The same landscape, but consumed.
Consumed with fire.
Unspeakable carnage.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Campbell tried to banish the images, but found they only returned with a greater vigor. So be it, he thought. He was a man of vision, a man chosen to lead the nation, hell, the world, to greater things. And men of vision suffered. If that was his price, his burden, he’d shoulder it, like the good soldier his father had trained him to be.
Both his father and grandfather had been great men, laying the groundwork for all that would transpire during the next few days. Not that they ever would have envisioned it unfolding as it would, a hellstorm of blood and fire sure to shake the country to its very core. They’d been good men. No, great men. But they never could have envisioned the current circumstances that drove Campbell to do what he was about to do.
There’d be fire, but it’d be a cleansing fire, a rebirth, something that in a dozen years would be celebrated as ushering in a new era for the country. That he had been called upon to marshal such forces and channel them into this pursuit was humbling, indeed. Campbell considered himself a simple man, like his forebears. Not stupid, but simple. A man who saw things in black and white. And he knew, like the Campbell men before him, he’d do the right thing just as they would have done, were they here to see the complexities he faced in his solemn family duty.
A door opened from behind Campbell, and he whirled to greet the visitor. A thick man, his lumpy head shaved clean, entered, stood at attention, waiting for permission to speak.
Jonas Barrins was Campbell’s most trusted confidant. Like Campbell, he was dressed in crisp khakis, a black turtleneck and steel-toed boots. A 9 mm Beretta rode on the man’s left hip, the handgun’s butt jutting forward in a cross-draw position, also just like Campbell.
Other than their mode of dress and their armament, however, the two men differed greatly. Campbell towered six inches over his lieutenant. His body, conditioned by hours of exercise, dwarfed the other man’s slender frame. His steel-gray eyes, wide and intelligent, bore into Barrins’s piggish brown eyes that never seemed to blink.
“At ease, Jonas,” Campbell said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper.
“Control is waiting.”
“For permission?”
“Yes.”
“Then all, I assume, is ready.”
“Just a word from you.”
“You realize what I’m about to do, don’t you, Jonas? The world I’m about to create? Are the men ready to do this? To take so many lives?”
“We’re ready to follow your lead. To do as you ask.”
Pleased, Campbell gave his comrade a tight smile. In the next instant, the visions—the fire, the screams, the corpses—erupted in his head. He shook them away vigorously. If Barrins caught the behavior, his impenetrable expression gave no indication. Instead he stared at Campbell like a dog awaiting another command.
“You know why I do this, Jonas,” Campbell said. “You of all people understand.”
“Sir?”
“What will happen tomorrow, I mean. I don’t want to do this. But this country, my country, leaves me no choice. I cannot sit by while it destroys itself, chasing third-world savages as a greater danger grows elsewhere. What I will do, I will do for America. The world, really. It can be no other way.”
“It can be no other way,” Barrins echoed. “You can’t second-guess what needs to be done. Or let it trouble you.”
Campbell nodded. “You’re a good soldier and a good friend, Jonas. Please. Sit,” he said, gesturing. “We must rest now, because during the next few days, we’ll be busy doing our sacred work. Our country has grown soft. It’s forgotten its purpose. We aren’t here to spread democracy to the world, but to defend only our own. We worry about the Arabs when we could crush them, turn their region into a smoking hole. We ignore the Communists while they grow stronger.”
Even seated, Barrins kept his back ramrod-straight. “It’s insane,” he agreed. “Your father would agree, if he were still here.”
Campbell’s voice grew icy. “Do not speak of my father. Or his death.”
A nervous tic pulled at the corner of Barrins’s mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“What you meant is immaterial. My father is gone. I’m trying to honor his legacy. Only I may speak of him.”
“Of course.”
“They talked of him as though he were crazy, a mad dog to be put down. He tried to warn them, but they wouldn’t listen. He tried to tell them that the Communists remained a threat, despite the end of the cold war.”
“But they wouldn’t listen.”
“No,” Campbell said. “They wouldn’t listen.” Campbell shook his head, felt the anger churn in his gut as he recalled his father’s efforts to sway the government, the President, all to no avail. Swallowing hard, he chased away the memory with a dismissive gesture. “He did his best, and that’s all a man can do. You smoke, Jonas. Please have a cigarette.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Be my guest.”
Campbell watched as the other man produced a cigarette and torched the end with a flame from his lighter. Barrins made a show of turning his head to the left, blowing the smoke from the corner of his mouth so it didn’t stray close to his companion. Campbell suppressed a smile. The little kiss-ass was always so eager to please, so reluctant to make waves with Campbell or his father before him.
“I thought you didn’t like smoke,” Barrins said.
“I can make an exception, for a friend,” Campbell stated. “Especially one so close to the end.”
Barrins raised a fist to his mouth and coughed, expelling tendrils of white smoke from his mouth and nostrils. He raised his eyes at Campbell, even as he tried to clear his throat and lungs. “Sir?” he managed to choke out.
Campbell leaned back in his chair and pinned the other man with his gaze, letting an uncomfortable pause hang between them for several seconds before replying. “Please, Jonas,” he said. “We both know my father’s death was no accident.”
“Of course not, sir. He was assassinated—”
Without thinking Campbell swept an arm across his desktop, clearing it of its contents. The sudden movement caused Barrins to start.
“I told you not to speak of him,” Campbell shouted. “Or his death.”
“Of course,” Barrins said, a tremor audible in his voice.
Campbell watched as Barrins ground out his cigarette and settled his forearm on the armrest, bringing his fingertips closer to the pistol’s butt. Before it all was over, Campbell knew he’d make a play for his gun. It didn’t matter. He had the bastard dead to rights. He could’ve killed him before, but he wanted to drag it out. Toy with the little troll before taking him out.
“You’ve been with us how long now, Jonas? Ten years?”
“Twelve. I’ve been with you twelve years. I joined shortly before—” he caught himself, nearly choking on the words “—I mean, before the change,” he said, referring to the elder Campbell’s death.
Campbell leaned back in his chair, not letting his eyes drift from Barrins’s.
“The President asked that we bring you aboard, as a personal favor to him. From my father’s standpoint, that was good enough. My father trusted