Battle in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Didn’t the Agency protect you?” the woman asked, looking up from the fire.

  “You have to be joking!” Ben said with a smile. “Someone filed some lousy reports on me. They shoved me out in the cold and left me dangling. Said I’d been a bad boy. I told them if I hadn’t of been a bad boy, I wouldn’t have spent years in Operations. They failed to see the humor in that.” He laughed. “It could have been worse. They could have kept me on and assigned me to the Mideast desk.”

  “What do you want us to do with the sheik of Araby in there?”

  “Drag him outside, pump him with enough joy-juice to float him to paradise and leave him for the buzzards.”

  “And then?” Buddy asked.

  “We go terrorize some terrorists. They won’t be hard to find. We’ll just follow the trail of blood and bodies they leave behind. That’s all the hell they’ve ever known how to do. And they do it well.”

  Ben split his teams and told them to work every road. Visit every house in every hamlet. Get any people left started north across the parallel—if they chose to go—and kill terrorists. Continue burning anything that would torch. Leave nothing behind for Hoffman’s Blackshirts.

  Ben’s team drew first blood. A forward FAV, ranging miles ahead, radioed back that they had spotted what appeared to be very furtive movement in a tiny hamlet that had been reported totally void of life only a few days back.

  “Hold it there,” Ben said. “Don’t give away your position. We’re on the way.”

  It was dry rolling hills country. Ben and team parked, hiding their vehicles carefully and walked to the Scouts’ position on a rise that overlooked the dusty little hamlet.

  “We’ve counted eighteen so far,” the Scout leader said. “We think there’s maybe double that. It appears to be a meeting of some sort. Two groups have joined the ones already here. They work in six person teams.”

  “All right,” Ben said. “We’ll wait and see if more join them. We’ll send as many as possible of these cowardly bastards to hell. Spread out. Work low and slow.”

  “General,” Corrie said. “Buddy is in a firefight with some sort of hostile group about thirty miles west of here. He says they’ll be able to contain the situation, but won’t be able to lend us a hand for several hours, at least.”

  “I don’t recall asking for his help. My God, but he’s getting to be as worrisome as Ike. Tell him to mind his own business.”

  Corrie turned her head and bumped Buddy. But she softened Ben’s reply, as Ben knew she would.

  The Rebels crept into position and waited. The terrorists below them were fruitcakes and screwballs, but they were also professionals who, judging by their movements, had received extensive amounts of training in their deadly art. The Rebels soon pinpointed the location of the guards and as the day wore on, knew to the minute when they would be changed. Four more six-person teams drifted in, all coming in from the north and the east. That made at least forty two terrorists in the small village and possibly as many as sixty, or more.

  Ben smiled at the number. He had twenty four people with him, having eluded the others that Ike had saddled him with. It should be a real interesting fight.

  “We have to assume there are no civilians down there,” Ben said. “And if there are, they’re there willingly. We have heard no screams of pain or shouts of protest.” He looked at his watch. Two hours had passed since the last team had checked in. “Those people made one big mistake, gang. There is but one road leading in and out of that village. And we have it covered. Tell the mortar crews to start shelling, Corrie.”

  The town must have been where the terrorists were storing supplies. Perhaps they had returned there to re-supply. The Rebels would never know. The third mortar round landed in the center of an old service station/garage and when it blew it took nearly all of that side of the block with it. Bodies and body parts were flung in all directions and the blast was so heavy the concussion from it flattened two frame structures located directly across from the garage, on the other side of the street.

  Wounded and dazed and confused terrorists staggered out of the remaining buildings and the Rebels shot them down where they stood. The memory of those tortured and butchered elderly people was vividly fresh in their minds.

  Ben and his people left their positions and walked down to the tiny town, now devastated, the streets slick with blood spots. Ben stood over a woman with more than a tad of Oriental blood in her . . . and all around her. Ben guessed her age at about thirty five. It was hard to tell. Her eyes shone hate up at him. She spat at him, the bloody spittle landing near Ben’s lace-up work boots.

  “What nitwit group did you belong to?” Ben asked her.

  She cursed him in very fluent English.

  Ben picked up her Uzi, handed it to a Rebel, and walked away, leaving her to die with a curse on her lips and hate for America in her heart. “Be sure and strip the ammo belt from her,” Ben called over his shoulder.

  “Sure is a mixed bag,” Jersey remarked, walking beside Ben. “Oriental, Black, Hispanic, and Arabic.” She looked around at the dead and dying and the ripped and shattered bodies. “They must have had a ton of explosives in that garage.”

  Ben squatted down and rolled a cigarette. He watched as his two medics went from terrorist to terrorist, checking them. He offered them no pain killers, no medicines, no patch jobs. They had dedicated their lives to inflicting pain on innocents; they could die the same way.

  There was an occasional shot as some of the less seriously wounded terrorists tried to make a fight of it. It was not much of a fight.

  “Buddy just a mile out of town,” Corrie said.

  Ben ground the butt of his cigarette out under his heel. He didn’t feel like putting up with another antismoking lecture from his son.

  “Father, where is the rest of your detachment?” Buddy asked, walking up. He sniffed the air suspiciously and looked accusingly at his dad. But he sensed Ben was in no mood for a lecture and left it at that.

  “I sent them to another suspected terrorist site. It’s rather difficult to move about unobtrusively with a goddamn platoon following me.”

  Buddy looked around him at the devastation. “What did you drop on this town, a mini atomic bomb?”

  “Three mortar rounds, kid. The third round landed in a storage area filled with some sort of explosives and drums of gasoline. It was a rather large boom.”

  “So I see. That group we came in contact with mistakenly thought we were part of Hoffman’s army. They did not like our surrender terms.”

  “And?”

  “Well, after negotiations failed, we eventually stacked the bodies in several buildings and set them on fire. It was a dreadful smell.”

  “Before or during the burning?”

  “Both.”

  The Rebels talked casually of the deaths of their enemies. Most would work feverishly to save the life of a hurt dog or cat. They would weep over the body of a fallen buddy. They would risk their lives a hundred and one times a day to save any innocent person. But their unofficial motto was an eye for an eye plus the head of an enemy. A Rebel would crawl through his own blood, holding his guts inside his shattered stomach with one hand, just to kill an enemy. Ben had told them once that was the unofficial motto of the old Israeli Mossad, and it fit the Rebels rather well. Which was why they had never been defeated and never would be defeated. They would lose battles, but not the war.

  One final shot was heard at the far end of the mangled street. A Rebel walked over to investigate. “Another terrorist, General,” he called. “She shot herself in the head rather than surrender to us.”

  “Gather up everything we can use and load it in the trucks Buddy has tagging along with him.”

  “Thank you very much, father,” Buddy said sourly.

  “You’re quite welcome, son. What are you doing with those deuce and a halves, looting the countryside?”

  Buddy walked off, muttering to himself.

  Ben was not nearly as
charitable as his son. He ordered the bodies left where they were. “Let the buzzards have them,” he told his people. “Mount up. We’ve got to hunt a hole and stay down for a time.”

  “Twenty eight teams have failed to check in,” Field Marshal Hoffman was informed the next morning. “Including most of the Syrian teams.”

  “How overdue are they?” Hoffman asked, as his stomach abruptly turned sour. He belched and patted his lips with a napkin. He looked down at his breakfast and suddenly lost his appetite.

  “A full twenty-four hours.”

  Hoffman sighed and pushed back from the table. “They’re lost, then. Goddamn that Ben Raines. Goddamn him, you hear?”

  The Blackshirt heard, as did anyone else within a hundred yards of the lavishly appointed trailer, for Jesus Hoffman was shouting.

  The word quickly spread and the commanders of the thousands of troops gathered in the huge miles-long encampment rushed to the trailer, to stand outside and listen to the Field Marshal rant and rave.

  “No more!” Hoffman shouted. “No goddamn more! I will not tolerate it.”

  The news of the Field Marshal’s tantrum quickly spread and the entire encampment soon grew eerily silent. Mechanics put down their wrenches, cooks turned the fires low, infantry personnel stopped the cleaning of weapons.

  “We did not march thousands of miles to be held at bay by a ragged bunch of malcontents led by an idealistic dreamer!” Hoffman thundered.

  “No, sir,” the messenger said. He wished he was facing a band of Rebels at this moment. He wished he could be anywhere except where he was.

  Hoffman lost what was left of his composure. He picked up his freshly poured cup of coffee and hurled it against the wall of the trailer.

  Hoffman whirled to face the young messenger. “Without Ben Raines, the Rebel movement would crumble. Chop the head from a snake and the snake dies.” Hoffman looked at the messenger as if seeing him for the first time. “What do you want? Send someone in here immediately to clean up this mess. Get out of here!”

  The messenger hit the air.

  Jesus Dieguez Mendoza Hoffman clenched his fists, forced himself to take several deep breaths, and calmed his raging emotions. He stood for a moment, staring out of the window of the trailer. For the first time since his outburst he was aware of the hundreds of troops all gathered outside, quietly waiting. He looked at his commanders, standing close to his quarters. Hoffman walked to the door and slowly opened it. He waved to his senior commanders, motioning them to his quarters.

  His composure fully restored, Hoffman sat down at his desk and waited until his people had taken seats. “Gentlemen, we have been held at bay by a pack of barking dogs long enough. We have allowed ourselves to be frightened and cowed by this tiny band headed by Ben Raines. Effective this moment, that will cease. The greatest army on the face of the earth has been forced into a defensive position. Think of the absurdity of that. The ridiculousness of it. Impress that upon your troops. Show them how they have been humiliated by a tiny band of men and women in blue jeans and cowboy boots, racing about in little puny vehicles . . . and on horseback,” he spat the last. “Brandishing six-shooters and waving the flag of Texas.”

  Hoffman stared at his commanders, crowded into the room. He smiled at the group. “Three days from now, at dawn, we move out. In force. We launch a full-scale attack against the Rebels. In one week, I plan to have the entire state of Texas under our control.”

  TEN

  “Not damn likely,” Ben said, after reading the communique just decoded by his people. He laughed softly. “So Herr Hoffman plans to strike fear into our hearts by flexing his muscles, eh? All right. We’ll let him flex his muscles. Corrie, has this communique been sent out to all our people?”

  “Waiting for your orders to do so,” she replied.

  “Do it. Then tell them to stand by for further instructions.”

  Ben walked to a map thumbtacked to a wall of the old church rectory and studied it. He smiled and looked at Beth, standing by with pad and pen at the ready. “As soon as Hoffman makes his move, have all our people fall back. Have our people immediately begin gathering up all the broken weapons we’ve picked up, all the wornout clothing and boots. All the patched and useless tarps and ground-sheets and shelter-halves. Gather up all the ripped and torn underwear and socks. Pile up busted canteens and rusty eating utensils and the like and get ready to scatter them along the way. I want this to look like a complete rout on our part. We are fleeing for our lives, people. We are turning tail and running away from the awesome forces of Hoffman. We are frightened to death of the Blackshirts. Their advance has demoralized us all. Their might has turned us into rabbits. Order everyone to fall back to the thirtieth parallel. Start all the battalions I’ve held in reserve working their way south. Right now. Tell them to stay at least a hundred miles east or west of Hoffman’s northern push.” Ben chuckled, but it held an ominous note. “So come on, Hoffman. Show me what a brilliant strategist you are. Strike fear into my heart, you evil bastard!”

  “Ike reporting, sir,” Corrie said. “He says that the Blackshirts are pulling away from their lines and heading east, on the south side of the border. Hold on, sir. Colonels Gray and West calling in. They say the same thing.”

  “Get hold of our eyes below the border, Corrie. Ask them what Hoffman has left down there for reserve. He’s got to have stretched himself pretty damn thin.”

  “I did, sir. He’s left behind small garrisons of troops in selected towns. But mostly he’s depending on the local bully-boys to keep the people in line.”

  “We know he has several more divisions down in South America,” Ben mused. “But we also know he’s short on wheeled transportation. Like us, he has plenty of prop-planes, but damn few jets and fewer pilots to fly them.” Ben paced as he spoke. “We’d be wasting explosives blowing airports. You can land most of those old transports of ours, and his, on practically any runway a crop-duster could use.”

  Ben walked to the everpresent coffee pot and poured a mug. He sugared and stirred and sipped. Then he smiled. “Hoffman anticipated my move. He felt I would swing troops around to nip at his sides, so he’s pulled his western troops in to protect his flanks. And he’s hoping I wouldn’t pull my battalions out of the west and give him a hole that I’m wagering he had no intention of using. Well, the Nazi son of a bitch guessed wrong!”

  “Order our three battalions in, sir?” Corrie asked.

  “You bet.” He smiled once more. “Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

  “Sir?” Beth asked.

  “A champion prizefighter used to say that . . . or something to that effect. It fits us rather well, I think. Because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Jersey and Cooper exchanged glances, Cooper whispering, “Now it’s gettin’ down to the way the General likes to fight.”

  “Yeah,” Jersey returned the whisper. “Kick-ass time!”

  There were those in Hoffman’s command who questioned his decision to launch a full-scale attack deep into the heart of Texas, but only the most brave questioned it aloud, and then only among the closest of friends.

  Brodermann was not one of those who questioned his Field Marshal’s order. He looked forward to this massive thrust of men and machines of war. Hans had a very personal score to settle with Ben Raines, and the sooner the better was his philosophy on the subject.

  He had asked to spearhead, and was given the green light. His people were ready, and he now waited for the word.

  “What is the status of those Rebels in California, Arizona, and New Mexico?” Hoffman asked, on the night before the pullout.

  “They are still there. Your plan worked, sir. They remained in position, afraid to leave the route unguarded.”

  Hoffman smiled. It was going to work.

  Actually, the three battalion commanders did leave some people behind. Seventy-five from each battalion. They kept cook fires burning, kicked up dust running around in cars and trucks, pla
yed catch with baseballs and footballs and so forth, and in general maintained a very high profile.

  Since the black-shirted troops left behind to watch the Rebels were fewer in number than those they spied upon, neither side was in very much danger from the other. It was just a variation on the game of hide and seek, so to speak.

  Albeit a deadly one if those south of the border ever caught on to what was actually happening north of them.

  Brodermann radioed back to Hoffman, excitement in his voice. “It’s a rout, Field Marshal. A complete rout. They’re leaving equipment behind in their haste to retreat. Our people are stocking up on field rations—cases of them. We’ve tested them and they have not been tampered with. They’re really quite delicious.”

  The Rebels had been only too happy to throw away the goop that Dr. Chase’s lab boys and girls had dreamed up for them to eat. It was highly nutritious and packed with vitamins and minerals and tasted like shit.

  “They abandoned clothing and weapons and canteens. Many were so frightened they left their boots. They left behind cases and cases of field rations. More than enough to sustain my people for a week or more.”

  The only hitch the Rebels’ lab people hadn’t worked out was that the rations tended to make one constipated. As Brodermann’s people were about to discover.

  “Maintain your position,” Hoffman ordered his spearheader. “I want to see this personally.”

  “They took the bait,” Corrie reported, after all the info was in from communications. “They sound elated.”

  “I hope they eat all that goopy shit,” Ben said, aware of Dr. Chase standing close, scowling at him. Ben turned to meet the frowning chief of medicine. “And I’m telling you for the last time, Lamar: have your people come up with something less nutritious and more on the tasty side.”

  “I’ve already ordered that, Raines,” the crusty old doctor popped right back at him. “The first shipments should be arriving by planes within hours.”