Courage In The Ashes Read online

  “Ike and his people will take Alaska 2 and proceed toward Fairbanks. I will lead the assault against Anchorage. That’s it, people. Ike’s battalions will be here in the morning. We shove off the next day.”

  So far, it had been a cakewalk for the Rebels. For nearly two thousand miles they had seen little combat. To a person they knew all that was about to change. The mood of the Rebels changed abruptly. Most horseplay ceased and the men and women became serious. Letters were written and chaplains suddenly got very busy. Equipment was checked—for the umpteenth time, but this time much more carefully. The Rebels all knew the crud holed up in Alaska had had years to prepare for this invasion and it was going to be a tough one.

  The battalion commanders spent hours going over maps of the state. Recon pilots brought back pictures and graphs from their heat-seekers, detailing where the heaviest concentrations of warm, breathing bodies were located.

  The columns rolled slowly into Whitehorse and found survivors waiting for them.

  The men, women, and children who had been forced to live in the brush to survive stood in the streets and watched in silence, relief on their faces as the miles-long column rolled into and through the small city.

  The Rebels had been on the road for nearly six weeks.

  “Almost a thousand people here now, General,” Ben was informed. “And more coming in. We’ve been forced to live in small groups, living off the land and keeping a very low profile.”

  “I understand. All that is over, now. What can you tell me about the outlaws up in Alaska?”

  “The scum of the earth,” a woman said. “And worse even more now that Jack Hayes and Art LeBarre and their gangs of trash have joined them. Everyone here can tell you horror stories about the gangs now up in Alaska.”

  “Yes,” another survivor said. “We’ve read your surrender leaflets. They won’t surrender, General. They can’t. They know that even if you gave them amnesty, we’d kill them the instant we spotted them. There is that much hate and loathing and contempt for them among us. They’ve made our lives a living hell for years. It’s indescribable.”

  “I was taken prisoner several years ago,” another woman said. “I was raped repeatedly and watched my youngest daughter raped and sodomized until she died. She was ten. I swear before God Almighty I will kill any who surrender to you. Or you’ll have to kill me.”

  “Get your lives back in order,” Ben told the crowd. “We’ll have planes coming in daily from our Base Camp One, bringing in supplies and food and medicines for you people. The reign of terror is just about over in the northern hemisphere.”

  Jack Hayes, Art LeBarre, and dozens of other gang leaders who had fled to Alaska to escape the wrath of Ben Raines and his Rebel army read the leaflets that had dropped from bellies of high-flying airplanes all over the eastern half of Alaska.

  “This crap don’t mean jack-shit to me,” a burly gang leader called Foley said. “Outside of Alaska, my life ain’t worth a plugged nickel . . . and a nickel ain’t been worth nothin’ in years. This goddamn Ben Raines is just gonna have to come in here and dig me out. To hell with him.” He wadded up the surrender paper and threw it on the floor.

  The others meeting in the lodge just east of the Denali National Park were unanimous in that, some a bit more philosophical than Foley.

  “We’ve had a good run, boys,” Dixson said. “We’ve had our share of pussy and tight asses. Now we got to pay the piper. And the man tootin’ the horn is Ben Raines.” He chuckled, but it contained a grimness. “I remember when Raines first surfaced after the Great War. Ever’body said he wouldn’t last. Ever’body was wrong. We best start diggin’ in, boys. There’s gonna be hell to pay in a few days.”

  “You act like we’re beat ’fore we start?” Outlaw Bonny Jefferson said.

  “Oh, we are,” Dixson said. “It’ll take Raines some time to do it, but we’re dead in the dirt, boys.”

  “That’s your ass!” Smithers said.

  Dixson smiled. “Yours, too, pal.”

  NINE

  Ben took his contingent of Rebels and moved toward Alaska on Highway 1. They would stop at Beaver Creek—some three hundred miles away—and wait until Ike’s people made their half circle, from Whitehorse to Dawson, crossing over into Alaska and linking up with Ben at Tok, Alaska. The commanders would then meet for one final briefing before they again split their forces for the initial campaign.

  Neither force encountered any more blown bridges on this last leg toward Northstar. Neither did they see any signs of life, friendly or hostile.

  What they saw was a lot of beautiful country; a beautiful and pristine land, as it must have been when God made it.

  “I got a question, General,” Cooper said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “What about Juneau and Sitka and Ketchikan?’’

  “Juneau’s the old capital, Coop,” Ben told him. “There are a lot of towns down in that area that are inaccessible by car. I don’t know what we’re going to do about them. Flyovers show that there are people in that area—all over that area. But not that many of them. We don’t know whether they are friendly or hostile. They won’t respond to radio calls. Maybe they just want to be left alone. We don’t know. We’ll just have to deal with that problem on the way out.”

  They were traveling the Alaska Highway, about a hundred miles from Beaver Creek, when a forward recon team bumped Corrie.

  “Scouts have prisoners, sir,” Corrie informed Ben. “About fifty outlaws surrendered and are asking for amnesty.”

  “We’ll honor their requests. Where are they?”

  “Just up ahead at a little place called Destruction Bay.”

  “We’ll bivouac there for the night. I want to interrogate these outlaws.”

  Ben sat behind a table and stared at the leaders of the surrendered band. They were a beaten and woebegone-looking bunch, beaten without the Rebels having to fire a shot at any of them.

  “When we leave this area,” Ben told them, “you people are free to go. But I warn you now, you will not be armed and if any citizens that you men terrorized over the years finds you, they’ll kill you on the spot.”

  “We know,” one outlaw said. “They’ll not find us. Speakin’ just for me, I’m headin’ into the deep timber and keepin’ my head down for a couple of years. You’ll never see me again, General. I promise you that. And I thank you for lettin’ us live.”

  “What are we facing in Alaska?”

  “About fifteen thousand men and women,” another said. “They got machine guns, mortars, and some light artillery.”

  “Any Night People in the cities?”

  “No, sir. We killed them all. Or most of them. If they’s any left, we don’t know where they are.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “Lots of slaves. As soon as you cross over, gang leaders like Foley and Dixson and a dozen others will tell you that if you attack them, they’ll kill the slaves. But they’re going to kill them anyways, General. That’s the plan. They ain’t gonna tote them slaves along; it would slow them down too much.”

  Ben stood up and pointed to a map. “What is west of Highways 3 and the Dalton Highway?”

  “Eskimos and Indians. We left them alone and they done the same to us.”

  “Juneau and Sitka and Ketchikan?”

  “They’re in the hands of some sort of peacenik groups. Environmentalists, I guess you’d call them. They come in real fast, right after the Great War. They don’t bother nobody ’less you bother them. Then they’ll fight like hell. Outlaws and warlords has tried to take them a dozen times over the years. Ain’t nobody managed to run ’em out yet and I don’t figure anybody ever will. Unless it’s you people.”

  Ben shook his head. The environmentalists were safe from the advancing Rebels. Lovers of the Earth and the animals were welcomed by the Rebels. He dismissed the surrendered outlaws and returned to the studying of maps. After an hour, he rubbed his eyes and left the maps for a later time. He walked outside to
stand by the shores of Kluane Lake. It was late afternoon, and the mercury hovered between cool and downright cold.

  Ben’s team stood away from him, but close enough to form a protective blanket around him. Ben picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the waters, then squatted down to gaze across the rippled waters of the lake. He was testing the knee that had been operated on back during the winter months in California. Before the operation, he would have experienced pain within seconds of squatting down. Now he smiled. The knee was pain-free.

  He stood up quickly. Again, the knee was free of pain. He turned to face his team, spinning on the balls of his feet. Again there was no pain.

  He smiled at his team. “Let’s go kick the shit out of some outlaws, people.”

  Ben and his battalions traveled the final one hundred miles to the Alaskan border and stood down just one mile from the land of “The Last Frontier.” He turned to Corrie.

  “What’s the word on Ike?”

  “Standing ready to go, General.”

  “All the leaflets been dropped?”

  “Yes, sir. Thousands of them. Ike reports no further outlaws have offered to meet our surrender terms in his sector.”

  “Then they must be awfully anxious to die,” Ben said. He took a final puff of his cigarette and carefully ground out the butt under the heel of his boot. “All right, Corrie, give the orders to take Northstar.”

  Scouts moved out across the border. They would range several miles ahead of the main columns. When they reported back in, the largest known standing army in the world, under the command of one man, moved across the border and entered the last bastion of organized lawlessness in the northern hemisphere. There was still Sister Voleta to deal with; but Ben wasn’t worried about that witch. He would step on her like a bug on the return trip East.

  Once firmly inside the Alaskan borders, Ben halted and waited for word from the Scouts. They had orders to take a few prisoners alive and bring them back to Ben. Ben knew that would not take long.

  Corrie said, “Both our Scouts and Ike’s Scouts are in a firefight, sir. Our people say they’ll be bringing some live talkies back in a few minutes.”

  Ben smiled. “Confident, aren’t they?”

  “They had a good teacher,” Jersey said, looking at Ben.

  The four prisoners were scared and with good reason. They were standing in front of Ben Raines, the most powerful man—in terms of military might—in the known world. Any bravado they might have had in them had vanished when they looked into the muzzles of Rebel rifles. Now it was up to this one man whether they lived or died.

  “You men talk to me,” Ben told them. “And you tell me the truth when I ask you a question. If you live or die depends on your truthfulness. What is between here and Northway Junction?”

  “If we tell you a lie, how’re you gonna do anything to us once we’re gone one direction and you another?” an outlaw challenged.

  “Because you’re going with us,” Ben said with a smile. “And if you’ve told us a lie about an ambush or troop strength, I’ll shoot you. Is that understood?”

  “Couldn’t be any plainer,” another outlaw said. “They’s people waitin’ for your boys and girls at Northway Junction. The plan is to fall back to Northway, then to Nabesna Village, and finally to use three-wheelers overland to Tetlin on the lake. They’ll booby-trap there and bug out ’crost country to Highway 1. That’s the plan.”

  “Prisoners? Slaves?”

  “No, sir,” another said. “What slaves there was along this stretch has done been killed.”

  “Did you hold slaves?” Ben asked softly.

  “No, sir. We was soldiers. Only the gang leaders and such has the right to own slaves.”

  “Is that the way it is all over Alaska?”

  “I . . . can’t rightly say, General. Some gang leaders and warlords has different rules. Since the Great War, we pretty much stay in our own territory. It ain’t safe to go wanderin’ around much.”

  “No honor among thieves?” Ben asked, his smile hard.

  “Yes, sir,” the fourth prisoner said. “I reckon it’s something like that.”

  Ben waved them away. When they were gone, he turned to Georgi Striganov, Dan Gray, and the other commanders of his battalions. “It’s about sixty miles to Northway Junction. We’ll advance and play their game for a time. When we get to the cut-off point, we’ll hold on the main highway and let the choppers go to work.”

  Ben paused, studying a map. “I want recon flights, fixed-wing and helicopter, over this area south of us, all the way down to the Gulf of Alaska. If there are friendlies down there, I want them to know who we are. If they are hostile, get rid of them.”

  “Right, sir,” Dan said, and left to get the planes and choppers up.

  “Corrie, let’s find out what’s going on with Ike.”

  Within seconds, Ike came on the horn. “The town of Boundary is ours, Ben. It wasn’t much of a fight. We’ve got about a 2,100-foot runway here in fair shape. Earth and gravel.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “They didn’t like our terms of surrender. We’re scooping out a hole now.”

  “That’s ten-four. We’re moving out.” Ben looked at an old travel guide of Alaska. “There’s a five-thousand-foot runway at Northway. We’ll leave a contingent there and use that as a base for aircraft reconing south. Let’s roll, people. The scenic beauties of Alaska await us.”

  “I wonder if anyone can make me some mukluks?” Cooper said.

  “Hell, Cooper,” Beth said. “You didn’t even know what they were until you read about them a few minutes ago.”

  “I’ll give you a knot on the head if you don’t keep this damn wagon between the ditches,” Jersey said.

  “Drive,’’ Ben said, climbing into the wagon and putting an end to the friendly bickering. He looked around. Smoot was beside Linda. He winked at Linda and she smiled.

  Moments later, after listening intently to a message coming through her earphones, Corrie said, “Base Camp One just confirmed that we are now high-tech in weapons, sir. The first planeloads of rockets for the helicopters is on their way. Anything the attack helicopters could do before the Great War, they can do again. With the exception of nuclear warheads.”

  For two years, since instructors had been found for the attack helicopters, Ben’s war machine at Base Camp One had been working around the clock, refurbishing the ’copters’ deadly arsenal. Eventually, pilots would be trained to fly the big jet transports. But so far, only a few men and women could fly the big jets.

  General Georgi Striganov now had a dozen of the awesome Mi-24 Hind D and E attack helicopters, with several more dozen grounded for lack of trained pilots. It was taking time, but soon the Rebels would be adequately equipped to head for Europe. Ben figured a maximum of six months and they could put out to sea.

  Providing they could find qualified personnel to “drive the goddamn boats,” as Ben often put it.

  “Bump Ike,” Ben said, after a dozen miles had rolled by. “We want to coordinate this right down to the second.”

  “Thirty miles from target,” Corrie said.

  Ben looked at his watch. “We’re right on line. Tell Georgi to get his attack choppers warming up and ready to go. We’re not going to leave very much behind us, folks. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it has to be.” Ben was thoughtful for a moment, then he said, “To hell with it. Bring the column to a halt. Order the Hinds in. I’ll be damned if I’ll lose Rebels when it doesn’t have to be. Order Ike to halt and hold what he’s got.”

  “General Striganov agrees, sir. His Hinds are ready.”

  “Tell them to get airborne.”

  Within minutes, the big Hinds, which have been called flying tanks, were slapping the air with their huge fifty-five-foot main blades. Their arsenal was not just impressive, it was awesome. Each Hind carried, on its twin-launch rails, Swatter and Sagger missiles, two thirty-two-round rocket launchers for 57mm rockets, a 23mm twin-barrel cannon, G
rail antiaircraft missiles (converted for ground targets), 240mm, 210mm, and 160mm rockets, and two 250-pound bombs.

  Georgi rode up on a motorcycle he’d borrowed from one of the outlaw bikers now aligned with the Rebels and grinned at Ben. “They’ll save many Rebel lives, I believe.”

  “Yes,” Ben agreed.

  “They’re beautiful, in a deadly sort of way,” Beth remarked, standing by the side of the big nine-passenger wagon.

  “They won’t even reach cruising speed,” the Russian said. “That’s 185 miles an hour. They’ll be over the target in a few minutes. I have given them orders for the first six to attack the town, the second six to pursue the outlaws on their three-wheelers and finish them.”

  Ben nodded. “Corrie, advise Ike to have his Apaches ready to assault Tok in the morning. If need be,” he added.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Huge columns of smoke began rising from the towns as a dozen 250-pound bombs were dropped on Northway and Northway Junction. Thirty miles away, those in the column could not hear the rattle of chain guns and the slashing of rockets, but they knew the towns were finished.

  Striganov had returned to his command.

  “That’s it, General,” Corrie said. “The towns are clear.”

  “Move out,” Ben ordered.

  By the time Ben’s column had reached the smoking, burning ruins of the towns the Hinds were returning, having chased the outlaws into the brush and finished them.

  There was nothing left of the small villages except broken and charred bodies of the outlaws who had been caught by the deadly fire of the gunships before they could spring their ambush. Ben left them for the carrions.

  “Move on up toward Tetlin Junction,” he ordered. “We’ll bivouac about twenty miles from the town.” He lifted a map. “Says here there isn’t much to the place. But you can bet it’s big enough to hold a few outlaws.”