“Millions of them, I guess. All outposts and recon and scout teams outside our battle zone are reporting the ground covered with them.”
Ben fingered the paper and arched an eyebrow.
The scout smiled. “Yes, sir. That’s what our people are using them for. We’re saving them for emergencies.”
Ben laughed. “Corrie, be sure that Blanton knows how the “Evil Empire” is using his leaflets. That ought to really make his day.”
Those around him thought the president was going to have a stroke when he received word about how the Rebels were using his leaflets. His face turned red, his eyes bugged out, and he jumped up and down, flapping his arms. It was a pretty good imitation of Big Bird.
“The Rebels are doing what with the leaflets?” Harriet Hooter asked. Her eyes bugged out at the answer and she said, “That’s disgusting!”
“The man obviously has no class,” Rita Rivers sniffed. Lack of class was something she should know about, since before being elected to Congress she’d been arrested for prostitution four times (among other things) and it was said she could suck a dick with more power than a vacuum cleaner.
She and Blush Lightheart really had more in common than they thought.
“I want that damn Ben Raines killed!” Blanton shouted. “I want him dead, dead, dead!”
Peace, brotherhood, freedom, and a chicken (skinless) in every pot. Right. Just as long as you agree with me. Blanton wasn’t as far apart from Ben Raines as he thought he was.
THIRTEEN
Ben had used the lull in fighting to strengthen his own positions and also to make certain that the towns and the ruins of small cities within the battle zone were cleaned out of Creeps and punks aligned with Blanton. The Rebels were working against time and they were not gentle with any gangs living amid the ruins of the cities. It was classic search and destroy.
While the Rebels were busy purging the battle zone, Revere was working swiftly to rebuild his divisions with replacements gathered from all over what had once been called the United States of America. It came as no surprise to Ben to learn that thousands and thousands of men and women were racing to join Blanton and his Forces of Independence and Brotherhood. He had to smile at the abbreviation of that—FIB. Ben wondered if Blanton had caught it. He doubted it.
“The forces of FIB,” Jersey said. “How come we always get to fight the loonies?”
“They think the same about us, Jersey,” Ben told her.
“I don’t understand it, General,” the young woman said. “I have never understood why others hate us so.”
It was a quiet time in Ben’s CP, everything that could humanly be done toward the defense of their zone had been done. Now they had to wait.
“You have to try to understand the liberal mind, Jersey,” Ben said, as the others in the room turned and listened.
Jersey, who had known nothing but war since childhood, said, “What’s to understand? They’re a bunch of damn nuts and kooks.”
Ben laughed and refilled his coffee cup. He rolled a cigarette and said, “But Jersey, to people like Blanton and his followers, we’re the nuts and kooks.”
“That’s what I don’t understand, General,” the small, shapely, dark-eyed beauty said. “We’re the ones out here trying to establish order, bring stability back to the land, put people to work, do all the things that make a nation whole. Now up jumps this Homer Blanton—who I just have vague memories of—and he starts running his damn stupid mouth about us being baby-killers and possessed by the devil and all kinds of the most ridiculous crap I have ever heard.”
Ben smiled and took his Desert Eagle .50 automag from leather and laid it on the table. “Let me see if I can show you how the liberal mind works, Jersey.” He looked around the room at the young faces. Every member of his personal team was in their mid-twenties; middle teens when the Great War erupted. He pointed to the pistol. “What is that, Jersey?”
She stared at him for a moment. “Well, hell, General! It’s a pistol.”
“Nothing else?” Ben asked.
“No.”
“It isn’t evil?”
“General,” the usually quiet Beth said, “how can a piece of metal be evil? It can’t think or reason.”
Ben chuckled. “But to a liberal, a gun is an evil thing.”
Corrie shook her head and said, “A gun by itself cannot be evil. The person who picks it up and uses it might be evil. But not the gun itself.”
“But to a true hanky-stomper,” Ben replied, “it’s the gun that is evil.”
“Well, that just proves my point,” the blunt-talking Jersey said. “All liberals are as dumb as rat shit.”
Ben shook his head and laughed. “Quite the contrary. Most left-leaning people possess average or above intelligence.”
“You’ll never convince me of that,” Jersey stood her ground. “I read an old magazine the other day, published back in ’94 or ’95. This guy had been arrested something like forty or fifty times for various offenses. I’m serious, people!” she said, looking at the disbelieving faces staring at her. “This guy’s criminal history started when he was about thirteen years old. He’d been arrested for drug-dealing, breaking and entering, rape, assault and battery, child molestation, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder—all kinds of stuff. He had fifteen DWI convictions against him, from various states, and yet he still had a valid driver’s license from some state and until he got drunk and ran over and killed some lady, he was free to drive and walk the streets. And this writer was moaning about the harsh sentence this sorry bastard received. The writer had to be liberal, right, General?”
“I’m sure he was.”
“And you’re telling me that liberals are rational people, and have good sense?”
Ben smiled. “I’m sure the writer of the article blamed the individual’s life of crime on something that happened during childhood.”
“Oh, yeah. When he was thirteen, his father grounded him for a week as punishment for doing something, or not doing something. That night, the guy beat his father’s head in with a fireplace poker while his dad was asleep. And do you know how much jail time that punk got?”
“Probably none.”
“That’s right. Now, I don’t believe that a thirteen-year-old should be put to death,” Jersey said. “But I do believe that he should have been institutionalized until he was rehabilitated.”
“I agree with you,” Ben said. “But the catch is this: most psychiatrists were liberal, most judges were liberal, many lawyers were liberal, most social workers were liberal. Ninety-nine percent of TV anchors and newspaper reporters were liberal. Talk show hosts were liberal. Yet a full fifty percent of Americans were moderate or conservative in their views. We had little representation in Washington and practically no support in the news media.”
“How could that be?” Cooper asked. “I thought the American system was built on full representation for all its citizens.”
“Theoretically, it was. Looked real good on paper. Didn’t work worth a shit in reality. It would come as a great surprise to Blanton, but I agree with him on one very important point: many Americans were simply too goddamn stupid to govern themselves. And behind all of Blanton’s fancy rhetoric, that is the main reason he’s coming after us. He knows the Rebels are the cream of the crop. The hardest working, the most intelligence, the best, of the best. We’ve got a good toe-hold in this nation, and he knows he can’t allow us to flourish. He’s gathering the rabble around him. He’s pulling together and arming the whiners, the complainers, the do-nothings, those who want something for nothing. He’s building a second army out of those who want government in every aspect of their lives. But rabble have helped bring down stronger armies than ours.”
“You think we’re really in for a long haul on this one, don’t you, sir?” Cooper asked.
“Yes, I do, Coop.” He smiled. “As the leader of one nation put it a few years back: the mother of all battles.”
“Kill the father,” Cooper said softly.
Every eye turned to Cooper, including Ben’s. “What are you saying, Coop?”
“Kill Blanton. Some of the scouts are still in place.”
Ben walked to a boarded-up window and stared out for a time. Then he slowly shook his head and turned around. “I can’t do that, Coop. I can fight his army. I could depose him in a bloodless coup. But I could never kill a president of the United States. There is just too much American in me for that.” He frowned. “At least I hope that situation never confronts me.”
“Bad idea, Coop,” Jersey said. “We’re all Americans. Don’t ever forget that.”
“It was just a thought,” Coop said.
“If it makes you feel better, Coop,” Ben said. “I had already thought of it.” He smiled. “But I’m not above sending people in on a snatch and grab.”
Revere was ready for a push against the Rebel positions, all along the line. The Rebels had backed up and dug in along Highway 2, stretching from Montana to US 51 South in Wisconsin. It was indeed a very thin line of resistance.
“But no artillery along that line,” recon reported back to Revere.
“No. Raines wouldn’t have them there. They’re some twenty-odd miles back. And from all reports, their artillery has more range than ours.” Revere moved to the radio. “I want everybody buttoned up for an ambush. And you can bet one is coming. So be ready. Move out.”
This time the divisions moved out cautiously, with everybody buttoned up, which is exactly what Ben had figured they would do. In tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and other types of armored personnel carriers, including recently armored trucks, all buttoned up against attack, vision is quite impaired.
Revere’s recon was good, and they had scouted the area, of course. But during the more than week’s lull, Rebels from all the nine front-line battalions had plenty of time to dig in deep and secure.
In a move that Revere was sure Ben would not expect, he had ordered his divisions split up, taking as many roads as possible on their way south. Bad decision. Ben had anticipated that and had teams out, ready to blow the bridges on the old county roads, front and back, and then scatter, leaving many of Revere’s people stranded.
Revere had known the hottest action would be in Ben Raines’s sector, and he had moved his CP there. When the first reports began coming in, he was livid with rage.
“. . . Cut off from main force,” came the broken radio transmissions from a dozen units. “Under heavy Rebel attack. Can’t hold. No place to run. We . . .” Silence.
“Goddamnit!” Revere fumed. “How did he know? Nobody in my own command knew except me until the last possible minute. That son of a bitch!”
Ben had been called worse over the years.
Revere had lost several thousand troops, quite a lot of equipment, an immeasurable amount of morale among his people, and had not taken one inch of ground. His forces had been thrown back at every attack point. Those FIB troops who had made it through the artillery barrage found themselves cut off and looking smack into the faces of extremely unfriendly Rebels. Knowing that Raines’s Rebels would ask for surrender only one time and demand a response very quickly, the FIB troops threw down their weapons and put their hands in the air. Those in Ben’s sector were taken to him immediately.
Blanton was shocked by the latest turn of events. His aides expected him to throw a temper tantrum, but he was surprisingly calm. He walked slowly back to his office in the old resort hotel and closed the door. His wife mouthed a few choice words, threw a couple of lamps against the wall, and joined her husband.
Back in Ben’s battle zone, a small group of very frightened prisoners, officers and sergeants, were brought to see him. All fully expected to be shot.
Ben pointed to chairs. “Sit,” he said. They sat. “Are you hungry, thirsty?”
The six men and two women shook their heads, not knowing how to take this man that they all had been brainwashed into believing was the 21st century’s rendition of Attila the Hun and Adolph Hitler.
“Why are you people fighting me?” Ben asked.
“Because you’re the antichrist,” a woman blurted.
Ben laughed and the members of his team laughed with him. “I think my chaplains would be very much surprised to hear that. While I am not an overly religious man, I do attend services occasionally and I have been known to pray from time to time. Come on, people. You have to have a better reason than that. Now, come on, tell me the real reason why the Rebel form of government is so repugnant to you.”
“You want to destroy this nation and burn the Constitution,” a man said.
Ben shook his head. “Is that what Blanton has been force-feeding you people?”
“You have concentration camps,” another man said. This one wore a major’s insignia.
Ben smiled. “Where are they?”
“In the area you call Base Camp One.”
Ben shook his head. “People, the Rebels don’t have concentration camps or anything that even remotely resembles them. We have one very small prison in Base Camp One, but it is nothing like the prisons this nation had before the war. We stress rehabilitation and our people work very hard to restore the prisoner’s sense of dignity.”
“Is that where you are going to put us?” the second woman asked.
“I’m not going to put you in prison. Any of you. What I am going to do is offer you a bath, food, civilian clothes, and a chance to start over. But I would like to ask you just one question: who the hell is Paul Revere?”
“Commanding General of the Army of the Forces of Independence and Brotherhood,” the major said.
“I know that. But where did he come from?”
“We are required only to give you our name, rank, and service number,” the major said.
“Get them out of here and let them bathe and change clothes and have some food,” Ben said to a Rebel officer.
“Our last meal?” one of the women asked.
“Oh, lady,” Ben said wearily. “I’m not going to shoot you. The only way any of you will get hurt is if you try to grab some Rebel’s weapon. I don’t care if you get up and run out of this office and go back to your own lines. I really don’t. Run, if you want to.” He looked at Corrie. “Pass the word that these people are free to return to their own lines.” To the prisoners: “But if I were you, I’d take my offer of a bath and a change of clothes and some food. Our rations are really not bad and our medical facilities are top-rate. Wander around, talk to people. I think you’ll find that we’re not monsters or raving lunatics like that nut Blanton has so cleverly painted us.” He stood up and walked to the office door and opened it. “Go on. Leave. You won’t be harmed. Talk to the people in camp. I think you’ll find that we are really just plain, ordinary folks. We just have this little hang-up about living free and safe and everybody pulling their weight, that’s all.”
One of the women, a sergeant, was the first to stand up and move toward the open door. She paused, looking up at Ben. “The mess is in the gym,” Ben told her. “That’s about three hundred yards to your right. The evening meal should be ready. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, some sort of dessert, and iced tea or coffee.” The lady had incredibly pale blue eyes and was quite lovely. She filled out her BDUs very nicely.
“Maybe we were wrong,” she said softly. “Maybe we have been fed false information about you and the Rebels.”
“Denise!” the major said sharply.
Denise looked at the major. “I want to see for myself, Major. I want to see if we’ve been fed lies and half-truths.”
“You know these people are experts at brainwashing, Denise. And don’t eat the food. It’s probably drugged.”
Ben got a good laugh out of that. “Major, it’s a mess line. We’ll all be eating the same thing.”
The major glowered at Ben.
Ben ignored him and held out his arm to Denise. “May I walk with you, miss?”
Coop
er and Beth winked at each other.
“Certainly, General,” Denise said.
“Here we go again,” Jersey muttered, rolling her eyes.
“What about me?” Cooper hollered.
“See to the needs of the prisoners,” Ben told him.
“I really would like a bath and a change of clothes,” Denise said, as they strolled along the old road.
“I’ll walk you over to the quartermaster and see that you’re outfitted . . . in civilian clothing.”
Denise smiled a very pretty smile. Ben figured her to be in her early to mid-thirties. Sort of a honey-blonde, the hair cut short.
“Major Nelson is a staunch supporter of President Blanton and his philosophies, General.”
“I never would have guessed,” Ben said drily.
“You’d really turn us loose?”
“That’s my plan. If you want to go, that is.”
Denise looked around her as they walked. Rebels were walking about, sitting down chatting, catching a few winks of sleep, cleaning weapons. No one seemed the least bit concerned that enemy troops, which outnumbered them fifteen or twenty to one, were only twenty-five miles away.
“Why would I not want to return to my unit and my friends, General?” Denise asked.
“Because what they are doing is wrong, and what I’m doing is right, that’s why.”
“You’re going to have to convince me of that.”
“I plan on giving it my best shot.”
FOURTEEN
“This is the best food I’ve had in months!” Denise said, returning with a second helping of everything.
The lady had a healthy appetite. Ben said, “Unfortunately, our field rations aren’t nearly this good. We’ve been eating rations taken from Herr Jesus Hoffman’s goose-steppers for several months. Tell me, if Blanton is so concerned about liberty and justice and truth and all that, why didn’t he pitch in and help us out fighting the Nazis?”
Treason in the Ashes Page 10