Survivor (The Ashes Book 36)

by William W. Johnstone

  “Okay,” Szabo finally said, “everybody ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” they said together.

  “Okay, let’s go get ourselves a punk.”

  The three started out, Szabo leading the way, the trees easily avoided bumping into thanks to the illuminated green world created by the night-vision equipment.

  Szabo also brought along the UGPS system, which he checked as he went. They were so close, he thought, that the blinking signals were almost coming as one.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Before she and Jim had gone to bed, they drank their own fair share of wine, and when she awakened with the call of nature, it was thanks to the wine. One of the reasons Jim had set up the tent beyond the pickets was anticipating such an event. It was one thing for him to get up and take a whiz in front of another guy; it was quite another for Bev to do it. She needed privacy. And, of course, they both needed privacy for their lovemaking.

  When Bev felt the call of nature and checked the digital watch she was wearing she saw that it was a little after 3:30. She was a little tired, but before she went outside she knew that she had to get some clothing on, particularly shoes. Rattlesnakes didn’t care if you were on your honeymoon. They would be happy to make it short-lived if you got in their way.

  She was just wearing panties, so she put on a shirt and pulled on some denim pants and the lace-up boots she had found, but she made no attempt to lace them up. It was a little windy and, she knew, a little chilly outside—what night, she thought, in this section of the country wasn’t a little chilly?—but she figured she knew she’d be back very quickly. Just find a spot where she could conceal herself from any picket who could possibly see her, slip her pants down, go to the bathroom, and return.

  Dressed, she opened the flap of the tent. She did not know if Jim was awake—he had incredible hearing—but he didn’t say anything to her as she slipped out of the opening. The wine, she thought, was probably having some sort of effect on him.

  The tent was in the woods, but most of the trees in the area were a little on the narrow side. Bev wanted to find a fairly thick one. She walked fifteen to twenty yards and then found one. She slipped off her denims and squatted.

  Szabo, Wilson, and Atkins had made their way very carefully through the forest, getting closer and closer to where Szabo now knew the Rebel camp was. It shouldn’t be long, he thought, before he encountered a picket. Or, to put that another way, the picket encountered him.

  Szabo felt totally alive, totally unafraid, like a lion or tiger or panther stalking prey. Never mind that the prey was just as well armed, in a sense, as Szabo was. To him someone he was stalking was prey and he felt all-powerful and absolutely sure that he would succeed.

  As they went, the scanned the woods, the world continuing to have its green cast.

  At one point, Szabo put the UGPS away. He knew where he was; he knew where the enemy was. The time of location was past. The time of confrontation was here.

  He and the two soldiers walked slowly and carefully, trying not to make excessive noise. Szabo knew that the forest was never quiet, so he was not afraid of making some noise. If any of the Rebel pickets heard anything they would assume that it was made by some sort of animal. Szabo smiled. In a sense, it was.

  There was a slight wind, and occasionally he and his team would hear a sound of something unidentifiable.

  Then, quite abruptly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked. Wilson was pointing to his left.

  Szabo turned his head. Not twenty yards away someone was making their way through the woods. The person was far too shapely to be a man. It wasn’t It was a woman.

  The bitch. He could not believe how lucky he was.

  Instantly, he formulated a plan. He would do the same thing that he had expected to do with the picket. He motioned to the other two to come with him.

  He whispered in one of their ears, “She can’t see me. She knows me. Talk to her as if you’re two Rebels. Get close enough to stick her. Here. She cannot make a sound!” Szabo slipped behind a tree and watched. By this time, Bev was squatting, in the middle of taking a whiz.

  “Sorry,” Wilson said, “I didn’t see you.”

  Bev was startled but did not make any untoward noise.

  Wilson turned away, hiding his eyes, and so did Atkins.

  “Oh,” Bev said, “that’s okay.”

  “We’re looking for the main force of Rebels.” They stood nearby, shielding her from their eyes. Then she was finished. She came up to them.

  “Oh, down that way,” she said, pointing.

  Then, Wilson grabbed her by the mouth and Atkins plunged the needle into her neck. A ninjutsu move flashed to her mind, she started to whirl, but only in her mind. Her body was not working. And then she was unconscious.

  Szabo came out from behind the tree. Bev was being supported by Atkins and Wilson.

  Szabo picked her up as if she weighed nothing and place her on one of his massive shoulders as if she were a sack of potatoes.

  They went back to where the night-vision equipment was and donned it. Then they started to move quickly away. As they went, Szabo thought: If she knows where Rosen is, we will too.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Jim awakened about 5:00 a.m. and automatically reached across to feel for Bev.

  She wasn’t there.

  He wondered where she was. Maybe gone to the same place he was about to go—to take a leak.

  He went out of the tent and took a few steps and took a leak, the wine from the night before seeming to pour out of him endlessly.

  He looked around. The first rays of light were starting to penetrate the forest.

  Where could she be?

  “Bev,” he called, “where are you, honey?”

  No answer.

  That was very, very odd.

  He called her name again. No response.

  Now a tickle of fear started deep in his gut and, used to paying attention to such signals, he listened.

  He went back into the tent and found a flashlight and played the light over the equipment in the tent. Her white dress was folded neatly and on a blanket, the same spot she had placed it the night before. Her boots were gone, and so were the denim pants she had worn before putting on the white wedding dress.

  Then he saw something that disturbed him. Her brassiere. If she was getting fully dressed she would have that on. If she was just going outside to take a leak, she would have heard him when he called to her.

  He went outside again, and this time used the flashlight to scan the area. As far as he could tell in the limited light, there was no sign that she was around.

  He walked deeper into the woods, calling her name, the light probing the darkness.

  But there was no answer, and by the time he returned to the tent there was sufficient light so that he could see much better, but Bev was still nowhere in sight, and there was no sign of her.

  He realized that he had been looking for her for twenty minutes.

  Could she have gone somewhere?

  Where?

  He trotted back to the base camp. It was a beehive of activity, many of the Rebels packing up their gear, loading the trucks. Duke Kindhand was one of them. Jim went over. Kindhand could see the concern in his face.

  “What’s up? Jim?” he asked.

  “I can’t find Bev.”

  “What happened?”

  Jim explained how he had made a small search for her.

  “You want me to get a team together to look for her?” Kindhand asked.

  Jim was about to say yes when he realized that he might have an even better resource.

  “Maybe I can use Reb,” he said. “He’s part German shepherd. Maybe—”

  “Good idea,” Kindhand said. “Let’s do that.

  Reb, as it happened, had already been fed and walked by one of the Rebels, and he started wagging his tail furiously when he saw Jim. Jim leaned down and petted him.

  “Hey, Reb,” he said. “I need a favor. Okay, boy?
”

  Reb’s tail continued to beat even more furiously. The Rebel who had walked Reb that morning came over and gave Jim his leash, and then Jim, accompanied by Kindhand, headed back to where Jim’s tent was, Reb leading the way.

  When they got to the tent, Jim went inside and brought out the bra. At this point he wasn’t embarrassed. Whatever worked was best.

  Reb sniffed the bra and immediately started to sniff around. He headed back into the tent, sniffed around, then burst out. Jim had to hold the leash tight or he would have pulled it out of his hand.

  But he didn’t stop there. He was, Jim could tell, on the scent—Bev’s scent—and he moved rapidly across the forest floor. The farther they went from their tent, the worse it was, Jim thought. But he had to keep cool, think clearly. And maybe there was some reason why she had walked—or run—this way out of the forest.

  Maybe, he thought, she encountered an animal, say a grizzly. She didn’t know that the best way to handle that situation was to stand your ground, but avoid eye contact. Maybe she didn’t . . . and then Jim thought of something that he remembered Ben Raines had said: “Do not take counsel of your own fears.” Absolutely. Suspend the functioning of the imagination.

  Reb had gone at least a half mile when he abruptly made a left and pulled Jim, Kindhand following, to the edge of the road, and then onto the road. And then Reb started to go around in circles. He seemed a little confused.

  But Jim knew what was going on. He had lost the trail.

  Jim looked down, trying to pick up a hint of what might have happened, and on the other side of the road he found something that enabled him to put together a likely scenario.

  “She got into a vehicle here,” he said, “and she was heading west. Look at the edge of the road. I’d say the vehicle backed up here, then headed east.”

  “Which means that she was taken,” Kindhand said.

  Jim fought the sadness and despair and fear. He had to stay outside it all. That was the best thing he could do.

  “The question is, who?” Kindhand said.

  “I know,” Jim said. “I think you do too.”

  Kindhand nodded. “Szabo,” he said quietly.

  Jim nodded, and he thought: of all the people in the world, Szabo was the worst.

  “Why? I wonder,” Kindhand said.

  “He was after her,” Jim said. “She and her friend Ida were trying to start up some religion around here.”

  “Where’s Ida?” Kindhand said.

  “Dead,” Jim said. “The Rejects caught and hung her.”

  “Well, I think there’s a good chance we know where he’s taken her.”

  Jim nodded.

  He also knew it was their only chance.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Alex Szabo looked at himself in the mirror. His nose, normally thin and well formed, was a blob of red and purple. He knew it was broken, this thanks to the bitch in the other room. He had underestimated her, and so had Wilson and Atkins. They had not restrained her, and when she had regained consciousness, inside the compound, she had suddenly and abruptly become a whirling dervish, a person with consummate skill at karate or something, who gave Wilson a fractured skull, Atkins a crushed spleen, and Szabo a broken nose. Szabo had little doubt that if she had not been bent on escape she could have killed him with her bare hands.

  Fortunately, she had bolted out of the room and made it through two other rooms when she was overwhelmed by guards—who also took some big hits.

  Whatever, now he had her, and she would yield the information on Rosen. First, he had to soften her a bit. They had tied her facedown on a large table and spread her legs and arms, and then to get the torture going he and four other Rejects had sodomized her to the point of her bleeding, something that Szabo had very much enjoyed doing, and very much enjoyed watching, particularly before the fourth assault when alcohol had been poured on her—actually into her—and she had screamed in agony.

  Now, Szabo thought, she was ready. If she didn’t talk he was prepared to work on her with a stick two feet long.

  What also worked with most people was threats. Threats to remove fingers, limbs, genitalia. That got people talking pretty quick.

  He didn’t know exactly what he would do. He would play it by ear. Maybe with her ear!

  Whatever, he had to move pretty fast. The longer Rosen was free, the greater the danger. He had to be neutralized. Just had to.

  Szabo walked into the room and heard her say something. A single word.

  “Jim.”

  “Who’s Jim?” Szabo asked.

  Bev did not answer.

  “I would assume,” he said, “that you were asking that wonderful God of yours for help. Is this Jim greater than your God? If he is, I’d certainly like to meet him.”

  He went over and squeezed her behind.

  “Boy, you got one of the best booties I’ve ever seen. But it looks like it’s taken a turn for the worst.”

  He paused. He walked around and sat down in a chair so his face was close to hers. Her eyes were red from crying and her face was blotchy with red welts and black and blue marks where the guards had beaten her into submission.

  “I want to know something from you,” Szabo said, “but first I want to ask you again: where is this God you were trying to spread around? Where is He now that you need Him so much?”

  Her lips moved, and then he managed to hear something she said in a half whisper. “He’s right here, right here in the room with me.”

  Szabo stood up. He wanted very much to kill her, but he needed to know the answer to the other question:

  “Where is that little pipsqueak of a reporter for the Rolling Stone? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Bev said.

  “You did see him?”

  “Yes. He was with us for a while. He told us the whole story of how he hoodwinked you.”

  Again, Szabo wanted to kill her right then and there. But that would be stupid.

  “What happened to him?”

  “One day he decided to leave,” Bev said.

  “Why?”

  “He was afraid of you. Afraid you would catch up to him.” She paused. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

  “I’m not afraid of him. I want to kill him.”

  “No,” Bev said, “you’re afraid.”

  “You know?” he said. “You got a lot of grit in you, and I’m going to surprise you by saying, first, that I believe you. I don’t think you know where Rosen is.”

  Bev said nothing.

  “Isn’t that surprising, that I believe you?”

  She said nothing.

  “But the second surprise is one you’re really going to like.”

  Again, silence.

  “I’m going to let you live,” he said. “Isn’t that surprising? After all, I had your pregnant friend hung from a tree, so this has to be a surprise.”

  “Thanks, Santa.”

  “The thing is, I want you to be a walking advertisement that belief in God means nothing. That God exists only in your head, and that He couldn’t help you when you needed Him most.”

  Szabo stood up and as he walked away he said: “Yes, I want you to be a walking advertisement for that.”

  Inside her head, Bev thought of Jim, and then she thought of God. Please, God, she said, give me the strength to endure this. Or—I’m so sorry, Jim—take me home, Jesus, take me home to your kingdom of light and love. Take me home, or let me endure.

  Szabo returned. He had some sort of brown bottle in his hand, filled with a liquid.

  He must have pressed a button of some sort, because a bunch of soldiers came into the room.

  “Turn this messenger of God over,” he said, “so Jesus can see her lovely face.”

  Bev did not put up resistance as the bonds holding her arms and legs to the table were unfastened. She was turned over and retied.

  “What I’m holding here is hydrochloric acid,” he said. “Now I want you to be an ad for me, so to do this I h
ave to, shall we say, modify you a bit? And there’s nothing like hydrochloric acid for that.”

  He approached her. She turned her mind inward, to nestle herself like a little child in God’s embrace. But God did not shut down her earthly senses, and the Rejects heard again a shriek of agony, and the premier felt his genitalia engorge with blood.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Kindhand and Jim, in the lead vehicle, raced east along the road, the road that they speculated Alex Szabo had earlier that morning traveled on and snatched Bev. Both men left unspoken that if Szabo had taken Bev, it might already be too late. He might have killed her. But the world was full of possibilities, and both men followed the brilliant philosophy uttered by a baseball player from long ago named Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

  Jim was filled with focused rage. Not only was he not taking counsel of his fears, but they were not a factor in what he was doing. There was no fear, just the burning need to produce results, to get Bev safely back in his arms.

  If . . . if Szabo had taken her. If he hadn’t, Jim didn’t know what his next step would be. But, as someone once said, “Destiny plays by its own rules.” And Jim was very shortly to find out how true that statement was.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Twenty-four hours earlier, and in some cases before that, Believers in the camps from all over the country, but mostly clustered in the Northwest, prepared for the invasion of the Rejects, an invasion made possible because of the intel supplied to them by Morty Rosen.

  The hours since it had been decided to launch what for the Believers was their own D-day had been spent gathering men and materials. A number of the Reject camps were built into mountains where there were tunnels; against these the Believers planned to employ their own modern-day “tunnel rats.” In other cases, compounds were totally aboveground and tunnel rats were not required. All this information Rosen had furnished.

  But at all Believer installations, one thing was basically the same, as reflected in the headquarters base. In the middle of the night, a mass of men knelt in an open field and importuned Jesus Christ to, on this day, help them. Their leader, Father McAulliffe, stood on top of an SUV, his voice patched through to all other Believer forces.