Survival in the Ashes Read online

  Malone was sitting quietly. The smugness was gone from his face.

  Meg Callahan was seated beside him. Meg had been a part of the Rebels for a time, until Ben had flushed her out of his ranks, after learning that she was a spy. She knew from firsthand experience what the Rebels were capable of doing; and she knew that Villar was telling the truth.

  Ashley nodded his head in agreement with Villar and Malone took note of the nod.

  “Is there no place on the face of this earth that is safe from that heathen?” Malone practically screamed the words.

  “I’m beginning to think not,” the terrorist replied. “Besides, what good would that knowledge do us now?”

  “What do you mean?” Malone demanded.

  “He means,” Meg told him, “that we’re trapped in here. Ben Raines has sealed us in. Right, Villar?”

  “To a degree, yes. We could get out; but it would have to be on foot. We’d have to march out, leaving anything we couldn’t carry.”

  “Ben Raines has no right to do this!” Malone screamed, spittle spraying from his mouth. “He has no right to displace us from our homes.”

  “Fine,” Villar said. “Then do you want to tell General Raines that you will live under the Rebel rules?”

  “Certainly not! Don’t be ridiculous! I will not allow genetically inferior people into this area. That’s why we came out here in the first place, to get away from niggers and Jews and wops and spies and polocks and the like. There used to be a couple of Indian reservations in this area. Those we didn’t kill we ran out. Oh, there are some still in this territory. We use them for houseboys and maids and cooks. Menial jobs.” He waved that off. “You know all that, Villar. I’m not leaving, Villar. I will order my people to gear up for a sustained battle, and we’ll fight to the bitter end.”

  Villar’s smile was void of humor. “With your philosophy, Malone, you don’t have a great deal of choice in the matter.” But I do, he silently added.

  Trucks had rolled into the area from Base Camp One, carrying supplies and instruments of war. They rolled in twenty-four hours a day. Planes were landing around the clock, off-loading their cargoes of ammunition, food, medical supplies, generators, and boots, bras, and fresh BDUs.

  Inside the wilderness area, Malone had set up his CP at a once beautiful resort near the Pinkham Mountains, some thirty-five miles from the Canadian border.

  Satan and his odious crew had personally inspected many of the roads leading out of the area, roaring around on their motorcycles, disturbing the animals and fouling the pristine air.

  When they tried to cross over into the Bitterroot Range, they came under heavy fire from the Rebels stationed along Highway 200, 135, and Interstate 90.

  “Shit,” Hogjaw said. “We in a hell of bind in here, man.”

  “Yeah,” Moosemouth agreed. “I ain’t likin’ this worth a damn.”

  “I think I’ll kill that goddamn Ashley for bringin’ us in here,” Satan said. “It’s all his damn fault.”

  “No, it ain’t,” a biker called Axehandle said. “It’s our fault. If I git out of this mess, I’m hangin’ it up, boys. I’m fixin’ to find me a good woman, git me a little farm and settle down.”

  “What damn woman that’s any good would have you?” Satan fixed him with a baleful look.

  Axehandle shrugged. “Plenty of ’em, once I git shut of the likes of you?”

  Satan wanted to slap him off his Hog. But Axehandle was just about as big and just about as mean as Satan, so the leader of the outlaw bikers held his temper in check. Instead, he said, “I don’t want you in my bunch no more, Axe. Carry your funky ass.”

  “With pleasure,” Axehandle said. “But you ride out first. I don’t wanna git shot in the back.”

  Satan grimaced, kicked his Hog into life, and roared off, the others with him.

  Axe rode south, down the Ninemile Divide to within shouting distance of the Interstate. “That’s it!” he yelled across the expanse of concrete. “I’m quittin.’ I done broke with Satan and them others Y’all hear me?”

  “We hear you,” Leadfoot hollered from the other side. “Is that you, Axe?”

  “In person. That you, Leadfoot?”

  “In the flesh. You wanna join us?”

  Axehandle thought about that for a moment, then sighed. Anyone with any sense ought to know there wasn’t no way Ben Raines was gonna be stopped. Him and his Rebels was like a steamroller.

  “Did you have any trouble adjustin’ to the Rebel way of life, Leadfoot?”

  “Not a bit, Axe. We enjoy it. It’s pretty good over here.”

  “Beerbelly joined us,” Wanda hollered. “The Rebels fixed up his teeth and he looks almost human.”

  “You don’t say? All right, Leadfoot, I’ll give her a whirl.”

  “There ain’t no givin’ nothin’ a whirl, Axe. You either in, or you on your own, boy. Ben Raines don’t cut nobody no slack.”

  Axehandle turned in the saddle at the sounds of half a dozen motorcycles coming up behind him. It was Danny and Corrigan and a few others. “You boys pullin’ out?” he asked.

  “You got that right, Axe,” Corrigan said. “I’m tarred of bein’ a loser. I wanna get on the right side for a change.”

  “Me, too,” Axe told him. “That’s Leadfoot and Wanda over yonder,” he said, pointing across the Interstate.

  “You don’t say? How they likin’ the Rebel way?”

  “Said it’s fine. The Rebels fixed up Beerbelly’s teeth. Wanda said he looks sorta normal now.”

  “That’d be a sight to see. Beerbelly never did resemble nothin.’”

  “Leadfoot?” Axe hollered.

  “Right here, boy. With you in gunsights.”

  Axe swallowed hard. “Lower your guns, Beer. We’s comin’ acrost to join up!”

  Ben Raines impressed the outlaw bikers.

  There was nothing physically overpowering about the man. While he looked to be in middle-age he also looked in picture-perfect health. Which he was, except for a knee that bothered him from time to time and reading was a lot easier when he remembered to use his glasses.

  There was just something about the man . . . the way he carried himself, maybe. Maybe it was some invisible aura lingering about him. For sure it was those cold gunfighter eyes.

  “Why do you want to join us?” Ben finally spoke, his words soft. He was beginning to spook the bikers just sitting there staring at them.

  “’Cause we’re all damned tired of gettin’ kicked around,” Corrigan said. “Outlawin’ ain’t much fun anymore. And us here” — he jerked his thumb at the other bikers — “is probably all that’s comin’ out.”

  “Why did you come out?” Ben never took his eyes from the man.

  “I just told you . . . sir.”

  “No, you didn’t. You told me you were tired of getting kicked around. If that was the only reason, you could have just kept on going. Now tell me why you came out.”

  Axehandle said, “To tell you the truth, General. Us here never felt like we really belonged with them others. Lamply there” — he jerked his thumb — “was always pickin’ up stray cats and dogs and carin’ for them and the like. Me and Corrigan and the rest of us here never would take no part in no gang-shaggin’ of girls or women. I wasn’t brought up like that. And, well, I guess we all got to thinkin’ that the way we was livin’ wasn’t a very good one. I guess that about covers the waterfront, General.”

  Ben nodded his head. “You’ll all undergo a battery of tests — some of them aren’t very pleasant; I warn of that in advance. We won’t throw them at you all at once, however. It might even come after this battle is over . . .” Ben paused. “Why are you smiling, Lamply?”

  “That’s another reason we come acrost, General. You don’t even think of losin’. They got more troops than you have over yonder, but with you, it’s just like, We’ll win this one and then go on to the next one. They might be armies acrost the seas that can whip you. I don’t know about that. But there
ain’t nothing left in the States that can do it; lessen all them Night Crawlers was to come together. But you done got them on the run.”

  “Ashley and Satan, are they looking for a hole to run out of and get gone from this fight?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. They sure are. So is that Villar and Kenny Parr and Khamsin. They got ’em a place they want to get to, but they never did tell us where it was.”

  Ben stood up and shook hands with the bikers. “Welcome to the Rebels, men.”

  Grinning, Axehandle said, “We’ll do you proud, General. We’ll not let you down.”

  “I believe that. All right, Leadfoot. They’re all yours, get them outfitted.”

  Lamar Chase had sat quietly throughout the brief interview, watching the bikers scratch. With a sigh, he picked up the phone that had recently been connected to the hospital and to other CP’s throughout the area and requested some medics to take some strong soap and flea powder over to the bikers’ quarters.

  He went out the door bitching. “Goddamnest army in the history of modern warfare!”

  BOOK TWO

  When the end is lawful, the means are also lawful.

  –Hermann Busenbaum

  ONE

  Ben had retired early and the camp sensed that at dawn the next day, all hell was going to break loose. For at the beginning of a new campaign, Ben always went to sleep early and got up long before anybody else, to sit with coffee at hand, brooding over whether he had left anything out of his plans.

  He awoke with a good feeling about the campaign. Not that it was going to be easy — it wasn’t going to be — but that he and the others had done their best in the planning of it.

  He showered quickly in cold water, shaved without cutting himself, and dressed in clean BDUs, slipping into body armor and then pulling on his battle harness. He checked his .45 and holstered it, picking up his M-14 and slinging it. His personal team was ready to go when he stepped out of his quarters.

  Jerre handed him a mug of coffee and stepped out of his way. She knew his habits: until he had mulled things over in his mind and was satisfied with them, he wanted no conversation.

  This morning, he surprised her. “Walk with me, Jerre,” he requested.

  It did not surprise him to see the camp was up and ready to go. The troops had their own grapevine and knew very accurately when a push was on.

  “How do you read morale, Jerre?”

  “Very high, Ben. As high as I’ve ever seen it.”

  Ben waved Thermopolis over to him. “Get your crew, Therm. I’ve got a surprise for you overage hippies.”

  “Might I ask what?”

  “No.”

  Thermopolis walked away muttering and wondering what dangers Ben Raines had in store for them today.

  “What are we going to do, Ben?” Jerre asked.

  “Take in some sights. You ever seen Glacier National Park?”

  “No. But I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “It is. We’re going to make it even more beautiful starting today.”

  “How?”

  “Get rid of a lot of crap and scum that are littering up the place. What’s the word on the units?”

  “Everybody is in place.”

  Five and Six battalions were on the west side of the wilderness area, backed up by tanks and heavy artillery. Cecil’s battalion and the bikers were at the south end of the area. Ike and West’s people — with Emil and his fearless band of warriors with them — were taking the east side. Georgi and his people were at the north end. Dan, Buddy, Tina, Ben, and Thermopolis were curved around the northeastern sector.

  Ben slipped his walkie-talkie from its pouch on his web belt. “Corrie, are the gunners ready?”

  “Ready, sir.”

  “Soften up the edges.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fire!” Corrie gave the orders.

  “Get the team ready, Jerre,” Ben said, just as the sky was lanced with muzzle-blasts from eight-inch guns and from 105’s. “Meet me at the trucks.”

  As the first rounds began dropping in, Malone’s people started digging in deeper, which is exactly what Ben wanted them to do. It’s difficult to see what’s going on when one has their head down in a hole.

  An hour later, Ben and his teams were linking up with Dan at the road that wound through the park — called Going To The Sun Road — angling west off of 89.

  Ben stepped out into the darkness and walked to Dan’s side. “Buddy and his Rat Team in?”

  “Left half an hour ago, General. He reports no resistance. He’s at the western tip of St. Mary’s Lake. I told him to hold up and dig in there.”

  Ben waved his platoon leaders to him. “Make sure everyone is into body armor. Berets up and helmets on, people. Make sure everybody has rations, water, and plenty of ammo. We’ll move in fifteen minutes.”

  “How big is this place?” Cooper asked.

  “The park?” Ben turned to look at him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Over a million acres. Even back when we had a working government in this country — laughable as it was — those dunderheads in Washington had the good sense to keep this area as primitively pristine as possible. It’s wild country, people. Don’t get separated or you’ll get your butts lost in there.”

  Silver fingers of light were touching the east when Ben ordered his people into the park. The old rangers’ visitor center had been turned into a fort by Malone and his people. But they had abandoned it when the Rebels moved into the area.

  “General Striganov reporting that he has cleared the Prince of Wales Hotel and will be using that as his temporary CP,” Corrie said. “He suffered one fatality, two wounded, and has taken ten prisoners. He has counted one hundred and two enemy dead. Rebet and Danjou have the area west of his CP under control and it is secure.”

  “Bump Dan for a progress report, please.”

  “He reports taking the Many Glacier Hotel, sir.”

  “That’s just north of our position. Give me a status report.”

  “One wounded. No Rebel dead. No enemy prisoners taken. Seventy of Malone’s people killed.”

  “Tell Buddy to move on and secure the Granite Park Chalet. Our pilots have detected people there. It used to be accessible only by foot or horseback, but fly-bys have shown that Malone cut a road to it. I’ll use that for a temporary CP until the park is cleared.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And tell Buddy to warn his team to be on the lookout for grizzlies. They’re all over this country, unless Malone and his people have killed them all. Which I doubt.”

  “Tina reports she’s stalled at the south end of the park on Highway two. Meeting heavy resistance.”

  “Anything she can’t handle?”

  “No, sir.”

  Tina waved Ham to her, in a ditch alongside the highway. “Work around them, Ham. But stay this side of the Flathead River. See if you can’t come up from the south. I think if we can get some sustained fire from that angle, they’ll fall back.”

  “It’s been raining pretty heavy in here, Tina. OK to use rockets?”

  “Yeah. HE only. No Willie Peter and absolutely no napalm. HE’s all that Dad’s using in the big guns. He wants to keep fires down to a minimum.” She grinned. “He’s planning on reopening this park . . . and charging fees.”

  Ham laughed. “Your dad, the economist. See you in a few minutes.”

  Ham’s team of Scouts loaded up rocket launchers with antipersonnel warheads and moved out. Since Ben had no adequate way of fighting any forest fires, he wanted to keep that risk down to a minimum.

  Malone’s men had Tina’s small contingent outnumbered, but the men behind the guns were getting more and more nervous. They knew the odds of their being taken prisoner was a toss-up, depend-big entirely upon whether the Rebels felt like taking the time to escort them back to a secure zone. Those manning the front position along the road didn’t have to worry about being taken prisoner as two fragmentation grenades landed with a small plo
p inside their sandbagged bunker. Two seconds after landing, the grenades made a big mess inside the bunker and Ham’s people moved up another one hundred yards, Tina’s team right behind them.

  Tina waved up a Duster and used the side-mounted phone to talk to the crew chief. “We’ve got to clear this roadblock and get to Essex. Main battle tanks will spearhead, you follow behind, and we’ll bring up the rear.”

  “That’s ten-four, Tina,” the crew chief said, just as several main battle tanks arrived at the scene and rumbled by, all buttoned up and looking for trouble.

  Tina lifted her walkie-talkie. “Hold what you got, Ham. The tanks have arrived.”

  The 52-ton monsters rumbled up the road, bullets bouncing off the heavily armored turret and chassis. One spun on a tread and clanked off the road, running over a sandbagged position, crushing those inside, then rejoined its companion on the two-lane highway, 105’s lowered, looking for a target, the .50-caliber machine guns spitting out death from the commander’s cupola and the coaxial gun.

  Malone’s people had attempted to block the highway with trucks. The tanks shoved the trucks out of the way like knocking over a house of cards, and the Dusters, followed by Tina’s command, poured through.

  Malone’s men gave it up and headed for the timber, looking for a way out.

  “Essex is secure,” Corrie reported.

  “Tell Dan to drive south and secure Polebridge,” Ben ordered. “We should have the park flushed clean by this time tomorrow.”

  By the time they got to the old Logan Pass Visitor Center, Buddy had cleared the chalet after only a brief battle and had radioed his father to come on it and make himself at home. He’d have coffee ready.