Battle in the Ashes Read online

  “. . . told me that Brodermann is the crudest man he has ever seen. He loves torture; enjoys seeing men and women and children humiliated and degraded. This man would make Sam Hartline look like an angel.”

  Ben had killed the torturer, Hartline, in hand-to-hand combat several years back.

  Ben said, “We’ll be lucky if we can get forty percent of the population above the thirty-sixth parallel. Fifty percent will be nothing short of a miracle. But we have to try. Let’s go, people. We have a lot of work to do.”

  After the others had exited the room, Ike walked to Ben’s side and said, “It’s a grand and noble plan, but it ain’t gonna work, Ben.”

  “I know it,” Ben spoke quietly. “But we have to give it our best effort.” He smiled at Ike’s attire. The man was dressed in bell-bottomed jeans and wore a sailor’s cap on his head. He resembled a fat Popeye. “You know what you look like, Ike?”

  “Don’t say it, you stringbean,” Ike told him. “Ben,” Ike’s tone turned serious. “You take care, now, you hear?”

  Ben held out his hand and Ike shook it. “Luck to you, old friend.”

  “Same to you, Ben.”

  Ike turned and walked out into the fading light.

  “We’re sure going to need all the luck we can grab,” Ben muttered. He picked up his Thompson just as the gas lantern sputtered and died. “I hope that’s not an indication of things to come,” he said.

  FOUR

  The Rebels broke up into small teams and began scouring the countryside, going house to house and alerting the people there. It was a futile gesture, and they all knew it, but all felt it was something that must be done. They asked each person they contacted to alert at least two more families. Most survivors agreed to move north; some refused to leave.

  “Your funeral,” the Rebels told them, and moved on. They had neither the time nor the inclination to argue.

  Hoffman’s intelligence people knew something big was going on north of their position, but didn’t, as yet, know what. On the morning that Brodermann and his SS troops were preparing to pull out for the first big push, Ben broke the news to Field Marshal Hoffman.

  Hoffman read the communique several times, then handed it to Brodermann, who read it and passed the paper around to the other commanders.

  “He’s bluffing!” a tank commander said. “Raines would never use poison gas or nuclear weapons.”

  “Ben Raines doesn’t bluff,” Hoffman said, meeting the eyes of Brodermann and seeing the slight nod of agreement from the man. “If he says he’ll do something, he’ll do it. Don’t ever sell this man short. He’s ruthless. But in a strange sort of way, a fair man.” He turned to the map. “Raines says we can use this area of Louisiana to set up hospitals and long-term patient care and no one there will be bothered as long as it is used as that as nothing more. Everything else is a free-fire zone. Advise our medical personnel that this designated area is to be a non-combat zone. We will also respect all of the Rebels’ medical facilities. After all,” he said, “we are not barbarians.”

  Ben read the communique and nodded. “Brodermann is on the march. He’s moving on three fronts. Heading up Eighty-three, Eighty-one, and Fifty-nine. Armor and heavy artillery. Approximately seven thousand men per column. And the columns are staggered.” Ben sighed. “All right, people. Start blowing every bridge south of Highway Ninety. Burn every town, every village, every house. We’ll not leave one scrap of useable material. We can’t stop the bastards, but we can damn sure make life miserable for them.”

  “Hoffman is attacking along the borders of California, Arizona, and New Mexico,” Corrie said. “Pouring across in large numbers. Intell says we vastly underestimated the size of his army.”

  “We, hell!” Ben said. “Intelligence did, not us. What’s the latest estimate?”

  “Probably two hundred thousand.”

  “Goddamn!” Ben said. “We’re outnumbered two hundred and fifty to one. And that’s being optimistic.”

  Ben looked over at General Payon, who had just pulled in that morning. The Mexican commander was dead tired and his clothing grimy from the road, but he managed to smile sadly. “It is a grim time we live in, my friend.”

  Ben was silent for a moment. “We have three Rebel battalions to the west of us, and six battalions here in Texas. I’m going to hold the rest in reserve to the north of us. But close enough so they can come busting in if we need them. Order your people to fall back and join those battalions north of us, General. They need the rest.”

  “They are weary, General,” Payon admitted.

  “General, I hate formality. What do your friends call you?”

  Payon smiled. “You’ll hear it sooner or later. My nickname comes from my early days in broadcasting. Mic the Mouth. Like in microphone. I used to get quite excited at soccer games.”

  Ben laughed. “Mike it is.”

  General Hans Brodermann halted his column just south of the now fiercely burning town of Cotulla and ordered his break-off columns to stop and hold their positions. They were just south of the ambush sites at Freer and Carrizo Springs. Both of those towns were also blazing. Gas fumes in long unused buried tanks were exploding, sending debris flying into the smoky sky.

  Brodermann stood up in his armored scout car and looked at the scene through binoculars. “Ruthless man,” he murmured. “Ben Raines is going to be a formidable enemy. I like that. He’ll give me a good fight.” He sat down and spoke to an aide. “Be certain we don’t outdistance our supply trucks. Have the scouts found a way around this inferno?”

  “Yes, sir. But the roads are very bad and we won’t make good time.”

  “We shall take all the time we need, Peter. This is going to be a very long campaign.”

  The column moved on, its speed reduced to a crawl. Which is what Ned Hawkins and his small team of New Texas Rangers had counted on. There were half a dozen armored scout cars in the column, so they had no way of knowing which one Brodermann and the senior officers were riding in. Besides, General Raines had told them to concentrate on the supply and support vehicles. A column can’t move if it doesn’t have fuel.

  Ned’s team put four rockets into huge, lumbering tankers and the old rutted highway was enveloped in a massive ball of fire. Vehicles near the tankers exploded, both incinerating and blowing body parts in all direction.

  Ned and his team jumped into stripped down fast attack vehicles and took off across the country, weaving and zigzagging and presenting no targets at all for the guns of Brodermann’s SS troops. The fast attack vehicles were well out of range in under a minute, almost silently speeding across the brush country, the wide fat tires digging into the earth. The exhaust systems of the vehicles were muffled down to near silence.

  “No pursuit!” Brodermann was quick to tell his radio-operator. “That’s what they want. They’d chop any pursuers to bits. Secure the immediate area and let’s check damage.” When his men assured him the area was clean—and it was—Brodermann got out of his armored scout car and stretched his joints and muscles, looking all about him.

  “Get my camp chair and place it over there,” he told his driver, pointing to a shady spot. “And establish radio contact with Field Marshal Hoffman.”

  “On scramble, sir?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” Brodermann said. “I suspect that Raines’s Rebels have the capability to decode anything we might transmit.” He told his senior people to come with him. Out of the fierce Texas sun, Brodermann spoke. “We have to start thinking like Ben Raines,” he told the assembled group. “We will not be fighting a conventional war. We shall be fighting a very unconventional war. It will be like no war we ever waged. Oh, we all have experience in guerrilla tactics, but on a much smaller scale. I suspect Raines has probably twelve to fifteen thousand Rebels. He’s broken them up into tiny units and sent them all over the nation. Day after day, week after week, he’s going to peck at us. And if we let him, he will inflict horrible damage. He’s not going to fight
us on our terms, so we have no choice but to fight him on his terms.”

  Brodermann chuckled without humor. “Years ago, we thought we would walk into this nation and seize the cities, thus controlling the countryside. Raines burned the damn cities to rubble. Then we changed our method of operation and decided to concentrate on the Rebel outposts. We managed to destroy a few, but now Raines has disbanded all of them south of the thirty-sixth parallel and sent them scattering in all directions. We know that the Rebels have huge underground supply caches, but only the most senior officials of the Rebels know the locations. It would be amusing to torture a Rebel, to see how he or she withstands pain, but nothing constructive could come of it. Those supply caches can keep the Rebels supplied for years. Raines’s Base Camp One is off-limits to us. His factories there are working day and night in the manufacture of munitions and supplies. If we attempt to interfere with any of that, he will unleash his poisons upon us, and we have no antidote for them.” Aides brought them all coffee, and they sugared and creamed and stirred and sipped for a moment.

  Brodermann said, “Most of those Americans who refused for years to come under the rules of the Rebels now have no choice in the matter. They have to follow Raines. This is one smart bastard, people. He’s not only a ruthless warrior, but he is a damned intelligent one.”

  “Then we must destroy Ben Raines,” a colonel said.

  “Oh, very good, Wiesenhofer,” Brodermann said, sarcasm thick in his words. “That’s excellent thinking. You have a plan, I suppose?”

  “Ah . . . no, sir.”

  “I thought not. Colonel Wellmann?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Colonel Marke?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You have all read the dossiers compiled on General Raines. He has no family that we are aware of. At least not outside the restricted area. There is no leverage to use against him and the bastard wouldn’t yield to any if we had it. Captain Blickle, what was that message you spoke of about an hour ago? Something about motorcycle thugs attacking a patrol of ours?”

  “Yes, sir. Yesterday a gang of biker hoodlums, male and female, attacked and wiped out a patrol of ours working over in Florida. Two of our people pretended death and heard them talking. The group is heavily armed and commanded by two people: Leadfoot and Wanda.”

  “Leadfoot?” Brodermann asked, arching one eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir. Obviously a code name of some sort. They are all operating under code names. But I don’t know why that is. The survivors said others were called Beerbelly, Hoss, Sweetmeat, Sugar, Hognose, and Pisser.”

  “My word!” Colonel Wellmann said.

  “Have our people in intelligence analyze those names,” Brodermann ordered. “They have some significance, surely. Pisser?” he muttered, shaking his head. “Well, I have to confer with Field Marshal Hoffman. It would be futile to continue pushing forward with great armies. We’d be all bunched up fighting shadows.”

  “Then what do we do?” Colonel Wellmann asked.

  “Come up with a better plan,” Brodermann said simply.

  “You bastard!” a man told Ben. Everything the man and woman and the three children owned was piled into the beds of two old pickup trucks, parked in front of a freshly painted and well-kept house.

  “Oh?” Ben said, smiling at the man and not taking offense, for he knew what the man was referring to, and it wasn’t Ben’s ancestry.

  “I hate you and your damn harsh right-wing rule, Raines. But even you’re better than those Blackshirts. I think.”

  Ben laughed. “Right-wing, huh? It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that phrase. You’re way too young to be a part of the old peace and love generation. You weren’t even born then, I don’t imagine. So what’s your problem?”

  “You’ve forced me to pick up a gun and fight, that’s what’s wrong!”

  “Are you telling me that you have lived here since the Great War and never had to take a human life?”

  “No. I can’t say that. I’ve defended home and family when it was necessary. But I didn’t take some perverted delight in killing.”

  “And you think I do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, to a degree, you’re right,” Ben admitted. “I enjoyed killing Sam Hartline. I think I did the world a favor by destroying Sister Voleta and Khamsin and Lan Villar and Kenny Parr and Ashley and Matt Callahan and all the rest of those terrorists. I enjoyed wiping out most of the Night People. But what you may not know is this: we have about three thousand or so former criminals in our ranks. I offered them amnesty and they took it. They’ve turned into top-notch fighting men and women. And at least they are fighting for this country. What are you doing, except running your mouth.”

  “There are about two hundred or so of us here, General. We’ve done pretty well so far and we haven’t asked you people for a damn thing.”

  “Yet,” Ben said. “And don’t think you’ve done your kids any favors, for they haven’t been vaccinated for any of the childhood diseases. I know. For you people don’t have the capability to make the vaccine—any of it. We do. Disease is rampant in this nation, mister. But with your mentality, if your kids get sick and die—God forbid—you’ll probably blame me for it.”

  The man stared at Ben. There was no hate in his eyes, only disgust. “And you think you would be blameless?”

  Ben smiled and leaned up against a fender. Brodermann and his forces were a hundred miles south, and Ben was in the mood for a good argument. Since Thermopolis had moved part of Intell and HQ, to a secure position in Arkansas, Ben had not had a good headbutting difference of opinion.

  “You mean,” Ben said, “you want it like before: free rides for everyone?”

  The man, who had told Ben his name was Charles, shook his head and grimaced. “You right-wingers always have an easy explanation, don’t you?”

  Ben carefully rolled a cigarette before replying. “If you mean that I don’t believe in something for nothing, yes.”

  “I . . .” Charles shook his head. “No. No, I’m not going to argue with you, General. You’ve got us right where you want us, so what is the point?”

  “You disappoint me, Charles. I was so looking forward to a spirited debate.” Ben sighed. “Well, go on, take your family, and get them across the thirty-sixth parallel. Draw weapons and learn how to point them in the right direction. There’ll be medics there to vaccinate your kids and see to any of your needs. Big Brother’s back now, Charles. But you don’t seem very happy about it.”

  Charles stared at Ben. “You . . . goddamnit, Raines. None of us wanted Big Brother in our lives!”

  “Really? Why, Charles, your kind wanted cradle to grave protection from all things. You wanted the best law enforcement but you paid many of our cops shit wages and saddled them with so many rules and regulations they couldn’t function. Your kind talked out of both sides of your mouths. On one hand, you bawled and squalled and stomped on hankies everytime a punk got killed. You bellered and roared because you couldn’t be safe in your homes or on the streets, but then you filed lawsuits about overcrowded prisons and jails until they were being run not by the corrections people but by federal judges. You wanted adequate health care but you slapped doctors with so many lawsuits many of them either had to quit or raise their rates so high it was unaffordable to a great many people. Then you started hollering about a universal health plan and the goddamn ambulance-chasing lawyers and lobbyists and attorneys for the doctor’s organizations stalled it in committee for years. You want me to go on, Charles?”

  “You’re twisting things all out of context, General.”

  “Am I really, Charles? Am I?”

  The man refused to reply. He spun on his heel and stalked away, getting into the lead pickup and driving off, heading for the north. And safety. In the dreaded hands of the Rebels, whom he professed to despise.

  “Didn’t bite, did he, General?” Jersey asked, standing close to Ben.

  Ben cut his eyes and smiled at her.
“Wasn’t because I didn’t try, Jersey.”

  “Why do they hate our way so much, General?”

  “You can’t make a fair comparison. None of you. Because you’ve never known any other way, Jersey. You, Beth, Corrie, and Cooper never knew—or have blocked out—the way it was before the Great War.”

  “I remember just a little bit of it, General,” Corrie said. “I have this picture of my parents sitting around the table—I think it was the kitchen table—once a month and wondering how they were going to pay all their bills. Isn’t that funny? I can’t even remember what they looked like. But I remember that.”

  “Yes,” Beth said. “One of the few things I remember clearly was my mother and father saying often that taxes were killing them. And that something was dreadfully wrong with our government. I don’t even know what they did for a living. I don’t really know how old I am.”

  “My granddad used to say this country was going to hell in a hand basket,” Cooper said. “Of course, I didn’t know what he meant. But I’ve listened to the older Rebels talk for years. I sure as hell don’t want to go back to the way it was before the Great War.”

  Thoreau’s line about leading “lives of quiet desperation” came to Ben’s mind. But how to explain that to these young people who had never had the chance to experience that quiet desperation?

  And when I am gone, and war is over, what kind of world will these young people build? Or will they still be young when peace reigns? Will they live to see peace?

  Ben shook his head and opened his map case. They were a few miles north and west of the ruins of San Antonio, in the hill country not far from the deserted town of Bandera. The group had stopped and set up camp at one of the many old dude ranches in the area. Bandera, Ben had read in an old brochure, had once been called the dude ranch capital of Texas.

  Bands of wild horses now roamed the area, descendants of the tame horses that city folks once came to ride and play cowboy with for a week or so. Half-wild cattle could be found everywhere, and the Rebels never lacked for fresh meat.