“Let’s skim off the grease and get right to it, General” Story said. “I’m speaking for every member of this community. Black people are not going to live here. Not now, not ever. We will not allow our children to be corrupted by their lack of morals, their terrible music, and their inferiority to the white race.”
Ben pushed the plate from him. He had lost his appetite. He agreed with Story only in that there were undesirable people among every race.
“There are several all-black towns north of here, General,” Story said. “And you know it. You allowed them to flourish. Are you going to deny us the same right?”
Ben was silent for a time. There was some truth in what the man had said. “They are not all black, Mister Story. There are some whites living in those communities.”
“Nigger-lovers!” Story blurted.
Ben smiled sourly. “I thought that word was forbidden in your society?”
“We slip occasionally.”
“We’re all human,” Ben replied.
“You going to fight us, General?” Story asked.
Ben stared at the man. He was sweating, and he was scared. But he was also determined to stand his ground and defend his position. Ben could read that in the man’s eyes. “No,” Ben said softly. “Not now. Probably someday, but not here. For despite all your assurances, Mister Story, if you stay here, some day some of your people will slip up and do harm to a person of color. It’s only a matter of time before that happens. There has always been right and wrong on both sides of the color issue. Many people just can’t seem to strike a happy balance between black and white. We have, in the Rebels. But you’re not really Rebel material. You couldn’t make it in our army. And you’re not going to make it in the Southern United States of America, either. There are a number of things that I could do. Cut you off from all aid and assistance from the Central Government. Throw a blockade around this den of hate. But that would be a waste of my time. I can tell that it would be just a matter of time before this community collapses under the sheer weight of your hatred. So while we talked, I took action.”
Story lost his cool. “You goddamn nigger-lovin’ son of a bitch!” he cursed Ben. “I thought you were on the side of the white people.”
“I am on the side of all people, regardless of color, who wish to live and work and get along with each other . . . and who agree to abide by Rebel law. I’m not going to have pockets of hate in the SUSA.”
“You going to kill all the women and babies, General Raines?” Story sneered the question.
“Mission accomplished, General,” Corrie said, and Joe Story looked at her strangely.
Ben smiled. “Oh, no. I won’t have to. Your little town has now been completely infiltrated by Rebel troops. While we talked, two battalions of my troops quietly occupied Danville. We have seized your armory and your heavier weapons. I was curious as to the lack of men in the town. Your militia has been found, disarmed, and is now under guard. You and your followers can now pack up and get out.”
“What!” Joe blurted, jumping up and looking around him. The streets around the courthouse were ringed with Rebels. He heard a rumbling and his eyes widened as Main Battle Tanks began rolling into town. He snatched up a hand-held CB from the table and pressed the talk button. “Jimmy! Come in, Jimmy.”
Only silence replied.
“Ross!” Story called. “Come in, Ross!”
“Ross is preoccupied,” a voice strange to him crackled through the tiny speaker. “This is Sergeant Davis. Could I help you?”
Joe Story sat down in the chair and looked at Ben. Ben sipped his tea and smiled. “Give me a situation report, Corrie.”
“No injuries, sir. Occupation of the town is complete. No known pockets of resistance.”
“Shit!” Joe Story said, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
Ben stood up. “It’s been very enlightning chatting with you, Mister Story. Now you’d better start packing up. You have quite a long drive ahead of you.”
FIVE
Ben and his battalions followed Joe Story and his people north until Ben was certain the hate-group was indeed leaving the SUSA. Then Ben ordered the column to cut slightly west. He wanted to have a chat with a very militant black who had set up his own bastion of hate and filled it with white-hating blacks.
He wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the man who called himself Moi Sambura. Ben had driven Moi out of one section of the country a couple of years back, and felt sure the man had been killed in the battle. Wrong. Moi surfaced in another location and once more began spewing hate. He had closed off his section of the country and killed any white who dared defy his orders to leave. Ben had run out of patience with the man. Moi Sambura’s days were numbered.
“This the same guy we kicked ass on awhile back?” Jersey asked.
“Same one. Charles Washington.”
“He must be a hard-headed dude,” Cooper said. “Or just plain stupid.”
“He’s not stupid, Coop. He holds a Ph.D. from a very prestigious university. He just hates whites.”
“Why?” Corrie asked.
“I don’t know. Something truly terrible might have been done to him by whites. And as I told him before, if that is the case, I am sorry. But the past is done. It’s time for a new beginning. I’ve given him more chances than I have ever given anyone else. That’s over. And after we deal with Moi, we give Wink Payne another visit.”
“You mean that ignorant redneck is still alive, too?” the usually quiet Beth asked.
“Yep. Intell found that out about three weeks ago. And not too far from Moi. Those two have a really weird love/hate relationship. I personally wish they would square off and kill each other.”
“Let’s finish the job this time, Boss,” Jersey suggested.
“I plan to do just that, Jersey.”
Moi and Wink had moved into the Talladega National Forest, with Moi and his people occupying the eastern part and Wink and his fruitcakes settling in the western part, with Highway 5 and a small river separating them.
With twenty miles to go before reaching Moi’s position, Ben halted the columns and told Corrie to get Moi on the horn.
“The old and very young have been transported to safety,” Moi told Ben curtly. “This time, the battle is to the death, Ben Raines.”
“You’re a fool!” Ben replied. “What the hell does it take to get through to you?”
“Come meet your destiny,” Moi told him, then broke off.
“As you wish,” Ben muttered. He ordered Striganov to swing around and get in position opposite Wink. “Leave the northern routes open in case they want to run. Wink will do just that; I’m thinking Moi will stand to the death this time. We’ll open fire simultaneously.”
Ben began placing his artillery for maximum accuracy. It was the middle of the afternoon when Corrie received word that the Russian was in place.
“Do we give them a last chance to surrender?” she asked.
“No,” Ben said softly. “Commence firing.”
Dozens of artillery pieces and heavy 81mm mortars opened up, hurling out death and fire and destruction. The rolling thunder continued all afternoon and into the night. Ben and Georgi had staggered their artillery; when cool-down was necessary, other pieces were moved up so the deadly barrage never stopped, giving those on the receiving end no relief from warfare’s deadliest elements.
Rebel artillery saturated the area with everything at their disposal. The fires from within the war zone lit up the night skies. When Ben finally ordered a halt to the artillery barrage he called in PUFFs and helicopter gunships to add the next touch to this deadly game. It was midnight when he ordered a stand-down and without another word, walked to his tent, pulled off his boots, and laid down on the cot for a few hours of rest.
Ben was up long before dawn and the platoon leaders were waiting for him. A cup of coffee was handed to him. He took a sip and said, “Mop-up commences at 0600. First platoon, A company will go in with me.”
This time there were few prisoners to even consider taking. For reasons that would remain known only to Moi and Wink and God and the Devil, the two men had bunched their people up. Ben had no earthly idea why they had done it. But the artillery barrage had very nearly wiped them out.
“Must have been fifty or sixty people here,” Cooper called, looking at what remained of a huge bunker that had taken several direct hits from a 155.
Ben walked over and looked into the blood-splattered and limb-littered cratered ground. It was not a pretty sight. “Bring some prisoners over here and hand them shovels. They can fill up these holes.”
The Rebels were accustomed to Ben’s callousness. The prisoners were not. “They were human beings,” an older man, a follower of Moi Sambura, pointed out to Ben.
“They were idiots,” Ben said, and walked off.
There was no sign of Moi, but Wink Payne had been found and brought to Ben. Ben needed only one glance at Wink to know the man was finished as a leader. He was jerking and twitching and slobber was leaking out of his mouth. The hideous and seemingly endless barrage had shredded the man’s nerves. Ben had personally witnessed battle-hardened combat soldiers lie on the ground and scream themselves hoarse under sustained artillery barrages. For there is no place to run, no place to hide, and nothing to do except wait for death to touch you.
Wink tried to talk, but only jabber came from his mouth. He waved his hands and babbled. A Rebel doctor standing beside the man looked at Ben and shook his head.
Ben glanced at a small group of Wink’s followers, dirty and blood-splattered and badly shaken. “Take your glorious leader and get the hell out of here. Out of the Southern United States of America.” He pointed north. “That way. There is no place for any of you here.”
Two of the men stepped forward and took Wink’s arms, leading him away. Wink Payne, self-proclaimed most holy and exalted leader of the Order of the Bedsheet was still babbling as he was led off. He had shit his underwear.
The crushing defeat of Moi and Wink just about finished any racist and separatist movement in the SUSA. Most of those so inclined packed up and got the hell away from the SUSA. Ben was fully aware that there would always be pockets of hate scattered throughout the SUSA. He couldn’t stamp them all out. They would gather in secret to spew their venom to anyone who would listen. But for now, Cecil had asked Ben to return. The former CEOs and chairmen of the boards of a number of large corporations had surfaced from years of hiding and were asking if they could come into the SUSA and start over. But they were a little confused about the laws in the Southern United States of America. They seemed, so simple. Surely they were misreading them?
The CEOs and chairmen and presidents of several dozen companies once on the Fortune 500 were a little in awe of Ben Raines as he strolled into the large conference room. They were expecting a man in a three-piece business suit. What they got was a rugged-looking middle-aged man in old French Foreign Legion lizard BDUs.
Ben laid his Thompson on the table and said, “What’s the problem, ladies and gentlemen?”
Cecil smiled and leaned back in his chair. He would enjoy this show.
“Charles Hays, General Raines,” a man spoke. “IMB. The best and brightest appear to have all moved into this area. We’d like to have a hand in the rebuilding of this nation. But we just don’t understand your laws.”
“What is it you don’t understand?” Ben asked, sitting down and pouring a glass of ice water. “Hell, a third-grader understands our laws. They’re taught in school, beginning in the first grade. Along with values and morals.”
“Ms. Cynthia Barnhart, General. RayTon Corporation. But they are your values and morals,” the woman stated.
Ben cut his eyes to her. “It’s the only game in town, lady.”
She arched an eyebrow and sat back in the comfortable chair. Her eyes widened as Jersey nonchalantly strolled in and took a seat along the back wall, where she could keep an eye on everybody in the room.
“This is a private meeting,” she told Jersey.
“Stick it in a sock, lady,” Jersey replied.
“General Raines,” Cynthia said. “I am not accustomed to being spoken to in such a manner . . . by subordinates.”
“I’m not your subordinate, lady,” Jersey fired back. “And if you continue talking down to me, I’ll kick your hoity-toity ass all over this room.”
Many of the men and women in the room struggled to hide their smiles. Cynthia Barnhart had been a one hundred percent bitch before the Great War, and the ensuing years had done nothing to temper that. But this lovely, shapely, diminutive, and somewhat savage-looking Rebel soldier wasn’t about to be intimidated.
Ben stepped in quickly. “Let me explain something right now. You all may be the movers and shakers of the newly-emerging business world, but that doesn’t make you a goddamn bit better than a tractor mechanic or a short-order cook or a private in the army or anybody else. Respect is not handed out on a platter here. It must be earned. A secretary is just that. He or she is not your personal gofer. You want a cup of coffee, get it yourself—or hire someone to do that.”
“Well, I never!” Cynthia flounced about in her chair.
“You ought to, lady,” Jersey said with a wicked grin. “Every now and then. It takes the edge off.”
Ben smiled very thinly at the president of RayTon Corporation. He slowly shook his head. “You won’t make it here, lady. You might as well leave now. You’re just a bit on the pretentious side to fit in well. You’d always be looking down that aristocratic nose at someone, and someone, like Jersey over there, would spread it out all over your face.”
“Then she would be put in jail!” the woman said, with considerable heat behind the words.
Ben again shook his head. “Doubtful. Not here, and not for several reasons. To borrow a title, lady, this is a brave new world. Almost nothing is the same as before the Great War. It’s mainly the little things, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Art Grenville, General,” a distinguished-looking man said. “American/General Motor Company. Explain those little things.”
Ben smiled and his hawk-like features softened. He rose and poured a cup of coffee and returned to his chair. Everybody looked at Jersey, who had not moved to fetch her general coffee.
“She’s my bodyguard, not my servant,” Ben cleared that up. “Little things, Mister Grenville? Well . . . we’re removing every trace of bureaucracy that we possibly can, in order to make life simpler for the citizens of the Southern United States of America. Once a person completes a very basic driving test—which is not necessary if you drove yourself here; that would be a bit superfluous, wouldn’t you say—a license is issued. It’s a SUSA license, valid in all states. A new license is issued only if one changes address. Every three years a driver gets his or her eyes tested. Once a person passes sixty, every year. We have none of those silly written exams because all traffic signs are universal here. When an income tax is enacted here, it will be a flat tax that everybody understands and that will be a burden on no one. In all probability, we will never have to have a personal income tax. You see, for years we’ve been sending teams of Rebels all over the world. They’ve been gathering up all the gold, all the silver, all the diamonds and precious and semi-precious stones. All the famous paintings and other various types of art. All the great works of literature. We have valuable coin and stamp collections that would boggle your mind. In addition, we have stockpiled massive amounts of uranium, lithium, titanium . . . you name it, we’ve got it. We quite literally have, if converted into cash, untold trillions and trillions of dollars in our coffers. We have enough engines and ca
r and truck bodies and spare parts and tires in climate controlled bunkers to last us for approximately five hundred years. We have planes, ships, massive amounts of artillery and tanks, millions of small arms, and billions of rounds of ammunition. We have all the oil. We heat our homes by a very advanced technique using solar energy. Yeah, it works. We don’t need nuclear power. We don’t have to pay police, because the home guard is the police. Everybody in the SUSA is a soldier to some degree or another. I expect that by this time next year, we will be able to mass over one million men and women, trained and ready to fight to protect their homeland.”
Ben paused to sip his coffee. “This is not a democracy, people. Not as you know it. We do have a president. The people voted him in. The people were asked if they wanted something along the lines of a House of Representatives and Senate. Ninety-eight percent of them said no. That ought to tell you what we think of your system of government.”
“Hays Smith, General,” a man said. “Telecommunications and Technology Corporation. Pardon my bluntness, but without a house and senate, how the hell do you enact laws?”
Ben chuckled. “I appreciate your bluntness. It’s refreshing. The laws are already in place. And while they are not set in stone, it’s close. Any new law has to be voted on by the people. And under our system of government, fifty-one percent does not constitute a clear majority. It takes sixty percent to constitute a majority in any election . . . on any issue. I don’t anticipate many new laws being put on the books. Everybody seems to be happy the way things are.”
“Because you all are of a like mind,” Cynthia said.
“Exactly, Ms. Barnhart.”
A man raised his index finger and Ben nodded. “Joel Greenburg, General. MicroComp, Inc. Like Hays Smith, I’ll be blunt. This is a very restrictive society, is it not?”
“In some areas, yes,” Ben admitted. “When it comes to crime, of any sort, we don’t tolerate it. We’re growing now, and suffering growing pains as we expand into all eleven states. But I assure you, that will soon end when those so inclined toward crime learn—and they will learn, believe me—that citizens of the SUSA are free to use deadly force to protect what is theirs . . . without fear of arrest or civil lawsuit.”
Treason in the Ashes Page 23