Betrayal in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Then Lady Luck lifted her slightly soiled skirts and crapped all over the Rebels as they heard the sounds of the two back doors opening and the sounds of voices speaking in a language none of them understood.

  Ben shifted his eyes and looked at Jersey, who stood close to him. She arched an eyebrow.

  The men drew closer. They were dressed in a mishmash of clothing that clearly ID’d them as street punks. The weapons they carried were all different, and they handled them carelessly. They stopped in a group, talked briefly in low tones, then spread out across the rear of the building, unzipped their pants, and took a piss on the floor.

  Jersey rolled her eyes in disgust, and Ben struggled to keep a straight face.

  The punks spotted the Bradley and lifted their weapons.

  “Shit!” Ben muttered, then stepped out of the shadows and blew the men into eternal darkness.

  “Talk about gettin’ caught with your dick hangin’ out,” Cooper quipped.

  “Wonderful, Cooper,” Jersey said. “You certainly have a way with words.”

  Then there was no more time for talk as the men and women in the rain-slicked street doubled back. The fight was on, but not for long.

  Sima’s people ran right into a classic Rebel ambush, and those that remained alive were forced to retreat across the street.

  “We can’t hold here,” Ben said. He motioned his forces toward the back door. “Out into the alley,” he said. “Move it.”

  “The Bradley—”

  “Leave it.” He took a grenade from his battle harness and said, “Move, goddamnit! Out the back.”

  Ben was the last to leave the building. He popped the pin and tossed the grenade into the belly of the Bradley and then stepped over the bodies of the gang members and out into the rain, following his team up the alley at a dead run.

  The grenade did exactly what Ben had hoped it would. It set off the 25mm rounds in the vehicle; and when they started blowing, they set off all the spare 7.62 ammo for the vehicle’s machine gun. After the grenade’s muffled explosion, it sounded like a major battle was taking place.

  “The open park is just over there,” one of the Rebels who had checked out the block panted, pointing, when Ben had caught up.

  “Then we’ll go the other way,” Ben said.

  “That’s bogy country, sir!”

  “That’s right, son. It sure is. And the last place Sima’s people would think to look for us. Let’s get going, people. We don’t have much time to find a hidey-hole.”

  They jogged two blocks up the narrow alley and then cut to their right and ran for two more blocks. They were becoming hopelessly lost as they ran from alley to street.

  “What happened to all the goddamn street signs?” Jersey cussed as they ran. “I’m lost as a goose.”

  “Join the club,” Beth told her. “The map is useless. I have no idea where we are.”

  When they finally paused to catch their breath, they flopped down on the dirty, rat-chewed, paper-littered floor, and Cooper said, “What’s that I smell?”

  “The river,” Ben told him. “It’s got to be. We can’t be more than a few blocks from it. Damn, we’re deeper into bogy country than I’d thought. But there is no way we made the city proper.” Ben opened a map and studied it in the dim light coming through a dirty window. “I think we’re right here.” He shook his head. “No. We might have turned onto this street initially and gone too far. Those short blocks were our undoing. I have good news and bad news, people. Our guys don’t have the vaguest idea where we are.”

  “If our people don’t know where we are, what’s the bad news?” Jersey asked.

  “Neither do I,” Ben admitted.

  FOUR

  “I suppose we could ask the first person who wanders by,” Coop said with a smile.

  “Great idea, Coop,” Jersey said. “We’ll elect you to do that.”

  “Ho ho,” Coop said.

  “Bump somebody, Corrie,” Ben said. “And tell them we’re all right. Just lost.” He shook his head. “I hope Ike never learns of this.”

  “He will,” Jersey said as Corrie reported in.

  She finished her brief report and looked at Ben. “Needless to say, a lot of people are highly irritated at us.”

  “Especially at me.”

  “Right.”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  “Buddy suggests that we stay on the air long enough for him to get a fix on our position.”

  “Negative.”

  “That’s what I told him. He’s very unhappy about our getting cut off.”

  Before Ben could reply, a Rebel by a window called in a hoarse whisper. “We’ve got company. Coming up from the south. At least I think it’s south.”

  “How many?”

  “Hard to tell in this rain. Maybe ten to fifteen. Nope. Here comes some more around the corner.”

  “We’re all right from the front,” Ben whispered. “But anyone approaching from the rear will see the boot tracks.”

  Without being told, Cooper took his SAW and left to cover the back room. Anyone opening the door would step into a death trap.

  Several of the gang members paused at the front of the building to peer through the dirty windows. No one attempted to enter through the rear, and they walked past, on through the driving rain.

  “We’re so far in front of our lines, we can’t even hear the gunfire,” Beth commented.

  “The rain is helping to muffle the noise,” Ben said. “But I thought I heard shots just a few seconds ago. I don’t understand how we got so far ahead.”

  The Rebels fell silent, enveloped in the sounds of the hard-driving rain and a couple of drip-drops splattering on the floor from a leak in the roof. Ben looked at his watch. Four o’clock. They needed to get back to their lines, but Ben had no idea where their lines were.

  If they weren’t back among friendlies by dark, they would have to sit it out, for moving around at night was a sure way to get dead in a hurry. On the other side of the coin, they wouldn’t go hungry or thirsty, for they each carried emergency rations and two canteens of water.

  Ben glanced at Jersey just as she chanced a peek out the dirty window. She looked right into the eyes of an outlaw. Ben shot him in the center of his face just as the man was lifting his AK to cream Jersey. The .45 slugs took half the man’s head off.

  “Where the hell did he come from?” Beth asked as bullets began whining off the outside stone on the front of the building and smashing through windows.

  “Doesn’t make any difference,” Jersey said. “They’re here.”

  From the rear of the building, Cooper’s SAW barked and men screamed in pain.

  “Three to the rear to help Cooper,” Ben called, and Rebels from the Bradley crawled out of the room, staying low to the floor.

  Within seconds, all the front windows were gone, smashed by unfriendly fire.

  “Bloop those across the street!” Ben called.

  They loaded 40-mm grenades into the bloop tubes of the M-16’s and fired. The explosives did their work; the fire from across the street suddenly stopped and was replaced by moaning and crying from the badly wounded.

  A woman zigzagged up the street, carrying what looked like a satchel-charge. Ben cut the legs from under her with a burst from his Thompson, and she went screaming and sprawling and cursing facedown on the rain-slick cobblestones, sliding a few yards before coming to a halt on the sidewalk in front of a building where unfriendly fire was coming hot and heavy. The charge she was carrying blew, and the woman disappeared in a sickening splash and slop of color. The charge must have been massive, for it took out the entire front of the building and silenced the gunfire.

  “The back is clear,” Cooper called.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Ben said, lunging to his boots and heading for the rear door.

  Ben took the lead and led his people up the alley for half a block. He turned left and ducked into the back of a building, leading them through a dark maze of
litter and then out the front. He turned right and ran up the street to the corner, his eyes searching for some remnant of a street sign.

  Nothing.

  “Shit!” Ben cussed and ran across the street, the heavy rain partly obscuring the Rebels as they sought safety and a way out of bogy country.

  Suddenly, the short blocks and narrow twisting streets ended, spilling into a wide boulevard. A block away, a half-a-dozen main battle tanks flying the flag of the SUSA rumbled in their direction. A dozen or more Hummers and Bradley’s were right behind them. Ben recognized Buddy’s personal Hummer.

  “It’s been an interesting afternoon,” Ben said, leaning back against the building under what remained of an awning and rolling a cigarette. “Now I guess my son will chew me out.”

  “Goddamnit, father!” Buddy hollered a few seconds later. “Where in the hell have you been?”

  “Everything is back to normal,” Ben muttered.

  The Rebels seized the bridges the next day and crossed the river Vltava—also known as the Moldau. Ben (as he had accurately foreseen) found himself surrounded by Rebels and unable to leave his new CP, an old castle, without bodyguards watching his every move.

  “Don’t you trust me, son?” Ben asked.

  “You have to be joking!” Buddy replied.

  Doctor Chase chuckled at the tanks surrounding the palace and the guards in the halls and in front of Ben’s office. “Buddy sure clipped your wings, didn’t he?”

  “Very funny, Lamar. I’m amused. What do you want?”

  Taking his time, Lamar poured coffee and sat down. “Look, Ben, you’re not yet ready for a cane or wheelchair, but you have no business getting into combat situations. You are the commanding general of the largest standing army on the face of the earth—as far as we know. It’s about damn time you acted accordingly.”

  “Oh, I will, Lamar. I will.”

  “Until the next time you find a window of opportunity to sneak off and get into trouble.”

  “That’s probably true, but I’ve got enough paperwork to keep me occupied for about a week, at least So stop worrying.”

  “What’s the word from Mike?”

  “I haven’t seen him in weeks. No telling where he is. But I did speak with Homer Blanton a few hours ago and he’s back to work full time and doing well. Simon Border is still waging a war of words over his radio and TV stations. And Harriet Hooter and her followers are marching and waving placards. Homer finally wised up and nationwide elections have been postponed indefinitely in the USA.”

  “And the SUSA?”

  “Running as smooth as can be.”

  Lamar nodded. “I am surprised that we managed to save as much of Prague as we did.”

  “I think in the final analysis we’ll save about ninety-five percent of the city. But the museums and art galleries have long been looted. Somebody is sitting on millions and millions of dollars worth of valuable paintings and artifacts.”

  “They’ll surface, eventually.”

  “Yeah, on the black market.”

  Corrie entered the huge room. “It’s just about over, Boss,” she said. “The punks are giving it up in droves.”

  “Viktor Sima?”

  “Looks like he took what was left of his bunch and headed east.”

  “Well, we’ll meet him again. Does anybody know what happened to those idiot gang leaders? Boogie Woogie Slam Bam, or whatever that fool called himself?”

  Corrie laughed. “Boogie Woogie Bagwamb?”

  “That’s him.”

  She shook her head. “Those people dropped out of sight. Intel thinks they’ll eventually surface back in the States.”

  “They better keep their asses out of the SUSA.”

  “I don’t think they’ll get within five hundred miles of our territory,” Jersey said from her spot across the room. “They’re stupid, not crazy.”

  Ben stood up. “Come on. Let’s take a look at the city.”

  “You just don’t want to deal with all that paperwork,” Lamar said.

  “You damn sure got that right,” Ben replied.

  Seventy-five percent of the city had been cleared, and those gang members who still fought were now surrounded. Encircled by a host of Rebels, Ben began a tour of Prague.

  After about fifteen minutes, Ben said to his bodyguard, “You know, Sergeant, I could just order you to leave me the hell alone, you know that?”

  The sergeant did not reply.

  Ben stared at him. “Who the hell are you? I don’t know you.”

  The man smiled. “Sgt. Matt Andrews, sir. From 2 Batt. I take my orders from General McGowan. He said to blanket you; we’re going to blanket you.”

  “Ike,” Ben said, then grew thoughtful. “That tubby, Air Force fly-boy. I might have known it.” Ben looked around him. There was a main battle tank in front of the short convoy and another MBT in the rear. In between, two Bradley Fighting Vehicles and one APC with twin .50-caliber machine guns filled with Rebels.

  “All right,” Ben said cheerfully. “Come on. Let’s get this circus on the road.”

  In the Hummer, Jersey gave him a questioning look. “You’re happy about all this protection, Boss?”

  “In a way, Little Bit. You see, those guys are not Rebels and Ike didn’t send them. I just called Ike a tubby, Air Force fly-boy and that so-called sergeant didn’t bat an eye. Everybody in the Rebel Army knows Ike was a Navy SEAL. If they’d just done a little bit more research they might have pulled this thing off.”

  “The punks we’ve been fighting aren’t that smart, Chief,” Cooper said.

  “No. These impostors were either sent in here by someone else or have been close by waiting for us to show up. And I’ll bet on the latter.”

  “Bottger’s MEF people?” Beth asked.

  “Probably. Just another reason for me to think he’s not dead.”

  “Ah, Boss,” Cooper said, “we’re getting further away from the good guys and closer to the still-hot zone. What do you want me to do?”

  “The next time we come up on an alley, cut down it and floorboard this Hummer. Those APC’s might be able to follow us, but the tanks won’t. They’re twelve-feet wide.”

  “Then what do we do?” Cooper asked, glancing in the side mirror.

  Ben smiled. “You been to church lately, Coop?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because once we cut into the alley—we pray for divine intervention.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Coop said.

  “That’s a pretty good start, Coop,” Jersey said. “But always remember, don’t pray for yourself, pray for me!”

  Cooper muttered something under his breath.

  “Are you praying already, Coop?” Jersey asked.

  “No. I was suggesting some places for you to go.”

  “You asked for that one, Jersey,” Ben said.

  “Every now and then he will get one on me,” she admitted.

  “Turn right up here, Coop,” Ben said. “Now. Pour it on.”

  Cooper whipped into the alley and floorboarded the pedal. Ben noted that the narrow street was plenty wide enough for the Hummer and probably for the APC’s as well.

  “You want me to lay some grenades down?” Jersey yelled, crawling into the back-space and loading up her bloop tube.

  “Not yet. Let’s see what they do.”

  That didn’t take long.

  The M2 turned into the alley and cut loose with its 25-mm chain gun just as Coop roared out of the thoroughfare and onto a narrow, cobblestone street. The 25-mm rounds tore off bricks and hammered the buildings but miraculously missed the Hummer.

  “Down this way, Coop!” Ben said.

  Just as Cooper turned, the lead MBT rounded the corner and cut loose with a machine gun, the .50-caliber rounds hitting the left rear tire of the Hummer.

  “We’ve had it, Boss!” Cooper yelled, fighting the wheel.

  “Grab what you can and follow me!” Ben said. “Let’s go!”

  Ben and his team exited th
e Hummer and ran up the street, straight into the uncleared hot zone. The MBT turned into the alley, and the big .50 hammered again, one of the rounds ricocheting off the bricks and punching right through Corrie’s radio, the impact almost knocking her off her feet. Beth steadied her and helped her struggle out of the smashed radio, and then they were off and running again.

  “You all right?” Jersey yelled over her shoulder.

  “I’m O.K.,” Corrie said. “I hope somebody grabbed a walkie-talkie.”

  “I’ve got mine,” Ben said. A second later he kicked open a door and yelled, “In here. Quickly.”

  His team inside and unhurt, Ben secured the door with a broken chair. His would-be assassins were at the far end of the alley and would not know for sure which door they had entered; they would have to try them all.

  “Out the front, gang,” Ben said. “Move it.”

  They ran through the ground floor of the building. A quick eye-sweep of the street, left and right, and they were across it unseen—they hoped—and into another building.

  Ben pulled his walkie-talkie from his harness and keyed it. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. He opened the battery compartment and checked. Everything seemed to be all right.

  “Batteries are gone,” Corrie said. She looked around. “Anybody else got one?”

  No one did.

  “Maybe Jersey remembers how to use talking smoke,” Cooper suggested with a smile.

  “I wish,” Jersey said, “but my tribe was corrupted by the white man’s telephone.”

  “What now, Boss?” Beth asked Ben.

  “We stay alive,” he said simply.

  FIVE

  “They can’t take the time to go block by block, searching every floor of every building,” Ben said. “They don’t even have a general idea where we are. So if they find us, it’ll be pure luck on their part. We stay put and hope for the best.”

  “And pray,” Coop added.

  “That, too,” Ben agreed.

  “Here, Jersey,” Cooper said with a grin, moving close to her. “Let me put my arms around you and we’ll pray together.”

  “Which arm do you want broken, Coop?” Jersey asked him.

  Cooper tried his best to look hurt. He really didn’t pull it off. “Jersey, that is no way to talk to a man who has just found salvation.”