“That’s where the rub comes in, Miss Phillips,” the sergeant said. “Givin’ the devil his due, back before the Great War, the liberals tried to do the right thing. But they went too far. Personal conduct and morality and consideration for your fellow bein’ can be legislated only to a point. After that, common sense has to take over. Have you ever tried to talk common sense to a redneck?”
“Or to a nigger?” another Rebel said quietly.
“That’s right,” the sergeant was quick to agree. “Or to a nigger.”
Nils Wilson closed his notepad. “I don’t understand any of this,” he admitted. “I have always found the word ‘nigger’ to be offensive.”
“And I never like being called a honky motherfucker,” Ben spoke up. “But the way I interpreted the wording, one was protected by civil rights legislation and punishable by law, while the other wasn’t. There is an old saying concerning the goose and the gander.”
“Boss,” Corrie called. “I hate to break in just when this discussion is getting lively, but Bruno Bottger just sent word that he wants to talk to you—face to face.”
“It’s a trick!” Jim Peters, commander of 14 Batt said.
“I agree,” Pat O’Shea of 10 Batt said.
Ben had gotten all his batt coms on a hookup to give them the news. “I don’t know,” Ben said, keying the mic. “He’s agreed to meet anyplace I choose. That doesn’t sound like a trick or trap to me. I’ll get back with you all in a few minutes.” He turned to Corrie. “Get me Bottger on the horn.”
“General Bottger here, General Raines.” Bruno’s voice came out of the speaker.
“How about Paris?” Ben suggested.
“If you could guarantee my safety in that city, I would agree. Can you do that?”
Ben hesitated only a second. “No, General. I cannot guarantee your safety there.”
“Then . . . where shall we meet?”
“I’m open to suggestion.”
“I would be amenable to meeting in Geneva.”
“I’m almost certain you would be safe there. I would pull back all resistance groups and have my 1 and 3 Batts secure the meeting place.”
“I would insist that the secretary-general of the United Nations be present.”
“I believe I can arrange that.”
“Very good. And a top representative of the United States government.”
“I can probably arrange that. In return, I would want the top officials of your government present.”
“That shall be done. Then we are in agreement?”
“So far, yes. I’ll be back with you in twenty-four hours, General.”
“Thank you, General. Looking forward to it.”
Much to Ben’s surprise, Homer Blanton jumped at the chance to attend. What Ben didn’t know was that Homer would have agreed to kiss the devil’s ass for a chance to get away for a few days from VP Harriet Hooter, Rita Rivers, I. M. Holey, Dumkowski, and, hopefully, Homer’s wife . . . he was running out of things in his office for her to throw at him.
“Please don’t bring Harriet Hooter,” Ben urged.
“God forbid!” Homer said.
“Or Rita Rivers.”
“Don’t even think that!”
“Perhaps I’ll see you soon, then, Mr. President.”
“I certainly hope so, General.”
“Until then. And have a safe trip, Homer.”
“Why . . . I think you really mean that, Ben.”
“Oh, I do, Homer. If something were to happen to you, then Harriet Hooter would become president.”
Homer Blanton hung up, cutting off his own laughter.
BOOK THREE
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
“Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
“Of cabbages—and kings—
“And why the sea is boiling hot—
“And whether pigs have wings.”
- Lewis Carroll
ONE
Secretary-General Son Moon arrived first, with a plane filled with aides and other UN officials. President Homer Blanton arrived the next day . . . with his wife in tow.
“Oh, wonderful,” Jersey said, eyeballing the woman as she strode regally down the steps from the plane.
One of Blanton’s aides came rushing up to Ben. “Where is the band?”
“What band?” Ben asked.
“The band to greet the president of the United States.”
“They’re not united anymore,” Cooper said. “Or have you forgotten?”
From behind Ben, back in the ranks, someone started softly whistling “Dixie.”
“Knock it off!” Ben said.
Jersey held out a harmonica. “Here. You want music. Toot on this.”
The aide ignored her and said, “Why aren’t your troops in dress uniform, General?”
“We don’t have any,” Ben told him. “The Rebels are not parade ground soldiers.”
The harried aide rolled his eyes and went rushing about in a dither.
The Secret Service had been in Geneva for several days, securing and checking things out and arranging accommodations; they all wore worried expressions at the sight of so many guns.
They had really gone into a panic when Ben told them that more than likely there were still some creepies around the city.
Ben shook hands with Homer and spoke to his wife. She frosted him with a look. Ben laughed at her, and that really pissed off the First Lady. The two men rode to the hotel in separate vehicles: The president in his flown-over limo and Ben in his HumVee.
Homer and his staff and entourage took up one entire floor, the UN secretary-general and his people, another floor, and yet another floor had been reserved for Bruno Bottger and his people. Ben and his people bunked across the street in a warehouse, on the floor on inflatable mattresses. Many of the Rebels had been sleeping on the ground for so many years it was difficult for them to get to sleep in a closed room in a real bed.
A grand feast was planned for that night in the hotel’s dining room. Ben thanked the aide and returned the invite with a polite no thanks. Ben’s rule was hard and fast: He ate what his troops ate—always had, always would.
Bruno Bottger’s plane arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Ben met his adversary at the airport, and the two men sized each other up. Bruno was younger than Ben, and Ben guessed him to be in excellent physical shape. Ben was a couple of inches taller, and wore his graying hair much shorter than Bruno’s very blond hair.
“The famous General Ben Raines,” Bruno said, shaking hands.
“The infamous General Bruno Bottger,” Ben responded with a smile.
Bruno laughed. “Ah! But not as infamous as you have been led to believe, my dear General Raines. Not nearly so much. It will all come out in the meetings. I assure you of that.”
“We’ll see,” Ben replied, wondering what in the hell Bruno had up the sleeve of his meticulously tailored gray uniform jacket. No death’s head insignia here; no lightning flashes on the collars.
Bruno smiled at the puzzled look in Ben’s eyes. “I have slaughtered no Jews, General. And there is much, much more. You’ll see.”
One of Blanton’s aides came flapping up, his blow-dried and lacquered hair as stiff as a poker. “My dear General Bottger!” he blithered. “Come. Please. We are having a banquet this evening at the hotel.” He glanced at Ben. “He refused to attend.”
Bruno arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I eat what my troops eat.”
“Very admirable of you, General, I’m sure. Makes you just one of the boys, eh?”
Ben grunted.
After Bottger and his staff and the president’s aide had left, Dan Gray said, “The bastard’s got something up his sleeve, Ben.”
“Yeah, Dan. But what?”
The first meeting was scheduled for nine o’clock in the morning. With typical Germanic precision, Bruno and his people were there on the dot. Blanton looked very
presidential in his thousand-dollar handmade suit. Son Moon was wearing a suit of equal monetary value. Bruno was resplendent in a tailored uniform. Ben wore a set of freshly laundered and ironed old French Foreign Legion lizard BDUs and polished jump boots.
Son Moon gestured toward Bruno, and the leader of the MEF stood up. “I have been accused of operating concentration camps,” he began. “Of systematically executing those of the Jewish persuasion. I categorically deny that charge, and furthermore I defy anyone to produce one person who has even a modicum of proof to substantiate those charges. I assure you all, your search will be futile because the charges are false. There are no concentration camps for Jews. None. There never have been any, and there are no plans for any to be built.”
What he said was true. There was no hard proof that Bruno’s MEF had imprisoned or tortured or killed any Jews. No pictures of the alleged atrocities.
“But we have ample proof that you forced Jews out of your claimed territory, General.” The secretary-general was the first to speak.
“Guilty as charged,” Bruno replied, sitting down. “I don’t deny ordering that done. But it was done as peacefully, bloodlessly, and as orderly as was humanly possible. Yes, those that used force against us were killed or wounded. I admit that. And I also say this: Those Jews were paid for their property—in gold. Anyone who says they were not compensated is a liar.”
Ben remained silent, a faint smile on his lips. He thought he now knew what Bruno was doing, and if he was correct, it was a slick move. Ben would wait before speaking.
Bruno said, “Furthermore not all Jews were relocated. Oh, my, no. There are many of the Jewish persuasion still living and prospering in the territory we now control. Quite a goodly number, as a matter of fact. Most of those of Spanish ancestry were not relocated. Few Americans, English, or French who were living in Germany and the other countries who chose to align with us were relocated—”
“All white,” Ben finally spoke.
Bruno smiled at Ben. “Correct, General Raines.”
Son Moon and Blanton were both looking at Ben.
“The blacks, now,” Ben continued. “They are quite a different matter, are they not?”
“They are proven to be genetically inferior beings,” Bruno replied. “Not all. But many. At their very core is savagery. If you—any of you—try to deny that, you will be refuted by medical facts. The same applies to the group of people you Americans refer to as white trash . . .”
Ben let Bruno talk. He now knew exactly what Bruno was doing, and damned if he could figure out how he was going to defend against it.
“. . . The species called white trash,” Bruno said, “are genetically inferior beings. They possess the same moral deficiencies as Negroes. They breed like animals, without thought of how they will provide properly for their offspring. They are ignorant and happy to be ignorant, and in spite of all your efforts, the majority prefer to remain ignorant. Fuckin’, fightin’, fishin’, and huntin’ seem to be their preferred choices of recreation. Your own social programs in America, on which you have wasted billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money, have produced nothing of substance. And you know it. It was a dismally disappointing three-decade-long social and fiscal failure. Oh, occasionally, one or two out of a hundred will crawl out of the mold and make something of themselves, but we have found it isn’t cost-effective to allow that. The percentages are too low to be of any value.”
Bruno poured a glass of water and thanked an aide who freshened his cup of coffee. He waited for reaction from Son Moon, Blanton, and Ben Raines.
Son Moon’s expression was totally bland, his eyes unreadable. He said nothing.
Blanton wore a look of pure astonishment.
Ben Raines smiled and waited for Bruno Bottger to drop the other boot. A very heavy boot that Ben knew was coming—straight at him.
But Bruno was not yet ready to do that. He said, “We relocated Jews who aided Negroes and continually invented excuses for their behavior. We first spoke with them, urging them to stop it. Most refused. Those are the ones we relocated.
“We waited to see what the Negroes would do to help solve the crime problems created by their kind. Ninety-nine percent did nothing. Nothing. The same in America and you cannot deny that. You can not deny it. The only thing the Negroes did was blame the whites for their own problems. And the liberals in your government sat back and cooed and nodded their heads in agreement and created wishy-washy programs that cost millions of taxpayer dollars and in the end accomplished nothing. Nothing! And that is only the beginning.”
Bruno took a sip of water and said, “You allowed the Negroes in America to teach myths to their young. Great centers of advanced learning in Africa. Bah! A lie. A lie that you all knew was a lie and allowed a myth to somehow become fact. Great centers of learning and fine universities in Timbuktu. A lie. Ben Raines has been to Timbuktu. He has read the accounts of Dutch explorers who were there centuries ago. What did those early white explorers find, General Raines?”
“Arabs holding black slaves used to carry mud in baskets to build homes.”
“Any Negro centers of advanced learning, General Raines?”
“Not that early explorers could find, General Bottger. At least not to my knowledge.”
“Oh! Well. Then who finally did discover the ruins of these great black institutions of higher learning? And all these marvelous cultures I keep hearing about?” He looked at President Blanton. “You answer that, Mr. President of the United States. You’ve had your nose up a nigger’s ass for years. Surely you would know the answer to that.”
Homer lost his cool. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this bigoted bullshit!” he thundered, slamming one big hand on the table top.
“Proof!” Bruno matched his shout. “Give me concrete proof of all these accomplishments the Negroes claim they had, and then were lost—quite mysteriously I must say—and I’ll eat humble pie. People can lose their cultures, their past. I’ll readily admit that. But something remains of it. Some shard of pottery. Some crumbling bit of stone with words on it . . . proving they knew how to read and write. But nothing like that exists, does it? Only lies and half-truths and myths.”
No one in the room chose to reply to that. Certainly Ben didn’t . . . and he was probably the most qualified of any there to offer a reply. He had worked in Africa while in the employ of the Company.
Bruno said, “I have seen with my own eyes remnants of a culture twenty thousand years old. Just to the west of us in France. Do you know of that, Ben Raines?”
“The Lascaux Cave. Yes, I know of it. I’ve seen it.”
“Marvelous, isn’t it?”
Son Moon spoke for the first time. “I fail to see what this line of conversation has to do with why we have gathered, General Bottger.”
“Oh, it has everything to do with it, sir,” Bruno said. “I’ll get to it. Humor me.”
Homer had his explosive temper back under control. Ben had never lost his. Son Moon’s face was expressionless as he waved a hand, meaning unclear, but Bruno plunged ahead.
“My people have cold-bloodedly killed no Negroes. The outlaws aligned with us killed them as a test . . . a test that I did not sanction. Believe it or not—it’s the truth. Negroes were killed—a few of them—when they resisted our efforts to remove them. I do not have now nor have I ever had concentration camps for any group of people. I will allow the UN to send representatives to scour the countryside if you ask. They will find no concentration camps. Now then, I do have proof that citizens of the countries that my forces now occupy—for want of a better word—asked me to send troops in to restore law and order. I have those documents with me.”
Bruno took a sip of water. “Gentlemen and ladies, I control all of Germany, and we are a sovereign nation. Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and the northern half of Italy have asked to be aligned with us.” He cut his eyes to Ben. “Just as portions of Canada and several of your western states asked to be
aligned with your SUSA, General Raines. Any attempts to invade any country aligned with the New Federation of Germany will be considered an act of war and will be met accordingly.
“Now . . . I will not tolerate Negroes in the New Federation. None. I detest them. I think they are inferior beings, only a cut above savages, and I will not have them residing in the Federation. And the UN has no right to tell us who we might have in our country. None.”
“I cannot believe the good people of Germany would allow this,” Blanton said.
“The people will do what is best for our New Federation. Negroes have sullied everything they have touched. Music, theater, sports, morals, values, the family structure. You love them so much, President Blanton, you take them. You’re welcome to them. We don’t want them. There are damn few countries in the world who do want them.” He smiled. “And it was that way for years before the Great War. Whether you will admit that or not.”
Blanton glared at him but said nothing. Ben studied the blank notepad in front of him and was silent.
“What are you doing with those you so euphemistically call ‘relocating’?” Son Moon asked.
“We’re shipping them back to Africa just as fast as we can. They love that damn miserable country so much, they can live there. And by the by, South Africa is now and has been for some time under white rule. And it will remain so. If they ask for our help in seeing that their rule is maintained, we will give it.”
“What happened to the blacks in that country?” Blanton asked, a depressed note to his tone.
“After a civil war that lasted for several years, the warring tribes were defeated and relocated.”
“And you knew this was going on?” Son Moon asked.
“Of course.”
“Then for years a lot of misinformation was sent out of Africa,” Ben said. It was not a question.
Bruno’s reply was a smile.
“Are you quite through?” Son Moon asked.
D-Day in the Ashes Page 24
