Terror in the Ashes Read online

  A GOOD NIGHT FOR KILLING

  About an hour after dark, the Rebel team began to gather.

  Ben had two 9mm Beretta pistols on his web belt and was carrying a Colt 9mm carbine, select fire. Cooper was carrying a Stoner 63 – a 5.56mm belt-fed machine-gun with a 150-round magazine. Jersey carried a CAR-15, select fire. Linda carried a Street-Sweeper, drum-type sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun that was truly awesome in any type of close-in combat. Corrie was carrying a very light packback radio and a CAR-15.

  “You know where to go and what to do,” Ben said, and jacked a round into his CAR-15. “Move out!”

  The Rebels began walking silently toward the darkened town. Only the faint outlines of the buildings were visible in the mist and fog of this quiet Irish night... that was about to turn deadly and bloody.

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  TERROR IN THE ASHES

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.keusingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  A GOOD NIGHT FOR KILLING

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Book One

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Book Two

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Copyright Page

  Notes

  Dedicated to John Cole.

  Book One

  We are so outnumbered there is only one thing to do. We must attack.

  Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham

  Prologue

  Beginning in the last few years of the past millennium, a few months after the entire world was shaken and very nearly destroyed by germ warfare and limited nuclear war, one man rose out of the ashes of despair and with a few others of like mind began building a new society. This man was a walking contradiction. He was a visionary, a warrior, a philosopher, a teacher. He was so controversial that his own brother tried to kill him.

  When a new government of the United States was hastily thrown together, the leaders declared this man an enemy and put a bounty on his head. The government destroyed the society he had built and thought they had killed him.

  They were wrong.

  Again this man rose out of the ashes and again he started building his army to fight the central government of the United States, now so corrupt and dictatorial some were comparing it to Hitler’s reign of terror decades past.

  The central government called the freedom fighters scum and traitors and malcontents. Those who supported the efforts of the breakaways called them Rebels.

  The Rebels wrested the power from those who had turned what had once been the greatest country in the world into no more than a prison camp. Then the sickness struck the land. No one knew where it came from or how to fight it. The sickness spread world-wide, and that was the last blow for an already reeling earth. When the tide of death had run its course, there was not one stable government left on earth.

  Chaos was the order of the day. Robbery and rape and murder and enslavement and assault became commonplace. Outlaws and warlords took control. The world was suddenly plunged back into medieval thinking.

  Except for a few hundred men and women called Rebels who had kept their heads down and their wits about them and who followed the teachings of one man.

  The Rebels then began the job of clearing the nation of human crud and crap and restoring order. It would take them years to accomplish that. But accomplish it they did. They fought the Russian Striganov until he joined the Rebels. They fought the mercenary forces of a man called West until he, too, realized he was on the wrong side and joined the Rebels. The Rebels fought mutants and wackos, religious nuts and gangs that numbered in the thousands. Still the Rebels grew and conquered, taking back the land from the thugs and returning it to men and women who wanted to live in peace.

  The Rebels fought Sister Voleta and her forces of evil and destroyed them all. They fought the international terrorist Khamsin and ground him and his thousands of troops under the heel of democracy. The Rebels fought the cannibalistic sect known as the Night People and wiped them from the face of America.

  The Rebels cleared the countryside, then turned their massive war machine toward the great cities that still remained in the land of the free and the home of the brave that had once been called America.

  Slowly but surely, in one bloody battle after another, the Rebels reclaimed the land. They systematically destroyed the decaying cities and the lawless gangs that occupied them. The greatest terrorist and mercenary the world had ever known, Lan Vilar, joined in the efforts to kill the dream of the Rebels. The Rebels hunted him down, along with Kenny Parr and Ashley and Khamsin, and destroyed them in Alaska.

  The leader of the Rebels — which now numbered fifteen battalions strong – established outposts around the battered and bloody nation. Bastions of hope and freedom. There were a half a dozen outposts in every state, towns that had running water and sewerage systems that worked and street lights and schools and churches and libraries. Places where crime was nonexistent. The Rebels did not allow crime. It was not tolerated. Neither was bigotry. But acceptance in the Rebel way was not a right. It had to be earned. If you contributed nothing, nothing was what you got.

  If you were able to work, you worked. There was no free ride in the Rebel system. No police officer had to read anyone his rights; an individual’s rights were taught in public schools. From kindergarten on up. Public schools taught much more than readin’, writin’, and ’rithmetic. Young people were taught to respect the rights of others, they were taught to respect the land and the critters that lived in the woods and forests. Kids were taught the basics – such as, when one encountered a No Trespassing sign, you stopped.

  Right there. What few written laws the Rebels had on the books were not there to be broken, they were there to be obeyed.

  The Rebels took the complications out of society and brought it all back to the basics. It did not take a newcomer long to understand that life in any Rebel-held town was easy and fulfilling and good ... as long as you obeyed the rules. Disobeying the rules could get a person quickly hurt or seriously dead. And there was no legal recourse. Lawsuits were practically unheard of. The Rebels frowned on lawsuits.

  From the outset, wa
y back before the central government put a bounty on the leader’s head, way back when the Tri-States were formed and running smoothly, the Rebels’ system of government was called a commonsense form of living together. Right away, a lot of people knew they could never live under Rebel rule.

  Any Rebel society was based on order and justice. Not law and order — order and justice. Take a life through carelessness, contempt, disregard for the basic rights of others, lawlessness, or drunkenness, and you paid for it with a life. Yours.

  Medical care was free in a Rebel society. So was education from kindergarten through college. Kindergarten through high school was mandatory. College was not. The Rebels understood that some people are just not mentally cut out for college. So vo-tech training was offered for them.

  Physical education was stressed in any Rebel society. Every student received ten hours of supervised exercise a week. All sorts of games were allowed, but with this warning: “It is only a game. Play it, do your best, then forget about it. Anybody who would fight over the outcome of a game is a fool.”

  Life in the outposts settled down once the states were, for the most part, cleared of any who had even the slightest leanings toward lawlessness. The man who was in charge of the Rebels and who wrote the laws the Rebels lived by was a hard man. That was quickly learned by the criminal element.

  The Rebels lived in a society that had almost totally eradicated crime within their towns and communities. Criminals either stopped their lawless ways, allowing themselves to be educated and retrained, or the Rebels killed them. It was just that simple. Strict, but extremely effective.

  The Rebel army was made up of everybody who lived in a Rebel society. Everybody over the age of sixteen was in the Army. Period. You either joined the Army, or were kicked out from under the umbrella of Rebel protection and put out on your own, your I.D. cards destroyed. And with that action, you could not receive medical aid or buy supplies from any outpost. When the towns came under attack, and they occasionally did, every person living there was expected to take part in the defense of that outpost.

  There were many thousands of people who lived in what used to be called America and refused to be a part of the Rebel system of government. No one was forced to join. More people lived outside the Rebel-controlled towns than in them. But that was slowly changing as those outside received absolutely no help whatsoever from the Rebels. Life was difficult enough inside the Rebel-held zones; outside the cleared zones it was dangerous and extremely chancy.

  So in dribbles and handfuls and sometimes entire communities, citizens would contact the Rebels, saying, “Okay. We can’t make it out here without you people. What do we do?”

  And the answer was always the same. “Obey the rules and understand that they are there for everybody. When it comes to the administration of justice, the mayor receives no better treatment than the shoe repair person. You’ll find it’s really very simple.”

  And they usually did.

  The members of the regular Rebel army were, to a person, a bold and daring bunch of men and women. They were trained to the cutting edge, honed down to hard muscle, gristle, and bone. And they liked a good fight. They went out of their way to hunt one.

  There was General Ike McGowan, an ex-Navy SEAL. General Georgi Striganov, a former Spetsnaz commander. General Cecil Jefferys, now in charge of all Rebel zones in North America. There was Colonel West and his battalion of mercenaries. Colonels Rebet and Danjou and their Russian and French-Canadian and Canadian battalions. Colonel Dan Gray, a former British SAS leader and his battalion. Tina Raines and her battalion. The hippie-turned-warrior who was called Thermopolis and his battalion. There was Buddy Raines and his wild bunch called the Rat Pack. There were the outlaw motorcyclists called the Wolf Pack. People from all walks of life made up the many fighting battalions of the Rebels. The Rebels were the most feared fighters in all the world. They gave an enemy one chance to surrender. Only one. After that they rarely took prisoners.

  The commanding general’s orders.

  And the man who had seen his dreams turn into reality, the man who had pulled a battered nation out of the ashes and set it once more on the road to productivity, the man who had drawn up the plans to clear the nearly ruined nation of gangs and warlords and lawlessness?

  His name is Ben Raines.

  When the country known as the United States was finally declared effectively clear of human crud, Ben took his Rebels and sailed for Europe. Might as well see what mischief they could get into over there.

  First stop: Ireland.

  One

  It was late spring when the Rebels pushed inland from Galway, Ireland. General Jack Hunt had shifted his mercenary army around and also made a pact with the creepies. The Rebels would save the cities for last.

  The Rebels had also learned that approximately ten battalions of European mercenaries had sailed across the Irish Sea from England to link up with Hunt and his people. And other warlords and gang leaders were sending troops. The lawless element meant to destroy Ben Raines and his Rebels once and for all.

  But Ben and his people had been fighting unbelievable odds ever since the day the Rebels were formed. Being outnumbered fifty-to-one was something they had grown to expect.

  “Big deal,” the tiny Jersey said, when she heard the news. Jersey was one of Ben’s personal team and his self-appointed bodyguard. “When ain’t we been outnumbered?”

  “We have nine full battalions and one short battalion,” Cooper, Ben’s driver, reminded her. “Hunt now has thirty-three battalions. And they’re at least semiprofessional fighters.”

  “Yeah,” Jersey agreed, reassembling her M-16. “But we got something goin’ for us that those on the other side don’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re right and they’re wrong.”

  Ben smiled as he listened to the exchange. His personal team, with the exception of Linda Parsons, who had joined them about a year back, had been with him for a long time. They worked together like a well-oiled machine.

  His radio operator, Corrie, called from across the room. “Ike on the horn, General.”

  Ben took the mic. “Go, Ike.”

  “Everyone is in place, Ben.”

  Ben looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock in the morning. The Rebels almost always launched a campaign well before dawn, but not this time. This time they were in unfamiliar territory and facing thousands of well-equipped and reasonably well-trained troops.

  The Free Irish, newly armed and raring to go, were to secure County Clare, then join with Ben’s battalion.

  Other Free Irish were being trained, but they were not yet ready to go into battle against what Jack Hunt had to throw at them.

  Ben and his First Battalion were to drive straight across Ireland, stopping on the outskirts of Dublin. Ike’s Two Battalion was heading first to Limerick, then pushing on to Kerry and the sea, then cutting east and taking Cork. Dan Gray commanded Three Battalion and would push south. Four Battalion, headed by West, was to secure County Mayo, then join Striganov’s Five Battalion and push up through Roscommon and Sligo, securing that area. The objective of Rebet’s Six Battalion was Tipperary and Waterford. Danjou’s Seven Battalion was to stay north of Ben, pacing his movements, while Thermopolis’ Eight Battalion stayed just to the south. Tina and her Nine Battalion would strike south through Offaly, Laois, and Kilkenny. The Outlaw Battalions, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, were split up and used to beef up other short battalions. Everyone would secure, then some would link up, turn, and push east, toward the coast of the Irish Sea. Beerbelly and his Wolf Pack would roam about, wreaking havoc and all sorts of bloody mayhem as they went. And that group was very good at doing that.

  “Well, it looked good in theory,” Ben muttered. “Let’s see how well it’s going to work.” He lifted the mic. “This is Eagle to all units. Strike!”

  From locations all around and in Galway, the Rebels surged forward, while men and women and children stood on the sidewalks and
by the side of the roads and in the meadows and pastures and waved them on. Most of the men and women were middle-aged, for the outlaws and warlords had taken the younger men and women to use as slaves, or to swap them to the creepies in the cities, for breeding or to fatten them for food.

  “Scouts report that we’ll hit the first resistance on the Suck,” Corrie told Ben, once they were under way in the big nine passenger wagon, armor-plated and with bulletproof glass all the way around.

  “On the what?” Cooper asked, behind the wheel.

  “Don’t think, Cooper,” Jersey told him. “Just drive. Thinking strains you too much.”

  “It’s a river, Coop,” Ben told him. “About thirty miles up the road. Chances are we’ll be hung up there for a day or two. Jack’s people will surely blow the bridge.”

  “Scouts report the bridge is wired to blow,” Corrie said. “Engineers are to the rear of this column.”

  “I love this country,” Linda said. “It’s so beautiful.”

  A bullet whanged off the side of the wagon, causing everyone to cringe just a bit. “Five miles out of town and they’re shootin’ at us already,” Cooper bitched, bringing the wagon to a halt by the side of the road.

  They all bailed out the left side of the wagon as Scouts pulled up in hummers, officially known as high-mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicles, the hummers were outfitted with .50 caliber machine guns. Ben’s husky, Smoot, stayed in the wagon as she’d been trained to do.

  The fire, now coming from a machine gun, picked up and everybody ducked. But Ben had already pinpointed the location of the hostiles.

  “The fire’s coming from that stone hut right over there,” Ben called to Scout. “Get a couple of tanks up here and drop some calling cards in on them.”

  The Scout grinned. “Like a Valentine’s Day card, General?”