Terror in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Ben rounded a brush-covered curve in the path and came face to face with a bandit. His M-14 came up and roared. The bandit was knocked to one side, down and dead. “Left and right,” Ben ordered. “They’ve got to come this way.”

  All could hear the sounds of running feet coming at them hard. Ben took a grenade and held it up so the others could see and follow suit. They pulled pins together and let them fly. The explosives were enormous, and the sounds of running feet was replaced by the moaning of badly wounded.

  They waited until the others joined them. The platoon leader waved people forward. Seconds ticked past.

  “That’s it,” a Rebel called. “We’ve got wounded bandits up here.”

  “See if Oso’s second-in-command is among the dead,” the platoon leader said. “What was his name?”

  “Carlos,” a Rebel told him.

  A civilian who was the guide for this contingent of Rebels went forward and stared at the dead and wounded. “Carlos,” he said, pointing to a bandit who had taken the blast of a grenade in his chest and stomach. He kicked the lifeless form, spat on the body, and walked on.

  Ben had watched the reaction of the civilian guide. “Nothing like being loved and respected,” he said.

  While several battalions of Rebels hunted down and destroyed the ragged remnants of the bandits, other Rebels were turning volunteer citizens of the islands into a paramilitary force and seeing to it that free elections were held. Some degree of law and order and justice and stability would be in place before they left. Representives from Britian and Ireland sailed in and began talking trade between their nations.

  Ben made preparations to leave.

  “Cape Verde Islands, Father,” Buddy asked.

  Ben shook his head. “No. The British say they’ll handle that group for us. In exchange, we’ll check out the Falklands for them.”

  From years of practice, once the Rebels decided to pull out, they did so in a hurry, with very little wasted motion. The convoy, now laden with fresh beef in the lockers and various kinds of fresh fruit, sailed out and headed south When they had skirted the northeastern edge of South America, the ships pulled in close enough to that continent to enable Communications to monitor any traffic that might be bouncing around in the air. And there was plenty of it.

  “Chaos in there, Ben,” Ike radioed from his ship. “But so far the convoy’s remained undetected. Makes me sick that we can’t help those people.”

  “Someday, Ike. Someday,” Ben radioed. “I don’t like it any better than you. All I can say is, we’ll be back.”

  The days blended in, each passing day no different than the one behind them or the one ahead of them. Except for those working Communications and Intelligence. All along the coast of South America, those two departments of the Rebel Army stayed busy, recording and then analyzing each radio message received. They pinpointed, whenever possible, each trouble spot for future reference.

  Before the convoy reached the Falkland Islands, Intelligence had the names of many of the warlord and bandit leaders, the self-styled generals and colonels, where they were, the size of their armies, and how much territory they controlled.

  Standing by the railing, Ben could but mutter, “We’ll be back, people. Someday.”

  Twelve

  “The captain says he’s made this run many times,” Buddy said to his father. “He said we’ll lay off Port Stanley while teams go in to check out the place. The islands cover over forty-seven hundred square miles, yet Stanley is the Falklands’ only town. I find that amazing. Where do all the other people live?”

  Ben smiled and handed his son an old copy of a travel magazine. “Read all about it, son. And then you’ll know as much about it as I do. But you can take your time, we still have many, many miles to go.”

  Ben studied the young man’s ruggedly handsome face. This trip had been a real adventure for him, and for many of the younger Rebels, who had never been out of the shattered remains of the United States.

  Ben thought of the Rebels who lay in quiet graves in Ireland and England and hoped they had not died in vain, and of the ones who had been sent back to America minus hands and arms and legs and vision.

  And he wondered for a moment how Linda was doing.

  He stood by the railing, deep in thought, and others left him alone. What few reports they had monitored coming out of Hawaii had been growing increasingly grim. The islands were nothing more than a safe haven for bandits and assorted thugs who had enslaved virtually the entire island group. Military bases had been looted time and time again until now there was practically nothing left of value on any of the installations. The cities had been turned into cesspools, nothing more than criminal havens where torture and slavery and human degradation was so common no one paid any attention to it.

  The islands were not going to be easy to take. The terrain was rugged. He had spent hours studying maps of the group and had warned his commanders not to think the upcoming invasion would be a milk run.

  Chase joined him by the railing. “What are you getting out of the Falklands, Ben?”

  “Not much, Lamar. There is some chatter, but Intelligence doesn’t seem to think there is any trouble there. I hope that’s true.”

  “The British and the Argentines finally settled their differences, I suppose. Even though it took a world war to accomplish that.”

  Jersey walked up, a puzzled look on her face. “We’re not too many days away from the Falklands,” she said. “I been studying some maps, and I thought the weather would be colder than this, as close as the Falklands are to the Antarctic. But it doesn’t seem to be getting colder.”

  “It’s spring, Jersey,” Ben said. “It’s winter back home, but spring here.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Sure, I remember that from grade school geography.” She grinned. “Now I’ll go mess with Cooper’s mind.”

  “Good luck in finding it,” Chase called after her.

  Rebel communications made contact with the Falklands and were advised that what population remained was in desperate need of medicines and doctors. Communications told them to hang on, the Rebels were on the way.

  “How many still there?” Ben asked.

  “They advised about four hundred men, women, and kids. They had twenty-three hundred on the Islands when the balloon went up. They didn’t tell me what happened to the rest.”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “Ben,” Lamar said, “they may want to leave. They’re damned isolated.”

  “We have room. We’ll see what they say.”

  They said no.

  The Rebels sailed into Port Stanley and the medics and doctors went to work immediately upon getting their land-legs back under them. But the people of the Falklands did not wish to leave.

  “We know you cleared out the thugs from Ireland and England, so we’ll be getting supplies on a regular basis now,” the spokesman for the group said. “So we’ll be stayin’. It’s our home, General — for many, the only home they’ve ever known.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Some left in ships. We never heard from them again. Many died from lack of medicine. We’re all suffering from far too few vegetables. We grow some in hothouses, but mainly we’ve lived on mutton and fish and squid. We’ve coped, General. We simply had no choice.”

  “No trouble from the mainland?”

  “No. None. We monitor them closely. It’s terrible over there, General Raines. It’s just been a total breakdown of law and order and decency. At first, we prepared ourselves for an invasion. But it never came. We had troops stationed here, but when the war came, they sailed and flew out. We don’t know what happened to them. What really saved us were the stores the military left behind. I think we would have died if it had not been for that. But the vitamins ran out years ago, along with the boxes of bully beef, and the medicines became outdated and dangerous to use. You people saved us, General. We can never thank you enough.”

  “I see you�
��re all well armed,” Ben said with a smile.

  “Oh, yes. We have plenty of guns to go around, believe me. We’re few in number, but any attacker will pay a dreadful price in the taking of the Falklands.”

  The Rebels repaired existing radio equipment and also installed more modern equipment. Now the people could communicate world-wide, and more important, with the Canaries and with England. The Rebels stayed on these lonely, barren islands for several weeks, giving the doctors time to thoroughly check and treat every resident, and some required extensive surgery. The lone doctor on the Falklands had zero supplies with which to treat the sick.

  “What about Easter Island?” Ben asked.

  The man shook his head. “We don’t know. I don’t know if anyone is even alive up there. Is that your next stop?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no natural harbor there. I suggest you anchor off the coast of Hanga-Roa, on the west side. And be careful. There was a leper colony there, and they’ve been without medicines for many years now.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”

  Ben looked at Chase.

  Chase nodded. “Oh, yes, Ben, we have the drugs to treat it. Sulfone and dapsone, primarily. And before you ask, no, medical science still does not know the mode of transmission of the disease. What we do know is that it usually takes prolonged and close physical contact to contract it. And many work near it all their lives and never contract it. It’s a baffling disease, Ben.”

  The Rebels left some of their fruit and vegetables for the residents of the island — ships from England and the Canaries were already on the way — and prepared to shove off. There were lots of tears and many lumps in throats on both sides as the convoy steamed out of harbor. The residents had put together a band of sorts, and they were playing as the convoy sailed out of sight.

  The trip to Easter Island from the Falklands was nearly five thousand miles. As highly trained as the Rebels were, and as sharply as their killing skills had been honed, had it not been for these stops along the way, there would have been some blood spilled among the troops due to the boredom.

  The convoy rounded Cape Horn, staying well away from land, and turned northwest into the South Pacific Ocean. Ben and his troops settled in for another long, boring trip.

  It was a bored bunch of warriors who lined the rails just at dawn when Easter Island became a tiny dot in a vast moving sea. The convoy anchored outside the usual harboring area and the Rebels stood by the rails, many with binoculars, and tried to spot some sign of life. The island, only forty-five square miles of it, lay silent under the subtropical sun.

  “Communications has been scanning all frequencies,” Corrie told Ben. “Nothing.”

  “They may be hiding,” Ben said. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this place. Corrie, tell the chopper pilots to give it a fly-by.”

  It did not take the recon helicopters long to traverse the tiny island.

  “No signs of human life, General,” Corrie told Ben. “Cows, sheep, some horses. No sign of human habitation.”

  “Tell Dan to take his team in. Helicopters will circle until the small airport is secure and then land.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, to hell with it, Corrie. Let’s go exploring.”

  She grinned. “The team’s all ready, General. We sort of felt that would happen.”

  Dan met him near the outskirts of a small village on the western side of the island. “The town is deserted, General — and has been for a long time.”

  Ben entered the first house he came to. He had experienced some eerie sensations in his life, but this scene hit him hard. There were plates on the kitchen table, knifes and forks and spoons laid out properly. Hardened remnants of food lay in the charred bottoms of pots on the stove. House slippers were placed on the floor by the bed, and nightclothes lay untouched on the turned-back bed.

  “Place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Cooper whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” Jersey asked.

  “Why are you whispering?” Cooper countered.

  Nearly every house in the villages was very much the same. Meals were in the process of being cooked when whatever happened happened. There were few signs of struggle or conflict, a few bullet holes, and some expended brass on the ground. The Rebels inspected the graveyards. No signs of any hurried mass digging. The last marker was dated 1989.

  “That’s years ago,” Beth said, then felt slightly foolish for pointing out the obvious.

  It did not take the landing parties long to scour the island and conclude that it was void of inhabitants.

  “Tell the troops to start coming ashore so they can feel earth under their boots again,” Ben ordered. “One battalion at a time. We’ll spend several days here and try to determine what happened. But I doubt that we’ll ever know.”

  One thing that did puzzle Ben was that the leper station had been destroyed by fire.

  “They probably all died of natural causes and the islanders burned the place out of fear and ignorance,” Chase told him, looking at the old, charred ruins.

  “Almost two thousand people lived on this island,” Ben said. “What the hell happened to them?”

  “What happened to the damn trees on this chunk of real estate?” Jersey questioned. “There are no trees.”

  “Historians and researchers say this place was a forest at one time,” Ben replied. “But the islanders cut them down to build platforms to use in hauling those giant statues like that one over there.” He pointed. “There are over a thousand of them scattered over the island.”

  “What are they?”

  “That’s a good question. No one really ever knew.”

  “And now, no one will ever know,” Dr. Chase said.

  “Big suckers,” Coop said.

  “Some of them over fifty tons and about seventy feet tall, if memory serves me correctly. Beth, have someone chisel on a boulder that the Rebels, a multinational force of soldiers home-based in America, landed on this island on this date and found it deserted, with no sign of human life.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ben walked around a small part of the island. He didn’t want to off-load a lot of vehicles because without an adequate port, it was a pain in the ass. He stood before a row of tall and stately statues, their sightless eyes staring at ... nothing, he assumed.

  “You know what happened here,” he said. “But you never give up your secrets, do you?”

  Ben stared at the tall and mute statues for a moment, then turned and walked away. He was going back to his ship. Damn island depressed him.

  Almost exactly one thousand miles to the west lay Pitcairn Island, where back in 1790 or so, Fletcher Christian and some of the crew of the HMS Bounty mutinied and made their way to this desolate two-square-mile island smack in the middle of nowhere. Ben and Rebels checked it out.

  According to the latest figures the Rebels had, the population of Pitcairn Island, when the Great War struck, was sixty-one. At first glance it appeared to have changed little.

  Since there was no port, the Rebels went ashore in motor launches. The man who met them was not unfriendly, but then, neither was he bubbling over with joy at the sight of the Rebels.

  “We are not armed,” a man said, a peculiar accent to his words. “We harm nobody and wish only to be left alone.”

  “Do you want our doctors to look over your kids?” Ben asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you mind if we look around the island?”

  “You have the guns.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “You have already frightened the young people.”

  “Do you want us to leave?”

  “Would you?”

  “It’s your island.”

  The man turned around and walked off.

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Suits me. Back to the ship, people. Beth, log that we tried to help the inhabitants but they refused. We will not be back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

&n
bsp; “Wait, sir!” a man’s voice called, turning the team around. A young man was walking down the boat ramp toward them. He reached them and held out his hand. Ben shook it.

  “We are not all so rude,” the young man said. “Frank forgot one of our tenets: Speak gently and with dignity. My name is Martin Christian. We do have sick people here, and I would very much appreciate your doctors checking them over.”

  “We’ll bring them in by helicopter. It’s safer than landing a launch here,” Ben said dryly.

  The ride in had been rough, ploughing through crashing surf to reach the tiny concrete jetty built by British Royal Navy Engineers at Bounty Bay.

  A landing pad was cleared in Adamstown, the only town, and naturally, Chase was the first one off the chopper and immediately started bellering and hollering to his medical teams.

  “His bark is worse than his bite,” Ben told a group of Pitcairners who had gathered around him. He noticed that Frank — whoever the hell Frank was — was nowhere to be seen.

  “What’s your population now, Martin?”

  “One hundred sixty-five. We can’t support much more than that.”

  “Birth control?” a young Rebel doctor asked.

  “It’s voluntary, but it works. The people know that overpopulation would be the end for us all.”

  “Easter Island is void of human life,” Ben told him. “Certainly open to resettlement. We’d help you.”

  “We know. They were wiped out by pirates heading from South America to Hawaii. Those who were not killed were taken as slaves, or for barter. Especially the women and girls. The pirates tried to come ashore here. After several of them drowned, they gave up and sailed on. Your destination is Hawaii, General?”

  “Yes. I expect a pretty good fight awaits us there.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about it.”

  Ben smiled. “We’ve been fighting for over a decade, Martin. We’ve got it down to a fine art, believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you. Before we ran out of fuel, we used to track your movements all over the United States.”