From The Ashes: America Reborn

by William W. Johnstone

  Ben drives into Morrison, Louisiana, to find only death, destruction, and silence. He wonders if he is the last man on earth. After an initial bout of despair he remembers the tough words and tougher training of his old top sergeant and knows he will survive. Knowing he has no choice, and feeling strangely guilty for surviving, he goes from store to store collecting the essentials of survival—medical supplies, food, weapons and ammo, gasoline, and a wide-band shortwave radio.

  In the deserted sheriff’s office he finds the weapon that will be with him throughout his journey and will become his signature—a reliable and deadly Thompson submachine gun. Ben resolves never to be without it. It’ll become part of my arm, he thinks to himself as he returns to his home in the Delta to plan his next move. After much thought and much bourbon, he resolves to use his skills as a writer to document the results of the nuclear holocaust and its effect on the United States. He will travel throughout the country recording his thoughts and the tales of survivors.

  His mission clear, he packs his pickup and heads north to begin his journey across America and toward his destiny. His first intention is to find out what happened to his family, to see if anyone has survived, and to bury the rest.

  Along the way he meets the citizens of this brave new world—what few are left. The level of destruction is staggering. The major cities are gone. Washington, DC, is “hot,” radiating death, and no longer part of the map. And, while the use of “clean” weapons has left other parts of the country physically intact, the death toll is unbelievable. Chaos is everywhere, and bands of dangerous men far outnumber the few survivors who are trying to rebuild and pull themselves out of the ashes.

  As he learns to shoot first and ask questions later, Ben wonders why it always seems that the violent and the vicious triumph and revel in disaster. All over the country, racial hatred bubbles to the surface and turns into race war. The lack of authority and order creates a hell on earth. America is an armed camp. He discovers that his entire family, with the exception of his older brother, has died. The reunion saddens and angers Ben, however, as he discovers that his brother Carl has become a soldier in the race war on the outskirts of Chicago. He has become a man with a mission to wipe all blacks and other minorities from the face of the earth. Ben moves on.

  On his way east he spends a night at a deserted motel, where he meets a black man named Cecil Jefferys and his band of family and followers. Cecil and Ben become friends over an evening meal and Ben meets Salina, the beautiful half-caste woman who will later become his wife and the mother of his two adopted children.

  As he travels he hears rumors that Bull named him commander in chief of the Rebel army hidden around the country and now awaiting orders. Rumor becomes fact when an army colonel tells him it’s true. The command is again confirmed when he passes a billboard near Fort Wayne, Indiana, with a message for him to contact the Rebels on a military frequency and tell them what to do. While Ben is not ready to become a leader, he contacts the Rebels and tells them to destroy military bases and airplanes and to take whatever is useful from them for defense and protection.

  Outside Charlottesville, Ben finds a woman with a sprained ankle hobbling along the road. He helps her and discovers that he is attracted not only to her beauty and youth but also to her will to survive. Jerre travels with Ben, and he teaches her the tools of survival. Ben convinces himself that his only interest is telling the story of this disaster so that future generations will know what happened and learn from it. But he is drawn to the Rebel cause and has a dream, which he tells Jerre, of a mountainous place with plentiful resources and room to be free.

  He also begins to dream and conceive a society built on self-determination, simple laws, and tough justice, where color and race aren’t issues. Only what the person is willing to commit to others and themselves matters. Jerre tells him his destiny will be to lead a new nation. When she leaves to join a band of students gathering at Chapel Hill, intent on rebuilding what the older generation has destroyed, Ben finds himself more than a little bit in love with her and sorry to see her go. He soon finds a traveling companion, however, when a stray malamute named Juno adopts him and remains constantly at his side.

  Time passes, the country begins to rebuild. Several groups attempt to create self-sustaining systems. Blacks gather in the Deep South to create a New Africa under the leadership of Ben’s good friend Cecil Jefferys.

  A reorganized central government is setting itself in place to attempt to reunify the states. Unfortunately the new President is ex-Senator Hilton Logan, a misguided, weak, and devious man. His ideas about the new world order are far apart from Ben’s vision. Also, he is not what he seems. Posing as a liberal throughout his political life, he is, in fact, more interested in becoming a king than a president.

  During his travels through Florida, Ben meets ex-SEAL, Ike McGowen. Smart and tough, Ike will become his trusted friend and reveal himself as a member of the Rebel army.

  It begins to become clear to Ben that the only hope for law-abiding citizens to create a new world is to band together against increasingly repressive government intrusions. Reluctantly, he accepts command of the Rebel forces and begins spreading the word that all interested in a new society should begin to gather in the old states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

  Ben meets with Cecil at his old home in Morrison and tells him of his fears for the survival of New Africa. Ben and Salina realize their love for each other and she joins him on his journey north to Idaho. There they will fulfill the dream of a society that governs itself simply and fairly. There they will take a stand against the corrupt and immoral United States central government. They call their new home the Tri-States. And Ben is chosen President of the Republic for life.

  The Tri-States become so successful and independent that President Logan becomes obsessed with bringing the new republic under his heel. Logan’s firm belief in gun control is totally opposite to Ben’s belief that everyone should be armed for protection and security. The issue becomes the excuse for confrontation and ultimate disaster.

  Ben travels to the capital in Richmond and warns Logan personally that any military action against them will result in full-scale war. He also mentions that corps of assassins called zero squads have been set in place to kill any member of government that votes for war against the Tri-States—including Logan himself. But Logan is intent on bringing Ben to his knees and launches an offensive.

  Many of the military refuse to fight against other Americans and desert to join the Rebels. The fighting is intense and bloody, but the result is inevitable, and the Rebels are crushed without mercy. Ben loses his beloved Salina and his son, Jack, at the end of the fighting and is forced to move his small band of survivors, including his daughter Tina and his companion, Jerre, into wilderness, where they will regroup to fight another day.

  Although the Rebels have been crushed, the price has been high for the United States government. Ben’s warning about the zero squads was not a bluff. One by one, government officials who sanctioned the war are murdered. Finally Logan himself is assassinated by Ben’s trusted bodyguard, Badger, who gives his own life for the Rebel cause.

  Ben and his small multiracial army accept the fact that the struggle for survival must continue at all costs. And as he leads them deeper into the wilderness, Ben knows that the Rebels and their cause have become his life.

  TWO

  “A person had to have a license or a permit to do anything before the revolution,” Ben said.

  During the walk around General Raines’s neighborhood, a quiet, upscale, but certainly not a fancy or pretentious area of the town that was known only as Base Camp One, the few people we met treated the general almost as if they were meeting royalty. It was clearly embarrassing to General Raines, and I decided not to comment on it. Perhaps later.

  He dropped the latest statement on me before I could get settled and turn the tape recorder on.

  WWJ: And you were, are opposed to that?

  Be
n Raines: I was opposed to the manner in which the citizen had to go about obtaining the various licenses or permits. And the oftentimes officious and petty people one had to deal with. Sure, we have building permits here in the SUSA. Probably tougher ones than anywhere else. But citizens don’t have to take a day off from work to get one, and they don’t have to deal with people who are overly impressed with their own dubious self-importance. You can write, call, or stop by the office. You see, to a great extent we operate on an honor system here.

  WWJ: That would be a unique experience. I mean, from what I’ve been able to read about the system before the revolution, getting permission to do anything which required any type of approval by a ruling body was ponderous, at best; impossible at worst.

  Ben Raines: Government doesn’t rule its citizens here. Not in the manner of old. We don’t have large cities, so that helps a great deal . . .

  WWJ: I noticed there were no cities. What happened to them?

  Ben Raines: We destroyed them, or are in the process of destroying them. Cities are very difficult to govern and create a bloated bureaucracy which leads to corruption. Base Camp One is the largest community in the SUSA. It’s the hub of our central government. Cities also attract undesirables, and crime is more likely in the cities. We didn’t just set out willy-nilly to do away with cities: there were years-long studies before we reached that decision.

  WWJ: And it’s working?

  Ben Raines: So far. The citizens seem to like it. The atmosphere is looser and friendlier. People tend to socialize more, they get to know one another, and that leads to people helping people. And that’s what a community is all about. And smaller towns are easier to defend.

  WWJ: That’s important?

  Ben Raines: Very. The Western United States, the Northern United States, the Eastern United States, and the little satellite states who are trying to go it alone, are on the verge of collapse, and when that happens—probably sooner than later; probably within a matter of months—they’ll reunite and move against us. The decision to move against us will be a bad mistake on their part.

  WWJ: I noticed the SUSA seems to be an armed camp.

  Ben Raines: It’s much more than that. Every resident is a member of the army. We can have hundreds of thousands of people mobilized into units and ready to fight in a few hours’ time. Every adult citizen is fully equipped to move into action, combat ready, without having to report to a depot to receive orders or draw equipment . . .

  WWJ: Men and women?

  Ben Raines: Men and women. In case of hostility, everyone knows their job and how to do it. There is no one in the SUSA who won’t fight to preserve our way of life. That’s one of the prerequisites for becoming a resident. There is no such thing as a free ride in the SUSA.

  WWJ: If you will forgive my saying so, it sounds very similar to socialism.

  Ben Raines: It’s the furthest thing from it. Here, you fail or succeed on your own abilities, or lack of them. The government isn’t here to prop a person up. But we don’t have all the useless and bureaucratic paperwork and petty nonsense that governments outside our borders seem to thrive on. We don’t burden the small business owner or self-employed person with tons of paperwork and endless lists of do’s and don’ts and rules and regulations, enforced by jerks who, at least on the surface, appear not to have the sense to be able to get a real job.

  WWJ: One thing I’ve noticed about you, General, one glaring trait of yours is that you seem to have a very low opinion of people who are employed by any type of central government.

  Ben Raines: I suppose I do. Men and women may go into government employment with the best of intentions. But some are soon turned into mindless, paper-shuffling automatons . . . those are the ones I used to have to deal with. And to be fair, that is probably not their fault, but rather the fault of the system. But it’s been proven time and again that if any stand up and say, “This is wrong. This is wasteful. This is costing the taxpayer too much money,” they lose their jobs, they’re demoted, they’re shunned, they’re transferred into the boondocks and forgotten. In the SUSA we reward people for honesty. We don’t punish them. Everything that might affect the lives of our citizens is done out in the open here. We have very few full-time politicians here. Most have regular jobs. When they do meet, they aren’t paid enormous salaries with generous benefits upon retirement. They meet for a few weeks each year and then go home and go back to work for a living.

  I had to laugh at the expression on General Raines’s face. It was very obvious that his near-legendary dislike for politicians was no myth.

  WWJ: What soured you so on politicians, General?

  Ben Raines: The whole system soured me. Politicians because they’re so mealy-mouthed. The vast majority were more interested in getting reelected than in serving the people who elected them. I hate liars and I hate hypocrites, and politicians are the epitome of both.

  WWJ: Strong words.

  Ben Raines: But true ones.

  WWJ: And the system?

  Ben Raines: The system didn’t work because politicians screwed it all up. It was as near perfect as a political system could be when it was drawn up. Then the damn politicians started tacking on amendments and screwing around with the law, and a wonderful system turned into what you find at the bottom of a toilet before you flush it.

  WWJ: Isn’t there even the remotest chance that the same thing might happen here in the SUSA?

  Ben Raines: No. And here is where the SUSA takes a sharp turn away from the democratic system of government. Those of us who first settled the territory, ’way back when, drew up the laws and the rules and the regulations. Those laws are set in stone. They cannot be changed or amended. And in many ways they are quite different from the laws outside the SUSA.

  WWJ: And people must agree to abide by these laws before they are allowed to become residents?

  Ben Raines: That is correct.

  WWJ: SUSA claims to have cut through all the red tape and volumes of rules and regulations that exist outside its borders, greatly simplifying them. Give me an example and we’ll go from there.

  Ben Raines: All right. Drunk driving. How many bars and roadhouses have you seen since you arrived?

  WWJ: Not many. Do you have a nation of teetotalers?

  Ben Raines: Hardly. My liquor cabinet in the house is full. I enjoy a drink or two before dinner. Most of my friends enjoy a drink. But after we’ve taken that first drink, none of us will get behind the wheel of a car. In the SUSA, drunk is .06 blood alcohol. Impaired is .04. Either one can cause loss of driver’s license.

  WWJ: I believe in most states outside the SUSA drunk is .10. Is there that much of a difference?

  Ben Raines: Quite a bit. The difference is, we enforce it to the letter here. If a person is convicted of drunk driving here, the authorities pull the plates from the vehicle and attach special plates: color-coded plates, signifying the owner has been convicted of driving while being impaired or drunk. They may only use their vehicle to drive to and from work during specified times of the day. Violate these times, and the vehicle is impounded. Sometimes they get it back, sometimes they don’t.

  WWJ: But doesn’t that punish the entire family? Innocent and guilty alike?

  Ben Raines: It certainly does. But very few families in the SUSA are one-car families. However, if that is the case, we don’t take the sole vehicle. We just put the violator in jail for a while and see how they like that.

  WWJ: Then you do have jails here in the SUSA?

  Ben Raines: Sure we do. The rumor that we don’t have jails or prisons has circulated for years. Just as the rumor that we shoot or hang people for speeding and other minor infractions. All that is nonsense. When we first formed our society our prisons were not nice places simply because we didn’t have the trained personnel to staff them adequately. We were fighting for our survival back then. Now, all that has changed.

  WWJ: In what way?

  Ben Raines: In every way. Prison without rehabilitation is
nothing more than a temporary holding place. In many cases, probably most cases, the violent criminal is worse when he is released than when he went in. So society has accomplished nothing, really.

  WWJ: And now the prisons in the SUSA offer . . . ?

  Ben Raines: Full counseling by highly qualified personnel. Prisoners can get their high-school diploma and then go on and receive their Ph.D. in many areas. They have job interviews months prior to their release and have good jobs waiting for them upon release.

  WWJ: Isn’t that terribly expensive for the system?

  Ben Raines: Not really. Our prisons are, to a great extent, self-sufficient. Every morsel of food consumed by prisoners is grown right there on the prison grounds. Many times there is a surplus, and that is sold for a profit. We don’t have judges telling us how to run our prisons, and we pay no attention to probably ninety-nine percent of the lawsuits filed by prisoners. The prisoners know that going in and don’t clog up our system with bullshit lawsuits. Appeals are limited here. A death row inmate gets two. That’s it.

  WWJ: Do you think this system has ever executed an innocent person?

  Ben Raines: Absolutely not. We probably turn loose more guilty people than the system outside our borders. Purely circumstantial evidence won’t cut it in our courts. There must be physical evidence tying the suspect directly to the crime. Besides, our scientists have virtually perfected the polygraph and the PSE—Psychological Stress Evaluator. If a suspect requests it, he or she may undergo hypnosis; that request cannot be refused.

  WWJ: The courts here operate much differently than those outside the system, right?

  Ben Raines: Very much so. But let’s relax for a few minutes and have a bite to eat before we get into that, shall we?

  BOOK #2

  FIRE IN THE ASHES