Chaos in the Ashes Read online

  “Corrie, have we received any further word on President Blanton’s condition?”

  “Negative, boss.”

  “His staff?”

  “Only that first confirmation that most of them were killed during the first hours of looting. It was rumored that a few got away. But that’s still just a rumor.”

  Ben knew that Mike Richards had gotten a few people into the Charleston area. They had reported back that the city was a shambles. The looters and other equally vile and worthless street slime had gone crazy when all order had broken down.

  “We’ll call that a dead city,” Ben had said, after hearing the dismal news about the sacking of the nation’s capital. “When we rebuild the capital, it won’t be there. If I have anything to say about the rebuilding, and I strongly suspect I will, we’ll build the new capital in the center of the nation—where it ought to be. And it won’t be the crime or welfare capital of the damn world either. Not like it was before the Great War.”

  “Why weren’t the looters shot on sight?” Anna had asked.

  “If I had been in command, they would have been shot—on sight,” Ben had responded.

  But for now, Ben looked toward the west. He couldn’t go slam-banging straight through to the old Base Camp One. Everything between here and there had to be cleaned out first. He wanted no major resistance forces at his back.

  Ben turned to Corrie. “Get Jackie and Danjou up here ASAP. We’ve got some planning to do.”

  FOUR

  “You stay north of us on 80 and drive straight across the state,” Ben said to the commander of 12 Batt, Jackie Malone.

  She nodded her head.

  “Danjou, we’ll give you time to get in place down south. You get on highway 98 and drive straight across. My 1 Batt will hook up with you here.” He jabbed a finger at the map. “And we’ll push across together.”

  The French-Canadian nodded his head.

  “We’ll be meeting the hardcore of resistance, so get me some prisoners. I want to find out everything I can about who is behind all this mess.”

  “General,” Jackie said, “you know what Ike and Georgi and Buddy and Tina and Dan are going to do when they hear of this,” she reminded him.

  Ben smiled. “Let them scream all they like. Won’t be a thing they can do about it. Except complain.”

  Buddy and Tina were Ben’s kids. Buddy commanded 8 Batt, the special operations group, and Tina commanded 9 Batt. Ike had been with Ben since the beginning. Ben and the ex-Navy SEAL were just about the same age—Ike was second in command of the Rebel Army, commanding 2 Batt. Dan Gray was British, a former officer in the Special Air Service. Dan commanded 3 Batt. Georgi Striganov, CO of 5 Batt, a Russian, and Ben were once bitter enemies, until Ben and the Rebels kicked his butt and Georgi decided the best thing to do, if he wanted to stay alive, was to join with the Rebels. West, a former mercenary, was engaged to Tina; they would marry someday. West commanded 4 Batt. Pat O’Shea, a wild Irishman, commanded 10 Batt. Rebet was CO of 6 Batt. Raul Gomez headed 13 Batt. Buck Taylor was commanding officer of 15 Batt. Greenwalt was the CO of 11 Batt, and Jim Peters the commander of 14 Batt.

  Batts 16, 17, and 21, commanded by Post, Harrison, and Stafford, had been left behind in Europe. But Ben was seriously thinking of pulling them back Stateside. He was waiting for a report from Mike Richards before he made that decision.

  Rebel battalions were much larger than conventional military battalions, and they were self-sustaining, carrying with them artillery, armor, and fully equipped MASH units. When a Rebel battalion pulled out on the highway, their vehicles stretched for miles. It was an awesome sight to witness, from the HumVees to the massive sixty-ton main battle tanks.

  Ben looked at Danjou and Jackie. “I don’t want the other battalions to know what we’re doing until we’re in place. I don’t want to have to listen to a lot of bitching about it. OK, let’s roll. Danjou, give us a bump when you’re in place. Let’s do it, people.”

  Scouts reported trouble as soon as they crossed the state line. The sniper fire was heavy and it forced the column to a halt.

  “MBTs buttoned up and roll,” Ben ordered. “Take them out.”

  The sixty-three-ton M1/M1A1 MBTs surged forward. With a top speed of 45 mph, it did not take them long to get into position. The Rebel armorers had reworked the guns on the tanks and the MBTs bristled with firepower. The MBTs could run on diesel, gasoline, or aviation fuel. The armor was state-of-the-art, far superior to the ceramic and reaction-type armor used on the older models.

  “Those houses to your left,” a Scout told a tank commander. “Ten o’clock.”

  The MBTs swiveled their turrets, lowered their cannons, and the 120mm main guns began to roar, hurling out HE rounds. The houses began exploding as if made of matches.

  “All Scouts on our three fronts reporting heavy sniper fire,” Corrie told Ben. “Tanks are rolling.”

  “Any anti-tank missiles fired?”

  “Negative.”

  Ben smiled, but it was devoid of humor. “Simon Border’s people have all of them. He never had any real plans to defend the territory east of the Mississippi. He’s sacrificing these people, giving his own followers time to beef up and dig in. Simon and Hooter fed these rabble a line of bullshit and they swallowed it. Everything I initially prophesied is coming to be. Years ago I predicted that the country would first break up into small nations within a nation. That happened. After those small nations fell, the country would split up into several large nations. That is happening now.”

  “That’s why so many people are frightened of you, boss,” Beth said. “You’ve been dead accurate on the future of not just North America, but the world. The rumor now is you have a third eye.”

  Ben smiled. “All-seeing and all-knowing, huh? Me and Johnny Carson.”

  Cooper looked over at him. “Who is Johnny Carson?”

  Simon Border looked at the road-weary and much bedraggled group before him. Harriet Hooter, Rita Rivers, and several others of Hooter’s New Left party had made it across the river to safety. The rest were either dead or missing and presumed dead.

  “I never thought the masses would turn on us,” Harriet said, her voice numb with lingering disbelief and shock and weariness. “We were trying to help them. Our plan was to take from the have’s and give to the have not’s. I just never dreamed anything like this would happen.”

  “Of course, you didn’t, my dear,” Simon said. Like all practicing hypocrites, the lies flowed out of his mouth as easily as the truth. “But we have a place for you all here. The armies of the Democratic Front control nearly all of the western half of North America. Eventually, we plan to move against Ben Raines and once more reunite this nation, and bring it back to its former greatness. With your help, of course,” he added with a smile.

  “You can count on us,” Rita River said. “My new main squeeze, Issac Africa, has written a rap song about the great Satan, Ben Raines. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Ah . . . no, not at this time,” Simon said quickly. He hated rap music and everything connected with it—including blacks—but he kept that concealed. “Some other time, perhaps. Issac Africa? Ah, yes. Isn’t he the militant who now thinks he controls what was once the state of Missouri?”

  “He doesn’t think he controls it,” Rita said proudly. “He does control it. Issac and his ANA—that’s the Army of the New Africa—will show Ben Raines who is really the meanest cat on the block.”

  “Army of the New Africa,” Simon muttered. “And this, ah, Issac person is the commanding general of the ANA?”

  “Not really, but sort of. He’s actually the Premier of New Africa. Mobutomamba is the head of the army.”

  “Mobutomamba? He’s from Africa?” Simon questioned.

  “Naw,” Rita said. “He’s from South Carolina. But he’s descended from kings. His grandmother told him that.”

  “How interesting. Well, I wish them the best of luck in fighting Ben Raines.” They are certainly go
ing to need all the luck they can get, Simon silently added.

  Although Simon Border despised Ben Raines and everything he stood for, he would never make the mistake of underestimating the man, or his Rebels.

  Simon Border’s face looked remarkably like a cottonmouth snake, and he was just about as dangerous. Simon played all angles: to some he was the great emancipator, to others he sat on the right side of God. Others saw him as the salvation of America. Before the Great War, Simon had been an advocate of wealth redistribution, womb-to-tomb health insurance for everybody (no matter that it would bankrupt the country), midnight basketball, a Bible in every home, death to any who practiced abortion. That was one side of the man. The other side was much darker. Of course, Simon was a racist, a hypocrite, a womanizer, a fraud, a snake-oil salesman disguised as a preacher, and a charlatan. He could be all things to all people at a second’s notice.

  But Simon really did think of himself as the savior of freedom—freedom as he narrowly defined the word, that is.

  Simon shook his head. Mobutomamba? It was so sad. Another self-proclaimed descendant of kings who was going to get rudely dethroned when he butted heads with Ben Raines.

  Simon cleared his head of those thoughts. He couldn’t worry himself with the woes of others. Besides, this Mobutomamba sounded like some sort of nut . . .

  He was sure right about that.

  However, there was more than one type of nut. And whenever law and order breaks down, the nuts surface.

  Just south of where Issac Africa and his band of fruitcakes were holding sway, there was another band of banana-cream pies who had risen up, proclaiming all of Arkansas as theirs . . .

  Ben looked up from his map and blinked. “Who did you say was claiming all of Arkansas?”

  “The Reverend Jethro Jim Bob Musseldine,” Corrie said, struggling to keep from laughing.

  “You have to be kidding!”

  “No, sir,” Corrie said, regaining her composure. “And he’s reported to have a following of about ten thousand.”

  “Ten thousand!” Ben blurted.

  “Yes, sir. And from the reports the Scouts are sending back, they are well-armed and spoiling for a fight.”

  Ben sighed. “What’s his beef?”

  Rebel artillery and Rebel snipers, using .50 caliber sniper rifles which had an accurate killing range of over a mile, had knocked all the fight out of the forward units of the rabble army and had advanced about ten miles inside what was once known as the state of Mississippi before picking a spot to bivouac for the night.

  Corrie smiled. “He and his followers don’t like your philosophy on hunting . . . among other things.”

  Ben had to think about that for a moment. He knew that over the years he had angered some people with his so-called stance on hunting. But Ben wasn’t anti-hunting at all—he was anti-poaching. Ben did believe that there should be areas set aside for animals to live as God intended them to live, without fear of humankind, letting Mother Nature control the animal population through natural predators. But in the SUSA there were many, many areas wide open for hunting, millions of acres.

  Ben decided it had to be the “other things.” “What other things, Corrie?”

  Corrie’s smile widened. “Oh, he’s anti-abortion, wants prayer in public schools . . . you want me to go on?”

  Ben exhaled and shook his head. “The entire country has fallen apart. There isn’t a stable government in all the fifty states, much less on the federal level, chaos and violence is the order of the day, and this idiot wants to start a war with me because I believe that abortion should be a personal choice and left up to the woman.”

  “He is also opposed to any type of legalized gambling and you’re on record as saying that also is a personal choice.”

  “Wonderful,” Ben said.

  “The squirrels are coming out of the trees again, boss,” Cooper said.

  “They damn sure are, Coop.”

  The team wandered off for chow and Anna came to sit beside Ben. The girl had tailored her BDUs to fit snugly and had her blonde hair cut short. The spring night was pleasant and the bugs were few enough to be tolerated without insect repellant, but in a few weeks the mosquitoes would be fierce. Anna propped her short-barreled 5.56 CAR against a porch railing and sat down.

  “What are you thinking about, General Ben?” she asked as she petted Smoot.

  “What a mess this country is in, Anna. And if it can ever be fixed.”

  “Like Humpty Dumpty?”

  “Yes. Just like Humpty Dumpty.”

  “We had people like those we’re now chasing in the old country, too, General Ben. They weren’t much good for anything. Whiners and slackers and complainers and people who want something for nothing. I never had any use for them.”

  Ben wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know what Anna did with those types of people. The girl had a savage streak in her, coupled with a solid streak of pragmatism. She was also very intelligent and surprisingly well-read, considering that she’d been on her own since about age five.

  Anna cut her eyes to Ben and smiled, as if reading his mind, which, Ben thought with a small smile, she might well be able to do, since she sprang from the loins of gypsies. “No, General Ben, I didn’t shoot them willy-nilly. But they did learn very quickly to stay far away from me and the people I ran with. We planted little hidden gardens to grow vegetables. Why couldn’t they do the same? But no, they wanted us to do all the work and then they would try to steal from us or want us to give them the food we worked for. We shot them when we caught them stealing from us. But General Ben, food is life. Didn’t we have the right to do that? I think so.”

  Ben wondered if Anna was trying to tell him something or just making conversation. If it was the former, he wasn’t going to take the bait.

  “I have read in books and magazines about this insurance people could buy for their homes and vehicles. The person pays so much money a month or a year so that if his possessions are stolen, the insurance people pay him to replace the goods. And then the amount of money he pays each month or year for the insurance goes up according to the value of goods stolen . . . which doesn’t seem quite fair to me. But if the thief was caught, not much was ever done to him because the prisons were full, and if the authorities wanted to put one prisoner in jail, one had to be released. Wouldn’t the authorities have been helped if law-abiding people were able to protect what was theirs without fear of being arrested or sued by lawyers?”

  Ben had to agree. “Yes, we who adopt the Tri-States philosophy think so.”

  “So do I. But back when the world was whole, it didn’t work that way very often, did it?”

  Ben shook his head. “No. Not very often.”

  “Well, we shared what we grew with the old people, and why not? They were the ones who had worked all their lives, supporting the nation with their blood and muscle and sweat. The old have a right to live out their years in dignity and comfort. But the gangs of thugs and punks preyed on the old. We shot those types of people whenever we could find them. I used to dress up like an old woman, carrying a sack of potatoes or fruit or bread, and go limping and tottering down a street where my people waited in ambush. Pretty damn quick the punks and thugs learned to never come into the area we controlled. However, we did let them enter to remove the bodies.” She stood up, grasping her CAR with one hand and Smoot’s leash with the other. “Come on, Smoot Let’s take a walk. See you. General Ben.”

  Ben watched her go, then became conscious of eyes on him and turned his head. Doctor Lamar Chase, the Rebels’ Chief of Medicine, was standing close by. “How long have you been standing there, Lamar?”

  “Ever since Anna sat down. I damn sure wouldn’t want that child for an enemy, Ben.” He sat down in the camp chair Anna had just vacated.

  “She’s tough.”

  “Tough! She’s ruthless.”

  Ben smiled.

  “Ben? What are you going to do with these thousands and thousands of people who h
ave invaded the SUSA? When we catch up with them, that is.”

  Lamar had just caught up the main column. He’d been late joining because of a morass of paperwork.

  “I’m going to use reason with those who will listen.”

  “And those who won’t?”

  “You know the answer to that, Lamar.”

  The doctor watched Ben roll a cigarette and grimaced in disgust, but for once he didn’t say anything about Ben’s smoking habits. “Have you given any thought to reuniting the entire nation, Ben?”

  “Yes, I have. Quite a lot of thought. But unless you want a return to the old form of government, which sure as hell didn’t work, I don’t see how we can do it.”

  “But what we set up didn’t work either, Ben. Not for the whole.”

  “You know damn well it wasn’t meant to, Lamar. You just want to argue.”

  Lamar was getting too old for the field, but he wouldn’t admit it and would not voluntarily give it up, although nowadays he did little operating and had a staff and a driver to look after him. But he still ran the department with a iron fist. “I’m sure you’ve heard the theory that the men who drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence were divinely inspired?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t know, Lamar. Could be. Maybe so. Why?”

  “Oh . . . I was just wondering how they might have handled this mess.”

  “They wouldn’t have let the nation get into the mess in the first place,” Ben said sourly, ignoring Lamar’s smile, but knowing the doctor had aced him into this debate. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if those assholes in government back during the last decade, and four decades before then, had adhered to the Constitution and applied a little common sense in the first damn place.”

  As it always happened when Ben started getting wound up, Rebels began gathering around. Chase had forgotten about that. He looked all around him and grumbled, “I am not going to sit through another of your harangues, Raines. I would rather watch paint dry.” Then he noticed he was completely blocked in. “Shit!” the doctor said, and leaned back in the chair.