Blood in the Ashes (25 page)

Sister Voleta knew she should pull what remained of her forces out. Just get out and regroup and then, when she had rebuilt to full strength, when she had once again inflamed her people with her twisted interpretation of the gospel, then attack Ben Raines and wipe the bastard from the face of the earth.

But her hatred for Ben Raines was so intense, so mottled and hairy and scaly from years of smoldering within her, she could not do that. Never. She was prepared to risk all in one final attempt to see Ben Raines dead.

She thought of her son and wondered if he was still alive. She felt certain he was—somewhere. She hoped he was well and happy. He had been such a beautiful child. So full of life. She pushed those thoughts from her. It was unhealthy to dwell too much in and on the past.

She thought of the warlords around her area, and of her pleas for them to join forces with her. It had been a good plan, but they were so shortsighted, men of such little minds, they had, to a person, rejected her plans.

Fools!

And then she allowed her hatred of Ben Raines to wash over her in waves of furious and dark acrimony. She allowed this even though she knew in her heart the man was not really to blame. Even though the boy had looked something like Raines. Still she wondered about it.

Calming herself with a visible effort, Sister Voleta began to think in a more rational manner. All that day she had attempted to make contact with Tony Silver. No reply from his base down south. She wondered if he was dead, or had turned traitorous?

Probably the latter.

She walked out of her house and motioned for her commanders to come to her. They had been squatting in the street in front of her home, smoking and talking in low tones.

She faced the men. “You are certain—all of you—that Ben Raines has only a hundred or so troops with him at Lake Chatuge?”

“Positive, Sister. And our scouts report there has been no unusual movement from the camp of the Rebels down in Georgia.”

Ben's Rebels had all moved out the night before, silently, rolling without lights on their vehicles. Juan and Mark were almost in position, as were Colonel Gray's people. Cecil was personally leading the assault from the west.

Sister Voleta gave the order she was certain would bring victory to her and ensure the death of the man she hated and blamed for all her misfortune. She was certain that Ben Raines had somehow managed to kill her chances of becoming a singing star. Although she wasn't real certain how he could have managed that.

“Move our people out,” she ordered. “Death to Ben Raines.”

“We intercepted these messages, Joni,” George said, looking at a notepad. “Somebody named Sam Hartline is moving this way, with a lot of armed men. Who in the hell is Sam Hartline?”

Joni felt a chill crawl up and down her spine. She once had a friend who had been taken by Sam Hartline. Back when the United States was struggling to pull itself out of the horrors of germ and nuclear warfare. Back when VP Lowry was running the country. She had seen what Hartline had done to her friend. Hartline and his men had broken the man. They had sexually abused him and tortured him and broken not only his body but his mind.

Joni shook off the hideous memories. “You must have been captured just as Hartline came to power,” she said. “He's a mercenary. He was one of Al Cody and VP Lowry's bully-boys. He's worse than Tony Silver ever thought about being. If Hartline is heading this way, that probably means he's linked up with Tony Silver. We've got to get our people together and move out. We've got to get over to Perry and assist those slaves in the fighting. Let's move, George. We don't have much time.”

Some of the slaves were still wearing the remnants of leg irons when George began shouting out the orders to work faster. The banging of hammers intensified, and finally the last ankle-shackle was broken free. Every man and woman there wore the scars of the leg irons.

The former slaves of Tony Silver left the bodies of the captors and guards where they had fallen in the battle for freedom. Left them to stiffen and stink and bloat under the Florida sun.

The work camp and plantation house and guards' quarters had been thoroughly searched for more weapons and ammunition. The trucks and cars and vans were gassed up and containers filled with fuel for their journey. Food and water were stored in the vehicles. Now they were ready to move out.

When the last vehicle had rattled over the cattle guards at Tony Silver's old HQ, the small convoy of armed ex-slaves heading for another slave plantation just outside of what used to be known as Perry, Florida, they were only three hours ahead of Sam Hartline and his mercenaries. Sixty-odd men and women, armed with a mishmash of weapons, against the hundreds of trained, combat-seasoned, and well-armed troops of Hartline.

But the slaves possessed something not even Sam Hartline had ever known: a burning desire for freedom and an equally fierce inner flame for revenge and justice. And that is an awesome combination for any army to fight.

The vultures had been slowly circling, high in the blue skies of Florida, watching and smelling the food that lay sprawled on the ground. Now, as the men and women pulled out, the carrion birds began their slow drift downward, their huge wing span carrying them ever closer to food.

On the ground, the grotesque birds began feasting, their sharp, fierce beaks ripping and tearing at dead human flesh. They worked at the small of the back first, tearing at the choicest and tastiest food: the kidneys.

The carrion-eaters feasted throughout the day, until they were so bloated with dead meat they could not fly. They waddled off and allowed the wild dogs and wolves and coyotes to snarl and tear at what remained.

Then the dusty grounds became as silent as the scattered skeletons that lay in the torn dirt, small bits of red meat still hanging from bones that would soon be picked clean.

The morning of the day that would forever wipe from the face of the earth the troops of the perverted rule of the Nine Order dawned misty and cold in the mountains. Fall was ebbing in its season in this section of the battered and war-torn earth, the chilly winds of winter blowing close on the waning season's heels. Breath became white steam in the pre-dawn hours.

Ike and his hand-picked teams had pulled out in the early hours of the morning. By now, they would be moving silently and deadly, deep inside the territory of the Ninth Order, killing quietly and swiftly as they went.

Ike had kissed Nina's sleeping lips, and with the image of Sally and the kids, broken and torn by gunfire, etched in his brain, the ex-SEAL had dressed silently and linked up with his waiting teams.

Ike had noticed Ben standing tall and silent in the gloom of pre-dawn. Ben had walked over to his longtime friend.

“What happened to Sally was not your fault,” Ben had spoken softly, so only Ike could hear. “You do not have to go off on what might be a suicide mission simply because you met and made love to another woman—while the both of you were running for your lives. You know that, Ike.”

“That's not it, Ben. It really isn't. Me and Sally had already made up our minds to split the blanket. It's . . . hell, I don't know. It's the
way
Sally and the kids bought it that I can't seem to shake. I talked with Lieutenant Bolden last night. I practically had to drag the story out of him, but I got it all. Damnit, Ben. Killing unarmed women and kids is just too much for me to take.”

“And there is this: Nina told me about meeting warlords wherever she traveled.
Warlords,
Ben. The country is spinning backward fifty years with every passing month. This has to be reversed, somehow, or we're going to be in ever-deepening trouble. Willette and Hartline and Silver and this fruitcake Voleta . . . hell, they're all one and the same. Put 'em in a big sack and shake 'em up and you couldn't tell 'em apart.” Ike caught his breath and his temper and gripped Ben's arm. “I gotta go, buddy. Luck to you.”

“The same to you, Ike. Let's put an end to the terror in these mountains today, friend.”

“I heard that, buddy.” Ike turned and walked toward his waiting teams. They vanished silently into the deep timber.

Now, as the first silver fingers of light fought to open against the misty horizon, painting the east a deep gray, Ben stood alone in the center of the encampment, listening. The sergeants had rolled their people out an hour before. The men and women of Raines' Rebels had awakened and become active with the same noises troops had made for thousands of years. Coughing, clearing their throats, hacking and spitting, grumbling and bitching. Caesar's Legions probably sounded much the same as they rolled out of their blankets and reached for swords and shields and spears.

Ben looked around him. No light betrayed their position. “I want a cold camp,” he had ordered. “No lights.”

Two full combat companies had quietly joined Ben's ranks as his people had moved into position just south of Murphy, North Carolina the afternoon past. Two more full combat companies were waiting at Murphy for the general. It brought his strength up to a short battalion.

Cecil and his command were spread out north to south, from Ducktown in North Carolina, to just west of Higdon in Georgia. Mark and Juan had their people covering north to southeast along Highway 11, from the junction of 19 and 129, down to Blairsville in Georgia. The remainder of the Rebels, under the command of a Major Woodward, which included Abe Lancer and his people and the older of Wade and Ro's young people, were covering the area running west to east in Georgia, from Higdon all the way over to Blairsville.

Colonel Gray and his Scouts, and Colonel McGowen and his teams would engage the enemy in a guerrilla type action, while acting as spearheaders for the main forces, moving in from three directions, slowly pushing the troops of the Ninth Order toward Juan and Mark, who by now had their troops dug in deep and heavily fortified with .50-caliber machine guns, M-60s and mortars.

The Ninth Order, without realizing, had stepped into a box, and the doors were closing around them.

Ben's troops were mounted, in full battle gear, ready to roll, when Ben's radio crackled. Cecil's voice was firm and strong. “We have the enemy in sight and are engaging them.”

“Luck to you,” Ben said.

Ben's radio crackled again. “Have found the enemy and driving them northward,” Major Woodward reported.

“Good luck,” Ben said.

“In position and dug in,” Juan's radio operator said. “Waiting for the enemy to show.”

“Good luck,” Ben told him. “Move out,” he told his troops.

 

 

Cecil's troops slammed through the line of Ninth Order defenders. They took no prisoners. His troops, with Cecil leading them, moved through Higdon, Copper Hill, and McCaysville simultaneously: one long, hard, coordinated, violent punch. They struck the enemy and hit them totally without mercy.

After the Ninth Order had fled eastward in panic, and Cecil's troops rolled in with APCs and light battle tanks and Jeeps and trucks filled with troops, many civilians slowly came out of their homes, relief and welcome in their eyes.

“Are you people the army of the United States?” a woman asked. “God, I hope so. Who is president? Will there be help in here soon?”

“There is no government of the United States,” Cecil said. “It collapsed two years ago and has never been reformed. I'm doubtful it ever will. We are from the army of Ben Raines. I'm Colonel Cecil Jefferys.”

“That's even better, Colonel,” a man said. “At least Ben Raines had more than his share of common sense in running a nation. I'll be more than happy to follow his rule. Those people from the Ninth Order been holding us virtual slaves in here for near'bouts two years. Them and their damned off-the-wall religion. If that's what you want to call that mess.”

“Which way did the bulk of the Ninth Order troops go?” Cecil asked.

“They split up. 'Bout half of them went thataway, to the east. The other half went thataway.” He pointed north. “Toward the gap and the Fields of the Woods.”

“Which group was Sister Voleta with?”

“The one headin' due north. Toward the Fields of the Woods.”

Cecil's smile was grim. “Straight into Ben.” He turned around, held his arm straight up, and began pumping it up and down. He ended in a pointing motion, due east.

The column lunged forward.

“Luck to you boys!” a man shouted. He took a closer look at the Rebel troops. “And, uh, you girls, too.”

 

 

About three hundred men and women of the Ninth Order decided to cross Highway II at a small, deserted town just north of Lake Nottely. They made it as far as the old city limits sign. There they died in the single street leading into the town. They were not expecting an ambush; indeed, their scanty intelligence reported no Rebels from Ben Raines' army this far east.

About eighty of their members made it out alive and set up positions just west and north of Ivy Log. They dug in and sent word they were prepared to fight to the death.

“How noble of them,” Juan's brother, Alvaro said. “I see no point in losing anymore troops to this nonsense, Juan.”

Juan and Mark looked at the tough little ex-street fighter from Tucson turned Rebel.

“Yes,” Alvaro said. “You see, the troops of the Ninth Order have further placed themselves in a most unenviable position. They are—” he smiled—“dug in in deep timber. In approximately one hundred acres of timber. The wind is quite brisk today, blowing from south to north. Why not just set it on fire and let nature take care of the rest?”

Mark smiled, teeth flashing very white against his dark face. “You have a cruel streak in you, my friend.”

Alvaro shrugged and smiled. “No doubt my Aztec heritage coming to the front.”

“We don't want a raging forest fire on our hands,” his brother cautioned. “It could burn unchecked for weeks.”

“Of course not, hermano,” Alvaro replied indignantly. “I plan to set backfires to contain the main blaze. I have nothing against nature. Only the troops of the Ninth Order.”

“A splendid idea, Alvaro,” Mark said. “Why don't we do just that?”

Raines' Rebels shot the troops from the Ninth Order as they ran screaming from the man-made inferno. General Raines had said no prisoners, and that was the order of the day.

When the killing was over, and the fires had been contained, Juan turned to Mark.

“I cannot understand why we have to fight. Why can't we all just live in peace? What is it within the beast called man that prevents that?”

“When that question is solved, my friend,” Mark replied, “we will be entering the gates of heaven.”

 

 

“Here they come,” Colonel Gray said, removing his headset. “It's Captain Willette and his bunch.”

Ike and his teams had linked up with Dan Gray and a small contingent of Scouts at the ruined and deserted town of Mineral Bluff. Tina Raines was among Gray's Scouts.

Gray said, “They're about three miles outside of town, traveling south on Highway 245. A full company of the bastards.”

“Haulin' their asses, huh?” Ike said with the contempt of the professional soldier. Or, as in his case, the professional sailor.

“That would appear to be the case,” the Englishman replied calmly. “And heading south intrigues me. Preparing to link up with Silver, perhaps?”

“We're gonna have to deal with that scumbag someday,” Ike said.

“Quite,” Dan said.

Ike turned to a young Rebel. “I want Captain Willette alive, son. Pass the word down the line.”

“Yes, sir,” the Rebel replied, lifting his walkie-talkie. He spoke softly, then looked at Ike. “Done, sir.”

Gray clicked his weapon off safety and onto full auto. He glanced at Ike. “What do you propose doing with Willette, Ike?”

Ike's eyes were cold. “I propose to hang the son of a bitch—slowly,”

“Rather a nasty business, what?” Gray said with a slight smile.

“Quite,” Ike mimicked the Englishman.

“Closing,” the radio operator said. “Be in the center of town in a minute and a half.”

The Rebels waited motionlessly. They were concealed in old buildings, on the rooftops, behind junked and ruined cars and trucks, behind packing crates and in alleys. They softly clicked weapons off safety and onto full auto. The Rebels would be outnumbered three or four to one, but that was something they were accustomed to; it had helped sharpen their fighting skills. They waited.

The lead Jeep in Willeue's convoy swung onto the street. A man sat in the back seat, an M-60 machine gun at the ready. They were too confident, and that had led them into carelessness.

Ike figured Willette would be in the center of the column, for safety's sake, and he had figured correctly. The Rebels let the column stretch out before they opened fire at the front and rear of the column.

Willette's people never had a chance. They were more bully-boys than professional soldiers; only a few among their ranks had ever served in any hard military unit. And that worked against them. They did manage to trigger off a few wild rounds, which hit nobody. But the ambush was so expertly done, it lasted only a few moments.

“Cease firing!” Gray yelled.

Several Jeeps and trucks were burning at the rear of the column. One gas tank exploded, and that triggered a chain reaction among the last few vehicles in the convoy. The gas tanks blew, sending smoke spiraling into the sky. Debris rained down on the street, adding its crashing noise to the moaning and screaming of the wounded and dying. Willette stumbled out of a car, his hands raised over his head.

“Don't shoot!” he yelled, panic in his voice. “I surrender. I demand treatment as a prisoner of war.”

Ike walked toward him, a coil of rope in one hand. “Oh, you'll get proper treatment, all right, Willette,” he snarled at the frightened man. “The same goddamn treatment you gave those unarmed men and women and kids back at home base. You do remember all that, don't you?”

Willette threw up on himself at the sight of the rope in Ike's hand. A dark stain appeared at the man's crotch. “I was under orders!” he screamed. “I had my orders the same as any other soldier. Just like any soldier, I obeyed them.”

“Shit!” a woman Rebel said, contempt in her voice. She spat at Willette's feet.

Willette glared at her. “You slimy fuckin' cunt,” he said.

“You wanna swing, Willette?” she said with a grin.

Willette wiped puke from his mouth and cursed the woman.

She laughed at him.

Ike approached Willette. He stopped two steps from him and swung the heavy rope, hitting the man in the face. Willette's feet flew out from under him and he landed on his butt. His teeth clicked together and blood spurted from a bitten tongue. The rope had opened a gash on his cheek and bloodied his nose. Ike hooked the noose of the rope around Willette's dirty neck and dragged him down the street to a windowless store front. Willette was screaming and cursing. Each time he would get to his feet, Ike would jerk the rope and Willette would slam to the street to be dragged another few yards, howling and protesting.

Ike stepped up and inside, looping one end of the rope over a support beam. He hauled Willette up, until the man's boots were a full twelve inches off the littered floor. Ike secured the loose end of the rope and stepped out of the store, leaving Willette gagging and choking and slowly spinning and jerking. Ike did not turn around as he walked off. The act of hanging Willette would not bring Sally or the kids back to life, but it would ensure that Willette never committed another similar atrocity.