Blood in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Guess not.

  Christ, Raines was putting people against the wall and shooting them just for rape. How unconstitutional. Hell, Tony knew all cunts liked it once a guy got it in. Everybody knew that.

  Tony and his gang of thugs and slime and punks lived through Ben’s short term as president of the United States by being very careful and keeping an extremely low profile.

  But the fleas and the rats and the disease almost finished Tony’s career in crime.

  But not quite.

  Tony Silver bounced back, bigger and stronger than before. He now ramrodded a gang of more than a thousand men. Over a thousand of the most undesirable and socially unredeemable assholes ever assembled.

  And Tony controlled all of north Florida and south Georgia.

  “When are we going to return to the group, Ben?” Gale asked.

  Truth was, Ben really didn’t want to go back. By nature, Ben was a loner, and the pull of the highway was getting strong. What he really wanted to do was put Gale in the pickup and pull out, just the two of them. He wanted to be free of duties and responsibilities and overseeing rules and laws and regulations and moral conduct.

  Ben sighed. He knew he could not turn his back on a group of men and women who depended on him. Even though he wanted to do just that. Wanted that so badly it was almost a tangible sensation at times. But maybe when his people were settled in and this power play concluded . . . maybe then.

  “We head back when Cec gets word to me that the coup attempt is something firm. Gives me something I can sink my teeth into. That’s all I can tell you at this time, babe.”

  “And when Cecil does that?”

  “We go back and I take out Mr. Bennett, Mr. Willette and Mr. Carter.”

  “Take out?”

  “Dispose of them.”

  “You’re a hard man, Mr. Raines.”

  “Hard times, Ms. Roth,” he said with a smile.

  Ben knew his plans could backfire, knew he was taking a chance going at it by this route. But he had known for some time many of the younger Rebels in his command were unhappy at the way Ben was running things. Ben was, for the most part, a steady type of man, a man who tried to think matters through, very carefully, before implementing them. Many of the younger Rebels were not too happy about Ben’s demands that they all receive some formal education. They reasoned that there were no more rocket ships to be built, no more searching for the stars. If they were going to start rebuilding from scratch, it was more important to know how to build a house than to understand higher math.

  Ben had told them he understood their feelings. He. also added, “But you will have to know how to read a blueprint in order to build more permanent structures.”

  He got through to a lot of them. Some of them he did not reach.

  But Willette had.

  Most Rebels, of all ages, were really afraid of Ben. Afraid not to obey him. Rumor was the man was close to being a god. It not only confused them, it angered them, because if the man was a god, and everybody knew he was, kind of, then goddamn it, why didn’t Ben Raines behave like a god? Why didn’t he get himself a big ol’ house, with people to wait on him, and just sit there with that old Thompson submachine gun by his side, and let those with troubles come to him so he could solve them?

  And that old Thompson was something to be feared, too. Only a few would even touch the thing. That Thompson was synonymous with Ben Raines. A part of the man.

  And then General Raines really pissed many of the Rebels off by saying when they received some education, they would then see he was no god, just a mortal being, just like the rest of them.

  Well, that was a crock of crap and they all knew it. The young man from the east, Ro, said Ben was a god. The young man from the west, Wade, said Ben was a god. Travelers who came in to seek refuge said monuments and tributes and places of worship were built all over the nation—all erected toward Ben Raines.

  That had to prove something. And nothing Ben could say would make them believe otherwise. The man was a god. Sort of. But . . . maybe a human god. That way Ben could have human emotions and stuff like that. But he couldn’t die. Everybody knew that. That was accepted as fact.

  No, Captain Willette and Lieutenant Carter and Sergeant Bennett were right. Ben needed to be in some . . . special place. By himself. A place where he could just sit and hand down judgments and make decisions. But it would have to be a place befitting Ben Raines’ stature.

  And none of the Rebels involved with Willette were too thrilled about Gale, either. She wasn’t right for Ben Raines. She just wasn’t the right woman. Goddesses were tall and blonde and . . . what was the word? Magnificent. Yes. Grand in appearance.

  It wasn’t the fact that Gale was . . . well, not one of them. That wasn’t it at all. Didn’t have anything to do with it. That’s what Willette told them. Very convincingly, too.

  And nobody thought to mention that of all Captain Willette’s followers, there were no blacks, no Jews, no Hispanics, no Orientals.

  That came as no surprise to Cecil.

  “This camp is being divided, Ike,” Cecil told the ex-SEAL. “Invisible battle lines are being drawn. And I don’t like it.”

  “If we could just get settled in one spot,” Ike said. “If we could just have a couple of years to work it out, set up schools and get people working. I’m gonna tell you something, friend: Ben isn’t going to put up with much more of this,” Ike prophesied. “And I wouldn’t blame him if he just walked out and said to hell with it all. I’ve been reading the signs, and they’re strong. If Ben can work this out here, I got a feeling he’s gonna split for a year or two. After Gale has the baby.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Cecil said, a frown on his face. “Ben is the glue that is holding us together.”

  “I’m not wrong.” Ike was firm in that. “Like Doc Chase said, Ben’s tired. And if we don’t bring this . . . present matter to a head pretty damn quick, Ben is gonna walk. Belive it.”

  “I know,” the black man said glumly. “I see the signs, too. Ben never wanted the responsibility. We pushed it on him. Goddamn it!”

  “That goes twice for me, buddy.”

  Ben and his small contingent of Rebels sat it out in the small town. Cecil contacted Ben every other day, but there was really no news to report that would prompt Ben to return, to personally take a hand in stopping the rumor mill. More and more, Ben entertained the notion of just taking off, of gathering up those he knew he could trust and just getting the hell out. He was fed up. Tired of paperwork and being chained to a desk, overseeing the several thousand lives in his command.

  Gale picked up on his mood. “You really want to cut out, don’t you, Ben?”

  “Yes, I do, Gale. And I can’t say it’s a selfish move on my part. The Rebels have to be made to see they can survive without me. Will you come with me, Gale?”

  She sighed. She loved him, but she was a realist. She had accepted the fact that no woman was going to hold Ben Raines for any length of time. Ben was a gypsy at heart. He was loving and gentle and kind to whatever woman shared his bed; but that woman had best be prepared for Ben’s leaving, for that was inevitable. Take the good times while they were being offered, and accept the fact they would not be permanent.

  “I don’t know, Ben,” she said. “I’m not a wanderer like you. We’ll see.”

  Ben told her of his original plans, back in ’88. Of just wanting to travel the country, writing of his experiences along the way, putting down on paper what had happened to the nation. And of how he had gotten sidetracked. He told her of Tri-States, of Salina, Jerre, the other women.

  Gale was more amused than jealous, for she understood Ben much more than he realized.

  He spoke to her at length, and she detected a longing in his voice. Ben was a master at survival, having recalled all his hard service training and put it to use. But he was still a writer at heart. Ben felt that someone should, for history’s sake, chronicle the events leading up to and after the bombings
of 1988.

  And he felt he was probably the only one remaining who could do that job.

  “I guess that makes me sound very arrogant, doesn’t it, Gale?”

  She felt somehow closer to him for his sharing his thoughts. She knew only too well just how private a man Ben Raines really was. But while she felt closer, she experienced a sense of loss as well. As if Ben, in his own peculiar way, was telling her their time together was getting short. She accepted it. She had anticipated it. “No, Ben, I don’t think it makes you arrogant at all. I think it makes you a man who is determined to chart the events of this nation. I think you owe it to history to do so. And I think I would only be in the way. What do you think about it?”

  He brightened, his mood lifting. “I think you’re nuts, Gale. We’ll go together. I’ll put this little coup attempt to bed, and we’ll take off. Just as soon as you have the baby.”

  “Babies, Ben, babies. I keep telling you. It’s going to be twins. And I don’t know if I’m going with you, or not.”

  “Twins, Gale. Right. Twins. And you’re coming with me.”

  “We’ll see, Ben,” she said, patting his arm. She smiled. “How many offspring will this make, Ben?”

  Ben muttered under his breath and Gale laughed at him. “I keep telling you, Ben: You keep this up and in a hundred years, half the population in America will be direct descendants of yours.”

  He sobered her abruptly by saying, “There is no America, Gale. And what is left of the nation is falling apart rapidly. And it just dawned on me, Gale. I can’t pull it back together. No matter how much I might want that, I just can’t do it alone. It’s just too large a task for one man.”

  She touched his arm as she realized he was right. “Ben . . .”

  James Riverson walked up. “Sorry to bother you, General. But we got trouble coming at us. Scouts report armed men just rolled past their positions. ’Bout a platoon of them. We got maybe ten minutes ’fore they get here.”

  The survivalist in Ben quickly overrode the writer’s side of the man. The warrior in him, never buried too deeply, leaped to the surface. The warrior rudely pushed the philosopher aside. A line from Ecclesiastes came to Gale: A time to kill and a time to heal.

  “Stagger positions on both sides of the street,” Ben ordered. “M-60s on top of that building and over there,” he said, pointing. “50s set up there and there. Move it!”

  Gale watched the man change before her eyes. He never failed to amaze her. He could shift personalities at the blink of an eye. And while she loved him, she was woman enough to let him go.

  In thirty seconds the street was deserted. A slight breeze blew lightly through the old town. Paper swirled through the air, floating and bouncing on invisible wings. The sounds of engines reached the ears of the hidden Rebels. The nose of a deuce and a half edged around the corner. Two men in the cab. Half a dozen in the uncovered rear. The bed of the truck was piled with supplies. The men in the trucks were armed with automatic weapons and dressed in paramilitary fashion.

  Ben had no idea who the men were, or what they represented. They might be like himself, people who were trying to put the nation—or what was left of it—back on an even keel. But Ben somehow doubted that. The men were unshaven and dirty. They looked more like pirates than soldiers. Something about the men nagged at Ben’s mind, pulling at the shadowy reaches of his brain. Then some old bit of intelligence came to him. Colonel Dan Gray had said his LRRPs had reported that a man named Tony Silver was in command of a large group of thugs and goons down in Florida. And at that time—that was several months back—Silver’s men were moving into south Georgia. They were terrorizing the citizens, robbing and raping and killing and turning the civilians into virtual slaves, the women into unwilling whores.

  “Do we take them, General?” James’ voice whispered out of Ben’s walkie-talkie.

  “No,” Ben returned the whisper, his eyes on the passing convoy. “Let them through. I’ve got an idea. No one makes a sound. Hold your fire. James? Have a team maintain a loose contact on the column. Stay back and be careful. Keep in radio contact with me several times a day. I want to see where these men are heading. I’ve got a bad feeling about them.”

  The column rolled through the tiny village, the men in the trucks totally unaware of the eyes on them, the guns trained on them. Death could have reached out and touched them at any time.

  “That’s all of them, General,” James reported from his vantage spot on top of the building. “Rear scouts report the road is clear.”

  “Team out,” Ben ordered. “James? How many did you count?”

  “Forty-odd. Supplies for a long time on the road. Well armed. General, are you thinking these people have something to do with Captain Willette and his bunch?”

  “That was my gut reaction, yes. We’ll wait for the team to report back. I think we’ll find they’re heading for a spot near where we’ve decided to settle. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn this Sister Voleta and her Ninth Order is involved, as well. I got some strange vibes from that woman.”

  “That would seem like a strange pairing, Ben,” Gale said. “Silver is a thug and the Ninth Order is supposed to be so religious.”

  “I think she’s about as religious as a rattlesnake,” Ben said. “That religious business is a front, I’m thinking.”

  “A front for what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t we just let Colonel Gray and his people take them all out right now?” a Rebel asked.

  “Because that way, we’d only knock off the tip of the iceberg. They’d rebuild. I want the entire chunk.”

  “Colonel Jefferys on the horn, General,” the radio operator said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  Ben walked to the communications truck and took the mic. “Go, Cec.”

  “One of our scouting parties was ambushed just inside the Chattahoochee National Forest,” Cecil said. “We took some hard casualties. And Ben? Ike’s missing.”

  FOUR

  Ben tossed in his sleeping bag that night. He would doze for a few moments, then awaken to toss and turn once more. After several hours of fitful sleep, Ben threw back the sleeping bag cover and said, “Shit!”

  Gale was silent. But Ben knew she was not asleep. He looked at her form in the darkness, her back to his eyes.

  Gale sighed deeply after a few moments. “Will you quit staring at me?”

  “Go ahead,” Ben said. “Say it. Get it over with, Gale.”

  “Say what?”

  “You’ve been pulling the silent treatment on me all evening. Now either knock it off or say what’s on your mind, will you?”

  She turned to face him, fixing her dark eyes on his face. “That was quite a performance you gave this afternoon. And in front of the troops, too. I must admit, I’d never seen anything quite like it.”

  Ben grunted. “Yeah. I thought perhaps that was it.”

  “You almost scared the pee out of those young troops, Ben. Some of them were actually trembling, listening to you rant and rave and carry on like a madman.”

  “I guess so. All right. I’ll apologize to them in the morning.”

  “It is morning!”

  “Oh. Really? Well . . . later on in the morning, then. Damn it, Gale, Ike knew better. He and Cec share the responsibility when I’m gone. He had no business taking off like that. This not only puts me in a bad situation, but just think where it leaves Cecil.”

  “Oh, Ben! Hell! Ike is just like you. He can’t sit around doing nothing. He’s got to be a part of the action. Just like you. So ease off Ike’s case, buster.” She softened her tone. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you, Ben?”

  “Yeah. But I shouldn’t be, I guess. Ike can take care of himself.” But the whispered reply held a note of concern. “We’ve been together a long time. Really, since the beginning, back in ’88.”

  Gale waited.

  “I met him down in Florida. Ike and four or five lovely young ladies. Ike married one of
them, Megan. I told you about that.” He laughed softly. “Let’s see. There was Honey-Poo, June-Bug, Tatter, Angel-Face, Bell-Ringer. That was Megan’s nickname. Juno was with me, then. The husky.”

  “Did you ever see any of those women again? I don’t mean . . .”

  “I know what you mean. No, I never did. I don’t know what happened to them.”

  “You ever wonder?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You two—three, really, counting Cecil—have been through a lot together.”

  “Yes. And Ike’s not a young buck any longer. He’s crowding fifty awfully hard. Goddamn it!”

  “Settle down, Ben.” Gale slipped from the sleeping bag and came to him. She slipped slender arms around his neck and blew in his ear, “Watch your BP, old man.”

  He smiled and kissed her.

  “Really, Ben, you can’t blame Ike. In a sense you’re doing the same thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sure. We’re sitting down here, a hundred miles away from the main group. Nobody wanted you to leave—right?”

  “We might head back soon.”

  “No, we won’t, Ben. Think about it.”

  His smile flashed white in the darkness. “You giving the orders, now, huh?”

  “You want to return so you can lead the search for Ike,” she said, pegging his thoughts accurately. “And that is dumb on your part. Very dumb. Think about it, Ben.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he sighed. “You’re right, Gale. Ike knows the policy. We won’t sacrifice a dozen to save one. They were his rules, back in Tri-States. He wouldn’t want them violated any more than I would.”

  “Get some sleep, Ben. We’ll talk about it in the light.”

  He returned to his side of the big double sleeping bag and to the warmth of the woman.

  Her fingers found him; his hands found her.

  “Won’t this hurt the baby?” he asked.

  Her reply was at first a chuckle. “I really doubt it, Ben.”

  FIVE

  “You can save yourself a great deal of pain,” the voice came to him. “Tell us where General Raines is hiding.”