Survival in the Ashes Read online

  “Why in the hell would Buddy do some damn fool thing like that?”

  “He didn’t say. You can ask Buddy when he gets here.”

  “I damn sure will!”

  “Calm down, Ben. Calm down. How’s your blood pressure?”

  “My blood pressure is fine . . . at least it is until members of this army start disobeying my orders. Goddamnit, Jerre, I’m trying to pull the boy’s mother into a trap so I can kill her. That’s why I sent Buddy with Dan. So he wouldn’t have to witness this.”

  “I know, Ben. But don’t you remember telling me that Buddy said he felt he would be the one to stop his mother. That he knew these things somehow. Maybe Buddy feels that you are in danger. Real danger.”

  Ben sat down behind the old, battered desk and drummed his fingertips on the desktop. With an effort, he calmed himself. “Well, hell, I guess I can’t fault the boy for trying to protect me, can I?” Without waiting for a reply, he said, “And I’m reasonably sure he asked Dan’s permission to leave.” Ben shrugged. “It’s done. Now I just hope Buddy makes the run in one piece. He’ll be traveling through some dangerous country.”

  “Buddy has a lot of you in him, Ben. He’ll make it.”

  Ben smiled. “I’m just damn glad he’s got more of me in him than his mother. Buddy would have made one very dangerous enemy.”

  Dan had set his CP up just south of Minneapolis. Buddy took his Rat Team and pulled out, driving hard down Interstate 35. He did not stop until he reached the Iowa line. There, he was forced to use pumps to bring up gas from old storage tanks, and to wait until the gas was filtered for impurities.

  One of his team had climbed on top of a two story building and was inspecting the terrain through binoculars when thin fingers of smoke caught his eyes. “Company,” he called. “To the east about five miles.”

  Buddy squatted on the old littered main street of the town. Colonel Gray had concluded that Villar had broken up his army into smaller teams and was moving the smaller units westward; platoon-sized units would be more difficult to detect and more stood a better chance of making it through in that manner.

  Buddy felt that his mother would launch an all-out offensive against his father very soon, and Buddy felt he had to be there. But as a soldier, he was obligated to check out the smoke the lookout had detected.

  At the call from the sentry, the other members of his team had stopped their building of fires to cook the evening meals and make coffee.

  Buddy pointed at two Rat Team members. “You and you. Check it out and shoot us a line to follow and radio in the heading. Then maintain radio silence until you get a visual. If it’s Villar’s men, give us three clicks a couple of times and stay put. We’ll join you. Paint up and take off.”

  After his team had put on night camouflage, Buddy hid the vehicles and sat down to eat cold rations and wait for the signal. It soon came: three clicks over the radio, repeated twice.

  Darkness had dropped around them as they moved out, shrouded them in gloom. The night was cloudy, the humidity high, the sky threatening rain. The Rat Team was armed with rocket launchers, grenades, and automatic weapons. Buddy carried an old Thompson SMG, identical to the one his father had carried for years. Ben had put it aside, choosing an M14, after so many people were beginning to view the old Chicago Piano as something more than what it really was . . . as many viewed still viewed Ben.

  As powerful as he was, Buddy carried the heavy, drum-fed weapon as effortlessly as a sack of marsh-mallows. The .45-caliber spitter was awesome at close range, the big slugs capable of stopping nearly anything they hit.

  Taking the point, Buddy shot his azimuth and followed the course. Anything that might jingle or jangle on the team had either been removed or taped. Buddy’s Rat Team was made up of young men and women in the height of physical conditioning, and they could and did move like silent wraiths in the night.

  They moved across fields that had not been plowed in years, through timber that grew tall, now that man was no longer destroying it in the name of progress. They were conscious of the eyes of forest animals on them as they moved through the animal’s kingdom. The natural inhabitants of the woods had nothing to fear from the Rebels, and they seemed to know that. Rebels would kill a forest critter only in self-defense or if they had run out of food and no chance of getting resupplied.

  They came up on the two-person scout team abruptly and went belly down on the cool earth. They talked in sign language whenever possible, using a system the Woods Children had shown the Rebels years back.

  The camp was a thousand yards ahead. Guards were few and security was lax. Probably a hundred men in the camp. They were eating their evening meal.

  Buddy told his team to swing in a half circle around the camp, then once more he took the point. He came up on a guard just as the man was lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. A breech of security that his father would have had the offender court-martialed for.

  Buddy cut the man’s throat with a big, razor-sharp knife and softly and silently lowered the bloody, cooling body to the earth. All around the half circle, other members of his team were taking out the guards with silent kills.

  Buddy waved a team member with a rocket launcher up to him and patted the weapon. The woman smiled and filled the tube with death.

  A nightbird seemed to sing a gentle tune, the melody floating through the darkness. But it was not a nightbird and the tune did not signify anything gentle.

  A bird answered the first call. A bird that was earthbound and carried violent death in its hands. One by one, the Rat Team members called out that they were in position.

  The men around the fires paid no attention to the bird-calls. Perhaps it was because most of them were not a part of this land; had not been born in this country that was once called America and were not familiar with the nightbirds’ sound. Perhaps they were just tired and more than likely frightened.

  The outlaws and terrorists would soon know no more fear and they could rest forever.

  Buddy tapped the young woman on the shoulder and she fired the rocket. The rocket, an antipersonnel type invented by Ben’s weapons’ experts down at Base Camp One, turned a dozen men into bloody, mangled, nonhuman looking lumps. A second after the first rocket was fired, the other rocket-wielding Rat Team members fired and the campsite was transformed into a fiery hell on earth for those enemy troops gathered there.

  The weapons set on full auto, the Rat Team members made very short work out of any who survived the rocket blasts and had the bad timing to stand up.

  The Rat Team ceased their fire and bellied down on the ground and waited, motionless. Only a few moans came from the burning camp. The Rat Team waited.

  “No more,” a man called out in a heavily accented voice. “No more — please!”

  The Rat Team lay still and very quiet. Another man began crying in the firelit night.

  “We need a few prisoners to take to the Eagle,” Buddy said.

  “Vehicles?” a Rat Team member asked.

  “No. We don’t have the time to check them out for prolonged road use. But we will use them to get back to town. Grab some prisoners and we’ll move some miles down the road before making camp. Go!”

  They drove twenty-five miles south before stopping to make camp for the night. There, they patched up the prisoners as best they could and tied them securely. Buddy remarked that they were certainly a sorry-looking bunch.

  “Go to Europe,” one said. “And you’ll leave looking a lot sorrier. If you leave at all.”

  Buddy knelt down beside the man. His wounds had been only superficial. “What is in Europe that frightened you so?”

  “Chaos. It’s ten times worse than here. Those you call the Night People — Kannibales — are everywhere. They surfaced just after the Great War and began taking over. They have huge farms where they breed humans . . . for food. In other parts of the Continent, there are warlords and land barons and God only knows what else. Each with their own army. There are thousands of p
eople living in the countryside who were burned and disfigured — both mentally and physically by the blasts. Their genes were affected. Their offspring are twice as horrible. There are parts of the countryside where no one dares venture. It is indescribable. One has to see it to fully understand the terror of it all.”

  “You’re German?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know Hans Strobel?”

  “Yes. He’s a good man. Too good a man to ever have become involved with us. He’s alive?”

  “Yes. Then why did he join Lan?”

  “To get away from the labor camps. To remain there would have meant death for him. It was a simple matter of survival.”

  That jibed with everything Hans had said. Buddy had initially sized him up as being basically a good person after only a few minutes of conversation with the man. But to have corroboration from several different sources was always good.

  “And you?” Buddy asked.

  “What?”

  “Are you a good man?”

  “I am a soldier. I have been a soldier all my life. Since I was fifteen. I have spent twenty-five years soldiering with one army or another.”

  “Are you going to tell me that with all that experience behind you, you joined Lan Villar to survive?”

  “No. I could have survived in Europe. I am a survivor. One does not spend twenty-five years at war without learning to survive. I joined Villar because he was a winner.”

  Buddy tapped his own massive chest. “You are looking at another one.”

  The man smiled. “I got that impression.”

  “Are you a true leopard?”

  For a moment, the man looked puzzled, trying to understand what Buddy meant. Then it came to him. “You mean can I change my spots?”

  “Yes.”

  He hesitated. “I honestly don’t know. From what I have been able to learn about the Rebel movement, I don’t think I could live under Ben Raines’s rules.”

  “That’s an honest reply. Tell me this: if you were set free, would you rejoin Villar?”

  “I can answer that quickly. No. But not because of any moralistic reason. I would not rejoin him because the man has changed from a winner to a loser. I can see the change in him. Villar has never known defeat. What happened in Illinois marked him.”

  “Hear me well,” Buddy said. “Whether you live or die depends on how cooperative you are when we reach my father’s sector. And give some thought to joining the Rebels. Give a lot of thought to it. People who don’t conform to what few laws we have are outcasts. They receive no help from us — none at all. No medical help, nothing; only for the very young, which we take from them. It’s a harsh rule of my father’s, but in these times, a necessary one. He’s trying to rebuild a nation from out of the ashes of ruin.”

  The German nodded. “I owe Villar nothing. I gave him years of loyalty; now he is near defeat. I know all the signs of that. So I will be as cooperative as I can be with my interrogators. But General Raines probably knows as much about Villar’s plans as I do.”

  Buddy nodded his head in the murk of darkness. “Our way of life is probably not as restrictive as you have been led to believe. Anyone who really tries can adjust very quickly to our philosophy. Think about it.”

  The man smiled. “With my hands and feet bound, there is not much else I can do, is there?”

  “Oh, yes,” Buddy returned the smile. “You can die if you try to escape.”

  THIRTEEN

  “Patrols in the western part of Missouri report that a battalion-size group is moving westward out of the central part of Missouri,” Corrie told Ben. “They appear to be well-armed and organized.”

  “That would be Ashley,” Ben said. “He’s not going to take the bait I offered. Advise our patrols not to make contact.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any word from Buddy?”

  “He’ll be here by noon tomorrow. He and his Rat Team destroyed about a platoon of Villar’s men last night. They have prisoners.”

  “No movement reported out of Voleta’s people?”

  “Nothing. Generals McGowan and Jefferys report that all is quiet in their sectors.”

  “Thank you, Corrie. Have Buddy report to me when he arrives.”

  She left the CP, returning to her communications room down the hall.

  Ben’s constant shadow, Jersey, sat across the room from him, her M-16 across her knees. Jerre was with Doctor Chase, at the hospital. Cooper stuck his head into the room.

  “Thermopolis to see you, General.”

  “Send him in.”

  “Getting bored?” Ben asked, after coffee was poured and the men seated.

  “Peace has never been boring to me, Ben. But it has been rare over the past few years. Do you think this Sister Voleta is going to take the bait and attack?”

  “Oh, yes. She hates me so much she’s blind to anything else.”

  “This will not be as easy as St. Louis, will it?”

  “No. This will be house to house and hand to hand in many instances.”

  “The reasoning behind that?”

  “I want her in this city and I want to personally see her dead body. That kook and her followers have been a thorn in my side for years. I want the thorn plucked out and destroyed.”

  “And then? . . .”

  “We move against Malone. I want all the major resistance forces against us crushed by the end of summer. That does not include, of course, the creepies still in the cities.”

  “And then? . . .”

  “Maybe Europe. I don’t know. That all depends on whether some new, as yet unknown to us, force appears on the horizon.”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Alaska.”

  “What about it?”

  “Oil. I know that everything was shut down after the government fell . . . for the second time. That area needs to be reopened.”

  “I agree with you. And I’ve given it a lot of thought. Are you volunteering to settle up there?”

  Thermopolis smiled. “No. Emphatically, no. But I wouldn’t mind a short visit.”

  “Neither would I. All right. Let’s do some thinking on it. Tell you what: why don’t you pick some people and start prowling the city’s libraries during this lull in the fighting. One thing about looters: they seldom steal books. See what you can find concerning Alaska.”

  “Me and my big mouth. I might have known you’d give me a damn job.”

  “Your idea.”

  “We all make mistakes.” But it was said with a smile. He drained his coffee cup and stood up. “I’ll get right on it.” He started for the door.

  “Thermopolis?”

  The man turned around.

  “A lot of buildings have not been one hundred percent checked. You people go in armed and careful. Another reason for that is I don’t know when Voleta is going to strike. We’ve got to be ready at all times.”

  “I understand.”

  “Tell Corrie to get you some trucks, and some help rounding up crates.” Ben smiled. “I always take books wherever I find them.”

  “I will admit, Ben Raines, that you do have some redeeming qualities.”

  “All right, boy,” Ben said to Buddy. “Let’s have it.”

  Buddy had been hustled to his father’s CP before his feet were firmly on the ground.

  “My team destroyed one full platoon of Villar’s men about twenty-five or so miles inside Iowa.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “We saw no other signs of the enemy on our move south.”

  “That’s good to know. But not what I wanted to hear from you.”

  “General Striganov and Five and Six battalions are in place.”

  “I know that, boy! I am in radio contact with them. Why in the hell did you pull out from Dan’s group and come here?”

  “To help you fight my mother.”

  “You know I deliberately sent you away from this fight.”

&n
bsp; “Yes. I know. But my place is here. I sense it. So here I am.”

  “And you are going to do what?”

  “Take over your personal security.”

  “I appreciate the thought, boy, but I don’t need a goddamn nanny! I’ve been taking care of myself for a good many of my fifty years. Oh, hell!” He waved his hand. “Go get something to eat.”

  Buddy turned to leave.

  “And close the damn door.”

  “Yes, sir.” Smiling, Buddy stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him.

  “That wasn’t too bad,” Beth said.

  “Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. He didn’t try to spank me.”

  They all got a laugh at the mental image of Ben with Buddy over his knee, applying a belt to the young man’s butt.

  Buddy looked at Jerre. She and Cooper and Corrie were playing cards. “There has been no word from my mother?”

  “No. We know she’s going to strike. We just don’t know when. Ashley has left her, though. He and his men were seen in Western Missouri.”

  “They’ll be linking up with Malone, then. And we don’t have a large enough force west of here to stop them.”

  “Your father doesn’t seem to be too worried about Ashley,” Beth said. “He just wants this business with your mother over and done with.”

  “She’s hard to kill,” the heavily muscled young man said. “But she’s evil and must be stopped. She is past redemption.”

  “What do you mean, Buddy?” Jerre asked.

  He sighed and rubbed his chin with a big hand. He needed a shave and wanted a shower. He and his Rat Team had been pushing themselves hard on the drive south, stopping only when absolutely necessary.

  “I mean, Jerre, that I think if Voleta is to be stopped, I will have to be the one to stop her.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that, Buddy.”

  “It’s already come to that, Jerre. I know it.” He walked out of the room.

  “Still no contact with Grumman and his platoon?” Villar asked.

  “No, sir,” the radio operator told him. “And I’ve tried repeatedly.”

  “They’ve bought it. We can scratch them off the roster.” He lifted a map and studied it closely. His forward recc teams had radioed back distressing news. Raines had shifted his people, stretching them all the way to the Canadian line. The Rebels were thin, very thin, but still a force to be reckoned with. Splitting his people up into small groups had seemed, at first, to be a good idea. Now he was having second thoughts. Villar sighed heavily and shook his head. “We’ve got to mount an offensive and punch through. That’s all we can do.”