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  WARRIORS FROM THE ASHES

  The Ashes Series: Book #31

  William W. Johnstone

  “Let there be light!” said God, and there was light!

  “Let there be blood!” says man, and there’s a sea!

  - George Gordon, Lord Byron (in Don Juan)

  PROLOGUE

  If a war had not engulfed the entire world, plunging every nation into bloody chaos, the theory was that the government of the United States would have collapsed anyway. Personal income taxes had been going up for years and the hardworking, law-abiding citizens were paying well over half their income to the government. The left wing of the Democratic Party had taken over and passed massive gun-grab legislation, effectively disarming American citizens; except for the criminals, of course, and about three-quarters of a million tough-minded Americans who didn’t give a big rat’s ass what liberals said, thought, or did. Those Americans carefully sealed up their guns and buried them, along with cases of ammunition. When the collapse came, those Americans were able to defend themselves against the hundreds of roaming gangs of punks and thugs that popped up all over what had once been called the United States of America. The great nation would never again be accurately referred to as the United States of America.

  Slowly, an ever-growing group of people began calling for a man named Ben Raines to lead them. But Ben didn’t want any part of leadership. For months he disregarded the ever-increasing calls from people all over the nation, until finally he could no longer ignore the pleas.

  Months later, thousands of people made the journey to the northwest part of the nation and formed their own nation out of three states. It was called the Tri-States, and those who chose to live there based many of their laws on the Constitution of the United States: The original interpretation of that most revered document was a commonsense approach to government. Something that had been sadly lacking for years with liberals in control. But after only a few months in their new nation, Ben knew that only about two out of every ten Americans could (would was more to the point) live under a commonsense form of government—a form of government where everyone, to a very large degree, controlled his own destiny. The Rebels, as residents of the Tri-States were named by the press, took wonderful care of the very old, the young, and those unable to care for themselves. But if a person was able to work, he worked . . . whether he liked it or not. There were no free handouts for able-bodied people. If they didn’t want to work, they got the hell out of the Tri-States. Very quickly.

  The first attempt at building a nation within a nation failed when the federal government grew powerful enough to launch a major campaign against the Tri-States. The original Tri-States was destroyed and the Rebel Army was decimated and scattered.

  But the federal government made one major mistake: They didn’t kill Ben Raines.

  Ben and the few Rebels left alive began rebuilding their Army, and then launched a very nasty guerrilla war against the federal government that lasted for months: hit hard, destroy, and run. It worked.

  But before any type of settlement could be reached, a deadly plague struck the earth: a rat-borne outbreak, the Black Death revisited.

  When the deadly disease finally ran its course, anarchy reigned over what had once been America. Gangs of punks and warlords ruled from border to border, coast to coast. Ben and his Rebels began the long, slow job of clearing the nation of punks and human slime and setting up a new Tri-States. This time they settled in the South, first in Louisiana, in an area they called Base Camp One. Then they began spreading out in all directions as more and more people wanted to become citizens of the new nation called the Southern United States of America: the SUSA.

  Ben and the Rebels fought for several years, clearing the cities of the vicious gangs and growing larger and stronger while the SUSA spread out.

  In only a few years, the Rebel Army became the largest and most powerful army on the face of the earth . . . with the possible exception of China’s. No one knew what was going on in China, for that nation had sealed its borders and cut off nearly all communication with the outside world.

  A few more years drifted by while the Rebels roamed the world at the request of the newly formed United Nations, kicking ass and stabilizing nations as best they could in the time allotted them.

  But back home, the situation was worsening: Outside the SUSA, the nation was turning socialistic with sickening speed. The old FBI was gone, in its place the FPPS: Federal Prevention and Protective Service. It was a fancy title that fooled no one. The FPPS was the nation’s secret police, and they were everywhere, bullyboys and thugs. Day-to-day activities of those living in the USA were highly restricted. The new Liberal/Socialist government of President-for-life Claire Osterman and her second in command, Harlan Millard, was now firmly in control.

  There were border guards stationed all along major crossings in every state. Now, many of the guards had been moved south, to patrol along the several-thousand-mile border of the SUSA.

  A bloody civil war was shaping up between the USA and the SUSA. Rewards had been placed on the head of Ben Raines: a million dollars for his capture, dead or alive. But Ben was accustomed to that: He’d had rewards—of one kind or another, from one group or another—on his head for years.

  Anna, Ben’s adopted daughter, had been kidnapped by the FPPS. She was to be tried as a traitor against the Liberal/Socialist government and executed. A very highly irritated Ben knew the taking of Anna was to draw him out, for the FPPS was certain Ben would come after her . . . which he did, with blood in his eyes. That abortive move cost the FPPS several dozen agents and accomplished nothing for Osterman and her henchmen. But it further heightened the already monumental legend of Ben Raines . . . and made Claire Osterman and her government look like a pack of incompetent screwups . . . which they were.

  After Claire completely lost her temper and what little rational judgment she had, she started a civil war with the SUSA, using hired mercenaries when half of her own USA troops refused to fight their neighbors. All along a battle line that stretched for thousands of miles, from Texas to Georgia in the Old South, federal troops faced Rebel forces across no-man’s-lands.*

  *Standoff in the Ashes.

  Once again the SUSA, led by Ben Raines and his team, kicked Osterman’s federal troops’ butt in battle after battle, driving her into a fury that knew no bounds.

  When Sugar Babe Osterman got word from her field commanders that Raines had killed Commanding General Walter Berman, head of her entire Army, in a hand-to-hand combat, she almost had a stroke. In a fit of pique, she notified Cecil Jeffreys, President of the SUSA, that if he and his leaders—especially that bastard Ben Raines—didn’t surrender, she was going to launch an all-out missile attack against the SUSA at 0600 hours. The missiles were to contain a highly effective strain of anthrax bacteria developed by a USA scientist named Yiro Ishi. The vaccinations the SUSA had given their troops against anthrax would be useless due to the nature of this new strain.

  However, Ishi double-crossed Claire Osterman, and gave the formula for an effective vaccine to Ben Raines and a fake formula to Osterman’s government. As the plague began to decimate the USA, Otis Warner, one of Claire Osterman’s cabinet officers, conspired with General Joseph Winter to have Claire Osterman killed in a plane crash.

  When the plane went down, Warner and Winter, sure Osterman was dead, took over the government of the USA, contacted SUSA President Cecil Jeffreys, and began to discuss a peace accord.*

  *Crisis in the Ashes.

  However, Claire Osterman survived the plane crash and was taken in by a family in the Ozark Mountains of Tennessee, whose kindness she repaid by killing the husband and wife. She contacted her old bodygu
ard, Herb Knoff, and used him to help her establish her own “rebel” government within the boundaries of the USA.

  From there, she orchestrated a new war against the SUSA, enticing a rebel leader from Belize named Perro Loco to attack Mexico and head northward toward the SUSA’s southern borders, while she hired disgruntled FPPS and Blackshirt brigades to fight the leaders of the USA and try to take back the country she considered her own.

  Finally, in a decisive battle, Perro Loco’s troops were defeated on the very outskirts of Mexico City and driven back to southern Mexico, just as Claire Osterman succeeded in driving the successors to her presidency, Otis Warner and General Joe Winter, to seek asylum in the SUSA.**

  **Tyranny in the Ashes.

  Claire, never one to give up her dream of defeating and killing Ben Raines, hatched another plan for yet another war against the SUSA. . . .

  ONE

  Perro Loco’s army is defeated in its attempt to take Mexico City, and his forces have been pushed back to their stronghold at the old Mexican naval base at Pariso near Villahermosa on Mexico’s east coast.*

  *Tyranny in the Ashes.

  General Jaime Pena jumped to attention when Perro Loco, followed by Jim Strunk and Paco Valdez, entered the commanding officer’s office at the Mexican Army base at Villahermosa. Pena had pulled his troops back to this location after the disaster on the Pan American highway.

  “Buenos dias,” Pena said, saluting smartly.

  Loco gave him a look, his eyes flat as he sat behind the desk in the office.

  “General Pena, would you ask your second in command to come in, please.”

  “Certainly, comandante.”

  Pena stepped to the adjoining door, which led to the officers’ wardroom, and called, “Colonel Gonzalez, would you come in here?”

  A tall, swarthy man, with a handlebar mustache and a knife scar on his right cheek that coursed down his face to the corner of his mouth, entered. He nodded at Loco and stood at attention, his back to the wall.

  “Now, General Pena, please be so kind as to explain to me why you failed in your mission to take Mexico City,” Loco said calmly.

  Pena looked from Strunk to Valdez, who were standing behind Loco on either side.

  “But, comandante, there is only one serviceable road northward through this miserable country, and it was heavily mined and defended.” He spread his arms wide. “I needed more air support, but the Mexicans had ground-to-air missiles and shot the few helicopters I had at my disposal out of the air.”

  Loco nodded, then glanced at Strunk. “Jaime, how much does a helicopter cost?”

  “Several millions of dollars, comandante.”

  “And an APC or a HumVee?”

  “Many thousands of dollars, comandante.”

  “And a portable mine detector?”

  Strunk smiled, shaking his head sadly. “Only a few hundred dollars, comandante.”

  “Why did you not think that the road might be mined, General, and take appropriate precautions? Surely, losing a few men with mine detectors would have been preferable to losing”—he bent his head and studied a sheaf of papers on the desk—“two helicopters, four APCs, three HumVees, and four hundred and fifty-six soldiers, not to mention General Juan Dominguez.”

  Pena, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and run down his cheeks to drip off his chin, lowered his head. “We moved so fast, comandante, I did not think the Mexicans would have had time to mine the road.”

  Loco sighed heavily. “That is the truest thing you’ve said today, General,” he said. “You did not think!”

  “I am sorry, comandante,” Pena said, his eyes on the floor in front of him.

  Loco slipped a .45-caliber automatic out of his pocket and aimed across the desk.

  Pena glanced up, his eyes widening and his mouth opening to protest as Loco fired. The pistol exploded and the bullet entered Pena’s forehead, snapping his head back and blowing the back of his skull out, showering the wall behind him with blood and brains. Pena’s body collapsed in a heap in front of Loco’s desk.

  Loco cut his eyes to Colonel Gonzalez. “What is your first name, Colonel?”

  Gonzalez swallowed, the scar on his cheek pulling the corner of his mouth up in a caricature of a grin. “Enrique, comandante.”

  “Enrique Gonzalez, you are now promoted to general and will be in charge of our forces in Mexico. Is that satisfactory?”

  Gonzalez glanced at Pena’s body on the floor, trails of smoke still rising from his empty skull. He nodded rapidly. “Sí, comandante.”

  “And you are aware of the penalties for failure?”

  Gonzalez continued to nod, unable to take his eyes off Pena’s corpse and its right foot, which was still twitching. “Sí, comandante.”

  Loco stood up and holstered his weapon. “Good. Then let us go to the communications room and contact President Osterman of the United States. I fear we are going to need some of her more modern equipment to take Mexico City.”

  President Claire Osterman hung up the phone after over an hour discussing with Perro Loco how his forces had been stymied on their journey toward Mexico City due to lack of air support and strong resistance from the Mexican forces.

  “Jesus,” she said, “God save me from Central American desperadoes who think they’re generals.”

  She looked at her team of advisors arrayed before her. General Stevens, Harlan Millard, and Herb Knoff were sitting in chairs in the commanding officer’s quarters of Fort Benjamin Harris in Indianapolis.

  She winced as rumbling sounds and vibrations shook the ceiling. “Herb, can’t we quiet that infernal noise?”

  He shook his head. “Madame President, you ordered the removal of the wreckage of the building overhead yourself. The bulldozers cannot do that without making some noise.”

  “All right, all right,” she said testily. She was still pissed off that Otis Warner and General Joe Winter had been allowed to escape the attack on the fort the day before.

  “How is everything going with my resuming command of the country?” she asked Stevens.

  General Bradley Stevens, Jr., nodded. “Very well, Madame President. The Armed Services have all acknowledged your right to continue as head of the government, and the rank and file of the Army is behind you one hundred percent. A few of the officers whose loyalty was questionable have been replaced with men I can trust, but overall, it’s going just fine.”

  “And the country?”

  “A massive propaganda campaign has been undertaken,” Millard said. “All of the media are cooperating, as usual. We are informing the people that the coup attempt to overthrow you was orchestrated by Otis Warner with the complicity of Ben Raines and the SUSA. In the absence of any voices telling them otherwise, I think they’ll buy it.”

  “Good,” she said. “Now we have two things to do in addition to restarting the war against the SUSA. One, we have to transport some equipment to Perro Loco down in Mexico. He has control of the Navy base at Pariso near his command at Villahermosa. General Stevens, we need to send a transport ship down there with some helicopters, tanks, APCs, and whatever else he needs. I’ll leave the coordination of that to you and your men.”

  “Yes, Madame President.”

  “The second thing I’ve got to do is get him some help with his soldiers and command structure. He’s just too damned stupid to run a war.”

  “How do you propose to do that, Claire?” Millard asked.

  She glanced at a folder on her desk that read TOP SECRET, INTEL on the cover. “I have here an intel report on Bruno Bottger.”

  “Bruno Bottger?” Stevens asked. “I thought Raines killed him in Africa a few years back.”

  She shook her head. “No, as it turns out, Bottger escaped to the island of Madagascar. He stayed there for a year or so, recovering from wounds he’d received in his escape. Then he made his way to South America. Intel has found out he’s used his vast fortune to hire an army of mercenaries with the idea of reattacking Ben Raine
s at some point in the future.”

  Stevens shook his head. “I don’t know, Claire. Getting involved with Bottger will be risky. The man is a zealot and a Nazi. He will be very tough to control.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Brad. We won’t have to control him. He hates Ben Raines so much he’ll jump at any chance to get revenge on him. I plan to get him and his mercenary army to join Perro Loco by promising him unlimited access to our weapons and technology. I’ll also promise him he may have Mexico as a prize for his new Nazi state if he manages to conquer it.”

  “But, Claire,” Millard protested, “you’ve also promised Mexico to Perro Loco.”

  “Yes, I have, haven’t I?” she said, a smile curling her lips. “Well, in the event they are successful, they’ll just have to fight it out to see who ends up on top down there.”

  Stevens nodded, seeing where she was headed. “Yeah, and after they’ve weakened each other fighting it out, we’ll step in and take over from whoever’s left.”

  Claire grinned. “Brad, you’re a man after my own heart.”

  TWO

  Bruno Bottger sat on the terrace of his villa on the Ilha de Sao Sebastiao, a small island off the coast of South America, and watched the sun set over the ocean.

  He had a glass of German white wine in his right hand, and used his left to gently massage the massive scar tissue around his eyes and cheeks, while his mind was filled with thoughts of a certain General Dorfmann and the day he was forced to run for his life. . . .

  “Tell General Field Marshal Bottger that General Dorfmann is here from Berlin. I must speak to him at once.”

  Bruno Bottger heard the voice through a crack in his office door, which led to a secured waiting area in his underground bunker where his private office was protected from air attack.