Valor in the Ashes Read online

  They could see some of the fires from the Rebel camp.

  “Is it really them, Gene?” she asked.

  “The tunnel people say it is. They say it’s really General Ben Raines and his Rebel army. God! Let it be so.”

  “Shall we have a small celebration with that thought in mind?” an older man asked from behind them.

  Gene turned. Smiled. “Yes, Dad. I think that would be in order.” His smile faded. “And of course we shall have to have a larger celebration when the general and his people link up with us. Correct?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But perhaps General Raines will take pity on an old man and let bygones be bygones.”

  “I’m sure he will, Father. That was a long time ago.”

  The older man shook his head. “A man like Raines, son, has a long memory. Remember, he was a mercenary for a few years before our . . . incident.”

  “Ben Raines always said he was a soldier of fortune, not a mercenary. He always fought on the side of freedom and democracy and against tyrants and dictators and communists.”

  “I came close to destroying him, son. He’ll remember. I shall gather the wine and cheese and bread and call a few of our friends for the party.” The older man walked away from the couple.

  “I have always been told that General Raines was a compassionate man.” The woman turned to face him.

  “Strong law and order man, Kay. Compassionate . . . yes, to a degree. To the very young and the elderly and the handicapped. I can’t see him harming my father. But . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “With a man like Ben Raines, you just never know. All we can do is hope.”

  “I wonder if the Night People know he’s here?”

  “They know, Kay. They know. God damn their evil hearts to Hell! They know.”

  “Have you heard when he plans to enter the city?”

  The question was pushed harshly from the throat of a hooded woman, one of a dozen robed and hooded men and women who sat in the semi-gloom of the big room. Two shielded torches were the only light.

  The Judges were in session.

  Dozens of lesser officials of the Night People remained standing.

  “No word yet, Judge. We know only that the Hated One has arrived.”

  “And there is no doubt; it is Ben Raines?”

  “It is Ben Raines. Some of the survivors from Staten Island caught a glimpse of him through binoculars. It is the hated one.”

  Another Judge spoke. “Now we have people not only below us in the tunnels who fight us, and above us in the skyscrapers and apartment houses and in the Park; but now we also have Ben Raines.”

  “Still we outnumber them all,” he was reminded by another Judge.

  “But we will be fighting on three fronts,” yet another Judge spoke, the hood concealing his horribly burned face. “We must get word to Monte.”

  “But how? Ben Raines’s people scan every known frequency. To use the radio would be giving our plans away.”

  The woman settled it. “We must send runners. They can exit through the tunnels that we control. Do it now. We have Ben Raines close; we know he is going to enter the city. This time, he dies!”

  A week passed, and still Ben and his people made no attempt to enter New York City. The Rebels blocked off the subways and secured the bridges. A dozen harbor patrol boats and tugboats were found and patched up. Ike was once more back in the navy.

  The remainder of the Rebels were rested and ready to go. Their weapons had been field-stripped and oiled and checked. Clips had been filled and clip pouches were full. Rations and other gear had been drawn from the supply depot. Maps of the area had been found and duplicated and passed out to squad leaders, who in turn went over and over them with their people.

  Now the Rebels were enduring one of the hardest parts of impending combat: the waiting.

  Ben had gathered his people around him in his CP. Everybody from Ike and Cecil and Dan Gray and the mercenary Colonel West, to company commanders.

  “We go in at dawn,” Ben told them. “Colonel West, you and your people will go into New Jersey and secure Newark Airport so our bigger birds can get in.”

  “Yes, sir,” the mercenary quickly responded.

  “Ike, you and your people will cross over into Bayonne and clear everything up to the George Washington Bridge. There, you will leave a detachment and cross over into Manhattan, eventually linking up with me.”

  “Gotcha, Ben,” the ex-SEAL acknowledged.

  “Cecil, you and your people will cross over into Brooklyn and clear two-seventy-eight for at least six miles. I want it cleared all the way up to and including the Brooklyn Bridge. There, leave a team and come over and join me.”

  “Right, Ben.”

  “Dan, split your Scouts among the three objectives.”

  “Four objectives, sir,” the Englishman replied. “And I shall accompany you into Manhattan.”

  Ben smiled. “Very well. As you wish. Questions, anyone?”

  No one spoke.

  “Then I’ll see you all at dawn, tomorrow. We’ll see what’s left of the Big Apple.”

  Outside the CP, a young CO turned to a buddy. “What the hell’s the Big Apple?”

  “Beats me,” his buddy replied. Both of them had not yet been ten years of age when the Great War erupted. “Maybe they used to grow apples in there.” He jerked his thumb toward the dark outline of the city.

  His friend gave him a very dubious look. He cut his eyes as Ben’s daughter, Tina, a member of Gray’s Scouts, approached. He waved her over and posed the question to her.

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know, guys. I just know this . . .”

  The young men waited.

  “. . . We’re gonna take a hell of a big bite out of it!”

  THREE

  As was almost always the case, with the exception of the cooks and the guards already on duty, Ben was the first one up in the morning. He had always been a restless man, and age had not tempered that. He dressed in tiger-stripe BDU’s, slipped into harness, and picked up his old Thompson SMG. Ben stepped out of the building and walked to one of the several mess tents.

  This would be the last hot meal for several days — perhaps even weeks. The last meal of any kind for some of his Rebels.

  His tray filled with fried potatoes and beef and gravy and fresh-baked bread, his mug sending up savory steam from what currently passed for coffee — with a lot of chicory in it — Ben sat down at a table and began his breakfast, watching as the mess tent began filling up with yawning troops, all dressed for war. He hid a smile as Little Jersey came rushing into the tent, looking around for him, her eyes finding him, a frown on her face at his slipping away without her noticing. But Ben had been doing that with his bodyguards for years. Ben’s self-appointed guardian filled her tray and sat down at a table a few yards away from her general.

  Rank held no privileges in the Rebel army when it came to eating: colonels stood in line with privates and waited their turn to be served. And this close to the upcoming battle zone, the ranking officers each ate at different mess tents, to lessen the chances of a rocket attack taking them all out together.

  Doctor Holly Allardt walked in, waited to be served, then joined Ben. Although it was common knowledge that Ben was seeing Holly, since arriving on Staten Island, the two had been busy, with little time for social contact. And no time for sexual contact.

  “Doctor Chase told me to go in with your people, Ben. Set up aid stations.” She took a bite of food. “How are we going in? And where?”

  “Boat. We’ll put ashore at Battery Park. The park is about twenty acres, as I recall, and I’m hoping to use it as a staging area.”

  “A place for us to work?”

  Ben shrugged. “We’ll have to play that by ear, Holly. We won’t know until we get there. That’s why Chase is sending along a full MASH.”

  “Ben, do you have any intelligence about these people? What to expect?”

  He shook his head.
“Practically nothing, Holly. We’ve been trying to raise those survivors inside the city in hopes they’d have some up-to-date intel for us. Nothing . . .”

  Dan Gray walked in and up to Ben’s table. “Pardon, sir,” the Englishman said. He was dressed in full battle gear. “We’re shoving off now. We’ll establish a CP for you inside the ferry terminal . . . hopefully,” he added.

  “Very good, Dan. Tina going in first wave?”

  “Yes, sir. Her team will be going ashore at the South Ferry and entering the park.”

  “I’ll see you all in a couple of hours, Dan.”

  “Yes, sir.” The ex-SAS man did a smart turnabout and walked out of the mess tent, hollering for his people to gather.

  “Finish your breakfast, Holly,” Ben said, mopping up the last of his gravy with a piece of bread. “We’re shoving off shortly. Dan and his people are sure to take some casualties. We want to be there to treat them.”

  “Aren’t you afraid just a little bit, Ben?” Her eyes searched his face.

  “No.” The question seemed to take him by surprise. “And neither is Cecil or Dan or Ike or a great many of the other Rebels. Probably more are not than are, would be my guess.”

  “That is not a natural reaction, Ben.”

  He met her steady gaze. “I’ve been at war for years, Holly. Most of us have. We had a few peaceful years in the Tri-States; but even there, we were at a constant state of war-readiness. It comes down, Holly, to this is what we do. I’m sorry to have to say this — deeply sorry — but we have made war our careers. And we will continue to fight until the scum and the warlords and the human filth and those who prey on the weak are gone from the face of this land that we still call America.”

  “And then, Ben?”

  “And then I will lead my people — or if I’m dead, someone else will lead them; Buddy, probably, if he’s ready — back to Base Camp One and live in peace. I would do it today, Holly.”

  “Ben Raines dead?” she questioned, with more than a modicum of bitchiness in her tone. “Oh, Ben Raines can’t die. Ben Raines is a god! Oh, I know all about those people in the woods and underground in the forests who worship Ben Raines, who have built shrines and altars to his exalted name. All hail King Raines.”

  “What’s got your panties in a wad, Holly?” Ben fired back.

  “My panties in a wad! What a disgusting thing to say!”

  “Well, par-don me!”

  She jumped up and stood glowering at him. “I’ll see you on the ship, General!”

  “It’s not a ship. It’s a boat!” Ben had raised his voice.

  “Whatever!” she shouted, then stalked out of the mess tent.

  Everybody in the mess tent was very careful to keep their eyes on their food.

  Except one.

  Ben cut his eyes to look at Little Jersey, looking at him. “You ever heard of Sigmund Freud, Jersey?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He was a psychiatrist.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I recall a line from one of his articles. I must have been doing some research on a book at the time. Freud wrote . . . ‘The great question, which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine souls, is: What does a woman want?’”

  Little Jersey, in all seriousness, replied, “Maybe she’s just horny, sir.”

  Ben was still laughing and hoo-hawing and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief as he walked out of the tent.

  * * *

  Ben looked at the boat with a great deal of trepidation in the glance. “Is this tub seaworthy?” He stepped on board.

  “We’re not going to sea, General,” he was told. “It’s only about five miles over there.”

  Ben looked at him. Under all the grease he recognized one of the men from the motor pool. “Grissom? Is that you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hell, Grissom, you were born in Iowa! What the hell do you know about boats?”

  “Nothing. But I can get an engine running. Stafford’s the pilot on this thing.”

  “Then I assume we’re ready to shove off?”

  Grissom looked at him. “Yes, sir. Just as soon as I get my butt off this thing! I can’t swim.”

  Shaking his head and grinning amid all the laughter from his heavily equipment-laden Rebels sprawled on the deck, Ben walked forward and climbed up to the bridge just as the lines were cast off.

  Faint colors were beginning to pale the eastern sky, faintly highlighting the skyline of New York City.

  Ben glanced at the man behind the wheel of the big tug. “Just get us there, Stafford.”

  “No sweat, General.” He patted the wheel. “She’s in pretty good shape considering all the neglect. She’ll get you there.”

  Ben sat down in a tall chair beside Stafford and stared through the empty space where glass should have been. A .50-caliber machine gun had been set up forward, its crew ready. He cut his eyes. Two more big tugs were rumbling on the left, two others on the right. Port and starboard, he mentally corrected.

  Holly was right, he reflected. His lack of fear was not a natural thing. He felt excitement, not fear. He was returning to New York City. How long had it been? He counted back. About fourteen years. That was the time his publishing company had put on the party for him . . . well, not just for him. There were several other writers involved. Fourteen years. For sure, he would have to visit the offices, see if anything was left.

  That brought him out of his reverie. What could be left? Rat-chewed manuscripts? Tattered contracts that didn’t go into the last mailing?

  The last mailing. Before fear and panic and horror struck.

  Why did Hilton Logan and the military do it? Why did they keep the fact that New York City still stood a secret? What was their reasoning?

  Unanswered questions. Questions that would forever be unanswered.

  Hilton Logan had been a madman, sure. But that wasn’t enough. There had to be more.

  But Ben felt he would never know.

  When he again lifted his eyes to the open window, New York was on top of him.

  “You were daydreaming, General,” Stafford said. “I didn’t want to bust in. The city hold some fond memories, sir?” He had throttled back the engines; docking was only moments away.

  “Yeah, it does. I used to go with a lady from New York. Back in the seventies.”

  “A looker, General?”

  “Oh, yes.” Esther. Hated that name. Never realized that Ben knew about it. Had her name changed to Rebecca. Esther Hellerstein. Her parents had hated Ben . . . Hate was too strong a word. Disliked him intently. Wanted their daughter to marry a nice Jewish fellow. She probably had.

  Ben wondered if she had made it through the initial germ onslaught.

  Stafford had cut all the inside lights. Ben sat in the darkness and waited until his eyes adjusted to the dimness. He watched as one tug pulled ahead of the others; that would be Dan Gray’s teams. The Scouts almost always went in first. Another tug, a smaller one that Ben had not noticed at first, chugged out of the darkness and was docking off to Ben’s left. Tina and her team would be entering the park. No gunfire yet.

  “Let’s go, Stafford,” Ben said quietly.

  “Sir?” Stafford started to protest.

  “Dock this boat, Stafford.” Ben’s order was quietly given and offered no room for argument.

  “Yes, sir. Stand by with lines,” he called, inching the tug closer.

  No gunfire.

  Ben moved from the wheelhouse to the deck, making his way to the side, Rebels stepping out of his way. Ben jacked a round into the chamber of the old Thompson and clicked the weapon on safety. Over the sounds of the rumbling engine, his people were loading and locking. Ben looked down at Little Jersey, standing close beside him.

  “You ready, Jersey?”

  “Let’s do it, General.”

  Ben stepped off the tug and onto the pier just as hard bursts of gunfire from left and right cut the gray gloom. Ben gra
bbed Jersey by the seat of her field pants and jerked her behind a jumble of crates, kneeling down beside her as lead hummed and whined its deadly song, ricocheting around them.

  Ben’s eyes were pinpointing the muzzle flashes from the windows and low rooftops. He lifted his walkie-talkie, lips to the cup. “Rocket launchers forward and knock out those riflemen. Troops and medical personnel off the tugs. Stay low. Tugs back off. Cast off and go!”

  A vengeful whooshing sound hammered the deceptive air, that time between dark and light when everything is gray and shadow-filled. Explosions rocked the semi-gloom as the rockets hit their marks and shredded living flesh into bloody chunks.

  Ben’s eyes picked up a bump on a low rooftop that did not seem natural. “Jersey, your M-16’s got the range I don’t have. See that bump a couple of points left of our position? Rooftop high?”

  Jersey’s younger and sharper eyes quickly found it. “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s a head, I’m thinking. Put one between its eyes.”

  Jersey lifted her M-16, sighted in the target, and gently squeezed off a round. A rifle clattered to the street below, falling from the rooftop. The head disappeared.

  “One less,” Ben muttered. He wondered how Tina was doing. He lifted his walkie-talkie.

  Tina and her team were pinned down on the Promenade, between the Verrazano statue and the memorial to those who lost their lives in the Western Atlantic during World War II.

  Ham lay beside her. “Place is crawling with creepies,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the rattling of gunfire.

  Tina’s walkie-talkie crackled. “How you doing, girl?”

  “Not worth a damn, Dad. We’re pinned down. Place is spooky as hell.”

  “Hold your position,” Ben ordered. “All teams — hold what you’ve got and make no advances. We’ll sit it out until full light. These people supposedly can’t take the light. We’ll see. Just keep your heads and butts down.”

  “General?” Dan’s voice came out of his walkie-talkie.

  “Go, Dan.”