Out of the Ashes Read Online Free PDF

which ones.”
    The secretary of state, Rees, had flown to Camp David with Fayers. The Joint Chiefs had joined them an hour later, arriving by car. Barry Ringold, director of the FBI had driven in, followed by Kelly of the CIA and Hal Brady.
    â€œI resent the fact you did not come to me with this information, Brady,” Kelly said.
    â€œThere, again, sir,” Brady replied. “Who to trust?”
    The two men glared at each other. But Kelly dropped his gaze after only a few seconds. Kelly was a political appointee; Brady was a career snoop with a lifetime spent in the shadows. Kelly was just a bit afraid of the man.
    â€œNow, let me get this straight,” Ringold said. “You want us to believe there are some five to six thousand rebels—organized and trained and armed—in the U.S., ready to move against the government?”
    â€œThat is correct,” Brady said.
    â€œThey will be working with certain breakaway units of the armed forces?”
    â€œThat, too, is correct, sir—as far as it goes. But please bear in mind that many of those units—if not all of them—are not traitorous; they have been misinformed. They do not know the full scope of the story. Only bits and pieces. That is my theory.”
    Ringold nodded. “All right. Now, Bull Dean and Colonel Adams are both alive and well, working with the rebels and the maverick units of the military? Goddamn it, Harold! Dean and Adams are buried out there in Arlington. What kind of fairy tale is this? What have you been smoking?”
    Brady flushed, opening his mouth to tell the FBI director to go fuck himself, then thought better of it.
    Ringold said, “And China is going to declare war on Russia . . . you say. But you haven’t, as yet, explained how or why that is going to occur.”
    His composure restored, temper in check, Brady said, “May I do so at this time?”
    â€œPlease do, sir,” Ringold replied, with greatly exaggerated courtesy.
    The two men did not like each other, had never liked each other, and would never, in the time left to them, like each other.
    Brady looked at each man in the room before he replied, “Because I believe agents, posing as Red agents, will assassinate the Chinese premier and every member of his party when they visit the town of Fuchin next week.”
    â€œAnd you believe that will prompt a nuclear war between the two countries?” Kelly asked.
    â€œThat will be the start of it. Yes. A missile will then be fired from a submarine lying just off the coast of Russia.” He limped to a huge wall map of the world and thumped a spot. “From right here. The sub will fire its missile, or missiles, probably, from just off the coast of Zapovednyy. I have reason to believe there will be more than one missile, single or multiple-warhead type. I also believe the cities of Harbin, Mutanchiang, and Haokang will be destroyed.”
    â€œWhy would Russia want to launch a nuke attack against China?” Ringold inquired. “Half the world might well be wiped out.”
    â€œThere are many reasons they’d like to,” Brady said. “But just as it will not be Red agents who kill the premier and his party—it will be Americans—it won’t be the Russians who fire the missiles. They will be American missiles fired from an American sub.”
    General Travee had been studying the huge map. He said, “Fired from a Stealth-equipped sub, pulled in so close to the coast it would appear the missiles came from Russian soil.”
    Brady sat down. “Correct.”
    Admiral Divico had been unusually quiet, his eyes studying the map. “We’re in a box,” he said. “We’re in a damned box, unable to do anything about it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, Max?” Secretary Rees asked.
    Ringold looked angrily at the admiral.
    Brady smiled grimly.
    â€œThe small-class experimental sub that supposedly sank last year during a