Vengeance in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  One of his men came slipping back from the edge of town. “Nothing to it, sir,” he whispered. “One of them fired up a cigarette not five feet from me, puffed it a couple of times, then flipped the damn butt at me. When he turned his back, I grabbed it and stowed it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the nearly unsmoked butt. “Look, sir. It’s a real factory cigarette.”

  “Neither of you smoke,” the voice came from the ditch. “So give it to me.”

  Striganov chuckled. “Fudov, you may smoke it when the battle is over. Toss it to him, Vladislav. A factory-made cigarette,” he mused in a soft whisper. “I wonder where they got them?”

  “They probably have factories that make them, unlike us,” Fudov bitched.

  Striganov again softly chuckled. “You even mention building a cigarette factory to Doctor Chase and he’ll put you down for extended visits to Doctor Lang, the mad proctologist. Rest now. We strike in two hours.”

  West and his people had traveled the furthest north. They were now waiting to strike at a NAL encampment that had taken over the old Abilene airport. The mercenary and his men had moved to within spitting distance of a runway. There they lay in tall grass.

  “I wonder why they chose the city airport instead of the old Dyess Air Force Base?” a team leader questioned.

  “I’m just glad they didn’t. Ben has tons of supplies cached out there. We do this fast and hard, people,” West said. “We’re taking five airports all over the state on this night. Ben is going to try to contain Hoffman’s people in Texas long enough to train extra battalions. We have to have these airports.” He looked at his watch. “We move in an hour.”

  Ben watched the hands of his wristwatch mark 0500 hours. He looked at his team. “Let’s do it!”

  Ben was the first to reach the old radio-station building. He was huffing and puffing but he’d be damned if he’d let the younger ones beat him there. He and his team tossed pepper-gas canisters in through the windows and waited for the occupants to come staggering blindly out. When they did, the Rebels conked them on the head and tied them up. In town, the teams had located many of the old homes and stores that were being used by the NAL and started blooping 40mm grenades in through the windows.

  The attack came out of the night so suddenly and without even one second’s warning, the NAL was literally caught with their pants down . . . or off might be better. They leaped from their warm blankets only to be blown apart by grenades and automatic weapons fire. The Rebel attack was so swift and so savage, most of the NAL never got to fire off a round in reply.

  When the Hummers arrived about three minutes after the attack began, and the .50s and Big Thumpers began pounding out their war songs, the battle really heated up in sound and fury.

  By 0600, the Rebels were going house to house in a search-and-destroy mission. And they were not a bit friendly in their searching. If they suspected any NAL were in a house or building, they lobbed in WP and shot them as they tried to escape the flames. Hoffman’s people only thought they were ruthless. Then they met Ben Raines’s Rebels.

  One of the black-shirted NAL was on his knees in the middle of a street as gray light began clearing away the night. He was sobbing and nearly hysterical in his pleadings for the Rebels to please spare him.

  “Give me one good reason why we should?” Maria asked him.

  “Because I am a human being!” he screamed.

  “You have raped and tortured and killed, you pissy excuse for a man?” Victoria asked, contempt thick in her voice.

  “Yes, yes! All those things. Many times. And I am so very, very sorry for them now. But if God will forgive me, why can’t you?”

  “Because I’m not God,” Maria told him, and shot him in the head. She spat on his body and walked away.

  “I tell you something, General,” Jersey said. “Me and those Spanish gals are gonna get along just fine.”

  FIVE

  At the radio station, Ben waited until the fumes from the gas had dissipated, then sat and listened for more than an hour to the transmissions being sent back and forth from North America to southern Mexico. From the number of transmissions, Ben then knew just how heavy was the infiltration of the NAL into North America. And it was enough to worry him.

  Then, using encrypted burst transmissions, Ben talked to his batt comms. Every raid the Rebels conducted that morning had gone off without a hitch. Only one Rebel had been injured, and he had broken his ankle slipping on an oily spot on a runway.

  “All bridges leading across into North America are wired and set to blow,” Ike told him. “All we have to do is hook ’em up and flip a switch.”

  “Have you met much resistance?”

  “That’s ten-fifty, Eagle. It appears to me that Hoffman sent his people ’way north of the border to try to box us in.”

  “That’s the way I see it. We’ve secured the Texas border, but that’s only going to buy us a little time. California, Arizona, and New Mexico are still wide open. Any suggestions.”

  “Not at the moment, Eagle. Hoffman’s boys can spill across those borders like ants to honey. I’ve sent people in to destroy the crossings, but that won’t slow them much when they decide to spill over. You want me to start working on the bridges along the Colorado?”

  Ben hesitated for a moment. “No,” he finally said. “We’re supposed to be rebuilding, not destroying. Once those bridges are gone, they’ll not be rebuilt in our lifetime. And they’re vital links. Let’s play it by ear for a time.”

  “Okay by me, Eagle. We’ve got reports that a group of Hoffman’s crud is operating about a hundred miles north of my present position. I’m going up to check that out.”

  “That’s ten-four, Shark. Eagle out.”

  Ben was thoughtful for a moment. He knew Ike had been transmitting from Nogales. So if Hoffman had people about a hundred miles north, that meant that the outpost at San Manuel had more than likely been overrun. He told Corrie to bump Therm down at Laredo.

  “Cecil’s been hospitalized, Ben,” Thermopolis informed him. “The doctors don’t think it’s anything more serious than exhaustion. His XO has taken over.”

  “All right, Therm. Keep me informed on his condition. What’s the word from south of the border?”

  “Hoffman has made no moves yet. I don’t think he knows about his bases in Texas being knocked out.”

  “He will by noon. That’s when they all check in. Advise General Payon of that and tell him to brace for an attack.”

  “Ten-four, Ben. Therm out.”

  “Pack up, Corrie. We’re going to slide over toward Waco and see what’s shaking along the way.”

  Ben’s teams dropped down to Highway 84 and cut east, stopping at the ruins of Fort Hood when they saw smoke from many fires coming from the old military reservation. It was a squatters’ camp, with about three hundred people existing there, and living conditions were awful. The human trash living there were all armed, but they knew better than to tangle with the Rebels. Some of them there had tried that before and had firsthand witnessed the awful fury of the Rebels.

  “Radio for choppers to come in and get these kids,” Ben said, after walking through the camp. “Just because their parents are walking garbage doesn’t mean the kids have to be.”

  “You ain’t got no rat to do ’at,” a man shouted. “Them kids is ourn.”

  “They won’t be by this afternoon,” Ben told him. “If you want to live like pigs and sewer rats, that’s your choice. But the children will be raised in a decent manner.”

  The man stood staring at Ben. But he wisely kept his mouth shut.

  “These kids have lice, fleas, and all are suffering from malnutrition,” a medic reported. “They’ve all been beaten and some have been sexually abused.”

  “Times is hard,” a woman told Ben. “We grownups has got to have the best food so’s we can hunt and fish and trap and the like. ’Em ’air kids is tough. They don’t need as much food as we’uns.”

  Ben fixed her with a
very dark and angry look. “Get this goddamn stupid person away from me before I shoot her,” he finally said.

  The woman paled under the dirt on her face and quickly faded back into the knot of unwashed and ignorant people.

  “When we get over to the river, we’ll all strip down and bathe,” Ben said. “We can get the fleas and various other hopping and jumping insects off us that way. Jesus, how can people live like this?”

  “You and General Payon are so much alike it is frightening,” Tomas told him. “I have seen him weep at sights like this.”

  “No one has to live under these conditions.”

  “There ain’t no work, General,” a man said, stepping out of the crowd. “And don’t none of us care to live under them rules of yours. Way I see it, how we live ain’t none of your goddamn business.”

  “The way you treat children certainly is,” Ben said. “And you could live under Rebel rule if you tried. You just won’t try.”

  “I tried,” the man said. His hands were balled into fists and his face dark with anger. “I was at that outpost of yourn up near the Oklahoma border. Ever’time I turned around somebody was a-tellin’ me to cut my yard or not to whup up on my old lady or the kids and all kinds of shit like that. I had me an old dog that wouldn’t mind and wouldn’t hunt. It wasn’t no good for nothin’. I beat the damn thing to death with a 2x4 and a Rebel soldier boy come along and took it away from me and whupped my head to a fare-thee-well with it. I had a headache for a goddamn week. They throwed me and mine out of the community and told us not to come back. But they kept my young’uns. All you people is is a bunch of commonists.”

  “The word is communists. And you’re very lucky it wasn’t me that found you beating that animal,” Ben told the man. “I’d have shot you.”

  “Your day’s a-comin’, Ben Raines,” the man told him. “When Hoffman gits here we ain’t gonna have the likes of you and your army tellin’ us what to do.”

  Ben laughed at the man, and that seemed to make the misfit even angrier. “You really think Hoffman will tolerate the likes of you any better than I do?”

  “At least he cares more about human bein’s than he does animals!”

  “Whup his uppity ass, Hugh,” a woman shouted.

  “Shet your mouth,” Hugh told her without taking his eyes from Ben.

  “Obviously I care about humans, Hugh,” Ben said. “I’m taking the children to see that they are properly cared for, aren’t I?” Ben knew he should just back off and leave the squatter camp. But he just didn’t like the Hughs of the world. He had never been able to stomach men like Hugh, and they came in all colors and all sizes.

  “Ah, hell,” Jersey leaned close and whispered to Victoria. “I can see it coming. The general’s gonna duke it out with this bum.”

  “You mean, fight him with his fists?” Victoria asked.

  “Fists, boots, knives,” Jersey said nonchalantly. “It really doesn’t make that much difference to the general.”

  “But . . . generals do not fight with their fists!” Maria said.

  “This general does,” Beth spoke up.

  Ben gave Hugh a closer inspection. The man was about forty-five, he guessed, and looked to be in pretty good shape. He obviously had not missed nearly as many meals as he had baths. Hugh was about six feet tall and at one time he’d been muscular. But the years had softened that. And Ben could guess with reasonable accuracy what was coming next out of Hugh’s mouth. His type never varied all that much.

  “You a mighty tough-talkin’ man with all these Rebels around you, ain’t you, General?”

  “Never varies,” Ben muttered.

  “What’s ’at you said?” Hugh asked.

  “I said you’re a dickhead, Hugh baby. An unwashed, foul-smelling, semiliterate, smart-assed bully.”

  “Huh!” Hugh shouted.

  Ben handed Coop his M-16 and unhooked his battle harness, handing that to Beth. He removed his pistol belt and tossed that to Tomas, standing by with a worried look on his face.

  “No interference,” Ben said, looking around him. “From either side.” Then he stepped forward and busted Hugh smack in the mouth with a gloved fist.

  The blow bloodied the man’s lips and brought a roar from his throat. He charged Ben, both fists swinging, and Ben ducked under and planted a right into the man’s belly. The air whooshed out and Hugh backed up, gasping for breath. Ben stalked him, giving the man no time to recover and get set.

  “Stomp his sissy guts out, Hugh!” a man hollered.

  “That’ll be the day,” a Rebel said.

  Hugh, screaming wild curses, charged Ben and ran into him, the force of the collision knocking him to the ground. Ben rolled away from a vicious kick aimed at his head and jumped to his boots.

  “Now I know the rules,” he told Hugh. “And now I’m going to kick the snot out of you.”

  Hugh swung a looping roundhouse and Ben sidestepped and planted a fist onto Hugh’s kidney. He followed that with another vicious blow to the other kidney and Hugh screamed in pain. Ben stepped forward and drove his closed fist down into the center of the man’s back as hard as he could. Hugh screamed and fell to his knees, all the nerves in his body shrieking from the blow to his spinal cord.

  So far he had not landed a blow to Ben.

  Ben backed up and let the man slowly rise to his feet. Hugh’s mouth was dripping blood and he was breathing hard. He cursed Ben as he walked toward him.

  Ben stood silent, waiting, his fists raised. Hugh tried to fake Ben out but Ben wouldn’t take the bait. Hugh shuffled and Ben noticed that when he did, his left dropped about six inches. The next time he shuffled, Ben plowed right in and hit the man a combination of lefts and rights that smashed Hugh’s nose and pulped his already-battered lips. Hugh backed up, shaking his shaggy head. The blood flew.

  “Bastard!” Hugh pushed the word past his swollen lips.

  Ben’s reply was a right fist to Hugh’s nose. This time the nose spread out some. Ben snapped a left and further broadened Hugh’s honker. Ben bore in now, slamming lefts and rights to Hugh’s body and face. Hugh backed up, reached down, and jerked a knife out of his boot.

  “Steady now!” Ben shouted, moving close to Jersey. “This is my fight. Give me a blade, Jersey.”

  Jersey handed him her long-bladed Bowie knife. “Gut him, General,” she said.

  Victoria and Maria both noted the expert way Ben held the knife, blade held to the side for a slash or a gut-cut, and the way his left hand never stopped moving, distracting Hugh.

  “I’m a-gonna kill you, Raines!” Hugh spat blood with the angry words. “Nobody tells me what to do. I’m an in-dividualist.”

  Ben laughed at him. That was probably the longest word he knew. And he couldn’t even pronounce it correctly. “I’m sure you were, Hugh. A beer-drankin’, snuff-dippin’, honky-tonkin’, woods-roamin’, coon-huntin’, Saturday and Sunday afternoon armchair-quarterbackin’ rugged individualist. And put all that together and you come up with a pile of shit.”

  “I hate your slimy guts, Ben Raines! I’m a-gonna cut ’em out, too.”

  “Well, come on, Hugh baby,” Ben urged him. “Come on!”

  With a snarl and a curse, Hugh came. He slashed wide, opening himself up, and Ben buried the blade in his gut, up to the hilt, and then ripped up, the blade slicing through and stopping when it caught on the V of his rib cage. Ben pulled the blade out and stood watching as Hugh dropped the knife and fell forward on his face. He screamed as the pain hit him and rolled over on his back, staring up at Ben.

  “You see, Hugh baby,” Ben told him. “All Rebels go through extensive close-combat training. They spend weeks just learning how to use a knife.” He smiled, a hard curving of the lips at Hugh. “We do a lot of close-in work.”

  Hugh groaned and closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them and stared up at Ben. “Ain’t you gonna let your medical people fix me up, Raines?”

  “We don’t provide medical service for people who do not
subscribe to the Rebel philosophy,” Ben told him very bluntly.

  “You the hardest goddamn man I ever seen in all my life,” Hugh said.

  “Which is growing shorter much more rapidly than you would like, I’m sure.”

  “You a devil!” Hugh gasped very weakly.

  Ben wiped the blade of Jersey’s knife clean on a rag Coop handed him and returned the Bowie to Jersey. Hugh was jerking around on the ground making all sorts of disgusting sounds.

  The others in the squatter camp stood silently, shocked by the ease with which the commanding general of the Rebel army, several years older than Hugh, had whipped the man.

  “Let’s go,” Ben said, after slipping into his battle harness. “I’m rapidly developing the monkey-and-the-skunk syndrome about this stinking place.”

  “The monkey-and-the-skunk syndrome?” Victoria whispered to Jersey.

  Jersey grinned, and whispered in her ear. The two women fell in behind Ben and walked off laughing.

  SIX

  What was left of Waco was nearly deserted. A few people managed to survive in the ruins, living off only God knew what. They flitted out of sight upon spotting the Rebels. If they had children, they kept them out of Rebel view, knowing the Rebels would not hesitate to take them out of such a mean existence. There was no sign that the NAL had ever visited the city. The Rebels drove out to the old Waco airport. It was deserted and showed no signs of having been used in years. The Rebels pulled out, heading northeast on 31. They spent the night on the banks of the Waxahachie Creek, after taking a soapy bath, washing their dirty clothes and then changing into fresh BDUs.

  On the road from Waco to Interstate 45 the Rebels had met several dozen people, struggling to survive. They knew all about this hard-eyed bunch of people called Rebels and did not wish to share in their way of life, preferring to go it alone. Ben did not understand that, but he respected it so long as any young were being cared for and not being abused.

  “They’re not eating high on the hog,” a man who’d been standing by the side of the road told Ben. “But they’re eating well and the wife has taught them all how to read and write and figure and so forth. We got the books from a school down the road. We’re doing all right.”