From the Ashes Read Online Free PDF Page A

his eyes trained on the vehicle as it entered a small valley between the rising hills on either side. Suddenly, from positions hidden amongst the war-torn landscape, four plumes of smoke converged from all angles upon the vehicle, followed by four deafening explosions, all traces of ‘80s metal dying away and being replaced with the screams of his former comrades, nearly drowned out by the concussions but echoing in Wayne’s ears nonetheless.
    “Again,” came the voice at his side, a two-way raised to the Colonel’s lips.
    Four more plumes. Four more explosions. No more screams.
    Wayne wanted to look away, but he knew he couldn’t. He had seen some truly horrible things in his time in the military. Two tours in Afghanistan, two in Iraq, all of them in some of the thickest fighting the campaigns had to offer. He had seen enemy combatants die in explosions he had been responsible for. He had seen his fellow soldiers die before his eyes, gunned down, blown to pieces, burned alive. But never before had he been responsible for the deaths of his brothers-in-arms. And certainly never like this.
    Images of the men came flooding back to him: Price’s calm leadership-by-example, his pictures of his twin five-year-old boys and their mother on vacation at the beach and waving to Daddy; Sedaris’s gruff but generally good-natured attitude, his ambition to some day – when he finally got out of the military – write for Saturday Night Live; Jenkins’s green innocence, his compassion that he bestowed upon all of his comrades, the prayers he said for the souls of those they’d had to kill in the name of freedom; and...
    “Who was he?”
    The Colonel looked at Wayne, wiping a grin off his face just a split-second too late for Wayne not to notice.
    “Who?”
    “Jameson,” Wayne said, trying to remain calm despite the cacophony of emotions that was playing ever louder in his mind, in his chest. “Or whatever his name really was.”
    “Just a loyal soldier who was willing to die for his country.” The Colonel clapped his hand on Wayne’s shoulder and looked into his eyes in a not entirely successful attempt at reassurance. “As were they all.”
    Wayne turned his gaze from the Colonel, back to the burning wreckage of the vehicle that had been his compatriots’ execution chamber. Despite the heat of the desert sun, growing warmer by the minute, and the raging heat of the flames that engulfed the Humvee, the look in Wayne’s eyes, if anything, grew colder.
    “Well, it’s official,” the Colonel said, squinting at his watch, then extending his hand to Wayne. “Wayne Wilkins is dead.”
    Reluctantly, Wayne took the hand of the imposing personality before him, struggling to keep his stoic resolve in place.
    “Agent Wilkins,” the Colonel said, looking firmly at Wayne as he shook his hand, “welcome to the Division.”

Chapter 2
    Blue Mountains National Park, Australia
March 2011
Friday
    Michael’s phone call was late.
    Jonathan Rickner sat on the dusty ridge, gazing out at the thunderheads rolling across the valley, drenching the rocky landscape of orange and green in darkness, threatening rain that seemed reluctant to come. The previously picturesque view of the Australian wilderness had been transformed – the brightness of day seized by premature night, twisted into a dreamscape of encroaching darkness and shifting shadows.
    Fitting, Jon thought. Still, his elder brother surely had good reason to be late. This evening – Thursday evening in Washington, across the International Date Line – was a big moment in Michael’s life, and he couldn’t be expected to put everything on hold just to make a phone call.
    Yet here Jon was, waiting, sitting on the outcropping of rock he’d chosen for three reasons. First, it afforded a magnificent view of the valley. Second, it was one of the few areas within close proximity to his campsite that his cell phone got a signal. Despite the phone’s international SIM card, the