Terror in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  But the others were not to be swayed.

  “Order the shifting of defenses,” they decreed.

  “They bought it,” Ben said with a grin, after reading the reports from the lookouts stationed on high rooftops in Rebel-held territory. “The cannibalistic bastards fell for it.”

  “Thermopolis says some of those old rust-buckets down at Wexford will probably disintegrate ten seconds after the ruse is done,” Buddy said. “But he says they’re ready for sailing. How can a ship sail without sails?” he mused aloud.

  “Take it up with Thermopolis,” his father told him. “I know nothing about boats. I don’t like boats.”

  “Ships,” his son automatically corrected him.

  “Ships, boats, whatever. They float on water and I don’t trust them.”

  “Me neither,” Cooper said.

  “They’re really shifting creepies around, General,” Dan said, walking into the room, a clipboard in his hand. “These are the latest reports in; just got them handed me. The creeps are massing at the harbor.”

  “Start the loading tonight,” Ben told Corrie. “No lights. Throw up a tight security screen around Wexford Harbor and at full dark, start playing those tape recordings we made of the troops when they pulled out of here.” He smiled. The Rebels pulled out, all right – about ten miles inland. “Have everybody there load and unload about twenty times; make lots of noise.”

  Dan chuckled. “Sorry for finding all this commotion so amusing, General. But this is something that I always snickered at in the cinema.”

  “So did I, Dan,” Ben admitted. “Are your people ready to go?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite. Everyone is ready.”

  “You all will cross the canals tomorrow night. In thirty-six hours we’ll all know how good this plan was.”

  “It’ll work if none of the teams gets caught and talks.”

  Ben handed him a packet. Dan arched an eyebrow. “Cyanide pills, Dan. Compliments of Dr. Chase. Each team member gets one. They’re in waterproof bags. You don’t want to be taken alive by the creepies.”

  “Quite right,” the Englishman said, putting the packet in a side pocket of his BDU jacket. “I’ll see they are dispensed.”

  “Good.”

  Dan held out his hand and Ben shook it. “We’ll be rather busy for the next twenty-four hours or so, General. So I shall see you at the link-up point, sir.” He stepped back properly and gave Ben a very snappy salute, British-fashion.

  Ben smiled and returned the salute – American. fashion – and Dan executed an about-face and left the room.

  Ben called his personal team together, including the lieutenant who commanded his personal platoon and the platoon sergeant and squad leaders. “I want to remind you all that there will be no radio traffic concerning this operation. None. Just to tell you how important silence is, every team member going across those canals has a cyanide pill in case he’s captured, before or after the plan goes into operation. You know what creepies do to captured Rebels.

  “When we go in, people, we are going to go in very fast. For the first few blocks, at a run. We’ll be advancing behind the tanks. And make no mistake about this: I will be leading my battalion. We are going to push the creepies hard and take no prisoners. A lot of the time, some of us will be cut off from the others. Go light on food and heavy on ammo. Two canteens of water per person. Take only your ground sheets. Those will be used to carry out our wounded and to cover and carry out our dead ... when we get the time.

  “Everybody keep a very low profile until jumpoff time. Tomorrow night, our people will start moving back in in small units. Our tanks will be moving up closer, but they won’t really pour on the throttle until the bombardment starts just before dawn. The bombardment will cease at dawn, giving the gunships time to do their magic, then the bombardment will once again commence from the ships. By that time, we’ll be running hard into creepie territory, and the creepies will know that they’ve been suckered.

  “People, their backs will be against the wall, a wall of water. They have no place to go, they know we don’t take creepie prisoners, so it’s going to be one mother-humpin’ fight.” Ben eyeballed them a1.1 for a moment. “That’s it.”

  Ben rested well that night and was up at his usual hour long before dawn. It was good that he did rest, for the day seemed to take three times its normal length to pass. That night Rebels began moving, returning to the area of their battalions, but staying well back of the front lines.

  “Going to exclude my battalion from this assault, too, General?” Thermopolis’ XO asked over coffee.

  “You’ll be bringing up the rear, but no, you damn sure won’t be excluded this time. I want you and your people along here, taking and holding Christ Church and spreading out and opening the south end of Grattan bridge. And hold it, Captain. That bridge is vital.”

  “When did you change the plan, General?”

  “About ten minutes before I called you to come up here. We’re going to secure everything between the Liffey and the Grand Canal. And if possible, we’re going to do it all tomorrow.”

  Fourteen

  Ben was up before any of his team the morning of the assault. He took a spit-bath out of a pail of water and brushed his teeth, then carefully dressed. He put body armor on between his t-shirt and his cammie shirt, then slipped into his battle harness. By the time the rest of his team was up, he and Jersey were sitting and talking, having coffee.

  Corrie checked with communications; it appeared that all the special ops teams had made it and were in place.

  “One hour to jump off,” Ben said. The stars were fading in the early morning sky.

  Somewhere in the building, someone coughed nervously as Ben was putting a couple of high protein, vitamin-packed snack bars in his pocket and filling his canteens with fresh water from a drum.

  Ben had laid aside his M-14 and once more returned to the 9mm Car-15, simply because he could carry twice the ammo and the weapon was lighter and easier to handle. This operation would be, for the most part, a short-range, house-to-house and face-to-face confrontation. He checked his Beretta 9mm sidearms and hooked a couple more grenades onto his harness.

  Cooper was checking his Stoner and hooping bandoliers of ammo across his chest. Linda loaded her shotgun up full and, like Coop, wore bandoliers of magnum shotgun shells across her chest. Jersey was ready five minutes after she laced up her boots. She was sitting quietly, drinking coffee. Corrie was checking out her lightweight backpack radio. Satisfied, she slipped it on and checked her weapons. Beth was writing in her journal; she was the unofficial historian of the group.

  Buddy walked in, loaded with weapons and ammo, a bandana around his head. Ben was seconds away from giving his son an ass-chewing when the young man grinned in the semidarkness of the hall and held up his helmet.

  “Why’d you leave the Eighth?” Ben asked.

  “General Ike told me to,” Buddy responded. “Me and part of the Pack are to stay with you. Sorry,” he shrugged. “I have to do what the ranking officers tell me. Right?”

  Ben was sandbagged and knew it. “Right,” he said. “Turn around.”

  Ben checked his son’s battle harness, then turned to allow Buddy to check his.

  “Ships are in the harbor, standing by,” Corrie told Ben.

  Ben looked at his watch. “Corrie, tell everyone to get into position, please.”

  She spoke a one-word code phrase, “Boots,” and then repeated it.

  “Laced,” came the reply. It was repeated. Corrie looked at Ben.

  “Outside to the line,” Ben said.

  The Rebels moved outside into the cool Irish morning.

  “It’s going to be a fine day,” Ben said, looking up into the sky. “Clear and sunshiny. Certain tribes of plains Indians used to have a saying before a battle – ‘It’s a good day to die.’ ”

  “Meaning, of course,” Buddy said, “for the other fellow?”

  “Not necessarily,” his father told him, then wa
lked away to chat for a moment with members of the Command Platoon.

  “Jackie,” Ben spoke to a squad leader. “How you feeling?”

  “Rarin’ to go, General,” she said with a smile.

  “Won’t be long now.” He walked on. “Lieutenant,” he said.

  The words had just left his mouth when the artillery on board ships began pounding the harbor area. Ben sensed someone standing just behind him and to his right. He did not have to turn around to know that it was Jersey.

  “You ready, Little Bit?” he asked.

  “Just about time to kick ass, General,” she replied.

  Chuckling, Ben walked on, speaking to Rebels as he approached them, Jersey right behind him, Corrie right behind her.

  “Communications reports lots of creepie chatter,” Corrie said. “They’re getting awfully nervous about those rope ladders being heaved over the sides of the ships.”

  “Good. Tell our mortar crews to get ready with smoke.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell those tanks that are laying back to come on in as soon as the smoke is fired.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Ben pointed toward the ground. “Secure that boot lace, soldier,” Ben said to a Rebel. “You’d look funny falling on your ass during a charge.”

  Embarrassed, the Rebel knelt down and quickly retied the lace.

  Ben turned and walked back to his team. He was handed a fresh cup of coffee in a tin cup.

  The harbor area was beginning to burn from the Willie Peter being dropped in on the old buildings. The eastern sky was glowing in the now gray of nearly dawn.

  Ben adjusted the strap on his helmet, resettling his chin in the cup. “Won’t be long now,” he said to no one in particular. “The birds are up.”

  Gradually, the thundering bombardment from the ships began to abate. Soon, all could hear the whapping of the big blades of the helicopter gunships as they began their approach toward the targets, coming in at speeds of over a hundred miles an hour. The choppers began raining down death from the skies.

  “Fire smoke,” Ben ordered. “Special operations teams up.”

  Seconds later, the fluttering of mortars hummed overhead and the rockets exploded several hundred meters in front of the line, filling the air with smoke.

  “Tanks in,” Ben said, and the first tank sections roared up and past the battle line.

  “Let’s go!” Ben shouted, and charged into the swirling smoke of no-man’s-land.

  It did not take the Judges very long to realize that they’d been had by Ben Raines.

  “There are no troops leaving those ships!” a radio operator screamed into his mic. “There appear to be no assault troops on them.”

  The Judge who had opposed the reshuffling of troops hung his head and slowly shook it. “I tried to warn you,” he whispered. “I tried to tell you about Ben Raines. But none of you would listen to me. Now we pay the ultimate price.”

  “Troops back from the harbor,” the Judges screamed.

  “It’s too late,” the dissenting Judge said. “It’s too late.”

  “Well, what the hell do you suggest?” one of his fellow Judges screamed.

  “That we prepare ourselves to die as well as possible.”

  The attack from the Rebels came so quickly that many of the creepies manning the front lines were crushed to death under the tracks of the tanks before they could do more than scream at the 60-ton monsters roaring down on them out of the swirling smoke. The screams were crushed in their throats.

  The First, Third, and Eighth Battalions charged across the no-man’s-land and Eight Battalion swung north to cover the Grattan Bridge and Christ Church Cathedral. Ben dropped off a platoon to cover Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and plowed straight ahead, while the Third Battalion dipped south and quickly secured four blocks of territory before the creepies threw up a defensive line and tried to hold.

  But the special ops teams had surfaced all over the place and had been busy cutting throats and manning what were once creepie heavy machine gun and mortar positions. Now the creepies found themselves surrounded in their territory and fighting on all fronts.

  The helicopter gunships had returned to base, rearmed, and now flew back to raise hell with those creepies trying to leave the harbor area and assist their fellow creeps in the city proper.

  But the chopper pilots had other plans. They turned a three-block-long area into a searing inferno. Rebel engineers had altered the extra fuel pods and replaced them with napalm bombs. The napalm had to be dropped manually, and their accuracy wasn’t worth a damn, but if they came within a block of their targets, the pilots were happy.

  The creepies were very unhappy about the whole situation.

  There were still thousands of the sect called Believers within the city, but they were cut off, confused, disoriented, and in many cases leaderless. Many elected to hole up right where they were and fight to the death.

  When the chopper pilots had dropped their napalm loads, they went headhunting and went in low. They knew that anything moving between the center of the city and the Irish Sea was a bogey, and when they ran out of ammo and had to return to base, a lot of those who were moving before the helicopters came were no longer moving when the gunships left. The 30mm rockets make a terrible mess out of a human body.

  The older helicopters were armed with .50 caliber machine guns and M-60’s – called Pigs – manned by door gunners. They, too, had a field day chopping up creepies before they were forced to return to base.

  Ben and his people hit their first real snag only a few blocks east of St. Pat’s Cathedral when a heavy machine gun opened up and killed two Rebels. The body armor the Rebels wore was good, but it wasn’t good enough to stop a .50 caliber round.

  Two Dusters rolled up and put an end to that nest, but other creepies were setting up a line and the Rebels’ advance was momentarily halted.

  The Rebels were ready for a halt. They had been running very nearly all-out for ten blocks and Ben and some of the older Rebels thought they was going to die very soon if they didn’t stop.

  “Jesus!” Ben said, when he had caught enough breath to risk speaking. He looked at his son. The young man had broken into a sweat, but that was about it.

  “Feeling all right, Father?” Buddy said with a wide grin.

  “I’m not sure I even like anybody under forty,” Ben grumbled, but did so with a smile. “Do you even have a heart and lungs, boy?”

  “Yes. And if you’d quit smoking those nasty cigarettes and gulping whiskey every night, you’d be in better shape.”

  “When I want a lecture, boy,” Ben panted out the words, “I’ll go find Lamar Chase. Corrie, get us some reports, please.”

  “I’m under forty,” she said with a smile.

  “Oh, I trust my team,” Ben said. “It’s Romeo here,” he jerked a thumb at Buddy, “I’m not sure about.”

  He waited while Corrie bumped all batt corns and compiled the information.

  “Those units south of the Grand Canal have pushed up to within five blocks of the canal. Those north of the Liffey have pushed down approximately ten blocks. The harbor area is burning out of control, as is a three-block area just to the west of the harbor. Our special ops people have secured little pockets all over the city.”

  “All units between the river and the canal hold what they have until those spec ops teams have radioed in their positions,” Ben ordered. “We don’t want them killed by friendly fire. Also ask what they think their odds are of holding what they’ve taken. Let’s get that done, Corrie.”

  Ben caught his breath and took a few sips of water while Corrie and Beth worked. Corrie called out the locations and Beth marked them on an old city map. Ben looked at the bodies of the two dead Rebels sprawled in the street and silently cussed. He knew both of them personally.

  “General,” Corrie said. “We now control both sides of all the remaining bridges. All spec ops teams report they can hold at least for several hours. The teams
now have control – however precariously – of all major churches and landmarks. The creeps appear to be confused and leaderless. Many of them are setting up what seem to be last-ditch stands.”

  “Get as many of those locations as possible. How about hostages?”

  She shook her head. “Negative, sir.”

  Ben tapped the brick of the street. “Underground, probably. Just like in New York City. All right, folks, let’s start clearing the buildings. I intend to have the grounds of Trinity College cleared by this afternoon.”

  Grudgingly, the creepies backed up under the onslaught of the Rebels. Their small arms fire was no match for the awesome firepower of the Rebel tanks. They backed up, but they had precious little backing room left them. There were those who tried to use the sea to escape. Machine gun fire from Rebel patrol boats chopped them up and left them for shark bait.

  Across the Irish Sea, in locations all over England, Wales, and Scotland, warlords and mercenaries and street punks and Believers listened to the frantic talk from the creepies on their shortwave radios. Ben Raines and his Rebels were grinding the Night People up like hamburger meat, efficiently, brutally, and mercilessly.

  Many of the Irish collaborators still trapped in the city tried to give up. The commanders of the Free Irish Army ordered them shot on sight. The punk biker Maddy shuddered.

  “Them blokes ain’t takin’ no prisoners, mates – Rebels nor Free Irish.”

  “Has anybody got a copy of the Geneva Convention?” Duane asked.

  “Conventions,” another gang leader corrected. “The Rebels don’t pay no attention to that no way. Believe me. I was in Dallas/Fort Worth when the Rebels took them cities. Then I run up into Kansas and that was worse. I come over here with a bunch of other guys and damned if Ben Raines and them Rebels didn’t follow a few years later. That son of a bitch ain’t content with cleanin’ out America and Canada. He wants the whole goddamn world!”