ONE
“General Raines has thrown several reporters out of France,” an aide told President Blanton.
“Lucky him,” Homer muttered.
“Sir?”
“Nothing.” Homer looked down at the pile of papers on his desk and pushed them away.
“Some coffee, sir?” the aide asked.
“That would be nice. Yes. Thank you.” Homer waited until the aide had brought his coffee and exited the room and then rose from his desk to stand by the window overlooking the street. Despite the weather being as cold as a witch’s tit, the demonstrators were still walking up and down in front of the new White House, carrying their placards and chanting about one thing or another. “Screw you,” Homer said, and closed the drapes.
Homer Blanton’s thinking had changed dramatically since his first encounter with Ben Raines. Had it really been such a short time ago? Yes. Seemed much longer. The Southern United States of America and those other states that had aligned with the SUSA were running smoothly. Roads and bridges being rebuilt. Factories moving in and opening up. The strongest economy anywhere in the world. And what was left for Homer and his administration to govern was in ruin. Liberal versus conservative. Same old story. It was worse now than back when Homer first took office. Now there were no bargaining chips. Hell, there wasn’t anything left that wasn’t rusted, worn out, broken, demolished, or burned. Ben Raines and his Rebels had seen to that. Years back Ben Raines had sworn he would smash the liberal-run government of the United States; grind it into dust under the heel of his boot. And he had done that.
All things taken into consideration, Homer should hate Ben Raines. But he didn’t. He felt a grudging admiration for the man. Raines told people to go to work and they went to work. Raines said to build a bridge and the goddamn thing got built. The Rebels could build five bridges in the time it took Homer’s people to drive the pilings for one. For every mile of highway that was repaired outside the SUSA, the Rebels overlaid fifty. The USA was rampant with crime. The SUSA had no crime. Unemployment was 70 percent in the USA. Unemployment was zero in the SUSA.
“Shit!” Homer said.
“Rita Rivers and VP Hooter to see you, sir,” his secretary buzzed him.
“Jesus Jumping Christ,” Homer muttered. “That’s all I need. All right. Send them in.”
One bad thing about this job, Homer thought. There is no place to run!
* * *
The Rebels fought for every inch of ground they covered that cold, wet day in France. The creeps slowly backed up under the Rebel assault, but they did so reluctantly and did not mind paying for it in blood . . . almost always their own. And they did not take their prisoners with them when they retreated. They hung them up on meat hooks and left them to die a slow, horrible death: men, women, and children.
“General Striganov’s found another bunch of prisoners,” Corrie said. She nodded her head at the silent questions in Ben’s eyes. “All dead or dying.”
Ben turned his head to look into the eyes of a network reporter. The man’s eyes were bleak. “You don’t have to belabor the point, General. I get the message. I hope you kill every one of these savages.”
“I plan to do just that,” Ben said. “And you may quote me.”
“Rest assured I will.”
“I never doubted it.”
“But Duffy and his men and women are quite another matter.”
“In your view. Not in mine.”
“May I quote you on that?”
“Be my guest.”
The rain continued to fall, mixed with tiny bits of sleet. At three o’clock that afternoon, with the weather worsening, Ben told Corrie to radio all batt coms to call it a day and to secure their positions for the evening. “Get me Greenwalt on scramble, Corrie,” Ben said, accepting a canteen cup filled with steaming black coffee.
The commander of 11 Batt came on. “Go, Eagle.”
“Give me a situation report, Greenie.”
“Duffy’s people aren’t putting up much of a fight in my sector, Eagle. But they’re not surrendering, either. Intelligence believes they have a definite plan, but damned if I can figure out what it is.”
“Buddy has some of his people working behind the lines, Greenie. They’ll do some snatching, and we’ll find out. I’ll be back with you.”
Ben had set up his CP in a long-abandoned old home. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, and the smell of coffee was pleasant in the home. All Rebel batts were still at the very edge of the city. But they had a toehold. And once the Rebels secured even the tiniest of toeholds, they were like a bulldog; not likely to give it up.
Mike Richards, Rebel chief of intelligence and a former CIA station chief in Argentina, sat quietly in a chair by the coffee pot. Two of his people sat with him, the three of them waiting for Buddy’s special ops people to bring in some prisoners. The only reporter present was Kathy Bonham. She could not remember ever being so tired. She marveled at the Rebel ability to gain ground without suffering a single fatality. They had several wounded but no deaths. On the other hand they had killed several hundred Night People. As they advanced, Rebel combat engineers welded shut manhole covers. Other teams of Rebels came in behind the main body to search each home, each building, for creepie escape holes. They either pumped them full of tear gas and pepper gas and drove them out and shot them, or sealed the hole with explosives. Ben Raines left nothing to chance. Even those reporters who openly despised him had to respect the man’s genius at waging war.
“There is no way we’re closing all the holes,” Ben told Kathy. “But we’re getting quite a number of them.”
“Buddy’s coming in,” Cooper called from the front porch. “They’ve got a half dozen punks with them. Jesus! What a crummy-looking bunch.”
“I would like to watch this interrogation, Ben,” Kathy said.
“You really don’t want to do that,” Ben replied blandly.
She cut her eyes to him. “Oh?”
“No. And we do not use physical torture, so put that out of your mind. However, we do use chemicals, and they can be quite unpleasant.”
Their conversation was cut off as the punks, four men and two women, were shoved into the room. The punks started shouting curses at Ben the instant they spotted him.
Kathy had stepped away from Ben. “How do they know who he is?” she whispered to Corrie.
“You knew what he looked like long before you met him, didn’t you?”
“Well . . . yes. You do have a point.”
“And remember this: The boss is the most wanted man in the world,” Corrie continued. “And the most hated.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’!” one of the men screamed at Ben. “You king-shit son of a bitch.”
Ben sat on a corner of a old desk and smiled at the captured punk. “Have you people had anything to eat?”
“Huh?” one of the women blurted.
“Are you hungry?” Ben asked pleasantly.
“It’s a trick!” the man who had first screamed at Ben said. “Don’t eat nothin’. The food is drugged.”
Ben laughed at him and stood up, walking to the coffee urn, pulling himself a cup of coffee. He sugared it and returned to the desk, sitting down in his chair. He lifted the cup and took a sip. “The coffee is fine. If you’re not hungry, have some coffee. It’s a raw day.” He looked at Buddy, who knew exactly what his dad was doing. “Remove their handcuffs, Buddy. And get them some coffee.”
“Jump that bastard!” the defiant one yelled. “Kill him.”
“How about this one?” Buddy asked, looking at the man who had just screamed at Ben.
“Sure. If he’s that anxious to die, we can certainly oblige him.”
Handcuffs removed, the others moved away from the mouthy prisoner, one of the women saying, “Shut up, Sonny. Let’s just make the best of a bad situation. How about it?”
Sonny bluntly told her where she could shove her suggestion. Sideways.
She shrugged her sh
oulders and moved hesitantly toward the coffee urn. She drew a cup of coffee and looked first at the tray of sandwiches, then at Ben.
“Help yourself,” Ben told her.
Five of the six drew mugs of coffee, helped themselves to sandwiches, and returned to their chairs. One of the men asked, “Is this our last meal, General?”
“That is entirely up to you. If you try to escape, you’ll be shot dead. If you accept the obvious fact that you are prisoners, you’ll be treated accordingly. If you wish to talk openly to me, you will be made as comfortable as possible for the duration of this campaign. If you do not wish to speak without coercion, you will be injected with a truth serum and questioned in that manner. It’s quite unpleasant—so I’m told. Just like before the Great War, and after, your destiny is in your own hands.”
“The cops was always pickin’ on me,” one of the men said sullenly.
“Don’t hand me that shit!” Ben’s voice turned hard, and all of the prisoners picked up on it immediately.
“I am French,” a man said.
“Then I’ll turn you over to Rene Seaux,” Ben told him.
“Mon Dieu!” the man blurted. “Non. Non!”
Rene and his resistance people had little patience with the outlaws and warlords who had ravaged their country. They had a habit of questioning them quite savagely and then hanging them. It was not an uncommon sight to see punks dangling from tree limbs and lamp posts.
The others paled at the thought of being handed over to the French Resistance.
“He’s bluffing!” Sonny said.
The others looked at Ben, sitting at his desk, smiling at them. But it was the hard and ruthless smile of a conqueror.
“No, he ain’t.” A man spoke the words softly. “Ben Raines don’t bluff.”
“I’m Marie,” one of the woman said. She patted her hair and smiled at Ben. “I could go for you, General.”
“I’m very flattered,” Ben replied. “But I don’t believe the lady I am seeing would be very understanding about that.”
“Ain’t that the way it always is?” Marie said with a shrug of her shoulders.
Kathy noticed that Ben was drinking his coffee with his left hand. His right hand was out of sight. She could feel the tension in the air; the room seemed thick with it.
“Don’t tell him nothin’!” Sonny yelled. “Can’t you see what the bastard is doin’?”
“What am I doing?” Ben asked.
Sonny cussed Ben until he was breathless.
“You feel better now?” Ben asked him, his eyes watching the man’s hand move toward his belt buckle.
Kathy was confused when Ben said, “Don’t do it, Sonny. You’ll never make it.”
“Make what?” she asked.
“Fuck you, Raines!” Sonny yelled. Then, with a scream of rage, Sonny leaped toward Ben, a small knife suddenly appearing in his right hand.
Ben lifted his right hand and shot him.
The big .45 slug struck the punk in the center of the chest and stopped him, flinging him back and stretching him out on the floor. Kathy was stunned by the suddenness of it. One of the men prisoners started trembling.
“I don’t want to die!” he blurted. “I don’t want to die. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Buddy motioned toward two Rebels standing at the rear of the room and they dragged the dead punk out into the gloom of early evening. Kathy grimaced at the sound of Sonny’s body being tossed off the porch to land on the wet earth.
Ben eased the hammer down on his .45 autoloader and holstered it. He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. He looked at Marie and smiled. “We’re all going to be very cooperative, aren’t we, Marie?”
“You can bet your ass on that,” the woman said, her voice very shaky.
After the blood on the floor had been cleaned up, and the others gone to bed, Kathy sat for a long time before the fire, while Ben worked at his desk. Finally she said, “You knew he had a knife, didn’t you, Ben?”
“I suspected it.”
“You could have ordered him searched and disarmed.”
“Could have, but didn’t.” He leaned back in the chair. “Before you get all misty-eyed and filled with moral indignation, know this: Clarence ‘Sonny’ Fontaine was a warlord. He traded French civilians to the creepies in return for the safety of himself and his gang. He’s been on Rene Seaux’s most-wanted list for years. He dealt in human misery. If his death somehow diminishes you, then we’d better call off our relationship right now, Kathy.”
“I have never in my life seen a man as cold-blooded as you, Ben.”
“Then you’d better be glad Sonny Fontaine didn’t get his hands on you, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby!”
Ben chuckled. “All right, Kathy. We had our little fling, and we both enjoyed it while it lasted. Now it’s over. Go on back to your out-of-touch-with-reality friends. Wallow in your newly restored liberalism. It’s been fun. Good night.”
With her eyes flashing fire, Kathy Bonham rose from the chair and stalked out into the Paris mist, almost running into Buddy.
Buddy wisely and very quickly sidestepped her and entered the room, walking up to his father’s desk. “You are hell on women, father.” When Ben did not reply, he asked, “You think she’ll be back?”
“I haven’t any idea, son. But if you’re asking for a guess, I would say no.”
“Pity.”
Ben shrugged that away, and his son laughed at him. “You’ll never change, father. Someday you must tell me what qualities you are searching for in a woman.”
Ben smiled and said, “I don’t know that I have any set criteria, son. Just someone that I can get along with and who can get along with me, I suppose. Although sometimes I think God has not yet created that woman.”
“Or you just haven’t found her yet,” Buddy said. He walked over to the closet to hang up his dripping raincoat just as Ben dropped a pencil on the floor and bent down to pick it up.
The room suddenly exploded in sound and fury and flames and Ben fell spinning into blackness.
TWO
Ben never really lost consciousness, but for a couple of minutes he was addled and unable to make much sense out of what was happening, nor was he able to move his legs. He was cognizant of heavy gunfire and much yelling. Then it dawned on him that his legs were pinned under the rubble that was once his desk.
Rocket attack! His brain finally started working. The bastards must have had tunnels under us.
“Dad!” he heard Buddy calling his name through the ringing in his ears.
“The damn desk has me pinned, boy. And probably part of the roof as well. Get some people in here.”
Buddy didn’t wait for help. He muscled the rubble off his father and helped Ben to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just pissed off, that’s all. Where’s my team?”
“I don’t know. Probably outside in the fight.” Both men had to shout to be heard over the yammering of automatic weapons and the smash of grenades.
Ben found his Thompson and wiped it clean of dust. Fires started by other rockets tossed enough light through the blown-out windows of the house so Ben could see his weapon was not damaged.
Ben’s team began to gather. Due to the construction of the home, Corrie had set up her radio in another room, and she and Beth were all right. Cooper had been outside, and he was unhurt. Jersey had just closed the door to the latrine behind the house. The latrine had blown over, trapping her inside, and except for her pride, she was unhurt. Jersey ran in the back door, cussing a blue streak.
“Talk about getting caught with your pants down,” Cooper said with a grin.
Jersey gave him a look that was guaranteed to stop an angry grizzly.
“It’s a coordinated attack against all battalions!” Corrie called from the radio room. “Pat, Tina, and Rebet have been forced to yield ground. The others are holdin.”
From memory, Ben reviewed the positions of his b
attalions. “Have Ike and Georgi shift some people over to help 10, 9, and 6 regain that ground, Have that special ops company with Dan’s 3 Batt assist.”
“They’ve broken through the rear!” a Rebel shouted. “Heads up inside the CP.”
Ben turned to a blown-out window and fired at robed shapes running toward the house. One second later his team was firing, filling the smoky, explosive night with lead. There was no time for talk.
Buddy’s weapon had been shattered by the first rocket, and he had smashed open a box of pineapples and was hurling Fire-Frag grenades into the misty night. The shrapnel-filled mini-bombs were doing terrible damage to the now wavering and broken line of Night People.
Ben burned clip after clip of .45 rounds into the night. The muddy, torn ground behind the old house was littered with the dead and dying. Any sensible commander would have ordered a pullback, but the creeps were fanatics; they kept coming, and they continued dying at the hands of the small team of Rebels in the command post.
Fifteen minutes after the first rocket was fired, the creeps pulled back from all positions, and the night slowly became silent—except for the sound of single gunshots as the Rebels moved through the carnage, shooting creeps in the head. Kathy Bonham watched in horror as Ben moved through the night, a .45 in each hand, finishing the cannibals.
“You got an audience, boss,” Jersey said.
“Yeah. I know. Can’t be helped. If she can’t understand these people are as dangerous as bubonic plague and have to be wiped out to the last person, that’s her problem.”
A few minutes later he said to Corrie, “Get me reports. Let’s see how hard we got hit.”
Not too bad. For the Rebels were dressed head to foot in body armor and deaths were light. Most of the wounds were minor ones, but what really pissed Ben was the few Rebels the Night People had managed to take prisoner. Everyone knew what would happen to those men and women—they’d seen it before.
With the taking of Rebel prisoners, and the knowledge of what would happen to them, Lieutenant Bonelli summed up the feelings of all the Rebels. “The creeps were standing ankle-deep in shit. Now they’re in the shit up to their necks.”
D-Day in the Ashes Page 14
