Judgment in the Ashes Read online

  “Go!” Ben shouted, already moving toward the brick home.

  The quiet town suddenly erupted in gunfire.

  TWELVE

  Ben and team made it to the house just seconds before all hell broke loose around them. Ben kicked open the front door and was immediately confronted by a man and woman, both with guns in their hands.

  “The devil!” they both shouted in unison, and lifted their guns.

  Ben pulled the trigger and the old M-14 howled and bucked in his hands, the slugs knocking the couple backward against the wall. They slid down, eyes open in death, leaving a bloody smear on the wall behind them.

  “So much for hospitality in this town,” Ben said, then turned to the front of the house. “Cooper, you and Anna take the back. Jersey and Beth, left and right. Corrie, you and I will cover the front.”

  Ben wanted the radio close to him to keep in touch with the other battalions. He had a hunch this fire-fight wouldn’t last long, for the Border supporters, at least in this town, were too far outnumbered for that, but it was going to be extremely intense while it did last.

  “In the house!” came the shout from outside. “The Satan ran into the house after he killed Charles. We’ve got Ben Raines trapped!”

  In the rear of the house, Cooper and Anna opened up with a few shots and screams of pain followed. Cursing drifted from the backyard.

  “Not so good Christians,” Ben heard Anna say when the cursing had stopped. “They don’t take their religion very seriously, I’m thinking.”

  “Everyone is entitled to lose it now and then,” Ben called with a smile.

  “Sure, General Ben,” the teenager said, very sarcastically.

  Half a dozen men foolishly jumped from behind cover and began running across the road, charging the front of the house. Ben and Corrie cut them down with short bursts. One flopped in the street, screaming hoarsely from the slugs in his belly.

  During the few seconds’ lull, Corrie bumped the others. She listened for a moment, then looked at Ben. “All battalions on both fronts coming under attack from civilians.”

  “Somebody planned this one pretty well,” Ben admitted.

  “They counted on our generosity toward sick civilians, boss,” Corrie said. “Do we change our policy now?”

  Ben hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Heads up!” Jersey shouted from the left side of the house.

  Bullets began shattering windows all around the house, the lead whining and howling around the defenders. Several men again foolishly tried a frontal attack, charging across the road. Ben and Corrie put them down in the street, to die alongside their friends.

  “Stupid,” Corrie muttered.

  “They don’t have heavy machine guns, mortars, or rifle launched grenades,” Ben said, taking a sip of water from one of his two canteens. “Thank the gods of war for that much.”

  “But if we had waited six more months before launching our offensive . . .” Corrie let that trail off.

  “Yeah,” Ben agreed. “We would have been in deep shit, for sure.”

  On the right side of the house, Beth’s CAR hammered briefly, then was silent.

  “You all right, Beth?” Ben called.

  “Just fine, boss. But three of Border’s supporters aren’t doing so well.”

  “Here come the tanks,” Corrie said.

  There was nothing subtle at all about the tanks. The sixty-odd-ton MBTs just ran right through the houses on the other side of the street, smashing anything and anybody who might be foolish enough to be inside.

  “Be sure they know what house we’re in,” Ben said drily.

  Corrie laughed. “That’s the first thing I told them.”

  One of the lead tanks cut loose with its main gun and a house near the end of the street exploded in a mass of lumber and brick and dust. A man came stumbling out, screaming his shock and anger, and minus his left arm, the blood spurting with each heartbeat. He cursed Ben Raines and then collapsed near the street and did not move.

  “Welcome to the war,” Corrie said softly. “It isn’t so much fun now, is it, partner?”

  Corrie knew, as did all Rebels, that a great many people, civilian non-combatants mostly, had a very romanticized concept of war. Usually that perception didn’t linger long; it took one confrontation with the Rebels to slap that silly notion out of them . . . permanently.

  From the rear of the yard, Ben and his team heard the rumble of another tank, then the ear-splitting howl of its main gun cutting loose. The house directly behind the house where Ben and team had taken cover exploded as a HE round impacted.

  “Oh, my God, my God!” a woman cried.

  Corrie listened dispassionately to the pleas, no expression on her tanned face. She unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly.

  The cries of the wounded woman abruptly ceased.

  “The mule and the two-by-four syndrome,” Ben said.

  “You bet,” Corrie agreed. “Sometimes you just have to get people’s attention to make them listen.”

  “I think we succeed this day, Corrie.”

  “At least with these folks, boss.”

  Ben knew exactly what she meant: the people in the next town, and the next, and the next, and so on, would fight. It would not end here.

  Front and back of the house, Rebels could be seen, clearing the surrounding homes of hostiles. They soon had a small gathering of prisoners sitting in the middle of the street, their hands clasped on the top of their heads.

  “All clear,” Corrie said.

  Ben and his team walked out of the house to stand for a moment in the front yard. They received looks of hatred from the men and women in the street, the team ignored the hot looks. They were accustomed to the hateful glances.

  “Casualties?” Ben asked.

  “One dead, half a dozen wounded. None seriously.”

  “The other battalions?”

  “It’s all over up and down the line. The batt coms are asking what to do with the prisoners?”

  “Carefully search the towns, confiscate all the weapons, and then turn the people loose. That’s all we can do. We can’t handle hundreds of prisoners.”

  “The wounded?”

  Ben sighed. “Patch the bastards up. We wait until all battalions are through, then move out simultaneously. Corrie?”

  “Boss?”

  “Tell the cooks to set up the mess tents. I’m hungry.”

  Mike Richards radioed in the next day that the failed ambushes really set Simon Border off. It was reported to Mike by one of his people inside the Border camp that Simon flew into a rage at the failure of his people to kill Ben Raines, especially when everything seemed to be working so beautifully at first. They had Ben in a box, trapped cold, set up for the kill . . . so what happened?

  Mike added that he was sure there was going to be a very drastic and immediate shake-up in Simon’s top commanders.

  “Bruno Bottger’s people?” Ben asked.

  “You got it, Ben. My people inside have reported some real arrogant bastards strutting around. They speak with a very heavy accent.”

  “Real old-time Prussian types, huh. Hard to believe, Mike.”

  “Well, hell, Ban, think about it. Bruno professes to be a very religious man, just like Simon. Bruno hates all minority groups, just like Simon. He wants an all-white society, just like Simon . . .”

  “Now wait a minute, Mike. Back up here. I thought Simon welcomed all races and creeds and colors into his fold?”

  “That was what everyone else was led to believe too, Ben. But I never bought it. You’ll remember I told you some time back I thought that was all a scam. Oh, he’s got minorities all over the place, but they’re not equal to whites and never will be. And he’s killed every Jew he found living in the territory he now occupies.”

  “Do you suppose he’s been working with Bruno all along?”

  “I don’t have any proof of that, Ben. But it’s something that’s been nagging at me for some time. It certainly wouldn’t come as any surprise.”

  “Well, if it’s true, and I suspect it is, we’ll cope with it. How about the supplies we dropped to you?”

  “We got them all and we’re ready to go.”

  “Good luck, Mike.”

  “Thanks. Mike, out.”

  “So Field Marshal General Grand Poobah Bottger is back in the game, huh, boss?” Corrie asked, taking the mic from Ben.

  “Looks like it, Corrie. One more little hill to climb.”

  “You think Bottger is Stateside?”

  “I don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say no. No reason for Bottger to leave the little kingdom he’s set up in Africa. But he’s got one of his top people running things over here, you can bet on that.”

  “You want me to bump the others with this news?”

  “Yes. Do that. They need to know what we’re going to be up against.”

  “No proof of it yet,” she reminded Ben.

  “Be sure and tell them that it’s only a hunch. When you’ve done that, advise Cecil of it and have him bump our team in Africa. Ask them to check it out from their end.”

  “We’re really going over there, aren’t we, boss?”

  “I imagine so, Corrie. Looks that way.”

  “And that’s when we’re really going to get bogged down.”

  Ben sighed. He agreed wholeheartedly with his longtime radio tech and friend. He frowned and shook his head. “What say we don’t worry about that until the time comes?”

  She laughed at the expression on Ben’s face. She knew that Ben did not want to get all tied up in Africa. Few Rebels did, and that included most of the Blacks in the ranks, and she knew that Cecil was adamantly opposed to sending Rebels to Africa. But she also knew that
if Ben ordered it, there would be no hesitation on anyone’s part. They would go. She slowly nodded her head in agreement and watched as Ben left the mobile CP.

  “And away we go,” Cooper said softly, as Ben closed the door behind him.

  Jersey picked up her CAR and walked to the door. “We all knew it was coming,” she said, then opened the door and stepped outside.

  Corrie turned to her bank of electronic equipment and made sure anything she sent and received was on scramble. She keyed the mic. “All battalions, all battalions. Heads up, boys and girls. I do have news . . .”

  THIRTEEN

  Ben and his 1 Batt left behind them a thoroughly demoralized and very pissed-off bunch of townspeople, the lucky survivors of the ill-fated ambush. They headed north on a highway that probably would be non-existent in a few more years.

  “We have to stay on this one,” Ben told his company commanders. “Highway 1, the coastline highway, is gone. Rock slides, cave-ins, earthquakes . . . it’s just gone. Scouts are reporting a number of people living in and around the towns on the coast, but they are definitely not Border supporters, or supporters of ours, for that matter. It seems the Hippie movement of several decades past is once more flourishing.” Ben smiled. “We’ll have to keep that from Thermopolis, he might decide to desert if he learned of it.”

  “Why don’t we be sure and tell Emil?” Jersey said, a hopeful note behind her words. “That might get rid of him once and for all.”

  Those in attendance laughed and nodded their heads in agreement, but most liked the little con artist . . . in small doses.

  “From this point on,” Ben continued, “we’re going to be fighting every foot of the way. Our next major city is San Luis Obispo. There, we’re going to meet the so-called ‘born-again’ punk faction of Border’s army. We know they can fight, and we all know how vicious they are toward prisoners. Well, we’re not going to give them much chance to take any Rebel prisoners.” Ben smiled, very thinly. “As a matter of fact, we’re not going to give them any chance to take prisoners, or to do anything else for that matter.”

  The CO’s all returned Ben’s smile. They knew exactly what he was going to do: reduce the shell of a city to smoking ruins by air strikes and artillery barrages.

  “That’s it, people,” Ben concluded. “We pull out in the morning.”

  “Says here,” Beth said, reading from one of her endless tourist brochures, “that San Luis Obispo is a lovely city, filled with Victorian homes. A creek wanders through some shopping area, and the shops are quaint.”

  “Quaint?” Cooper asked.

  “That’s what it says, Coop. Quaint.”

  “I think we knocked the quaintness out of the city a few years back,” Ben said. “Now it’s just filled with punks.”

  “Who all believe that Simon Border is Lord on Earth,” Corrie added.

  “Sure, they do,” Ben replied, and lifted an old map of the city. “And everybody who believes that shout hooray and whistle Dixie.”

  “I can whistle Dixie,” Anna said, and did so, but she was not much of a whistler and was horribly off-key.

  Ben slipped into silent remembrance while the others in the big wagon grinned at Anna’s attempts at whistling.

  Ben recalled the time, years back, when the nation was more or less functioning in a somewhat orderly fashion, he had lectured at a writers’ conference in San Luis Obispo. He had met a very lovely lady there, and they had enjoyed each other’s company over that long weekend. She had driven them down a few miles south of the city and together they had walked the beautiful stretches of Pismo Beach. He recalled that the lady—he couldn’t remember her name—was in the middle of a nasty divorce and shortly after that conference, she had gotten her first contract with a major publishing house. Ben wondered what had happened to her. But he didn’t like to dwell on that, for he had a pretty good idea what had been her fate: millions of Americans had died during the first few hours of the Great War, some of them quite horribly during the gas attack that had silently choked parts of the nation with clouds of invisible death.

  The lady had been quite an idealist, Ben recalled. Peace and love and opposed to the death penalty and believing that all punks and thugs and street crap just needed massive amounts of taxpayer money to be straightened out and they would then live peaceful and fruitful and productive lives.

  “Aircraft ready to start striking the city,” Corrie broke into Ben’s thoughts. “Artillery will be in place and ready to go in one hour. Spec ops personnel have seized and are holding a nearby airport. It is useable and the runway is long enough to handle cargo planes for resupply.”

  “Begin the attack,” Ben said softly.

  After eighteen hours of continuous bombardment, what had been left of the small city was in burning ruins and the survivors of the barrage began staggering out in shocked and silent surrender, their hands in the air. The Rebels had not lost a single person.

  Just to the east, Ike and his 2 Batt had seized and disarmed the residents of half a dozen small towns between highways 101 and 5. Dan and his 3 Batt were meeting little resistance as they drove north on Interstate 5 and West was paralleling them on highway 99, and was in the process of taking the ruins of Bakersfield.

  The Rebels’ relentless march north was in high gear, and most of the supporters of Simon Border had never seen anything to match the cold-blooded ruthlessness of the Rebel army.

  “The devil’s army!” one prisoner had told Georgi.

  “Bah!” the Russian had rumbled in reply.

  Ben and his team had circled around their smoking and burning objective and were bivouacked just north of the city. The winds were coming from the west, blowing the stinking odor of burning human flesh away from them.

  “Bringing in about half a dozen prisoners, boss,” Jersey said.

  Ben looked up from a map. “Are they human, or what?”

  Jersey laughed. The prisoners being marched up were covered head to foot with dirt and soot.

  “Halt!” one of the guards barked, and the prisoners came to a very sloppy stop. “This bunch claims to be some of the leaders of the groups that were in the city, General. They asked to speak to you.”

  “Thank you.” Ben cut his eyes to gaze for a moment at the sorry sight in front of him. “I’m General Raines. What do you want?”

  “To tell you that we forgive you, General,” one of the prisoners said. “We know the reason you attacked us was because you haven’t as yet seen the light of the true Lord on Earth and accepted his gentle ways.”

  Cooper almost choked on his sandwich, Beth looked stunned, Jersey openly laughed, and Anna frowned. Ben smiled. “I assume by that you mean Simon ‘Birdbrain’ Border?”

  “Insulting the great man only lowers yourself, General.”

  “So you boys have seen the light, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. We have been borned again. Hallelujah, amen.”

  “Washed in the blood, so to speak?” Ben asked.

  “That’s right, General,” another said.

  “Were you sprinkled or full immersion?”

  “Haw?”

  Ben waved that aside and took the slip of paper a runner just handed him. “From Captain Reeder, sir.”

  Ben opened the folded paper and read: “FOUND ABOUT TWO DOZEN PRISONERS, ALL WOMEN, AGES APPROXIMATELY 12 TO 40. THEY’VE BEEN HELD PRISONERS FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS AND RAPED AND SODOMIZED REPEATEDLY BY THESE SO-CALLED CHRISTIANS.”

  “No reply, son,” Ben said to the runner. He pointed to a nearby mess tent just set up, the cooks busy preparing the evening meal. “Get yourself a cup of coffee and relax for a moment.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Ben turned back to the prisoners. “Tell me, what do you do with your prisoners?”

  “We try to convince them to accept the ways of the Lord on Earth, General.”

  “Using gentle methods, I’m sure.”

  “Of course, General. The Good Book says ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

  “Uh-huh,” Ben muttered. He cleared his throat. Held up the communiqué. “Then perhaps you might like to tell me about these women prisoners? Their stories about treatment seem to conflict somewhat with your version.”

  The expression on the faces of the prisoners changed only slightly, but enough for Ben to guess that somebody screwed up; the women were probably supposed to have been killed just before surrender.