Blood in the Ashes (20 page)

“Here they come,” Ben's headset whispered the lookout's words. “They're gonna try to make the creek and that little stand of timber this side of it. They reach that timber, we're in trouble.”

“Settle down,” Ben said. “They won't make it. Mortar crews! Commence firing. Snipers, in position, ready when and if they get into range. Hold your fire, all others. They're too far off. We don't want to waste ammo.”

Ben was thoughtful for a moment as the first rockets left the tubes. He turned around and looked the area of the Rebels over. “Flanks and rear!” he yelled. “Stand ready. I think this is a diversion tactic. Keep your eyes glued to your perimeters.”

Captain Rayle came to Ben's side. “Too few of them for a major assault, sir. I've ordered snipers to the flanks and rear.”

“Concentrate your people to the east and west, Captain. Leave a few at the rear. It's much too wet and marshy back there. The terrain would slow them up too much and there isn't enough natural cover.”

Ben adjusted his headset and pressed the talk button. “Mortar crews, slack off firing. Just let them know we're here. Chiefs, readjust every other tube to the coordinates at the timber and brush lines east and west. Pronto.”

“Yes, sir,” came the immediate reply. “Readjusting.”

Removing the headset, Ben walked to the crest of the ridge, stopping behind old fallen trees and newer felled trees the Rebels had chain-sawed down and then covered with natural brush and other foliage. He lifted his binoculars and caught the rustle of leaves at the timberline a few hundred meters from the base of the hill. He turned to a machine gunner, sitting patiently behind a big .50. Another Rebel squatted beside the heavy man-killer, ready to assist-feed the belt into the weapon.

“Adjust down a few degrees, son,” Ben told the machine gunner. “I want the fire from this weapon directed left and right of that old lightning-blazed tree. See it? Good.” Ben patted him on the shoulder. “You three with .60s—over here.” Ben pointed silently and those Rebels manning the lighter .60-caliber machine guns nodded and slipped into position.

“Let them think we're not aware of their plans,” Ben said. “Let them get clear of any cover before opening fire. When you do commence firing, I don't want any left alive. All right? Good. Hang in there, people.”

Ben walked across the wide tabletop of the hill, now cluttered with instruments of war and hastily dug bunkers, housing mortar teams and communications equipment. He studied the base of the hill and its westward lie of underbrush and stunted timber. The mortar teams were laying down a slow but steady fire. Those men who had attempted the push from the front were retreating, leaving behind them their dead and wounded.

Ben studied the land below through his binoculars, James Riverson standing patiently by his side, the big senior sergeant towering over Ben's own six-feet-plus height.

“There,” Ben muttered, catching a slight wave of tall grass, brittle-appearing now in late fall. He looked at Riverson. “You catch that, James?”

“Yes, sir. They're amateurs.”

“Direct the operation from this flank, will you, James?”

“Yes, sir.” Riverson began calling softly for machine gunners and mortar crews to readjust degrees.

The men below the ridges were not amateurs, but they were not much better, certainly not professionals. All the men and women with Ben were trained to the cutting edge. They were as professional a group of soldiers as any left anywhere in the nuclear and germ-torn world. And they were far superior to most. Every man and woman in the Rebels was cross-trained in at least three specialties. A machine gunner might be a qualified medic and a demolition expert. A medic might be a sniper and a tank driver. That type of training was a holdover from Ben's days in the U.S. Army's elite Hell Hounds, a spin-off of the Ranger/Special Forces units. The old Hell Hounds had been such an ultra-secret group that even among top ranking officers of the military, many did not know of their existence.

Ben and his people waited motionless, deliberately allowing the men on the ground below them to get into position. They waited until the flanking attack began, and still waited, waited until the men were clear of any near cover. Then the Rebels opened up with everything they had at their disposal.

The Rebels caught the troops of Tony Silver and the Ninth Order in the open. The screaming of the wounded and the dying on the slopes of the flanks filled the air as heavy machine gunfire literally sliced the foot soldiers to bloody rags and bare bone and steaming, ripped-open bellies. Mortars pounded the earth and grenade launchers lobbed their payloads into the smoky air.

The firefight lasted no more than two minutes. Two minutes that to those receiving the lead and shrapnel and feeling the pain seemed more like two years.

“Cease fire,” Ben spoke into his mic.

Just as the last echo was fading into memory, the radio operator called out. “General? I've got the fix on their radio frequency. You want to listen, sir?”

Ben held one headphone to his ear and listened, a smile playing across his lips.

“Pull back!” the voice shouted hysterically. “Goddamnit, pull back.”

“Give us some covering fire!”

“Shit! They ain't shootin' no more.”

“I don't give a fuck! I ain't moving ‘til I git some coverin' fire.”

“Goddamnit, they're creamin' us. They's too goddamn many of 'em and they got better firepower than us.”

A firm voice overrode the frenzied, frightened voice.

“Platoon leaders—report!”

“First platoon here. And I'm it! I got no more men left. Every fuckin' one of them is dead. I'm gettin' the hell outta here.”

“You men stand firm!” the hard voice of command ripped the order.

“Oh, yeah? Well,
fuck
you! And fuck Ben Raines, too. ”

“Yeah,” another man's voice took the air. “And fuck the horse he rode in on, too. I'm takin' my boys and gittin' the hell away from this death trap.”

“This is Tony Silver,” a calmer voice took over. “All my men fall back. We'll regroup over at a town called McCormick. Move out now and gather at the trucks.”

“Ten-four, Tony,” a man said. “We're pulling out now.”

“Stiver! You have your orders from Sister Voleta. If you disobey them, I'll—”

“Stick it up your ass, Wally,” Silver cut him off. “I'm not sayin' we run away. Just usin' common sense and orderin' a regroupin'. Think about it, man. Look at them dead bodies down there. Hell, they didn't even get
close
to Raines' position. The goddamn creek is runnin' red with blood. Everything is all fucked up at Base Camp; Willette's people blew it, man. Use your head. We got no mortars, no artillery. No way we'll ever get to Raines. He'll sit up there on that stinkin' hill and kill us all, one at a time. And you can bet on this, too: Anytime he wants to leave, him and them people with him can punch a hole in our lines bigger than a whore's cunt. OK. So we lost a battle. One battle, man. That don't mean we lost the whole war. Some famous dude said that, long time back. There is always another time, man. Think about it.”

Silence for several heartbeats. “All right, Tony. You're right. Sister Voleta will just have to accept the loss and draw up another plan. All troops around the hill withdraw and backtrack to McCormick. We'll regroup and map out plans there.”

“What about the wounded, Wally?” another voice was added to the confusion.

“You wanna go out there after them?” the challenge was laid down.

No one picked it up. The airwaves remained silent.

“That's what I thought,” Wally spoke.

The wounded lay beneath the guns of those on the hill. They lay screaming as life ebbed from them, staining the ground under their broken and torn bodies.

“Fuck Ben Raines,” someone finally spoke. “And fuck them people with him. Jesus. Them people fight like crazy folks.”

“Pull out,” Wally said.

Ben laid the earphones on top of the radio. He winked at the radio operator and she smiled at him. Ben said, “It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue.”

“That's pretty, General,” she replied, the admiration she felt for the man shining in her eyes. “Did you just make that up?”

Ben laughed. “No, dear. A man by the name of Douglas MacArthur said that, a long time ago.”

“Oh. What was he, sir, a poet or something?”

“How far are we from the South Carolina border?” Sam Hartline asked his driver.

“'Bout three hours, sir. We've really been pushing it.”

“We have made good time. OK. Let's take a break and get some rest. Our forward patrol reported the interstate out up the road a few miles. They're scouting an alternate route now. We'll angle up toward Clark Hill Lake when we get cranked up again. Our last frequency scan showed Raines and his people to be around the town of McCormick. I want us to hit them just at dawn. This time I'm going to wipe the pavement with Ben Raines' ass.”

The driver chuckled. “Won't Raines be surprised? Hell, he thinks we're still in California.”

“He won't be surprised long,” Hartline said. “Just long enough for me to shoot that bastard right between the eyes. McCormick. That's where you die, Raines.”

 

 

“Scouts out, now!” Ben ordered. “Just as soon as you see their bugout is real, let us know. We're pulling out right behind them. I've got a hunch about this place. I think we've overstayed our welcome.”

The Scouts slipped down the brush-covered sides of the ridge and vanished into the timber.

Ben took Captain Rayle and James Riverson aside. Opening a map, he said, “We're going to take this old road over to Highway 28, head north all the way up to Anderson, then on to where we pick up Highway 76. We'll follow that across the top of Georgia and swing down, come into the Base Camp from the north. No one will be expecting us from that direction. Instruct the radio personnel to use only short-range radios. I don't want
anyone
to be able to track our movement and pinpoint our location by radio frequency. I want to know exactly what has happened at Base Camp before we go blundering in there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Within the half hour, the Scouts reported the enemy's bugout was for real. The men of Tony Silver's army and the men of the Ninth Order had tucked their tails between their legs and ran like frightened rabbits.

Ben looked at the dead men on the ground below the ridge. “Take what equipment we can use and get all their ammo. Start tearing down here and loading the trucks and Jeeps. I want us on the road by two o'clock.”

He went to Gale's side. Throughout the battle, she had sat with and comforted the wounded in the center of the camp, in a shallow, hastily dug bunker.

Ben stood for a moment, watching her calmly change the bandage on a young man's arm. The Rebels had taken no casualties during this fight, but still had some seriously wounded from the previous firefights of this trip.

“How's it going, old girl?” Ben asked.

She lifted her eyes to his. “Old girl!” She shook her head. “Why I'm just fine, Ben. All my teenage years were spent longing to meet a man who would keep me constantly sitting in the middle of a war.”

Ben laughed at her.

She smiled at him and said, “Come on, Raines, tell the truth, now. You enjoyed every second of the battle, didn't you? Come on, admit il. You live for the thrill of combat, don't you?”

“Me, darling?” Ben rolled his eyes in protest. “Why ... I'm a peace-loving man, full of love for my fellow man.”

She made a disbelieving, choking sound. “What you are, Raines, is so full of bullshit I don't see how you can walk.”

He laughed and stepped down into the shallow bunker. Leaning down, he kissed her. The wounded in the bunker applauded them both. Gale blushed and Ben bowed courteously. All the Rebels loved to hear Gale and Ben have at each other, And most were amazed the relationship had lasted this long, for General Raines was not known for staying with one woman very long. Not since Salina.

“We'll be pulling out soon, Gale. I'll send some- one over to help you with the wounded.”

“We heading home?” she asked.

“In a roundabout way, yes.”

“But first you have to see if we can gel in another fight along the way, right?” she asked dryly.

Ben smiled. There was truth in what she said. “We'll gel back to Base Camp in one piece,” he assured her. “Sure you won't change your mind and come with me when l go traveling?”

“Not on your life. Buster. I want to have my babies in Chase's clinic.”

“
Our
babies,” Ben corrected.

“I can see it all now,” Gale said. “Years from now, telling the twins about where their father was while they were being born. 'Oh, he was out toodling about the country, starting wars and rescuing people and probably chasing after every woman he could find. For he has it in his head to single-handedly repopulate the earth.' ”

The wounded Rebels cheered and applauded.

“Darling,” Ben said, “you know I'll be true blue to you while I'm gone.”

Gale fumbled in her duffle bag and pulled out a roll of toilet paper, handing it to Ben. “Like l said, Raines: full of it.”

When the engine in the old GMC pickup coughed and sputtered and finally roared into life, Nina clapped her hands and squealed in delight. She had never learned to drive. The one time she tried, she drove slap into a huge oak tree and cut a gash in her forehead. After that, she either walked or rode horses. Hell with cars and trucks.

But this time was different: Ike could drive.

The GMC had been found inside a locked garage behind a barn. The owner had put the GMC short wheelbase pickup on blocks, and then removed the rubber. Using a hand pump, Ike inflated the tires and lugged them down tight.

A battery had been located, still in its factory box, and acid was added to the cells. The transmission was stiff from lack of use. Ike changed the fluid, changed the oil, checked the brakes, and he and Nina were on their way.

They found an old gas station just down the road, and using a long hose, Ike hand-pumped gasoline into containers, storing those in the rear, then he filled the tank.

Mice had found their way inside the cab of the GMC, and the seat was badly chewed, with several springs sticking out. Nina covered the seat with a comforter from a house.

“How far is it to your place, Ike?” Nina asked.

“Pretty good jump, kid. And we're not going to be able to push this old baby too hard.” He patted the fender of the GMC. “We got some pretty rugged country to travel over.” He unfolded an old road map and laid it on the hood, tracing their proposed route with a blunt finger. “We'll take this road to Dahlonega, and then cut due west. We'll be home this time tomorrow, I'm betting.”

“Providin' we don't run into more trouble, that is,” she cautioned him.

“Yeah,” Ike agreed. “There is that to consider.” He smiled and patted her shapely butt. “You ready, kid?”

“That depends on what you got in mind.”

Ike laughed. “Travel, baby. Get in the truck.”

“I'm so disappointed.”

“Well ...” Ike hesitated.

“We got time,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky. “I reckon we do, at that.”

 

 

Ben and his Rebels pulled onto Highway 28 just as the sky darkened ominously and the black clouds began dumping silver sheets of rain on the small convoy. The young Rebel Ben had spoken to earlier about rain glanced at his wrist watch. It was two o'clock.

He told the Rebel sitting next to him about the general's statement concerning forest fires and when it would rain.

His companion, a Rebel buck sergeant who had been part of Raines' Rebels for years, merely shrugged. “The general knows things we don't know and never will. I learned a long time back not to wonder about it too much. Just accept it.”

“I guess that's the thing to do.”

The rain made Gale nervous. The heavy downpouring on the roof of the pickup sounded like bullets. “This is not just a rain, Ben. This is a damned storm.”

“Yeah. Next month it'll be sleet and freezing rain. We've got a lot of work to do back at Base Camp before hard winter locks us in, and not much time to get it done. I've noticed that since the bombings, back in '88, the winters all over the country are getting more severe each year, and the summers more savage.”

“My friends at the university, scientists, said the bombings changed many of the weather patterns. I remember them saying that countries that had never experienced snow and ice before were now having hard winters.”

“That's true, so I hear. I suspect future generations will have a great deal more to contend with, weatherwise.”

She picked up a sour note in his tone. She had heard it before. “You really don't hold much promise for the future, do you, Ben?”

Ben waited until a particularly hard drumming of rain on the cab of the truck abated before replying. “Not unless what is left of the population does a drastic turnaround, Gale. Oh,
we'll
make it all right. The Rebels, I mean. I suspect this recent coup attempt will be the first and the last among our ranks. We'll just be much more selective from now on as to whom we allow to join us. And
we'll
set up shops and small factories and businesses and schools, give our people some degree of formal education. And I suspect there are other
older
people around the world doing much the same—right this moment. But
older
is the key word, Gale. As we—you and I, and others within our age spectrum—grow older and die, the burning desire for knowledge, book knowledge, will fade and die with us. Not all at once, certainly, but more like a gradual diminishing.

“Now, that does not mean civilization is going to abruptly roll over and die. What it does mean is that most will return to the land, a nation of small farmers and craftsmen.” He smiled. “Excuse me, crafts
persons.”

“Very funny, Raines. Ha-ha. Please continue. Try to keep me awake.”

“I'll do my best, dear. It has been a rather boring day, thus far, right?”

“Raines ...”

“OK. OK. I can foretell it with as much accuracy as Nostradamus—unless this nation picks itself up and turns it around, and does it quickly. After we're gone, the younger ones will keep the old cars and trucks running until they fall apart. But in a hundred years, Gale, few will possess the knowledge to
builda
car or truck. Airplanes will be something for people to sit and look at, wondering what in the hell they can do with them. I don't want to lecture, Gale, for you know what I'm driving toward.”

“Education,” she said quietly.

“That's right. And Gale, we now have in this country, one
entire
generation—those who were, say, eight to ten when the bombs fell—who can't read or write. It scares me, Gale. It really frightens me.

“Look at the area we've traveled through these past months, Gale. Look at what is occurring in this nation. Only very small pockets of men and women—for the most part,
older
men and women—are attempting to set up schools and organization and have some semblance of law and order and rules of conduct. The thugs and punks and assorted criminals that seem to crawl out of the gutters in times like these are at their glory. And it's going to get much worse as time marches on. Tony Silver, for example, is nothing more than a modern-day warlord. Sister Voleta/Betty Blackman is, well, nuts, I think.”

Gale went on the defensive. “But the young can't be blamed for their attitudes, Ben. They've had no examples to look up to.”

Ben surprised her by agreeing. “That's right, Gale.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Drop the other shoe, Raines.”

Ben grinned. “One cannot blame the young for their lack of judgment because they never knew, really, any type of civilized society. And those now in their late twenties and early thirties, like you, Gale,” he said blandly, “knew only a very permissive, liberal type of government as teenagers, before the bombings. Blaming them is just as pointless. Blame the mothers and the fathers and lawmakers and judges and record producers and TV programmers, beginning in the mid-sixties and continuing right up to the bombings for the lack of understanding of discipline and work ethics and moral codes and rules of order—if one just has to point a finger of blame. Idid enough of that back in the late seventies and all through the eighties, as a writer. A lot of us did. Those of us with any foresight at all. The majority chose not to listen. Fine. Now I can sit back and take a grim satisfaction in the outcome of it all.”

Gale did not vocally counter-punch with Ben on that, for in her time with the man, she had learned Ben was almost totally unyielding in his philosophy as to what had contributed to the breakdown of the United States of America. As a teenager in St. Louis, after the war of '88, Gale was one of those who had taken part in human rights marches against Ben Raines and the nation he and his Rebels had carved out west: the Tri-States.
⁹

Ben's philosophy was that there had been too much government intervention into the operation of privately owned businesses, too much interference in the personal lives of citizens from big government, too many lawyers and too many judges and too many lawsuits. Ben felt that when there was a United States of America, it was probably the most sue-happy nation on the face of the earth.

“Don't forget a common sense return to government,” Ben broke into her thoughts. “Something Americans refused to demand from their lawmakers and assorted great nannies in Washington.”

“Raines, I wish you would stop getting into my head like that. All right. What are you going to bitch about now? You going to jump all over the ACLU again?”

“Nope,” Ben said, surprising her again. “I am certain that group did a lot of good work defending the poor and indigent and the elderly. And a lot more. But most of their good work never reached the ears of the majority. All we heard about was their screaming about those poor misunderstood folks being put to death for brutally murdering an entire family, or for raping, torturing and killing some five-year-old girl. We heard they defended those slobbering punks, trying to get them off with every cheap legal trick they could think of. I think the ACLU must have had a lousy PR department.”

Gale bristled, as Ben knew she would. That was why he'd said it.

“You consider human life very cheaply, don't you, Ben?”

“Cheap human life, yes. But I've put my ass on the line far more times than I can remember for decent, law-abiding folks, Gale.”

“Stop twisting my words, Ben Raines. You know what I mean. Maybe that group of lawyers you're so down on simply placed a great deal more value on human life than you?”

“But on
whose
human life is what always baffled me, Gale,” Ben countered. “The victim's or the criminal's?”

She opened her mouth to retort and caught Ben's smile. She knew he was deliberately goading her, for he loved to make her angry.

“Way to go, Raines. You did it again. How come you like to get me all upset, huh?” She stuck out her chin defiantly.

“Back in the ‘good ol' days,' dear, one of my greatest delights was in putting the so-called needle to liberals.”

“You would. Well, you're not going to get another rise out of me. I just won't play your game anymore.” She turned her face and gazed out the window at the stormy afternoon.

“OK,” Ben said lightly. “Isn't this a pleasant day for a drive in the country?”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “All right, Buster—I know you're up to something. So give.”

Ben's face was a picture of innocence. “Darling, I'm not up to anything. I'm just adhering to your recent request.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you are. When pigs fly, baby.”

“Well, since you insist, I was thinking about an old buddy of mine who lived in New York City. We were in the service together.” He stopped speaking and looked straight ahead, concentrating on the rainswept old highway, twisting the wheel to avoid the debris that littered the highway.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?”

“Your
buddy
! What the hell else?”

“Oh. Well . . . what is it you want to know about him?”

“Raines, you are the most exasperating man I have ever known.” She shook a small fist under his chin. “How'd you like to have a fat lip?”

“I thought you didn't believe in violence?”

“You . . . you . . .” she sputtered.

“All right, all right. Mike was coming home from work one evening and a couple of New York City's more baser types tried to mug him. He quite literally beat the shit out of both of them. Broke the neck of one. Almost tore the arm off the other. He did break it in about six places. Mike must have really been pissed off. The punks went to that . . . ah, particular organization of lawyers we were speaking of a few miles back—that one you no longer wish to discuss—and with their help, the bastards sued my buddy. The
criminals
sued the
victim
for damages. Did you hear me, Gale?”

“Yes, Raines!”

“I just wanted to be sure. Anyway, since mugging obviously isn't, or wasn't, a particularly odious offense in the Big Apple, and the punks knew their chances of going to prison for what they'd done was slim to none, they admitted what they'd done, sued my buddy—and won. Now, would you care to ask me why I don‘t—or didn't—particularly care for that organization? And for asshole judges with shit for brains; let us not forget those pricks.”

“Raines, I realize any further debate with you on this subject is pointless, since you have a head as hard as a billy goat, but have you ever even vaguely considered the thought about the punishment fitting the crime?”

“I believe that is the longest question I ever heard in my life. But in reply: no. Not since I grew up and realized it was a pile of garbage.”

Gale almost choked on the apple she was munching on. “A pile of garbage! Ben, that is the most insensitive thing I have ever heard you say.”

“Why?” Ben asked, a puzzled look on his tanned face. As usual, a liberal question or statement confused him, had all his life. “The one thing the government never did try in their so-called war on crime is to completely eradicate it. To me, it's very simple: If a country has no criminals, that country will have no crime. I proved that in Tri-States. It isn't a theory, Gale. It worked.”

She shook her head and stubbornly held on. “That philosophy would never work in a nation as large as the United States.”

“That's what I advocated some years back. Now I'm not so certain. It's a moot point, anyway.” He fell silent, lost in his thoughts.