A Day of Reckoning Read online

  It was really the only bone of contention between the two.

  It wasn’t bad enough to prevent the two of them from being friends; not at all.

  Just bad enough for Marty to tell Ace he’d call him “Bob” until he was more forthcoming with an explanation.

  Ashton never told him, but Marty calling him “Bob” was fine with him.

  In fact, Ashton hated the nickname “Ace.” He wished he could wash it away and be done with it.

  He wished everyone would take Marty’s lead and call him Bob.

  One of his biggest secrets was that in his younger years he had a big-time gambling problem.

  Back then he didn’t see it as a problem.

  A twenty year old man seldom sees the forest for the trees. He’s too green to see the big picture.

  And for a young Bob Ashton, a poker player who won more often than not, gambling was a virtue. He was skilled. He had game. He won more than his fair share of the tournaments he entered, and he was moving up in the national standings.

  He was called “Ace” for his uncanny ability to turn up the top card when he needed it most.

  And back then he liked the name.

  He embraced it.

  He even had tattoos placed upon each of his biceps to immortalize the moniker.

  On his left arm was a full-sized playing card: the ace of diamonds in dazzling red.

  On his right arm was the word “Ace” in the same font used on Bicycle playing cards, his favorite brand.

  No, he saw no problem with his gambling habit until the night his brother was killed.

  He was struggling to raise money to cover the entry fee for his biggest tournament ever.

  This one was in Las Vegas and had a ten thousand dollar buy-in. The pay-out, if he won the tournament, was a cool half-million.

  Even better, the winner was guaranteed a spot in the International Tournament of Champions.

  The problem was Ace was a big-time partier at that stage in his life. And poker wasn’t his only habit.

  He also liked the tables.

  A week before the entry deadline he lost two grand in the Lucky Lady’s blackjack lounge.

  And that put him a thousand short to make his buy-in.

  “No problem,” said his brother Simon. “I’ll float you a grand. I know you’re good for it.”

  “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the thousand you were gonna use to fix the brakes on your car?”

  “Yeah, but they’ll hold another week or two. You can pay me back after you win, and I’ll get them fixed then. It’s not a problem.”

  Only Simon was wrong. It was a problem.

  Simon lived in Apple Valley, California, a mere three hours from Vegas.

  When Ace advanced to the semi-finals he decided to surprise his brother by joining him.

  He took two days off from work and headed north on the I-15.

  Fifty miles north of Barstow his brakes went out on a long down grade. He was killed in a fiery crash.

  Ace got word of the accident an hour before his semi-finals game.

  He walked away and never looked back.

  And he never played poker for money again.

  The problem was he couldn’t shake the nickname. And the nickname was a constant reminder of his brother’s tragic death.

  Even after moving twice before winding up in the tiny town of Eden the name followed him.

  All it took was for someone to see him without his shirt.

  Or for someone to dig back a year or three on his Facebook page and note one of his old friends using the name.

  If it was up to him, everyone would take Marty’s lead.

  If it was up to him he’d go by Bob.

  Because in his mind it wasn’t Bob who killed his only brother.

  It was Ace.

  -4-

  Ace Ashton was born in Apple Valley, just like his brother Simon, and loved the place. He grew up just half a mile from where Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lived their final years. He’d met Roy as a young boy and the cowboy star became his hero.

  He loved the climate of the high desert. Loved that he could count on making it through each winter with nothing more than a dusting of snow.

  Ace hated snow, you see.

  It was one of God’s gifts he didn’t appreciate as much as most people.

  He loved pretty much everything about Apple Valley and he tried to stay there as he recovered from his brother’s death and tried to put the past behind him.

  But it didn’t work out that way.

  In Apple Valley he was known as Ace, the world class poker player. In a small town everyone knows everyone else, and every time he left the house he had people walking up to him to ask him what big tournament he had coming up or to tell him how they admired his style of play.

  As much as he loved his home town he had to get out.

  Ace had another secret he held closely to the vest.

  Before he quit college to play poker full time he was studying theology.

  After Simon’s death he went back and got his degree and became an ordained minister, though he never had his own congregation.

  That was actually what brought him to Texas.

  Someone told him that in Texas there’s a church on every street corner.

  That’s an exaggeration, but there are an awful lot of churches in Texas. And that’s appropriate, for every Texan firmly believes that God Himself blessed Texas as a special and wondrous place.

  He moved from Apply Valley to San Angelo, intending to set up his own church. There he would preach God’s lessons, as well as other more personal things, such as the evils of gambling.

  There was a glut of churches in San Angelo. So much so it would be extremely difficult to lure parishioners from other ministers.

  And every clergy member knows a minister without a flock is merely one who thumps his Bible to empty halls.

  He is never heard.

  Someone pointed out Ace might have better luck in a small town.

  Someone else pointed out Eden might have a place for Ace and his teachings.

  Ace and Kathy bought a house in Eden and were in the process of securing funding for an abandoned church building on the east edge of town.

  To Ace the setting was perfect, and a sign from God above.

  He planned to name it based on a Biblical place, and even commissioned a sign to place in front of it:

  EAST OF EDEN

  Christian Church

  Then, on the day he was to go to the bank to sign the final papers, a breaking news alert crossed the screen of every television in the world.

  NASA SCIENTISTS WARN OF IMPENDING

  METEORITE COLLISION WITH EARTH

  Saris 7 was upon them.

  Ace knew this wasn’t the second coming, for the righteous would be killed as well as the sinners.

  He couldn’t understand the need for such a cataclysmic event.

  He couldn’t understand the need for so many millions to die.

  And Bob “Ace” Ashton lost his religion.

  He and Kathy had been in Eden for a very short time when news of Saris 7 broke.

  They hadn’t had a chance to establish themselves.

  There were just a small handful of people who knew their intentions: the bank’s loan officer, the realtor who listed the old church, their next door neighbors.

  All died in the first freeze.

  All by their own hands.

  Now only two of the survivors knew that Ace was once a minister. Kathy and Ace himself.

  And they’d held their tongues for ten years.

  Now Ace was rethinking the whole thing.

  Ace had been stumbling along, sure that God had failed him.

  Saris 7 was bad enough, with the death and destruction it brought with it.

  Word was that only ten percent of the world’s population survived the previous ten years. Whole countries were wiped out, as though they never existed. In some parts of the world tens of thousands of bodies
lay on open ground where they’d fallen; there was simply no one left to bury them. Living, breathing humans had become nothing more than fields of bones.

  Cupid 23 was the second punch in a one-two combination.

  Perhaps it was meant to be a death blow from a God who’d grown tired of man’s unsuccessful efforts to be righteous.

  Sennett and his men were proof that some men are irredeemable. Some men will be bad even when all logic indicates a terrible crisis is at hand; and the best way to survival is working together.

  Maybe God’s intent was to cleanse the earth of all humanity and then to start anew. With a new Garden of Eden. A new man and woman who perhaps would be more righteous and good.

  Ace didn’t like that these thoughts ran through his mind. But he couldn’t help it.

  His friend Marty had asked him hours before if he was capable of killing a man.

  He’d said yes. He could kill Sennett with no hesitation, no remorse.

  But now he was having second thoughts.

  The Bible said thou shalt not kill.

  It didn’t say thou shalt not kill unless bad men invade thy house.

  It didn’t say thou shalt not kill unless thy target kills your friends first.

  It said thou shalt not kill. Period. End of discussion.

  Ace was struggling with thoughts he couldn’t share with anyone else.

  He’d told Marty he could be relied on.

  He knew the logical way to ensure Kathy’s safety, and his own, was to help Marty rid the prison of John Sennett and his men.

  He just wasn’t sure he was up to the task.

  -5-

  Ace wanted to tell Marty no, he shouldn’t participate. He might not be able to go through with his part of the mission. He might fail. He might endanger his friends.

  He might get good people killed.

  But he felt trapped by circumstance.

  He’d made a dreadful mistake in telling Marty he was capable of killing.

  Now the plan was a go. Action was imminent. And he was an integral part of it.

  Marty and the others were relying on him to hold up his end.

  It was too late to go back. Too late to change his mind. Too late to say no.

  Ace wore an old U.S. Army field jacket.

  Not the newer battle dress uniform, the woodland camouflage version that had once been all the rage in the fashion industry.

  No, this was the Vietnam version. Originally olive drab green, now faded after dozens of washings until it was almost white.

  It was still bulky enough to hide the can of wasp spray hidden in the sleeve inside the jacket.

  Marty and Gary Cupp had gone to the storage room where Sennett and his me n gained entry.

  The lights were off in the room, as they were in the kitchens and the break room.

  Marty had spread the word that if Sennett asked it was to save energy and lessen the load on the generator.

  They’d pulled three tankers full of diesel fuel into the prison yard before the world grew cold again.

  In all probability they had more than enough diesel to last the duration of the freeze.

  Also in all probability, Sennett didn’t know that.

  If he or one of his men had asked, they’d have been told the common areas were darkened on purpose.

  They made it easy, though, by not asking.

  Once Marty and Gary were in the storage room they kept watch from the room’s shadows.

  They were out of direct line of sight from the raised platform at the end of the common area.

  It was the control center; the guts of the security operation.

  Back in the days when this was a prison the inmates called it the “hack shack.”

  It was where the guards managed the electronic door locks which secured them in their cells, then sprung them at certain times of the day for meals and access to the yard.

  It was from this platform the guards scowled at the inmates each day and barked orders to them.

  The inmates cursed them in return and talked bad about their mamas.

  Now that the place was a shelter, it was more low-key.

  It was still the “brains” of the operation.

  It was from this station all security operations were conducted. Sentries were dispatched, problems were discussed, decisions were made.

  The platform was situated in a good place for Marty’s needs. The storage room could only be seen from the east corner of the platform.

  And that was where Richard Sears Junior’s lifeless body lay.

  Marty and Gary were safe as they moved about the storage room.

  Sennett and his men were clustered on the west side of the platform, discussing their need to break into shifts and arguing over who’d work when.

  They were relying on their superior firepower to deter an assault from their unarmed captives.

  For if they were rushed they’d certainly be able to fire off a few rounds into the crowd before driving their attackers back.

  It would, in essence, be a bloodbath.

  If, by chance, one or more of them decided to leave the platform and headed in the direction of the storage room, Marty and Gary likely wouldn’t be seen anyway.

  Although the door to the room was propped open, there was very little light penetrating it from the common area.

  The pair worked together to move aside a steel storage cabinet.

  This was the cabinet which contained Ramen noodles and dry soup mixes.

  Had it been the one which contained canned and jarred foods it would have been much heavier.

  When Sennett told two of his men to cover the open vent where they’d gained entry, they chose the lightest of the food cabinets to move.

  Ex-cons seldom take the time and energy to do things the proper way.

  Once the obstacle was out of the way and the open vent exposed, Marty took a knee and waited.

  Gary nonchalantly walked out of the room, a styrofoam Cup-O-Noodles in hand, as though he’d merely been grabbing his evening meal.

  He walked immediately to the kitchen, the next logical place for a hungry man to go on his mission, for the kitchen was where the water and the microwaves were.

  One of Sennett’s men turned and watched him walk into the kitchen, but paid no particular mind. None of his actions were out of the ordinary.

  Gary waited just a few seconds before exiting the kitchen and carrying the same styrofoam cup into the common area.

  He sat at one of the tables only a few feet away from the raised platform.

  Close enough to hear Sennett’s men arguing over who had to pull the first shift, and laying out their excuses to Sennett in an effort to sway him.

  Gary had been a soldier in the U.S. Army. He’d been in the mighty Eighth Army in Yongson, South Korea.

  He knew a bit about the good order and discipline necessary to carry out an effective military operation.

  It struck him that this wasn’t it.

  -6-

  Gary settled into his seat and got comfortable, unzipped his jacket to give him instant access to the can of deadly wasp spray he had tucked in the sleeve beneath his left armpit and pretended to be very interested in his lunch.

  He hadn’t taken the time to actually cook the soup, because he didn’t know how much time he had to get into place.

  All he did in the kitchen was add water to the cup and grab a disposable spoon.

  He sipped a spoonful of lukewarm tap water, pretending it was hot and tasty chicken noodle soup.

  As he did so his good friend Ace Ashton settled himself into a seat two tables over.

  Both tables were an equal distance to the group of men on the raised platform.

  The men on the platform, meanwhile, were so involved in their ongoing debate they failed to notice either of them.

  Ace pulled a deck of playing cards from his pocket and dealt them out in front of him, in seven piles, in a game of classic solitaire.

  He then started turning over t
he cards left in his deck, pretending to focus on his game, when in reality his mind was a million miles away.

  He was a man of the cloth, by training and by legal statute.

  No, he’d never preached a sermon outside of divinity school. He’d never had his own flock. Never had his name on a sign in front of a church.

  But that didn’t absolve him of his calling.

  In recent years he’d come very close to losing his faith, after questioning his God’s reasons for letting two meteorites assault the earth.

  He just didn’t understand how God would allow such a massive loss of life.

  Most of the dead were sinners. He knew and understood that. Most of the dead deserved to die. They were neither righteous nor followers.

  It was the loss of the innocents which tried his faith. The babies and the children who died sometimes horrific and painful deaths.

  “Why, Lord, take the innocents?”

  He’d asked the question a thousand times and still had no answers.

  The Bible directed the faithful never to question His actions. For only the Lord Almighty is all wise and all knowing. Man cannot begin to comprehend His ways.

  Ace knew that, but couldn’t help himself.

  He, after all, was like every other man; deeply flawed.

  Lately, though, he’d tried to do better.

  The group in Eden South had no spiritual leaders.

  He resolved himself to fill that role.

  Just the day before he told his wife Kathy, “I’ve decided to ask God to give me the wisdom and the strength to make this group my flock. To make them my congregation and to show them the way.”

  Then Sennett’s men forced their way into the prison.

  And everything changed.

  Perhaps this was a test from God to see if Ace was worthy.

  Then Ace suddenly had an epiphany.

  There was a reason Sennett decided to search his captives for weapons.

  There was a reason they found and confiscated Ace’s Bowie knife.

  Marty asked Ace if he was capable of killing.

  Ace told him yes. Yes, he would kill one of Sennett’s men in order to protect Kathy and the others.