Tyranny in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  The Chinook settled with a gentle bump on the tarmac in the middle of the airfield, and before the rotors began to slow, Walker had his men out of the chopper and running toward the tower. Since the field wasn’t in current use, there were no emergency vehicles to shed light on the field and the men were practically invisible in the semigloom of dusk.

  Private Sam Donally shielded his eyes against the reflection off the tower glass as he tried to see what was going on with the Chinook out on his field. He keyed his mike. “Chinook 7624, please advise present condition.”

  “Hang on, tower, I’m checking my gauges as we speak,” Windsong replied, playing for time. “The engine temp is down but I’m still having trouble with the hydraulics.”

  “Do you want me to radio Indianapolis for assistance?” Donally asked, suddenly remembering he hadn’t asked the pilot his mission or for his clearance codes in the excitement of the emergency.

  “No,” Windsong replied, “I think it’s just a plugged hydraulic line. I may be able to fix it myself.”

  “By the way, Chinook 7624, I need to log the clearance code into my book. Would you give it to me?”

  The door behind Donally burst open and a black-faced man stood there with a shotgun cradled in his arms. He pumped the lever with a loud metallic sound. “How’s that for your clearance code, sonny?”

  Donally raised his hands, his mouth suddenly dry and his stomach feeling as if he’d been kicked in the balls. “It’ll do . . . it’ll do,” he croaked.

  The man stepped aside and Walker walked into the tower and picked up the mike. “Mission accomplished, Chinook. Stand down.”

  Then he pulled a .45 automatic out of his holster and stuck the barrel against Donally’s forehead. “We’re not going to have any trouble out of you, are we, son?”

  “No, sir!” Donally said.

  “Good. Now tell me how many men you have on base and where they’re stationed.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Walker had his squadron of helicopters fly into the Terre Haute Air National Guard base from several different directions and all at extremely low altitudes. He’d received the week’s flight control codes from Private Sam Donally, who’d become very cooperative with a .45 aimed at his head, just in case the air traffic controllers at the Indianapolis base happened to be alert enough to notice the increased air activity on Saturday night.

  Only two of the pilots had been questioned over the radio, and the controller had evidently accepted their stories about flying night maneuvers to get their air time up to standards to receive their flight pay.

  Once all the pilots and Blackshirt Special Ops men were present, Walker had a pre-invasion conference in the officers’ wardroom. He stood at the front of the room with everyone else gathered in the folding chairs scattered around in a semicircle.

  “Some of you pilots who’ve flown into Indianapolis might already know this, but bear with me. A lot of the Special Ops boys have never been to the main base.”

  He perched on the edge of a desk with one hip and began his talk. “When President Osterman set up the new governmental headquarters, she chose Fort Benjamin Harrison on the outskirts of Indianapolis. At the time, the base boasted the largest indoor building in the country. Though only three stories aboveground, the main administration building has three underground bunkers that were built to withstand a nuclear blast. In the old days, back in the seventies and eighties, the base served as a repository for all the paper records of the Armed Services, as well as the center that processed all the payroll checks for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. The building was built to enormous standards, with halls wide enough for several jeeps to pass each other without crowding. It is my understanding that the new leaders of the country utilize the underground bunkers for most of their work and only lower-level administrative staff are housed aboveground.”

  One of the pilots, a young man with barely enough fuzz on his face to be shaving, raised his hand. “Sir.”

  Walker nodded. “Yes, go on.”

  “I was wondering if you expect many civilian casualties in the upcoming attack.”

  Walker smiled and shook his head. “No, not at all. That’s one of the reasons we planned the attack for the early morning hours on a Sunday. Virtually none of the civilians will be on duty, and those active duty personnel will be at their lowest manpower and hopefully at their lowest level of alertness.”

  The young man nodded, evidently relieved he wouldn’t be expected to slaughter too many of his fellow Americans.

  “Now,” Walker continued, “the topography of the land surrounding Fort Benjamin Harrison is mainly flat, with only gently rolling hills and a few shallow river valleys in the area. That means we won’t have much cover on the way in, but it also means we can fly low and slow and not have to worry about flying into the side of a mountain.”

  He stood up and motioned to Lieutenant Robert Hawk to come forward. “Now, I’m going to be in charge of the commandos in the Chinook, and we’ll be coming in on your tails after we’re told you’ve taken out all the AA batteries and as much of the ground resistance as you can. Since I’m not a pilot, I’m going to let Lieutenant Hawk, your squadron commander, set the battle plan for the air assault. Lieutenant Hawk.”

  Robert Hawk stepped to a blackboard on the front wall, where he’d drawn a rough schematic of Fort Benjamin Harrison. “Since we’ve managed to get within fifty miles of the base and we’ll all have full tanks, we’re going to come in from the four points of the compass, with an Apache leading each of the four assault teams. They’ll be followed by two each of the HueyCobras and two each of the Defenders, which have been fitted with Miniguns and will come in last for mopping up and strafing of any ground troops that will be on the move. Since the Apaches are the only machines with night-flying capabilities, the others will follow in V-formation behind them, using the Apaches’ lights as guides to keep the correct altitudes and positions.”

  “Sir,” one of the pilots said, “that leaves two each of the HueyCobras and Defenders left.”

  Hawk nodded. “Yeah, those will accompany the Chinook in on its approach to protect the ground assault troops, just in case the fort manages to get any aircraft in the air.”

  “What about our objectives?” the man asked.

  “Primary is the ground-emplacement AA guns and any other defensive weapons or troops. Secondary is to destroy as much of the aboveground admin building as we can. Colonel King has asked that, within reason and safety, we avoid as much as we can damaging valuable aircraft on the ground, as we’re gonna need those later when we go up against the SUSA.”

  Another of the pilots addressed Walker. “Sir, do you think forty men will be enough to hold the base after we take it?”

  Walker nodded. “Yes, I do. Once we’ve taken control of the admin building and taken out the new leaders, we will issue a radio announcement that President Osterman has retaken her rightful position as head of the government and she will order all the troops to stand down. Without anyone to lead them against us, I don’t feel we’ll have too many problems. In addition, Colonel King will be arriving within hours of the assault with several hundred additional troops loyal to President Osterman, so there shouldn’t be any difficulty whatsoever.”

  He stepped forward. “If there aren’t any additional questions, hit the sack, men. We’ll be getting up at 0500 and be ready for takeoff at 0600. I want to hit the base just before shift change at 0645, when the guards have been on duty for an entire shift and their alertness will be at its lowest ebb. Good night, and good hunting tomorrow.”

  At 0630 on Sunday morning, Private Sloan Wilson shook his head and rubbed bleary eyes as he sat in the radar room in the control tower at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He’d been on duty for seven and a half hours, and hadn’t seen so much as a blip on the green radar screens lining the tower. To make matters worse, the coffee machine was on the fritz and he was having trouble staying awake.

  He gave a last look
at the screens, slipped out the door to the tower, and ran down the steps to the officers’ mess below. He knew the Officer of the Day wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a quick cup of coffee.

  Sure enough, the lieutenant on duty was fast asleep, his head lying on folded arms on his desk, softly snoring.

  “Jesus,” Wilson whispered to himself, shaking his head. “Must be nice to be an officer in this man’s army.” He stepped to the coffee urn and poured himself a cup. He took a quick sip and smiled. Hell, he thought, even their coffee is better.

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, he eased out the door and climbed back up the stairs. He sat at his console and leaned back in his chair, enjoying the last cup of coffee before he was relieved and went to his bed for some much-needed shut-eye.

  As he relaxed, a movement on the screens caught his attention. “Goddamn,” he muttered, spilling his coffee on his lap as he jerked forward. The screens were full of tiny white blips coming from all directions. “Shit!” he exclaimed, thumbing his microphone and almost yelling, “Unidentified aircraft, this is the tower speaking. I need your security codes at once!”

  A thumping vibration and a blinding white light made him look up, just as a dark shape over a searchlight came straight at the tower.

  Wilson had time to notice the winking lights as the Apache’s M230 30mm Chain Gun lit up the sky. Several hundred rounds of the 30mm shells shattered the glass of the tower and literally shredded Wilson’s body, throwing him backward over the chair and out the other window. He was dead before his body hit the ground thirty feet below.

  Private Bobby Tupelow was dreaming of his girlfriend, who awaited him at his apartment, as he dozed at his antiaircraft battery on the outskirts of Fort Benjamin Harrison. A chattering staccato of gunfire drove all thoughts of romance from his mind and jerked him awake in the seat between the twin barrels of his guns.

  Blinking his eyes and trying desperately to come fully awake, he jerked the loading lever, which would fill the firing chamber with the fifty-caliber slugs the gun fired. Before he could sight, much less pull the trigger, an OH-6 Defender helicopter swooped out of the morning sun, which was just peeking over the horizon, and let go with its 20 mm Minigun. The shells sheared one of Tupelow’s barrels off and ricocheted around his compartment, tearing through his body and setting his ammunition off in a blinding, shrieking explosion that could be heard for miles around the base.

  Otis Warner was jolted out of his bed in the first basement level by an explosion that rocked the entire admin building as an Apache hovered two hundred yards to the west and fired first a Hellfire missile into the second-story, and then followed quickly with four 2 .75-inch rockets into the side of the building. The walls of the second story disintegrated, collapsing half the third story and bringing the entire west side of the building down in tumbling rubble.

  Warner looked back and forth, trying to come awake and think what he should do. Racing in his pajamas to the bedside phone, he picked it up to warn the troops of the attack, only to find no dial tone. The damn thing must’ve been knocked out by the explosion, he thought. He jerked his closet door open and began to pull on pants and shirt, not bothering to take the time to remove his pajamas. He stepped into shoes without socks and ran for the door to his bedroom. Jerking it open, he noticed plaster falling from the ceiling, but no visible cracks. Thank God, he whispered to no one, and began to run down the hall, not really knowing what he was going to do but feeling a desperate need to get out from under all the tons of concrete over his head.

  General Joe Winter ran from his door, seconds behind Warner, holding a Browning shotgun in his arms. It’d long been rumored he slept with the gun, but actually it leaned against a wall next to his bed.

  “Warner,” he yelled when he saw the President running down the hall.

  Otis stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “What the hell’s going on, General?” he screamed, covering his ears as another explosion rocked the building.

  “We’re under attack,” Winter shouted, almost adding “you idiot,” but clamping his lips shut just in time. “Come on, follow me to the emergency exit!”

  Warner reversed himself and ran shakily down the hall after Winter, huffing and puffing as he tried to clear plaster dust from his eyes.

  Winter stopped before a thick metal door and quickly punched numbers into a pad on the wall. The door clicked open onto a long tunnel, emergency lights along the ceiling casting a gloomy glow in the darkness.

  “Let’s go, Mr. President. This will take us a quarter mile away from the building and come out in a safe area,” he said, adding under his breath an inaudible I hope.

  Winter pumped a shell into the chamber of the shotgun and took off down the hall at a lumbering run, slowing so as not to leave the President behind.

  Soon, with the tunnel shaking and quivering under multiple explosions, they were at the end of the passageway. Again, Winter punched in a code on a keypad and a metal door slid open, revealing a flight of stairs leading upward.

  Winter led the way, slowly opening yet another metal door at the top of the stairs. He eased the door open and peered out, his shotgun held at the ready. Finally, after a few moments, he gestured for Warner to follow him and he slipped out the door.

  Warner found himself in a concrete bunkerlike room, about ten feet by ten feet, with a cement floor and no windows or furnishings.

  Winter twisted a dead bolt on the door and again checked to make sure there was no danger. “Okay, it looks clear,” he said over his shoulder. “Follow me, and keep your head down and don’t stop running until I tell you.”

  He disappeared out the doorway, and Warner took a deep breath, crossed himself, and ran after Winter.

  Twenty yards away, across an open stretch of dried brown grass, was a building with a sign over the open door saying “Motor Pool.” Winter darted through the open doorway and ran straight for a HumVee parked in a line of jeeps and APCs.

  He jerked the driver’s door open and motioned for Warner to get in the passenger side. Firing up the engine, he said, “Put your seat belt on, Mr. President. This may be a rough ride.”

  He floored the accelerator and the HumVee shot out of the motor pool building, skidding through a turn as Winter headed for the east gate, the nearest one to their position.

  Overhead, Malcolm Salsbury gave a twist on the throttle of his HueyCobra when he saw the HumVee throwing up a dust cloud as it sped toward the exit gate to the base. He tilted the nose down and flicked his eyes to his Heads Up Display as the vehicle became centered on his targeting scope. He keyed his microphone and said, “Squad leader, I’ve got a HumVee heading for the gate at speed. Can’t see occupants. Should I take it out?”

  Lieutenant Hawk answered, “Is the vehicle making an aggressive move or firing on the choppers?”

  “No,” Salsbury said with a laugh, “he’s haulin’ ass tryin’ to get out of the action.”

  “Then let him, Malcolm. We’re not hear to kill people, just to retake the government.”

  Malcolm flicked off his HUD. “Aye, sir,” he said into the mike. As he banked away from the car, he gave a mock salute. “You are one lucky fucker, whoever you are.”

  The Apaches hovered over the admin building, pouring Hellfire missile after Hellfire missile into the structure until there was nothing left aboveground except a huge pile of smoking, burning rubble.

  The HueyCobras used their 20mm Gatling guns on the AA emplacements until they were bent and twisted piles of scorched metal that looked like they were the work of some New Age sculptor, while the Defenders swooped and bent and dipped over the compound, strafing with their 20mm Miniguns any APCs that dared to try and bring troops into the battle.

  All in all, since it was a Sunday morning and most of the troops not on guard duty were still in town sleeping off hangovers from Saturday night, there were surprisingly few casualties, with only a few scattered bodies littering the grounds.

  Less than an hour into the fracas, Hawk
radioed for Walker to bring his Special Ops Blackshirts onto the base. Moments later, the big Chinook could be seen lumbering in over the airfield, then hovering a few feet above the ground as it discharged its cargo of commandos like a dog shedding fleas.

  Two hours later, it was all over. The base was secured and all personnel not dead were captured and confined in a couple of hangars with the Special Ops troops keeping guard.

  Walker shook Hawk’s hand. “Good job, Lieutenant,” he said. “As soon as you refuel, I’ll need your men to fly a perimeter guard around the base at, say, ten miles, just in case someone gets the bright idea of trying to retake the base.”

  Hawk grinned and saluted. “Aye, sir. I’ll rotate the men so they each have a little time to unwind and get some coffee and grub down.”

  Walker nodded. He liked a man who thought of his troops’ welfare. It was the mark of a good officer.

  After Hawk left, Walker turned to his executive officer, Lieutenant Bonner. “Cliff, have your men finished sweeping the underground bunkers?”

  “Yes, sir. We found several secretaries, a couple of minor functionaries, and some . . . women.”

  “Wives?” Walker asked.

  Bonner grinned and waggled his hand back and forth. “Maybe, or maybe just good friends.”

  Walker nodded, “Any sign of General Winter or Otis Warner?”

  Bonner shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “Shit! President Osterman is going to be really pissed!”

  Bonner shrugged. “He could be buried under all that wreckage of the aboveground structure,” he said, though his voice showed he didn’t really believe it.

  Walker frowned. “No, I’m not that lucky. Oh, well, I might as well call Colonel King and let him know the bad news. Maybe he’ll volunteer to pass the message along to Osterman.”

  Bonner laughed. “You ever know a senior officer to stick his neck out like that?”

  Walker returned the grin. “Hell, no. How do you think they got to be senior officers?”