Valor in the Ashes Read online

  “The financial hub of the world, ladies. From Whitehall over to Wall and up to Cortland. Billions and billions of dollars, in currency and stock representing all nations, were traded and bought and exchanged here in this area every day. Monday through Friday” he added.

  “I don’t remember much about anything before the war,” Jersey admitted. “Just bits and pieces. Maybe I just don’t want to remember.”

  “Hell of a lot of things I’d like to forget myself,” Ben told them.

  They ran across the street and into Trinity Church, Ben, Beth, Jersey, and Ben’s ever-present squad of bodyguards.

  Ben glanced at Beth. “This OK with you?”

  “Doesn’t make any difference to me, General. My mother and father were not practicing Jews.”

  They stepped inside and Jersey cried out in dismay, automatically crossing herself.

  “I didn’t know you were of the faith, Jersey.” Ben cut his eyes at her.

  “I was raised a Catholic. Doesn’t make any difference. Just look at this mess. And I bet it was once so beautiful.”

  The interior had been vandalized and slashed and ruined. Profanity had been spray-painted all over the walls. The place stank of the odor of Night People.

  “Anybody who would do this to a church ought to be hung up by their balls!” Jersey said, considerable heat in the statement.

  Several of the Rebels sat down in pews and bowed their heads, praying softly.

  Ben walked up the aisle. “Well, Jersey, some people blamed God for what happened to the world. The Great War. They did, and are doing, some pretty terrible things.”

  “You think God had anything to do with the war, General?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Him if I ever see Him. But personally, I doubt if He did. I think He just let humankind screw it all up on their own.” He shrugged, drops of water dribbling from his poncho onto the dirty floor. “But that’s just one man’s opinion.”

  “I don’t wanna go into no more churches, General,” Jersey said, tears in her eyes and running down her face. “Let somebody else do it.”

  “All right, Jersey.” Ben patted her shoulder. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Let’s get out of here.”

  By ten o’clock that morning, the temperature had turned around, dropping, and the steady rain was mixed with bits of sleet. West and his people were battling up the Chase Manhattan Building, and it was slow going, as well as gruesome. Bits and pieces of human bodies littered each floor. West guessed that some of the bones were a year or two old, while others had been stripped of flesh only days before.

  By midmorning they had battled their way up to the eighteenth floor. Then Ben gave the welcome orders. “Seal it off, Colonel. Weld the doors shut wherever possible and build barricades for any others. Let’s concentrate on the basement floors.”

  The lower floors had been saved for last, all knowing that they would be the worst.

  Ben had not forgotten the people under the streets of Manhattan. He simply had not had time to try and contact them.

  Construction Rebels went to work sealing off the eighteenth floor. “Let the bastards eat each other,” Ben was heard to mutter.

  There had been no sign of Ian. Tina had reported in, saying the roads were getting terrible and she was still some miles from the Teterboro Airport. Ben told her to pack it in and wait until tomorrow. It was still early in the season for this kind of weather to last long.

  The day was wet and cold and gloomy.

  “Look at them, looking at us,” Jersey said, her face uplifted to the center of the bank building.

  Ben looked up. He could see a few black-robed figures staring down at them from what was going to be their tomb.

  “Order gas masks on, Beth. Everybody get into position. Are the hoses in place?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Start the trucks.”

  Ben had hooked into the building’s ventilation system, running hoses from the exhaust of the trucks and Jeeps and Hummers. Once the carbon monoxide started filling up the bottom floors, it would not be long.

  The rain and the cold dulled the gunfire and the senses, for it was an awful job, even for the most hardened of Rebels. The Night People began trickling out, coughing and screaming their hatred until gunfire silenced them forever.

  Doctor Chase had come to stand beside Ben across the street from the carnage, protected somewhat from the rain by an awning.

  “Why,” Chase asked, his voice just audible over the driving drops of rain and sleet and the cracking of gunfire.

  “Why . . . what, Lamar?” Even though Ben knew perfectly well what his old friend was talking about.

  “What turned them into this manner of . . . creature? What did it to them? I’ve got to have some alive, Ben. For the sake of history a hundred years from now — and you above all should understand that — I’ve got to talk with at least some of them.”

  Ben sighed. “All right, Lamar. But answer me this: What are you going to do with them when you’ve finished your . . . conversations?”

  Lamar picked up on the sarcasm in Ben’s tone. “You let me worry about that, Raines!”

  “No. We’ll worry about that now, Chase.”

  “You want an honest answer or a lie?”

  “I would prefer an honest answer.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. You have a yearning to play Doctor Schweitzer in your advancing years, Lamar?”

  “Screw you, Raines!”

  Ben looked at Dan and West. “What do you people have to say about it?”

  West shrugged his total indifference and Dan said, “If you want some alive, General, we’ll take some.”

  Ben instructed Beth to radio the orders to take some of the night crawlies alive for observation and study.

  “Anything else, Doctor Chase?” Ben asked.

  “One of my doctors came to me this morning. He was very upset about the fate of the prisoners you brought in for interrogation.”

  “I’m sure he was.” Ben’s return was a complete opposite of the weather.

  They stood in silence for a moment, rain shrouding the dreary gray of the captive city.

  “Well?” Chase demanded.

  “Well . . . what?” Ben looked at him.

  “The prisoners, Raines. The damn prisoners. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. What about the prisoners?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. That’s not my department. I called for a military tribunal to convene. That’s all I know about it.”

  Chase wore a disgusted look on his face. “Then who do I ask?”

  “Try Dan.”

  “Well, Gray?” The doctor glared at the Englishman. “What about it?”

  “I was the presiding judge,” Dan admitted.

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “It must have been a damn short trial.”

  “It didn’t take long.”

  “And the verdict?” Chase’s words were bitter. He’d already reached a conclusion about that.

  “Guilty of numerous heinous crimes against humanity. They admitted it.”

  “And their punishment?”

  Dan Gray looked at the doctor and put an end to the conversation. “They were hanged several hours ago.”

  THIRTEEN

  Another block had been cleared; another building — at least up to the eighteenth floor — had been secured for the future generations.

  There was only one way for those trapped to escape: they could try to climb down, using ropes, and be shot by Rebels assigned to the area for just that purpose, or they could jump.

  It didn’t make a damn bit of difference to Ben.

  After the carnage at the bank building, Ben called a halt to the day’s search and destroy and told his people to knock off.

  Then he couldn’t find where his office had been relocated.

  He opened his mouth to start cussing. Jersey touched him on the arm. “Follo
w me, General. It’s been moved one street over.”

  After a very quick bath, in cold water, Ben shaved, dressed in clean, warm clothing, and ate a meager supper. Like most in his command, his appetite had been dulled by the hideousness of the day’s work.

  His office had been moved to the second floor of a building for security. It had no windows — which irritated Ben — and was located in the center of the second floor.

  He opened his mouth to bitch about it, then closed his trap, knowing it was not the fault of Jersey or Beth. Ike had trapped him again. Probably with the help of Cecil and Dan and West.

  He looked around him. The office had, at one time, been quite a nice setup. Some upper-management hotshot, Ben figured. He picked up the phone and muttered, “Think I’ll buy a million shares of AT and T.”

  He jerked in surprise when a man said, “Can I help you, General?”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  The man chuckled. “Shepherd, sir. We got the phones working to a few areas late this afternoon. We can now patch you through direct to the other CP’s.”

  “Are they secure?”

  “Yes, sir. Scrambled at both ends.”

  “Good work. Get me Ike, will you?”

  “Right away, sir. You want General Jefferys on the line as well?”

  “Can you do that?”

  “No problem. Hang on, sir.”

  Within a few seconds, Ike came on the horn. “Ben? How’s it lookin’ over your way?”

  “Grim. But slow and steady. Cec?”

  “About the same, Ben. But I’m thinking the main body of these creepies is going to be found in your sector. We’ve discovered that there are different tribes of them. I was going to send a runner over to you with that information. Then I was informed about twenty minutes ago that some lines were open. I was just about to call you.”

  “Tribes?” Ike asked, before Ben could.

  “Right. I’ve extended my sector over to Brooklyn College — or what’s left of it. Part of it has been used as a CP and a force-feeding farm.” He sighed deeply and audibly.

  “What’s wrong, Cec?” Ben asked.

  “We found some survivors here, Ben. But they’re broken people. Mentally mostly. God knows, you can’t blame them for breaking under the strain. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour trying to write out a report for you to read. It’s, well, mind-boggling.”

  “Cec, get some rest. I’ll be over with Chase in the morning. Give me a secure route.”

  “It’s best if I have a contingent meet you at the bridge, Ben. They’ll escort you in.”

  “Ill meet your people at the bridge at eight in the morning, Cec.”

  “Good enough, Ben. Ill see you then.”

  Both Ben and Ike heard him click off.

  “Must be bad over there, Ben.”

  “Yeah. How’s it with you?”

  “Not bad. We hit pockets of them, but like Cec, I agree that you and yours have the funkiest job.”

  Ben told him about those people living under the streets of New York City.

  Ike grunted. “That doesn’t surprise me, Ben. I learned a long time ago not to be surprised about anything taking place in New York City. What do you intend doing about it?”

  “Try to talk with them. If they’re friendly, we need all the help we can get.”

  “Ben . . . I can’t speak for you or Cec, but for me and mine, it’s too easy. We’re just coasting over here. I’ve taken no casualties. None. One guy fell out of a truck and broke his ankle. But that’s it. I got a real bad feeling about this.”

  “How so?”

  “Well . . . it’s kinda like you go into a bar and all of a sudden the best-looking woman in the place starts coming on to you. If you look like me, you’ll start to figure that you’re being set up for something. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I sure do. But what are we being set up for?”

  “I don’t know, Ben. But me and Cec talked about this thing. He feels the same way.”

  “And you think we should do . . . what?”

  “I don’t know. Think about it and be careful, I reckon.”

  “All right, Ike. Talk to you later. Hang in.” He broke the connection.

  Ben turned to look out the window, then realized, again, that he didn’t have a damn window. He got up and slipped into his field jacket and picked up his poncho.

  “You won’t need that, sir,” Jersey told him, standing in the door to his office. “It’s stopped raining.”

  Ben tossed the poncho to a chair.

  “While you were on the phone, Katzman radioed. He’s picked up signals from Monte and his main group. They’re definitely heading for this city.”

  She paused.

  “And . . . ?” Ben prompted.

  The warlord has picked up more people. Some guy who calls himself the Colonel.”

  “Colonel what?”

  “Just the Colonel, sir.”

  “What else is going to happen on this operation?” Ben asked, not really expecting Jersey to reply. He glanced at his watch. “Get some sleep, Jersey. We meet with Cecil tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred. And what we’re going to view is not going to be pleasant. Contact Doctor Chase and advise him to be ready to leave with us. Colonel Gray will be in charge during my absence.”

  “Yes, sir. What we’re going to see tomorrow — is it going to be any worse than what we saw today?”

  “Probably.”

  That was putting it mildly.

  Even the usually much self-controlled Ben Raines was shocked at the sight.

  The people that Cecil had rescued — and he said that most had been naked, or at best, dressed in rags — huddled together in a far corner of the gym where Cecil had transported them. They looked like zombies, and didn’t behave much better.

  Chase and his medical team moved to them immediately, while Ben stood with Cecil and talked.

  “What’s the matter with them, Cecil?”

  His friend hesitated.

  “Come on, Cec.”

  “Most of the men have been castrated. Those that will talk at all say it wasn’t done immediately upon arrival. But done much later — after their, ah, entertainment value had waned, or whatever. And done because they were, for some reason we have not yet been able to fathom, unsuitable for breeding purposes. All of the women and many of the men have been sexually molested by Monte and his people. The Night People have also had their way with many of them, forcing them to perform . . . rather perverted acts for the enjoyment of these so-called Judges and others. Then the men were castrated and put in here to fatten for food.”

  When Ben found his voice, he said, “I have to agree with Lamar on at least one thing, Cec: the why of it all?”

  “I can give you a theory.”

  “All right.”

  “The hard core of the Night People were perverted before the war. But their, ah, unusual sexual appetites were, for the most part, kept in check by the law. After the war, a few got together, those few each knew a few more, and so forth. They have a fine communications network, Ben, and this thing is nationwide. We had already guessed that. But I think the hard core live here in the city.”

  “And if we wipe them out . . . ?”

  “We might be able to break their backs.” But he sounded very dubious. Ben didn’t immediately pursue it.

  “So all this crap about disfigurement from the bombings and radiation poisoning and so forth is just garbage.”

  “Yeah. Just like the crap that Hilton Logan put out about the entire Northeast Corridor being off-limits due to direct nuclear strikes. Ben, you want to hear another theory?”

  “Might as well.”

  “I think it’s global.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes and stared long at his friend. “You think what is global, Cec?”

  Cecil met Ben’s eyes. “The Night People. That’s why we have never — never — in all the years we’ve been monitoring radio traffic, been able to pick up chatter outside the forty-eigh
t contiguous states and Canada.”

  Ben digested that bit of theory. Looked again at Cecil. “Go on.”

  “Now granted, some nukes did fall. But as many as we were led to believe? I don’t think so, Ben. I don’t think Hawaii got hit. I think Hawaii is anything but a paradise now. Think back, Ben. Those papers we got off of that dead courier from Khamsin’s bunch. We misread those papers, Ben. When Khamsin’s bunch landed in South America, Khamsin himself, a butcher if there ever was one, said the area had reverted to barbarism. And they left. What in God’s name could be too barbaric for a creature like Khamsin?”

  “And they found willing recruits in all the places they landed,” Ben spoke the words quietly. “Sure. Hell, I’d join Khamsin to get clear of these creepies!”

  “So would any even semi-normal person.”

  Chase rejoined them. The man was trembling with rage. “Disgusting, Ben. Perverted and hideous and . . .” His anger choked off the rest.

  “Lamar, I want a psychological team to start work immediately on those prisoners Dan got for you yesterday. I want their brains picked clean. And I don’t give a damn what conditions they’re in afterward.”

  Lamar nodded. “What shall we do with those poor . . . wretches?” He cut his eyes to the huddled survivors.

  “Get them out of here and over to Staten Island. From there, we’ll ship them back to Base Camp One and try to do something with them. Lamar, is there anything that can be done with them?”

  The man sighed heavily. “Yeah. Probably. Their spirits have been broken, Ben. They’ve been beaten down to nothing mentally. Living in a state of sheer, utter, mind-numbing fright for months and with some, even years. Tortured, sexually molested . . . and other things so vile it makes me want to puke!”

  “Did all of these people come from outside the city?” Ben asked.

  “No,” Lamar said. “As a matter of fact, about half of them claim to be native New Yorkers.”

  “So there are pockets of survivors within the city. Just like we guessed.”

  “There have to be,” Lamar replied.

  Ben could see that the man’s mind was not on the conversation, but rather on the people he had just spoken with, still huddled together at the far end of the room.