Valor in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Dan did not have to ask what Chase had done with the crawlers after interviewing them. He knew. He had also been briefed as to Monte’s location in the States. They were — or had been as of yesterday — getting close to the bridges that his Scouts had blown. A couple more days and they would either cut east, as the Rebels hoped they would, moving away from Tina’s position, or smell a rat and cut west, circling and once more linking up with Interstate 87, putting them in line to hit Tina’s small force at the airport.

  As if reading Dan’s thoughs, Ben said, “It could well turn out to be a series of boxes for all of us, Dan. Monte’s people might find themselves trapped between Tina’s small force and Danjou and Rebet’s people as they drive south. Cecil could find himself trapped if the creepies have — as I suspect — swung around and infiltrated the areas we cleared along the waterfront. And if the creepies have moved up into Bronx County, putting themselves behind us, as I suspect, or are hiding in the subway tunnels — which is a possibility — when they surface, we’re cut off. It’ll turn into a war with a half a dozen fronts, none of which presenting any enviable situation for anybody.”

  “Then we very well may end up depending on those survivors around Central Park to break through.”

  “Yes.” A smile played around Ben’s mouth. “And Emil Hite and the hippies.”

  “Dad pulled one of his fast ones and broke away from the main group,” Tina told a few Rebels gathered around her, Jerre among them. That was all the radio traffic we heard yesterday morning.” She pointed to a wall map in the airport’s radio room. “He took his battalion up here and is sweeping south.”

  It was before dawn, the day after Ben’s wild push to the uppermost northern tip of Manhattan, and the skies were still gloomy and overcast, with occasional freezing rain and flakes of snow. Tina had a hunch that her father would contact her that day, and just after breakfast, that hunch became reality.

  “Scramble this and talk through translators, kid” Ben told her.

  The arrangements made quickly, Tina nodded at her translator. “Go, Eagle One.”

  “Heads up, Tina. Go on full alert and maintain it.” Ben then brought her up to date on all the certainties and possibilities that might be lurking around the corner of each day’s dawning.

  “I’m sitting here with less than a hundred and fifty Rebels, Dad. No way I could hold out for very long against several thousand of Monte’s troops.”

  “That’s why I’ve ordered the birds at Base Camp One to start flying day and night, munitions factories to work around the clock, and trucks to start rolling from Base Camp One immediately.” He brought her up to date on Emil Hite and the hippies.

  There was a long pause from the Teterboro Airport radio room. “Are you joking, Dad?”

  Ben laughed. “No. I’ve got Katzman trying to contact them now to advise them of the situation and if they want to continue, what routes to take.”

  “Why do I have this feeling that you’re going to assign them to me?”

  “Don’t you need the extra manpower — person-power — whatever ?”

  “Emil Hite and a bunch of hippies? Probably middle-aged hippies at that!”

  “Watch your mouth, girl. I’m in the middle-aged category, remember?”

  “That’s different. You’ve been fighting all your life. Oh, hell, Dad. If you make contact with them, tell them to come on.”

  “That’s my girl. You take care, baby.”

  “Jerre is working out fine, Dad.”

  Ben did not acknowledge the last transmission. He broke off.

  “What did Ben have to say about the comment concerning me?” Jerre asked.

  “Nothing. He broke off.”

  “Typical.” Jerre walked out of the radio room.

  “More than one war going on around this place,” Ham commented.

  “Yeah. And I think I’d rather be in the middle of the shooting one.”

  The Rebels under Ben’s command began their S&D sweeps. And it was a duplicate of the sweeps of the previous day. They found nothing.

  By noon the Rebels had worked their way over to the subway yards, covering everything from West 207th north to West 215th. They found no signs of life, friendly or hostile. Ben stood them down for lunch.

  “Fastest sweeps yet, General,” Dan commented. “My people are coming up empty.”

  “Same here. And it just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “You’re really worried about this lack of bogies, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am, Dan. I just don’t know where they’ve gone or why. We’ve posted guards at the bridges, and we’ll post guards at the University Heights Bridge — when we get to it. But we don’t have enough personnel to adequately guard them all. I can’t mine them, Dan. I don’t want the structures destroyed or damaged. They’ve got to stand until we turn this country around and get technology on the upswing again.”

  He paused and tossed his lunch wrappers into a garbage can. There was enough litter in the city; damned if he was going to add to it. He rolled one of the few cigarettes he allowed himself daily and lit up. “Maybe that’s what the Night People want, Dan. Maybe they want us to destroy the bridges. Or perhaps they are going to destroy them and try to trap us over here that way. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “Now you’ve got me worried about it!”

  “Well, don’t lose any sleep over it, Dan. Come on. Let’s go see if we can find some night crawler butt to kick.”

  Nothing. At four o’clock that afternoon, Ben called a halt to it. His battalion, nearly a thousand men and women, had combed the area and found nothing. The Rebels now controlled — or, as Ben felt, thought they did — everything north of Dyckman Street and west of Broadway from the base of Fort Tryon Park.

  And that is where Dan found Ben just at dusk: just below Fort Tryon Park, squatting at the entrance to the 190th Street subway station. Surrounded, of course, by Cooper and Beth and Jersey and the squad of Rebels Ike had permanently assigned to him.

  Dan squatted down beside him. “What’s going on in your mind, General?”

  Ben pointed to the subway entrance. “That’s where they are, Dan. Down there. They left the cars and the skeletons undisturbed to throw us off. And they are so far back, their stench is covered by the stagnant water and the bat crap. Probably two or three miles back. Waiting.”

  “For what, General?” But he knew. If Ben was right, they were in deep trouble.

  “For us to push further on south. Then, when Monte gets into position, they’ll surface and hit us.”

  “So we blow the subway entrance and seal them in.”

  “All of them, Dan? There are only about five hundred. You really want to destroy what was, at one time, one of the greatest subway systems in all the world? Who knows, it could be again — someday. And how about the prisoners they might be holding down there? Some for food, yes. But how about the others? God damn it!” Ben stood up, the Englishman with him.

  Ben took off his beret and ran his fingers through his hair, salt-and-pepper hair. “And if we Claymored the hell out of the places? We’d get the first fifty or sixty of the creepies, and from that point on, they’d push the prisoners out in front of them. And I think under the city is where they’re keeping a lot of prisoners, Dan. It would be ideal for beings as odious as the crawlers. So that means chemicals are out.”

  Dan remained silent, listening to Ben run over the options. But it was rapidly growing dark, and that concerned Dan. Not for himself, but for the general’s safety. But he also knew it was not his place to remind the general of the time.

  Mouthy Jersey knew no such levels of position — or she didn’t pay any attention to them. “It’s gettin’ dark, General.”

  Ben looked over at her. “Damn, Jersey. I’m not blind, you know?”

  That bounced off Jersey like a rubber ball. “Probably a lot of work on your desk, and you got to call generals Ike and Jefferys.”

  Ben smiled and shook his head. “Come
on, then.” As they walked back to Ben’s Blazer, he said, “Dan, here in America we had a saying that fits this situation. We’re fucked. Do the British have a better term for it?”

  Dan thought about that for a few steps. “No, sir. I think fucked pretty well sums it up.”

  FOUR

  “So that’s the situation, people.” Ben had explained his theory to his Rebels, gathered in a huge warehouse along the Harlem River. “And I think the creepies expected me to piece it all together, leaving me with some choices to make. If we stay here, they’ve really got us in a box. For I think a large force of them have moved up into Spuyten Duyvil and the Kingsbridge area, as well as into the subway tunnels and over into University and Morris Heights. And they didn’t use the bridges; they used boats. Dan’s Scouts have been out since dawn, and have found where they launched off. I’m going to remind you all, one more time, that just counting the Night People, we’re outnumbered fifteen or twenty to one. With Monte’s people coming in . . . twenty-five to one. Like that well-known philosopher used to say: Them odds ain’t worth a damn!”

  The warehouse reverberated with laughter. A woman called out, “What was that philosopher’s name, General, Ben Raines?”

  Ben joined in the laughter. “Could be.” He waited until the warehouse had settled down. “So we’re going to do this the Rebel way, people. I’m not going to order you all into a death trap. I’m going to walk outside and have a cup of what passes for coffee nowadays. You people vote on it. You want to continue clearing out the Big Apple, fine. You want to go home, that’s fine, too. Ike and Cecil and West are canvassing their troops now. Take as long as you want. I’ll be outside.”

  Ben walked outside, expecting to be alone. But Beth and Jersey and Cooper walked out with him. They had already voted in their minds. They were staying. Dan and his Scouts walked out right behind them. James Riverson, the big ex-truck driver from Missouri, who had been with Ben since the outset, came next. Ben didn’t even have time to get a cup of coffee and roll a cigarette before the Rebels came pouring out of the warehouse. They walked to Jeeps and Hummers and tanks and APC’s and trucks.

  “We’re goin’ to work, General,” a Rebel Ben knew only as Joe called out, climbing into a Jeep. “You have you a cup of coffee and a smoke. We’re gonna start pushing on down south; see if we can find some creep ass to kick. We got a big job ahead of us, you know?”

  Ben smiled at the man, then allowed his eyes to roam all up and down the line of Rebels. The lines from King came to him: “I have a dream.” Ben looked at the faces of his Rebels. Black and white, Asian, Indian, Spanish . . . they were all represented. The dream worked here, Doctor, Ben thought, and now these men and women are willing to risk their lives to push that dream of peace and equality even further.

  And I’m damn proud of them.

  Ben saluted his troops as the vehicles rolled past. When the last truck had pulled out, he turned to Beth. “Get Ike and Cecil and West on the horn, please.”

  The Rebel commanders and the mercenary came on. “What’s the word, gentlemen?” Ben asked.

  “Unanimous, Ben,” Ike took it. “Not one person voted to leave.”

  “You very carefully explained that this city could well be our tomb?”

  “We laid it all out for them, General,” West replied.

  “Probably made it even more dismal than it really is,” Cecil told him. “We’re here for the duration, Ben.”

  “I’m damn proud of you all. I want you to know that.”

  “Let’s go to work.” Ike finished it brusquely, but with a very definite catch in his voice.

  “Hang tough,” Ben told them.

  The Rebels found nothing. No Night People, no survivors, nothing. But Ben had felt eyes on him all that morning and well into the afternoon. He said nothing about it; he waited for someone else to experience the same sensation. Beth was the first one to vocalize the eerie feeling.

  “We’re being watched, General. I don’t know where they are, or who it is. But our every move is being observed. I’d bet on it.”

  “I’ve felt it all morning, Beth.”

  “We all have,” Beth confirmed it. “Me, Jersey, Cooper, and a lot of the others. And speaking for me, it’s a damned weird feeling.”

  The Rebels had pushed down to Fairview Avenue that cold late-fall day, but not a one of them felt comfortable or secure with it. Because of the near total silence in the city, the sounds of planes coming in from Base Camp One, and their taking off, could be heard if the wind was right. One plane every hour, twenty-four hours a day. Joe had told Ben a huge truck convoy was on the way, carrying ammo, food, medicine, and clothing. Should be arriving in three to four days.

  “Come on out and fight, you bastards!” Ben muttered, an edge to his voice.

  But the only fighting was far to the south of Ben’s position. Ike and Cecil and West were lucky if they cleared a third of a block a day. On more than one day the Rebels and the Night People stood and slugged it out, with no one gaining any ground.

  And so far, Ben’s people had yet to fire a shot in their push south.

  Ben inspected an apartment complex that had been recently declared secure. He started from the roof and walked down. He found the skeletal remains of a man and a woman, sitting in rat-chewed chairs in front of a dusty and long-silent TV set. Ben squatted down on the littered floor and picked up what remained of a TV Guide. A daytime talk show had been circled. He noticed with a warrior’s dark humor that the topic for that day was gun control.

  “Hope you enjoyed the show, folks,” Ben muttered, dropping the tattered and yellowed magazine to the floor and standing up. Then felt slightly guilty after saying it. It passed quickly.

  He walked across the hall and pushed open the door, noting that like so many, the Rebels had smashed open the door. A skeleton lay on the floor, a rusting rifle beside the bones. Brass lay among the litter by a window. Ben knelt down and picked up one empty casing. A 30-06. Here was one New Yorker who did not go into that long sleep placidly.

  Ben walked to the shattered window and looked down on the street, then back to the bones. Old bones, years old. He theorized that the man gave a number of looters exactly what all looters deserve: a bullet in the head.

  Ben found a blanket and covered the warrior’s bones. He walked out of the apartment, carefully closing the door behind him.

  The apartment building and the old bones therein both depressed and troubled him. Why did the gas kill some almost immediately and let others live? And what had killed the man who chose to fight?

  He put those questions out of his mind and stood just inside the doors to the apartment building, in the semi-gloom, knowing he would be hard to spot by anyone outside, and worried his mind about the absence of the enemy. His people were getting deeper and deeper into bogie country — far too deep to leave little pockets of Rebels behind as rear guards. He had too few people as it was; they had to stay together for safety’s sake.

  What to do?

  He stood in the gloom of the foyer, knowing Beth and Jersey and Cooper were just outside, waiting with the squad of bodyguards. His eyes swept the top floors of the buildings across the street. No, they wouldn’t be on the top floors. The slithering creepies would be belowground, hiding like rats and snakes. But if that was the case, how were they watching the Rebels? From what vantage point? Had they dug tunnels away from the existing tunnels, coming up under buildings, with hidden passageways?

  Maybe.

  Ben stepped to the door. “Come on inside, all of you. We’re going to reinspect this building. In the basement. Beth, I want a generator set up and lights strung down in the basement.”

  Dan intercepted the transmission and was at the scene moments after hearing it. “Fresh ideas, General?”

  “Could be. Might well be a wild goose hunt, too.” He explained.

  Dan nodded and turned to a Scout. Before he could give the order, Ben said, “I’ll lead it, Dan. You’re in command up top.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, sir.”

  With the generator humming, the basement filled with light, Ben walked down into the darkness. “Pull everything away from the walls, people. And don’t be disappointed if we don’t find anything. It might not be in this building, or the next one, but it’s the only logical explanation for what’s been happening. As soon as we clear a building, they pop out like the blood-sucking leeches they are. Gome on, let’s go to work.”

  “You want us to carry this stuff outside, General?”

  “No. They’ll find out soon enough what we’re doing without us giving it away. Just move everything out to the center of the floor, after I inspect the center. But I think they’re tunneling in through a wall and hiding the entrance with something solid.”

  Everything was moved away from the walls. The walls were carefully checked. Nothing. Not even a rat hole.

  They moved on to the basement of the next building. Same results. The Rebels tried three more basements before hitting pay dirt. As soon as they pulled several large wooden crates away from the wall, the unmistakable odor of Night People struck them all.

  “Bingo!” Ben said. “Get Dan down here.”

  The Englishman came down the steps quick-time. A grim smile curved his mouth as he smelled the foulness of the creepies and his eyes touched upon the dark hole in the wall. “Tunnel-rat time, General?”

  “Yeah. And you’re looking at the chief rat. No arguments. Who’s going in with me?”

  Everybody stepped forward. Including Beth.

  “Have you lost your mind, Beth?” Ben asked.

  “The boredom of the last few days momentarily clouded reason, General.”

  “Well, I’ll put a little sunshine on it. You stay up here and keep track of the radio business.”

  Dan had already sent for heavy flashlights and spare batteries from the supply truck. “Pierce, you and Bouten take the point and keep the point. And that is a direct order.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Scouts checked the flashlights and stepped into the foul-smelling darkness. While the Rebels certainly had the technology to produce flashlight batteries, as long as they had millions of rechargeable batteries at their disposal, and the means to recharge them, that technology was on the shelf for a time.