Vengeance in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “What if he doesn’t wind down?”

  “Change frequencies.”

  Corrie listened for a moment. “He wants to know if you want attack choppers?”

  “No.”

  “He wants to know ‘why the hell not?’”

  “Give me that damn set, please. Ike, goddammit, I need the choppers to stay right where they are. Hoffman could bust through at any moment. I’ll wrap this thing up here and I’ll see you when I get back. Eagle out!”

  Ben started laughing as soon as he broke the signal. Ike would be kicking wastebaskets and cussing and jumping up and down. The exercise might do him good. Ike always needed to lose a few pounds.

  Ben was awakened in the dark hours of the morning by a runner from communications. “Hoffman’s forces are approaching Mexico City, General. General Payon says there is no way he can hold. He’s splitting up his forces into small guerrilla-style units and retreating northward. They will be destroying bridges as they move north.”

  Ben acknowledged the report and looked at his watch. It was only a few minutes before he usually rose. He let his team sleep on for a little while and washed his face and hands and then shaved in cold water, only cutting himself once. As usual, Jersey was the first one of his team up. After her toilet, she joined him in the coolness of very early morning for a cup of coffee. Neither spoke until their second cup had been poured.

  Jersey studied Ben’s face in the dim light for a moment. “What’s wrong, General?”

  “Hoffman’s goose-steppers are knocking on the back door of Mexico City.”

  Jersey said a very ugly word.

  “I agree.”

  Corrie and Beth and Cooper joined them, each carrying a cup of coffee. Only Cooper was eating. Cooper could get out of bed and eat a raw buffalo before his feet hit the floor.

  “Cooper,” Jersey said. “What is that mess you’re gnawing on?”

  “Last night’s liver.”

  Jersey said another extremely ugly word and moved away from Cooper.

  “It’s good for you,” Cooper said.

  Jersey shuddered and asked, “How far is Mexico City from the border, General?”

  “Probably five hundred miles or so to Brownsville. Probably seven hundred and fifty to Laredo. I think we have plenty of time before Hoffman’s people reach the border . . . in any large numbers, that is.”

  “We still have plenty of gas, General,” Cooper pointed out.

  “So does Hoffman.” Ben spoke the words quietly. “He’s agreed not to use it if we don’t. That arrangement was negotiated through Payon.”

  “I despise that stuff,” Beth said softly. “It’s . . . evil.”

  “I agree,” Ben said.

  The team sat in silence for a time, enjoying the cool and calmness of early morning. Many other Rebels were up, but they moved quietly out of long habit. Ben did not have to give any orders about when they would move out. The battalions knew that they would be on the road at first light.

  Dan walked up, carrying a mug of tea. “I heard about Hoffman,” the Englishman said. “Three of the last great armies on the face of the earth about to engage in what could well be the greatest battle ever fought.”

  “I’m scared,” Beth admitted. “I thought we had a lock on things. I thought the fighting was just about over. Now it’s just about to begin.”

  “Stay scared,” Ben told her. “It’ll help keep you alive.” He drained his mug of coffee and walked away.

  “He’s changed,” Cooper said somberly. “I can feel it.”

  “The general knows that the battles ahead of us could well make the difference between liberty or slavery,” Dan said. “Or it could mean the end of everything. A total collapse of any vestiges of civilization. It could possibly mean that the Rebel army, as it stands now, will cease to be and we all will be forced to break up into small groups of resistance fighters. There is a lot weighing on the general’s mind.”

  “Hoffman had to have been planning this long before the Great War,” Beth said. “Not necessarily Hoffman, but his father or grandfather.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dan said, sitting down with the group. “Most certainly, they were. Why didn’t the United States government stop them back then, I believe is what you are leading up to? Yes. You four were children back then. You couldn’t have possibly understood how the politics of the world worked. It was a sorry mess. In this country, in England, in countries all over the world. Lack of cooperation between governments seemed to be the order of the day. It just seemed that nobody could agree on anything. In one part of the world, peace seemed to be blossoming. In yet another, bloody wars were raging. As the general has told you, in all the so-called civilized, industrialized nations, governments were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy trying to be all things to all people at all times. Taxes were going up and up and up and services were going down, down, down. If you were not there, and old enough to know what was taking place, it’s very difficult to explain.”

  “Everybody wanted something for nothing,” Jersey said.

  “Well . . .” Dan looked out into the graying of dawn. “Yes and no. Big governments seemed incapable of staying out of the private lives of their citizens. Governments would not allow the private citizens to protect themselves by carrying guns, but yet the courts hampered the movements of the police to such a degree the law-abiding citizen was not amply protected. In the cities, it was not safe to walk after dark. In many areas, it was not safe to walk anytime.”

  “Because of gangs of punks?” Cooper asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well . . . why didn’t the police go in and clean out those areas?”

  Dan smiled. “The courts wouldn’t let them.”

  “Colonel,” Beth said. “That doesn’t make any sense! All right, all right. Why didn’t the citizens form neighborhood patrols and run the punks out?”

  Dan laughed. “The police wouldn’t let them.”

  “Well, goddamn!” Jersey said. “Who was looking after the law-abiding, taxpaying citizens?”

  Dan chuckled at the frustration in her voice. “Theoretically, the police. In reality, nobody. Toward the end, what happened here in America was the police developed a bunker mentality. They felt that everybody was against them. And in many cases, the nation’s press certainly appeared to be. Criminals could resist arrest, but if the police used force against the criminals, they were setting themselves up for department disciplinary hearings and possible lawsuits. When you hear the general say that criminals had more rights than the victim, he’s telling you the truth.”

  “And? . . .” Corrie asked.

  “Here in America, a liberal Democrat won the presidency, the Democrats gained full control of both houses of Congress, the nation went to shit, and the Great War enveloped the globe.”

  “And now fifteen years later, here we are,” Beth said. “Colonel, the way I read what you just said, all this was . . . well, it just couldn’t have ended any other way.”

  “You’re right. Revolution by the people was inevitable. Those in power just could not or would not see it coming.”

  Jersey stood up and picked up her M-16. “Seems like to me, if a person lives a decent life and pays taxes and respects the rights of other law-abiding people, they have a right to demand law and order . . . or pick up a gun and see to themselves. Colonel, cops back before the Great War, if they found a person carrying a gun in their car—a decent person, say, who was just stopped for a traffic violation—would the cops take the gun?”

  “In many cases, yes. And place the person under arrest for carrying it.”

  “Even though the person had no criminal record and the police knew that he or she was carrying the gun only for personal protection?”

  “Ah . . . well, yes. That’s right.”

  “Then the cops didn’t really know whose side they were on, did they?”

  Dan blinked and looked at her for a moment. “That’s . . . a very unusual way of looking at it, Jersey.”


  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen all the old movies and read the books. The cops had instant access to all the information on a suspect. Seems to me like if the cops had turned their backs more often, all the criminal activity and gangs of punks crap could have and would have been taken care of by the citizens.”

  “Then you would have had anarchy, Jersey.”

  “Isn’t that what we have now, Colonel?”

  EIGHT

  “Striganov is having a hell of a time crossing the Mississippi River,” Corrie told Ben. “Those bridges not blown have been weakened by time and no repairs. He won’t risk crossing them. He’s going to have to go all the way up into northern Minnesota and cut across.”

  Ben did some low muttering and cursing. “We have no choice, Corrie. Tell him we’ll trail this bunch until he gets into position. If he gets into position in time,” Ben added.

  “And if he doesn’t?” Jersey asked.

  “We tangle with them anyway. Dan says you had some interesting comments the other morning, Jersey. What did you two talk about?”

  “Conditions before the Great War.”

  “And your thoughts were . . . ?”

  “That if the citizens had formed vigilante groups and the cops had turned their heads, maybe the Great War and the collapse of everything would never have occurred.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked, Jersey. Law and order can never be allowed to break down to that extent. The problem was that due process was taken too far to the left and we couldn’t get it turned around back to dead center. But nothing would have stopped the war. That was a political move between the colonels and the generals and the politicians of lots of countries.”

  “I just don’t understand, I guess,” she said.

  “I’m not sure that anyone does,” Ben told her.

  “Not even you, General?” Cooper asked.

  Ben smiled. “Especially me, Coop. I will never understand the mind of a true liberal. And believe me, I have tried.”

  Corrie held up a hand for silence and listened to her earphone. “That’s ten-four,” she said. “Scouts report a group of locals gathered three miles up the road. Armed and angry.”

  “Angry about what?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Scouts had thrown up a human shield between the mob of men and women and Ben. He parted the scouts and faced the crowd. “I’m Ben Raines. What’s the problem here?”

  They had found a place to cross the river far south of their present location, now in extreme northern Illinois, and were still paralleling DeMarco’s columns.

  “You the head honcho of the Rebels, right, General?” a man tossed the question out.

  “That’s right.”

  “You got a Reb outpost just north of here, right?”

  “Last time we checked, we did, yes. What about it?”

  “We had a man hurt himself last week. Took him up there to get treatment. They refused. We’re fixin’ to storm that place and teach those assholes a lesson about being neighborly. And you and this bunch won’t stop us either.”

  Approximately sixteen hundred Rebels locked and loaded. The sound was enormous in the still air. The group of about four hundred men and women paled at the sound.

  “You were saying?” Ben asked softly.

  The spokesman swallowed hard a couple of times. When he again spoke, his tone was quite civil. “We got a right to medical care, General.”

  “Who says so?”

  “The Constitution of the United States.”

  “Go back and read it, mister. It doesn’t say a damn word about medical care. Besides, the Constitution is null and void. It no longer matters. The United States of America is history. It’s kaput.” He chuckled at his choice of adjectives. But considering what the Rebels were facing in the not-too-distant future, learning a little German might not be such a bad idea. He cleared his head of the dark humor.

  “If that’s a joke, I don’t get it,” the local said, a sour expression on his face.

  “It’s a private joke. Besides, you don’t look like you have much of a sense of humor. You want medical care, join the Rebel movement, form an outpost, and abide by Rebel laws. That’s all there is to it.”

  The man shook his head. “We’re not paying tribute to the likes of you, General.”

  Ben laughed out loud. “Tribute? Nobody pays tribute to me. We have started a limited cash money flow, but it doesn’t go to me.”

  “I don’t mean money, General. We don’t like your idea of law and order.”

  “But you want us to provide you with medical care. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “There is always Hoffman,” the man said slyly.

  Ben hit him. The punch landed solidly right on the button and the man went down and stayed down. He moaned once, and then was still.

  “Good shot, General,” Cooper said.

  “Thank you,” Ben replied, rubbing his hand.

  “What about this mob?” Dan asked.

  “Disperse them. And see if you can find out what their beef is with us.”

  “You gonna take our guns, General?” a woman called out from the crowd.

  “Should I?” Ben asked, searching the sea of faces for her.

  The woman stepped out and faced him. “My name is Jean Lytton.”

  Ben waited. Obviously the name was supposed to mean something to him. It did not. “Fine. You know who I am.”

  “You have never heard of me?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “I used to head an organization known as Christians for Reason, Action, and Peace.”

  “This seems to be the year for nutty slogans,” Ben muttered. “Lady, that spells CRAP, if you didn’t know.”

  Jersey giggled and it became infectious, spreading all around the ranks.

  Jean’s face turned dark with rage. Dangerous lady, Ben thought. And probably unstable. He had always felt that people who headed up those fringe groups protesting against the norm were probably about two slices shy of a whole loaf.

  “Silence!” Jean shouted.

  That just made matters worse. The Rebels really started laughing. Ben watched Jean’s eyes. The woman was about to explode. Ben waved his people silent although he was having a difficult time keeping a smile off his face.

  The citizen Ben had knocked to the ground moaned a couple of times and tried to get to his feet. He made it on the second effort and stood in front of Ben, swaying. His jaw was swollen and blood leaked from his mouth.

  “We got a right to choose what way of life is best for us,” the man said to Ben.

  “That you do,” Ben agreed. “Any sort of peaceful existence you choose is fine with me. But Hoffman has sworn to destroy the Rebel way of life. If you align with him, then you are against me. That makes you my enemy. You understand all that?”

  “And you’ll do what?”

  “Wipe you out to the last person,” Ben said coldly.

  “Attack, attack!” Jean suddenly shouted. “Destroy the infidels!”

  “You have got to be kidding,” a man said from out of the crowd.

  “You better listen to your followers,” Ben warned her. “Stand easy, people, and no one will get hurt.”

  “Forward into battle!” Jean shouted, then lunged at Ben. Jersey gave her the butt of her M-16 to the stomach and Jean folded. No one else in the crowd had moved.

  “Watch this nut case,” Ben said, looking down at Jean, gagging on the ground. “We’ll stop here for the night. I want to talk to these people. We need all the allies we can get. Something is terribly out of whack here.” He turned to the crowd. “In one hour I’ll be set up to receive people from your group. Let’s talk. Choose your spokespersons and we’ll work this thing out. Good day.”

  It didn’t take Ben long to reverse what Jean Lytton had done out of her hatred for Ben. Seems she had become incensed about some of the books Ben had written years back and had organized a movement to boycott his books. Then the Great War came and ended that. She
had wandered into this area out of Chicago some years back, bringing some of her banana-fruit-pie followers with her, and had turned the community against Ben and the Rebel way of life.

  “I guess we were fools, General,” a woman told him. “To tell you the truth, we were afraid of you and the Rebels.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head. “You all, well, seemed to be so purposeful. You seemed to know exactly what you wanted and then did it without hesitation. The efficiency of the Rebels scared most of us. And you were so violent!”

  “Where was your home before the Great War?”

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Ben guessed she was from one of those suburbs of Chicago that banned guns back before the breakdown. Those types of people could never understand that when laws are passed to take guns away from law-abiding people, then only the lawless will have guns.

  “I can guess,” Ben told her. “But now you have guns. What changed your mind, lady?”

  “Are you going to say ‘I told you so,’ General?”

  “Oh, no. You’ve seen the light, so to speak. You want to become part of the Rebel movement now?”

  “How could we exist without doing so?”

  “With much difficulty.” Ben looked at the woman. The times had beaten her down and she was mentally worn out. “Don’t go into this with anything less than a one hundred percent commitment,” Ben cautioned her. “What few rules we have are harsh ones, and they are enforced to the letter. We won’t tolerate interference.”

  “I know, General. Joining your movement is something that we’ve discussed, away from Jean, more than once.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Not everyone here will join.”

  “Then they’re in a world of hurt, lady. They’re going to be standing outside in the cold and we won’t lift one finger to help any of them. I’m not saying it’s right or moral, but for these times, it’s the only way.”

  After she had left, Dan came in and took a chair. “About half of them have agreed to move north and join the outpost there. The rest of them say they’ll go it alone.”

  “They damn sure have that right. And they’d better understand it.”