Slaughter in the Ashes Read online

  But Ben knew he was hoping against hope. Putting off the inevitable. But be that as it may, he would, by God, put off any head-to-head confrontation with Simon as long as he could. Maybe in time, when Simon saw that the Rebels would keep their word . . .

  “Taking any route south is going to throw us miles out of the way,” Corrie broke into his thoughts.

  “Take the southern route,” Ben ordered.

  “Won’t work,” Anna muttered, just loud enough for her adopted father to hear. “Nutso Border wants a fight. We might as well give it to him.”

  Ben pretended not to hear her comments, knowing that none of his team really knew what a religious war would do to the already torn-apart nation. North America could well turn into another Northern Ireland, with various factions fighting each other for centuries.

  Ben shook his head. He couldn’t allow that. He just couldn’t.

  He sighed. But damned if he could figure out how to prevent it.

  He certainly couldn’t allow Ray Brown and his dope-producing crowd to continue making their poison and spreading it all over the nation. Ben was firm about that. Back in the ’80s he was one of many citizens who openly and often supported the death penalty for drug dealers. For all the good it did, he remembered sourly.

  Miles later, Corrie said, “Scouts have found an ideal place to bivouac.”

  “Go a few miles further,” Ben ordered. “Let’s put as much distance as we can between us and Border’s people.”

  “And if they follow?” Anna asked the question Ben had suspected was surely coming.

  “We’ll deal with that should it happen. I can’t believe Simon’s commanders would be that stupid.”

  A few miles further: “Scouts report that Border’s troops have left the outskirts of the city and are following us,” Corrie told him.

  Ben twisted in the front seat and looked at Anna. She was smiling at him. The rest of his team managed to keep straight faces.

  “You find this amusing, I suppose?” Ben asked.

  Anna shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

  “Yeah, right,” Ben grumbled. To Corrie: “I thought Tom told us everything south of I-40 was out of Border’s territory?”

  “That’s the way I understood it. But he also said that the resistance forces scattered throughout the area weren’t strong enough to tangle with Border’s people head-on, remember?”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Any word from Mike Richards?”

  “Nothing.”

  “All right,” Ben said with a sigh. “Have the scouts find us a defensive position and prepare to make a stand.”

  Anna laughed. Ben ignored her.

  “Do you people have a death wish?” Ben radioed the long column of Border’s people.

  “We are the Reverend Simon Border’s Guards of God,” came the reply.

  “Oh, my word!” Beth sighed.

  “Guards of God?” Ben blurted over the air.

  “That is correct.”

  “Why are you following us?”

  “To engage you and destroy you.”

  “Confident son-of-a-bitch, isn’t he?” Ben muttered. He keyed the mic. “On whose orders?”

  “We are acting under the orders of our Supreme Commander here on earth, the Reverend Simon Border. You have unlawfully invaded our territory.”

  “Supreme Commander Reverend Simon Border,” Cooper muttered. “I guess we’ll have to salute the nut before we shoot him.”

  Ben broke up with laughter at the serious expression on Cooper’s face. “Let’s try not to go that far, Coop.”

  “I will give it all my attention,” Anna said.

  “I’ll sure you will, dear,” Ben said, very drily. He lifted the mic. “We are not here to make trouble for you people. We are after dope manufacturers. Once we deal with them, we’ll leave your territory.”

  “You will never leave our territory, Ben Raines. You will be buried here.”

  “Enemy convoy steadily closing,” Corrie said. “Range, ten miles.”

  “Get the tanks in position.” He keyed the mic. “Don’t be a fool, mister. Don’t tangle with us. There is no need for it.”

  “Prepare to meet God, Ben Raines, and answer for your sins.”

  “He’s broken off, boss,” Corrie said.

  “They are really, by God, going to meet us head-to-head,” Ben said, astonishment in his voice.

  “Range, nine miles.”

  “Let them get close,” Ben ordered. “Tank commander take over now.”

  Corrie looked at him. “You want our tanks to mix it up with theirs?”

  “If that is what the tank commanders choose to do.”

  “Their tanks are pieces of shit, boss,” Corrie pointed out “Nothing but death traps.”

  “I am fully aware of that.”

  Simon’s tanks looked to be restored Korean War vintage, probably taken from various military museums . . . although Ben found it hard to believe that any commander would put such dilapidated equipment out in the field for men to die in. He also wondered where in the world Simon found so many of the old—and Ben meant really old—Patton tanks. The approaching tanks appeared to be gasoline powered, and that made them nothing more than rolling bombs up against Ben’s ultra-modern tanks.

  “Fools,” Ben muttered moments later, when the first of the enemy tanks came into view through binoculars.

  The Rebels waited.

  “This is going to be a shooting gallery,” Coop said.

  “They picked the midway, Coop,” Ben replied.

  “That they did, boss,” Coop agreed. “I hope they enjoy the show, ’cause it’s gonna be the last one most of them will ever see.”

  “Range, three miles,” Corrie said.

  Ben’s tanks waited, diesel engines softly grumbling.

  “Range, two miles.”

  Ben’s tank commanders opened up with their main 120mm guns, using armor-piercing ammunition. The terrain below where Ben and his team waited and watched blossomed in puffs of fire. The infantry coming up behind the tanks were left wide open to Ben’s mortar crews, who were busy dropping the lethal surprises down the tubes.

  It was bloody carnage before the Rebel eyes and Ben did not call a halt to it until there was nothing moving on the bloody battleground before him.

  “Let’s see what we have left,” Ben said.

  “Damn little,” Beth muttered under her breath.

  “Enemy soldiers are retreating,” Corrie said. “Those few that can still walk, that is,” she added.

  “Let them go,” Ben told her. “Simon’s army is not as well-trained and certainly not as well-equipped as we were led to believe. This defeat just might convince him to leave us alone. But I doubt it.”

  The wind shifted, bringing with it the odor of charred human flesh.

  “Do we bury the enemy dead?” Corrie asked.

  “No,” Ben said softly. “We do not. But let’s go see what kind of equipment they have.”

  When Simon Border received the news of the defeat of his Guards of God, he sat for a moment, too stunned to speak. Border was not a military man. He knew very little about tactics or equipment. He had millions of followers, and they were well-armed with modern rifles and machine guns and mortars, but nothing to even remotely compare with Raines’s Rebels. Contrary to what had deliberately been put out Border’s people had few tanks (a hell of a lot fewer now).

  Border’s police had subdued and whipped into submission those who at first resisted and refused to follow his wacky doctrine by sheer force of numbers, not because of superior equipment and armament.

  Simon never dreamed that Ben Raines would actually fight him. He always felt that Ben would back off when push came to shove.

  Simon really didn’t want to fight Ben Raines and the Rebels. He was fully aware that no one had ever waged a successful war against the Rebels, and that was something Simon just could not understand.

  What did the Rebels have that made them so seemingly invincibl
e? Simon knew they were a godless bunch; their society was very nearly wide-open, and so permissive he was surprised God had not destroyed it just as He had done with Sodom and Gomorrah. Simon had prayed fervently for God to destroy Ben Raines and all his followers, but then he realized that God was leaving that task up to him. He and his followers must destroy Ben Raines.

  Simon sighed heavily. Oh, how he wished he could speak to his idols: Harry Falcreek and Raldo Reeves and Clute Gingsing and Flush Bambaugh. They would know what to do. But they were long gone, probably gone during the first few days of the Great War.

  Simon rose from his desk chair to pace the huge study of his mountain home. He didn’t care how he got rid of Ben Raines and the Rebels, just as long as it got done. In his mind, the end certainly justified the means.

  If he had to use punks to accomplish that, so be it. He’d use the criminal element and then dispose of them when the job was finished.

  “Oh, me!” he sighed. Doing God’s work sure was tiring.

  “Stupid,” Ben said, looking over the slaughter. “Most of these tanks were pulled out of service years before the Great War. Death traps. Look at these rounds that were blown clear from that hulk. Poorly made. Hell, they might have blown up in the barrel when they tried to fire them.”

  Cooper was inspecting a cache of rifles taken from the dead. “Their M-16s are in good shape, though,” he said. “Plus a mixture of AKs.”

  “I wonder if the Guards of God are the elite of Border’s Army of the Democratic Front?” Jersey asked.

  Ben shrugged. “If they are, and this is the way he’s equipped his army, they’re in deep trouble.”

  “Cecil on the horn,” Corrie said, walking up. There was a faint smile on her lips. “He has some bad news for you.”

  “In addition to the attempted coup?”

  “You might say that.”

  Ben took the mic. “Go, Cec.”

  “Emil Hite should be approaching your position shortly, Ben.”

  Ben sighed. “I thought I assigned him to . . . where did I assign him?”

  “He’s been bouncing around from battalion to battalion, Ben. The proverbial bad penny, so to speak. Everybody likes him, but no one wants him.”

  “What happened?”

  “He asked Thermopolis for permission to take his, ah, company of followers and visit friends up in Arkansas. Therm didn’t think anything was amiss, so he gave permission. That was two weeks ago. Emil just reported in. He’s approximately a hundred miles east of you as we speak.”

  Ben shook his head and tried to hide his smile. Whatever else Emil Hite might be, he was a resourceful little bastard . . . that was probably why he’d been a reasonably successful con artist before the war. “All right, Cec. Thanks for the info. We’ll wait for him.”

  “Everything else is calm here, Ben. We’ve ferreted out the traitors and dealt with them.”

  Nice way of saying Cec had ordered the turncoats either shot or hanged. “Have you had any word from Mike Richards?”

  “Not a peep, Ben.”

  “Ok, Cec. We’ll be on the lookout for Emil and his people. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Oh, there is one more little item, Ben . . .”

  A tiny warning bell went off in Ben’s head. “What might that be, ol’ buddy?”

  “Emil has a group of reporters with him. Just thought you should be warned. Take care, Ben. Ol’ Black Joe out.”

  Cecil was chuckling as he broke the transmission.

  “Ol’ Black Joe,” Ben muttered. “And people say I have a strange sense of humor.”

  “One thing about it,” Beth remarked. “With Emil along, we can be entertained.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Ben replied. “But who are these damn reporters with him? The only ones I’ve given permission to travel with any battalion are with Tina’s 9 Batt.”

  “Emil obviously monitored the last transmission,” Corrie said. “He’s on the horn.”

  With a very audible sigh, Ben took the mic. “Go, Emil.”

  “My general!” Emil shouted and Ben winced. “Commander of the army whose mission it is to save the world and bring peace and prosperity to every law-abiding citizen . . . plus a chicken in every pot.”

  “Emil, cut the shit.”

  “Oh. Very well. I found a group of press types stranded along the way, general. I couldn’t leave them to the hostile elements, so I brought them along.”

  “Who are they?”

  “A group of very fine and highly principled men and women from the NUSA, my general.”

  “A bunch of goddamn liberals, you mean.”

  “Well, I suppose that is one way of putting it.”

  Ben shook his head. “All right, Emil. We’ll wait for you. Corrie will give you our coordinates.”

  Ben handed her the mic. “You might tell him we’re in the Okefenokee Swamp.”

  “You think he’d believe it?”

  “No. But it was a nice thought.”

  Corrie spoke with Emil for a moment, then broke it off. “He’ll be here about noon tomorrow.”

  “Now it really gets interesting,” Ben said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “My God, General Raines!” Clyde Mayfield blurted. “Aren’t you going to give them a chance to surrender?”

  Ben lowered his binoculars and gave the reporter a disgusted look. “No.”

  “But they’re human beings, with guaranteed rights!” Ms. Cynthia Braithwaithe-Honnicker squalled.

  “They’re murdering, raping, torturing, dope-dealing, child-killing, mind-destroying scum,” Ben bluntly informed the reporter. “Do not speak to me of the rights of criminals. I heard enough of that shit back before the Great War. When people such as yourself were trying your damnedest to destroy the nation. Now shut up, Ms. Bra-Burner-Homewrecker, or whatever the hell your name is.”

  “Well!” Cynthia stamped her foot—her left one. “I will not permit you to speak to me in such a manner.”

  “I believe I just did,” Ben replied. He turned to Corrie. “Fire!”

  Rebel 155mm self-propelled Howitzers, M-60A3 tank main guns, and 105mm Howitzers, all of them positioned several miles to the rear, opened up on the little town in the valley. The Howitzers were firing a mixed bag of rounds: HE-M1, M413 (which contained 18 M35 grenades), and WP. The town in the valley, which scouts had slipped in and out of two nights in a row, held the gangs of Craig “Frankie” Franklin, Foster “Fos” Payne, and Thad “Killer” Keel.

  The old buildings in the town below the hill where Ben stood with his team and the knot of reporters that had accompanied Emil Hite westward, exploded in a shower of brick and wood and shingles and pieces of commodes and sinks and various body parts.

  The scouts had reported that one of the buildings contained a large lab that was capable of producing huge quantities of methamphetamines and other illicit drugs. Ben knew that some of the materials used in the manufacture of those drugs were highly flammable. They sure were. The large building located in the center of the town went up like a billion Roman candles all mixed in with dynamite.

  Body parts went soaring high into the sky along with several flaming motorcycles. About 50 feet off the ground, the tanks on the motorcycles exploded.

  “My, my,” Ben said. “This is quite a show. Are you reporters getting good pictures of this event?”

  “Barbaric!” Clyde Mayfield said.

  “Grotesque!” Ms. Braithewaithe-Honniker said.

  “Inhuman!” Lance Nightengale sniffed.

  “Right,” Ben said. “Corrie, tell the gunners to keep pouring it on until I give the order to stop.”

  “But those left alive may want to surrender!” another reporter protested.

  Ben had been introduced to her and he thought her name was Noel Honeypucker, or something like that. He ignored them all.

  Rebel snipers were laving back outside the town, waiting. They did not have long to wait. Several dozen gang members lived through the artillery barrage an
d tried to make a run for it. The Rebel snipers cut them down.

  Noel Honeybun, or whatever her name was, and Cynthia Double-last-name, were openly weeping at the sight of those poor, poor rapists, murderers and child molesters and so forth going down under the snipers’ rifles. The men were being manly, keeping a stiff upper lip and all that. But Ben could tell they were outraged at this travesty of justice.

  “Cease firing,” Ben finally gave the orders.

  At first the quiet was unnerving to those not accustomed to it.

  “We’ll go in and take a look around when the fires die down,” Ben said. “For now, everybody take five.”

  “I’m hungry,” Anna said.

  Honeyjugs and Braithewaithe-Honniker looked at the young woman, undisguised horror in their eyes.

  The men with them both wore an expression of astonishment at her announcement.

  “Me, too, Anna,” Ben said. “Let’s break out the rations.” He glanced at the reporters. “Care to join us for a mid-morning repast?”

  “You . . . you . . . monster!” Honeybutt raged at him.

  “There will be a full report of this outrage submitted to President Altman,” reporter Lance Nightengale blathered.

  “Give him my best when you see him,” Ben said.

  “You are the most arrogant, unfeeling man I have ever encountered!” Clyde Mayfield opined.

  “My mother didn’t think so.” Ben did his best to look hurt He couldn’t quite manage to bring it off.

  “Why don’t you ladies and gentlemen come with me?” Emil Hite stuck his mouth into it. “I’ve found some shade and you can rest for a time.”

  “Thank you, General Hite,” Honeybags said. “I’m glad to see there is at least one civilized human being with this unit.”

  “General Hite?” Ben questioned.

  Emil drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much over five feet. “President Jefferys himself bestowed that rank upon me,” he announced. “For all the good work I’ve done with the Rebels.”