Trapped in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “What are we going to do with all that, General?” Colonel Rebet asked.

  “Rob a bank,” Ben told him.

  “Why did you suddenly decide to confide in me, Ben?” Jerre asked, as they walked toward the bank building.

  “Because I’ve decided it isn’t you.”

  “Thanks just a whole bunch, Ben. Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”

  “Nearly everyone is suspect, Jerre. But you haven’t been out of my sight in over forty-eight hours, and the leaks continue.”

  “To Khamsin?”

  “No. To the creepies. Somebody is telling them where our caches of supplies are hidden and where our small-manned machine-gun emplacements are located. And now the crawlers were tipped that you were with me and we were coming up here.”

  “And now?”

  “We start at the top and work down. That’s being done this minute at Chase’s main hospital by Doctor Lindgren and his people. Once we’ve eliminated the top people, I can breathe a little easier.”

  “Surely you don’t suspect your close friends? You’ve been together for years.”

  “I suspect everybody until they’re cleared, Jerre. That goes with the territory. We’ve all been through this type of thing before. They wouldn’t expect anything less from me.” He looked up. “Here we are.”

  “You’re really going to rob this bank, aren’t you?”

  “Gold, Jerre. Someday, we’ll go back to a limited use of paper money—of some type. We have to have something to back that money. So we’ll use the gold standard.”

  Ben waved a team of Rebels in to clear the bank, and he and Jerre crouched inside the rusting hulk of a pickup truck.

  “Beth tells me she’s going back to Illinois when New York City is secure,” Jerre said.

  Ben smiled. “Yes. She told me. Back to Lev and his cows. That’s what we’re striving for, Jerre. More and more people back to the land. We’ve gone back to opening frontiers, pushing out in all directions. Good, solid, steady people from which to build a base.”

  “And then you’ll be president—again.”

  “Oh, no. Not me, Jerre. It’ll be years before the nation reaches the point of electing a leader. If it ever does. Sometimes I have many doubts about that. We destroy one outlaw band, two more pop up to take its place.”

  “And why is that, Ben?”

  “We’re well into the second decade of no public schooling, no laws to guide the footsteps of humankind. Absolutely nothing for the young to cling to, no role models for the young. In a decade and a half this world has reverted back to the caves. It’s going to take many, many years to restore order.”

  They were silent for a time. The lower floors of the building were cleared, and they waited for the engineers to show up.

  “Remember when we first met, Ben?” Jerre asked softly.

  “Vividly.”

  “I can’t believe all those years have gone by.”

  “Swiftly roll the ages, kid.”

  “Even back then, Ben, you talked of law and order and rules. The smoke from the ashes of war hadn’t even settled, and you were talking about order.”

  “Without it, Jerre, you have anarchy.”

  “You’ll never change, Ben.”

  “One thing won’t.” He looked at her. “But God, I wish it could.”

  “I wish it could, too, Ben.” She touched his arm. “And I mean that.”

  “I know you do.” He stood up. “Here come the engineers. Let’s go rob a bank, kid.”

  “Piece of cake,” the engineer said. “We won’t have to blow it. We’ll torch these sections.” He pointed them out. “And then wrench it open. Take about an hour.”

  Ben left Colonel Rebet in charge, and with Jerre, headed back to his CP.

  “I see now why you were so close-mouthed about Khamsin,” Ike told him. “You’re thinking that whoever it is tipping off the creepies might do the same for the Hot Wind, right?”

  “Yes. And I don’t have a clue who it is.”

  “Nate is working on Katzman’s people right now. How far down the line are you going?”

  “I’ll stop it once we have the high-level and mid-level personnel checked out. I feel sure it’s one of the newer people. He or she will tip their hand eventually. So far there’ve been no really important leaks—except for today’s leak concerning Jerre.”

  “If there was a way to do it, I’d like to see her get gone from this island.”

  “I’ve gone over and over that, Ike. I don’t see any way of getting her out of here. She’s just going to have to stick close and stay alert.”

  Ben checked his watch. A few more hours and it would be dark. A few more hours and Khamsin would start his ferrying of troops across the Hudson River. Ike noted the grim smile on Ben’s face, but said nothing about it. He cut his eyes to Cecil. The black man arched one eyebrow and minutely shrugged his thick shoulders.

  Ben still wasn’t talking about what he planned to do that night.

  Ben lifted his eyes, looking first at Ike, then at Cecil. He surprised them both by saying, “You boys find you a good vantage point for this evening. It’s going to be quite a show.”

  At dusk, Ben left General Striganov in charge and waved at Buddy and Tina and Dan to join him. “Buddy, go ask Thermopolis if he’d like to join us.”

  His son was back in a few minutes, Thermopolis walking beside him.

  “Let’s go, people,” Ben said.

  “Going to personally greet this Khamsin person, General?” Thermopolis asked.

  “Oh, yes!” Ben said brightly. “I’m going to give him a very warm greeting—one befitting a man of his international reputation, you might say.”

  Tina and Buddy exchanged glances but said nothing.

  Heavily guarded, the group drove down to 96th Street and parked along the waterfront. Another group of Rebels met them there, having arrived several hours earlier, to secure the spot.

  With the darkness, the slight warming trend of the past few days had vanished and the night had turned bitterly cold. They were all bundled up against the freezing winds.

  “Khamsin is loading up now, sir,” Beth told Ben.

  Ben nodded and then surprised everybody when he turned to Beth and said, “Get me Base Three, please, Beth. On scramble.”

  The old Fort Dix airfield down in New Jersey.

  “Go, sir.”

  Ben took the handset. “Warming them up, Chipper?”

  Whatever Chipper said caused Ben first to smile and then to laugh.

  “Taxi them out, Chipper. My people say Khamsin is right on schedule. You have fifteen minutes to lift off. Good luck.”

  “Spotter planes, Father?” Buddy inquired.

  “Something like that, son. I hope somebody remembered to bring the coffee. It’s cold as a well-digger’s ass out here.”

  The coffee was poured into the cups, and the group squatted down beside their vehicles, to block the cold hard wind blowing off the river.

  All of them had questions they would have liked to ask Ben. All kept away from the subject, knowing that Ben was not going to shed any light on the matter. Not yet. All felt this was to be an “eyes only” explanation.

  “What time is it?” Cooper asked, for the tenth time in ten minutes.

  “One minute later than the last time you asked,” Ben told him. “Relax. The show is going to begin in about four minutes.”

  Thermopolis looked at Ben. “You brought me down here for a purpose, General. Would you like to tell me what it is?”

  “Not really. You’ll be able to see for yourself very shortly.”

  “You sure it’s going to be worth the wait?” Thermopolis asked.

  “It will be for me. I can’t speak for you or any of the others.”

  Beth said, “Spotters report ferries and boats shoving off, General.”

  Ben glanced at his watch. “Right on schedule. The planes should be over the zone in one minute.”

  “To spot, of course,” Thermopolis
said, his tone gin-martini dry.

  “Among other things.” Ben smiled with his reply, conscious of all eyes on him.

  “I don’t think I’m going to like this very much,” Thermopolis said.

  “It’s a long walk back to our sector,” Ben said. “And you know what lots of folks say about the Big Apple: It’s a dangerous city.”

  “If that’s supposed to be funny, it isn’t.”

  “I have a strange sense of humor.”

  Buddy lifted his night glasses. He could just make out the dark shapes of the boats as they made their way slowly out into the river. Far in the distance, the sounds of old prop-job planes came faintly to them.

  “Those aren’t spotter planes,” Tina pointed out. “Too heavy. Those sound like . . .” She whirled and faced her father.

  “. . . Puffs,” Buddy finished it for his sister.

  “I have such astute children,” Ben said. “Makes me very proud.”

  “Puffs,” Thermopolis said. “I remember reading about them. They were used in the Vietnam War, weren’t they?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ben said. “And used quite effectively, I might add.”

  “AC47s,” Buddy took it up. “The planes are painted all black—awesome-looking. They are fairly bristling with 7.62- and .50-caliber machine guns and 20-millimeter Vulcan and 40-millimeter Bofors cannon. All weapons taken into count, the Puffs are capable of pouring out some eight thousand rounds a minute. One Puff can effectively destroy every living thing in an area the size of a football field.”

  “Very good, Buddy,” Ben complimented him. He looked at Thermopolis. “You like rock and roll, don’t you, Thermopolis?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Well, get ready for some rock and roll that is music to my ears. Feel free to hum along if you like.”

  “Just think, General: I was actually beginning to like you.”

  “There are no gentleman’s wars, Thermopolis. As far as I’m concerned, there never has been one. There is a winner and a loser in war. And taking into consideration what is at stake here, I, for one, don’t intend to be a loser. Do you?”

  “Putting it that way, no.”

  All along the shoreline, at spots stretching from 72nd Street up to 86th, great spotlights clicked on—the same lights that were once used for the grand openings of movies and Broadway shows.

  The boats and ferries were caught in the strong beams.

  Ben started whistling an old tune from back in the 1950s: “Shake, Rattle, and Roll!”

  NINE

  The cold night was shattered as the Puffs unleashed their fury against the boats and ferries and the army of the Hot Wind.

  Thermopolis stood with undisguised awe on his face as the Puffs made their slow circles above the water, the big planes trembling as their payloads were uncorked, the deadly rain destroying everything that was in their path.

  A single Puff circled the docks where Khamsin’s men were waiting to be loaded on the boats. The flying tank turned the docks wet and slippery with the blood of the army of the Hot Wind.

  The Puff lumbered on, all guns thundering and spitting out the deadly hail, destroying anything that came within range.

  There were survivors from the deadly birds, but most were so equipment-laden they sank like bricks in the cold dark waters of the Hudson. Those who did manage to cling to some debris and make the Manhattan shoreline soon discovered that Ben Raines and his Rebels were not in the least bit interested in showing any hospitality toward an avowed enemy.

  The men of the army of the Hot Wind were shot as soon as they touched shore.

  Khamsin was learning a hard lesson about engaging in warfare with Ben Raines: the man was as ruthless as a grizzly bear protecting cubs. As a friend, Ben Raines was generous; as an enemy, he had no equal on the battlefield.

  Khamsin, the Hot Wind, lost approximately half his army in less than ten minutes.

  The boats and ferries sank beneath the surface of the river with a hiss and bubble. The Puffs winged their way back to their base, thousands of pounds lighter as their ammunition was exhausted. Only an occasional shot was fired from the Manhattan shoreline as the last of the Hot Wind’s army sank into a watery grave.

  “Jesus Christ!” Thermopolis said.

  Ben cut his eyes to the man. “We just shortened the odds against us, Thermopolis. By just about half. Now we really do have a chance of coming out of this alive.”

  Thermopolis slowly shook his head. “I’m not condemning you, Ben Raines. You did what you felt you had to do. It’s just that . . . I had never seen anything like that before.”

  Ben took the handset from Beth. “Eagle to Big Bird.”

  “Go, Eagle.”

  “Good job, Chipper. I’ll have to put a bonus in your pay envelope.”

  Chipper laughed over the miles. “I’ll settle for just wrapping up this job and seeing my wife and kids again, General. Big Bird out.”

  “All right, people,” Ben said. “Let’s go zap some night crawlers. It’s going to take Khamsin several days to recover from this night.”

  Not only did the pounding from the Puffs stop Khamsin dead in his tracks, it had an enormous effect on the Night People, further weakening their morale. There were only a few very scattered firefights the night of the Puffs, as it came to be called. The magic dragons’ brief but deadly appearance stunned everyone who had never before seen the awesomeness of the machines.

  The morning after the night of the Puffs, Ben drove down to the killing area. The shoreline was littered with bodies, as the river gave up its dead, belching the bodies ashore in swollen death. Rebels were busy picking up the bodies and loading them on the barges, where they promptly froze in grotesque postures of death in the bitter winter winds.

  Another front had moved in during the night, steadying the temperature for several hours and dropping a load of snow over the city. Then, at the dawning, the temperature sank like a rock and everything froze as the mercury stayed in the low teens. Adding the velocity of the winds, the chill factor was well below zero.

  “What about activity over there?” Ben asked, pointing to the New Jersey shore.

  “Very little,” Ike told him. “It appears that last night knocked the socks off the Hot Fart.”

  “He’ll find another pair. Bet on that. He won’t try another mass moving of troops. So from now on, we’ve got to be on the alert for infiltrators. He’ll be sending in men in small boats, at night. Ike, let’s start hammering at him again. Three or four rounds, then shift the location of the tanks. Let’s keep it up around the clock. It’s do-or-die time for us. We’ve knocked him down, now let’s kick him a few times.”

  “We’ll start throwing stuff at them within the hour, Ben? That was a hell of a show last night.”

  “Just as long as we can keep him down and guessing, we’ve got a chance.”

  “The man has no honor.” Khamsin spoke the words quietly. “None. He is void of morals. The god he worships must be from Hell.”

  None of the field commanders replied. Like Khamsin, they were all still somewhat in a state of shock from the previous night of the Puffs.

  “We will have three days of mourning,” Khamsin announced. “For three days we will pray for guidance and for the souls of our brothers. Although,” he was quick to add, “we all know they are now with Allah.”

  Everyone agreed that was surely true. With Allah. Right.

  The jarring crash of half a dozen incoming 155s sent the men diving to the floor. Khamsin was up on his boots before the dust had settled, cursing wildly. He shook his fist in the direction of Manhattan.

  A runner from Khamsin’s communications center darted into the room. “Messages, sir.”

  “What are they? Read them to me!”

  “The Judges from the underground want to know why you didn’t tell them of last night’s invasion. They would have initiated a diversion.”

  Khamsin cursed louder. “Tell them . . . tell them that I did not wish to run the risk of Ben Rain
es intercepting the messages. My apologies,” he added bitterly. “Is that all?”

  “No, sir. The units close to the waterfront are asking permission to return the cannon fire.”

  “No,” Khamsin said wearily. “We can’t run the risk of harming any of our . . . allies.” He spat out the last word. “Tell them to pull back. We’re all pulling back; out of range of the artillery. God damn Ben Raines!”

  “Khamsin is pulling his people back, General.” Beth relayed the information to him. “The first units are already well out of range of our heaviest pieces.”

  “Tell the gunners to pour it on. Napalm and Willie Peter. Let’s cause them all the grief we can while we can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The tank commanders along the Hudson began lobbing in the most dreaded of artillery: napalm and white phosphorus. The big 155 SP, capable of sending a shell screaming for twelve miles, elevated their nineteen-feet-ten-inch tubes and began sending out a round a minute. Within ten minutes, the area from North Bergen down to the New Jersey Turnpike bridge over Newark Bay was a smoking, burning hell as the long-vacant, dust-filled, and neglected buildings burst into flames.

  Ben stood on a cloverleaf of the Henry Hudson Parkway and watched through binoculars as New Jersey burned. He was smiling grimly—a smile that only another soldier could understand.

  “General?” Beth said quietly.

  Ben turned. She was holding out the handset to him. “Who is it?”

  “Khamsin, sir.”

  Ben took the handset. “What do you want, Khamsin?”

  “I will overlook your boorishness, General, and be brief. You are a dead man. Walking around dead. I am going to destroy you. Whatever it takes, including my own life, you will never leave that miserable island of concrete and steel alive.”

  “There is that old saying about talk being cheap, Khamsin.”

  The Libyan cursed him.

  Ben broke the radio connection. “He’s losing his cool, gang. But he’s still a very dangerous man—maybe even more so now. I cost him a lot of face, and with those types of people, that’s very important.”