Battle in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Perhaps that is precisely why they still cling to those views, Lamar,” Ben replied. “Forget about them. They’ll make it or they won’t.” He looked at Ike. “Why this trip, Ike?”

  “We think Hoffman and Brodermann are holed up somewhere in the northwest. Intell has narrowed it down to that location. They believe that the troops have spread out over a couple or three states, taken wives, probably with children, and settled in while their leaders recruit new members. There has been quite an exodus of sorry-assed people from all over the nation. All heading west.”

  “What states?” Beth asked, sitting at the table with her notepad.

  “Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana,” Ike said, looking over at her.

  She nodded. “That’s almost half a million square miles.”

  “Did you just add all that up or do you keep those facts in that head of yours?” Ike asked.

  Beth smiled sweetly at him.

  “And you have a plan on how we might ferret them out?” Ben asked.

  “No,” the ex-Navy SEAL admitted. “Intell thinks they speak nothing but English, have become solid citizen types, helping all others around them, thereby making themselves a valuable part of a hundred or more communities. And there is not a way in hell we could prove they aren’t what they claim to be. And here is something else: Some senior general, a Frederick Rasbach, an uncle or great uncle to Hoffman, apparently slipped out of Texas weeks ago and returned to South America. There, he and his people destroyed all records of the NAL. Right down to the last scrap of paper. Our allies down there report there is nothing left to link anybody with the NAL.”

  “This General Rasbach?”

  “Vanished. He’ll probably live out the remainder of his years in some remote part of South America.”

  “Well, you can bet your boots on one thing: If Wink Payne and Moi Sambura made it clear of Alabama, they’re heading that way to join the new movement. Shit!” Ben added.

  “One conflict after another,” Therm said softly. “It just never ends. I swear to God, I don’t see how you people have kept your sanity all these years.”

  Ben looked at him. “By not just believing that we’re in the right, Therm. But knowing we’re right.”

  “I could argue that, Ben, but I don’t feel like it right now. So what are you going to do?”

  “Try to stop the flood of crud and crap from joining up with Hoffman.”

  “And how do you propose to do that, Raines?” Lamar Chase asked.

  Ben smiled broadly and winked at Jersey, sitting across the room. She knew immediately something big was in the works, and muttered under her breath, “Oh, shit!”

  “Why, Lamar,” Ben said. “By doing what I do best. Going out and getting into an argument.”

  Knowing that Ben would not be dissuaded, Ike offered only a token verbal resistance, and quickly gave that up. Chase just cussed for a few minutes, then set about adding to the medical personnel going with Ben.

  Then he said he was going with Ben.

  “What?” Ben shouted.

  “You heard me. And don’t shout. There is nothing wrong with my hearing.”

  “Why, you old fart! You’d get in the way.”

  Lamar smiled sweetly. Very sweetly. Ben braced himself. “I don’t go,” the chief of medicine said. “You don’t go. It’s just that simple.”

  “That’s blackmail, Lamar!”

  “You damn right it is. Pure and simple. Now what is your answer?”

  “Oh, all right. But I don’t want to hear a lot of bitching from you about the field.”

  “Me? Complain?” Chase attempted to put a very innocent look on his face. He managed to look like a satyr trying to slip into the back of a church with screwing the organist on his mind. “I never complain, Raines.”

  “Everybody make sure your boots are laced up tight,” Ben called. “The shit is getting deep around here.”

  “I resent that,” Chase said.

  “Get your duffle packed, Lamar,” Ben told him. “We pull out in the morning. Early.”

  Lamar started to say that he’d be up before Ben. But he checked that. Nobody got up before Ben Raines.

  “Therm,” Ben called. “You’re sure Emil is still up in Iowa?”

  “Right. The extreme eastern part. I spoke with him last night.”

  “Good. Keep him up there and out of trouble. We’ll head for the Kansas-Colorado line and start stretching out. Corrie, have our people in Texas and Oklahoma stop any westward movement. They know the types to stop and turn around. Have Buddy, Dan, and Jackie start moving their battalions north. We’ll all intersect . . . here,” he pointed to the map. “And I want full battalion strength. Make sure they double the artillery that normally travels with each battalion. We don’t have any way of knowing how many of the crud and crap have migrated west to join Hoffman—probably thousands, the way those bastards network—but we can damn sure put a stopper in the bottle. We’re out of here in the morning. 0500 hours.”

  “How does he know which types will join with this Hoffman,” Dr. Sessions asked Therm. “Does he think he possesses some magical powers?”

  Therm ignored the sarcasm. “He knows. Believe me, he does.”

  “That’s impossible!” the doctor snorted.

  “I thought so too. Until I spent some time with him. He’s a very unusual man.”

  “I’m sorry, Thermopolis. But I have to disagree. He’s a right-wing savage. My wife can’t stand to be around him and quite frankly, neither can I. As gentle a man as you are, I find it incredible that you are a willing part of the Rebel movement.”

  Therm smiled. “Ben Raines is a walking contradiction, Doctor. That’s what he is. And hard-headed as a goat. But if this nation is ever to be whole, he’s the man who’ll do it. Five years ago, you would have had a most difficult time convincing me of that. But I believe it now.”

  “If he doesn’t kill half the population first.”

  Therm looked at him and then shocked the doctor and astonished himself when he said, “Did you ever consider that perhaps half the population might need killing?”

  Therm walked out to the long lines of vehicles grumbling and snorting and farting in the predawn darkness. He knew he’d find Ben at the head of the column.

  The two men stood shoulder to shoulder for a silent moment. “Dr. Sessions and wife are considering leaving us,” Therm broke the silence.

  “His option.” Ben didn’t give a good goddamn what the doctor and wife did.

  Thermopolis smiled in the darkness. He knew how Ben felt and he pretty much felt the same way. At first, he and Dr. Sessions and wife had gotten along well. But Thermopolis had been too long with the Rebels. He had learned that the Rebels did not crave war; they were not bloodthirsty savages, but rather just flesh and blood and caring and feeling men and women who had a very ugly job to do, knew that there was no one else around to do it, and so were doing it. Every army throughout history has drawn its share of homicidal maniacs, and the Rebels were no exception. But they were always quickly discovered and booted out. Many of the Rebels were family men and women, whose spouses were the home guard back at Base Camp One. To a person they longed for the war-days to be over. But until that day, they would fight.

  As for the new doctors, to put it bluntly, they were getting on Thermopolis’ nerves. Standing by Ben, he said as much. “Run them off,” Ben told him. “It’s your command.”

  “We need them.”

  “Then put up with them, Therm.”

  “Goddamn it, Ben! Everything is black and white to you. Life isn’t that way.”

  “It is if that’s the way one chooses to see it,” Ben replied, hiding his smile.

  “Shit!” Therm said, and stalked off. He stopped and turned around and yelled, “You are a very exasperating man, Ben.”

  “Right,” Ben called. “You be careful out there.”

  “Will do.”

  Ben made his slow walking tour of the column. Heavy weapons had been beefed u
p, with the battalion carrying nearly twice the artillery they normally carried. Each squad carried an additional heavy machine gun and mortar. More M249s had been assigned to each squad, giving each squad awesome firepower. Any band of outlaws or malcontents who attacked this unit would be in for a very unpleasant surprise.

  “Let’s roll,” Ben said, climbing into his Hummer. “Head west, Coop.”

  Ben and battalion left Therm’s HQ, and headed west, toward the Oklahoma state line. Long before they reached the Arkansas’ western border, they cut north, up toward Missouri. For the first several hours, their journey was uneventful. They saw many people; more than most felt they would. But the people showed no more than a passing interest in the long Rebel column. Ragged kids watched with more interest than the adults, looking at the towed artillery and the tanks that rumbled along the old roads. The kids grinned and waved at the Rebels. Most of the adults did not. Soon, the Rebels contented themselves matching the civilians’ unfriendly looks stare for stare.

  “What the hell’s wrong with these people?” Jersey asked. “They act like . . . well, I don’t know what the hell they’re acting like. Stuck up, I guess.”

  “They don’t need us,” Ben replied. “So they think. They’ve lived isolated for years and like it that way. Intell said there were a large number of religious fanatics beginning to surface all over the country. Many of them accepting what has happened as God’s will. Let them think what they want. I don’t give a damn about the adults. It’s the kids that bother me. They’re being denied medical care because of the beliefs of their parents and that’s wrong.”

  Ben stopped it there. He just didn’t know what to do about the kids. General Jahn and his people would take as many as they could. When they could handle no more . . . ? Well, Ben didn’t like to think about that. Ben knew there would be thousands more kids, just like these, in the years to come. The Rebels would try to help the little ones. But the Rebel homes were already very nearly overwhelmed.

  The Rebel column hit a stretch of country where they saw no humans. No signs of life except for plumes of smoke, coming from homes or camps set well back off the road.

  “They don’t want any part of us,” Cooper said, gesturing toward the smoke. “It’s gonna be like I read in books written before the Great War. The haves and the have nots. Many of those people will begin to see what we have, and then look at what they don’t have, and they’ll revolt.”

  “Yeah,” Jersey said. “And what makes me mad is they’ll blame us for what they don’t have. I read those books too, Coop. They don’t want to work for anything. They want someone—meaning us—to hand everything to them. Piss on them.”

  Ben smiled secretly, letting them talk. There were no free rides in the Rebel society. Everybody who could work, did so. Refuse, and you were kicked out and nobody gave a damn what happened to you. Those people who lived in the camps and houses where the smoke was originating could step forward and join the Rebel movement, and they would be welcomed. But if they expected a free handout, they were sorely wrong. And if any group tried to take by force what the Rebels had, they would die. There were no pseudosociological excuses here. The Rebels did not give a damn for color or how a person was raised. One was either a part of the Rebel movement, or one was out in the cold. As Therm had pointed out: the Rebel philosophy was black and white, with no gray in the center. And until conditions returned to some sort of normalcy, that was the way it had to be.

  “Order everybody to button up and make certain all body armor is on,” Ben told Corrie. “This is sniper country. And we are not the best-loved group of people in the world.”

  “Putting it mildly,” Beth said drily.

  “Scouts report a large number of people, men, women, and children, moving west on Highway 160,” Corrie said. “Estimated six or seven hundred of them, four or five to a vehicle. Too many for the Scouts to stop.”

  Ben lifted a map. “We’re almost at an intercept point. Tell the Scouts to keep them in sight and us informed. As soon as we’re in position, have the Scouts fall back and join us. Step on it, Coop. Corrie, tell the tankers and supply vehicles to catch up with us.”

  The column reached the intercept point and set up roadblocks. The Scouts joined the main body and reported verbally. After the report, Ben stood in the center of the highway, cradling his Thompson. He waited for the first forward units of the civilian column. He felt he knew what he would initially see, and he was not disappointed.

  Main battle tanks, Dusters, and APCs were behind him and on both sides of him, forming a U-shape, vehicles staggered, with all guns pointing toward the east. Rebel units had taken up defensive positions all around Ben and his personal team. It was quite an impressive sight. And the sight was not lost on the rattletrap cars and trucks that soon came chugging and rattling up the road, many of them belching smoke. Ben could see that only about one out of every three vehicles was in fairly good shape.

  From hidden vantage points, Scouts reported in. “Kids are all at the rear of the column. Only armed men and women at the front half of the column.”

  “Millions and millions of spare parts all over the nation,” Jersey said, disgust in her voice. “New cars and trucks everywhere, and these clowns show up driving this crap.”

  “Dr. Sessions and his kind say we should pity these people, Jersey,” Ben said with a smile.

  “Sessions and his kind haven’t been out here fighting these sorry types for years,” she retorted. “He’ll get a bullet up his butt one of these days and that might change his mind.”

  “You really believe that?” Cooper called from the other side of the road.

  “Hell, no,” she said. “It hasn’t proved true very often in the past.”

  The convoy of movers stopped several hundred yards from the roadblock.

  “Give me that bullhorn,” Ben said.

  A man wearing two pistols got out and stood on the cracked old highway. “What’s the trouble here? We’re not lookin’ for no fight, mister.”

  “You won’t have a fight if you just turn those jalopies around and head on back where you came from.”

  “You just ain’t got the right to tell us where we can or can’t go.”

  “I’ve got over twelve hundred heavily armed Rebels that says I can,” Ben’s voice boomed over the yards between them. “You people just turn around and head on back where you came from and there won’t be any trouble. But I can assure you of this: you are not going to go west to join Hoffman and his Nazis.”

  The man waited just a couple of heartbeats too long before he replied. “What’s that you say? Hell, I ain’t never heard of nobody called Hoffman.”

  “His face is flushing,” Beth said, looking at him through binoculars.

  “Mister,” Ben said flatly. “You’re a liar.”

  The man opened his mouth to return an angry protest. He bit off the protest as his eyes swept the hundreds of rifles pointing at him. “We got a right to choose the type of government we want to live under, Ben Raines. And yeah, General, I know who you are.”

  “The Nazi movement will not flourish in this country, mister,” Ben told him. “Not now, not ever.”

  “We got a right to live decent!” the man shouted, his anger boiling over.

  “Who is stopping you from doing that?”

  “You are, you son of a bitch!”

  “How?”

  “By forcin’ us to live under rules that we don’t want to live under. That’s how.”

  “And you think Hoffman will be an improvement, right?”

  “It’ll damn sure be better than the rules you people enforce, that’s for sure.”

  “Boy, has somebody fed him a line of crap,” Jersey said.

  “Teams are attempting to flank us,” Corrie said. “Left and right.”

  “This guy’s going to open the dance any second now,” Ben replied. “Get ready to roll for the ditches.”

  He lifted the bullhorn. “Nobody is forcing any of you to live under Rebel
law, mister.”

  “That’s shit!” The man started to lift a hand.

  “Don’t do this, Roy!” a man’s voice called out from among the movers’ vehicles. “Hear him out.”

  “Shut up, Tom!” the spokesman said, turning his head. “How come you and your people want to argue with me every step of the way?”

  “Because you’re wrong!”

  “Mister,” Ben spoke through the bullhorn. “Call back your teams trying to flank us. They haven’t got a chance.”

  The man’s hand shot up into the air. “Now!” he screamed. “Kill the bastards. All of them.”

  Ben and his teams dropped to the old road and rolled to the shoulders, then behind APCs. The Rebels opened fire. They just got out of the line of fire as the main battle tanks and Dusters opened fire with cannon and heavy machine guns. For several hundred yards eastward, the lines of cars and trucks erupted in a seemingly endless wall of flame as the gas tanks exploded. Parts of vehicles and pieces of humans were sky-rocketed into the air by the thunderous explosions.

  Ben came to his knees, lifting his Thompson to fire, but lowered it when he saw there was nothing to fire at. The Rebels had kept their fire away from the last half of the column, in order to spare the women and kids. Those women had now grabbed up their kids and were running for the safety of the fields, left and right of the road and the inferno. Bodies and pieces of bodies were sprawled in death on both sides of the old highway. Only a few were moving and moaning in pain.

  “Cease fire,” Ben called. “Shut it down. It’s over.” The movers had been able to fire only a few rounds before the Rebel wall of death collapsed on them. Ben lifted the bullhorn to his lips. “Stand up with your hands empty. Do it, people.”

  Slowly those movers still alive—most of them to the rear of the column—began getting to their feet. All were careful to keep their hands in plain sight, without weapons. Many held their hands over their heads.

  Cooper lowered binoculars. “They’re complying, General. All up and down the line.”

  Ben lifted his own binoculars. He could see plainly the shock on some faces and the open anger on others.