Courage In The Ashes Page 9
Linda had been strangely silent. As they moved out, she said, “Surely by now they know they can’t beat us. They have—according to what we’ve learned—very good communications equipment. So word has to have spread throughout the country. Would you still accept their surrender, Ben?”
“No,” Ben said. “I would not. I’ve offered them surrender terms. They refused. To hell with them.”
“Is that your final word, Ben?” she asked softly, as she petted Smoot.
“That is my final word.”
“I wonder if they realize that?” she asked.
“They know my reputation.”
“I wonder what they’re thinking?”
TEN
The Athabascan Indians had been long gone from Tok—pronounced like coke—and had left the town to the outlaws. It had once held a population of about twelve hundred. But for years now it had been the headquarters of an outlaw who called himself Moose. Moose looked at his band of crud, punks, and trash and shook his head. They numbered about three hundred, and although they were heavily armed and well-armed, Moose knew with a sinking feeling that one platoon of Raines’s Rebels could wipe out their asses and not even work up a sweat doing it.
He had been stunned speechless when four of the men from Northway and Northway Junction had staggered into his town, all wild-eyed and scared shitless, telling tales of attack helicopters as big as tanks. Moose knew those had to be the Russian Hind helicopters. And if Raines had those, it stood to reason he also had the Apache, Cobra, and Huey gunships.
For years, limited to infantry-style warfare, Ben Raines had been kicking ass all over the United States. But now he had gone high tech. The son of a bitch!
And Moose knew the goddamn law-and-order bastard wasn’t about to accept any surrender now, He’d laid out his terms and given them a few days to either accept or reject. Now it was too late. Raines didn’t believe in jacking around with outlaws.
Moose longed for the old days—really, not that many years back—when even a piss-poor lawyer could snort and beller and moan and sob and get a murderer off with only a few years in the bucket.
The good old days.
No more.
In the outposts that Raines had established in the lower forty-eight, what lawyers there were (those who would even admit to being an attorney) walked light and didn’t rock the boat around Rebels. Ben Raines didn’t like lawyers, and that meant that the Rebels didn’t like lawyers.
“Shit!” Moose said.
“Do we make a fight of it, Moose?” one of his lieutenants asked.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” Moose said, looking at the man. “Hell, no, we don’t stand and fight.”
“What are we gonna do, Moose?” his woman, Big Jean asked.
“Carry our asses out of here, that’s what. Get all the rest of our shit packed. We’re pullin’ out now!’’
“Where?” she asked.
Moose sighed. Tell the truth, he didn’t know. Most, so he’d heard on the short wave, were heading into the cities. But the cities were going to be death traps. Raines would just surround them and pound them into burning rubble with cannon fire.
“There ain’t no stoppin’ that man,” Moose muttered. “It’s over for us.”
Big Jean started crying. Moose popped her on the side of the head with a big hamlike hand and knocked her up against a wall in the lobby of the hotel. “Shut up, bitch! We don’t have the time for no female hysterics. Go pack our rags and let’s get gone. Gordy, get me Jake on the horn.”
Jake was the outlaw leader in a town about seventy miles south of Tok.
“Jake. Moose here. You heard about Raines and his people? Yeah. That’s right. Listen to me, Jake. There ain’t no way one gang alone is gonna stop that man. We got to group up and make some plans. You with me? OK. That’s good. Get on the horn and talk to Buster down in Glenallen. You’ll do that. Fine. Tell him to talk it up with guys he can trust. I’ll be seein’ you in about two-three hours.”
Moose looked around the old hotel’s lobby, which was filled to overflowing with his men. Some wore looks of undisguised fear at the merciless advancing of Raines Rebels; others were openly defiant. The words ‘a fight to the death’ jumped into the brain of Moose. There ain’t no turnin’ back for none of us. We either win, or we die.
Moose looked at the message from Ben Raines, lying on the old front desk of the hotel. His eyes picked out lines:
THIS WILL BE YOUR ONLY CHANCE TO SURRENDER. THE DAY OF THE CRIMINAL IS OVER. THE REBEL ARMY WILL TAKE NO PRISONERS.
“Let’s go, people,” Moose said. “Get cracking. We got to clear out of here. Raines is on the way.”
“It says here,” Beth said, reading from a tattered copy of an Alaskan travel guide, “that this hotel offers clean, comfortable rooms starting at twenty-five dollars a night.”
“I bet we can beat that price,” Coop said. “We’ll just have to dicker a little bit with the desk clerk.”
“Coming up on the town,” Corrie said, after receiving a message from the Scouts. “Scouts say it’s deserted.”
“Keep Smoot on a leash,” Ben said. “There are lots of huskies running loose. Probably reverted back to the wild to stay alive. They’ll be running in packs; we’ve all seen them. Pull up over there, Coop. By that hotel.”
Scouts were moving from building to building, checking each one carefully for booby traps. Ben and his team waited by the wagon until the all clear was given.
“We found where they’d planned to booby-trap the place,” Dan said. “But from the looks of things, they pulled out in such a hurry they didn’t take the time to activate the explosives. They’re certainly on the run.”
“But to where?” Georgi Striganov asked, lifting a map. “If they get west of Highway 3, we’ll have lost them. It would take years to comb out that area.”
Ben shook his head. “They’d die out there. Most wouldn’t survive the first winter. They’ll make a stand of it somewhere along the way. They have to.”
Smoot did not fight the leash, choosing to sit close to Beth. The husky mascot seemed to realize that this was dangerous country and there were too many half-wild dogs running around looking for something to eat. And that Smoot would fit the menu.
“Ike coming in,” Ben was informed. “’Bout two miles out of town.”
“We didn’t see anything,” Ike told Ben. The commanders sat in the dining room of the old Westmark Hotel. “We met that small bit of resistance once we got inside the border, and after that, nothing.”
“General,” Dan said, walking up to the table.
Ben looked up. Dan had a very grim expression on his face. “What’s wrong, Dan?”
“Another mass grave just outside of town. It’s years old. Doctor Chase says it looks like the people were forced to stand in the pit and were then machine-gunned. Men, women, kids, dogs, and cats.”
Ben slowly nodded his head. “Have the chaplains conduct a service.”
“We have a few survivors, General. They’ve been living, or existing is a better word, just north of the town, across the Tanana River.”
Ben interviewed the survivors. They were alive, but that was about the best one could say for them.
“We started out several hundred strong, General,” one man told him. “But as the years wore on our numbers dropped. Due mostly to bad diet and the cold.”
“Do you know anything about those in that mass grave outside of town?”
“Yes, sir. Moose and his gang hit the town about five years ago. We just weren’t ready for them. We fought, but not nearly well enough. My wife, daughter, and the family pet were executed. I played dead and slipped out after dark. Joined some others in the brush.”
“What we’ve heard all along is true,” Ben said, speaking to no one in particular. “The outlaws up here are the most vicious of them all.”
The survivor laughed, but the sound held little humor. “General, that’s an understatement. These gangs roaming Alaska are the scu
m of the earth. The worst of the worst. Survivors of your purge in the lower forty-eight. They torture for the fun of it. They rape men and boys just to hear them scream. They’ll pass women around like trading baseball cards. They’ll pull the teeth out of men and women and boys and girls to insure they can’t bite during forced oral sex. They set animals on fire for sport, betting on how long they can stay alive while burning. It’s horrible.”
“How many pockets of survivors are there?”
“In this area, you’re looking at it. I don’t know about west of the Alaskan Railroad. We didn’t dare use radios to find other people. The outlaws have the best communications equipment. General, they made games out of hunting us down. They made captured men rape other male prisoners. They forced men and women and children to engage in the most disgusting and perverted of sexual acts.” He could not continue.
The man started crying, openly and unashamedly. A medic gently led him away. The commanders sat in the dining room in silence for a moment.
Linda walked in, her face tight with rage. Ben looked up as she walked to the table.
“Don’t ever ask me to assist any wounded outlaws, Ben.” She had long ago stopped addressing him as “General.” As intimate as they were, that would have been ridiculous.
“I won’t,” Ben’s words were softly spoken. He waited, knowing there was more.
“A five-year-old girl just died on the operating table, Ben. She’d been raped and sodomized. Torn apart. The infection was too severe for us to save her.”
Ben nodded his head. He’d seen it before; but it never failed to shock him. He poured Linda a glass of brandy and held it out for her. She cursed and slapped it out of his hand. Smoot went under the table and lay between Ben’s boots. Several of the commanders gathered around wished they could do the same thing. Emil climbed out a rear window of the dining room, Thermopolis right behind him.
Ben sat and waited for Linda to unload on him. He did not have a long wait. She cussed men who would do such horrible and inhuman things to another human being. She told Ben what she would like to see done to such people. Dan stood in the doorway for a moment, listening in awe, then beat a hasty retreat. Linda told Ben that if she ever got her hands on any outlaw, she would hack off his privates with a dull knife and cauterize the wound with a blow torch.
Ike grimaced and crossed his legs.
Dr. Chase entered the dining room and stood listening. When Linda paused for breath, he said, “And what she said goes double for me, Ben. I’ve been listening to horror stories for an hour. They’re nearly unbelievable in their savagery. Don’t expect my people to work on any outlaw.”
“I won’t ask any of you to do that, Lamar,” Ben assured the man.
“Good.” He whirled around and left the room, Linda right behind him.
Buddy had been listening just outside the door. When the doctor and RN had left, he walked to the table and sat down. “I talked with several of the survivors, Father. Lan Villar and his followers have taken over the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. They know that you will not destroy it to get at them.”
Ben grunted. Smart move on their part, he thought. “Go on, son.”
“Lan has his HQ in the town of Kenai. It was about seventy five hundred population before the Great War. There is an eight thousand foot runway there. Natural gas and oil refineries are located there. Lan Villar has about five thousand men in his army.”
“Well, he managed to pick up a few, didn’t he?” Ben said, pouring a fresh cup of coffee.
“More will surely join him as we advance,” Ben’s son said.
“Probably,” Ben said, a strange smile on his lips.
“Something amusing?” Cecil asked.
“Maybe. Do you know where his HQ is located in the town, son?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s in the post office building, on Cavier Street.”
“Interesting,” Ben said. “Very interesting.”
No one pressed him on his plans. Ben would work them out carefully in his mind and then lay them out for the others to see.
The commanders firmed up plans for the campaign—which so far had been a milk run—and then broke up the meeting, each returning to their unit. Ben walked the town, taking in what was left of the sights.
The restaurants were filthy from years of cooking and very little cleaning. The walls were caked with grease. Ben couldn’t imagine anyone even remotely entertaining the thought of eating amid such filth.
The motels were just as bad, their mattresses infested with lice and fleas, their carpets alive with various tiny hopping and crawling critters.
Ben ordered the carpets and mattresses dragged outside and burned.
He was amused as he stood in front of a restaurant whose sign proclaimed the best Mexican, American, and Italian food in all of Alaska.
Another cafe had a sign boasting the best sourdough pancakes in all of Alaska. He walked past a place that claimed to have in captivity the largest mosquito in all of Alaska, “Chained for the Public’s Safety.”
There were several thousand Rebels milling in and around Tok, talking and taking in the sights. No one knew how the outlaws managed to get close to Ben.
But they did, and suddenly he was flat on his back in the street, shot in the chest. He was not moving.
ELEVEN
The firefight that followed the shooting of General Raines was very short and very savage. Platoons of Rebels threw themselves around the area where Ben lay, putting up a human barricade around him while the medics worked frantically. The outlaws that had shot Ben were put down hard. One was taken alive. He was very eager to talk. Then the Rebels hanged him from a flagpole at an old RV village.
Ike and Cecil followed the medics to the field hospital. A grim-faced Dr. Chase met them outside.
“I won’t lie to you, boys,” he told them. “It’s bad. The bullet entered between armpit and flak-jacket. He must have been waving at someone when the sniper fired. The bullet shattered a rib and went wandering off somewhere. We can’t find the bullet and Ben cannot—repeat, cannot—be moved. We won’t know how much damage was done until we get inside. He’s being opened up right now.”
“What are the odds of him coming out of this?”
Ike asked.
Lamar opened his mouth to speak. He closed his mouth and shook his head. He finally said, “Call the chaplains. Excuse me, I’ve got to get to the OR.”
Cecil groaned and put a hand to his chest.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Chase yelled
“Must be indigestion,” Cecil said, then he could not suppress the groan of pain that escaped his lips.
“Indigestion, hell. You haven’t been taking your blood pressure medicine, have you, you big ox? Get him on the ground, Ike!” Chase said. “Medics!” he roared. “Get the hell out here.”
“Blood pressure is off the wall,” a medic said. “He’s having a heart attack.” He waved for a stretcher while Lamar was barking out orders.
Lamar turned to Ike seconds after Cecil was carried inside the field hospital. “You’re in command, Ike. You’ve got to take over One Battalion and run the show. Cecil’s out of it for the duration, I’m afraid.”
“You knew he had a bum ticker, Lamar?”
“He wanted one more campaign, Ike. He was going to stay behind when Ben took the others to Europe.”
“Lamar, I don’t mean to put pressure on you, but I got to say this: if Ben . . .” he stumbled, unable to say the word. “If Ben . . . doesn’t make it, there’ll be a bloodbath up here. No one will be able to contain these troops. They’ll turn this land into bloody, smoking scorched earth, and nothing or no one will be able to stop them.”
“You better try to do it, fatso,” Chase told the chubby former SEAL. “Because once we doctors do what we can for Ben, the rest is going to be left up to God.”
He walked into the field hospital. The crusty old doctor didn’t want Ike to see the tears spilling out of his eyes.
“Likewise,” the mercenary, West, admitted.
The other commanders, including Thermopolis, nodded in agreement. Thermopolis said, “My bikers are ready to kill anything that moves. I don’t know how much longer I can hold them in check.”
“What’s the word on Dad?” Tina asked.
“The same as it was five minutes ago, kid,” Ike told her. He had just returned from the hospital. “The doctors are having to look for the bullet with their fingers.” He shuddered at the thought. “Buddy, you take over my Second Battalion.”
Buddy stared at him. “I would prefer to continue operating on my own, Ike. I . . .”
“Goddamnit, did you hear me?” Ike roared. “Do you want me to make that a direct order, Captain Raines?”
“No, sir,” Buddy said softly. “I shall assume command immediately.”
“Thank you. Dan, you take over Third Battalion and appoint someone to take over your Scouts.”
“Right, sir.”
“Buddy, put your XO in charge of your Rat Pack.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tina, you and West will stay here with your battalions and support groups. I want this area secured and secured hard.”
“Right, sir,” they both said.
“Cecil was lucky. His heart attack was not a bad one. But it was a warning, Dr. Chase told me. He’s to be flown back to Base Camp in the morning. He’s out of this game for the duration. He will take over as permanent base commander down south . . .” He looked up as a Rebel ran into the room.
“General Raines just died! They’re trying to get his heart started now.”
It was all shades of blue, with a misty light that seemed to sparkle around Ben. He was in a tunnel, he guessed. A long tunnel. He could barely make out the entrance, or exit, at the other end.