Slaughter in the Ashes Page 5

  • Dave Holton was originally from Michigan. When the Great War shattered the world, he had been serving time for rape and murder, and was in the midst of being tried for other crimes. He killed a deputy sheriff with a homemade shank, took his gun, killed the judge, and split. His gang numbers close to 400.

  There were numerous other gang leaders in the ruins of Manhattan who fronted gangs that numbered from ten to 50, with names like Big Mac, Leadfoot, V-8, Blackie, and so forth.

  Manhattan was about to become a killing ground—again.

  FIVE

  Ben expected a lot of gripes from his batt coms about leading the fight into the ruins of New York City, and they were not long in coming. He listened impassively to each of his commanders vent their spleens, then smiled and said, “Thank you for your concern. Your complaints are duly noted. I am still leading my battalion into the ruins. Good day.”

  “Hard-headed asshole!” Ike told him.

  Ben smiled sweetly at his long-time friend. “I don’t see you making any plans to leave the field, Ike.”

  Ike blustered about, then threw up his hands in disgust and left.

  “You are getting too old for this type of silliness, Ben,” Dan Gray, the former British SAS officer, told him.

  “I’m only about five years older than you,” Ben reminded him. “Would you like me to recommend you to be relieved of field command?”

  Dan pursed his lips, cleared his throat rather loudly, then wheeled about and marched out of the office.

  Ben’s kids, Tina and Buddy, said nothing to their father. They both felt that Ben would someday die in the field, and kept silent about his constant chance-taking because that was his wish.

  Doctor Lamar Chase flew into New Jersey and was taken by Hummer to the docks, where Ben and his beefed-up battalion were waiting to load the boats that would take them across to Battery Park.

  “You damned fool,” Chase told him. “When are you going to realize that you’re the commanding general, start acting like it, and stop behaving as a spoiled child?”

  “Nice day, isn’t it, Lamar?” Ben responded with a smile.

  “Goddammit, Raines! There are anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 punks and creeps waiting over there in those ruins. And all of them hate your guts. I—”

  “I have decided to forbid you from crossing over and taking charge of your medical teams, Lamar.”

  “You’ve what?” Chase roared. Rebels within earshot scattered in all directions. “Why, you pompous asshole, you can’t forbid me a damn thing. I’m the chief of medicine. I can put your ass in bed for the duration, though.”

  “Try it!” Ben growled at his old friend.

  The two men stood nose to nose, making faces at each other until Anna pushed her way between them and held them apart at her arms’ length. “Silly,” the young lady said. “This is silly. Neither one of you is going to do anything except make noise. I wish there was a stick around here so I could whack you both!”

  The idea of Anna doing that startled both men and then caused Ben and Chase to burst out laughing.

  “You’re right, Anna,” Ben finally said, wiping his eyes. “But you’ve been with us long enough to know that this is something Chase and I do at the start of every campaign.”

  Anna fixed him with those cold, pale eyes of hers and said, “And General Ben, it could be the doctor is right.”

  “Owwee . . . hee hee hee hee,” Chase cackled, walking away. “Oh, ho ho ho ho, hee hee hee hee! Oh, did she get you good that time, Raines.”

  “Oh . . . shut up, you old goat!” Ben called after him.

  “Hee hee hee hee!” Chase waved a hand and continued walking. He called over his shoulder. “I’ll be ready to go over with the first wave, Raines!”

  “You’ll be ready to go over when I tell you to!” Ben shouted after him.

  Chase flipped him the rigid digit and walked away, chuckling.

  Ben looked down at Anna. “I should send you back to Base Camp One. You should be attending public school and having fun.”

  “I am being tutored quite well with the battalion, thank you,” Anna replied sweetly.

  Ben grunted. He really couldn’t argue that, because his adopted daughter was being tutored quite well. Whenever the battalion was standing down, one of half a dozen former teachers would spend hours with her. Ben had never figured out a way to make her leave the battalion and try a normal, peaceful life away from combat. Fighting was all the young woman had ever known and she was a natural at it.

  “Draw supplies, Anna,” Ben told her. “We make the crossing tomorrow.”

  She flipped him a very sloppy salute and walked off.

  Ben motioned for an officer from the special ops battalion to join him. “Your Zodiacs ready, lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shove off at midnight and establish a toehold for us. We’ll be joining you at dawn.”

  The young officer grinned. “Yes, sir!”

  Ben walked over to where his team was relaxing in the shade of a warehouse. “We shove off in the morning. First wave.” He walked over to where Chase was talking with several of the battalion doctors. Chase noticed the serious look on Ben’s face and did not offer up one of his usual caustic verbal barbs. “Dawn tomorrow, Lamar. Your combat medics are checking supplies now. You and your people will go over on the second wave.”

  “All right, Ben,” Lamar’s reply was softly offered.

  Ben walked over to a mess tent where his company commanders were sitting at a bench, drinking coffee. He paused long enough to say, “Dawn tomorrow.”

  Ruth Wiseman, CO of Bravo Company smiled and said, “We’re sittin’ on ready, general.”

  “Good enough,” Ben said, and kept on walking.

  He walked down to the shoreline and looked across at what used to be known as the Big Apple. “If you’re over there, Ray Brown, you better eat a pistol now,” he murmured. “Because if I find you alive, I’m going to beat you to death with my bare hands.”

  In the ruins of Manhattan, the gang leaders made ready for what those with any sense at all knew would be their last fight. They had sent patrols north, and found any hope of escape that way had been sealed by several Rebel battalions, under the overall command of the Russian, Georgi Striganov. Beginning at the northernmost tip of the Bronx, Georgi had stretched his battalions out from the Hudson River in the west over to Long Island Sound, from the College of Mt. St. Vincent over to the very edge of Shore Road.

  Several more battalions, under the overall command of Ike, were ready to move into Brooklyn, and then onto Long Island. But the Big Apple belonged to Ben.

  * * *

  Misting rain and very foggy at 0500 hours. For early summer, there was a damp chill in the air. But the meteorologists said that in a few hours, the rain would stop, the fog would dissipate, and the temperature would rise to a comfortable high in the upper 70s.

  “Special ops people have met little resistance,” Corrie reported. “But they’re stretched out thin as paper from Pier A over to the corner of the New York Plaza. They couldn’t take a major push.”

  Ben shook his head. “If there was any kind of build-up it would have been observed. The punks showed their lack of planning again. They should have been ready to throw everything at us at landing.” Ben smiled. “But since we know the bastards stole plenty of mortars and rounds from us down at Base Camp One, I’ve ordered the boats to maintain a zing-zap course during the crossing . . . just in case the punks try to get cute.”

  Standing nearby, Jersey frowned. She had a tendency to get airsick and seasick.

  Cooper tried to put an arm around her. Impossible to do with the loaded packs they all had strapped on. “I’ll take care of you, my little desert flower.”

  “Cooper,” Jersey replied. “You can just barely take care of yourself. Now quit trying to grope me.”

  Cooper did his best to look hurt. He couldn’t pull it off.

  “In the boats,” Ben ordered. “Move.”
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  “I won’t even be able to see the Statue of Liberty this morning,” Anna groused. “I wanted to see that up close.”

  Nobody had the heart to tell her the welcoming lady with the torch had been heavily damaged during the last assault on New York City, a few years back.

  The battalion was unusually silent as they all boarded the boats of various sizes for the transport across the fog-shrouded waters. They all carried two full canteens of water on web belts, plus three days’ field rations in their packs, in addition to ground sheets and blankets, first aid kits, flashlights with extra batteries, knives, entrenching tools, grenades, full magazines for their weapons, extra socks, clean underwear, and maps of the city. In addition, many carried a round or two for a rocket launcher or mortar, cans of ammo for SAWs or M-60 machine guns, and their cargo pockets were stuffed with hi-energy candy bars, chewing gum, and boxes of cigarettes. They wore body armor that protected them from crotch to neck and state-of-the-art helmets had replaced berets as headgear.

  All knew they could very easily be cut off from reinforcements the instant they touched the shoreline of Manhattan.

  The chaplains had held a short prayer service just before the Rebels boarded the boats.

  “Special ops people report no sign of the enemy,” Corrie said after listening for a few seconds to her headset “Sensors are showing no warm bodies anywhere close to our objective.”

  Ben nodded in understanding and began to breathe easier. The shoreline of Manhattan was coming up fast through the fog.

  “I don’t feel good,” Jersey moaned.

  “Puke in your helmet,” Cooper told her.

  “Gross, Cooper!”

  Ben smiled. “We’ll be on solid ground in two minutes, Jersey,” he assured her.

  “Thanks, boss. But I found an empty pocket in Cooper’s jacket. I can barf in there if I have to.”

  Cooper moved as far away from her as he could, which was not far with the crush of bodies on the deck. Jersey smiled.

  Ghostly figures suddenly appeared on the docks, out of the mist and fog.

  “All clear, boss,” Corrie said.

  Ben moved to the front of the old tugboat and when the bow gently nudged the dock, was the first one off.

  “Beachhead established, general,” the young woman said. “Resistance has been practically nil.”

  “It won’t be in a few hours,” Ben replied.

  “You got that straight, general,” the young woman with her face camo-ed in urban colors replied.

  Ben smiled and walked on, his team off the tug and surrounding him in a protective circle, the young woman taking the lead.

  “We got you a CP all cleaned out over here, general,” she called over her shoulder. “Not that you’ll be using it for long,” she added knowingly.

  “Hospital?” Ben asked.

  “Got a place all picked out and cleaned up for that, too,” she said.

  “Very good.”

  Rebels were running past Ben and team, disappearing into the fog and mist, heading for positions picked out by the special ops people. The Rebels would dig in hard in anticipation of attack from the punks.

  Minutes ticked past and no attack came. The first wave of Rebels were ashore.

  “Bring in the second and third wave,” Ben told Corrie.

  Doctors, support personnel, supplies, and additional combat troops.

  “How big is this place?” Anna asked.

  “About 23 square miles,” Ben replied.

  “Actually it’s 22.6 square miles,” Beth the statistician replied.

  Ben smiled.

  “At one time, one of the most densely populated areas in North America,” Beth continued. “There are hundreds of miles of tunnels and sewers and subway systems beneath the city.”

  “And that’s where most of the punks and the creeps will be hiding.” Ben picked it up. “Waiting for us.”

  One of the special ops people approached Ben and held out a small cardboard box. “Found this, sir. Thought you might like to see it.”

  Ben glanced at the familiar-appearing box. It had once contained a state-of-the-art gas mask, perfected by the lab boys and girls down in Base Camp One. One of hundreds stolen by the punks when they invaded that area.

  Ben nodded. “Well, we suspected they had them. So much for the use of gas to drive them out of the tunnels. They also stole full-body protective suits. Hell, that gear will withstand radiation. This is going to be grunt all the way.”

  Ben unfolded a map of the city and spread it out on the hood of a long-abandoned, old rusted-out vehicle. “We’re here, Anna.” He pointed to the south end of the narrow outline of the city. He traced his finger northward all the way up to whatever might be left of the old Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. “We end up here.”

  “All city?” Anna asked.

  “Except for Central Park,” Ben told her. “And that’s about 850 acres in the center of the city.”

  “Big job,” the teenage warrior replied.

  “Yeah,” Ben said, folding the map and putting it away. “A hell of a big job.”

  In those states east of the Mississippi River which had chosen not to align themselves with the Tri-States philosophy, even now that the majority of the criminal element was gone from their lives, thanks to the efforts of the Rebels, getting things back to even a small semblance of normalcy was proving very difficult.

  Without the Rebels’ expertise, even such things as setting up and maintaining clean water systems and sewer filtration plants were proving difficult Before the Great War, very few people realized just how much they depended upon the central government. Now it was all coming home to roost.

  In the several years since the Great War, in those areas outside of Rebel control, conditions had deteriorated to the point of total collapse. Millions of people were without jobs, living hand-to-mouth at best. There were no proper medical facilities and very few medicines. Factories were turning to rust, and the majority of the larger cities had been virtually destroyed after years of fighting.

  To sum it up, with the exception of the SUSA, under Rebel control and laws, the rest of the nation was flat on its face and just barely kicking.

  SIX

  The Rebels split up into squad-sized teams, spread out east to west, and advanced about 50 yards northward. They saw absolutely no sign of human life.

  Ben and his team were on the eastern edge of Battery Park, picking their way slowly through the litter and rubble. Except for the faint cry of sea birds that circled and hovered at water’s edge in a constant search for food, there was nothing to be found but an eerie silence in the ruins.

  “Come on, come on, you bastards!” Jersey muttered, just loud enough for Ben to hear the words. “Let’s mix it up.”

  “Not yet, Jersey,” Ben told her. “We’re too concentrated down here. The area will start widening out when we reach Battery Place. We’ll be spread thinner. That’s when we’ll start seeing some action.”

  “Third and fourth waves are ashore,” Corrie said. “Chase is setting up his hospital.”

  Battery Park, situated on a landfill at the extreme south end of Manhattan, had not taken the pounding that other areas of the city had suffered several years back when the Rebels launched their all-out assault against Manhattan. The park consisted mostly of monuments and sculpture, and much of it was still standing, silent sentinels and tributes to the dead. The sun had not yet broken through the fog and the light mist continued to fell, giving the park a ghostly, surreal look.

  Gunfire suddenly shattered the quiet and everyone hit the damp ground and lay still.

  “Contact,” Corrie said. “Of the hit-and-run type. Some punks tried an ambush that didn’t work. One Rebel slightly wounded and several dead punks. To our northeast, between the park and State Street.”

  “Damn fog,” Ben muttered, heaving himself up to his knees and squatting there trying in vain to see through the soup. “We’re chasing ghosts out here.”

  “M
eteorologists have now changed their minds,” Corrie said. “A front is moving in and colliding with another, or squeezing it, or whatever those things do. They’re predicting heavy rains today and tonight.”

  “Break out the ponchos,” Ben said, disgust in his voice. “What a miserable way to start a push.”

  “Scouts report movement along Battery Place and that intersection where State runs into Broadway,” Corrie said. “You called that one right, boss.”

  Ben rose to his boots. “Let’s go mix it up, gang. Lousy weather or not, we came to do a job.”

  The clatter of M-16s, the stutter of machine guns and the occasional boom of a grenade reverberated through the rain and the fog as the Rebels slowly began their advance. Usually, the gang members would turn tail and run when the Rebels got close. But not this time. This time, the Rebels were going to have to buy every foot of real estate they gained.

  By mid-morning, the thick, soupy fog had lifted but the rain had intensified, coming down in gray sheets. The Rebels were stretched out in a line running west to east from just south of First Place over to the Vietnam Veterans Plaza. And the punks were holding.

  “Sixteen-hundred meters,” Beth said during a break in the fighting.

  “Beg pardon?” Ben asked, looking over at her.

  The team was crouched under the overhang of what was left of an old business establishment on the south side of Battery Place. The punks were just across the street, almost close enough to touch.

  “That’s how far it is from the Hudson to the East River,” Beth replied over the drum of rain. “That’s how long the front is.”

  Ben grunted and cut his eyes to Anna. She had gone off, vanishing as silently as the now dissipated fog, and returned a few minutes later with several Rebels in tow, two of them lugging a Big Thumper, two more burly Rebels dutifully toting cases of 40mm grenades. Anna thanked them and began setting up the Mark 19-3 40mm automatic grenade launcher.