemy alien guilty of murder.
I’m pretty sure at least parts of transcript were fabricated, if not all of it. For one thing, the timing was too convenient—right after the White House itself was overrun, and right when the origin of the virus and how many deaths it’s going to cause was getting into the media. There may not have even been a trial at all.”
“Surely our government wouldn’t—oh hell, that’s just turning my face to the wall. Of course they would.
What else made you suspect it?” She leaned away from him, far enough that she could see his face.
“The wording. Those guys are supposedly from Mississippi and northern Louisiana, but the phrasing attributed to them doesn’t ring true. Remember, I’m an old southern boy, even if I don’t have the same attitudes. The part of the transcript that has them ranting about how they were willing to die for the cause of White Supremacy sounds more like it came from the mouths of college graduates instead of high school dropouts like all but one of them are. Then further on, it goes back to sounding like something they would say, about the supreme court, abortions, gay rights and so forth, all in language about the level of fourth graders. It gives the impression that they’re about as bright as a bunch of door knobs, which is probably true. I doubt that any of them, except maybe the one with a couple of years of college, have IQs higher than room temperature with the air conditioning going. The transcript was a hurry-up job and they made mistakes. Hell, even that story about the CIA agents killed in South Africa while capturing them sounds phony. It’s more likely they turned them over to the Marines at our embassy there and then got caught up in the rampages while they were still trying to hunt down Johannsen, that
