Vengeance in the Ashes Read online

  Corrie’s radio started squawking and she went inside. She came out a few moments later, her face grim-looking in the dim light. “This Hoffman person is on the move, General. That was Therm from HQ. Base Camp one had just bumped him. General Jefferys wants you to holler at him as soon as possible.”

  Ben walked over to the communications truck and got Cec on the horn. “What’s up, Cec?”

  “It’s bad, Ben,” came the voice from thousands of miles away. “Hoffman’s sent infiltrators into the States. Intelligence thinks they were sent in months, maybe years ago, and kept their heads down . . . in a manner of speaking. What they’ve been doing is recruiting while you’ve been gone. Obviously this move was planned years back. The infiltrators have been in contact with extreme-right-wing, hate-filled survivalist groups for a long time. You know the type. I’ve got to have some people over here as fast as possible. We’ve got to nip this in the bud right now.”

  “All right, Cec. I’ll get back to you by 0900 my time. Hang in there. Eagle out.” He put a hand on the operator’s shoulder. “Get all batt comms over here right now, son.”

  “We going home, General?” the young Rebel said.

  “Some of us are.”

  “Ben, we’re falling all over each other on these islands,” Ike said. “Hell, we’ve collected enough weapons from the outlaws to outfit every man, woman, and child left.”

  “We’re just backing up the locals on Kauai,” Buddy said, and the other batt comms nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Yes,” Danjou said. “Two battalions on Kauai and two battalions here would be more than sufficient to do the job. And it would not take us long. There are so many of us here now, we run the risk of shooting at each other.”

  “Cecil would not call for help if he didn’t need it,” Georgi Striganov pointed out.

  “Take Therm’s Headquarters Company,” Tina said. “He’s got to get set up and running Stateside. Hell, Dad, the outlaws here are falling apart.”

  “They might pull themselves back together if the majority of us pull out,” Ben said.

  “I hope they do,” Pat O’Shea said. The wild Irishman grinned. “That way we could say we’ve been in a real fight.”

  “The ships are ready, Ben,” Ike said. “You could be sailing in three days.”

  Ben toyed with a pencil for a moment. “All right. Ike, you’re in command here. I’ll leave your battalion and three others. Buddy, your Eight Battalion will remain, along with Ten and Fourteen Battalions. Everything else, including Therm’s Headquarters Company, will move back to the mainland and start setting up to meet Hoffman’s divisions. I’m going to take all the special-ops people.”

  Ben looked at Thermopolis. “You and your people are the first out of here, Therm. Start taking your operation apart and packing it up.”

  Corrie intercepted the runner and took the message. “General, about three hundred punks just surrendered to B Company of Two Battalion. They said there are about five hundred more ready to pack it in.”

  “Well, shit!” Pat O’Shea said. “What the hell is the matter with these people? I haven’t seen a decent fight since we got here!”

  ***

  Ben sat in the bleachers of an old football stadium and looked at the mass of punks being held on the playing field. He was glad he was leaving so he would not have to listen to all the sob stories that were surely going to come out of the mouths of the captured outlaws. It had reached the point where it seemed like everytime a Rebel looked up, a group of outlaws was walking down the center of a road, their hands in the air. But several thousand hard-core still remained full of defiance and ready to fight to the death.

  With Ike in command of the battalions remaining behind, those outlaws would surely get their wish. Ike was not known for his gentle, humanitarian leanings.

  One of the outlaws on the playing field looked up at Ben and waved. Others saw him and began waving and cheering . . . probably due to the fact that they had surrendered to Rebels and were still alive.

  “Wonderful,” Ben said, halfheartedly returning the wave. “Now I have a cheering section.”

  Corrie, Beth, Jersey, and Cooper did their best to hide their grins.

  Ben looked over at them. “Oh, go on and laugh!”

  They did.

  Ben spent his time watching the loading of equipment and troops. There was nothing left to do. The outlaws were surrendering in droves, and the four remaining battalions still in active service were hard-pressed just to find places for them and to help with the guarding. What had started out to be a major operation was ending with all the sparkle of a glass of flat champagne.

  The Rebels on Kauai had found the bodies of half a dozen gang leaders. They had committed suicide rather than face the hangman’s noose. They were identified as Larry Perkins, Kip Burdette, Wee Willie, Rye Billings, Dean Sherman, and a woman that was known as Sarah.

  “There is no way the good people on these islands can house and feed and guard all these slimeballs,” Ben said at a final meeting of batt comms before he was to shove off for the mainland. “So I have a plan. I’ve talked with a dozen ex-captains of ships and they like the plan and will go along with it. They’ve already started working on those cargo ships in the harbors of these islands. They’re to transport these thugs and creeps all over the Pacific Ocean, dropping them off in small numbers on every island . . . inhabited or not. Oh, it’ll be checked out for water and food sources; I’m not leaving them to die some horrible death. And if the island is inhabited, the people will be told what they’re getting and asked if they want them. The hard-core will be taken to the west coast of South America and kicked out there. To hell with them.”

  Georgi Striganov grinned, nudged Ike in the ribs, and held out his hand. “Pay me,” the Russian said. “I told you that was what he’d do.”

  Ike handed him a fistful of worthless old American money and Georgi used a one-hundred-dollar bill to light a cigar.

  Therm and his Headquarters Company had already pulled out, on a ship loaded with excess supplies. They would be met by Rebels in America and escorted to a location near the border with Mexico and set up there.

  The battalions sailing back to the mainland were packed up and ready to board the ships.

  “We’ve got nearly twenty thousand locals armed to the teeth, Ike broke into Ben’s thoughts. “Hell, they outnumber us!”

  “General,” Pat O’Shea said. “I thought Hitler’s dream was a pure Aryan nation?”

  “It was, more or less. Why do you ask, Pat?”

  “Well, in this latest dispatch from General Jefferys, it says that the divisions coming up to do battle with us are made up of people from all over the world. All colors and all nationalities. I don’t get it. That isn’t what Hitler envisioned.”

  “These people aren’t really followers of Hitler, Pat. Very few of them are even German. These people are terrorists, for the most part. But dangerous. In that last dispatch, Cecil talks about the Hitler Youth Corps. But now it’s called the Hoffman Youth League. That tells me that he’s had years to train these people. And that means that we’ll be up against the largest, best-trained, best-equipped, and most highly disciplined and motivated army we have ever faced.”

  “You’re really worried, aren’t you, Ben?” West asked.

  “Damn worried, my friend. We’ve never met a force we couldn’t beat. But this time, I’m afraid our losses are going to be staggering.”

  BOOK TWO

  ONE

  Ben paced the decks during the cruise back to the mainland. He was not given to much conversation and his team left him alone with his thoughts. When he wasn’t pacing the decks, he was in his stateroom, studying maps of the United States’ long border with Mexico. It was impossible to defend with the troops under Ben’s command. Even if General Payon pulled his army back from southern Mexico and joined forces with Ben, the border was just impossible to defend.

  Ike was reporting by radio that the campaign in the islands was
fizzling out as the thousands of now heavily armed locals were overwhelming the outlaws by sheer numbers, flushing them out of their holes and usually killing them on the spot. Ike had pulled the Rebels back and was letting the locals handle it.

  He reported that Books Houseman was dead. The appointed leader of the outlaws had been killed by an aide. Someone named Bobby, who had apparently gone insane and slaughtered everyone in the room, then turned the gun on himself. After the death of Books, the outlaw resistance seemed to fall apart. Ike said that if the fight—or the lack of it—continued as it was going, he and the remainder of the Rebel battalions would be leaving Hawaii just about the time Ben docked.

  Thermopolis and his Headquarters Company had been met in California and flown to a newly built base just outside what was left of Laredo, in Texas. They were fully operational.

  Whoever was doing the planning for General Hoffman knew what he was doing. The Rebels Cecil had sent down to the Mexico-Guatemala border just got out alive. Hoffman had landed paratroopers behind Payon’s lines, and about half of the Mexican Army was trapped in extreme southern Mexico and fighting on two fronts. Payon had pulled what remained of his army back and stretched it out along major points from Poza Rica on the Gulf of Mexico down to Acapulco on the Pacific.

  “Blow all the bridges,” Ben had radioed to the Mexican general from on board ship. “Slow him down just as much as is humanly possible. Give me time to get my people into position. When you feel it is impossible to hold any longer, get the hell out of there and join me on the border.”

  Ben had ordered planeloads of explosives down to Mexico, and teams of Spanish-speaking Rebels to assist in the blowing of bridges and the blocking of major highways leading north. As many bridges as possible on Mexico’s 200, 190, 150, and 180 were being destroyed in a desperate race to buy Ben and the Rebels some time.

  Had Mexico and the United States worked this closely together before the Great War, every problem that had faced the two nations back then could have been resolved, and Canada, the United States, and Mexico could have emerged as the greatest combined superpower in all the world, rich in resources, workforce, and culture. But that didn’t happen—due in no small part to a great many very stupid, greedy, and bigoted people on both sides of the border—and because that did not occur, the lack of cooperation contributed to the world going to hell in a bucket of shit.

  When Ben’s ship docked, planes were waiting to take Ben, his team, and First Platoon, A Company, to the site of Therm and his Headquarters Company in Texas.

  Ben stood for a long silent moment looking at the huge map that covered half of one wall of the operations room. He experienced a feeling of despair unlike anything that he had ever felt before. “The black-flapped pins are Hoffman’s troops?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” Therm said. “The blue-flagged pins are General Payon’s forces.”

  “Therm, the goddamn black-flagged pins run all the way to San Salvador!”

  “Yes. Obviously Hoffman was much more powerful than any of us first thought. We believe his movement was going on long before the Great War. We have revised our estimates of his strength. We now believe that he has five fighting divisions.”

  Ben was stunned and his face clearly mirrored that astonishment. He put out a hand and gripped the edge of a table. His personal team stood in shock facing the wall map. “Therm, if he’s running light divisions of infantry, that’s approximately eighty-five thousand men.”

  “Our estimates place Hoffman’s numbers at one hundred and five thousand. And at full strength, we can field just over twenty-one thousand people. And Ben, that’s using everyone who can tote a gun.”

  “Our people who got out of the pocket down here,” Ben said, pointing at the map. “What are their reports about Hoffman’s troops? Discipline, fighting ability, equipment.”

  “Top notch, Ben. Everything is top of the line. Our teams report the enemy is awesome. Absolutely first rate. They captured one and he went to his death without uttering anything more than his name, rank, and serial number.”

  “Who killed him and why?”

  “He killed himself, Ben.”

  “An army of fanatics,” Ben muttered. “A big army of fanatics. Do we have anything additional on this Hoffman person?”

  “Very little. He is supposed to be a great leader of men. Brilliant. Cunning. A great tactician. But we don’t know that. We don’t know that he’s ever faced an army of any size.”

  “Hell, Therm, we can’t butt heads with this army. We’ve got to make him split his forces and come at us that way. But even at that, it’s going to be his full division against a brigade of our people. And four of our battalions have never been tested in battle.” Ben sighed. “Well, we’ve got a month, maybe two months, to make plans and get set. I want Ike here, Corrie. Tell him to leave Hawaii to the locals and get here as quickly as possible. Get those battalions and equipment on board ship ASAP and fly Ike back. Like today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m getting ready to make some personnel changes, Therm. I’ll brief you just as soon as I’ve spoken with Ike. If he gets his fat ass in gear, he’ll be here late tomorrow.” Ben smiled to lighten the tense mood. “And tell him I said he’s a fat ass, Corrie.”

  “Right, sir.”

  ***

  “Fat ass!” Ike said, after reading the short communiqué. “Why, that long, lanky . . .”

  The runner handed him the second communiqué.

  “Jesus Jumpin’ Christ!” Ike said. “Five divisions? Five! Get me a plane ready to go.”

  “Theoretically, sir,” a young lieutenant said, “I believe the Apache AH-64A, fitted with four auxiliary fuel tanks, will hold enough fuel to fly you back to the mainland.”

  Ike fixed the young man with a very cool and steady gaze. The lieutenant got awfully nervous. “Young man,” Ike said, “I didn’t like helicopters when I was either hurling my body out of one or rappelling down a rope years back. I have absolutely no intention of rattling across the Pacific Ocean in a goddamn whirlybird.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever tried peeing in a damn Apache?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Neither have I, and I don’t care to. Besides, I believe you said theoretically?”

  “Yes, sir. I read it in a training manual.”

  “Who wrote it? Had to have been a chopper pilot. Hell, they’re all nuts. Besides, I . . . What are you smiling about, Lieutenant?”

  “I believe the general was a Navy SEAL, was he not?”

  Ike tried his best to stare the young man down. He could not. Finally Ike smiled. “Well, yeah, you’re right. But SEALs are only half-nuts.”

  “All the serviceable planes have left, General,” an aide told him. “Ferrying medical and special-ops people. Crazy Zeke Andrews says he’ll fly you across.”

  “Crazy goddamn Zeke is going to fly me across the goddamn ocean in his goddamn helicopter,” Ike muttered. “At about a hundred and seventy-five miles an hour. What happens if I gotta take a goddamn dump up there?” he yelled.

  “What took you so long?” Ben asked Ike. “Did you come across by helicopter?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Ike mumbled, sitting down gingerly in a chair.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Ben asked. “Your hemorrhoids bothering you again?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” Ike yelled.

  “Touchy, touchy,” Ben said.

  “More than you know,” Ike muttered.

  “All right, all right, Ike. You give our situation here any thought?”

  “Oh, my, yes. I had plenty of time to think about it, believe me. That and worrying about cotter pins working loose,” he said under his breath.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Nothing, Ben. Nothing. Yeah. I thought about it, and I think we’re in one hell of a pickle. That’s what I think.”

  “Yeah. I agree with you. Come over here to this table. I’ve got a map all mar
ked out.”

  Ike grunted as he got to his feet.

  “Would you like for me to order you a wheelchair?” Ben asked.

  “No, I don’t need a wheelchair. I’m just a little . . . stiff, that’s all.”

  “I think you’re falling apart,” Ben said, bending over the table.

  “Put your lanky ass in a chopper seat for twenty-five hours and see what happens,” Ike muttered.

  “Ummm?”

  “Nothing, Ben. Nothing.”

  “When did you start talking to yourself, Ike?”

  “Get on with the business at hand, Ben. Never mind me.”

  “Until Hoffman and his bunch cross over onto North American soil, Ike, I want you in charge of all special-ops people. That mean you and your teams will be taking a lot of helicopter rides.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Ike muttered.

  Ben gave him an odd look and said, “We’ll leave three exit holes for General Payon and his army. At here, here, and here. El Paso, Laredo, and Brownville. All the other crossings are to be destroyed. I’ve spoken directly with General Payon and he agrees with it. They’ll be blown on my orders only. Wire them and move on. We’ll be receiving a lot of people from Mexico during the next few weeks. I’ve got people setting up emergency receiving centers now, from Tucson all the way over to Brownsville, and trucks moving with food and water and blankets. I’m going to put Tina and Raul Gomez in charge of training all the new recruits from Mexico. They both speak the language and we’re going to need all the help we can get, old friend. Believe me.”

  Ike straightened up with an audible creak and said, “Oh, I do believe you. Five full divisions, Ben?”

  “At least. Probably more than that. But Payon’s got lots of artillery and he’s going to give Hoffman’s boys a damn rough row to hoe. He’ll buy us as much time as he possibly can. Now then, we’re got Hoffman’s infiltrators working all over the nation. This nation. Cecil’s got about two thousand Hummers ready to go for us at Base Camp One. His mechanics have gone over them and they’re tough as mountain goats and ready to roll. About five hundred are on the way here now. Fuel trucks are being placed all over the southern borders; they should all be in place in a few days. We’re going to fan out and hit the known trouble spots in America. We’ll be moving fast and light and we’re going to hit these goose-stepping bastards so hard they’ll never recover from it. We’ve got to do it; we can’t have them at our backs.”