Flames from the Ashes Read online

  He did. He spoke earnestly for ten minutes. Ben listened, his frown deepening. At the conclusion, Ben motioned a guard to his table. “Keep this officer segregated from the others. He is to be treated as a bona fide prisoner of war.” He came to his boots and gestured toward the remaining Nazi leaders. “Find out what you can and then deal with them accordingly. I have some serious thinking to do.”

  In accordance with a lifelong habit, Field Marshal Jesus Dieguez Mendoza Hoffman awakened half an hour before sunrise. By the time the east blazed with white light and pale pink blushed the western slopes of the Cascades, he had showered and shaved and taken care of bodily eliminations. Dressed in knee-length, shiny black boots, with Junker spurs, gray-green trousers with a field marshal’s black and silver stripes, picked out by a center line of red, matching tunic, and tall peaked hat with its spread eagle and swastika, he strolled from his sleeping quarters to the officer’s mess. A riding crop grasped in his right hand slapped idly at the leather-gloved left.

  He had just settled in at a comfortable table with his first coffee of the day and a delightfully plump Sachertorte, when G-2 Colonel Webber brought him the news of the disaster at York. He listened with a growing frown, and brushed irritatedly at the hanging lock of hair over his left eye. After Webber had stammered his report, Hoffman raised an eye and its brow at the chubby colonel.

  “What a pity. We could have used another seven hundred men. You believe Utting was captured? At least most of his men got away?”

  “Yes, Field Marshal.”

  “Ah! Ah, yes,” Hoffman said brightly. “I have this very morning come to a decision about that. I have promoted myself. Henceforth I will be referred to as Generalfeldmarschall. Do you understand, Webber?”

  “Zu Befehl, Hen Generalfeldmarschall.”

  “Excellent, Webber. Now, our estimable Hauptsturmbannführer Volmer also managed to escape?”

  “It was so reported, Generalfeldmarschall.”

  “Wonderful. And I do hope those dear boys in that band he takes around with him managed to avoid capture and indoctrination by the Rebels.”

  “Absolutely, Generalfeldmarschall.”

  Generalfeldmarschall Hoffman’s benign mood evaporated in a cloud of rage. “Then can you tell me by all that’s holy, how in the hell did this outrage happen?” Webber gaped. He had no answer. “With an SS regiment, albeit an American one, in the vicinity, along with Volmer’s usual security, and you say at least three hundred effective soldiers in that theater, I should be viewing the corpse of General Ben Raines right now, not listening to another in a long litany of defeats.” He spotted Karl Richter entering the mess, waved him over.

  “Jahwohl, Hen Feldmarschall. Was wollen Sie?” Senior aide or not, Richter learned about the promotion in acid terms. “Generalfeldmarschall,” he corrected.

  Then Hoffman told him what he wanted. “Staff meeting in half an hour. I want all troops put on alert. I want immediate contact with this Gabe Trasher person and his Alien Secretions — Liebe Gott, what an outlandish name — never mind. I want him now, now.”

  “Zu Befehl, Hen Generalfeldmarschall,” Richter managed to choke out. He of all the staff at least spoke German without an outrageous Latino accent.

  “It’s the head kraut, or kraut-head, whichever,” Numb Nuts told Gabe, and gobbled his obnoxious giggle.

  Trasher took the microphone. “You’ve got the head Alien Secretion, come back,” he brayed into the mike in a style reminiscent of some eighteen-wheelers on the superslab.

  “This is General Field Marshal Hoffman. You are to go to full alert. Put your unit in the field and stand by to initiate a diversionary action on orders of this headquarters. Over.”

  “Well, well, the old fart’s promoted himself,” Trasher said to the four persons in the room with him and Numb Nuts. Into the mike, he replied, “Yeah. I copy that. But we don’t have any long-range radio rig that’s mobile. How will we hear when and what we’re supposed to do?”

  “You will be informed by other NAL units nearer your location. Tune your mobile radios to 137.45 MHz and monitor at all times. As to what your mission will be, set your recording equipment to receive a burst transmission at once.”

  “At once,” Trasher mimicked, with limp wrist bent on one hip and mouthing the words in a grotesque manner. At a nod from Little Dick Bentley, he told Hoffman, “Send away, we’re ready.”

  Little Dick Bentley, named for an unfortunate characteristic of his anatomy, watched the needle on the recorder’s VU meter climb into the red and winced. He understood the practical application of burst or “squawk” transmissions, but the physics behind them eluded him entirely. He had always been taught to keep his modulation out of the red. How could these split-second transmissions peg the old needle every time and not come out distorted? Never mind, he dismissed, it worked and that’s what counted.

  So they were gonna see some action at last. That’s what Little Dick hungered after. He also hungered after some of the fine mommas who hung out with the gang, but they knew of his legendary under-endowment, and viewed him with contempt.

  It wasn’t fair, he thought resentfully. It wasn’t his fault he was hung like a stud mouse. But that left him only the preteenies they sometimes scooped up to lust after, and of course the small boys. Which wasn’t such a bad selection, Little Dick allowed, when he looked at it in the proper light. Yeah, real action, man. How he longed to spill some Rebel blood.

  “Everybody out,” Gabe Trasher bellowed when he finished with the radio. “I gotta listen to this and decide how we go about it.”

  They shuffled out into the sunlight and Gabe played the tape twice. He listened carefully both times. A wild light filled his beady green eyes when he stepped out onto the crumbling porch of the old house.

  “Listen up, everybody. Ol’ Hoffman baby says that Ben Raines has a habit of striking out ahead of his main column. Well, he’s given us the job of tweaking the nose of that bastard Raines. We’re gonna fan out and find him, then we sting him good and run away. And sting him and run again and again, until we sting him to death.”

  A chorus of drunken and narco-crazed voices raised in a ragged cheer.

  SIX

  Ben Raines sat scratching Smoot’s big, triangular ears. The woolly Siberian husky had flopped her seventy pounds down on the toes of Ben’s boots. The intelligence Ben had developed from interrogation of the more cooperative American Nazis troubled him greatly. He had summoned this council of war, and now, Ben had to admit, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to propose.

  They had only just completed a protracted guerrilla-type war against Hoffman and his black-shirts. In the culmination of that, the units had been drawn back together. It was obvious what Hoffman, and his new military genius, Peter Volmer, wanted the Rebels to do. The logistics alone made it nearly impossible to grant Hoffman his expectation.

  Take gasoline, Ben ruminated while he waited for the nearby commanders to arrive. Tanker trucks not only delivered fuel, they consumed it while they rolled. Already the line had been stretched mighty thin between the refinery and the troops in the field. In his campaign against the loathsome creepies, nearly all of the underground storage tanks scattered around the nation had been sucked dry, or blown up along with the creepie centers in the towns where they were located.

  It would be sheer happenstance to locate sufficient quantities on a thousand-mile front. Ammunition resupply presented another problem. Groceries for over seven thousand combat troops and their support elements staggered the imagination when contemplating locating and distributing them. For all of the Rebels’ stabilizing and civilizing efforts, the United States sadly lacked adequate supplies and the means to transport them. The nation had been laid to waste, mostly at the hands of the Rebels themselves.

  That had been necessary to exterminate the cannibal cult of the Night People. Ben didn’t harbor regrets for what he had ordered. To the contrary, it had been necessary and he had stood up to the challenge. Some men would ha
ve been content to rest on their laurels. Not Ben Raines.

  He had quixotically gone off to clean up the rest of the world. Or at least as much of it as his Rebels could touch. In the unsteady peace that descended on the United States, agriculture enjoyed a revival, as did commerce and trade. Left alone, people exerted their efforts positively. At least some.

  Because during that hiatus, there had been a secret resurgence of the old, much-discredited American Nazi movement. What in God’s name attracted people to that shopworn socialist claptrap? Nazi, Ben reminded himself, was an acronym for Nationalsozialist, a member or supporter of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei — National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Over the years, since that cancer erupted in Germany in 1933, the “Socialist” had been cunningly dropped from any references in Great Britain and the United States to fit the politically correct espousal of socialism and Marxism by those nations’ left-leaning liberals.

  Truth was, Ben mused, Hitler’s brand of socialism was anything but “right-wing” and as morally and economically bankrupt as all the others. Time proved that; the Soviet Union went broke and collapsed, and Marxism died in its client states. Germany was reunited, he reminded himself, and what the hell happened? The neo-Nazi movement flared up in astonishing numbers. But not here, never in America. And Ben had deluded himself with that smug assurance also. Now he and his Rebels were paying the price.

  “Coffee on?” Dan Gray, the former SAS man, asked as he ducked his head to enter the small side door of the semi trailer Ben had been using as a mobile CP.

  “Help yourself, Dan,” Ben broke off his troubled reflections.

  “I saw Buddy outside,” the tall, lean, always dapper Rebel colonel added as he poured a earthenware mug of steaming real coffee. Dan nodded at the cup. “One good thing about fighting an enemy from South America. We must have captured twenty-five tons of coffee beans. Oh, Georgi sends his regrets, he and the battalion commanders in his sector will be joining us by radio net.” He referred to General Georgi Alexandrovich Striganov, formerly of the Soviet Army, now a citizen of what was left of Canada.

  A longtime ally of the Rebels, General Striganov had a sardonic wit and droll sense of humor. He was also a damn fine soldier, Ben Raines acknowledged. Striganov had been engaged in covert operations in the Hudson Bay region for the International Peace Force before the Soviet Union collapsed and the Great War came crashing down on the world. A Party member out of necessity, he didn’t experience any great moral struggle to cast off Communism and the Soviet high command and embrace a new way of life. Once an implacable enemy of Ben Raines and his Tri-States country, he had become a fast friend.

  “Ike McGowan is right behind me,” Dan went on, one finger brushing at the pencil line of mustache below his patrician nose. “So’s Captain Thermopolis.” Dan winced. “He has Emil with him.”

  “Good. I have plans for both of them,” Ben said levelly.

  Not everyone in the Rebel command had bought Emil Hite. Emil did little to modify such opinions. He still saw himself as guru of his own brand of mumbo jumbo quasi-religion. It was all a scam, and Emil Hite the prince of con artists, and Ben Raines had seen through it the first time he met the five foot one inch “Prophet.” Dizzy and ditzy as he might be, Emil had shed his gaudy robes and any pretense of worshiping the Great God Blomm and proven one hell of a good soldier. Competent troop leader, too, Ben admitted silently.

  “Word is, our chief medical officer is gracing us with his presence, too,” Dan dropped his final dollop of news.

  “So I’ve been told,” Ben responded. He immediately extinguished the cigarette he had been smoking and waved the air in front of his face to dispel the cloud of smoke. “He’ll no doubt tell me I’ve been eating too much, exercising too little, and smoking again. Not to mention that I’ve been exposing myself recklessly to danger. All of which is true.”

  “What’s true?” Ike McGowan and Dr. Lamar Chase asked together as they entered the trailer.

  McGowan, the ex-SEAL, slouched into a chair and snagged a mug of coffee from Beth. Pear-shaped Dr. Lamar Chase remained in the doorway, immaculate hands on hips. The retired Navy captain, although well into his seventies, refused to retire again from service in the field with the Rebel command. He cut his gaze from the top of Ben Raines’s head to his heels. Then he spoke tartly.

  “You’ve been eating too much. Not enough exercise. You’ve been smoking again, I can tell it. And you’ve been out racing around like a teenager, risking your life and the future of the Rebel cause.”

  Ben cut his eyes to Dan in a “Didn’t I tell you?” glance. Then he laughed, a sort of snort. “Guilty as charged. If you want the truth, I drink whiskey and smoke to kill the gawd-awful taste of those ‘nutritionally superior’ field rations with which you insist on burdening us.”

  “I said nothing about your consumption of alcohol.” Chase sounded wounded.

  “Get your coffee and sit down, Doctor,” Ben invited.

  Thermopolis and Emil entered next. Ben Raines had once described Thermopolis as “Nature’s prototype hippie.” Thermopolis had shed his headband featuring the yin-yang symbol for a ballistic helmet, but he remained lean, long, and tanned. A stout set of Rebel hobnailed combat boots had replaced his sandals while on duty. Since being made CO of Headquarters Company, he had shortened the length of his hair and trimmed beard and mustache. A camo outfit covered his psychedelic shirt and purple trousers. His droopy eyelids and laid-back attitude still marked him as the quintessential hippie.

  Ben and the others greeted Thermopolis and Emil, who beelined for the coffee. Emil added a large spoon of honey to his. Then he turned his eyes and mouth on Ben Raines.

  “Greetings, O sublime and magnificent Commander General of all the Americas. Emil Hite, guru extraordinaire, is at your disposal. Of course, I don’t mean actual disposal, as in a large green garbage bag, but in your great wisdom you understand all that, Mighty Slayer of the Unfit.”

  Ben developed a pained expression. “Can the shit, Emil. This is a staff conference. Which reminds me. Corrie, will you open the command net and we’ll begin this conflab.”

  “Yes, sir. General Jefferys is standing by, as are General Striganov and Colonel West.”

  “Thank you, Beth.”

  And no doubt Cecil Jefferys would be wanting to get back in harness, Ben reasoned. The huge black man, ex-Special Forces, had only recently undergone radical heart surgery, a triple-bypass — once a relatively simple procedure, but under the conditions of “modern” medicine, still somewhat of a risk. He had been assigned to Base Camp One, in command of the gigantic installation, while he recuperated.

  When Hoffman and his black-shirted horde invaded, Cecil strained at the bit to be included in the operation against the Nazi vermin. Cecil Jefferys, like Ike McGowan, and Lamar Chase, had sided with Ben Raines from the first. In his more candid moments, Ben allowed as how he could never have done it, any of it, without them.

  Colonel West was somewhat of an anachronism, Ben considered. There had not been nations or multinational corporations rich enough to hire a battalion of mercenaries in a long time. West had been intelligent enough to see that and had gladly thrown in his lot with the Rebels. His men, all professionals, fought well and gained a lot of glory for the Rebel cause. That is, after he and Ben had had a knock-down, drag-out, head-butting row over the few, but stringent, rules that passed for law and morality in Rebel-held territory.

  “Gentlemen,” Ben began once the RT operators at the various far-flung locations had completed their ritual. Tor want of any better term, you constitute my staff. I’ve called this little gathering to discuss what we have learned. It’s alarming, to say the least. Oh, Jersey, would you ask Buddy to join us now, please?”

  “Sure, General.”

  Buddy entered, poured coffee, and took his seat. He sipped, and breathed a sigh of contentment. He had yet to grow jaded by this treat of only four months’ duration. Idly he ran big fingers across the
brush-cut top of his head and then fixed his attention on his father.

  Quickly Ben outlined the result of the interrogation of the American Nazis captured at the drive-in. Ike McGowan, Dan Gray, and General Striganov, in particular, asked pointed questions during the presentation. Ben concluded by listing their options.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” he stated at last. “Anyone have a favorite strategic plan, or know of something I haven’t mentioned?”

  “Not so you’d notice,” Colonel West said through the static of distance. “You covered it rather well, as usual, General.”

  “I agree,” Dan Gray chimed in. “And I get the feeling you are not in favor of splitting the command into small tactical units and engaging Hoffman’s Nazis piecemeal?”

  Ben smiled as though at an apt pupil. “You’ve seen through me, Dan. You’re right.”

  “So then I would think an attack in depth is called for,” General Striganov supported from his position in North Dakota.

  “Hoffman has too many men, and more coming, according to the Nazis we captured, for that to work,” Ben contradicted. “What I propose is establishing two theaters of operation and rolling over them with what we’ve got.” He went on to elaborate. When he finished, Dr. Chase raised a finger to be recognized.

  “The medical difficulties are going to be astronomical. It will require at least four MASH units, and I mean complete.”

  “We have six,” Ben reminded him.

  “And I need three of them to maintain what we hold at this point,” Lamar Chase snapped testily. “We simply don’t have the personnel for this kind of scheme.”

  Cecil Jefferys boomed from the speaker. “We have those Nazi POWs who surrendered located here at Base. They’ve been through two months of intensive de-Nazification. Most, remember, were Latinos, who didn’t buy into Hoffman’s Aryan-supremacy crap at all. Among them are a lot of medical personnel. We can use them in the rear echelon and free up bona fide Rebels for field service.”