Ben smiled at the kids who had gathering around their father. Their clothing was old and patched, but it was clean and the kids looked as healthy as any Rebel child.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Ben asked.
“I don’t reckon so. We rely on herbs and the like for medicines when we need it. I plow with mules and we have milk cows and chickens and hogs.”
“You’re not armed,” Ben said.
“God will see us through,” the man said.
“Uh-huh,” Ben replied. “What happens when you run into vicious people who don’t believe in God?”
“We have hiding places we run to.”
“It’s your ass,” Ben told him, then motioned for Coop to drive on.
“And the asses of the kids,” Beth said.
“They’re loved and well cared for,” Ben replied, as they rolled on. “How can we find fault with that?”
It was a question with no answer.
They followed the interstate to the ruins of Dallas/Fort Worth, buttoned up their Hummers and prowled the ruins of the once-great cities. The Rebels found signs of life in the ruins, but made no attempt to interfere, since the inhabitants were not hostile toward them. Ben knew that he and the members of his army were both admired and feared, envied and loathed, by many who resided in North America, and not just by those who chose to pick through the rubbled ruins of the cities to survive. If it bothered him at all, he rarely commented on it.
“No kids,” Jersey said.
“They hide them when we approach,” Beth said. “They’re ignorant bastards and bitches and their kids will grow up to be the same. It’s disgusting.”
Ben remained silent, letting his team members vent their opinions. But it was rare for Beth to be so blunt. Jersey called it as she saw it, often shocking those around her with her bluntness, but Beth usually was not so outspoken.
“You think it ought to be against the law?” Cooper said with a grin.
“It is against the law,” Beth replied. “Morally, at least.”
“What the hell is this up ahead?” Ben blurted.
A large group of men and women, dressed in rags, stood on the sidewalks and stared vacant-eyed at the line of Rebels in their Hummers. They grunted and pointed at the Rebels.
“Check it out,” Ben ordered. “But I think I know.”
Rebels cautiously approached the large group and found them to be harmless. Ben got out and walked up to them. Many of them ducked their heads and raised their hands to cover their eyes. Others plucked at Ben’s uniform. Ben pushed their hands away. They were all mentally impaired, as he had thought after he got over his initial shock.
“What the hell do we do with them, General?” Ben was asked.
“Let’s get some planes in here,” he told Corrie. “Bring medical teams in to tranquilize these people before we attempt to move them. Poor things can’t help what they are. How in the hell they survived this long is a miracle.”
“You soldier boys can take the men,” a hard voice called from the rubble. “But you leave the women. We use them when we get hard-up for snatch.”
The Rebels turned to face a knot of men, all armed. Jersey said, “Those disgusting sons of bitches.” She spat out the words.
Gunners had opened up the roofs of the Hummers and were in position behind the .50s and the 40mm Big Thumpers. If these dregs of humanity wanted a fight, it was going to be a damn short one.
“We take them all,” Ben informed the group of men. “Back off or die. Those are your only two options.”
The leader of the group of rabble looked at the awesome firepower facing him and his band of no-goods and slowly nodded his head. “Yeah. Well, I may be dumb, but I shore as hell ain’t stupid. I knowed that someday you and your soldier boys and girls would come in here and fuck ever’thing up for us, Raines. Ah, hell, go on and take this pack of loonies. They’s crazies wanderin’ all over the place, Raines. We’ll just find us another bunch.”
“I don’t like this,” Tomas said softly. “We cannot allow them to continue abusing the mentally ill.”
“I’m open for suggestions,” Ben replied. “You want to open fire on them?”
“Truthfully, yes,” the Mexican said. “But my conscience would not let me live with that.”
“I do know the feeling.”
The Rebels watched the men fade back into the ruins and disappear from view.
“There is an old parking lot just up the street, General,” a scout called. “Plenty of room for choppers to land. But how the hell do we get these folks up there? They’re scared to death.”
“We herd them,” Ben said with a laugh. “Just move them along easy-like. They’ll go.”
The Rebels watched the last of the mentally ill being placed on board Black Hawk choppers and then lift off.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ben said. “Before those slime we ran off decide to make trouble.”
“Too late,” Coop said, looking around him. “Here they come.”
“Hunt cover!” Ben shouted, and bellied down behind a rusted old car that had been abandoned for years.
“You want me to call for Apaches, General?” Corrie asked, just as the slime in the city opened fire. “They’re not sixty miles away.”
“We’ll handle this, Corrie,” Ben replied, loading his bloop tube. “I’m rather looking forward to it. Order all personnel to commence firing grenades.”
No one among the Rebels could ever figure out exactly why the street slime wanted to pick a fight with them. But when the unwashed started it, the fight turned savage. Rebels began firing all types of 40mm grenades: buckshot, high-explosive, and fragmentation. The leader of the group managed to stand up at just the right time for the Rebels and the wrong time for him. He took an HE in the center of the chest and got himself splattered all over the rubble.
It seemed to take all the fight out of the rest of them. But they didn’t know, or had forgotten, how Rebels fight. When they tried to run away and fade back into the depths of the ruined city, the Rebels cut them down. Then the gunners cranked up the big .50s and the Big Thumpers and really made life miserable for the thugs. Ben finally called a halt to it.
“Let’s get out of here, people. Hell with this place.”
West had shifted his teams up toward the Oklahoma border and Ben headed that way, while Buddy and Striganov linked up and Dan headed west on the interstate then cut south to Fort Stockton and eventually would head east toward San Antonio.
Down south, General Jesus Hoffman was getting fewer and fewer field reports out of Texas. At first he thought it might be due to his people shifting locations, then it began to dawn on him that just possibly Ben Raines was kicking the crap out of his invincible black-shirted army. That possibility became a reality when a messenger charged into his office, frantically waving a piece of paper and shouting.
“Calm yourself!” Hoffman shouted. “Sit down and calm yourself. What is it?”
The messenger fanned himself for a moment. “Our people just north of Fort Stockton are under heavy guerrilla attack. Only a small group are left alive and they are in the radio room. The message was cut off in mid-sentence.”
“Read it to me,” Hoffman said grimly.
“Garrison has been overrun by Rebels. Most personnel dead. Attack was sudden and vicious. Rebels rarely take prisoners. Have retreated to the radio room and there we will fight to the last. Heil . . .’ It ends there, General Hoffman.”
“Good man,” Hoffman said. “He was praising the führer to the end. He was a true hero.” He dismissed the messenger and stood up, facing the group of ranking officers there for a meeting. “A few defeats are to be expected. I want this to be remembered: We are facing a totally professional army. I’m afraid our sweep up through South and Central America, and our victories here in Mexico, have swelled some heads. I want this message read to all troops. That will take some of the air out of them. Gentleman, defeating the Rebel army will not be easy. We will do i
t, but it will not be easily done.” He faced the huge wall map, and when he again spoke, it was with his back to his officers.
“Ben Raines is a skillful and ruthless commander. Remember that. He fights by no rules. You just heard the message: he rarely takes prisoners. All right, we must assume we have lost our bases . . .” He lifted his shoulders, let them fall, and then turned around. “Everywhere in Texas. There might be two or three still operational, but they’ll fall. Then Raines will send teams out all over North America, hunting down our people. But the bulk of his people will be in Texas, waiting for us.”
“Do we have a firm number of Rebel battalions?” he was asked.
“Anywhere from fourteen to eighteen,” a Hoffman aide said. “There is no way of knowing how many of Payon’s battalions will eventually join Raines in North America.”
“So he has, shall we say, twelve to fifteen thousand Rebels. That’s ridiculous!” a general said. “We outnumber him by thousands of men. Why are we waiting? Let’s move now and smash them.”
“I warn you all, again,” Hoffman said, facing the group, “Ben Raines is not to be taken lightly. The Libyan, Khamsin, came here with thousands of men. Ben Raines and the Rebels destroyed his army. Down to the last man! We’ll win this fight, have no doubts of that. But the battles will be fought not only with brawn, but with brains. I cannot stress that enough. Ben Raines is a wily fox, a dangerous wolf, a cunning tiger of a hunter, and as dangerous as the bite of a cobra. If you succumb to his siren songs, he’ll lure you, trick you, trap you, and kill you.”
Hoffman met the eyes of each man and woman in the room. “I was six years old when I joined my grandfather’s youth movement. I have spent virtually my entire life preparing for this moment. I shall not see it wasted because of eagerness, carelessness, or vanity. We shall be victorious!” he shouted, slamming his hand down on the desk. “We shall not fail in our conquest of the world. We will win because we have God and the dreams of Hitler on our side. We will someday see the flag of the New Order fly over all the world. And the dreams of the greatest man who ever lived will at last be fulfilled. Heil Hitler!”
It was a strange and chilling moment as the room rocked with the stiff-arm and verbal salute as everyone jumped to their boots and shouted.
“Heil Hitler!”
Wichita Falls, Texas.
“As far as I can tell, Ben, we’ve pretty much cleaned out Hoffman’s infiltrators—at least in this state,” West said. “Dan’s boys and girls just wiped a station down around Fort Stockton. The outpost up in Wichita Falls held and beat back several attacks. As soon as they’re resupplied, they’ll be in good shape. I’ve ordered supplies in.”
Ben nodded his head and opened a map case. “I’m ordering the immediate evacuation of all Rebel-held outposts south of a Nacogdoches-Waco-San Angelo-El Paso line. I’ve ordered Ike and his teams to blow every bridge in this area. I’m going to make extreme southwest Texas impassable. Beginning here, just south of El Paso, everything south of I-10, from the Rio Grande east to 277, will be a no-man’s-land. If that goose-stepping son of a bitch wants Texas, he’s going to have to cross over down here.” Ben hit the map. “Now, he might come up through California, Arizona, or New Mexico. If he does, he’s going to find some damn rough and slow going. The roads and bridges running along the border from San Diego to El Paso will soon be virtually impassable. I—”
“General,” Corrie stuck her head into the room. “Some . . . ah, people here to see you, sir.”
“Who are they?”
“Cowboys, sir.”
“Cowboys?”
“Yes, sir. Their colonel says they number about five hundred in all. I mean, they’re not riding horses. But they’re all dressed in boots and big hats. They’re all in pickups and Jeeps. They are a, ah, formidable-looking force, sir.”
“I have to see this,” West said.
“Me, too,” Ben said.
The men walked outside.
The first thing Ben noticed was the small group of men waiting for him were all dressed alike. Blue jeans and brown western-style shirts. And cowboy boots. He was relieved to see none were wearing spurs. A tall, rangy man broke from the group and walked over to him, holding out his hand. Ben shook it.
“Ned Hawkins, General Raines. Commander of the Texas Rangers. At your service.”
“The . . . Texas Rangers?” Ben questioned.
“Yes, sir. We’ve been forming and training in secret for just about a year now. Around and just north of the Big Bend country.” He smiled and Ben felt it was genuine. He took an immediate liking of the fellow. “We have all sorts of folks in this battalion, sir. We weeded out any who can’t get along with other people ’cause of skin color. We had about fifteen hundred to start out. We have just over five hundred who made it through.” His grin widened. “And I’m proud to say that we’re all from Texas. The only thing I’d ask of you is to allow us to fly our Texas flag alongside the new flag of the United States.”
“How come my people didn’t detect your movement north, Ned?”
“We came up here to north Texas just before you and your Rebels arrived, sir. We didn’t want you to think we were a hostile force. We, ah, know that the Rebels often shoot first and ask questions later. And I’m proud to say that we do too.”
Ben looked at the man for a moment. “All right, Ned. Bring your people in. Let’s have a look.”
“We’ll all have a look,” Jersey muttered.
SEVEN
Ben took one look and knew these men had come to fight. Ned Hawkins had not only trained them in combat skills, but also in military discipline. The men all stood at rigid attention. And while they were all driving pickup trucks, these trucks were not quite the garden variety.
The trucks were all four-wheel drive with high clearance. They had been repainted in earth tones to blend in. In the back of the trucks, heavy machine guns had been mounted and the sidewalls built up for maximum protection. The windshield had been replaced and could now be lowered on one side or the other, or both sides down.
“I knew a good ol’ boy who used to bulletproof cars for a living,” Hawkins said. “We went to his shop—’way out in the boonies—and reworked these babies. They won’t stop a rocket, but they’ll stop anything else fired from small arms. Except for a Haskins .50 caliber, incendiary-tipped. You got any of those, General?”
“Every one that was ever made, I believe,” Ben replied.
Ned grinned. “I figured you would. You people took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Still doing it,” Ben said, returning the grin. “But we also have a .50 caliber rifle that fires the same round but in automatic. Uses twenty-round clips. It’s a real jewel.”
“I bet it is! Come on. Meet the boys.”
Ben met several Jim Bobs and Joe Bills, a couple of Bubbas, and Cooter and Scooter. There was not a single Tex in the bunch. Neb Hawkins’s Texas Rangers—twenty-first-century style—were a combat-ready bunch. But they made it clear from the outset that they had plenty of respect for the Rebels.
“Any of your men married, Ned?”
“Some of them. What to do with the ladies is sort of a problem.”
“They’ll be safe at Base Camp One. We’ll fly them over there. Providing you all polygraph or PSE in without a hitch.”
Ned chuckled. “We all expected that, General. I’ll personally shoot any man who flunks it. I can’t abide a goddamned traitor.”
Ben looked at the man. “I really believe you would.”
“Oh, you can believe it. Like I told you, sir, we fight under two flags: Old Glory—or what passes for it now—and the flag of Texas. Any man who’d betray either one of them doesn’t deserve anything but a bullet or a hangman’s noose.”
Teams of doctors and polygraph and PSE operators were flown in and every one of the Rangers passed the grueling tests. The Rebels all knew the Texas men would fit right in when Ned winked at Ben and called to a man nicknamed Slim. Slim looked like a strong g
ust of wind would blow him away. But Ben correctly assumed that Slim was all whang-leather, gristle and bone and rawhide tough.
“Yes, sir, Colonel?” Slim said.
“I hate to tell you this, Slim,” Ned said with a straight face. “But I got to shoot you.”
“Shoot me! What the hell for?”
“Or maybe you’d rather be hanged. They tell me that’s a good, fast way to go.”
“Hang! Hell, no!” Slim hollered. “What’s happened, Colonel?”
“You failed all your tests, boy. That means you’re a collaborator.”
“Collaborator? Hellfire, Ned. I ain’t no collaborator. I been a Baptist all my life. You can ask my sister about that.”
Ned just couldn’t pull it off. He took a long look at the expression on Slim’s face and busted out laughing.
The last time anybody saw Slim and Ned for a couple of hours that afternoon, Slim was chasing his commander around the buildings of the old air force base, shouting curses and threatening to stomp his ass into the ground for pulling such a damn-fool stunt. While the Rebels and the Rangers stood around laughing.
Ben split up the Rangers into teams, then issued them body armor and other equipment he had flown in. “The cowboy hats are fine, until you go into combat,” Ben told them. “Then you wear helmets just like everybody else. Macho is one thing. Stupid is another. I need all the live allies I can find. Dead, you won’t be a bit of use to me. Or to Texas,” he added, knowing that would encourage the use of helmets more than anything.
Ben approved of the way Hawkins had split his people up. Four men were assigned to most of the trucks. A driver and a gunner in the cab, and a machine gunner and helper in the padded bed of each truck. Others drove trucks loaded with food and ammo, cans of gas, and other equipment. Ben sent them westward at staggered intervals. When everybody was in place, from the New Mexico border to the west, and to the Arkansas border to the east, the teams would begin working south. They would inspect every town and travel every road in a search-and-destroy mission.
Vengeance in the Ashes Page 14