Fury in the Ashes Read online

  Ben slowly wormed his way deeper into the dry ditch. He had one hostile spotted, and figured there was at least one more, possibly two.

  He heard the very faint snick of a pin being pulled from a grenade, and put three .45-caliber hollow-nosed rounds in the direction of the sound. A scream reached his ears just a couple of seconds before the grenade blew. Ben saw two human shapes lift off the ground and a third shape come charging toward the muzzle blasts.

  Still on his belly, Ben triggered off two fast shots, both rounds catching the man in the chest. He stopped abruptly and sat down hard in the grass. He cussed once and then toppled over and was still. Ben ejected the nearly empty clip and slipped in a full one, jacking in a round.

  His team was running toward him. “Get down!” Ben yelled. “Flood this field with light.”

  Trucks and Jeeps and Hummers backed up and illuminated the old field just in time to see fifty or sixty men running toward them.

  It was a slaughter. The Rebels cut them down to a man, then swept the bodies with more fire to insure there would be no more surprises from that bunch of outlaws.

  Buddy pulled up in a Jeep. “The town is clear, Father.”

  “Fine. Good work, son.”

  “What do we do with these people?” Ben was asked, the Rebel pointing toward the body-littered field.

  “All living things have to eat,” Ben said, and got into his vehicle. “Let’s go, people.”

  If there were any more towns along the route occupied by outlaws, their radio network telling each other of the Rebel’s brutal treatment, soon cleared them out. The Rebels encountered no more hostiles on their push westward.

  “West took some demolition teams with him when he pulled out,” Corrie told Ben. “He’s blowing and burning everything behind him.”

  “What’s his twenty?”

  “Just south of Riverside.”

  “We’ll have time for a couple of hours’ sleep before the punks reach us. If the punks do what I suspect they’ll do.”

  The old highway was in surprisingly good shape for having gone over a decade with no maintenance, and the Rebels made good time. They rolled into their sector just after two in the morning, and Ben ordered Scouts forward into the edge of Santa Ysabel, sentries out, and the rest of them to get some sleep.

  “Tired, Ben?” Linda asked.

  “No. Too keyed up, I guess. I’ll probably grab a catnap just before dawn. You?”

  “Not a bit. I dozed off and on in the wagon. Ben?”

  “Umm?”

  “Estimates of dead now stand at just over twenty thousand, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you estimated approximately fifty thousand in the city initially.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “If just twenty-five percent of those left alive manage to escape and head for Alaska, that will still be quite a formidable force we’ll be facing.”

  “Alaska might well prove to be the toughest fight we’ve ever had. Much of the terrain is rugged. No telling what kind of shape the roads will be in, or how many hostiles we’ll be facing.”

  “General Ike just radioed in,” Corrie called. “The street punks finally figured out we were spread real thin all around them in the city. A lot of them are trying bug-outs and Ike estimates about half of them are breaking free.”

  Ben nodded his understanding, then realized that Corrie could not see the minute shake of his head in the darkness. “Thank you, Corrie. Hell of a time to run out of artillery rounds, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Any reply, sir?”

  “Just tell the commanders we did the best we could with what we had.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damnit!” Ben muttered. “I thought we had enough equipment all the way around. I’ll not make that mistake again.”

  “You can’t predict the future, Ben,” Linda said. “You did the best you could.”

  “It wasn’t good enough. And that will be of small consolation to the Rebels who die in Alaska at the hands of punks whose bones, by that time, should have been picked clean in Los Angeles.”

  “It’ll be ten times worse in Europe.”

  “If I let it be. And I have no intention of doing that. Corrie?”

  “Sir?”

  “Bump Base Camp One. Tell the munitions people they’re going to have to keep on working around the clock, seven days a week. Start stockpiling rounds. We’ll not be caught short again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long can they keep that up, Ben?”

  “For as long as it takes, Linda. They won’t complain. Most of those people in the factories are ex-combat people who suffered wounds that disabled them, kept them from returning to the field. They understand what it’s like out here.”

  “You’d better get some rest, Ben.”

  “Later.”

  She left his side and Ben catnapped, sitting on the ground, his back to a tree. He opened his eyes and came fully awake a few minutes before dawn. Moving only his eyes, Ben took in his surroundings.

  The Rebels had dug in and were carefully camouflaged, stretched out a thousand meters north and south of the intersection. The tanks and other armor had pulled back into the timber and brush; Ben could not see them. But he knew the machines of war were ready to start growling and biting at a second’s notice.

  “West is in position,” Corrie said, slipping out of the darkness and squatting by his side. “No signs of the street punks yet.”

  “Everybody catch a few minutes’ sleep?”

  “Yes, sir.” She handed him a mug of coffee. “They’re ready for the dance to start.”

  Ben stood up and stretched the cold kinks from his muscles and joints. “Where are we set up?”

  “Right over here.”

  Ben followed her across the road and into the timber. To his immediate right, Buddy sat behind a .50-caliber machine gun. To his left, Cooper lay behind a bi-podded M-60. Ben nodded his approval of the site; it offered an excellent field of fire.

  Ben watched as Corrie slipped into a headset. He did not have to issue orders about noise discipline and no smoking or unnecessary movement. These people were solid professional fighting men and women. He listened as Corrie spoke softly into the headset, then turned to him.

  “West reports the first few punks are straggling through his sector, General. They’re following the road that will lead right past us.”

  “Has West shifted a team over to that road leading to Warner Springs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him to hold his fire. Let’s get as many in this box as we can. We’ll wait all day if we have to.”

  “Right, sir.”

  An hour ticked by. The Rebels took turns catnapping and watching and waiting. Corrie sat with her headset on, waiting for some word as to the progress of the street punks.

  “General!” she called in a stage whisper. “Forward recon reports punks are on 78 and heading right for us. They have them in visual. Forward speed is about thirty miles an hour.”

  Ben smiled. “Bingo! That means they’ve passed the only road that would take them north or south. They’re committed now. They have to pass right by us. Tell the recon teams to get the hell back here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When she had done that, Ben said, “Fifteen minutes max, Corrie. Everybody heads up.”

  The word was passed up and down the line. Rebels clicked weapons off safety and laid out rows of clips and grenades. The tanks lowered the elevation of the cannon and waited. The forward recon people came racing back into camp, hid their vehicles, and threw themselves into position. One of them close to Ben.

  “How many?” Ben asked.

  “Four or five hundred in the first bunch. About the same in a bunch about a mile behind them.”

  “Buddy. Take a team and cut through the timber. Get behind that second bunch. Take all the ammo you can stagger with. Get going.”

  “Right.” The young m
an was gone.

  “Get behind that .50,” Ben told the recon. “Things are about to get interesting around here.”

  Grinning, the recon slipped behind the big .50 and waited.

  Stan of the Flat Rocks and Carmine of the Women stopped their vehicles and got out to stand on the winding, hilly road.

  “What are you thinkin?’” Stan asked.

  “That’s it’s awful quiet. The city ain’t never quiet. But this is scary. Maybe it’s always like this. I don’t know. I ain’t never been out of the city.”

  “You gonna go straight, Carmine?”

  She sneered at him. “Straight? Me? Hell, no! There ain’t no percentages in goin’ straight. Scratchin’ out a garden and cannin’ shit. Not me, Stan. Me and my girls’ll hit the first town we come to, grab us some long-dicked ol’ boys to keep around when we need them, some broads for cookin’ and cleanin’ and such, and set up somewheres. You goin’ straight?”

  “Naw. Stealin’ is too easy a life for me to give up. I’ll get clear of Ben Raines and his Rebels, and find me a little settlement and take it over. Kill all the old fuckers that can’t work, use the fat ugly women for cleanin’ and such, and the younger one for fuckin’. Then it’ll be business as usual, Carmine.”

  “Now you’re talkin.’” She looked at him. “You an’ me, Stan, we always got along pretty good. You wanna link up?”

  “Why not? Let’s do it.”

  She reached down and squeezed his crotch, grinning at him. “We’ll seal the bargain tonight.”

  They got back in their vehicles and headed out.

  A few miles ahead, the Rebels silently waited.

  A few miles back, Ruth of the Macys and Hal of the Fifth Street Lords were making a similar pact, as were several other gang leaders. Their confidence was growing with each passing mile. The countryside was not as bad as they had thought it would be — no huge grizzly bears or mountain lions had attacked them — and they had not seen a sign of the Rebels. However, they all felt, to a person, that they would much rather see a grizzly than come in contact with Ben Raines and his Rebels.

  “Let’s go,” Ruth yelled to those behind her.

  In the city, the bug-out of the street punks had halted at first light. And getting through the Rebel lines had been very easy. Bull had put it all together and guessed accurately that the Rebels were out of artillery rounds. About twenty-five hundred punks had slipped through during the night, making their way north, on foot. But to a street punk, finding a vehicle once clear of L.A. was a very minor problem. They’d all been stealing cars for years before the Great War, and getting a stern lecture and a slap on the wrist from a judge when they were caught.

  But the Rebels caught on quickly, and at first light went to work laying out mines and booby-trapping possible escape routes. But they were too late to catch Bull and Rich and Junkyard and Ishmal and their gangs. They had jumped the gun on the other gangs and cleared the city and were rolling toward the rendezvous point in Nevada.

  There were still thousands of punks and creepies hiding within the battered city and in the suburbs. And they would be trying to escape come the darkness.

  East of the city, Ben pulled out a battered map of the region and looked at it.

  “Planning a trip?” Linda whispered.

  “Yeah. Just as soon as we finish here. I want to go over to Mount Palomar and see if the telescope is still there; see if anything is left of the museum.”

  Linda shook her head and wiped her sweaty palms on her fatigue pants and got a fresh grip on her shotgun.

  “Here they are,” Corrie said, after receiving the report from a Scout hidden on high ground above the highway.

  “Buddy in place?” Ben asked.

  “Just got there, sir.”

  “We’ll hold our fire until we see what they’re going to do. Pass it along, Corrie.”

  The street punks paused at the intersection, and they all got out of their cars and trucks and off their motorcycles to stand in the middle of the road and argue about what to do next.

  Ben settled it for them. “Fire!” he yelled, and held back the trigger on the Thunder Lizard.

  “Ambush!” Jimmy of the Indios screamed. It was his last scream. Fire from a Gatling gun cut him to bloody ribbons and flung him in chunks out of the road and into a ditch.

  Dee Dee of the Pocos and several dozen of her gang were caught in a cross fire and died in the middle of the road.

  The tanks of the Rebels opened up and the high-explosive shells exploded the gas tanks of the punks’ vehicles, setting dozens of punks on fire. They ran screaming in agony, running blindly in circles until Rebel bullets cut them down and silenced them forever.

  Josh of the Angels, dressed all in white, very dirty white, charged Ben’s position, cursing insanely. Linda sighted him in and cut him down, doubling him over with a three-inch-magnum round of double-ought buckshot.

  Carmine of the Women and Stan of the Flat Rocks made it to cover. It didn’t do them much good. A main battle tank swiveled its turret and blew them both to Hell with one round of high explosive. What was left of Stan was flung high into the air, in pieces, and fell back to earth with a bloody plopping sound.

  Manuel of the Mayas and most of his gang ran for their lives, running back down the road. The Scouts on the high ground chopped them up with M-60 fire.

  Several miles back, those punks in the rear heard the gunfire and the booming of cannon and stopped, backing up and heading in the direction they’d come from. They ran right into Buddy and his Rat Team.

  The Rat Team blocked the road as two rounds from their rocket launchers turned two cars into burning, smoking piles of junk, cooking those inside.

  Ruth and her Macys and Hal and his Fifth Street Lords were about to run out of time. They jumped off the road and into the timber, right into the guns of the Rat Team on the other side of the road. Ruth and Hal and most of their gang members died cursing Ben Raines and his Rebels.

  In West’s section, the mercenary and his men were chopping up the street punks like so much liver. They had waited until the long convoy of cars and trucks and motorcycles had stretched out on the highway, and opened up with mortar and heavy machinegun fire. Since West had a full battalion, unlike Ben’s short section, the fight was just as brutal, but not nearly so time-consuming.

  The Dykes were gone, wiped out to the last person. The Discos were still and silent, sprawled in death. The Rappers had been among the first to be cut down. A few of the Santees escaped, wild-eyed and running in fear into the brush and timber of the hills. The Temple Street Gang was wiped out to the last punk. And so on. The highway was slick with blood, and moaning drifted to the men behind the guns on the ridges.

  “Spray them,” West ordered. “No prisoners. That’s what the man said.”

  The gunfire resumed, briefly. The moaning stopped.

  “Do we pursue them into the brush?” one of his men asked.

  “No,” the mercenary said. “They’re all washed up. The L.A. street gangs, this bunch of them anyway, are history.”

  Ben rose up on one knee and looked out at the carnage.

  After a moment, Cooper said, “Prisoners, General?”

  Ben looked at him. “No,” he said softly. “They had their chance. They blew it. Let’s go visit a museum.”

  THREE

  For reasons known only to God and to the pack of ignorant jerk-offs who did it, the telescope at Mount Palomar — the world’s largest — and the museum on the ground had been vandalized. The telescope was pocked with hundreds of bullet holes. The museum had been destroyed.

  “Ignorant bastards!” Ben said.

  “Do the Rebels find this to be common?” Linda asked.

  “Vandalism?” Ben looked at her. “Yes. The libraries are almost always vandalized and destroyed. As are the museums and art galleries.”

  “I don’t understand that. But then, I’ve been secluded for a good many years.” She smiled. “From reality, I’m sure you would say.�
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  “That’s correct. The why of the destruction? Stupid, petty, ignorant people are afraid of knowledge. Most certainly have the mental capabilities to absorb knowledge — they’re just too damn lazy to make the effort.”

  “And few of those people are part of the Rebel movement, right, Ben?”

  “Correct.”

  “It seems I’m always playing devil’s advocate with you. So here I go again. You and the majority of Rebels obviously don’t care what happens to those people, Ben, even though they probably number in the hundreds of thousands. What happens to them?”

  “Oh, some Rebel patrol will eventually roll into their sectors. We’ll appraise the situation, and if they don’t have schools, libraries, clinics, proper health facilities, we’ll take the children and raise them ourselves.”

  She looked at him, disbelief in her eyes. “Goddamn, Ben. You don’t mean that!”

  “Oh, but I do. If we’re going to pull this country out of the ashes, Linda, we can’t have a nation of superstitious, shortsighted, small-minded illiterates. The kids are the hope, Linda. They’re the future. They’ve got to be schooled, taught, and guided. We’re not doing anything that child-welfare people didn’t do back before the Great War. We’re just not as subtle about it, that’s all.”

  Ben winked at her and walked off, to see if anything salvageable could be found among the rubble.

  Linda looked around her, saw Jersey and Beth and Corrie and Cooper smiling at her. Coop said, “Close your mouth, Linda, before you swallow a bug.”

  She walked over to the team. “Sorry, gang. But what he just said came as a shock.”

  “The taking of children to raise and educate?” Beth asked. “Why? Kids have been taken away from unsuitable parents for years, for one reason or another. We just enlarged the reasons, that’s all.”

  “We’ve got over seventy-five outposts around the nation, Linda,” Jersey said. “Seventy-nine, I think. Ranging in size from a few hundred to a few thousand people. General Jefferys calls them literate oasis surrounded by a desert of ignorance. That’s pretty fancy, but accurate. People of all colors, all religions, all living and working together. No prejudices, no hatred, no trouble. And people who have a lot of hang-ups about color, or who hate for no reason, or who like to cause trouble, are not a part of those outposts.”