Ambush in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Ben smiled. “What you are seeing now is just a small part of one battalion, Ms. Preston. I have nineteen battalions over here. We’re stretched out the entire top of Northern Africa, west to east. Working our way south.”

  “Toward a fight with Bruno Bottger, General?”

  “Yes. How do you know about him?”

  “Refugees, General. I fear that Field Marshal General Bottger has you outnumbered, sir. Even with your nineteen battalions.”

  “The Rebels are always outnumbered, Ms. Preston. We’re used to that.”

  “The . . . Rebels.” She nodded her head. “The Southern United States of America and the Rebel army. Then you fly the stars and bars of the Confederacy?”

  “No. We do not. We fly the stars and stripes, Ms. Preston. We just don’t have as many stars as before.” Ben motioned to a Rebel. “Get Ms. Preston and the rest of her group to a secure area, please. Corrie, inform Dr. Chase of their presence.”

  “You have women in combat roles, General,” Paula remarked, after looking for a moment at the Rebels.

  “Yes. The SUSA is virtually discrimination-free.”

  “You have African-Americans in positions of high authority?”

  “The President of the SUSA is a black man, Ms. Preston. Cecil Jefferys. The vote was overwhelmingly in his favor.”

  “I am very confused, General. I thought . . .”

  “I know what you thought, Ms. Preston. A lot of people jump to conclusions and make that mistake. Look, go with the sergeant here, and get cleaned up, some hot food in you, and then checked out by our doctors. We’ll talk more later, all right?”

  “Certainly, General. I look forward to news from home.”

  “Outside of the SUSA, Ms. Preston, I’m afraid it’s pretty grim.”

  “Why am I not surprised at that news, General?” For the first time since their introduction, the woman smiled . . . sort of. “We’ll talk at length later, sir.”

  “Certainly.”

  Ben watched Paula lead the small group of Americans away, following the Rebel.

  “Boy, is she in for a shock,” Jersey said.

  “Yes,” Ben replied. “She sure is, Little Bit. A very drastic shock.”

  “She’d be very attractive if she was cleaned up and did something with that mop of hair,” Beth remarked.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Ben replied, then looked at his team in mock surprise when they all burst out laughing at that statement.

  SEVEN

  Beth had been correct: Paula was a very nice-looking woman. Ben guessed her to be in her late forties. She was dressed in clean army camo BDUs (which were too big for her), and she had cut her hair (or somebody had done it for her). She seemed somewhat subdued as she sat down in the chair Ben offered her in his hurriedly cleaned out and very temporary HQ.

  “You feel all right?” Ben asked.

  “What? Oh. Yes, thank you. It’s just that I’m not used to being clean and well-fed, that’s all. I have an appointment with the doctors in an hour. They’ve set up one MASH unit for the Americans alone.”

  “We’re Americans, Ms. Preston,” Ben reminded her gently. “And I am a firm believer in looking out for our own. Anyway, I am told that a great many more Americans than anticipated are coming out of the woodwork, so to speak.”

  “Yes. There are a great many among the newly arrived refugees. And some of them are mercenaries.”

  “Oh? That is interesting. American mercenaries?”

  “A few. I would say, from the reports I just got no more than an hour ago from locals, there are perhaps a dozen or so. The rest are Europeans.”

  “Armed?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ben said with a smile. “All of them white?”

  “Why . . . yes, as a matter of fact, they are. Is that something of importance?”

  “Oh, it might be, Ms. Preston. It just might be.”

  “I’m ahead of you,” Jersey said, standing up. “I’ll alert Coop and the others.” She walked swiftly from the room.

  “That is a, well, very attractive young lady,” Paula remarked. “In a . . . savage sort of way. And I don’t mean anything derogatory by that, General.”

  “I’m sure Jersey wouldn’t have been offended. She’d probably think it was funny. She tends to scowl at times when she’s around people she doesn’t know. And for her size, she can be very intimidating. As for her complexion, she’s part Apache Indian.”

  “Ah . . . Native American.”

  “Anyone who was born in America is a native American, Ms. Preston.”

  Paula opened her mouth to come back at him for that politically incorrect remark. Cooper stepped into the room. “I think we’ve got trouble, boss.”

  “Yeah, so do I, Coop. Get set up.”

  “What do you mean, General Raines?” Paula asked.

  “Get under that old desk, Ms. Preston,” Ben told her bluntly. “And stay there.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  A spray of bullets from an automatic weapon ripped into the building, knocking plaster from the walls and sending up clouds of dust. Paula let out a squall of fright and hit the floor, quickly crawling under the desk.

  “You were right on the money, boss!” Jersey yelled, sliding into the room on her belly and crawling over to a window. “They’re Bruno’s people and the bastards are all over the city.”

  “How many, Jersey?”

  “They’re battalion size, boss. And it appears they’ve hidden weapons and plenty of ammo all over the place. Looks like we’re in for a fight.”

  “Well,” Anna quipped from her position at a far window. “I did say I was getting bored.”

  “Our people are pinned down in small groups all over this section of the city,” Corrie called, after talking with platoon leaders. “But as it stands now, Bruno’s people haven’t produced any heavy weapons.”

  Ben waited until another twenty seconds of gunfire ceased, coughed at the dust falling all over everybody, then said, “Anna, you and Beth bring that Big Thumper over here to the front window. Start spraying those buildings across the street. We’ve got to have some relief. Coop, how’s it looking from the rear?”

  Cooper had his SAW (squad automatic weapon), ready to bang and he nodded his head. “They’re back there, boss. But so far they’re staying low and quiet.”

  Anna and Beth began hammering at the building across the street with 40mm grenades, many of which sailed through the windows. Those enemy troops who had taken up positions in buildings began exiting out the back, straight into the machine-gun fire of two main battle tanks. At least two squads of Bruno’s Nazis went down in five seconds, torn to bloody pieces.

  The tanks reversed their turrets and bulled their way through the buildings, taking up positions in front of Ben’s HQ.

  “Tell one of them to cut down the alley and take out that building directly to our rear,” Ben said.

  Three minutes later, the MBT was tearing the building apart with 120mm HE cannon fire.

  All around the section of the city occupied by Rebels, tanks and APCs were rushing to the aid of trapped Rebels, and making very short work of Bruno’s people, who really had only two options, since they could not run: surrender or die.

  Most chose death.

  The fight was savage and relatively short once the Rebels recovered from the shock of the unexpected attack from what they assumed to be hungry refugees. Recovery for the Rebels did not take long.

  When the last holdout had been killed, and the area declared safe and secure, several prisoners were brought to Ben. Paula had crawled out from under the desk and had been escorted over to a MASH tent, where Rebel doctors had resumed business as usual. They were accustomed to working with battles raging all around them, but this time the refugees had panicked, forcing the doctors to call a halt to their examinations and shot-giving.

  “What gave us away, General?” a man who had identified himself as a captain asked, standing in front of Ben.

/>   “Just a hunch, Captain.”

  “What will happen to us now?”

  “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with you.”

  “I demand . . .”

  “You demand nothing!” Ben shouted at him. “You’re all in civilian clothing. I could shoot you as spies and be in full accordance with the old Geneva Convention concerning treatment of prisoners captured during wartime. So don’t waste your breath telling me what you demand.”

  “Are you going to shoot us, General?” the captain asked, in a much less harsh and demanding tone.

  “I doubt it. I probably should, but I probably won’t.”

  An expression of great relief passed over the captain’s face. He had very quickly realized that he had pushed Ben over the line.

  Ben asked the captain a few questions. Each time the man responded by his name, rank, and service number. Ben finally looked over at the guard. “Find someplace to lock them up until I can decide what to do with them.”

  The prisoner gone, Jersey asked, “What are you going to do with them, boss?”

  “Probably keep them locked up here for a month with an arrangement to have them turned loose at the end of that time. I certainly am not going to shoot them. Corrie, alert all the other battalions as to what happened here and to be on the look-out for infiltrators.”

  “Right, boss.”

  “I must be getting old and careless,” Ben mused aloud. “I’ve never underestimated an enemy. I should have anticipated something such as this.”

  “Yeah, you’re real ancient, boss,” Cooper said sarcastically. “You want me to order up a wheelchair for you?”

  “Yeah, General Ben,” Anna said. “And I wish you’d stop with all that drooling. Maybe we should have a nurse with you around the clock.”

  Ben turned first to Cooper, then to Anna, and after a moment, started laughing. “All right, all right. Enough. I get your point. Well, Bruno probably, and I stress ‘probably,’ won’t try this tactic against us again. But we can’t be sure. From now on, everybody stays on low alert at all times.” Ben stood up and stretched. “Let’s go prowl some.”

  The charm that Casablanca once held was forever gone. The city that once boasted a population of over two million had been looted and savaged so many times it was nothing more than a mere shell of what it had once been. And it had once been quite impressive. Casablanca had once been the economic capital of the nation. It had been the center of trade, industry, and finance. And it had been a major port handling goods of all kinds.

  Now it was a dying city, and of the people who were left, many were sick and terribly malnourished.

  Ben and his team walked the streets for a time, but it was not pleasant. Every window at ground level in the stores and shops had been smashed by looters and rioters. The stench of death lingered everywhere, hanging over the city like a stinking shroud.

  Lamar caught up with them, and motioned for Ben to join him by the side of his vehicle.

  “What’s up, Lamar?”

  “Ben, we’re perhaps seventy-two hours, max, away from a major health problem here. There are hundreds of dead bodies rotting in houses and shacks all over the city. We can’t use fire, we’d have to destroy more than half the city.”

  “So it’s up to the Rebels to remove the bodies and dispose of them?”

  “That’s what it comes down to, Ben. And it has to be done quickly or we’re going to have real problems on our hands.”

  Ben glanced to Corrie and she nodded and got on the horn.

  “Do you want the troops who do the job in full protective gear, Lamar?”

  “I want them buttoned up, Ben, using air tanks. I’ll issue them gloves . . . the new cut-resistant type. I just got them in.”

  “This is that serious, Lamar?”

  “Yes, Ben,” the doctor said very somberly. “It’s that serious.”

  “What are you holding back from me, Lamar?”

  “You’ve all been inoculated, Ben. It’s just these poor damn refugees are bringing all sorts of bugs, and with the troops handling rotting bodies, I want them buttoned up. If there was anything else, Ben, I’d level with you.”

  “All right, Lamar. We’re going to be here for awhile, aren’t we?”

  “Yes. We certainly are, Ben.”

  EIGHT

  Rebel teams began clearing the city of dead rotting bodies within an hour after Ben and Dr. Chase spoke. Doctors worked with the team, ordering some of the shacks in the city carefully burned . . . with stacks of dead bodies inside. Ben didn’t ask why the selective burning, but he had his suspicions. They spelled: Cholera.

  Black stinking smoke spiraled into the sky as the shacks began going up in flames.

  “How come we have to do this?” Cooper asked. “How come those living here didn’t do it?”

  “I guess many are afraid to touch the bodies, Coop,” Ben replied. He shook his head. “I really don’t have an answer for you.”

  “Always us,” Jersey added her two cents into the conversation. “It always comes down to us doing the dirty work.”

  Ben couldn’t argue that. She was right.

  “Because we will do it,” Beth said.

  “Are any of the troops bitching about it, Beth?” Ben asked.

  “Oh, no. They just do as ordered, boss. Fight, march, or burn or bury the dead. It’s a job.”

  Anna looked around her at the shacks that butted right up against what had once been enormous wealth. “What a shithole,” she said.

  Ben didn’t argue that, either.

  When he got back to his CP, he found Paula Preston pouring over a stack of old newspapers that someone had found on board ship and brought ashore. The papers had been used as packing material before leaving the port in the SUSA and these had been left over.

  “Catching up on the past few years, Ms. Preston?”

  “Please call me Paula, General,” she said, looking up.

  Ben noticed she was wearing new glasses—army issue. Chase had seen she made all the stops.

  “All right, Paula. That’ll make it easier. I’m Ben. I really hate formality, especially in the field. Are the stories in those papers shocking to you?”

  “Somewhat, yes. So much has happened in America in such a relatively short time.” She fixed him with her new magnified gaze. “You and your, ah, Rebels have been busy, haven’t you?”

  “Very.”

  She pointed to the stack of old newspapers. “Those reporters don’t think very highly of either you or the SUSA, Ben.”

  Ben smiled at the woman. “Our system of government works, Paula. While the states outside of the SUSA flounder about, struggling to get on their feet, so to speak, the SUSA is functioning smoothly, with full employment, the lowest crime rate in the world, factories, farms, ports, railroads, stores, shops, and a smooth-running government that is truly made up of and for the people. That’s why those hanky-stomping reporters don’t like us. We didn’t crawl out of the ashes of destruction, we came out heads high and working together.”

  She returned his smile. “Hanky-stomping, Ben? What a unique expression. I assume you mean liberals?”

  “That’s right, Paula. The people who did more to screw up America than any other group.”

  “I can see we have hours and hours of delightful discussion about politics ahead of us, General.”

  Ben grunted noncommittally at that, not knowing exactly what the woman had up her sleeve. But he had a hunch, and the thought didn’t thrill him all that much.

  Again, she pointed to the stack of newspapers. “There is nothing about China or South America in those papers, Ben.”

  “We don’t know much about what is happening in South America, Paula, except that nations there are embroiled in civil wars. As for China . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know what the hell is happening over there. You probably know more about the Mideast than we do.”

  “The Israelis settled their difficulties with those Arab nations who wanted war wi
th them.”

  Ben chuckled. “I just bet they did. And settled it permanently, too.”

  She frowned. “War is not always the answer, Ben.”

  “In their case it was. And for them it was inevitable. And I could have told the rest of world what the outcome would be. We’ve signed an alliance with Israel. They’ll be joining us in the fight against Bruno Bottger.”

  “That does not come as any surprise to me. I certainly can’t blame them for that decision.”

  Ben leaned forward, putting his big hands on the old, beat-up table that was serving as a desk. “What did you mean, Paula, by the statement ‘we will have hours and hours of delightful discussion ahead of us?’”

  “Just that, Ben.”

  “I’m staying in Africa, Paula. You’re going back to America on the next ship out.”

  “No, I’m staying here.”

  Ben leaned back in his chair. “Oh? You mean here in Casablanca?”

  “No. I’ll be traveling with you.”

  “The hell you say!”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “I have twice spoken to President Jefferys and to Secretary of State Blanton, General. Also to the leaders of the EUSA, the NUSA, and the WUSA. They all thought it was a very good idea for me to stay and assess the political climate here. President Jefferys, who seems to be a very nice man, by the way, and an extremely intelligent one, said he would be speaking with you shortly about his decision.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  Ben muttered under his breath.

  Paula frowned and gave him a very odd look. “I beg your pardon, Ben? Surely, I must have misunderstood. Did you just refer to your president as an asshole?”

  “What the hell are we going to do with her, boss?” Corrie asked, after Paula had left the CP.

  “I have no idea. I ought to send her over to Therm and let him deal with her.”

  “Then she’d have access to Emil,” Jersey said. “You really want that?”

  “Oh, God, no.” Ben sighed. “Well, I guess we’re stuck with her.” He paced the room for a moment, then turned to his team, his face brightening with a smile. “We could always sneak off in the night and join the Scouts up ahead.”