Valor in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Go on, Lamar,” Ben urged the man of medicine. “Take them back to a safe locale and see what you can do with them until I can arrange transport.”

  Ben and Cecil watched as Lamar and his team gently herded the badly frightened men and women out of the room and into waiting vehicles which Cecil had arranged for.

  “Pitiful” Jersey summed it all up.

  Ben sat on the edge of his desk and looked at his commanders: Cecil, Ike, Dan, West, Chase, and a few more of his upper-level personnel, including Katzman. “That’s it, people. That’s Cecil’s theory, and I agree with him. We have no proof at all to back us up.”

  The mercenary was the first to speak. “If what you say is true, General, then we’re in a hell of a mess.”

  “The thought of ending up as a meal for one of these nasties is really quite repugnant to me,” Dan Gray added.

  Ike caught Ben’s eye. “I guess I’m gonna have to be the one to say it, so I’ll get it said. Then y’all can boo and hiss or agree with me. Whatever. There is another way to deal with these nasties, and we’ve touched on it before. Now I know we’ve got innocents in this city. I understand that. But they won’t communicate with us. They won’t respond to our signals. We might be forced into some rethinking. Like, we lay it on the line to the survivors. We tell them flat-out: We’re going to destroy this city. Now you tell us where you are, and we’ll come in and get you out. There isn’t going to be any second chances. If they respond, fine. We go in and get them. If they don’t . . . ?” He shrugged his muscular shoulders in a go-to-hell gesture.

  Chase arched one eyebrow and asked, “And then what, Ike?”

  “Chemicals or napalm.”

  Dan looked over at him. “That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it, old boy?”

  “I’m opposed to torching the city,” West said. “We’ve all seen that looting has, miraculously, been minimal. To my way of thinking, that means the city still contains hundreds, thousands, of irreplaceable treasures. We’d be doing a great disservice to future generations if we were to destroy them.”

  “I agree with West,” Chase said.

  So did the others.

  Ben stayed out of it, reserving comment. “What kind of chemicals, Ike? And how would we deliver them?”

  “We’ve got stockpiles of the deadliest chemicals mankind ever invented. How to deliver them? Planes, rockets.” Ike stood up. “People, I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m not saying I want to do it. All I’m doing is laying options in front of you to kick around.”

  “Let’s talk about the other options,” West said. “Cordoning off the area — or areas — is impossible. We don’t have the personnel. We couldn’t starve the bastards out in a lifetime. Hell, we don’t know how many of these breeding farms they have. Worst came to worst, they’d eat each other. And there is this: There are probably a thousand survivors, fighting the Night People — that’s those aboveground — located between Columbus and Madison, all the way up to God knows where. But for some reason they’re afraid to make contact with us. More effort has got to be made to get in touch with them. I suggest four tanks and a half a dozen APC’s make a push to their position and see what the hell happens then.”

  “And what about these people living below the city?” Katzman asked. “My God, there might be a thousand or more of them down there. They’d be some powerful allies if we could contact them.”

  “Somebody had to say it,” Ike said. “I said it. So torching the city is out. OK. I’m glad. How about chemicals?”

  That was out as well. Unanimously.

  “So we slug it out?” Ike continued. “OK. That’s fine with me. But we’d better brace ourselves for a damn long campaign.” He looked at Ben. “Have you given any further thought to what we discussed yesterday?”

  “Yes. To those of you I have not spoken with, this is what we’re talking about. Both Ike and Cecil have a gut hunch that we’re being set up for something. By whom? We don’t know. What and how? We don’t know that either. Give it some thought and keep your eyes open. Leo, you and your people record every outside conversation you monitor. If we get a clue, it’ll probably come from a radio transmission slipup on somebody’s part. I talked with Tina just before this meeting. She’s hitting pockets of resistance, but nothing that she can’t handle. And she has found no survivors in her area. To me, that means the night crawlers have been active around here for a long, long time, and there are a hell of a lot of them. Now then, if Tina finds the Teterboro Airport functional, that means we’re going to have to clear the expressway all the way up to the George Washington Bridge. Supplies will be coming in that way. Anything else anybody wants to talk about?”

  No one did. Ike and Cecil stayed after the others had filed out, as Ben suspected they would.

  “Tina better get to that damn airport pronto, Ben,” Ike told him. “This is going to be a sustained campaign, and we’re going to have to be resupplied every week. And a full company is going to have to be quartered there at the airport to make certain it doesn’t get overrun by nasties. And I got this suggestion: I’d like to split my people and move half of them over here to help you. Cecil feels the same way. How about it?”

  “Suits me. I can damn sure use the help.”

  “All right. I’ll leave Broadhurst in command and take charge of clearing the expressway up to the bridge. OK?”

  Ben nodded.

  “I’ll leave my XO in command and come on over in the morning, Ben,” Cecil said. “We can work out the placement of my people over breakfast.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Ben,” Ike gripped his arm, “I’m glad my suggestions were nixed. But I felt that I had to voice them.”

  “Ike, it may well come to germing the city. I hope not, but I just don’t know. We just may have — for the first time — bitten off more than we can chew. I will confess that at times, I have my doubts as to whether we can pull this thing off.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be a real bitch,” Cecil admitted. “And we’re going to be here until midsummer, at least. But I think if we hang tough, we can pull it off.” He shook his head.

  Ben caught the head movement. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re being conned.”

  Ben thought of Jerre. “Yeah. I know that feeling very well.”

  FOURTEEN

  “They keep calling for us to make contact with them,” Gene told his father. “And we know now that it is really Ben Raines. And they have switched to Yiddish in any important communications. And sometimes in some sort of language that is totally a mystery to any of us.”

  The elder Savie smiled. “Smart. The second language is probably some Indian dialect. I read where troops in the Pacific, during the Second Great War, used Indian language to confuse the Japanese. You are asking me if now is the time to reply to General Raines?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You are in command here, Gene. Not I.”

  “But you have more to lose coming face-to-face with Ben Raines.”

  “I’m an old man, son. If by making contact with Ben Raines would guarantee the rest of you freedom from those damnable Night People . . . I would gladly give my life for that.”

  The son made up his mind. “We’ll wait a few days longer.”

  “What in the hell are they waiting on?” Ben asked.

  “What do they want — some sort of engraved invitation?”

  “Beats me.” Ike spoke around a mouthful of fried potatoes. “You’ve told them who we are and what we’re doing in every language known to mankind . . . except Swahili.”

  “What about Colonel West’s suggestion that he take a patrol up to where we think their control begins?” Cecil asked.

  “Not yet. First we wait and try to determine if they’re friendly.”

  “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  “About a week’s worth of work.”

  That got everybody’s attention.

  Ben smiled griml
y. “The World Trade Center, gentlemen.”

  Ike groaned. “Two of those monsters over there are a hundred and ten stories each!”

  “Relax, Ike. You’re too fat to climb all those stairs. Dan is taking tower two, I’m taking tower one.” Before anyone could protest, Ben said, “Ike, you and your people take building four. Cecil, you take building five. We’ve got time. The flybys of Teterboro Airport show it pretty well junked-up. And it’s going to take Tina most of today just to get to it. Once there, I figure two days to get it clear of crap. Then, Ike, you can start clearing out the expressway up to old George’s bridge. Finish your coffee, boys. Then let’s go to work.”

  “Too fat,” Ike bitched. “I’m not fat. I’m just . . . pleasantly plump, that’s all!”

  “What you are is a lard-butt!” Dan finished it.

  * * *

  Ben stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center and looked up. “Windows of the World, here I come,” Ben muttered.

  “Sir?” Jersey questioned.

  “That’s a restaurant, Jersey. I had lunch there a couple of times, years back, of course. Be interesting to see it again.”

  Jersey looked up and almost fell over backward staring at the skyscraper. “You ate . . . up there?”

  Ben grinned at the expression on her face. “It’s really a spectacular view, Jersey.”

  She looked at him. “I would take your word for it, General, but I think I’m gonna see it for myself, right?”

  “That’s right, Jersey.”

  She shook her head and looked at Beth, who was looking up. “I can’t even see the damn top for the clouds!”

  “Clouds are low today, ladies. Come on, let’s go.”

  There was no denying the unmistakable odor once inside the lobby. The creepies were here. Or had been very recently. The concourse level was a shambles. Ben looked down, grimaced, and kicked a human bone away with his boot. It went bouncing and clicking across the floor. The flitting shape of a huge rat skittered along a wall and vanished.

  “I hate rats!” Beth said with a shudder.

  “I’m not too fond of them myself.” Ben looked back at his detail. “Everybody all checked out with three days’ rations and water?”

  They nodded their heads.

  “Ammo detail?” Ben shifted his gaze. “You loaded down, gang?”

  They were.

  “Scouts down to the lower level. Easy does it, people. I don’t want any dead heroes. Move out.”

  Outside, the day was cold and dreary, with occasional bursts of drizzle. But no sleet fell with it — yet.

  Ben waited with his people in the lobby, Beth wearing earphones, monitoring any signals from the Rebels entering the lower level.

  “They say it’s a real mess, General,” she relayed the first message to Ben. “But they’ve encountered no creepies.”

  Ben nodded his head. Odd, he thought. And once more that feeling of being conned entered his head.

  The Rebels waited for sounds of combat from beneath them. None came.

  “Beth, ask Dan how he’s doing, please.”

  She relayed the message. “Nothing happening, sir. They have encountered no unfriendlies.”

  “Try Ike and Cecil.”

  “Nothing, sir. All commanders report signs of recent occupation, but no sign of bogies.”

  A Rebel emerged from the lower level and walked up to Ben. “Nothing, sir. What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go, people. First team out. We’ve got a quarter of a mile to go — straight up.”

  The Rebels secured the first three floors in quick time. They encountered no resistance of any kind. They found human bones and human waste — leading one Rebel to comment that the Night People just had to be the filthiest bunch of people on the face of the earth — but no creepies could be found.

  It was baffling to Ben’s mind. The enemy had put up stiff resistance for a time, then just seemed to give up and pull out. He couldn’t make any sense of it, knowing that the Night People far outnumbered his own forces.

  And Ike, Cecil, and Dan were reporting the same thing: nothing.

  “Keep at it,” he told his people. “I’m going back to ground level.” To Beth: “Tell Ike and Cecil and Dan to meet me in the plaza.”

  “Something’s rotten here,” Ben told them. “And I don’t mean the smell, either. What the hell’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Ike said. “But I’m sure gettin’ a funky feelin’ about this lash-up.”

  “Not too eloquently phrased,” Dan said with a smile. “But I agree with the thought contained within the statement.”

  “I hate to harp on it, Ben,” Cecil told him, “but I’m getting that old gut feeling again.”

  Ben agreed, adding, “But it doesn’t make any sense. They keep pulling back, pulling back . . . but to where? And why?”

  The sudden roar of gunfire put an end to the debate and sent the man racing toward the street.

  “Coming under heavy attack all up and down Church and West Broadway, General” Beth told them, listening to frantic radio transmissions crackling into her ears.

  “So much for our gut hunches,” Ike said. “Chalk it up to indigestion, I reckon. I’ll get my people out and throw up a line of defense wherever I’m needed. See you boys.”

  The commanders split up, yelling for their radio people to get the troops out of the WTC buildings and into the streets. None of the men were aware of the hard, hate-filled eyes that watched them from the top two floors of the two nine-story buildings that flanked the main entrance at Church Street. The Rebels could not see the cruel smiles that sneered from under the hoods.

  Ben felt eyes on him and moved back against the building that at one time housed a number of financial and international trade firms, Beth and Jersey and Cooper moving with him.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” Cooper asked.

  Ben shook his head. “Paranoia, I suppose. Come on. Let’s find out what’s going on.”

  A Rebel CO had called for tanks, and several rumbled past Ben’s position at the corner of Church and Vesey. The gunfire was much heavier now, the lead whining and singing deadly songs as it bounced off the bricks and concrete of downtown Manhattan.

  “It would be such an easy shot,” the man spoke from the top floor of the nine-story building. He looked down at Ben. “Now that we have him spotted.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” another robed man told him. “We must not give away our positions. With patience, we will be able to destroy the entire Rebel army. Not just Ben Raines.”

  “But I have always been told his empire would collapse without him.”

  “Perhaps. But I doubt it. He has a strong son to step into his boots. Now get away from the window. Come eat. We have fresh meat, taken from that strong young Rebel we captured the other night.”

  Ben studied the top floor of the building through strong binoculars — studied it for several minutes, then lowered the long lenses.

  “See anything, General?” Jersey asked.

  “Not a thing. I just had a creepy feeling wander around my spine, that’s all. Mouse ran over my gravesite, I guess.”

  “Sir!”

  “That’s an old expression, Jersey. Let’s go see some action.” Ben was off and running before any of his bodyguards could get in front of him.

  “Damn it, General!” Jersey cussed, then took off running, hard pressed to keep up with Ben’s long legs.

  “General!” Cooper hollered. “Wait for us.”

  “Come on, kids!” Ben shouted, zigging and zagging across the street. “Surely you can keep up with an old man like me.”

  “Old man, my butt!” Jersey puffed.

  Beth, Jersey and Cooper slid to a halt behind an abandoned car. The squad of bodyguards had been forced to dive for cover, still across the street. A hard burst of gunfire slammed into the car, the slugs penetrating one side and almost punching through the other.

  Ben pointed out the pockmarks to Beth. “Seven p
oint six two at least,” he said calmly. “Probably AK’s.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said glumly. She didn’t seem a bit thrilled with the news.

  Ben slipped to the front of the vehicle. A dark alleyway loomed in front of him. “Beats the hell outta where we are,” he muttered, waved to the others. “Come on, gang. Let’s go head-hunting.”

  “I have heard about his exploits all my life,” Beth said to Jersey. “I never thought I’d be a part of the damn things.”

  “I was there when he fought Sam Hartline,” Jersey told her. “First with fists and then with knives. That was a fight, honey.”

  “Now!” Ben called, and disappeared into the gloom of the alley, Beth and Jersey and Cooper right behind him, slugs hammering the concrete all around them.

  Ben halted them just inside the alley. “At least we’re out of the wind in here,” he grinned at them.

  Movement behind him turned his head and dropped him to one knee, the Thompson coming up. Ben caught the flash of pale faces under dark hoods and pulled the trigger, holding it back, fighting to keep the powerful SMG on target and not climbing.

  The .45-caliber slugs sent the night crawlers jerking and spinning in a macabre dance, their blood splattering the brick walls of the alley.

  Not waiting to see if all were dead, Ben turned the muzzle of the Thompson to a door and blew the doorknob off. The door lurched open, exposing the darkness within. Ben went in fast and low. The others had no choice but to follow him.

  “Easy,” Ben called to them. “Take a good whiff of that wonderful odor.”

  They all wrinkled their noses at the almost overpowering smell of the Night People. With the stench that strong, they all knew the creepies were very close. Maybe on the floor above them. Maybe behind any of the closed doors on the ground floor. Maybe all around them.

  Ben, smiling, put a finger to his lips and motioned the others to back up and get down. He took a Fire-Frag grenade from his harness and pulled the pin, holding the spoon down. Then he started moaning. “Oh, my legs are broken. Oh, Jesus, Jesus, help me, please!”

  A door opened just to Ben’s left, the creaking of rusty hinges giving it away. A powerful stench assailed his nostrils. He rolled the grenade into the room and lifted his Thompson.