Valor in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

“The ferry terminal is a snake pit. All windows and openings have been blocked off to prevent light from coming through. It’s dark as a grave in here.”

  “Get out of there, Dan. We’ll pump the place full of chemicals at full light. That’ll flush them.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Ben paused, then gave the orders. “All troops near the ferry terminal into gas masks. Knock out those boarded-up windows and prepare to lob in tear gas canisters at full light. Get in position to knock them down when they run.”

  Rockets slammed into boarded-up windows, clearing a path.

  Gray light began changing into silver and gold as the sun fought its way, bubbling and boiling, out of the horizon. Tear gas canisters were fitted onto rifles and shotguns; tear gas guns were readied.

  Hard bursts of gunfire banged to Ben from Tina’s position. His daughter’s voice came out of Ben’s walkie-talkie. “They’re packing it in, Dad. We’re dropping them but not pursuing.”

  “Ten-four, Tina. We’ll start mop-up just after full light.”

  “Ten-four. Holding.”

  “Fill the terminal with gas,” Ben ordered, then slipped on his mask. He had tested the wind: blowing from out of the south. That was to their advantage: the wind would keep the gas contained — for the most part — inside the ferry terminal.

  Dan had placed some of his best shots directly behind the ferry terminal. They waited with heavy rifles.

  The early morning coolness was sharp with the odor of drifting gas. Robed and hooded Night People began rushing from the terminal, trying to escape the choking gas that burned their lungs and teared their eyes.

  The Rebels shot them while others continued to lob tear gas canisters into the huge terminal, driving more and more of the Night People from their cavernous hiding places and into the dreaded light.

  Some of the Night People chose to chance New York Bay, leaping like lemmings from the terminal into the water, panicked and frantic in their efforts to escape the blinding gas.

  But Ben had anticipated that move and had ordered Rebels out onto the long piers on either side of the terminal building. The Rebels shot the Night People as they thrashed about in the water. The bodies bobbed in the dirty bay for a moment and then slowly sank toward the bottom, the current moving them out toward the Narrows and eventually into the Atlantic.

  “Cease firing,” Ben ordered.

  All was quiet over near Battery Park. Tina’s people had held. Ben lifted his walkie-talkie. “Mop up” he ordered. “Troops out.”

  The sun had burst forth over the city, bathing the Big Apple in golden light.

  Ben slipped off his gas mask and smiled a warrior’s smile. All in all, he thought, it was going to be a beautiful day.

  FOUR

  Far to the north and west, Monte, the Canadian warlord who had a pact with the Night People, had met an American mercenary who hated Ben Raines nearly as much as the Night People. Monte’s army numbered almost a thousand more than Ben’s Rebels, but they were not nearly so professional; what they did amount to were killers, thugs, thieves, rapists, perverts and just about any other low-class, no good creature one might wish to name. But they did have the best of equipment, and what they lacked in professionalism they made up for in sheer numbers.

  “Your name?” Monte asked the man who had requested a meeting with him.

  “Colonel.”

  “Colonel . . . what?”

  “Colonel will do quite nicely. And you are General Monte?”

  “I never met a man named Colonel before,” Monte bitched.

  “You are General Monte?”

  “Yeah, yeah! I hear you got yourself an army?”

  “Approximately battalion-size, yes.”

  “And you intend to do what with this army?”

  “I intend to eventually kill Ben Raines,” Colonel said calmly. “But whether that is possible without help is the question.”

  “And you want my help?”

  “Shall we say a mutual need?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Do you know what Ben Raines looks like? How he operates? Who his top commanders are? Anything at all about the man?”

  “I know he ain’t no god like some people claim him to be.”

  “That is correct. But you did not answer my questions.”

  “We’ve been tracking you and your people for several days, Colonel.”

  “I have made no effort to hide our advancement.”

  “For a fact. No, Colonel, I don’t know much about General Raines. But I do know this: the man is rapidly turning into a large pain in the ass as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Because he has moved into New York City and just might succeed in wiping out the Night People, thereby ending a very lucrative operation between you and those dreadful beings?”

  Monte leaned back in his chair. Not exactly his chair; he had liberated the home from a man and his wife just the day before. He had shot the man and then raped the woman. His troops were now passing the lady around. When they tired of her, they would either kill her or stable her with other men and women being held for eventual transportation to various enclaves of Night People.

  “You’re a very knowledgeable man, Colonel.”

  “I try to keep abreast of matters that might someday be of use to me, thank you.”

  “Why do you hate Ben Raines, Colonel?”

  “Purely a personal matter, General.”

  “What do you know about the Night People?”

  “A very odious gathering of allies, General.”

  “For a fact,” Monte agreed. He had never liked those spooky suckers, for sure. Didn’t even care to get around them. The idea of eating human flesh made his stomach do flip-flops.

  Monte stared at the Colonel. “I’ve heard your voice before, Colonel. When we intercepted various radio transmissions. And Colonel wasn’t what you were called then.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “All in good time, General. The truth will out. Let us just say that for the past several months, it was my misfortune to be associated with Khamsin. The Hot Wind. You are familiar with that fellow, aren’t you?”

  “Ah!” Monte smiled. “Now I think I know who you are. But I can’t recall your name.”

  “Shall we keep that between us, General?”

  Monte nodded his head. “Suits me, Colonel.”

  The Colonel laid several pieces of paper before the warlord. “All of the General’s frequencies. The second sheet tells you how to decode the scramble channels. The third sheet shows you all of the outposts he and his Rebels have set up in the lower forty-eight. The forth sheet is a description of the man himself and his likes and dislikes.”

  Monte picked up the sheets of paper. “All right . . . Colonel. Well talk more later. Right now, we’re all going to be busting our butts getting to New York City. I got word late last night that Raines is beginning his push into the city. I’ll be honest with you: I am not familiar with New York City.”

  “Oh, I am reasonably knowledgeable of the city, General.”

  The Colonel paled under his deep tan at Monte’s next remark. “Good, Colonel. Then you and your people can act as our point. You’ll be the first to enter the Big Apple.”

  It was going to be much slower and much bloodier and ever so much more awful than even Ben had realized.

  Tina and her teams had cleared the park and moved across State Street. They had entered the Custom House and spent most of the morning clearing just that one building.

  Dan and his people had cleared the terminal and then began working up the pier, with the tall buildings of New York Plaza across from them, waiting to be entered and cleaned out.

  Ben and his people had pushed on up Whitehall, clearing and cleaning up anything found at ground level. He had linked up with Tina and they were eating rations while sitting on a bench facing Greenwich Street.

  “Hell of a way to run a war, Dad,” Tina observed. She looked nervously around her. “And isn’t this a bit d
angerous? We are rather exposed, you know?”

  Ben chewed for a moment. Cut his eyes across the way. “That’s clear over there. You don’t think Jersey would let me sit out here if it wasn’t, do you? She’d be bitching and hollering and jumping up and down. Besides, you do have your body armor on, don’t you?” He looked at her. “You damn well better have — we went to a lot of trouble to find those stockpiles.”

  She smiled and nodded her head. “Yes, Dad.” They all agreed that the body armor was hot and uncomfortable, but working the way they would be for the next several months — at least — the vests were lifesavers. “How many buildings in this city, Dad?”

  “Oh, Jesus, kid. Hundreds. That’s just in Manhattan. Thousands if you take it all in.” He glanced at his watch. “Leave a small contingent to guard what we’ve cleared so far, Tina. We’ll join up with Dan and start working on the buildings in the Plaza.”

  “I am not looking forward to this,” she admitted.

  “Nor am I,” Ben confessed.

  Dan was just finishing his tea when father and daughter strolled up.

  “Frightfully ugly and distasteful business, isn’t it, General?”

  “The fighting?” Tina asked.

  “No,” Dan crumpled up what was left of his meal. “The horrible food!”

  That broke up the slight tension and flung it about as laughter rang out from the Rebels just finishing their noon meal. Holly and several medics walked up, handing out fresh surgical masks and rubber gloves. The medical people carefully inspected each Rebel for minor cuts that under normal conditions would require nothing more than a dab of antiseptic. But no one knew what diseases the Night People carried, and no one wanted to take a chance of getting infected through an open wound, no matter how small the cut.

  Ben noticed several things: one, that his people were all blood-splattered from the close-in killing; and two, that Holly was deliberately avoiding him. Neither came as any surprise to him.

  He did not believe that the slight quarrel they’d had earlier that day was an accident. Ben felt that she had deliberately provoked it, for he had sensed that the pressure she’d been enduring as the girlfriend of Ben Raines was getting to her. She wanted out, the relationship over, and he did not blame her for that.

  Ben turned his back to her and walked up to a medic, getting a fresh mask and gloves. Both Tina and Dan had watched the man, and both knew what the problem was.

  They exchanged glances, Dan saying, “What price fame, eh, Tina?”

  “Poor Dad. He’s had more than his share of troubles with the ladies, hasn’t he?”

  The Englishman smiled. “Your father, Tina, loves the ladies. He wants everyone to think he is like a bee, blissfully flitting from flower to flower, sampling first this one, then that one. But there is a reason for it. You know, of course, that he’s never gotten over Jerre?”

  “Jerre? But I’ve heard him curse her name!”

  “Yes.” Dan’s reply was soft. “And I’ve gotten more than slightly wobble-legged with him on more than one occasion and watched him turn maudlin discussing the lady. He loved the girl very deeply, and loves the woman just as deeply. But from afar.” Dan smiled sadly. “‘Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.’”

  “That’s Tennyson.”

  “Good, Tina. Yes, you’re right. Always return to the classics, for they never go out of style.” He sighed. “I fear the good general will go to his grave loving Jerre.”

  “Does she know how he feels?”

  “I don’t think so. She might know that his feelings are very strong for her; but how deeply he still loves her? No. And there is something else he doesn’t know . . .”

  She cut her eyes to the Englishman.

  “She rejoined the main Rebel contingent at Base Camp One, just after Ben pulled out for Michigan.”

  “Oh, God, Dan! Don’t tell me she’s here!”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “God damn her!” There was considerable heat in the daughter’s voice. Tina looked at Dan and mentally braced herself.

  “Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat.”

  “You’re mocking my father, Dan.”

  “No, girl. No. I, too, know his pain. I went dippers over a lady much younger than I, just before the Great War. A Scottish lassie. I had just returned from antiterrorism duty in Northern Ireland; took some time off. I met her on the moors just as the mist rolled in, lightly sparkling her hair and blooming her cheeks, freshening her lips. She was so lovely. That first picture of her has never faded from my mind. And she knew not my true feelings. Not in all the days we spent together did I ever tell her.”

  “Why, Dan?”

  “Oh . . . the difference in our ages, I kept telling myself. I don’t know, Tina. I wish I had told her.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “I don’t know that either. That’s what makes it so difficult at times. The grave is the great healer, Tina. For both sides of an unrequited love. If a bit on the final side for one,” he added dryly.

  Ben had walked away, slowly circling one of the buildings that made up New York Plaza. But he was not alone: Jersey was a few steps behind him, and several more Rebels flanked him. He stopped suddenly, catching a glimpse of tousled honey-blond hair under a black beret. Something in the walk . . . something about the way the person carried herself . . . something . . .

  She turned.

  It was not her.

  Of course not! Ben coldly calmed his mind and loosened the velvet ties that invisibly clutched at his heart. The last he had heard of her she had dumped the guy she’d married and was homesteading alone out in the northwest, writing poetry or some fucking thing.

  Never did have a lick of sense.

  No, he corrected that. She had plenty of sense. Just free-spirited and sort of vain. Beautiful.

  Ben brushed the bird droppings off a bench and sat down. He hadn’t thought of Jerre for some time. Not consciously, that is. Liar! he berated himself. For a time, he had believed her dead. That news proved untrue.

  The rattle of gunfire momentarily interrupted his thoughts and turned his head. His people had resumed their search and destroy of the Night People. He saw Tina and Dan looking at him. They quickly averted their eyes.

  What the hell was going on?

  Something sure was funky, that much Ben knew for sure. Dan had been acting strangely for several days, and so had Ike and Cecil and Chase.

  Amazing, Ben thought, so many windows in the buildings were still intact. He guessed those people so inclined to wantonly destroy and loot just hadn’t had the time to do so. The Great War had accomplished one good thing, anyway: it had gotten rid of a lot of human crud.

  And a lot of good, decent people, too, Ben amended that thought.

  And then she slipped into his head. Coming to him gently, quietly, bringing a myriad of emotions with her, all scented with softness.

  Ben sighed, shifted on the bench.

  “Get away from me,” he muttered, the words too low to be overheard by his guards. “Leave me alone, Jerre.”

  She!

  The words to an old song entered his head. Charles Aznavour was one who’d recorded it. She. Ben had once had a copy of it. He’d smashed it several years back. Thinking of Jerre, of course.

  No, Ben Raines was no god. Ben was just as human as any other mortal being. He occasionally cut himself shaving. Stubbed his toe now and then. Sometimes drank too much. Every once in a while allowed himself the luxury of sinking into a morass of self-pity.

  With Jerre on his mind.

  Naturally.

  Jerre.

  With the muted rattle of gunfire drifting to him from the buildings, the stink of death wafting through the late fall air, she entered his mind. He could almost hear her say, “Hi, Ben.”

  FIVE

  He’d first seen her a few miles north of Charlottesville, a dejected-looking figure trudging along the side of the road. At first
Ben had thought it a boy; his life would have been a hell of a lot less complicated had that been the case.

  At the sound of his truck, she had tried jumping over the ditch, heading for the woods, but the jump was short and she fell hard, twisting her ankle. When Ben reached her, he found a very lovely young lady, holding a small semiautomatic pistol. Pointing at him. Lots of honey-blond hair, dark blue eyes.

  “I don’t mean you any harm, miss.”

  “Yeah? That’s what the last bunch of guys said, while they were trying to tear my clothes off me.”

  “How’d you get away?”

  “Kicked one in the nuts and split!”

  “You want me to take a look at that ankle?”

  “Not particularly. Why don’t you just take off?”

  “I don’t mean you any harm, miss. What is your name?”

  “None of your damned business!”

  “OK, None-of-Your-Damned-Business. My name is Ben Raines.”

  “Big deal. Who cares? Ben Raines. That sounds sort of familiar.”

  “I’m a writer. What are you, ’bout seventeen?”

  “I’m nineteen, if that’s any of your business — which it isn’t.” She fixed her blues on him. “OK, you can look at my ankle if it means so much to you . . .” One of her typical smart-mouthed statements that Ben would come to hate to love as the years rolled by. Without her. “. . . But I’m gonna keep this gun on you all the time. One funny move and I’ll shoot you.”

  “That’s a deal.” Ben didn’t have the heart to tell her that with the weapon she was holding, one first had to cock it before it would fire. It was not cocked.

  Ben inspected the ankle and concluded it was sprained. “OK, None-of-Your-Damned-Business. We’ve got to find a creek and have you soak that ankle for an hour or so.”

  “My name is Jerre. J-e-r-r-e. Jerre Hunter.” She looked at her swollen ankle. “It looks gross.”

  “Yes, it does. Come on, Jerre, put your arm around my shoulders and keep your weight off that ankle.”

  She gazed at him for a moment. “Oh, what the hell? You might rape me, but that’s not gonna hurt as bad as my ankle hurts.”