Fire in the Ashes Page 14

  Ben looked at his commanders. “Hit hard, hit fast, and make it brutal. If they work for the government of the United States ... they have two choices, either quit, or die. Any questions?"

  “Kick-ass time,” Hector said, getting to his feet.

  The men filed from the tent. In exactly nineteen hours the second civil war in one hundred and thirty-eight years would rock the nation, eleven years after the world had exploded in nuclear and germ warfare. It was a testimony to the desire of men and women who wished to live free: free of government constraints, free of government bureaucracy, free of crime, free to live their own lives free of fear of the central government.

  Free.

  PART TWO

  If blood be the price of admiralty

  Lord God we ha’ paid in full.

  — Kipling

  One

  Ben had been wrong in thinking the guts had been torn from Americans; that they would not fight; that they did not know the tactics of defense.

  What had happened in America was typical of any nation of people who had been so heavily ruled and governed from one central point; who had had the right to defend what was theirs taken from them; who had been stripped of nearly every constitutional right supposedly “guaranteed” them by their forefathers; and who had been told time after time that to do this, that, or the other thing was either illegal, immoral, or bad for your health.

  Even the most intelligent of persons will, after a reasonable length of time, begin to believe it if that person is told fifty times a day that they are stupid.

  John Adams was not farting the National Anthem when he wrote that fear is the foundation of most governments, or when he wrote that law is as deaf as an adder to the clamors of the populace.

  For far too long the government, from the mouths of federal judges, had overruled the wishes of the majority of the population of the United States in so many areas that to list them would be a book in itself.

  That was not what our forefathers had in mind.

  But that is what happens when the central government assumes too much power ... power that rightfully belongs in the hands of its citizens.

  It takes Americans awhile to get going. Always has. But once they get going ... look out, for any combat veteran will attest that there is no more savage fighting man than the American soldier.

  Jake Devine's tactics had worked to some extent, for a few people, in a few states. Hartline's brutality had and was working for him in a few states. But the American people have a great will to survive; a great thirst for as much freedom as possible; a need for fair and equitable treatment.

  What they needed was a catalyst, but not one that itself would not be affected. One was on his way: Ben Raines.

  * * * *

  In a small city in Oklahoma, Mr. Kent Naylor lay wide-awake in his bed, beside his sleeping wife. His four children, ages 13 to 20, were asleep in other parts of the two-story home.

  Naylor was the head of a small cell of Rebel sympathizers, fifty strong. He had received word the day before that the federal police, under the direction of Al Cody's men, were coming to get him, to take him in for questioning.

  Naylor knew what that meant: he would never return. He had seen only one man ever return from those camps where Rebel sympathizers were taken, and that man had been turned into a babbling idiot from hours of physical and mental torture.

  No, Naylor thought, I'm not going to be taken by the federal police.

  Headlights slashed their way through the thin curtains covering the open bedroom window. Stopped. Motors running. Silence. Naylor rose from the bed, quickly slipped into trousers and shoes and shirt. He reached into a closet and took out a twelve-gauge shotgun. It was fully loaded with double-ought buckshot, pushed by magnum powder loads. He clicked the SEND button on a small handy/talkie by his bed and heard the receiver send an answering click.

  Everybody was ready. All the members of his cell were ready to make their move toward restoring freedom to their lives.

  A hard hammering on the front door. A demanding knocking.

  Naylor knew who it was.

  “Naylor! Open the door. Police."

  “Fuck you,” Naylor muttered.

  “What is it?” his wife sat up in bed, a frightened look in her eyes.

  “Stay in this room, Beth,” he told his wife. “Everything is going to be all right. I promise you. Finally it will be all right."

  He pumped a round into the chamber of the shotgun and stepped out of his bedroom, looking down into his den.

  The front door was kicked open, wood splintering and cracking.

  “...drag the son of a bitch out,” a fragment of a sentence reached the man.

  “Drag all of them out,” a voice filled with hard authority said. “His kids are part of it, too. We'll see how Naylor likes watching his kids take it up the ass."

  His face a hard mask, Naylor lifted the shotgun and emptied it into the three men standing by the ruined front door.

  One man's head flew apart, splattering the wall with blood and fluid and brains. The second man's feet jerked out from under him as the slugs impacted with his chest, slamming him to the carpet. The third man took the slug in the throat, almost tearing his head from his torso.

  All lay dead or dying.

  Lights in the houses on both sides of the street clicked on as half a dozen police cars squalled to a halt in front of the Naylor home. Citizens with guns in their hands appeared on the front lawns, men and women and teenagers. A half a hundred of them.

  The federal police officers stopped dead still in the Naylor yard.

  One officer summed up their predicament as well as anyone could under such conditions. “Oh, shit!"

  “Get that crap out of my house,” Naylor jerked his thumb toward the dead men. “And clean up the mess."

  “Yes, sir,” a federal police officer said. “Right away."

  The bodies carried out of the house, the mess cleaned up as best as possible, the gun-carrying citizens went back into their houses, leaving the street empty. But the federalized police knew they were being watched, and the choice of living or dying was solely in their hands.

  “I was a cop nine years before the government federalized us,” a man said, his voice low. “I knew it was a mistake. I said when Lowry and Cody started this gun-sweep it was wrong; the people wouldn't stand still for it."

  Another man removed his badge and dropped it with a clink on the sidewalk. “We're through!” he yelled to the dark emptiness. “I'm goin’ back to sellin’ furniture. Y'all hear me? I'm no longer a cop."

  Other badges followed the first one. They lay twinkling on the sidewalk and the lawn.

  As Hartline had said, speaking for the other side, “It's just so fucking easy."

  When one has the wherewithal to make it stick.

  * * * *

  In West Virginia, a lanky coal miner stood in front of a judge. Sitting beside the local DA were two young men who used to be federal police officers. Their faces were bruised; lips swollen; several teeth missing. There were four federal police officers originally. The other two were dead.

  The courtroom was filled to capacity with Levied, booted, work-shirted, hard-eyed men. They sat politely and quietly. They were all armed.

  “Your Honor,” the DA rose to his feet. “I protest the presence of armed men in this courtroom. I...” He caught the eye of the man standing in front of the judge. “I ... think I'll sit down."

  He sat down.

  The miner looked at the judge. “Can I talk now, Your Honor?"

  The judge rubbed his aching temples with his fingertips. He sighed. “Well, I suppose so, Mr. Raymond. I must say, though, in all my years on the bench, I have never seen such a sight in any courtroom. Did you and ... your friends come here to fight, or to see justice served?"

  “Justice has been served, Your Honor,” Mr. Raymond replied. “My friends just come along to see that it stays served."

  “Incredible,” the judge said. �
�By all means, Mr. Raymond, do speak."

  “Well ... like I tole the sheriff yesterday, me and my friends was gettin’ damn tired of these federal cops a-struttin’ around, actin’ bigger than God; actin’ like they was better than the rest of us. But we figured we'd just look the other way when they come around—long as they left us alone.

  “Now, judge, you know how it is in the hill country. You was raised up not twenty miles from where you're sittin.’ You know there are unwritten laws as well as them you have in all them books I seen in your office. You don't steal from a man; you don't put hands on a man; you don't cheat a man; you don't insult a man; you don't badmouth a good woman; and you damn sure don't take a man's guns. And there ain't no son of a bitch takin’ my guns.

  “Now there was four of them young smart-mouthed cops come to my house. My house, your honor. My house. And that there is the key words. My house. Me and that woman sittin’ right there.” He pointed. “That house belongs to us. Accordin’ to the constitution of the United States, and I reread it ‘fore I come here this morning, a person has the right to be safe and secure in his person, papers, houses, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Ain't that right, judge?"

  “You're talking about the Bill of Rights, Mr. Raymond. But yes, you are correct in that."

  “Well, those federal cops come up to my house, just struttin’ like they was the Lord God Almighty. I was out back in the field, tendin’ to the garden—God knows there ain't no work in the mines no more.

  “I heard my wife screamin.’ Chilled me. I had a pistol hid in the shed out back; grabbed that on my run to the house. One of them cops had hit my wife, knocked her down on the floor, dress all hiked up past her hips. Them federal cops standin’ around, laughing at my wife's nakedness. Then one of ‘em kicked her. I shot him in the stomach and he went down. Just then my brother Rodney—he lives right across the road—come in the house just as the other cop was pointin’ a pistol at my head. Rodney shot him and then we whipped the other two in a fair, stand-up fistfight. Did a pretty damn good job of it, too, wouldn't you say so?"

  The judge looked at the badly mauled ex-federal cops (both of them had resigned prior to this hearing). “Yes, Mr. Raymond, I would say that is the truth."

  “Well, judge, you see, ‘bout a year ago, me and about forty-fifty other boys around here joined up with the Rebels come out of Tri-States after the government stuck their goddamn nose where it don't belong—as usual. I understand from radio broadcasts the Rebels are comin’ out of the Smokies like ants toward honey—so we figured this was as good a time as any to make our move.

  “So, judge, you ain't got no more federal police in this county. We got ‘em locked up over in the jail. The boys that was the law before the government federalized the police is back as the law. And me and mine and my friends is gonna bow out of the lawkeepin’ business and let them that knows a little something about it tend to it. But we'll keep our guns, just in case.

  “Now, your honor, I'm gonna take my wife, my kin, and my friends, and we're gonna leave this courtroom. I don't expect to be back ‘cause I don't expect to break any laws. Especially the new law that we're going to put in effect in this county. And you know what that law is, don't you, judge?"

  The judge lost his temper for the first time that morning. “Ben Raines's law, Mr. Raymond—the law that was used in the Tri-States? The law of the jungle."

  “Well, I could stand here and argue with you, judge; but I ain't gonna. I will say the Rebels’ law is not the law of the jungle—it's more ... a common sense law. But I don't expect a lawyer or a judge to understand that. You people are like lice: if a dog don't get the first one, he ain't gonna get another."

  “I resent the hell out of that analogy!” the judge snapped at the miner.

  “I don't care,” Mr. Raymond said calmly. “It's true. You're not interested in really punishing the guilty; you're not interested in what is right or wrong. Not even before we come under a police state. I'm not gonna argue about it. Your kind of law of fancy words and deals and blamin’ crime on society is over. And I think it's time—past time.

  “So, you better retire from the bench, judge. You better do that before the Rebels get here, ‘cause I understand they pretty damned tough, and they don't take a whole lot of truck off folks. ‘Specially folks that backed the police state and the federal police and Lowry and them kind. So we'll see you around, judge. You take care, now—you hear?"

  * * * *

  The Joint Chiefs met in the New Pentagon in Richmond. None of them could conceal their delight at the Rebels moving out of the Smokies.

  “Raines's Rebels are kicking ass up in the Kentucky, I hear,” General Rimel said. “Hartline lost over a thousand men the first day."

  “Yes, the fool tried an assault on three bridges, a simultaneous attack. All Raines's people did was pull back and suck the troops across the river, then they closed the flanks around them.” General Franklin shook his head in disgust at the stupidity of that move; but he could not hide his smile.

  “Let me correct that, General,” General Preston said. “Hartline wasn't there. I don't believe he would have made such a move."

  “You're right,” the Marine agreed. “Hartline was in Richmond, I forgot. Well, anyway, that's a thousand mercs we won't have to deal with."

  “Affirmative to that,” Admiral Calland said. “I'm just praying nothing happens that will pull us into this fight."

  “What the hell could happen that would do that?” General Rimel asked. “Raines has given his word that he isn't interested in toppling the government, per se. All he wants is to return to Tri-States and be left alone. He isn't going to attack any of our bases."

  “I just have a bad feeling about it all,” Calland replied. “You know—all of you—that I've felt for some time Lowry was not really behind it all. That someone is giving him orders. I can't shake that feeling."

  “Who?"

  “I don't know. I just don't think Lowry has enough sense to mastermind this. My God, you've all talked with the man. He's just as big a fool as Logan was—maybe more so. All that talk about him being the brains behind Logan. I never did believe it. Somebody else is behind all this. I know it."

  “Again,” General Franklin leaned forward, “I ask who?"

  “I don't know. I got a bad feeling about it, boys. A bad feeling."

  * * * *

  “You dirty, low-life bastard!” Sabra hissed at Hartline. “It isn't enough you've ruined my marriage. Now you have to rape my daughter. You son of a bitch!"

  “Relax, Sabra-baby,” Hartline grinned at her. “I just wanted to have a little taste, that's all. It was tight, I have to admit."

  “Goddamn you!"

  When she again looked up, she was indeed looking up, the side of her face aching where Hartline had slapped her.

  “Sabra-baby, how would you like me to take little Nancy down to the local barracks and give her to some of my men?"

  “You wouldn't!"

  “Oh?"

  “You can't be that vile."

  “Would you like to watch her take two at once?"

  Sabra put her face against the carpet and wept from fury and frustration and helplessness.

  Hartline kicked her in the butt. “Get up and go take a bath. You're meeting the vice president tonight. And when you get cleaned up, call Jane Moore, have her meet you here at seven. She's giving Al Cody some pussy tonight."

  The woman slowly rose from the floor. She faced Hartline, no fear for herself in her. “I despise you, Hartline—you must know that."

  “I know lots of things, baby. But you just go on playing your little games. You're not going to hurt me.” He cupped a breast and gently squeezed it. “I'll screw little Nancy anytime I want a nice tight cunt. And there ain't a damn thing you or anybody else can do about it. Hell, I might even let you watch the next time. Oh, and Sabra-baby? I went over to the studio this afternoon; got me a little peek at your Friday night news script—the little st
ory on me? I made copies of it and took them over to the Bureau. It didn't take them long to break the code. You've been a very naughty girl, Sabra-baby. I'm going to have to think of some way to punish you for that. I'll give it some thought. I'm sure I'll manage to come up with something suitable.” He pushed her toward the bathroom. “Now go wash your cunt like a good little girl."

  He was laughing as she stumbled toward the bathroom, the room blurring from the sudden tears of rage in her eyes.

  * * * *

  “I have a plan,” the familiar voice said. “Oh, my, yes. A very good plan. I think I know a way to rid ourselves of the president and Ben Raines at the same time. And,” he held up a finger, “get the military back on our side—all at the same time. It's so simple I'm ashamed I didn't think of it before."

  Lowry leaned forward, interested. He glanced at the wall clock. Plenty of time before he was to meet Sabra at the retreat. “Tell me,” he said, his eyes bright.

  The man leaned back in his chair. He began to speak. By the time he was finished, both he and Lowry were laughing and slapping each other on the knee.

  Two

  It began raining on the afternoon of the fourth day out of the Smokies, the weather turning cool. As Ben's column moved through Kentucky and into Virginia, the skies cleared and the stars seemed close enough to touch. The column moved through the night, meeting no resistance, for the news of their coming had preceded them, and the federal police wanted nothing to do with the Rebels, for those of their kind who had fought the Rebels had died hard and quickly ... and the Rebels were taking no prisoners.

  After a few hours sleep, the column again headed east, meeting their first roadblock just inside the Virginia line. The scouts radioed back and Ben drove his Jeep to within a few hundred meters of the roadblock. He picked up a portable bullhorn. His message was brief.