Terror in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  “Hunt doesn’t give a damn for this island, General,” Miller told Ben. “He’s just about squeezed everything he can out of it. But Hunt and his new partners – that’s all the crud and crap in England – would like to contain the Rebels here, rather than have you go ashore on the Continent.”

  “So our intelligence is correct about the ten additional battalions that landed during the past week?”

  “Yes, sir. But that may backfire on Jack and the others.”

  “Oh?”

  “There is a strong resistance movement in England. They are not a large force, but they’re a damned determined one. Pulling that many outlaws away and sending them over here is really going to weaken the outlaws’ hold and give the resistance movement a hell of a lot more room to do damage.”

  “People are starving on this island,” Ben said softly.

  “Yes, sir. That’s one of the reasons Jack initially linked up with the outlaws in England. That was done long before I joined this ... mess.”

  “They plan on taking part of the Continent.” Ben did not put it in question form.

  “Yes, sir. France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy. With Jack Hunt as president.”

  “Ireland, England, and those countries you just named had such restrictive gun laws that once the unthinkable really happened, it was easy for the outlaw element to take over.”

  “That’s right. An unarmed population is an invitation for takeover.”

  “We certainly agree there. And you really don’t have even an inkling of what Jack plans to do?”

  “No, sir. But I think I could guess and be better than fifty-fifty correct.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Jack is not going to hit you head-on again unless he outnumbers you twenty-to-one. He learned his lesson well at Galway. Jack’s not a stupid man. He’s cruel and vicious, but intelligent.”

  “As is often the case,” Dr. Chase said. He had been sitting quietly with Buddy, drinking coffee and listening.

  “Yes,” Miller said. “If, or I should probably say when, Jack realizes that you’re going to shove him off this island, he’ll cut and run for England.”

  “Leaving all his heavy equipment behind?” Buddy asked.

  Miller looked at the young man. “He doesn’t need to take it. England is an armed camp. So is Europe. And once he’s in place in England, you people will be forced to make your assault by sea, and he’ll be set up and waiting.” He looked at Ben. “It won’t be another replay of Galway, General.”

  Ben nodded his silent agreement. “Then I guess we’d better deal with Mr. Jack Hunt properly and right here.”

  “It’s going to be interesting to see how you do it,” Miller said. He smiled. “Or rather, how we do it.”

  Some of Georgi Striganov’s people came eyeball to eyeball with a group of pale-faced creepies, cannibals who were trying to hunt a hole to escape the Rebels. The fight was short, brutal, bloody, and final. Striganov’s men took blood samples for Dr. Chase’s lab people to test, then poured gasoline on the stinking bodies and set them blazing.

  The Wolf Pack came roaring into a village on their Harleys just as a group of Jack Hunt’s soldiers were trying to leave. The outlaw bikers went to work, in dirty hand-to-hand fighting. Beerbelly and his people and Wanda and her ladies suffered only one dead and two wounded. When they pulled out, they left almost fifty dead mercenaries littering the streets and sidewalks.

  Those were the only two incidents of combat, other than the operation Buddy had commanded, reported that day. Then Ben gave the orders to halt and wait for further orders.

  The Free Irish reported to Ben’s CP by coded radio messages. “Our intelligence says that the initial reports of Jack pulling his people back are correct, sir. But sad to say, General, a number of our own people collaborated with that filth. They’re not going to stand still and let us take them in for a hangin’ without makin’ a fight of it. And they’re just as well armed as we are.”

  “Where are these people, Pat?”

  “All about the damn place, General. And they’ve linked up with them mercenaries that got cut off from their units when the Beast ordered the pullout.”

  Jack Hunt was known as the Beast.

  “Irishmen fighting Irishmen,” Buddy muttered, standing by his father’s side.

  “They’ve been doing that in Northern Ireland for generations,” Ben said.

  “Why do they hate each other so?” Jersey asked.

  “I doubt they even know after all these years,” Ben replied. “Each side is trained to hate the other from birth.” He keyed the mic. “Pat, I suppose that these small groups have infiltrated towns and villages and are holding the people as hostages?”

  “You are correct, sir. It’s going to be a series of very small and dirty battles among our own.”

  “With the larger battle looming at the end of the tunnel.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s the way I see it.”

  “What is your position now?”

  “Halted just outside of Crusheen. The village is occupied by a gang of hooligans sympathetic to the Beast.”

  “Ike?”

  “We’re holding just outside of Nenagh, Ben. The town’s filled with women and kids and Jack Hunt’s sympathizers, along with some of his regular troops. We can’t use artillery or mortar fire on innocents. We’re gonna have to take it house to house with small arms fire.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Ben cussed. He listened to his other commanders report in. All reported the same as Pat O’Shea and Ike. “Hunt did this deliberately,” Ben said to his group, gathered around him. “He deliberately left those people of his behind, knowing that we’d have to take time to root them out hand to hand, giving him time to get his army in place and dug in for a long battle. And you can bet he’s got ships ready to transport to England. He also figured out that we won’t blow those ships because we’re going to need them to cross the Irish Sea. Most of our vessels are sailing back to America for supplies. The man is no fool, believe that.”

  Ben walked outside of the communications truck and stood for a moment. He whirled around and faced the crowd of Rebels that had gathered. “Jack Hunt wants it dirty, people.” His smile was not a cheerful one. “All right. If he wants it down and dirty, that’s the way we play it. Scouts out to Attymon. Now. Corrie, tell all commanders to move out toward the next town in their sectors and take it. House by house, street by street. Double the number of medics with each unit to aid in the wounded civilians. And we all know there will be some of those. Let’s go, people, we’ve got a war to win.”

  Three

  “Holy Mother of God!” one turncoat Irishman said, crossing himself as he felt the earth beneath his feet tremble as the big main battle tanks advanced toward the village.

  “He’s bluffin’,” another man said, but from his tone, he wasn’t ready to bet the farm on that remark.

  “Get them hostages out here,” one of Jack Hunt’s regular soldiers said. “Fill the streets with ‘em. If Raines gets us, he’ll do slippin’ and sloppin’ in the blood of women and babies.”

  Old men and women, young women with babies, and younger men crippled fighting the troops of Jack Hunt were prodded out of their homes by the muzzles of guns.

  “Bastards,” Ben muttered, his voice savage as he watched the streets fill with civilians. He lowered the glasses and turned to Buddy. “You want to handle this one, boy?”

  “I defer to the older and wiser head among us, Father. But thank you just the same.”

  “West reporting that hostages are lining the streets of a town in his section,” Corrie called. “Same with Danjou, Rebet, and Tina.”

  “Tell all units to put a loose ring around their objectives and then stand down and rest until dark. We’ll go in blackface,” Ben ordered.

  “We’ll go in blackface?” Chase said, walking up to the group.

  “That’s what I said, Doctor.”

  “Raines, need I remind you t
hat...”

  “Set up your MASH tents, Dr. Chase. Get ready to receive wounded.”

  “If you get more lead in you, Raines, I promise you that I will personally operate on your hide.”

  “My God, what an incentive to stay healthy!”

  Chase walked away, muttering to himself.

  “Pick your people, son,” Ben told him. “We shove off at full dark.”

  At mid-afternoon, the skies darkened and it began to rain, a very gentle falling of rain. “Perfect,” Ben said with a smile. “I just hope it keeps up.” About a hour before dark, he changed into dark clothing and began removing or securing with tape anything that might rattle. He smeared mud on his face and then pulled on tight-fitting leather gloves. He petted Smoot and was telling the husky to behave when Linda walked into the tent. She was dressed in dark jeans and dark jacket, her face painted camo for night work.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Ben asked.

  “With you.”

  “No way.”

  “Then take it up with Dr. Chase. I work for him, remember?”

  Ben shrugged his shoulders. The chief of medicine could ground even Ben if he really wanted to, and Ben would be forced to obey.

  Ben’s team began to gather. Cooper whistled at Jersey’s tight jeans and she gave him the bird. But she was smiling as she did so.

  Ben had two 9mm Beretta pistols on his web belt and was carrying a Colt 9mm carbine, select fire. Helmets bump and make noise, so they all wore dark bandanas tied around their heads. Various types of grenades were hooked to their battle harnesses, and all carried plenty of filled clips for their weapons.

  Cooper was carrying a Stoner 63, a 5.56mm belt-fed machine gun with a 150-round magazine. Jersey carried a CAR-15, select fire. Linda carried a Street-Sweeper, drum-type sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, which was truly awesome in any type of close-in combat. She wore bandoleers of shells crisscrossing between her breasts. Corrie was carrying a very light packback radio and a CAR-15. All of them carried small walkie-talkies secured to their belts and all with clip-mics so each could keep at least one hand free.

  “Check equipment and radios,” Ben ordered.

  Chase stepped into the tent. His face was serious and he did not immediately kid around. “We’re all set up to receive wounded, Ben. Buddy has his people ready to go. Good hunting to you all.” He winked at Linda. “Watch yourself with this bunch of wild people, Linda. But you know that by now.”

  She smiled at him and Chase stepped back into the rainy and foggy night, Ben and his team following. Smoot crawled under Ben’s cot and went to sleep.

  “A damn good night for killing,” Ben said, and jacked a round into his CAR-15. He spotted Buddy’s group and walked toward his son and his team. When he reached the silent gathering, he said, “You’ve all studied maps of the town. You know where to go and what to do. Noise discipline in effect from this point on. Move out.”

  The Rebels began moving out in teams of five, walking silently toward the darkened town. Only the faint outlines of the buildings were visible in the mist and fog of this quiet Irish night ... that was about to turn deadly and bloody.

  Ben and his team approached a line of houses just before entering the main street of the small town. He stopped there and checked the luminous hands of his watch. In two minutes the tank and mortar barrage would begin, and if the outlaws and turncoat Irish holding the town did as Ben hoped, it would make this job of work a lot easier.

  “Please, no more,” the woman’s words drifted out of a boarded-up window. “I can’t stand it anymore.”

  The ugly sound of a fist striking flesh followed the woman’s pleadings. The woman cried out in pain and a man said, “Shut your mouth, bitch. And spread your legs.”

  Weeping followed that as the hunching slap of flesh against flesh came to the Rebels crouched just outside the house.

  Ben looked at Linda. His eyes were very hard and bright in the misty night. Ben pointed a finger at her, then at himself, then at the house. She nodded her understanding. He pointed at Corrie, Cooper, and Jersey, then to the next house in line. They nodded and moved out. All but Jersey. She silently shook her head. Ben grinned. There was no way that Little Jersey was going to leave his side.

  The artillery barrage began on schedule, the shells whistling overhead to land harmlessly in the meadows and fields outside the town proper. The explosions shook the ground beneath the Rebels’ boots.

  “Get them people out in the streets!” a man shouted the orders. “Stay in the houses and keep them people under the gun. Any tries to run, shoot into the crowd.”

  “Bingo,” Ben muttered. “Let’s go.”

  Using the shattering noise of the incoming to cover any sound they might make, the infiltrating Rebels began slipping into the houses and shops of the town. With the citizens grouped in the wet streets, out of harm’s way, the Rebels had a field day inside the homes and shops.

  The man who had been raping the woman was just stumbling into his pants when Linda entered the room. She leveled the Street-Sweeper and gave him two rounds in his belly. Very low in his belly. He screamed and flopped on the floor, both hands to his bloody groin.

  “I’m ruint!” he shrieked.

  “For a fact,” Linda told him, just as Ben opened up with his CAR-15 and stitched a line of 9mm’s across four men who had whirled around in the living room, lifting weapons. The slugs caused them to do a nifty little dance step seconds before they collapsed on the floor.

  Corrie and Cooper cleared their assigned house of all living things and dragged the dead trash out the back door and tossed the bodies into the backyard. Jersey was squatting by the back door when several men came running around the side of the house. She leveled her weapon and held the trigger back as the outlaws jerked and yelled and died in the misty night.

  A half a dozen civilians died from outlaw gunfire before one of Buddy’s team could toss a grenade into the house, silencing the machine gun. The citizens dived for whatever cover they could find, many of them running into the now-cleared homes.

  One company of Ben’s battalion came charging into the west side of town, following several MBT’s. The Rebels pulled the panicked citizens behind the tanks and calmed them. Ben and his team moved through the wet backyards of homes, silently stalking their prey.

  A man with an AK-47 in his hands ran out a back door. Five weapons fired at once. The man was knocked off his boots and slammed into the side of a house. He left a huge bloodslick as he sank dead to the grass.

  Ben saw a man wearing cammies and dragging an M-16 crawl under a shed. Ben dropped to his knees and put half a clip between ground and floor. The man thrashed around for a moment then lay still. Linda’s shotgun roared a few yards away and a man was lifted off his boots and slung against a stone fence. He died with a very startled look on his face.

  “The citizens are pretty much accounted for,” Corrie yelled at Ben, after listening to her headset.

  “Let’s mop it up,” Ben gave the orders.

  When the outlaws tried to flee the village and found the area surrounded by Rebels, they tried to give up. But the Rebels were in no mood to play the surrender game. They had seen what the outlaws had done to women and young girls. They shot the outlaws on the spot.

  “You’re nothin’ but filthy heathen!” one outlaw yelled. “They’s rules to war and we’re tryin’ to give this one up, man.”

  “That man and several of his friends raped my ten-year-old boy,” a woman with a bruised face told a Rebel.

  The Rebel gave the outlaw a burst of 7.62 slugs in the belly.

  “God bless you,” the woman said.

  “Where’s your boy?” the Rebel asked.

  “He died.”

  “Oh, God help me,” the wounded outlaw said.

  The Rebel looked at the woman, then pulled a knife from his harness and gave it to her. He walked on into the misty night. Seconds later the outlaw began screaming. The Rebel did not look back.

&nbs
p; Ben and his team linked up with Buddy and the four Rebels with him. “Let’s clear this block,” Ben said. “Corrie, advise the others of our location.”

  A burst of machine gun fire sent them all face-down in the mud, the slugs hammering into a hut behind them.

  “Anybody spot that?” Ben asked.

  Buddy spat out grass and mud. “Behind that stone fence at two o’clock.”

  “Too far for grenades. We can’t get a tank between these houses. A couple of you people work around and get close enough to chunk some fire-frags in that nest of snakes.”

  Two Rebels from Buddy’s team backed out, on their bellies, and disappeared into the mist. Less than two minutes later, the machine nest behind the stone fence exploded in a smashing flash of blood and shattered flesh.

  “We yield!” a man called frantically, the voice coming across the street from Ben’s location. “Jesus God, boys, we give it up.”

  Several M-16’s rattled and the voice spoke no more.

  “Goddamn you, Ben Raines!” another man hollered. “You people ain’t human!” A grenade bounced on the earth and came to rest about a foot from the man’s boots. He screamed and turned to run. The grenade blew and sent him flying over a fence, one side of his body shredded and peppered with shrapnel.

  Buddy rolled in through a back door and came to his boots facing a woman holding a weeping and bloody child close to her. The woman had been beaten savagely. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “We’re American Rebels.”

  “My girl’s been shot in the leg. She was raped over and over by them trash.”

  “Come on. We’ll get help for you.”

  “I can’t walk, soldier. Them trash took gun butts and broke my legs.”

  Unlike his father, Buddy was not a hard-cussing man. But he said a few choice words under his breath about Jack Hunt and members of his army. “Dad!” the young man called. “Over here.”

  “Your father is a Rebel, too?” the woman asked, her battered face white against the pain in her legs.

  “My father is Gen. Ben Raines.”