Betrayal in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  The Rebels were slowly pushing the gangs both north and east They were under no delusions that they had killed all the creepies, for some of their kind always managed to slip through. But Ben’s intel people guesstimated they’d killed over ninety percent of Hamburg’s Night People. The bodies had been burned and then the ashes buried. And as always, the Rebels had captured several dozen creepie children. Ben had turned them over to a German relief agency.

  “You know what they are and what they are going to turn into,” he’d told the relief people.

  “We know, General,” the head of the Hamburg agency told him, looking at the boy Ben had brought into the office under heavy guard. “But what can we do except take them?”

  “Nothing,” Ben admitted.

  “We have several dozen back home,” Doctor Chase said. “They’ll be institutionalized until the day they die . . . or kill their guards and escape.”

  “Oh, please, kind sir,” the ten-year-old creepie boy said. “I beg you to take off these handcuffs.”

  The man smiled grimly at him. “I fell for that several years ago, son. A boy and a girl just about your age. I lost my assistant and my head nurse, and—” He held up his left hand. Three fingers were missing, “—this.”

  The boy laughed, but it was a laugh that sprang from the bowels of Hell. It chilled Ben, the head of the agency, Lamar Chase, and the three Rebels with Ben. “Someday, I’ll tear your heart out and eat it while it still beats,” the boy said. “Isn’t that something to look forward to? Have sweet dreams now, you old bastard!” He laughed and laughed.

  “Get him out of here,” Ben told the Rebels. “And for Gods sake, be careful with him.”

  When the innocent-faced spawn from Hell was gone, the head of the relief agency opened his mouth to speak. Doctor Lamar Chase lifted a hand to cut him off before he asked the question that Chase had heard a thousand times before and did not know the answer to.

  “We don’t know, Doctor. We have some of the best, if not the best, medical minds in the world living and working in the SUSA. They don’t know either. The Night People just . . . are.” He looked at Ben. “Is that grammatically correct?”

  “Hell, I don’t know!”

  “Well, you’re the writer.”

  “I had editors, Lamar.”

  “I bet they loved you,” Lamar muttered.

  Ben assigned Ike’s 2 Batt to chase the remaining punks up to the border with Denmark, and Ben lined up his 1 Batt with the others and they pushed eastward.

  Wismar, Schwerin, Magdeburg, Eisleben, Weimar, Saalfeld, Nurnberg, Ingolst, and Augsburg in Germany were cleared of hoodlums and gangs. Innsbruck, in Austria, fell to the Rebel advance, and a large portion of North Italy was cleared of criminal gangs. Nobody knew about the Mafia since no one would talk about it, except to say it didn’t exist.

  Ben carefully folded his map and looked at Ike, who had returned from the Denmark border the day before. “It’s going to take a lot of us to clear Berlin. As a matter of fact, it’s going to take all of us. Your battalion and mine will clear Rostock and Stralsund, and then start working our way south. Dan, West, and Georgi will advance to a line running north to south from Neurappin to Brandenburg. You and I will be stretched out west to east from Neurappin to Finow. We’ll be stretched thin, but I’m going to double our usual complement of tanks. General Randazzo and Smithson’s people will remain in Italy. Colonel Wajda and General Matthies will remain to the south of us, with General Flanders’ people along the borders of Austria and Czechoslovakia. All battalions south of us will, when their sectors are clear, start advancing north to Berlin. Buddy’s 8 Batt and Nick’s 18 Batt will act as the stopper in the bottle to the east of the city. The rest of us are going into Berlin.” Ben leaned back, rolling a smoke, then tossing the makings to Ike. “If you can see a flaw in it, Ike, or have a better plan, let me know now.”

  “Looks good to me, Ben. Before the war, it was a city of nearly four million. It shore ain’t gonna be no piece of cake, brother,” the Mississippi-born Ike drawled.

  Ben smiled at Ike’s grammar. Ike was a highly educated man, but as the ex-SEAL liked to phrase it, “My neck do still get red ever’ now and then.”

  “What about Norway, Sweden, and Finland?”

  “I’m waiting for word from the U.N. But I have a hunch they’re going to tell us to keep up the eastward push instead of turning north at this point.”

  “Ben—”

  “I know, Ike. I know. We get past Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, we could be in a world of hurt. Don’t think I’m not aware of that. From Estonia all the way down to the Black Sea is unknown territory. And now Cecil tells me that Simon Border is raising an army of some sort back home. He’s calling it the Christian Front, and fanatics are running over each other to join the ranks. It seems that after the Great War, Simon found the Lord, or so he says. Personally, I think he’s running a scam. Anyone who opposes Simon’s beliefs is the enemy. And guess who is the Great Satan?”

  “Has to be you, Ben.”

  “You got it. Ben Raines. The Great Satan. Simon Border is another Jim Jones, Ike. But a hell of a lot smarter and totally sane. He’s going to make a run for the Presidency the next time around, and he might get it.”

  “You talked with Blanton?”

  “Yeah. He’s worried about Simon. With damn good reason, I might add. The man is dangerous.”

  “The SUSA?”

  “Oh, he won’t attack us. Not at first. He’ll take the USA and then make his move against the SUSA.”

  “While we’re ten thousand miles away.”

  “Yeah. Cecil says he’s pushing hard for us to leave Europe and to quote/unquote ‘go help the starving millions in Africa.’”

  “You think he’s tied in with Bruno Bottger’s movement?”

  “That thought has crossed my mind.”

  “What does Cecil think about Africa?”

  “Stay away from there.”

  “He spent a couple of years there, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. A long time ago. Cecil says it’s always five minutes to high noon in Africa.”

  “What the hell does he mean by that?”

  “When I ask him, he just smiles. But I think he means that somewhere in Africa, one is always five minutes away from a showdown with somebody. I guess. I don’t really know. I’ve heard the saying before.”

  “Ben, I have people in my batt who don’t want to go to Africa, both whites and blacks. They just feel if we go, we’ll get bogged down in a hopeless situation. It’s the same up and down the line. They’ll go if you give the orders, but they won’t like it.”

  “I know. I feel the same way about going into Bosnia and Herzegovina. If I can possibly skip those places, I will.”

  “That would suit me just fine,” Ike said drily. “Talk about gettin’ bogged down.”

  “Well, I told Son Moon that if the majority of citizens in a country want their government stabilized, we’ll go in. If they don’t, we’ll stay out. He accepted the deal and I’m going to hold him to it.”

  Ike nodded and stood up. “I’ll see you on the road to Berlin, Ben.” He smiled. “I seem to recall from history books that this same scenario was played out back in ’45.”

  “Hopefully, this will be the last time.”

  “It will be for you and me, ol’ buddy,” Ike said somberly, then left the room.

  “Yeah,” Ben whispered. “You’re right about that.”

  BOOK TWO

  Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

  - Euripides

  ONE

  Before the war, Rostock had been a city of about a quarter of a million, a port, industrial city, and home of a fine university. Now, it appeared very nearly a ghost town.

  “What the hell?” Ike asked, walking up to Ben, who stood in the middle of the highway.

  “The punks and creeps cleared out, Ike. But what they left behind is not going to be pleasant viewing.”

  “You think they kil
led the people?”

  “As many as they could, yeah. That’s what fly-bys tell us. The creeps took the rest of them as a food source.”

  “And went to Berlin.”

  “Yeah. I’m waiting on a report from scouts now.”

  “Fly-bys over Stralsund show it a dead city,” Corrie called. “Absolutely no signs of life. The streets are littered with bodies.”

  “So we bury bodies instead of fighting,” Jersey said.

  “That’s about it, I guess,” Ben said.

  “Scouts report a dead city, Boss,” Corrie said. “And real unpleasant in this heat.”

  Ben sighed. “Get into gas masks,” Ben ordered. “This is not going to be any fun at all.”

  The streets and sidewalks were covered with the bloated and stinking bodies of men, women, and children. Some had been shot in the front, but many more had been shot in the back as they were trying to get away from the horror. Mothers had flung themselves over children in an attempt to shield them from the bullets, and men had flung themselves in front of women to protect them. But nothing had worked. The Rebels could not find a single living person amid the carnage.

  “Let the reporters in,” Ben said wearily as he stood among the hundreds of bodies in the street, his voice muffled behind the protective mask.

  “Get them buried quickly, Ben,” Doctor Chase said. “There is no time for formalities or niceties. This is a real health hazard.”

  The bodies were buried in mass graves and the locations carefully marked. The Rebels moved on, leaving the dead city behind them. Since Stralsund had suffered the same fate as Rostock, Ben sent burial parties on to that city and he and Ike cut south toward Berlin. Ben took his battalion and cut over toward Gustrow and highway E55 while Ike traveled on and cut south toward Neubrandenburg. From there, he would take his 2 Batt over to Prenzlau, then down to Finow, where he would wait for Ben to arrive at Neurappin.

  As Ben and Ike traveled south, they witnessed the wanton and mindless destruction and killing by the gangs of punks as they traveled toward Berlin.

  “They know they’re rapidly reaching the end of the road,” Ben said. “It will soon be all over for them, so they’ve gone on an orgy of killing. It’s mindless and obscene. They’re telling us this will be a fight to the death. No surrender. And I don’t plan on offering them any.”

  “The press is going to love to hear that,” Beth said. Then she smiled, knowing exactly what Ben’s response was going to be.

  He didn’t disappoint her.

  “The citizens themselves cleaned out Frankfurt,” Corrie told Ben, after receiving several reports from scouts. “With the exception of a very few small towns, and of course, Berlin, Germany is clear.”

  Frankfurt wasn’t the only place where the citizens had taken all they were going to take of punks and street trash and turned on them. The people of Leipzig had done the same thing; and when they had finished dealing with the criminal element, they buried the bodies quite unceremoniously and got on with the business of living.

  “For some strange reason,” Corrie continued, “only a few of the punks crossed the borders for safety in other countries. They’ve all congregated in Berlin.”

  “One last battle,” Ben said. “I will never understand the criminal mind. They can’t win and they know they can’t They’ve never defeated us in all the years we’ve been fighting them. Each time we offer them a chance to start all over, all sins forgiven, they turn it down cold. When will all the battalions be in place?”

  “Three more days. Everybody is running on schedule. We will be completely resupplied and ready to go, and the supply lines open and running, by that time.”

  “How many punks in the city, Corrie?” Cooper asked.

  “Thousands. Every punk and creepie we didn’t kill in six countries have gathered there.”

  “So Berlin is gonna be a real piss-cutter and bitch-kitty?”

  “How eloquently put,” Jersey said, looking up from cleaning her M-16. “I don’t believe I have ever heard of an objective referred to with such verbal brevity.”

  Cooper gave her the finger.

  Jersey gave him two in reply.

  “All right, children,” Doctor Chase said, walking into the room. “Mind your manners, now.” He walked to the coffeepot and poured a cup. “Bruno Bottger was a monster, Ben, no one would argue that, but he certainly cared for the citizens of this country. My people are complaining about the lack of something to do. Once Berlin is cleared, this country will be off and running with a strong industrial base and a solid economy.”

  “All that ends at the border,” Ben replied.

  “Then the rumors are true?”

  “Yes. Bottger gutted Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. We’re finally getting some intel out of those areas. They’re a mess. In the few weeks since Bottger’s MEF pulled out, hundreds of armed gangs have either surfaced or come in from other countries . . . probably a combination of the two. There isn’t anything that even resembles a stable government anywhere. Anarchy reigns. There haven’t been proper medical facilities in those countries in years. Tell your people to enjoy the rest while they can.”

  “What’s the news from back home, Ben? The real news, not that crap in the papers.”

  Ben leaned back in his chair. “Simon Border’s political party is growing and so is his militia, the Christian Front. Blanton is holding on, but not gaining in popularity with the great unwashed. They seem to feel he is treating them unfairly by making them work. And many of them are refusing to work. But the armed forces and the police are solidly on Blanton’s side and so is the SUSA. Cecil has sent troops to beef up Blanton in certain areas. The sight of Rebels seems to have an almost immediate calming effect on the malcontents.”

  “I wonder why,” Chase said sarcastically. “Taking into consideration that your people are such a gentle, caring, and compassionate bunch.”

  Ben ignored that.

  “The civil liberties bunch is challenging Blanton’s policies of forcing people to work and cutting off benefits if they refuse,” Ben said. “Harriet Hooter’s flagging political party suddenly began picking up steam and she is now considered a dark horse in any election. I suggested Blanton suspend any upcoming elections and the Constitution until he get things going.”

  “His reply?”

  “He said he has suspended all the civil liberties he is going to. No more. Let the chips fall.”

  “His ass,” Chase said bluntly. “How will this ding-dong, Simon Border, affect us, Ben?”

  “He won’t bother us at all. Not if he has any sense. The SUSA has an excellent relationship with Mexico, Central America, and those countries in South America that are up and running. Much of Canada is aligned solidly with us, and much of Europe will swing our way in the coming months. Simon Border knows I won’t hesitate to have him killed if he gets too big for his britches and starts making trouble for the SUSA.”

  Doctor Chase laughed. “Democracy at work, Rebel-style.”

  Ben chuckled. “It’s called live and let live, Lamar. That’s something that Simon Border and Harriet Hooter and others of their ilk have never understood and will never understand.”

  “Billy Smithson and his Free State of Missouri?” Lamar asked, taking a seat.

  “They’ll be part of the SUSA in a matter of weeks. I’m sure of it. Billy knows they can’t stand alone.” Ben stood up and moved to the wall map behind him. He tapped it with a fist. “Berlin. Approximately three hundred and forty square miles of real estate that is filled with thousands of well-armed thugs and creepies. Get your people geared up to move, Lamar. Berlin is going to be one tough nut to crack.”

  “A piss-cutter,” Cooper said, winking at Ben.

  “Yeah, Coop,” Jersey said, surprising him. “A bitch-kitty. Is it kick-ass time, Boss?”

  “It’s kick-ass time, Jersey,” Ben said.

  Within the city of Berlin, the punks and street crap partied and had a high ol’ time. The Night People hu
ddled in their lairs and made plans for the Rebels’ final assault on German soil. Unlike the fools above them on street level, the creeps knew that, for most of them, it was all over. They were surrounded and the noose was tightening.

  The creepies also knew that, thanks to the mindless barbarism of the punks in dealing with civilians on the way to the city, Ben Raines would not be offering his usual surrender terms to the street trash. The Rebels would be coming in for the cold kill.

  “Take the children, the fresh women, the virile males, and leave,” the judges said. “Use the tunnels. Go. There is little time left. There is no point in stopping in Poland, for that country is next on that devil Ben Raines’ list. Our friends in America say that there is a good chance the Rebels will be ordered out of Europe before they reach the Ukraine. So you have a chance if you keep moving east. Go now, quickly!”

  It was near the end of the second day since the Rebels had first begun circling the city, and the creeps knew their time was nearly up. Their patrols had seen the Rebels completely encircle the city. But there were only two battalions of Rebels to the east of the city, so those escaping in that direction might have a chance.

  The judges issued the orders: Take your positions and prepare to fight to the death.

  Buddy’s 8 Batt and Nick Stafford’s 18 Batt were stretched out along highway E55, two battalions to cover almost forty miles of highway. But they were backed up by double their usual number of tanks and had the assistance of scouts who were on constant roving patrol up and down the highway.

  The evening before the push-off, Ben gathered his Batt Coms and told them, “We’ll try to save as much of the city as possible. But I made no guarantees for Berlin. It’s much too large for that and we’re up against at least our number of punks and creeps. I want everybody in body armor—with no exceptions. Tanks will spearhead the drive. That’s it. We shove off at dawn tomorrow.”

  There were now several hundred reporters in the country, at least that many, and Ben had given up trying to control them. Fifty or more had gathered at Ben’s jump-off spot waiting for the push to begin. He ignored most of them.