Flames from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  SS Brigadeführer Hans Brodermann was a troubled man. His approach to the Rebels holding out on crescent ridges from the northwest to southeast of his line of march had been confined to the course of the river they now followed. Constant, heavy probing actions by Rebel patrols dictated the course. He was not aware it was the Little Big Horn, and it would have meant nothing to him if he did know. The secret Nazi war colleges in Argentina and Paraguay spent a lot of time on the blitzkrieg invasions of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Ukraine, but made no mention of the United States military campaigns against the Indians in the nineteenth century. So he advanced in ignorance.

  That lack of knowledge would prove quite costly in the next hour. The radio in his Panzerkampfwagen crackled constantly with reports of the point element and observations from along the route of march. The lead element had reached a big bend in the river, with a large fan-shaped floodplain.

  “Aspen and birch trees are growing in abundance on the east side of the river and it appears there is some sort of cemetery on the shelves of a ridge due east and to the north of our position,” the point company commander described. “There are Rebel troops up there. Verdammter Mist! They are firing artillery at us.”

  Even at his position in the center of the column, Hans Brodermann heard the soft crump of big guns firing shortly after the announcement. He slid forward on his seat in anticipation. Now the Rebels were going to stand and fight.

  “Continue to the north,” he ordered. “We will occupy the flood plain and engage the enemy.”

  “Sir, sir, General Brodermann, there’s something terribly wrong. Those shells are bursting with only small explosions. I don’t — I — ” He ended with a terrified scream. “It’s — gas — nerve gas,” he choked out a second later, before his autonomic nervous system began to shut down and he died horribly.

  Rebel artillery began walking in on the column. Fascinated, Brodermann watched them fall out of the sky and detonate by proximity fuses some fifteen feet above ground. His imagination supplied clouds of lethal gas spewing from the casings. Then the frightening realization hit him. They had no protection against nerve gas!

  “Turn around,” he shouted to those within hearing, and through the mike. “Turn back and get away from here at once.” Was he imagining it, or had his vision started to blur? “Pull back,” he kept urging.

  Adrenaline, that’s all it is, he tried to convince himself when his heart rate increased precipitously. His lips and nose felt numb. All of a sudden he lost control of his bladder and voided it in his trousers. Gripped by genuine terror now, SS Brigadeführer Hans Brodermann wondered belatedly what explanation he would make to God for all the wrong he had done.

  Hard rounds began to fall then. Flechette and HE that slashed into vehicles and their occupants with equal ease. Heavy machine guns opened up, cut swaths through the numbed Nazis, and chewed up light vehicles. The main guns of tanks fired at point-blank range, destroying Brodermann’s MBTs almost casually. Spasms began ten seconds later, and Hans Brodermann died in that valley of Montana all alone.

  “Brodermann’s entire command has been wiped out,” Gen. Georgi Striganov reported to Cecil Jefferys, now established in Amarillo, an hour later. “Less than seventy-five escaped. They are thoroughly demoralized and are making no show of stopping to reorganize anywhere this side of Oregon. That gas worked wonderfully well. The major portion of one division is — is bezizkhodnost. How you say? They no longer can exist.”

  “Doveryai, no proveryai, old friend,” Cecil responded.

  “Trust, but verify,” Striganov translated. “You know our old Russian proverb, eh? We already have pathfinders out keeping touch with them. They are no threat, believe me.”

  “That’s good to hear. All tactical units currently engaged with the enemy are using the gas. It’s a good thing that stuff breaks down in a matter of an hour or so. I’d hate to think of it blowing around the country for longer. Continue your advance, Georgi. Push it as far as the weather conditions in the passes will allow. We want Hoffman hurting so bad he hasn’t time to worry about Ben.”

  A silence settled between the two old warriors. Georgi cleared his throat, to respond, “Yes. How are matters relating to that?”

  “Ongoing, my friend. Those Nazi pricks have enough of our radios now to be able to descramble, so I can’t say more.”

  “I understand. Good luck. Striganov off.”

  That brought Cecil Jefferys a small smile. Those Russians never could get American radio procedure down right. But the former Soviet general’s question prompted him to another detail. He’d have to check with Buddy Raines about what was being done to rescue Ben.

  Droplets of foamy spittle flew from the lips of Jesus Hoffman, self-appointed Führer of North America. His rage towered over any previously witnessed by his staff. The cause of his rancor was the news of the defeat and death of SS Brigadeführer Hans Brodermann and nearly all of his command.

  “They planned it this way,” he shrieked. “They picked the spot for its propaganda value and deliberately suckered Brodermann into place for the slaughter. I won’t have it! I won’t allow this horrid crime to go unpunished. Listen to me, hear exactly what I demand. We are going to begin a scorched-earth policy all along the Eastern Wall. When and if forced to withdraw from our fortifications, troops will destroy everything useful to the enemy. No food, no shelter, no bridges are to remain for the Rebels. All Rebels and their sympathizers in our custody are to be summarily executed. All nonmilitary supplies and buildings to be destroyed. They will see how terrible war can be. Far too late, but they will see.”

  “Jawohl, mein Führer,” the staff chorused.

  “We will begin at once. Now, get me Field Marshal Volmer on the radio,” he snapped to an aide. When contact had been made, Hoffman gripped the microphone stand until his knuckles whitened. “Field Marshal, you are now second in command to me. Brodermann is dead, his division devastated and scattered. Everything depends upon you, now.” Quickly he reviewed his demands for the new policy, then added, “It is up to you to see we do not fail. I’m counting on you, Volmer. Now, I must have immediate results with Ben Raines. He is to renounce the Rebel cause and disband the Rebel army at once.”

  “B-but we have not as yet implanted our ‘new reality’ in General Raines,” Peter Volmer protested.

  “Never mind that now. Just get him unplugged and on the radio to order general surrender. This is vital, Volmer. The Rebels are using nerve gas.”

  Shattered by this revelation, Peter Volmer could only stammer agreement and end the conversation.

  They came for him minutes later. The same doctor who had first examined Ben Raines supervised his removal from the sensory-deprivation machinery. He was taken to a bedroom on the second floor of the hacienda. There Peter Volmer paced impatiently during the six hours that were required to elevate Ben to a satisfactory level of consciousness.

  While he did, black news poured into the hacienda radio room from the northern sector of the vaunted East Wall. Colonel West, General Striganov, and Thermopolis had gone on the advance. They steadily rolled up platoon-sized Nazi units so fast that their capitulations tumbled over one another. Volmer cursed the Rebels and Ben Raines steadily.

  When at last Ben Raines roused enough to sit upright with some help, Volmer came to his side and spoke earnestly. “This is your last chance. All Rebel resistance is crumbling. You are to go to the studio and order a general surrender. It is all you can do to save the lives of your precious Rebels. We’ll get you dressed now and you’ll come with me.”

  Half an hour later, three guards dragged Ben into the studio. Not everything that was real seemed real to Ben, and a lot of ghosts remained from his long effort to keep his identity. He did learn that Jesus Hoffman was in a three-way radio net, linked to the Rebels, as well as this radio station in Villa Ahumada.

  When the engineer cued him, Peter Volmer spoke with falsely hearty confidence. “Attention, all Rebel commanders and all Rebel soldiers.
You are about to hear from your supreme commander, General Ben Raines. You are ordered to obey what he says, without exception. General Raines.”

  Ben needed help to approach the mike. He wet his lips and summoned total concentration of his powerful ego and superlative mind to make this moment count in the most effective manner. “Jesus Hoffman, are you listening?” he asked.

  “Yes, General Raines. Please go ahead.”

  “I’m glad you’re hearing this. I want to tell you personally to go to hell. And, I suspect that hell is on its way to visit you as we speak. Whether I live or die, the Rebel cause will go on. I want to ask all Rebels to never lay down arms until the last Nazi bastard is dead or run out of our country. Never give up. Allons revange!”

  When Ben called for revenge in the hated language of France, Führer Jesus Diguez Mendoza Hoffman lost it. He screamed incomprehensibly for several seconds, then addressed Volmer. “Field Marshal Volmer, you are to immediately prepare to place Ben Raines in front of a firing squad. He is to die at dawn.”

  FOURTEEN

  A new spirit infected the Rebels. They redoubled their efforts against the Nazis at all points of contention, and then went hunting them. Defeats came to Hoffman’s black-shirts so rapidly that he had to concede the northern sector to the Rebels. He began to pack up his headquarters to make a swift end run to join Field Marshal Volmer and General Rasbach in Mexico.

  “I am not retreating,” Hoffman snapped to his alarmed staff. “I am regrouping. We will come back out of Mexico and smash that arrogant Rebel scum. Mark my words on that. It’s Ben Raines that caused this. Him and his glory speech. Why wasn’t he cut off the air? Damn the man, damn him. But that will end. With Ben Raines dead, this new spurt of aggressiveness will burn out quickly. Then we will drive a wedge of armor up from the Texas border to the heart of Rebel country and finish them once and for all.” Buoyed by this idea, he walked with some of his former strut to a low table where a plate of sweet cakes waited. Selecting one, he munched it thoughtfully. “Is that not a brilliant idea?”

  “Yes, mein Führer,” his dubious staff responded.

  “Which reminds me. Set up a secure radio net. I want to talk to Field Marshal Volmer about tomorrow’s execution.”

  Still smarting from the way they had been gulled by the Nazi kids, Ben’s team now had to face this threat of immediate execution. They fulminated with anger and a lust for revenge. No one blamed them and no one tried to talk them out of it.

  “I want me a great big piece of this American Nazi bastard, Volmer,” Cooper announced as the team sat about drinking coffee. No one had thought to reassign them.

  “No more than I, friend dragon,” Jersey returned. “Only how do we go about it? I know there’s talk about going in after the general. But no one has done a thing.”

  “That’s changing as of now,” Buddy Raines informed them as he entered the orderly-room section of the mobile CP.

  “You mean it?” Jersey asked, excited.

  “I sure do. What do you say to a retrieval op against Volmer and the black-shirts holding Dad?”

  “Wonderful. Show us the way,” Jersey enthused.

  “It’ll be a small DA op,” Buddy outlined for them. “Say twenty-one people. We’ll go in at night.”

  “Now you’re talkin’, Colonel Raines,” Jersey encouraged. “How are we going to avoid being seen all the way to this Villa Ahumada place?” she asked skeptically.

  “Simple. We fly in. We’ll pull a HALO jump and be deployed on the ground before the Nazis know we’re there.”

  Jersey paled slightly. “C’mon, Colonel, Buddy,” she pleaded. “You mean we’re gonna jump in, at night, into unknown territory, with a high-altitude exit and low-altitude open?”

  “Just so. The Nazis don’t have any of the right kind of radar to detect us, so it’ll be a breeze,” Buddy passed off the danger.

  “Awh, get real. You know how I hate airborne ops,” Jersey wailed, already regretting the butterflies that would fill her stomach.

  At his Amarillo headquarters, Cecil Jefferys stared at the sheet of paper on his desk. A part of him approved entirely, even wanted to go along. A recovery drop mission just might carry it off. But he strongly disapproved of Buddy Raines leading the strike force. Even though the mission had been approved by Ike and Dan, he didn’t like it at all. They could not afford to lose two Rainses in one campaign.

  “I want a delay on this DA mission of Colonel Raines’s,” he announced to a surprised Ike on the radio.

  “What about Ben’s execution at dawn tomorrow?” Ike hammered.

  “We know where they are holding him. We can put air on it and break up the party.” Cecil withheld his main trump card.

  “I don’t know about that,” Ike countered. “They just might carry it off inside where we can’t reach them with air.”

  “Then we won’t lay on an air strike. As it happens, I have received the deciphered text of a communication between Hoffman and Volmer that has a lot of bearing on this.” Cecil reached for a flimsy in his “action” basket and read its content to Ike.

  Three officers came with Field Marshal Peter Volmer to get Ben Raines half an hour before sunrise the next morning. They brought with them his laundered Rebel camo uniform. The baggy trousers and jacket of cotton twill and ripstop nylon fit him like a two-thousand-dollar Savile Row suit, if Savile Row still existed.

  “Do you expect a final meal?” Volmer asked, gloating.

  “Why bother? Do you expect to get some sort of propaganda mileage out of it?” Ben countered hotly.

  “It’s . . . customary. Oh, well. We might as well get on with this. The execution will take place outside the north wall of the hacienda. It will occur as soon after sunrise as there is light enough for the cameras.”

  “Ah, the fine Nazi zeal for documenting everything. I would have thought you had learned your lesson the last time,” Ben taunted his captor.

  Volmer bit back a retort and snapped over his shoulder to Ben. “Come on, then.”

  A five-man security squad waited outside the cell. They formed around Ben, who was marched through the inner courtyard and out a door on the north side of the large estate. A slow drum roll struck up as the escort paraded Ben in front of the assembled Werewolves and Nazi elite troops.

  They halted him in front of an old, crumbling adobe wall about eight feet high. There the sergeant in charge tied Ben’s hands behind his back. Exercising ritual care, the guards next bound him to a freshly planted stake. Volmer approached and sneeringly held up a black bag.

  “To cover your head,” he offered.

  “I won’t need that. You can stuff it where the sun never shines.”

  “A last smoke?” Volmer said, dragging out the procedure.

  “No thanks,” Ben said tightly.

  “All right. Everyone clear away here,” Volmer ordered.

  Once out of range, Volmer drew his service weapon from the belt holster and held it at his side. He would deliver the coup de grace. With a final inspection of the scene, he gave an approving nod to the firing squad commander, a young lieutenant.

  “Exekutionskommando . . . Achtung!” The squad snapped to attention. “Bereiten Sie!” The squad came to port arms. “Beladen Sie!” With crack precision they charged their weapons. “Aufzielen Sie!” Rifle butts came to shoulders, and muzzles steadied on the chest of Ben Raines. “Schiessen Sie los!”

  Thirteen hammers struck thirteen bolts and drove thirteen firing pins forward on empty chambers. To his immediate shame, relief flooded through Ben Raines. He gulped a cool draft of early morning desert air and let it stream out through his nose. It was then that he heard the shrill, derisive laughter of the child-storm troopers and saw the grinning faces of their adult comrades. To one side, a battery of microphones stood before a slender podium. Volmer walked briskly to them, cameras panning to follow his progress.

  “Rebel cowards. What you have witnessed was a dress rehearsal for the execution of Ben Raines. This has been do
ne, and filmed, so that every one of you hopelessly misled Rebels will know for sure what is in store for Ben Raines. His execution awaits only the victorious arrival of Führer Hoffman.”

  Well, the arrogant bastard has given himself a new title, Ben observed.

  Twenty people had gathered in the tightly closeted tent. Sixteen came from the elite pathfinders of Dan Gray’s command. The other four were the members of Ben Raines’s headquarters team. Only low-intensity red light illuminated the interior of the tent, to preserve the occupants’ night vision. The double-flap arrangement of the light baffle swung wide and admitted a tall rock-jawed young man with a grim expression.

  “All right, listen up, people,” Buddy Raines began. “I’ll keep this short and sweet. This is your op order. We all know the situation: Elements of the American Nazi SS Leibstandarte Hoffman are holding General Ben Raines captive in or around the town of Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua, Mexico. Sub One: enemy forces consist of an estimated light battalion, with the remainder of Peter Volmer’s Werewolf company, estimated strength fifty combat trained boys aged ten to fifteen. Sub Two: friendly forces are what you see. We will be augmented by a rapid-deployment team from R Batt.” Buddy paused to study the intent faces before him. He smiled briefly and nodded.

  “The mission is to go in and get General Raines out. Ah — and to kill as many Nazis as we can. Execution, Sub One: we will form into three 7-man teams. I command Team Alpha; Hank Evans has Bravo; Jersey, you have Charlie. We will be inserted by HALO at 2315 hours tonight. Two: uniform and equipment standard night ops. Challenge for ID will be ‘Tri-States,’ answered by ‘Freedom.’ Every team member will carry a short-range, hand-held radio. During approach to the final objective, we’ll use our standard click code to indicate movement. Three: issue weapons with eight spare magazines, supplemented by four frag grenades and two gas for all, with the following exception. A suppressed submachine gun will be carried by every third trooper. Pathfinder team leader will carry a homing beacon to be turned on when General Raines is located. Four: each team member will carry iron rations and water for two days. Resupply will be from the RDT.” Buddy paused again, stepped to a small field desk beside a blackboard that had a list of names posted and a large aerial map of the area around Villa Ahumada. He drank from a metal cup of water and picked up a pointer.