Vengeance in the Ashes Read online

  “We’re next,” Books told the roomful of gang leaders. No one from Kauai was in attendance, for crossing the channel was just too dangerous with Ike and his PT boats prowling around. “The Rebels wiped out the Night People on the big island. I don’t think the Rebels lost a person.”

  Crazy Mac MacKenzie was muttering to himself. If anything, he had gotten crazier since Ben and his Rebels started knocking on the door.

  Big Jess looked at him. “Mac, if you don’t shut that stupid mouth of yours, I’m gonna slap it off.”

  Mac stopped mumbling and stared at Jess. “You’ll die when you try,” he warned.

  “Knock it off!” Books said. “What we don’t need is for us to start fighting among ourselves. Believe me, there’ll be plenty of fighting to go around when the Rebels get here.”

  “Are we going to just let them land on the islands, Books?” Polly Polyanna asked.

  “I don’t see that we have a choice in the matter. Now here is the plan: Just as soon as we know the ships are on the way, we break up into small groups and take to the brush and the villages. Slick, are the booby traps ready to go?”

  “They’re in place.” He grinned. “And they’re nasty ones, too.”

  “Everybody know where they’re to go and you’ve all your radios, food, ammo, and other gear set to grab and run?”

  “All set, Books,” Jerry James rumbled out of his beard. “We’ll give them damn Rebels something to think about, for a ironclad fact.”

  “I guess all we can do now is wait.”

  “To die,” Susie Loo said softly.

  “I’d rather go down with a gun in my hand killin’ them damn law-and-order bastards than dangle from the end of a rope with a broke neck. Or slow-strangle like I’ve seen others do,” Big Jess said.

  “For a fact,” a punk called Spit said. “I wanna fuck me one of them Rebel bitches ’fore this is all over. Pass her around to the boys for a real fun gang bang. Listen to her squall when we turn her over. Just like we used to do back in L.A.” His face darkened with anger. “Before that goddamn Ben Raines destroyed it.”

  Bobby was looking out the window at the still-smoking remains of Honolulu. The bombardment from the ships had really done a number on the city. From Kamehameha Highway all the way over to Diamond Head, the Rebels had blown it all to shit. There were a lot of buildings still standing, but one hell of a lot more were gone to rubble.

  “Have you talked to John Dodge, Books?” Polly asked.

  “Yeah. John and his boys are going to try to block the landing. But they’re making a bad mistake by doing so. I don’t think it will take them long to see that. But if they wait too long, it’ll be all over for them.”

  “They didn’t touch Pearl Harbor,” Bobby said, more to himself than to the others. But all heads turned toward him. “That’s where they’re going to off-load their tanks and other heavy stuff. Bet on it.”

  “I think you’re right, Bobby,” Books said. “Do you have a plan to thwart that?”

  “No,” Bobby said. “None at all.”

  “You sure haven’t been yourself here of late, Bobby,” Susie said. “What’s the matter with you, your old lady cut you off or something?”

  Bobby smiled. “No. Actually, we’re getting along better than ever before. Our situation sort of reminds me of an old, old movie I saw one time. It was called . . . On the Beach.”

  “Yes,” Books said. “You’re right, Bobby. It was taken from the Nevil Shute book by the same name. Yes. ‘In this last of meeting places/We grope together/And avoid speech/Gathered on this beach of the tumid river . . . /This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.’”

  “That’s beautiful, Books,” Polly said. “Brings tears to my eyes. Did you write that?”

  “No,” Books said with a smile. “That was penned by T. S. Eliot.”

  “I ain’t goin’ out with no fuckin’ whimper,” Mac snarled. “I aim to kill me a whole bunch of Rebels ’fore I go down.”

  “That’s the spirit, boys and girls!” Books said. “Semper Fi and all that Marine Corps bullshit. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

  “You sure have a way with words, Books,” Susie said. “Did you just make that up?”

  “Actually, no. Winston Churchill said that.”

  “Who the hell is he?” Vic asked.

  Ben walked the long lines of Rebels standing in loose formation. The Rebels did not stress skills in standing at attention, saluting, marching, or any of that other b.s. that armies have been known to emphasize over the long and boring years. Ben was fond of quoting Jean Larte ‘Guy’s comments concerning armies: ‘I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general’s bowel movements or their colonel’s piles: an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.

  ‘The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.’

  That’s the army that Ben Raines had put together and called the Rebels. That’s the army that he stood in front of on this morning before the invasion.

  The four new battalions were there, but of the four, only Jim Peters’s Fourteen Battalion would take part in the invasion. Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen were still in training, but getting close to receiving the coveted black beret of the Rebels and with far fewer dropouts that any training officer originally anticipated.

  Ben stood in front of over ten thousand Rebels, a microphone in his hand. “We’ve got big trouble brewing back on the mainland, people. An army five to ten times our size is on the move up from South America, and their objective is to destroy what is left of the United States, and to wipe from the face of the earth every trace of the Rebel army.

  “We’re going to take the remaining islands, and we’re going to do it quickly but carefully. Then we’re going to head back to the mainland and get set for the biggest battle we’ve ever experienced.”

  As he spoke, although the majority of the gathered Rebels did not know it, Ike’s SEALs and other special-ops personnel were already on the islands of Oahu and Kauai, clearing paths through the maze of booby traps and getting ready to raise a little hell of their own come the night.

  “We’ve taken damn few losses thus far,” Ben said. “So let’s keep it that way. You’re too valuable to fall under the guns of worthless street punks and assorted dickheads. And on that subject, the first person I see without helmet and body armor is going to get an ass-chewing they’ll not soon forget.

  “Spend the rest of this day going over your equipment and relaxing. We start moving out just after midnight. Good luck and God bless you all. You’re the bravest men and women I have ever had the pleasure of serving with. That’s all.”

  EIGHT

  Ships and boats of all sizes began moving out, all heavily loaded with troops and equipment. Ben was taking his One Battalion and Three, Four, Five, and Six Battalions onto the island of Oahu. Ike was taking his Two Battalion, and Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Fourteen Battalions against the island of Kauai. SEALs and other special-ops people were waiting at ports on both islands. As soon as the first few Rebels and equipment were ashore, the special-ops people would move inland and start their own private little wars against the defenders. For the first few days, they would be the forward eyes and ears of the Rebel army.

  Ben knew that this assault would be a mean and nasty little war, but nothing like what faced them in the months ahead once they reached the shores of America.


  He had no doubts about the Rebels’ ability to win the conflicts that faced them, but he also knew that their losses against the divisions of Hoffman would be enormous. Every Rebel man, woman, and child would have to do his or her part if the advancing hordes were to be stopped.

  “Thinking about the mainland, General?” Jersey broke into Ben’s thoughts.

  “Yes, Jersey. I am.”

  “Going to be a real bastard, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And there is no way in hell we’re going to be able to stop them at the borders. Not with the size of that army. We just don’t have the personnel to plug up all the holes.”

  “What do they have against us and the way of life in America? Or the way it used to be?”

  “The United States was the most giving country in the world, Jersey. For years we gave and gave and gave, of time and effort and billions of dollars, and the majority of the world’s countries hated us for it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, General.”

  “It does when you consider that outside of the big and powerful industrial countries, the rest of the world was largely ignorant and poverty-stricken and the citizens very easily manipulated. No matter what we did, those people wanted more from us. It reached the point where we just couldn’t give any more.

  We gave money to other countries when we should have been using that money to help our own citizens. It reached the point where the politicians were not paying any attention at all to the people who put them in office. Ah, it’s a long and complicated story, Jersey. We had many problems at home that should have been addressed but were not. The United States became the object of hatred from a lot of countries we had poured money into. But it’s all moot, now, Jersey.”

  His other team members had gathered around, listening. They were all young and never tired of hearing about the old days, as they called the prewar time, a peaceful time that they had too few memories of.

  Cooper said, “I recall a saying, maybe from some member of my family, I don’t know, something about you could be too good to people. That if you went over a line, the more you gave, the more they expected you to give.”

  “That’s right, Coop,” Ben said. “And America gave until she busted herself. If ever a war came at a right time, the Great War did. Our great nannies in Washington had spent us into bankruptcy, trying to be all things to all people, all the time. That’s impossible. It can’t be done.”

  “General,” Corrie said, pointing at a great land-mass visible under the clear and starry skies. “That’s Oahu, right?”

  “That’s it.”

  “The first thing Rebels do, when they move into an area, is get the lights back on, the plumbing working, and the sewer system and water-management facilities operational. These punk dipshits can’t even get the electricity working, for Christ sake!”

  Ben laughed and laughed at her, and the others joined in. Finally Corrie got caught up in it and the laughter felt good. “You’re right, Corrie,” Ben said, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “That’s why they’re punks and dipshits. But back when the United States was functioning, more or less, the liberals, who seemed to run the news departments of every TV network and every newspaper and magazine in the nation, would have said something like this about those thugs on that island in front of us: ‘Because all those poor criminals were socially, economically, and physically and mentally abused as children, they can’t be expected to maintain the same high standards as those of us who were more fortunate.’ Or some such crap from the mouth as that.”

  “You’re putting us on, right, General?” a young Rebel from Dan’s battalion who had joined the group asked.

  “Oh, no, son. Not at all. You see, back in the 1960s and ’70s and part of the ’80s, the thinking of liberals was this: If you parked your car in your own driveway and left the keys in it, and it got stolen, it was your fault. Not the fault of the thief.”

  “Well . . . that’s the dumbest damn thing I ever heard of!” the young Three Battalion Rebel said. “Who would believe something that stupid?”

  “Not anybody with their head on straight,” Ben replied. “But the country was run by liberals, and their ideology was just what their name implied. Liberal. Very soft toward all crime and all criminals, and very generous with the taxpayer’s money toward any social program—whether it worked or not. But all the problems of the United States cannot be laid at the liberals’ doorsteps. The conservatives in Congress did their best to throw away the taxpayer’s money, too. Expensive military boondoggles that didn’t work, pork-barrel projects that weren’t needed and only benefited those who lived in whatever district or state got the fat. The blame cannot be equally shared between the old liberals and conservatives of the past, but it damn sure can be shared.” He looked at Jersey. “For instance, Jersey, if you got pregnant and wanted an abortion, there were those who were trying with all their might to stop a woman from doing that.”

  “What damn business is that of anybody except the woman?” Jersey flared.

  “It isn’t anybody else’s business. But so-called religious zealots and a lot of conservatives were working very hard to stop all abortions.”

  “It seems to me,” Corrie said, “that if back in the old days, children were going hungry and being neglected and being birthed by women who, for whatever reason, didn’t want them and, from past experience by health workers, couldn’t or wouldn’t care for them, then abortion would be the humane thing, right?”

  Ben chuckled as the ship began to slow. They would start a slow circling and the troops would begin to disembark an hour before dawn. “That’s the logical way to look at it, Corrie. That’s the way we, as Rebels, look at the issue. But back in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, there was very little logic being applied to a whole lot of topics in America. Shoot a man who was trying to burgle your home, and odds were very good that the homeowner would be booked, jailed, tried, and put in prison, or at best, if he was lucky, he’d be sued by the burglar, or the burglar’s family . . . and the homeowner would lose. That’s logic applied by liberals.”

  “That system sucks!” Jersey said.

  “You’re right,” Ben agreed. “And a great many taxpayers—probably the majority—agreed with your assessment, but the courts and the Congress just turned their asses to them and ignored their pleas.”

  The young Rebel from Three Battalion said, “You mean, sir, that if I had lived back in the old days, and I came home and found a bunch of punks looting my house and shot some of them, I might be put in prison?”

  “That’s right. Wonderful system we had back then.”

  “Will it ever return to that?”

  “Not if we’re careful,” Ben said. He looked at the island of Oahu, a huge darkened blob in the night. “Very careful,” he added.

  Ike stood by the railing as the ship turned broadside to the island of Kauai. His thoughts were on the upcoming conflict with the thugs and slavers on the island, but a part of his mind was on the battle that faced the Rebels back on the mainland. The middle-aged warrior felt that the forces of Jesus Hoffman could be beaten, but at what cost to the Rebels? And what if there was yet another force waiting in the wings, ready to launch an attack against America while the Rebels were battered and bloody after doing battle with Hoffman? That was something that he and Ben and the other batt comms had discussed. Afterward, Ben had asked that Cecil, back at Base Camp One, increase the size of his communications staff and more closely monitor the airwaves for any sign of hostile traffic.

  For the moment, that was all any of them could do.

  Ike shook his head, clearing it of all thoughts except the battle at hand. He turned to an aide. “What’s the latest from my SEALs and the other special-op people on shore?”

  “General Raines is not going to have any trouble when he lands. The punks on Oahu have pulled back and appear to have broken up into small groups. We’re going to have a fight of it on Kauai.”

  “We’ll bust through without a lot of p
roblems. Ben’s going to have a real fight on Oahu . . . right from the git-go. The commander over there is smarter than this bunch we’re facing. He’s going to make Ben split his people up into small teams and come after him. Once we establish firm beachheads along the highway, the punks will begin to fall back into the interior and then they’ll probably pull the same thing on us that Ben is facing.” He checked the luminous hands of his diver’s watch. “Get the people ready to board landing craft. We’re close to jump-off time.”

  Ike took the phone set from his operator’s backpack and cued Ben. “Eagle, this is Shark. We are in position.”

  “That is affirmative, Shark,” Ben replied. “You ready to go make bang-bang with the bad guys?”

  Ike smiled in the night. “You watch your butt, Eagle. That’s a smart one you’re facing on Oahu.”

  “He’s not too smart, Shark. He’s facing us, isn’t he?”

  Ike laughed. “Launching boats, Eagle.”

  “Talk to you in a few hours. Eagle out.” Ben turned to Corrie. “All troops into landing craft. Let’s go, gang.”

  When John Dodge saw what was coming at him out of the night, all along the southern coast of Kauai, he quickly revised his plans and ordered his people back. If he’d been half as smart as he thought he was, he would have ordered bridges to be blown and would have slowed Ike’s advance to a crawl and severely hampered Ike’s tanks. But John didn’t think about that. He took a long look at the landing craft filled with Rebels, all heading his way, and panicked.

  At Pearl, SEALs and special-ops personnel secured the old harbor without having to fire a shot. Moments after they radioed the all-clear signal, hundreds of Rebels stormed ashore, with Ben and his team leading the way.

  “Any problems?” Ben asked a burly SEAL.

  “Nary a shot fired, General. You’re going to hit some booby traps further on, but the harbor is all clear.”

  “You boys take off and do your thing,” Ben told.