Danger in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “All we wanted to do was to be lef’ alone. Then that goddamned Ben Raines come around, stickin’ his nose into our lives. It ain’t fair.”

  “What cure is them hippies lookin’ for?” Wilbur asked.

  “Oh, hale-far, Wilbur! There ain’t no cure down here for nothin’.”

  Hiram was damn sure right about that, although not in the way he meant.

  “Then? . . .”

  “Ben Raines sent ’em in here to aggravate us.”

  “Hiram?” Jakey asked. “Whut’s so wrong wif gettin’ some learnin’? I jist ain’t gonna live lak ’is. Cain’t have no fun no more. Ever’time you turn around, someones a-shootin’ at you. We cut off from anywheres. I don’t lak it here no more.”

  “’At’s whut Ben Raines wants, Jakey. Cain’t you see ’at? He’s a-tryin’ to jam learnin’ down our throats. Well, it jist ain’t a-gonna work wif me. No sir. I ain’t gonna stand for hit no more.”

  “Whut you gonna do, Hiram?” B.M. asked.

  “I’m a-gonna kill Ben Raines!”

  “Hiram,” Jakey looked up at him. “Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Raines is rat and we’re wrong?”

  “Hale, no!”

  “Hit has my mind,” B.M. said. “Look at the way we livin’ when we don’t have to live this here way. I been doin’ a powerful lot of head-wrestlin’ last two-three hours.”

  Hiram felt he knew what was next out of the man’s mouth, and he felt sick at his stomach. His entire little empire was rapidly falling down around his dirty ankles. “And whut has you decided.”

  B.M. looked at him. “They’s got to be somethang to this here learnin’ business. If they wasn’t, Hiram, there wouldn’t be so many people doin’ it. Ain’t that rat?”

  “No, hit ain’t rat! It’s all a plot. Hit’s jist a damned commonist plot! And y’all so dumb you fallin’ for hit.”

  Communist, B.M. silently corrected, remembering Ben Raines’s words. And felt kinda good, him correctin’ Hiram.

  “Ben Raines ain’t no common . . . communist,” Jakey put into words what was in the minds of many sitting around Hiram.

  “So this is the way hit is, hey?” Hiram looked around him. “Come down to this here. Y’all jist gonna turn your asses to me.”

  “Ain’t no law that says you can’t come along wif us, Hiram.”

  “You’s all a bunch of goddamn traitors!” Hiram yelled. “Wal, jist go on; jist carry your asses away from here and me. I don’t need you. Go on, goddamnit! I don’t wanna see your yeller faces no more. Git outta here!”

  “You on my property, Hiram,” he was gently reminded by a friend.

  Hiram glared at him. “You ain’t no friend of mine no more, Bobby Joe. Not no more.” He looked at G.B. “How ’bout you?”

  “I’m wif you, Hiram. ’At goes wifout sayin’.”

  Several more of the older men rose to stand by Hiram’s side. The younger men sat and squatted around B.M.

  Even Wilbur elected to stay with the majority. And Wilbur summed it up. “What we all is, Hiram, is your fault. You and G.B. and L.T. and Carl and Jimmy John; all the older men. You hepped raise all of us up. You taught us to be what we is. But you taught us wrong. You knowed you was teachin’ us wrong, but you done ’er anyways. You all. . . .”

  “Shet your lyin’ goddamn mouth, Wilbur!” Hiram yelled at him. “You cain’t talk to me lak ’at, you yeller dog pup!”

  “You bes’ git along, Hiram.” Jakey rose to face the man. “You jist bes’ git, now!”

  “Yeah, I’m goin’. I’ll let y’all go join up with Ben Raines. Then y’all can smooch up to a bunch of niggers and Jews and China-people, and then y’all be jist as in-ferior as them.”

  “Seems like,” Jenny Sue’s man, Frank, said, “them in-ferior people can read and write and figure and build towns and schools and whilst doin’ that, git along with each other in the doin’ of it all. If you so smart an’ all, Hiram, how come you didn’t teach us to do them things?”

  “’Cause ain’t none of them thangs necessary for a man to git on wif. I’m showin’ y’all what hit takes for a man to git on wif.”

  “Like bein’ fearful of Old Lady Pauly?” Jakey asked. “Ben Raines shore made her look like a fool, didn’t he? Like being in town about a week and a half and already got the sewage and water runnin’? Like havin’ phones workin’ agin? If them’s in-ferior people, Hiram, wal, I reckon I’ll jist go on in and join them in-ferior people.”

  Hiram pointed a shaking finger at the men who elected to leave. “Don’t none of y’all never come back to me wif your tail tucked ‘tween your legs, a-beggin’ for me to take you back. If I ever seen airy of you agin, I’ll kill you!”

  “Yeah, Hiram.” Jakey refused to back down. “Just like you kilted your own flesh and blood. Ah think you bes’ go on now, Hiram.” He lifted his eyes to the road; the sounds of traffic. “Look yonder, Hiram. Don’t that tell you nothin’?”

  It was the wives of Hiram and the men who chose to stay with him, in rattletrap cars and trucks, heading for the Rebel outpost on the other side of the bayou. The women refused to look at their men as they smoked by.

  “You carry your ass on back here, bitch!” Jimmy John hollered. “Goddamn you . . . you hear me?”

  Hiram and L.T. and G.B. and Carl hollered and squalled and threatened until the caravan was out of sight.

  “Well, hell, boys,” Hiram said. “They jist wimmin. Wimmin ain’t got good sense noways. We can always find us some more wimmin to stick hit in. Come on.

  Hiram and his crew went one way, B.M. and the others following the road to the bayou and beyond. To get some learnin’.

  “That’s it, Ben,” Cecil brought him up to date, “there may be ten, fifteen people, including Hiram left down there. What do you intend doing about it?”

  Ben shook his head. “Nothing. Not unless Hiram breaks some rule or law of ours. And he probably will. We’ll deal with it then. How are the new people taking to our way?”

  Cecil smiled. “Although they won’t admit it, they’re scared. It’s a normal reaction.”

  “How many you think will make it with us?”

  “Too early to tell. I’d say seventy-five percent of them.”

  Ben nodded and tapped a communique on his desk. “I’m not certain I understand this, Cec.”

  “Nor I. Communications picked it up last night, then again this morning. They taped the last message. Have you listened to it?”

  “No. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Cecil punched the button on the cassette/corder. The men listened to the calm but clearly desperate voice coming out of the speaker. “Cut off. Running out of food and ammo.” As the man gave his coordinates, Ben quickly checked a map of Michigan. “Need help desperately. If any Rebels are listening, please give us help. We’re two hundred strong, but facing a force much larger. Approximately six to seven hundred of them. Please help.”

  “Right here,” Ben said, pointing at the map. “If it’s genuine, they’ve got their backs against White-fish Bay. If it’s real, Cec, we’ve got to help.”

  “I knew you’d say that. But Jesus Christ, Ben there isn’t an airport anywhere near the place that I can see.”

  “Get Dan in here.” As Cecil was leaving, Ben picked up the field phone and got the como shack. “See if you can reach these people up in Michigan. Patch them through to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It took several minutes; by that time, Dan Gray was in the office, along with Colonel West. Ben and the mercenary smiled coolly at each other and that was the extent of it. They didn’t dislike each other; just two men with a few philosophical differences. But West was a fine warrior, and Ben needed him.

  “Go ahead, general.” The radio operator’s voice came through the receiver.

  “Michigan? Who are you and what is your status?”

  “Joe MacKintosh, general. We’re a group of people who came together and settled up here about four years ago. Been growing steadily r
ight along. Patterned our form of government much like yours. But now, we’re really in a bind. We’ve known for a long time there were outlaws and warlords all around the area, but they always left us alone, for the most part. Now they’ve joined up and been hammering at us for days. Pushed us back all the way from Newberry to Whitefish Bay. Can you help us, general?”

  “Ten-four, Michigan. Hold on. Stay close to the radio.”

  “Opinions, suggestions, and alternatives, gentlemen,” Ben said, looking around him.

  “Obviously, general,” Dan said, “we’re going to have to jump in. So that lets you out.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” Ben shouted.

  “You’ve just had surgery on your leg and minor surgery on your feet.” The Englishman was unruffled. “You cannot jump, and you cannot march. It’s as simple as that. And there is absolutely no point in arguing as to who is going in. I am, naturally, and I would suggest Colonel West and his mercenaries. With General Jefferys commanding.”

  “I second that motion,” Colonel West said.

  “All right, all right!” Ben waved his hand. “You’re all right. Goddamnit!” He was thoughtful for a moment. “The old birds have to have fuel; that’s a pretty good distance. We know Memphis is clear.” He jerked up his field phone. “I want one platoon of Rebels airlifted to the Memphis Airport and I want them moving within the hour. Get cracking.”

  “I’m scared of Chicago,” Ben muttered, replacing the phone in the cradle. “And there is another problem: chutes. We don’t have enough. One battalion is going to have to jump while the other marches in. But marches in from . . . where?”

  West was studying a series of maps. “The only airport I can find that would be large enough to handle our birds is this Chippewa County airport. That would put us about thirty miles from the battle, as the crow flies.”

  “All right, we’ll have to see if it’s clear.” He called for an aide. “Stay with communications. Stay with the Michigan people all the way. Ask them about this Chippewa airport; if it’s clear with perhaps some fuel there. Move!” He turned to Cecil. “Get with the pilots, Cec. Pathfinders out right now.”

  “Right, Ben.” He turned to leave. Ben’s voice stopped him. “Yes, Ben?”

  “No prisoners, Cec. We can’t turn them loose to regroup, and we don’t have the equipment to bring them back here. No prisoners.”

  Cecil nodded and left the office.

  “Dan,” West said. “Not all my men are jump-trained. So I guess I’ll get to march in. We’ve both got things to do, so I’ll see you in Memphis and we’ll finalize matters.”

  Dan nodded and the mercenary left.

  “I ought to shoot that damn Lamar Chase for doing this to me!” Ben bitched, then grinned.

  “You’re needed here, general,” Dan reminded him.

  “I’m always needed in the places where I don’t want to be. You don’t seem to be in much of a hurry, Dan. Are your people that ready?”

  “My people are always ready, general.” Which was true. The ex-SAS man and his troops almost always spearheaded any hostile push. Dan demanded one hundred and ten percent from his people, and got it, or they cleared the outfit.

  “When you clear the hostiles out, Dan, be sure to mention to this Mackintosh about our outpost system.” There was no mention of if hostiles were cleared. There was no if to the Rebels. They just did it, and were never especially gentle about how they did it.

  They were bringing law and order back to a shattered nation. One either obeyed the rules, or one was dead. It was as simple as that.

  “Besides, general,” Dan said, “I know perfectly well, short of divine intervention, there is nothing going to keep you out of New York City, right?”

  “If it’s still standing, that is.”

  “Oh, I think it is, general. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to bet a month’s pay on it.”

  “If we were getting paid!” Ben said with a laugh.

  Ben stilled the ringing of the phone. Communications. “The airport in question, sir — Chippewa? It’s in good shape, and this Mackintosh fellow thinks there is plenty of fuel there. But he suggests to strain it.”

  “Thanks.” Ben looked at Dan. “The airport is all right, Dan. I know you’re antsy to get going. I wish to hell I was going in with you.”

  “There is always The Big Apple, general.” Dan grinned.

  The field phone rang again. This time the radio operator’s voice was subdued.

  “General Raines. I have General Striganov on the horn, sir. From Canada. He would like to offer whatever assistance you might need in dealing with the problem in Michigan.”

  NINE

  Ben sat for a few seconds in shocked silence. Finally, he found his voice. “Georgi?”

  “Ben,” the Russian’s voice was clear over the hundreds of miles from Canada. “First of all, let me apologize. I am terribly sorry for our past differences. And I am not asking for any forgiveness. Just listen to me for a moment, if you will.”

  “Certainly, Georgi.”

  “I and my people were wrong in what we did. Hideously, horribly wrong. Some of my staff realized it before I did. That is why we left California, for Canada, to start anew. All but three battalions of my army have been disbanded. They are now farmers and shepherds and the like; we are working hand in hand with the Canadians. And our form of government is much the same as yours. I have been monitoring your broadcasts with the besieged group in Michigan. I know these outlaws. We drove them from Canada. They are about two thousand strong, Ben.”

  “Two thousand!” Ben almost shouted the words.

  “Yes. They are holding back most in reserve. They know that eventually they can starve the good citizens out. They are also aware that your people are coming to help. Do I have to tell you what they’ve planned for you?”

  “Ambush.”

  “Precisely. I have ordered two of my battalions and one battalion of Canadians out. By ship. They left about an hour ago. They will hit the shore by landing craft at Crisp Point and then proceed inland by fast march. Do you approve?”

  “I certainly do approve, Georgi, and I thank you for your help.”

  “Colonel Stefan Rebet will be commanding the Russian battalions and Major Danjou the Canadian troops. Tell you the truth, Ben, I wish I was going in with them. I miss it. And I would like to sit down and talk with you.”

  “Hell, Georgi, I’m not going in either!”

  “What? The old fire-breathing dragon Ben Raines is going to miss some action. You’re not ill, I hope?”

  “Oh, no. I had some old lead dug out of one leg and some work done on my feet. Why aren’t you going in?”

  “Gout,” the Russian said, disgust in his voice.

  As Ben and Georgi, once bitter enemies and now reluctant allies, began laughing. They were still laughing and chatting and Dan, smiling, quietly left the office.

  Two hours before dawn.

  The pilots were checking over their aircraft. Gear had been loaded on the cargo planes and the men and women of the Rebels going in stood quietly, in loose formation, chatting and smoking and sipping coffee.

  Ben stood with his commanders.

  “Striganov told me this afternoon that his country used experimental gases in those areas of the northeast. Most of the country got the Tabun, and it wasn’t terribly effective. He said a lot of planes went down in that area of the nation; planes carrying God alone knew what kind of germ-warfare bombs. I just don’t know. It may be that those citizens up there, those who survived, just said to hell with it and chose to remain safe and quiet. I just don’t know.”

  “I heard that Russian planes carrying paratroopers went down in the far northeast,” West said. “And the Russians, once they heard their motherland was gone, went on a rampage, killing anyone, man, woman, or child, they came upon. That could account for a part of the population.”

  “The drift of gases, the drift of radiation, the Russians, the outlaws that rise up after any major disaste
r.” Dan shook his head. “Those left just may, like General Raines said, have kept their heads down and remained very quiet.”

  Ben shook hands all the way around. “Luck to you all, boys.” He stepped back and saluted them all. He said to Cecil, “Keep your ass down, old man.”

  “I’m glad the intel we’ve been receiving about the Russian proved accurate,” Cecil said. “There are certainly some strange twists and turns in war, gentleman.”

  “I’m glad to have him on our side,” Dan said. “Have you heard from Ike?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. Washington, D.C. is gone. Hot as a fireball. I’m wondering still about New York City. Do you men suppose the government, once it was re-formed, knew about New York City and just kept quiet about it?” Ben asked.

  “It would have to be, Ben,” Cecil said. “What was it that General Krigel said after he linked up with us after the battle for Tri-States? Let me think. Yes. President Logan had expressly forbidden any fly-bys over the eastern corridor. But if that’s true, why?”

  “I don’t know. Easier to contain the people, maybe. But Logan was crazy, remember? Hell, he married Fran Lantier Piper, didn’t he?”

  The men laughed softly at that.

  “But what about the people up in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey?” West asked. “Surely someone would have gotten out to tell their story. It would have to be that way.”

  Ike and Tina halted their teams some sixty miles outside of what was left of Washington, D.C. and the Baltimore areas. Their equipment showed the areas to be hot with radiation.

  Tina had pushed on ahead, staying well away from the hot zone. She radioed back to Ike.

  “The Philadelphia area, Ike?”

  “We’ll have to check it out. Stay well west of the hot zone. Start cutting east at Hagerstown. Take the Gettysburg, York, Lancaster route. Have you found any survivors yet, Tina?”

  “Ten-four, Ike. Plenty of them. But they’re jumpy folks. We know they’re there; they’ve let us see them. But they won’t approach us. Ike? I think we’re entering a no-man’s-land here. These people don’t have any idea who we are.”