Betrayal in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “She’s telling the truth, General,” the operator said. “Truthful all the way across.” He glanced up at Ben. “Why so much interest in this kid, General?”

  “I don’t know, Mark. Something about the girl got to me, I guess. Stay with it.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  Ben talked with Anna for over an hour, then let her relax for a few minutes while, once again, he checked with the P.S.E. expert.

  “I haven’t caught a lie yet, General. She’s shooting straight.”

  Ben nodded his agreement. “All right, Mark, that’s it. Pack it in. Thanks.”

  Jersey, Beth, Corrie, and Cooper had watched Ben chat with the girl, so it came as no surprise when Ben said, “Beth, take Anna down to the quartermaster vehicles and get her fitted out with BDUs, will you?”

  “Sure, Boss.”

  “Then take her over to Chase’s MASH tent. I’ll meet you over there.”

  The girl’s eyes brightened. “Does this mean I’m a Rebel, now?”

  “It’s a start in that direction,” Ben told her. “Now go along with Beth.”

  Ben walked over to the MASH tent and up to Lamar, who was sitting at a portable desk. Chase looked at him. “Are you sick?”

  “No.” Ben squatted on the ground. “Beth is bringing a girl over here sometime within the hour. Check her out and shoot her up, will you?”

  “Sure. Something special about this woman, hey?”

  “She’s not a woman, Lamar. I figure the kid is about fifteen, tops.”

  Lamar smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Did the old parental urge strike you, Ben?”

  “You might say that. She’s a good kid who needs a break, that’s all.”

  “Over the years, we’ve met thousands of good kids who needed a break, Ben. What’s so special about this one?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Ben retorted sharply, then stood up and walked away.

  Lamar chuckled and returned to his paperwork. Ben had a soft spot for kids and animals, and everybody in the Rebel Army knew about it.

  Ben pulled a mug of coffee and wandered over to a stand of trees and sat on the ground near Jersey, Corrie, and Cooper. About fifty meters away, part of Lt. Bonelli’s command threw up a loose circle around Ben.

  Ben rolled a cigarette and drank his coffee and waited for Anna and Beth. Ben figured Anna to be about five feet, three inches, for she was about two inches taller than Jersey and Ben towered over her.

  “You like this kid, huh, Boss?” Jersey broke into his thoughts.

  “Yeah, I do, Jersey.”

  “We had a meeting while you were in the other room talking to Mark. Me, Cooper, Beth, and Corrie. We decided Anna was a keeper and not to throw her back.”

  Their way of telling Ben that they approved of Anna and that whatever Ben decided to do, they were solidly behind him.

  “I’m real glad to hear that, Jersey.”

  “I’ll keep a good eye on her, Boss,” Cooper said.

  “I’m sure you will,” Ben said drily. “And knowing she’s fifteen-years-old, I would advise you to keep statutory rape in mind while you’re keeping a good eye on her.”

  Cooper pulled a worn paperback book out of his jacket and busied himself reading a Fred Bean western.

  “Has anybody seen Cassie lately?” Ben asked, field stripping his cigarette butt. Cassie was a career reporter and Ben was a career warrior. Their affair had burned brightly for a time, and then the light had begun to flicker until it had finally gone out as the two realized that, while they genuinely liked each other, as a pair, they were not meant to be.

  “She hooked up with Ike’s 2 Batt,” Jersey said. “Frank Service is with Colonel Wajda’s bunch. And Nils Wilson is down in Italy with General Flanders. We still have Bobby Day.”

  “How wonderful for us,” Ben said.

  “You realize, of course,” Corrie said, “that Bobby Day will try to make something dirty out of your taking Anna in.”

  “When he does I’ll kill him,” Ben said quietly. He saw Beth and Anna approaching and left to greet them at the MASH tent.

  “How do I look?” Anna asked excitedly, doing a rather clumsy pirouette in her stiff combat boots.

  “You look just fine,” Ben told her.

  “I’m really a Rebel, aren’t I?”

  “You’re getting there,” Ben said as Lamar and a female doctor walked over to them. “Lamar, this is Anna.”

  “Prettiest soldier I ever did see,” Chase said. “Anna, this is Dr. Judy McMasters. She’s going to check you out and then we’ll bring you up-to-date on some shots. You go with her, now.”

  Anna looked at Ben with anxious eyes.

  “I’ll be right here,” Ben assured her. “You go with Dr. McMasters.”

  When Anna was out of earshot, Lamar said, “What the hell are you going to do with her, Ben? Keep her with you? What kind of home is that?”

  “A hell of a lot better than what she’s had for ten or so years, Lamar. The subject is closed. Have a nice day. Go back to sticking people with square needles.”

  Lamar stared at Ben. “You know what, Raines? You’re turning into a goddamn grouch.”

  “Maybe I’ve been around you, too long,” Ben returned.

  Chase threw his hands into the air and stalked off, muttering under his breath.

  “What are you going to do with her, Boss?” Corrie asked.

  “Well . . . that’s a damn good question.”

  There were no shots fired as the scouts entered the suburbs of Gyor, which back before the Great War had been a thriving city of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand. Scouts radioed back that there were perhaps five thousand people left in the city and they were in sad shape. Anna laughed strangely at that.

  Ben’s Hummer had blown an engine just inside the Hungarian border and, at Ben’s request, Dan had set about procuring a van for him. Dan’s scroungers had found the big van hidden in a barn and had pulled it out and gone over it. It was plush, seated six comfortably in captain’s chairs, and had enough room for all their gear . . . once the small refrigerator and stove were removed. Papers in the glove box showed that it had belonged to a government official before the Great War. When they got to Gyor, the Rebels would cut a hole in the top for a machine gun mount and bullet-proof the van.

  To absolutely no one’s surprise, Anna rode with Ben and his team in the van.

  What did come as a surprise was Anna’s proficiency with a number of weapons, including the M-16 and the AK-47.

  “I’m also real good at making and tossing Molotov cocktails,” she told them. “I’ve fried about a hundred and fifty creepers with them over the years. At least that many.”

  “We use grenades, Anna,” Ben said.

  “I prefer gas bombs,” she said stubbornly. “I like to hear those sorry bastards and bitches scream.”

  Beth arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “You really hate them, don’t you?” Cooper asked.

  “They ate my mother and father,” Anna said softly. “Yes, I hate them.”

  Nobody had anything to reply to that.

  “Gyor is an old town,” Anna went on. “It’s the capital of Gyor-Sporon megye. That means county. Like most of the old towns in my country, the streets are narrow and winding. And there are still creepers there, too. So watch it. They’re underground.”

  “Scouts reported nothing,” Jersey said.

  “As I told you a few miles back, your Scouts are wrong,” Anna said flatly. “I know. Don’t trust the people you meet, either. The creepers have them terrified. Besides that, they’re cowards.” She cut loose with a long string of words that Ben and the others could not understand, but knew perfectly well what she meant. She was giving both the creepers and the locals a sound cussing.

  “Whatever you said,” Beth told her, “if it was about the creepies, I agree with you.”

  “It was about the people left there, too. They’re stooges for the creepers. All the good people either fought the creepers
and died or left to live in the hills and fight a guerrilla war against them.”

  “All of them, Anna?” Ben asked.

  “Why else would a good person stay?”

  “Scouts now reporting the smell is getting tough to take,” Corrie said.

  “Tell them to back out and wait for us at the edge of the city,” Ben told her. “Here we go again,” he muttered.

  Anna heard him. “What do you mean, General Ben?”

  Ben had insisted the girl call him Ben, but she couldn’t bring herself to be that informal—at least not yet.

  “We bring the gangs under control, and the creeps pop up. We bring the creeps under control, and the gangs pop up. It just never seems to end.”

  “No more gangs, General Ben,” Anna said solemnly. “At least not in this part of what used to be my country. The gangs are all in Budapest and east and south of there. Everything else is all creeper controlled.”

  “What a cheerful thought,” Jersey said. “You just made our day, Anna.”

  The girl’s smile was thin and her pale blue eyes glittered with a bright hardness. When she spoke, her voice was flat and cold. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  The others in the gang had verified Anna’s story. The girl had been on her own since she was five-years-old, and she was one tough girl.

  “You’re not going into combat, Anna,” Jersey said. “You’ve had no training.”

  “I’m a Rebel now. This uniform says I am. You can’t keep me out of combat. Besides, I’ve been fighting the creepers since I was five. I started fighting them with rocks. You think this is something new to me? Bah!”

  “She meant . . .” Cooper opened his mouth.

  “I know what she meant.” Anna shut him up. “You think you can’t depend on me. You’re wrong. My life is fighting creepers. I hate them. Once, when I was captured, there was this big creeper who took off his robe and stood naked in front of me. He was filthy and stank like sheep shit. I was, oh, ten-years-old, I think. He told me if I would become his personal slave and suck him off he would let me live. I said, Oh, sure, I would. He got himself hard and stuck it in my face. He didn’t know I had a knife. I cut his dick off and ran. The next time I was captured, about six months later, in a little town called Olet, there was this creeper woman who wanted to love me . . . in a perverted way. I beat her head in with a club. You want to hear more?”

  “I think we get the picture, Anna,” Beth said.

  “Then don’t tell me I can’t fight. I will fight.”

  Ben cut his eyes to Jersey.

  “Yeah,” Jersey said. “Kick-ass time!”

  ELEVEN

  Anna preferred the chopped-off version of the M-16, the M16A1; and when Ben said he wouldn’t get her one, she got one of her own. As soon as the convoy reached the edge of Gyor and pulled over for the night, it took Anna about fifteen minutes to either steal one or charm some Rebel armorer out of it. Ben’s team was amused; Ben was not. At least not that he would show.

  “I will fight,” Anna told Ben. “You cannot stop me from fighting the creepers.”

  “All right, all right.” Ben gave in. “Then fight, goddamnit.”

  “Thank you,” Anna replied with more than a trace of humor in her eyes. “You want creeper prisoners to question?”

  “The scouts haven’t been able to find any.”

  “They don’t know where to look. I will show them.”

  Before Ben could protest, Anna was off and running. “Well, hell!” he said.

  “We’ve never been able to get much information out of the creepies,” Cooper said.

  “Maybe we should turn Anna loose on one,” Jersey suggested with a mean smile. “I think she might be more persuasive than we’ve been.”

  Ben shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere close should that happen. Anna harbors a real hatred toward the creeps. With good reason,” he added.

  Anna and the scouts were back in less than an hour, with half-a-dozen creepies. “The kid took us through an old tunnel, General,” the team leader said. “I have to admit, it spooked me at first. I tell you what, General. Anna can move like a ghost and cut a throat with the best of us. She can be on my team anytime she wants to.”

  Ben nodded and looked at Anna. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, young lady?”

  “Yeah. I do, General Ben. Now give me my reward.”

  “Reward?”

  Anna put a finger on one cheek and grinned impishly. “A little kiss, right here, General Ben.”

  Embarrassed, Ben shuffled his boots and cleared his throat. “Oh, all right!” he harrumphed. He bent down awkwardly and gave the kid a peck on the cheek amid cheering and applauding from the Rebels gathered around.

  The creeps stood by and glared their hatred at the Rebels, especially at Anna.

  “I don’t think they like you very much, Anna,” Ben said when the shouting and laughing had died down.

  “Oh, they hate me, General Ben,” the girl corrected. “I’ve killed a lot of creepers over the years.” She spat in the direction of the captives, and the creeps finally broke their silence and cursed the girl. She laughed at them.

  “Take them to the interrogation teams,” Ben told the scouts. “Give them the works; see what we can get out of them.”

  Anna pulled a double-edged dagger from her jacket. “I can get information from them.”

  The creeps hissed at the sight of the knife. It was obvious to all present that they not only hated Anna, but were more than a little afraid of the girl.

  “Put it away, Anna,” Ben told her. “We have drugs that work much better.”

  Anna reluctantly sheathed the razor-sharp blade, and the creepies were led away. They seemed glad to go.

  Anna shouted at them in her native tongue. One of the creeps turned and shook his head and replied in the same language.

  “What did you ask him, Anna?”

  “Where the men are who killed my friend Robert. The son of the employee of your embassy.”

  “And his reply?”

  “The same as always. I will never find them. But I will. And when I do, they will die very slowly and painfully. Just like Bobby. They raped him over and over. I had to listen to his screaming and watch while they used him. I will find them. Someday. Sooner or later.” She cut her pale eyes to Ben. “My ancestors came to Hungary from Romania. They were gypsies from the Transylvania Mountains. We Rumanians can be . . . inventive when it comes to pain.” She smiled . . . sort of. “Just study the life of Vlad the Impaler. I am hungry now. I will eat if you don’t mind.”

  “Go on,” Ben said softly.

  Ben watched her walk to the mess tent. Dan had strolled up. “You have yourself quite a handful there,” he said.

  “Yes, I sure do.”

  “But to her credit, Ben, everybody likes her. After only a few days, she’s won the hearts of us all. She’s a bonny lass, she is.”

  Behind Dan’s words he heard the unspoken questions. But Ben, what in the hell are you going to do with her? Adopt her? Send her back to the States?

  Ben didn’t know. “We’ll find a place for her, Dan,” he said lamely.

  “She needs proper schooling, Ben.”

  “Beth has already started with that. The older kids in the gang taught her to read and write. And she is amazingly well read. When she isn’t concentrating on killing creeps, she’s got her nose stuck in a book.”

  Reading was something that was heavily stressed in all Rebel schools, and most Rebels carried books in their gear.

  “How about the other kids Anna’s age that were in that gang?”

  “We found families to take in some of the younger children. The older ones are helping to rebuild and restore order. None of them went to jail. That particular gang was lucky.”

  Dan studied the general’s face. “Ben, old friend—” Dan put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “—I have to say this, and you’re not going to like it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  �
��Anna is a human killing-machine. You know it; I know it. She’s quite lovely and very personable. But she was made homeless at a tender age. She grew up like a wild animal. She admitted she fought packs of dogs for scraps of meat. How she got as far as she did is nothing short of a miracle. She’s only a cut above a feral child.”

  “I know all that, Dan.”

  “Do you even know her last name?”

  “She says it’s Hunyadi, which may or may not be true. That is a famous name in Hungarian history. There was a Hunyadi king in the 14th century, but the truth is, Dan, I don’t think she knows for sure. She may have just taken the name out of history. But one thing is firm: Anna Hunyadi is one orphan kid who is going to have a chance.”

  “End of discussion?”

  “End of discussion.”

  Dan clasped Ben’s shoulder briefly, then left him alone.

  Ben walked to the mess tent, pulled a cup of coffee, and sat down beside Anna, who had a huge plate of food in front of her. The girl was sitting off by herself, as if she had anticipated Ben’s arrival.

  “While you eat, we’re going to talk about your future, Anna.”

  “I fight,” she said.

  “I’m sure that’s true. But when you’re not fighting, you’re going to get some schooling.”

  “Okeydokey. That’s cool, General Ben.”

  Ben sighed. Dealing with teenage kids was not his strongest suit.

  She looked at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “You going to tell me about the birds and the bees, General Ben?”

  “I . . . don’t think so, Anna.”

  “That’s good. I already know all about fucking and stuff like that.”

  Ben’s sigh was definitely heavier and longer than the first exhalation. He looked down at his cup and wished he had some bourbon to add to it.

  “Anna, proper young ladies do not use words like the ones you just used.”

  “Are you going to teach me to be a proper young lady, General Ben?”

  “I am going to try, yes.”

  “That’s awesome, man.”

  Ben rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “I think I’m going to need some help in this,” he muttered. His eyes reached Thermopolis, who had just entered the tent. Therm spotted Ben sitting with Anna and noticed that Ben had a strange smile on his lips. Therm recognized that smile and beat a hasty retreat out of the mess tent.