It was awful.
The leader of the four gangs that had occupied the town, Ray Brown, had lived in Ben’s house. He had also killed Ben’s dogs and thrown their bodies in a ditch that ran behind the house. Scouts had found what was left of the dogs and buried them before Ben arrived.
Ben’s team watched him very carefully as he received the news about his pets. His facial expression did not change. But his eyes turned as cold as the sea.
“It will not be pleasant for Mr. Brown when we finally meet,” was all Ben had to say about the matter.
“I hope Ray Brown has a high pain tolerance,” Cooper whispered. “’Cause it’s going to take him a long time to die.”
“For a fact,” Jersey agreed.
Ben looked at the graves of his beloved dogs for a moment, then turned away.
His team gave him a very wide berth. They had witnessed Ben once before as he beat a man to death with his fists . . . to a person, they knew what Ray Brown had waiting for him.
Most of the men and women who had left President Blanton earlier to take positions in the administration of the SUSA were dead. Rebels found their bodies in a shallow mass grave. The remains of the men and women were carefully removed, ID’ed, and reburied with honors.
Survivors of the attack began trickling in and the massive clean-up began.
Conservative estimates were that the residents of the SUSA had suffered about sixty percent casualties.
“Get the crops in the ground,” Cecil ordered. “What we can plant this late, that is.”
“Does this mean, I hope,” Ben asked, “that you are disbanding your 22 Batt and stepping back into an administrative role?”
“No, it does not,” Cecil quickly responded.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You know damn well we’ve still got a massive job ahead of us, Ben. We’ve got to hunt down and destroy at least hundreds and more than likely thousands of gang members. An entire nation is in shambles, and you know perfectly well that someday it’s going to be up to us to try to put it back together again.” He held up a hand, stopping Ben before Ben would deny he had any such plans. “Save it, Ben. I know you too well. Besides all that, we still have Simon Border and his army to deal with. And we’ll have to fight them someday; you know that as well as I do. We really have no reserves left to fall back on. You’re going to need every Rebel you can put in uniform.”
Ben was forced to concede the point.
“Have you had any word about our people out west?” Ben asked Corrie. “We should have pockets of resistance out there.”
“We’ve been unable to reach any of them,” Corrie told him. “Mike Richards thinks Simon’s army hunted them down and wiped them out.”
“Did I hear my name mentioned?” Mike asked, strolling into Ben’s office. Mike had been out of touch for several weeks, as was his custom.
He poured a mug of coffee from the ever-present pot and sat down. “Those aligned with us out west haven’t been entirely wiped out,” he said. “But not many are left. Simon cozied up to them at first. Then when they let their guard down, he moved in hard and brutal. Now Simon has started his gun-grab among the citizens. He’s leaving some carefully selected citizens hunting rifles and shotguns, and that’s it. No handguns, no semiautomatic rifles. But I can’t figure out exactly where he stands politically.”
“Neither can anybody else,” Ben said. “For years I thought of him as a liberal’s dream. But lately I’ve had to revise my thinking somewhat I have a suspicion that Simon wants to be king of America.”
“Well, if we move fast enough, before Simon finds and destroys all pockets of resistance, we will at least have some support from a percentage of the people once we kick it off.”
“If we kick if off,” Ben said, and that got him some startled looks.
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “There is always the possibility that Simon will keep his word, although I don’t hold out much hope for that. I’d like to speak with Homer Blanton and get his input on this matter.” Ben clarified that. “Homer is a career politician, I’m a soldier. Now that the man has his head screwed on straight, and has stopped listening to people with their heads in the clouds, he makes some sense. Personally, I’d like to see him return to the States, specifically here in the SUSA, and go to work for us.”
“For Christ’s sake, Ben!” Mike blurted. “Doing what?”
“As a diplomat, Mike. We’re going to need some of those. Half the world is getting to its feet, while America has been knocked down flat—again. We’re going to need people with Blanton’s experience. We’re going to try to reach him tonight.”
“You mean that, Ben?” Blanton asked.
“I wouldn’t have brought it up had I not meant it, Homer. We need you down here.”
By the sound of his voice, Blanton had recovered from his near fatal wounds received during the coup.
“I can send an escort for you. You just say the word.”
Blanton chuckled. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, Ben?”
“Yes, we have. But we still have miles to go. How about it?”
“You’ve got a deal.”
“Good!”
They worked out the details and then Ben smiled and leaned back in his chair. “The wound has been closed,” he muttered. “Now the healing has begun.”
Homer’s wife still didn’t like Ben very much, but at least raw hate was no longer shining through her eyes. She had spent several days touring the SUSA and had found, much to her surprise, it was nothing like what her goofy left-wing aides had, a couple of years back, convinced her it was.
“How about becoming our Secretary of State?” Cecil asked Homer. “But I have to warn you, we’re starting from scratch.”
Homer looked sad for a moment. “All my old friends who joined you?”
Ben sat silent as Cecil said, “Most of them are dead. We found many of them buried in a mass grave. They’d been executed.”
“Their families?” the former First Lady asked.
“Killed with them.”
“My God!” she said. “What manner of people are we dealing with here?”
Ben wanted very much to tell her: the same kinds of people you pissed and moaned about for years. But he held his tongue for Homer’s sake, and Homer knew it, quickly ducking his head to hide his smile.
After they had left the building, Ben and Chase stood in the hallway and talked for a moment.
Chase studied Ben’s face for a few seconds and said, “I don’t like that smile, Raines. It’s one of your sneaky ones. What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?”
Ben spread his hands. “Why, nothing, Lamar,” he said innocently. “Nothing at all.”
“You also tell lies, Raines. But perhaps I’m better off not knowing.” He checked his watch. “I’m late. I have to leave for a few days. Make some inspections of outlying aid stations. Stay out of trouble, Raines.”
“See you, Lamar.”
Outside the building, standing with his team, Ben said, “Have our 1 Batt ready to pull out. Do it quietly and stay off the air with it. I want supplies for a sustained campaign. A full MASH unit with us. Everything on the QT, people.”
“Cecil is going to hit the ceiling,” Ben warned him.
“That’s the beauty of it. Cecil is stuck here with Homer, showing him around and getting him settled in. His 22 Batt and Jackie and Danjou are here with their battalions protecting the area. Everyone else is gone. Now is the perfect time for us to slip off north and mix it up a little in Arkansas.”
Corrie smiled. “You have a very sneaky mind, boss.”
Ben laughed. “Sure, I do. Everybody knows that.”
Anna looked at him. “This Ray Brown in Arkansas, General Ben?”
“So I hear, Anna.”
“Thought so,” she replied.
* * *
Cecil glared daggers at Ben, but there was nothing he could do about Ben’s pulling out. As the elected president o
f the SUSA, it was his job to run the country, see to the many and much needed appointments, entertain dignitaries, and so forth. Ben was commander of the armed forces and could leave whenever he wanted to leave.
And he wanted to leave.
“You don’t play fair, Ben,” Cecil bitched.
“Right.”
“This is sneaky.”
“Ain’t it the truth.”
“Crap!” Cecil said in disgust. “How about this Jethro Jim Bob Musseldine and his army of ten thousand up in Arkansas?”
“What about him?”
“You’re only taking one battalion, Ben.”
“First of all, it hasn’t been verified that Musseldine has anywhere near ten thousand men. So far, all we’ve been able to determine is that he’s some sort of a nut and has about twenty-five hundred people in his army. Besides, air support is only forty-five minutes away, tops.”
“You know I’m going to catch hell from Buddy and Tina about this.”
“Oh, for a little while, maybe. They’ll get over it.”
Cecil stared at him for a moment. He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and sighed. “I give up, Ben. You’re impossible. Have been ever since I met you. I should have guessed what you were doing years back, watching you put together the nucleus of 1 Batt. You filled the ranks with men and women who thrive on danger. You don’t have a single person in that battalion—including the damn doctors—who is happy outside of combat. I don’t know why I continue wasting my time.”
“I don’t either,” Ben said with a laugh. “Why don’t you quit warting me about it?”
Cecil grimaced. “I might as well. You’re going to be out in the field until the day you die.”
“I hope so.”
“You will stay in touch?” Cecil asked, his tone decidedly sarcastic.
“Why, of course.”
“Thank you for that.”
Ben smiled and patted his arm. “Have fun now, ol’ buddy.”
Cecil watched him walk off, thinking: Why in the hell did I ever let that man talk me into politics?
In the gray light of dawn, Ben walked the ranks of his personal battalion. Cecil was correct—the men and women of 1 Batt loved walking the razor’s edge. Another point that Cecil had nailed down was that Ben was very careful about replacements. He chose them personally, after a careful review of records and talking to other Rebels. Some of the men and women in 1 Batt were ex-Scouts and special operations people; men and women who had grown just a bit too old for the often times wild and wooly antics of those teams, but were perfect for 1 Batt.
Ben also allowed his people some latitude in dress. Dan Gray, the former British SAS officer, who was a stickler for discipline and uniform codes, often cast a very jaundiced eye at how some of the men and women of 1 Batt dressed. Some of them looked as though they had just stepped right out of Snoopy’s World War I fantasies, with drooping handlebar moustaches, pony-tails, beards, and occasionally the awfulest combinations of uniforms one could imagine. But no one could cast aspersions at how they fought. The men and women of 1 Batt, from cooks to Scouts to tank commanders to medics, were the best of the best. And they were, to a person, one hundred and ten percent loyal to Ben Raines and the Tri-States philosophy.
Ben glanced at Corrie. “All right, Corrie. Let’s do it.”
“Kick ass time!” Jersey shouted, and hundreds of voices joined in.
1 Batt was on the prowl.
EIGHT
“He’s done what?” Ike roared over the miles, his words rattling the speaker.
Cecil repeated his statement.
Dan jumped in. “Counting all the rabble that withdrew to Arkansas, Ben might well be up against thousands of hostiles.”
“At least,” Georgi Striganov stepped in.
“So what do we do?” Raul Gomez asked.
“Nothing,” Tina broke in. “Because Dad is doing what he wants to do. You all know he’s always been a lone wolf. He’ll never change. You also know that if he gets in too deep, he’ll call for back-up. Besides, lest we all forget, he is the boss.”
“He’s also hard-headed as a goat,” Ike said.
“You’re a fine one to talk, you illiterate Mississippi redneck ex-porpoise,” Dan Gray needled his friend, knowing Ike would come back at him.
“SEAL!” Ike shouted at the man, correcting him for about the ten thousandth time. “That’s SEAL, you goddamn goofy limey.” Then he told the Englishman to go pour a cup of tea and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Several hundred miles to the west, Corrie had the conversations on speaker in the van and everyone was laughing.
The laughter died away when Corrie, monitoring their battle frequency on her headset, said, “Trouble just up ahead, boss.”
The column was about forty miles inside the Arkansas border, pushing up from the south.
“What do we have?” Ben asked.
“Several hundred rabble occupying the town. Far Eyes has had them under observation for about an hour. Light weapons and a few machine guns. No mortars or anti-tank weapons have been spotted. It appears the rabble killed the residents. There is evidence of a mass grave just outside the town.”
“MBTs up and circle the town. Mortar crews up and get into position.”
Corrie relayed the orders and the big sixty-three-ton monsters surged forward, other vehicles pulling off to the shoulder to let the tanks rumble past.
The small town, probably populated by no more than a thousand people before the Great War, had been reduced to about two-hundred-and-fifty new people since the SUSA became reality. They had worked hard, planted their crops and gardens, maintaining neat lawns and freshly painted and well-kept homes, and were starting a new life.
Now they were dead at the hands of rabble.
Cooper had driven up close to the town and Ben stood by the side of the van, giving the area a once-over through binoculars. The streets were littered with trash. Windows had been smashed from newly opened stores and shops. Ben was sure the few places of business had been looted. They always were.
Ben said, “Corrie, I’m certain this bunch of trash doesn’t have the sense to operate a military radio. What CB channel are they on?”
“Nineteen,” she answered promptly.
“That figures,” Ben muttered. “All right, Corrie. Tell those idiots in the town to give it up.”
“I already have. They said for you to kiss their ass.”
Ben sighed. “The originality of that reply boggles the mind.” He grimaced. “Take the damn town.”
It wasn’t much of a fight. After less than ten minutes of the strafing of heavy machine-gun fire from the Rebels, and few mortar rounds which landed in the streets, the rabble hoisted a white flag and began streaming out, their hands in the air.
But this time, Ben had a new twist to the taking of prisoners. Each person was photographed and fingerprinted and blood was drawn for DNA matching . . . should that person ever be foolish enough to return to the SUSA.
“We didn’t hurt or kill nobody,” a man said during questioning. His eyes were shifty and scared. “The town was empty when we got here.”
“He’s lying,” a PSE operator told Ben.
“Sure, he is. But we can’t prove it. No witnesses. All we can do is head them north.”
“They all claim to have no knowledge of anyone named Ray Brown,” Ben was told. “But one of them was wearing this ID bracelet. It belonged to Major Rogers, General. His wife’s name is engraved on the back. He never took it off. His wife gave it to him just before she was killed. That was back when he was a lieutenant. When we were fighting in the northwest.”
When Jerre had been killed, Ben thought. Then shook off that sad memory.
“Rogers was one of the bodies found in that mass grave back at Base Camp One, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring this man to me.”
“Right away, sir.”
Ben had set up a CP in an old house on the outskirts of tow
n. The prisoner was led in and sat down in an old straight-backed chair.
“I ain’t done nothin,’” the man protested. “Y’all ain’t got no call to treat me this a-way.”
Ben held up the gold ID bracelet and let it speak silent volumes as it slowly twisted in his fingers.
Sweat broke out on the man’s forehead.
“Where did you get this bracelet?”
“I . . . ah . . . swapped a feller for it.”
“You’re a liar.”
The prisoner looked around him. Anna was squatting down, her back to a wall, sharpening her already razor-sharp knife. She looked up at him. Something in those very cold, pale young/old eyes was strangely frightening. Beth was staring at him. Cooper was standing behind the prisoner. Jersey was standing beside Ben, her dark eyes unreadable. Corrie was at the radio.
“What do I get for the truth?” the man whispered.
“Your life,” Ben told him.
The man nodded his head. “That’s fair, I reckon. Ray Brown’s got at least three other gangs with him. All tole . . . maybe three to four thousand people when they all group up. They’s Carrie Walker and her bunch. Tommy Monroe and his gang. And Dave Holton. I was with Tommy Monroe for a time. Joined up with him in Alabama. That’s where I’m from original. Tommy’s a bad one, General. Probably badder than Ray, you get right down to it. And he knows military tactics, too. Was a sergeant in the army for a time, he was.”
“What kinds of weapons do the gangs have?”
“All kinds, General. Machine guns, surface-to-air missiles, mortars, rocket launchers. They ain’t got no big guns or tanks, though. We tried to get them tanks started y’all had in the depot back south of here, but nobody could get ’em to crank.”
Ben smiled. It would take any member of a tank crew about one minute to get them running again: a little matter of a missing part which rendered the tanks inoperable.
“Go on,” Ben said.
“We was promised all sorts of stuff if we’d join up. Land to work, a nice home, a car or truck. A better life.”
Ben stared at the man in disbelief. Same old song, different jukebox. The song was tided Something for Nothing. Ben sighed. “There are thousands of cars and trucks sitting idle all over the country. Stick a battery in one, fill it up with gasoline, and drive it off.”
Chaos in the Ashes Page 7