Alone in the Ashes Read online

  It was not to be.

  Jerre. He had found her wandering alone on a highway in Virginia. She had traveled with him for a time. Finally left him to join others her own age. To save the world from itself. A sort of after-the-bombs flower child.

  When they parted she had left him a letter. Ben still had it. He remembered the last paragraph.

  You’ve got places to go and things to do before you find yourself—your goal, preset, I believe—and start to do great things. And you will, Ben. You will. I hope I see you again, General.

  Jerre.

  Ben had found Ike amid a bevy of bikini-clad lovely young ladies in Florida. The ex-navy SEAL had built a radio station—of sorts. KUNT, Ike called it.

  Ben had been the “minister” at Ike and Megan’s wedding.

  But now Megan was dead. Killed when the government of the United States had grown vindictive and mounted their deadly assault against the Tri-States.

  Juno, Ben’s big husky, growled deep in his throat.

  “We’re friendly,” the voice came out of the brush. “I have some children with me.”

  “Come on in,” Ben said, keeping one hand on the butt of his pistol.

  A black man and woman, with four kids, walked up to the cabin porch by the lake. Pal Elliot, Valerie, and the kids. Two blacks, one Oriental, one Indian.

  Pal had been an airline pilot, Valerie a top NYC fashion model. They had picked up the kids, homeless, along the way.

  Now they were all dead. Part of the earth. Part of Ben’s dream of a society where all were truly equal. Where medical care was denied to no one. Where all had a job. Where crime was virtually non-existent. Called Tri-States. And it worked.

  Ben moaned in his pain-filled coma-like sleep as the memories kept coming, and coming, and coming.

  Cecil Jeffery’s New Africa never got off the ground before the government crushed it, killing it, grinding it under the heel of democracy turned authoritarian. Cecil and Lila, and a handful of others, had joined Ben’s Tri-States.

  Lila was dead, with their children. Dissolved into the earth of Tri-States.

  And when it was all over, and the nation had once more been torn apart, and Tri-States lay smoking from the massive government assault, Ben had gathered a few hundred survivors around him.

  Ike, Ben’s adopted daughter, Tina, Judith, Doctor Chase, Jerre, and James. Ben had looked at the handful of survivors, his Rebels, the people ready to die for what they felt was right and just. And looking at them, Ben knew the dream would never die. Tri-States would live again. Ben had picked up his Thompson.

  “All right, people,” he’d said. “Let’s do it.”

  40

  Ben awakened once more that day, to eat what was left of the stew and drink water. Lots of water. He knew then that he was getting feverish. He began taking aspirin along with the antibiotics. He dropped back into his painful, coma-like sleep.

  All during the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours—Ben didn’t know for sure, losing all track of time—he drifted in and out of consciousness. He would awaken just long enough to keep a small fire going, and to force himself to eat and drink something. Then he would fall back into blackness.

  When he awakened on what he thought was the third day after the assault on the cabin, he knew he was going to make it. He was weak as a sick baby, but his fever was gone and his wounds showed no signs of infection.

  But he knew he was not strong enough to make it to where he had hidden his truck. Not by a long shot.

  For several days he was virtually helpless. Just strong enough to keep a small fire going, feed himself, and change the dressings on his wounds. He was not going to chance the deep timber yet. He knew it was cold-blooded on his part, but maybe, just maybe, he could help Rani alive. Dead would do her no good.

  A week after the attack, Ben tried for his truck. He gave up before he got any distance at all, and returned to the cabin.

  The bodies of Hartline’s men were stinking, fouling the air. But he was too weak to try to move them.

  Then, as it so often happens, it seemed like Ben began gaining strength hourly. His wounds were healing well, and he was eating like that much-talked-about horse.

  He had been walking around the woods near the cabin daily, each day increasing the distance. Now he felt he was ready to try for the truck and the radio.

  He packed a very light rucksack, with rations for two days, just in case he didn’t make it, and a ground sheet and blanket.

  He set out for his truck. He wondered what was happening with Rani.

  “My, you are a pretty one, aren’t you, dear?” General Striganov said, stroking Rani’s cheek.

  She tried to bite his hand, the Russian jerking it back just in time to avoid those strong white teeth. Striganov laughed at her.

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Rani said.

  “Oh, I do, dear,” the general said. “But unfortunately, poor Sam isn’t in any condition to find anything amusing. Your Ben Raines almost killed him.”

  “Where is Ben?”

  The Russian’s smile was ugly. “I’m really not sorry to say he’s dead, Miss Jordan. My last formidable enemy in the late great country of America. Now I can make plans to enlarge my ... ah ... operation.”

  “Who was your idol as a boy, General—Hitler?” Rani snapped at him.

  “He did have some good ideas, I will admit that. He just didn’t carry them far enough.”

  “God, you’re a monster!” she hissed the words at him.

  Striganov laughed at her.

  “And if you think Ben Raines is dead, you’re badly mistaken. It would take a hell of a lot better man than Sam Hartline to kill Ben Raines. And I think you know it.”

  The Russian’s eyes clouded. “So you thought the man to be a god, too, eh?”

  “No. I never did. There is but one God.”

  “There is no God, you stupid woman! As you shall soon discover. I don’t believe I shall allow Sam to have you, Miss Jordan.”

  “Ms.”

  “Umm?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Ms? Oh—yes. Of course. I do so enjoy a strong-willed woman. I enjoy breaking them. I didn’t used to. I suppose my association with Hartline is responsible for that change. A most welcome change, too. Although I don’t carry it to the extreme as my friend Hartline does.”

  The Russian reached out, fondling Rani’s breasts. She slapped his hand away.

  “I do so enjoy a big-breasted woman,” Striganov said.

  She spat at him.

  He knocked her off the chair.

  Through a red, teary haze, Rani screamed and kicked at the man.

  He stepped back and removed his wide leather belt. “The first step is submission,” Striganov said, swinging the belt. “The very first step toward total submission.”

  The leather cracked across Rani’s jeans.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Oh, that will come later, my dear. I assure you of that.”

  “Not if I can help it, it won’t!”

  The leather cracked again. “Take off your clothes, bitch!”

  “No way.”

  The Russian raised the belt. “I believe you shall, dear,” he said with a smile. “I really believe that you shall.”

  When his arm had grown weary, and Rani’s screams were reduced to a pitiful whimper, the Russian stepped back and looked at the woman, huddled on the floor. “Strong-willed,” he said. “But I’ll break you, dear. Body and mind, I’ll break you.”

  Ben! Rani thought. Where are you, Ben?

  41

  Ben scrambled the upcoming transmissions and picked up the mike. “Eagle One to Base Camp. Eagle One to Base Camp.”

  “This is Base,” the voice cracked. “We’ve been trying to reach you for days, General. Are you all right?”

  Before Ben could reply, Ike’s voice roared through the speaker. “Where in the goddamn hell have you been, Ben?”

&nbs
p; “Under attack,” Ben radioed. “Rani and I fought the outlaws and won. Then Hartline and his people showed up. Caught us by surprise. I got lead in Hartline, but he got more in me. He took Rani. I’m hard hit, Ike, but I’m going to make it. It was touch-and-go there for awhile. Ike, I believe I can make it out of here, now. So I’m going to head for the old capital of Vista. You get the troops ready and—”

  The set went dead, the ON light blinking off.

  “Shit!” Ben said. Ben could make a bomb out of almost anything at hand; he could gather great armies together and command them to victory against overwhelming odds; he could take chaos and confusion and turn it into calmness and order.

  But he didn’t know a damn thing about radios.

  He sat on the tailgate of the truck and cussed, turning the warm spring air blue.

  “Goddamn it!” Ike roared, after doing everything except kicking the set at Base Camp.

  “Calm down, Ike,” Cecil said. “Ben’s all right.”

  “I’m calm, I’m calm!” Ike yelled, scaring the young radio operator. “You calm down. I’m calm!” he roared.

  “Yes,” Cecil said with a smile. “I can certainly see that.” He turned to the operator. “Get Dan Gray on the horn, please.”

  Cecil brought the Englishman up to date on Ben’s situation, concluding with, “Drop whatever you’re doing and get out to Vista. Make certain everything there is secure. Check out the old airport. If it’s suitable for prop landings, I’ll airlift a battalion out with others to follow in trucks. Do that for me, will you, Dan?”

  “Moving within the hour, General,” Dan radioed back.

  “I’m leading the airborne troops,” Ike said. Cecil knew there would be no point in arguing with the man.

  “All right, Ike. Of course. Get your people together and equipped. It will probably be several days before we get a report from Dan. Be ready to go.”

  Ben did not return to the cabin. He had emergency supplies in the pickup and knew where more were buried. The pickup started at the first touch of the key and Ben pulled out, driving slowly, careful to avoid as many bumps as possible, not wanting to open his healing wounds.

  He made it to the paved highway that first day. There, he made camp and rested. By afternoon of the second day, he was in the old Tri-States capital of Vista.

  He did not look at the split-level home he and Salina and Tina and Jack had called home for many years. He deliberately kept his eyes from the home. Too many memories there. Too many.

  It was in that front yard that Ben had killed his own brother in a gunfight, after his brother had joined a Nazi group and had tried to ambush Ben.

  Too many memories.

  The littered and ruined town just held too many memories for Ben.

  He drove to the old airport.

  There, Ben set up camp in a small building just off the strip. He rested, and began a walk-around of the strip. Surprisingly, it was in fairly good shape.

  He had a strong hunch that Ike had called Colonel Gray after their own transmissions had abruptly ended. Dan would break all records getting here, Ben felt sure. And Cecil had probably ordered someone, Ike, he felt sure—he had probably insisted—to lead some sort of airborne assault. As soon as Dan and his people arrived, they would begin clearing the strip for the Rebels’ old prop planes.

  But for now, Ben could do nothing except wait.

  “Are you certain General Raines is dead?” the Russian asked Hartline.

  Sam Hartline was in the hospital, his side and chest bandaged. The operation had been long, with the buckshot from Ben’s shotgun almost killing the man.

  “I’m ninety-nine-percent certain,” the mercenary replied. “He was hit three times before the grenade was tossed into the cabin. The explosion wrecked the place. I just don’t see how anybody could have lived through that.”

  “Ben Raines is not just anybody,” General Striganov reminded his friend and associate. “Far from it.”

  “Yeah, I know it. But he’s dead, General. Or dying. Bet on it.”

  “We are, my friend,” Striganov said. “We are both betting our lives.”

  Dan Gray and his Scouts pulled in after a grueling two-and-a-half-day forced drive from east Texas, where they had been working with civilians, mapping out plans for the upcoming outpost systems.

  “You boys look beat,” Ben told them. “Get some rest. There’s nothing happening around here.”

  The chief combat medic with Gray’s Scouts inspected Ben’s healing wounds and told Ben he had been very lucky.

  “I know that, Sergeant,” Ben said.

  Colonel Dan Gray was standing about, a frown of disapproval on his face. Ben cut him off before he could speak.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Dan. But I was just weary of being nursemaided, that’s all.”

  “General, you are the Rebels. You are the movement. You—”

  Ben waved him silent. “That is what I am trying to overcome, Dan. That type of feeling. And you’re wrong. We are all the Rebels. The movement cannot, must not, revolve around one man or one woman. I won’t have that. I will not have that. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine. Then we won’t speak of it again.”

  “No, sir.”

  Ike and his patched-up aircraft landed two days later. Ike had brought a battalion of Rebels with him, with another battalion coming in trucks, along with heavy artillery and light tanks. A third battalion would be held in reserve. They would arrive in the old Tri-States within the month.

  Ben and Ike shook hands and embraced, Ike saying, “You lucked out again, old buddy.”

  “Skill, Ike,” Ben kidded him. “Just plain ol’ know-how.”

  “Shhittt!” Ike said. He sobered and said, “Tell me about Miss Jordan.”

  “Hartline’s got her, and I’m going to get her back. It’s that simple.”

  Ben brought the men and women of his Rebels up to date on General Striganov’s experiments and Hartline’s involvement with them.

  There was silence after Ben finished speaking. Colonel Dan Gray broke the silence. “Our duty is very clear, General. We have to put the Russian out of business.”

  “That is exactly what I intend to do, people,” Ben said.

  42

  General Striganov stepped out of his office and looked toward the east. He did not believe for one instant that Raines was dead. And the scouts he had sent out a week ago should be returning with the confirmation of that suspicion any hour.

  The trail-worn Russian scouts of the IPF returned and gave their general the bad news.

  “General Ben Raines is alive and doing quite well,” they told Striganov. “He is massing troops in the old Tri-States.”

  Striganov did not have to have a picture drawn for him to know what that meant.

  “How many troops?”

  “At least two battalions. Some are airborne. We believe more men and machines are coming shortly.”

  Striganov dismissed his people. He again looked toward the east.

  “So, General Raines,” he muttered. “We shall once more clash. But this time there will be no gentleman’s agreement about fairness and the code of honor among fighting men. So be it. One of us will know total victory this time. And one of us will know the taste of death.”

  43

  Ben had ordered two more battalions of Rebels to be readied and sent westward. He was planning to move against Hartline and the Russian on the sixth of June. Already he had sent teams of Scouts out to reconnoiter the Russian’s position, and first reports indicated the Russian’s position was a strong one.

  Cecil was furious about being left behind, and Ben knew that someway, somehow, Cecil would figure out a way to get into the fight. Ben smiled. He didn’t blame him. He would have done the same thing.

  Ben had ordered his people out into the countryside, on the off chance that Striganov might launch a first strike and catch them all bunched up.

  Ben turned cold eyes toward the
west. He was not aware of it, but he was smiling that wolfs smile.

  “This time, Hartline, I’m going to kill you. This time, General Striganov, I will wipe your lousy IPF from the face of the earth. And I will return Rani to me. You’re too smart to have harmed her. I’m coming to get you, Rani.”

  The sighing winds seemed to ask if that was a promise.

  “That’s a promise,” Ben said.

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