Treason in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Ben stood up and the gang leaders tensed. “Get out of here,” Ben told them.

  “And do whut?” Cool Cal asked.

  “For just once in your miserable lives, try to live decently. Plant gardens. Fix up a home and respect the rights of others around you.”

  “Ah ain’t no mottha-fuckin’ farmer,” Rappin’ Sid said defiantly. Then his eyes widened and his breath became short as he stared into the eyes of Ben Raines. His lips formed a large O. Rappin’ Sid suddenly realized he was looking into the face of death; realized that one more smart-assed crack out of his mouth might well get him a bullet right between the eyes. He could almost hear the hoof-beats of the Pale Rider.

  “Shut up,” Cool Cal hissed.

  Rappin’ Sid bobbed his head up and down. “You be right, sir,” he said to Ben. “I’m gone like a breeze. You ain’t never gonna see me ’gain.”

  “If I do see you again,” Ben told him. “Or you,” he cut his eyes to Cal. “And you are doing anything other than living quiet, decent lives, I’ll kill you on the spot! Do you understand?”

  They understood. For the first time in their lives they realized there was no fall-back place. No social workers, no probation officers, no soft-hearted judges and weepy lawyers. No free rides. They were looking sudden death square in the eyes.

  Rappin’ Sid remembered something his long-suffering mother had once said. “We walk the straight an’ narrow, right, sir?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can do that,” Cool Cal said quickly.

  “Good,” Ben told him. “See that you do. You have one minute to clear this camp. Move!”

  The last time Ben saw Cool Cal and Rappin’ Sid they were picking them up and putting them down, heading east.

  “Whoo!” Little Pecker said frantically, when he learned of the fate of Rappin’ Sid and Cool Cal and that the Rebels were moving toward his location . . . on both sides of the river. He radioed Big Pecker.

  “They’s strength in numbers,” Big Pecker said. He recalled that line from somewhere. “Pull out and head on up here. Then we’ll join up with Boo Boo and figure somethin’ out. Git gone, man.”

  The Rebel scouts reported that a mass exodus was taking place, the gangs pulling out and moving north. The Rebels relentlessly followed them.

  Far to the north, Ike had split his battalions and was working both sides of the Mississippi River, working south, putting the gangs in a slowly closing vise.

  “Hey, General Man,” Bad Boy radioed to Revere. “This plan of yours ain’t workin’ out worth a shit for us! We’re gettin squooze somethin’ fierce.”

  “Hold your ground,” Revere ordered.

  “Screw you!” Big Foot Freddie radioed. “I didn’t join this here chicken-shit outfit to commit suicide.”

  Hundreds of miles away, in the underground bunker in West Virginia, General Taylor listened to the heated exchanges. “Ben Raines is a brilliant tactician,” he said to no one in particular. “I do not look forward to meeting that man in open battle. He’s totally unpredictable. You can’t read him. He doesn’t follow any rule book.”

  “I’m not sure all our troops will fight him,” a staff colonel said softly, standing close to the general.

  “I know,” Taylor whispered. “Except for that ragtag pack of losers and complainers and whiners that think Blanton is the next best thing to God Almighty.”

  “Is it true that his own staff is divided?”

  “Yes. Senator Hanrahan did a one eighty on the issue. Surprised the hell out of me.” He chuckled. “I think it surprised the hell out of him, too.”

  The Rebels chased the punk gangs all the way to the Missouri Bootheel, harassing them every foot of the way. There, under the command of a huge thug who called himself Super Dick, the punks decided to make a stand of it. As far as numbers went, they more than outnumbered the Rebels. But when it came to discipline, they were zip. These were strong-arm types, most of them long on muscle and cruelty, many of them much more intelligent than they appeared, but extremely short on common sense.

  “We’ll stop ’em, people,” Super Dick boasted to the gang leaders. “We’re out of the range of them pricks and cunts across the river.”

  Wrong. The Rebels had rocket-assisted projectiles with a range of just about 40,000 yards.

  “And we’s a hell of a whole lot more smarter than them, too.”

  Sure.

  Thirteen and 14 Battalions got into position just east of Sikeston, Missouri while Ben and his battalions set up just across the river near Wickliffe, Kentucky. They readied their 155s and 203mm howitzers.

  Super Dick readied his punk army for a ground attack that didn’t come. “Somethin’ funky goin’ on,” he muttered.

  Funky arrived in a barrage of nasty surprises for the gang members. On the east side of the river, Ben opened the funkiness by launching a salvo of artillery rounds, each round containing 195 M42 grenades while the batteries of 13 and 14 fired HE and WP rounds.

  The few remaining residents of the small Missouri town had fled before the arrival of the gangs. Whether they loved or hated the Rebels, all had a pretty good idea how Ben Raines would deal with the gangs. Many had followed the tactics of the Rebels for years, listening to short wave broadcasts from around the battered country. About half headed south to become a part of the new Southern United States.

  The high explosive rounds shattered buildings and sent brick and mortar and lumber flying in all directions. The willie peter set things blazing and the hundreds of exploding M42 grenades turned the small town into a death trap. Frightened gang members went running wild-eyed in all directions. But they soon discovered that there simply was no place to run to escape the deadly hail that rained down upon them.

  “Hold your positions!” Super Dick shouted. “This can’t last long.”

  Wrong.

  The barrage began at 0700 and the guns finally fell silent three hours later. There was little left of the town except fire, smoke, and ruins. Of the hundreds of gang leaders who had very unwisely gathered in the small Missouri town, only a handful remained alive.

  “Goddamn you, Ben Raines!” Super Dick screamed into the mic. “Goddamn you to hell! You don’t fight fair!”

  “Mop it up,” Ben ordered.

  SEVEN

  “You just kilt them all,” a badly frightened and trembling gang leader said to Ben. His crotch was stained from the urine his relaxed bladder had emptied into his underwear during the murderous and hours-long artillery barrage. “You kilt hundreds. I never seen nothin’ like it. They’s blowed off arms and heads and legs and guts . . .” He began crying, the tears cutting traces down his dirty cheeks. “And the blood. Oh, God, the blood!” He sank to his knees and put his face into his hands and wept. The gang leader, who went by the moniker of Lucky Louie, lay on the ground, curled into a fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Even Super Dick was subdued. He had the shakes and could not make them stop. He was twitching like a dry leaf in a breeze. “My old lady was runnin’ crost the street when a round hit. She just disappeared, man. She just . . . wasn’t no more.”

  “You have my shallowest and most insincere condolences,” Ben said acidly.

  Super Dick blinked and slowly shook his big, shaggy head. “You got to be the hardest son of a bitch I ever seen!”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is you gonna off us?” Little Pecker asked. He’d been looking for Big Pecker but had been unable to find him. If he ever did he’d have to scoop him up with a shovel and a spoon.

  “I don’t know. But right now I’m going to give you some advice.”

  “Well, here it comes,” Poke Chop sneered the words. “The man gonna give us a lecture about us bein’ bad boys.”

  Dan Gray took one step forward and placed the muzzle of a .45 autoloader against Poke Chop’s head. He cocked the .45 and Poke Chop shit his underwear.

  “At your orders, General,” Dan said.

  “JesusGodAlmighty!” Poke Chop sh
outed. “I got a right to speak my piece.”

  “You have no rights, punk!” Dan said.

  “I cain’t take no more of this!” Little Pecker wailed, sinking to his knees on the ground. “I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do, General.”

  “Me, too!” Boo Boo blubbered. “Oh, Lard, Lard, don’t kill me. I don’t wanna die!”

  The Rebels had proven that when very harsh sentences are carried out promptly after being handed down, crime takes a tremendous nosedive. Crime of any type was so rare in any Rebel-controlled zone it was viewed as a phenomenon.

  Poke Chop was stinking something awful and the breeze was ripe with it. “Get him out of here, Dan,” Ben said. “And convince him to live a life free of crime. Tell him what will happen if he doesn’t.”

  “Right, sir!” He lowered the pistol and prodded Poke Chop in the side. “Move, you misplaced cesspool.”

  “Don’t kill me,” Little Pecker begged. “Please don’t kill me.”

  Ben turned to Cooper. “Get them out of here, Cooper. Turn them over to the chemical boys and girls and find out what they know.”

  “Right, sir.”

  He looked at Corrie. “Let’s get over to the comm truck and find out how Ike is doing.

  “Piece of cake, Ben,” Ike told him. “These punks are all bluster and hot air. We’re blowing great big gaps in the line. I figure at the rate we’re going, we’ll be linking up in a couple of weeks.”

  “Sooner than that, Ike. I’m ordering everything we have that will fly into the air. These punks have no SAMs. That’s been confirmed. The sooner we get this trash done with, the sooner we can turn our attention to Revere and his people. You will have a new flag in your hands in a few days. Cecil bumped me a few hours ago. Fly it proudly.”

  “Will do, Ben. Shark out.”

  The new flag had been flown to Ben that morning, during the bombardment. The pilot had landed at a small strip just east of Ben’s position. The new flag of the Southern United States of America was very much the same as the original American flag. Only the stars were different. The Rebel flag flew eleven of them, in a circle. Under the circle of stars were the words that had flown on one of the flags at the Alamo: COME AND TAKE IT.

  The pilot had also brought hundreds of tiny sew-on flags for the Rebel uniforms, those were being passed out to the troops now.

  Ben walked the encampment. Many of the Rebels were silent as they sewed the new flag onto the right sleeve of their BDUs—silent and very, very proud. The pride they felt was almost a tangible thing.

  Ben now wore the old French Foreign Legion lizard cammie uniform, and he was the only Rebel who wore them. He did not wear any other insignia denoting his rank of Commanding General of the Rebel Army. He didn’t have to.

  President Blanton sat alone in his office deep underground and fingered the small sleeve flag of the new Southern United States of America. He was highly irritated and it showed on his face. The flag had been brought to him only hours before.

  “Where did you get this?” he had questioned the young soldier.

  “Plane flew over, sir. Dropped a whole bunch of them. I, uh, guess, sir, General Raines knows where we are.”

  Now, alone, Blanton muttered, “Sure he knows. Bastard used to work for the goddamn CIA.” He touched the sleeve flag. “He really did it. He really, officially, broke away from the Union.” He looked at the words under the circle of stars. COME AND TAKE IT.

  Senator Hanrahan entered the office with the presidential seal embedded in the polished tile floor. Blanton looked at him and lifted the tiny flag.

  “I saw it, Mister President,” the aging senator said. “Hundreds of them were dropped.”

  “That son of a bitch Raines!” Blanton cursed, his face turning red. “Flaunting this piece of traitorous shit in my face.” He hurled the sleeve flag to the floor. “You know what he is? He’s a goddamn seditionist.”

  Hanrahan sat down. “It’s rather hard to be a seditionist when there is no stable government to preach sedition upon, sir.”

  “I’m the goddamn government!” Blanton flared. “You’re the government. We represent the government. We were elected by the people, not Ben Raines.”

  Blanton pressed a button on his desk and an aide stuck her head into the room. She looked like a college cheerleader. “Get General Taylor in here,” he ordered.

  When Taylor was seated, Blanton said, “We keep our people hard to ground, General. All of them. Arms and uniforms hidden. We’ll let Generals Revere and Raines slug it out and whoever wins will surely be considerably weakened afterward. That’s when we strike at the victor with everything we’ve got. Including gas.”

  “Tear gas?” the general questioned.

  “Nerve gas,” Blanton said.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Hanrahan said. “You wait just a damned minute here, Homer.”

  “No!” Blanton shouted, slamming a hand on the desk. “I will preserve this Union by any means possible. I am still the Commander in Chief. Correct, General Taylor?”

  “That is correct, Mister President. You give the orders, I carry them out.”

  “Just as long as we understand each other,” President Blanton said.

  News of what happened in Southern Missouri spread quickly south to north along the Mississippi River. Morale began to sag among the punk army. Less than twenty-four hours later, morale and discipline broke apart after Ben sent helicopter gun-ships and PUFFs into the gang-controlled area around Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Death from the skies took on a new meaning as the Apache helicopters and the PUFFs roared in and turned the gang-controlled streets into something that resembled an open-air slaughter house. From the skies, the streets and alleys and sidewalks and lawns began to look like Jonestown ten-fold over.

  Then the artillery began its roar and pounding. After only one hour of rounds from 105s, 155s, 203s, and 81mm mortars raining down on them, the punks packed it in. Ben ordered a cease-fire and let the gang members stagger out. Trembling, white-faced, and wild-eyed from shock, the gang members came stumbling out of the fire and carnage, hands held high over their heads. Many of them were openly weeping.

  Revere had promised them that the Rebels would be easy to fight. That the battles would be short ones with the gangs always victorious. Revere lied.

  “What in the name of God are we going to do with all of them?” Dan asked.

  “Disarm them and turn them loose,” Ben said. “It’s all we can do other than shoot them. I’ll grant you that many of them probably deserve no better than a bullet, but . . .” He let that trail off.

  The gang members were giddy with relief when they learned the Rebels were not going to put them up against a wall. Within minutes they had chosen a committee and several spokespersons and demanded a meeting with Ben Raines.

  “This ought to be interesting,” Ben said, sitting in the lobby of what used to be a nice motel complex just off the interstate. He laid his big .50 caliber mag Desert Eagle autoloader on the table in front of him and nodded at Cooper. “Show the spokes-people in, Coop.”

  Four men were shown into the lobby. Two blacks, two whites. They had elected as their spokesman a big, unshaven, beady-eyed and smelly piece of white-trash who swaggered up to the table. “They call me Big Johnny.”

  “State your business,” Ben told him.

  “We got us a list of demands, General,” he announced.

  “Is that right?”

  “Shore is. Furst of all, we got to have guns to protect ourselves agin the lawless and to hunt wif.”

  “To protect yourselves against the lawless?” Ben repeated.

  “You deef?” the lout hollered.

  Ben smiled and picked up the Desert Eagle, thumbing back the hammer. He pointed it at Big Johnny.

  “Whoa!” the man yelled. The muzzle looked like the end of a fire nozzle.

  “First of all,” Ben told him. “You don’t come marching in here and demand anything.”

  “We don’t?” Big Johnny whispered
.

  “You don’t.”

  “Whut does we get?” another asked.

  “Who are you?”

  “Cretan Shabazz Boognami.”

  Ben blinked and Jersey giggled.

  Boognami cut his eyes to her and said, “You think that’s funny, bitch?”

  Jersey smiled very sweetly and Cooper backed away from her. “I think it’s hysterical. And if you call me a bitch one more time I’m going to stick a grenade up your ass and see just how far shit splatters.”

  Boognami’s eyes widened but he wisely kept his mouth closed.

  Ben chuckled as he eased the hammer down on the big pistol and laid it on the table. “And if you think she’s kidding, Shabazz, you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. Now the four of you listen to me. You’re getting your lives, and that’s all. I’m making a mistake by doing that, for a lot of you will not even attempt to live a decent and orderly existence. But I warn you of this: there will be no more breaks from me. This is the only one you’re getting from the Rebels. I don’t care how you eke out an existence, but it better not include preying on the innocent. Now you drag your asses out of here and don’t ever let me see you again. Move!”

  The grievance committee did a quick about-face and beat a hasty retreat out of the lobby.

  “We’ll have to fight them again someday,” Jersey prophesied.

  “Probably,” Ben agreed, standing up and holstering his Desert Eagle. “Mop this sector up and let’s get on the road.”

  After the fall of Southern Missouri and Ike’s hard push all the way down into Iowa, the entire line of punks collapsed and they went running in all directions. Revere’s plan had worked for a little while, but not nearly long enough.

  “Head your people east, Ike,” Ben radioed.

  “We’re going in to bail out the president?”

  “Do we have a choice, Ike?” Ben answered the question with a question.

  “I reckon not,” the Mississippi born and reared man said. “But you know he’s gonna be about as grateful as a stepped-on rattlesnake.”