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  SLAUGHTER IN THE ASHES

  The Ashes Series: Book #23

  William W. Johnstone

  I don’t like you, Sabidius, I can’t say why; But I can say

  this: I don’t like you, Sabidius.

  -Martial

  PROLOGUE

  In the waning days of the last four years of the administration of the most liberal president in the history of the union, the once greatest nation in the world collapsed. The United States could have shrugged off and emerged stronger after the limited nuclear and germ warfare that very briefly engulfed Planet Earth; could have, but didn’t.

  America just fell apart. As the clouds of smoke began drifting away, a large percentage of its citizens looked around them and cried, “But where is the government? Why doesn’t the government send people in to help us? We need food. We need clothing. Above all, we need someone to tell us what to do. We just don’t know what to do. Big Brother promised to care of us. What are we going to do now?”

  Around the battered nation that was once called America, certain men and women who had refused to bow down and kiss the socialistic ass of the liberal Democrats in Congress viewed it all with dark humor.

  These men and women didn’t fall down in a hanky-stomping snit after the collapse. They just dug up the guns they’d been forced to bury—rather than turn them in—during the frenzied gun grab. For a dozen years, these much maligned groups of men and women had been forced to endure the barbs and blather of half-truths and sometimes outright lies from the liberal-controlled press, left-wing extremists in elected and appointed positions of government power, and hanky-waving, blubbering, snot-slinging stiffs who wouldn’t recognize reality, or know how to cope with it if it reared up and bit them on the ass. (One must remember that these are the people who believed that if you left the keys in your car and a thief stole it, it wasn’t the fault of the thief, it was your fault for leaving the keys in the ignition). No one with a modicum of common sense could ever find any logic in that statement.

  Left-wing extremists openly belittled and ridiculed those who practiced the art of surviving in any type of emergency. The government sent infiltrators in to spy on the survivalists and the militias that sprang up during the final years before the collapse. Many in the news media were openly scornful of those who quietly stockpiled weapons and ammunition and food and water and emergency gear, calling them conspiracy freaks.

  “Gun nuts!” others ridiculed.

  “Right-wing kooks!” still others jeered at them.

  But when the end came, those who had taken the time to prepare and had endured the hostility of the biased press, the spying and snooping from government agents, and the derision of often well-intentioned but badly misinformed liberal groups, fared the best. They were able to fend off the rampaging hordes of punks and thugs and human vermin that always seem to lurk on the fringes of society, waiting for some type of disaster to befall the law-abiding public before they slither in to rape and assault and loot.

  One of those who believed in speaking his mind (most of the time very bluntly) and being prepared as much as possible was a man called Ben Raines.

  For years, Ben Raines had spoken out against the growing socialistic movement of big government in America. And, as so many thousands of other heretofore law-abiding Americans had done when Congress finally pushed through the infamous gun-grab bill, Ben hid his few guns rather than turn them in.

  But in the end, the disarming of American citizens came to naught, for anarchy became the king of America. And as has been predicted by many, when the United States falls, so goes the world. Within days, there was not one single stable government anywhere on earth.

  After months of roaming around the battered nation, and seeing no real effort being made toward rebuilding, Ben and a few others linked up and started talking about a dream they shared: the formation of a government that would be based truly by the people and for the people.

  The Tri-States philosophy of government was born, and since it was based on a commonsense form of rule and law, the liberals could not understand it. When it comes to common sense, defined simply as sound practical judgment, liberals as a rule, are left out in the hinterlands, wondering what in the hell is going on.

  A commonsense form of government, with its laws and rules, is really quite simple to understand: it means that each citizen is responsible for his or her own actions, deeds, and destiny.

  Liberals will usually respond to that with an expression of utter confusion and by saying, “Huh?”

  Attempting to explain common sense to a liberal is much like trying to teach a pig to fly. It is a waste of time for all concerned and is quite annoying to the pig.

  Liberals believe that big government should be involved in every aspect of a citizen’s life. Tri-Staters believe that the primary responsibility of government is to protect our shores, make sure trains and planes and buses leave and arrive on time, and deliver the mail. That is, of course, an over-simplification, but not by much. Tri-Staters must be a special breed of person. They must respect the rights of others, regardless of race, religion, or creed. They must accept full responsibility for their own actions and deeds and by doing so understand that honor and truth must play a large part in day-to-day living. Con artists, slick-talking flim-flam operators, and people who misrepresent the truth in any type of business dealing don’t last long in any Tri-State society. Bullies and people with abrasive and argumentative personalities quickly learn to back off and temper their emotions. In any community embracing the Tri-States philosophy, citizens have the right to protect their lives, the lives of their loved ones, and their personal property without fear of arrest, prosecution, and/or civil lawsuit.

  Right and wrong and morality is taught in public schools, and if parents don’t like that, they can take their children and leave. And don’t come back. Right and wrong is not up for debate.

  Living in any Tri-States society is not a right, it is a privilege. And for many people it proves to be not just difficult, but impossible. Ben Raines correctly calculated that only three out of every ten people could live in such an open society. It took a special person to live where they controlled their own destiny.

  Nearly everything in the Tri-States is low-key. High-pressure salespeople and boiler-room operators quickly learn that the Tri-States is not for them. In the Tri-States, no means no, not maybe.

  Eventually, the United States government outside the Tri-States staggered to its feet and began whipping its citizens into line. Then it threw all its might against the Tri-States and those who had chosen to live as free people.

  After days of fierce fighting, the Tri-States was overwhelmed and the government of the United States (once again in the pretty little hands of left-wing liberals) declared victory against Ben Raines and his followers.

  That declaration was a tad premature, for while the president was patting himself on the back and proclaiming victory, Ben Raines was busy putting together a guerrilla army. Within weeks he declared war on the government of the United States.

  It did not take long for those in power to offer the olive branch of peace to Ben and his Rebels. For a full-scale, all-out guerrilla war had never really been fought on American soil . . . at least not in anyone’s memory, and certainly not against forces who fought as savagely as Ben Raines’s Rebels.

  After a handshake and a promise of cooperation between the two nations within a nation, and as the Tri-States was rebuilding and hopefully settling down into a peaceful period, the government of the United States once more collapsed and the world again followed suit.

  Brush wars spread like wildfire and governments that were attempting to stabilize disintegrated into bloody civil war. The Unite
d States was no different.

  That collapse could have been expected, especially in what had once been called the United States. For in what had once been called the United States, millions of people had been conditioned to expect the government to do everything for them: house them, clothe them, feed them, provide them with free medical care, and give them money for doing nothing except laying up on their lazy asses.

  These types joined with other malcontents and went on a rioting, looting, burning, killing rampage.

  When the smoke cleared, punks and other more or less human street shit controlled the cities, self-proclaimed warlords and their gangs of worthless human vermin prowled the countryside, preying on the innocent, and only one man and his small army stood between order and anarchy: Ben Raines and the Rebels.

  ONE

  How many times are we going to have to do this? Ben questioned silently. How many times must we fight others’ battles for them? When do I call a halt to it?

  His eyes were on the passing landscape but his mind was pondering many issues as the long convoy began their pull-out of West Virginia. For the most part, the state was clear of large bands of thugs and outlaws. Ben knew a few small bands remained, as they did in every state the Rebels had cleared outside of the SUSA—the Southern United States of America. But in the SUSA, any band of thugs remaining there would not last long, for Raines’s Rebels and Rebel supporters had a very short tolerance for lawbreakers of any kind.

  After the Rebels had pulled out of Europe, returning to North America to once more clean it out of thugs, punks, warlords, outlaws, creepies, and other bits of more or less human crap, Ben had found the nation cut in half. Simon Border, a self-proclaimed religious leader and his Army of the Democratic Front, with the help of several left-wing senators and representatives representing the New Left Party, had staged a coup against President Blanton, and the result was the nation was once more leaderless and in chaos. When Ben and the Rebels returned from Europe, Simon and his people beat it across the Mississippi River. Simon now claimed much of the Western United States: 16 states, with the exception of Texas, which was a part of the SUSA. The new capital of the United States, Charleston, West Virginia, has been destroyed by looters and other lowlifes, and was nothing but a shambles. Simon Border, whose face bore a striking resemblance to a cottonmouth snake, wanted to be king of America.

  On the eastern side of the Mississippi, America would, again, have to be rebuilt from the ground up, once the Rebels cleaned out the nests of outlaws. And it was solely up to the Rebels to do it. Again.

  Ben began by clearing out the SUSA and starting his factories running 24 hours, seven days a week, pumping out medicines, munitions and field rations and all other necessities needed for a protracted war.

  After his Rebels once more reclaimed their old Base Camp One, Ben got in touch with President Homer Blanton—who was now out of a job—and offered him the position of Secretary of State of the SUSA, a position that Blanton quickly accepted. Then, after the Rebels began their push to once more clean out America, Senator Paul Altman, at Ben’s urgings, was sworn in as President of the NUSA—the Northern United States of America. Many of the states that would make up the NUSA had yet to be cleared. With a smile, Ben assured Altman that they would be cleaned up . . . be patient.

  “Do I have a choice?” Altman asked.

  “Not really,” Ben replied. “Where would you like your new capital to be?”

  Altman sighed. Ben Raines moved very quickly. “As a matter of fact, I’ve given that some thought. How about Indianapolis?”

  “Fine with me. Consider it done.”

  Ben did not believe in wasting time.

  As often as it takes, I suppose. Ben answered his own question, as he pulled his eyes from the passing landscape and brought his mind back to the present.

  “Word must have spread fast,” Jersey spoke from the second seat of the big wagon. “I can’t believe all the punks have left the state.”

  Word had indeed spread fast about the Rebels. They had encountered no resistance as the long convoy snaked its way through West Virginia. They had received some very hostile looks from a certain type of person as they moved northward, but no shots had been fired at them.

  Cooper moaned in dismay as the wagon lurched over a particularly bad spot in the cracked old highway.

  Highways all over the nation were in rough shape, having received no maintenance for years. Only in areas controlled by the Rebels were roads in good shape. There, any new people who had applied for resident status and were not yet qualified to do anything else, and were physically capable of hard work, Ben put to work assisting road crews during the day. Then they went to school for several hours at night and all day on Saturday to learn a trade. If they objected to that schedule, they were escorted to the nearest border and kicked out and told not to come back.

  In the SUSA, for years called the Tri-States, everybody capable of doing so worked at something. Nobody laid up on their asses and did nothing. There was just too much to do to put up with shirkers.

  “They haven’t all run away, Jersey,” Ben said, unfolding a map. “A lot of them are hiding in the timber and the hills and hollows. They’ll surface as soon as we clear the state. But they’re going to be in for a very rude surprise when they do surface with stealing and raping and killing on their miserable little minds.”

  Now, when the Rebels left an area that had agreed to align with them, they left behind them local men and women who had sworn to uphold the Tri-States philosophy of law and order. That meant that the life expectancy of criminals was about 20 minutes, max. Under the Tri-States form of government, law-abiding citizens have the right to protect and preserve life, loved ones, and personal property by any means at hand, including deadly force, without fear of arrest, prosecution, or civil lawsuit. Citizens were certainly not required to use extreme measures in protecting what was theirs, but they were encouraged to do so.

  “We keep chasing these assholes and pushing them back and back,” Corrie said. “And when we get them into the northeast part of the country, they’ll cut up into Canada and scatter. Seems like we’ve done this before.”

  “Yes, we have,” Ben said with a sigh. “This is certainly covered ground. Most of it anyway. We’ve been fighting to restore order in this beat-up nation for years. We clear one area, and I’ll be damned if the citizens don’t allow the thugs and punks to move right back in with near impunity. Tell you the truth, I’m getting weary of it.”

  There was a finality in Ben’s voice that his team had not heard before. The boss was getting tired of fighting other peoples’ battles for them. As Ben was found of saying: Enough is enough and too much is an amplitude of sufficiency.

  “When this push is over,” Jersey asked, “are we going to stand down?”

  Ben smiled. “Now, I didn’t say that, Jersey. As long as I have the stamina to stay in the field, the field is where I’ll be. But the next time we’re asked to trace old footsteps . . . well, hell, I don’t know what decision I’ll reach.”

  Ben’s team relaxed. With the exception of Anna, the blonde, pale-eyed young lady Ben had brought back from Europe and adopted as his own, the rest of the team—Corrie, Beth, Jersey, and Cooper—had known nothing but the field for years. All of them had joined Ben while still in their teen years. Corrie, the communications expert. Cooper, the driver. Beth, the statistician. Jersey, Ben’s personal bodyguard.

  “Don’t scare us like that, boss,” the usually quiet Beth spoke from the rear seat of the big wagon, where she had her nose stuck in a book, as usual. She was reading a novel written by Robert Vaughan. “You’ll make us think you’re sick, or something.”

  Ben smiled. “I never felt better in my life,” he informed them. And that was the truth. Ben always felt like a million bucks when a push began. He loved the field, even though he was middle-aged and knew he was approaching the time when he should think of getting out of the field . . . or at the very least, slowing down some.
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  But he wouldn’t seriously entertain that thought For years he had known, somehow, perhaps as a premonition, that when his time came to face the Almighty, he would die in the field, in combat. That was his destiny, and Ben realized it.

  Corrie broke into his thoughts. “Receiving from Scouts, boss,” she announced. “What is left of Pittsburgh is filled with creeps. And fly-bys confirm that the punks have broken up into small groups and have taken to the countryside.”

  Ben nodded his head. “Just like we figured. What about the citizens?”

  “Militia and survivalist groups are holding in spots around the state. But they need to be re-supplied ASAP.”

  “I bet they do.” Intelligence had informed him that a few of the militia and survivalist groups were racist—some even aligned with notorious anti-Semitic and anti-black organizations—but not the majority. However, right now, Ben and his Rebels needed all the help they could get. He would sort it all out later. Besides, it sure as hell wouldn’t be the first time he’d shaken hands with the devil in order to complete a mission, nor, he was sure, would it be the last time. “All right, Corrie. Find out what they need and arrange for airdrops. I want to know the exact location of each militia group and I want to meet with the leaders head-to-head later on.”

  “Right,” Corrie responded. A moment later: “Bivouac area one hour ahead. We’ll be right on the Ohio line. Approximately 50 miles from Pittsburgh.”

  The long column pulled off the interstate just outside of what was left of a small town on the West Virginia side of the state line. Before the Great War, the town had boasted a population of about 700. Now there was nothing except looted, trashed, picked-over homes, and a few burned-out hulks of what once were businesses.

  Scouts had inspected the ghost town and declared it free of hostiles.

  “Hell,” Cooper remarked. “It’s free of everything. Place is spooky.”