Triumph in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Just don’t make any mistakes,” Bruno said. “Our lives, and the hope for a New World Order, are in your hands now.”

  Alexis frowned as they flew toward the distant skyline of a small coastal town on the Indian Ocean named Maputo, little more than a fishing village since the wars had begun destroying its local economy.

  “I was told Colonel Walz has deserted us. I find it so hard to believe. He was a dedicated soldier, as far as I knew. It wouldn’t be like him to abandon us.”

  “He may have been a traitor, Alexis. I have been given bits of information that tend to show he may have cooperated with Ben Raines and his Rebels.”

  “Colonel Walz?”

  “Some men crack under pressure,” Bruno said. “He cost us a great number of aircraft and human lives. He may have been, as you say, a dedicated soldier. However, he lacked the skills to win battles against the Tri-State’s aircraft. And I have good reason to suspect he betrayed us, although I won’t reveal my sources to you now.”

  Bruno caught Rudolf’s eye and winked. “All in good time perhaps, but a far more immediate task is to reach our hidden compound in Madagascar. The fate of our cause rests with you, Alexis.”

  “I will not fail you,” he promised, crossing a semi-arid part of the southern Transvaal with the Indian Ocean in sight, spread across the horizon.

  Unable to bear looking at the ground as it passed seemingly just feet below the landing gear of the Huey, Bruno watched the clear skies above them, hoping they would not see any enemy aircraft. He let his mind roam ahead of them and their journey across the Mozambique Channel.

  He closed his eyes and remembered a stretch of quiet, tropical rain forest on the east coast of Madagascar where a very old, stone-walled villa was hidden deep in the jungles—on a failed coffee plantation abandoned half a century ago by an Englishman who contracted malaria. The villa was a perfect spot to begin planning for the future of The New World Order. All he had to do was get there.

  They flew across sleepy Maputo, attracting hundreds of stares from curious local fisherman and farmers. Rows of old wooden wharfs passed beneath the Huey, and then Alexis turned sharply north to hug the forested coastline, dropping down to less than a hundred feet above empty beaches and coral shoals, well out of sight from anyone, unless there happened to be a pilot of another aircraft above them.

  Bruno checked his watch. They were hours away from the safety of Madagascar, and in a powerful but heavily loaded, slow-flying Huey they would make easy targets for Rebel fighters or Apache gunships.

  While it sounded impossible, what Bruno and his precious shipment of gold needed was to be able to hide in the sky in a giant green helicopter. If anyone could pull it off, it was Alexis.

  The ocean far below was calm. As the helicopter and its valuable cargo got farther across the Mozambique Channel, Bruno finally allowed himself to relax.

  “We’ll make it now,” he said.

  Alexis was watching his radar screen, staring at it with a frown on his face.

  “Some sort of aircraft is following us, General Field Marshal. It has been back there for several minutes. It’s too small to be much more than a recon plane.”

  Bruno’s gaze was suddenly glued to the scope. “I see it, a tiny blip on the screen.”

  “It isn’t a jet or it would be closing on us, and it does not mark like a chopper. My guess is that it’s some type of propeller-driven recon plane who picked us up when we left the coast.”

  “They may only be interested in our destination.”

  “Perhaps. If that is the case we can fool them once we reach land in Madagascar. I can land some place on the west coast, one of the islands. There will be no place for the airplane to land, and very soon it will run low on fuel. When this craft disappears to find fuel, we’ll climb back up and fly across Madagascar in the dark of night without lights. Madagascar is a very large island. Once this plane loses us, it will never find us again.”

  “Good,” Bruno said, although a voice inside his head warned it could be dangerous for Ben Raines to know he had headed in the direction of Madagascar. His charade with the burned bodies would all be for naught. Somehow, Raines found a way to pick up Bruno’s trail no matter where on the planet he went.

  He let his thoughts return to the matter of Rudolf Hessner and what should be done about him. Rudolf was now the only man left who knew about Bruno’s Jewish mother, having overheard what Dorfmann said. But who better to send to Berlin to find the key to Dorfmann’s bank box? Rudolf was very thorough. He would find the key and the old woman’s sworn statement, no matter how long it took. And the beauty of the plan was that the idiot was slavishly loyal, to him and The New World Order, and thus could be trusted to do exactly as he was told.

  There will be plenty of time to execute him after he finds the paper, Bruno thought. With all his gold to protect he needed someone he could trust while they were in Madagascar. It did seem odd that he would consider killing a man he trusted so completely. However, it was much too dangerous to leave anyone alive who knew the truth about his mother.

  “The blip is gone,” Alexis said, ending Bruno’s ruminations regarding Rudolf. “The airplane has turned back. It was probably low on fuel.”

  “Excellent,” Bruno remarked, settling back in his seat with a cold smile on his face. “Ben Raines can’t be sure Madagascar was our final destination, if the recon plane reports our direction to him. They may believe Madagascar was only a fuel stop for us, once they discover some of us have escaped from Pretoria ahead of their assault. Hell, Raines won’t even be sure who was on board, and if my trick with the bodies works, he may believe we were only some deserting generals making their escape. Once we land at the villa we’ll cover this ship with netting and move plants into the clearing Sergei made for our landing pad. No one will spot the chopper or the clearing from the air.”

  “I hope the clearing is large enough,” Alexis said. “This big bird needs plenty of space. We could lose the tip of a blade coming in.”

  “I gave Sergei the measurements,” Bruno replied. “I assure you everything will be in order when we get there.”

  He hoped every detail had been attended to, and that there had been no mistake with the landing area measurements. He did know that if Sergei had made an error it would be the last the man ever made. The penalty would be swift and violent death.

  “It will be dark. When we get close I will radio to have the landing lights turned on.”

  “Sergei confirmed all preparations had been made. The marker lights are in place, and he awaits our coded signal to turn them on.”

  “Good,” Alexis grunted, returning his attention to the Huey’s controls.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Ben Raines, his GAR still smoking, stood in the middle of a street with his team, looking ahead over numerous bodies of the last of the troops known as Bottger’s Praetorian Guard.

  Ben shook his head, turning as Ike McGowen walked up, his M16 dangling from a strap around his shoulders.

  “Ike, I can’t believe the fanaticism of Bottger’s people. We had them boxed in, completely surrounded, and offered to let them surrender.”

  Ike smiled bitterly. “They’d have none of it, I suppose?”

  “No, they fought and died to the last man. And for what? To protect some raving lunatic with megalomaniacal dreams of world conquest.”

  He shook his head again. “What a waste—so many good soldiers giving their lives for that monster.”

  “Have you found his headquarters yet?” Ike asked, looking around the small city square where the Praetorian Guard had made their last stand.

  Ben pointed straight ahead, to an opening in a small, square one story building made of reinforced concrete. “I suspect it’s in there. That’s the place the soldiers were guarding so faithfully.”

  Ike said, “Then let’s go flush the bastard rat out of his hole.”

  Ben readied his CAR and nodded to his team to proceed.

  Cooper and Jersey wer
e the first to enter, dashing in and jumping immediately to the side with their backs to the wall, ready for more fanatical guards to open fire.

  There was only silence, and the stench of burned flesh and gasoline permeating the dank air of the underground bunker.

  Ben stood at the head of the stairs leading down beneath the ground.

  “I have a bad feeling about this, Ike. You don’t suppose he pulled a Hitler and committed suicide, do you?”

  Ike shook his head. “Not a chance. The man was too egotistical to ever kill himself. If he’s dead, trust me, it will have been by someone else’s hand, not his own.”

  As Ben started down the stairs Jersey caught Cooper’s eye, and they jumped in front of him and led the way into the underground lair.

  On the way they found at least ten men, all with machine gun bullet riddled bodies, lying where they had fallen, most shot in the back while at their stations.

  “Jesus,” Jersey whispered. “Someone’s taken out the leader’s staff, and evidently they weren’t expecting it when it came.”

  Finally, as they approached the main room of the bunker, the stench of burning flesh became so strong they could barely stand it.

  They entered the room, noticing the large, scorched Nazi flag on a far wall and the massive oak desk with top secret stamped files, most burned beyond reading, lying on the desktop.

  “This must be the war room, Bottger’s main residence,” Ike said, wrinkling his nose at the all pervasive odor.

  “Yeah,” Ben answered, and pointed to a far corner. “And look over there.”

  They walked over and stood over the badly burned bodies, noticing the multiple gunshot wounds on the chests of the victims. The uniforms were burned to ash, with only the metal epaulets and medals remaining, partially melted.

  Cooper squatted next to the bodies and pulled out his knife and used the point to pull the dog tags from where they had melted into the flesh of the corpses.

  He handed them over his shoulder to Ben.

  “One reads Bruno Bottger, and the other says Rudolf Hessner,” Ben read. “Our Intelligence says Hessner was Bruno’s right hand man, his aide-de-camp and personal bodyguard.”

  Jersey snickered. “Doesn’t look like he was very good at his job.”

  Ben pursed his lips. “You were right, Ike. These men didn’t kill themselves. Someone took them out with a machine gun of some sort, then poured gasoline over the bodies before they left.”

  Ike nodded. “Looks like Bottger was killed by some people high up on his staff, who then must have deserted and run for their lives when they knew the end was near.”

  Corrie was standing in the corner, talking on her handset. When she finished, she said, “Boss, I just got a report of a Huey flying from the city, toward the east coast and Mozambique. The recon plane had to turn back when it ran out of fuel and couldn’t determine the final destination of the chopper, whether it turned back into the interior or headed out into the Mozambique Channel, toward Madagascar.”

  Ike smiled. “That sounds like our culprits, Ben. Probably some generals who wanted to make an escape when Bottger wouldn’t listen to reason and surrender when all hope was lost.”

  He turned and started to walk toward the door.

  “Hold on,” Ben said, a frown on his face.

  “What is it, Ben?”

  “I’ve got a funny feeling, Ike. This is just too pat. I can’t believe anyone as paranoid as Bottger would let himself be caught unaware by some generals—who would never be allowed in his presence carrying machine guns in the first place.”

  He shook his head. “No. I think this is an elaborate stage set, organized by Bottger so we would think he was dead and wouldn’t pursue the escapees.”

  “You mean you don’t think these bodies are Bottger and Hessner?”

  Ben’s lips curled up in a sneer. “I very much doubt it, Ike. I think Bottger and Hessner were the occupants of that chopper, and furthermore I don’t think we’ve seen the last of our little Nazi.”

  Ike spread his hands. “But Ben, what can he do even if he is alive and well, as you say? Hell, his army has been destroyed and he’s running like a dog with his tail between his legs, with only the clothes on his back. How much of a danger can he be?”

  Ben stared down at the corpses, still smoking as they lay on the concrete floor.

  “I don’t have all the answers yet, Ike. But you mark my words. Bottger is not a man to take defeat lightly. He’ll be back, and when he reappears I’m gonna be there to knock him down again.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Bruno slitted his eyes and groaned as he came awake. Raw pain prevented him from opening his eyelids fully. A black man wearing a white smock looked down at him, applying some sort of white ointment to his burns with a piece of cotton.

  “Ah, you are awake again, Mr. Bottger.” The man had a British accent, and the lilting tones of someone to whom the British language was not native.

  For a moment Bruno couldn’t remember anything clearly—an explosion, a fire, his uniform and face consumed by flames while men were screaming . . . while he was screaming, rolling in the damp grass following the crash when a rotor tip caught a tree limb as they were landing.

  He groaned again as the memory of the Huey turning over on its side and the roar of exploding fuel brought him fully awake. He vaguely remembered trying to put out the fire consuming him and his clothing, knowing in his heart he was surely dying, being burned alive, rolling across the ground to try to smother the flames.

  And later, in a room somewhere with this same black man, a doctor Sergei had summoned from one of the villages to help survivors of the fiery crash.

  “Tell . . . me . . . again what happened,” Bruno croaked, his voice not his own. He felt woozy from the morphine, yet the pain was still unbearable, intruding on his thoughts, causing him to sweat, which in turn increased the pain even more in a terrible cycle of agony.

  “Your helicopter crashed while trying to land. Only three of you survived. You are covered with second and third degree burns, Mr. Bottger. However, it appears you will live. There will be a great deal of scar tissue. I’m giving you everything I have for the pain you must be suffering, although I’m sure it is not enough.”

  The doctor hesitated, his forehead wrinkling in concern for his patient.

  “I am not fully trained in burn treatment when the burns are so extensive, I fear, and there is none of the expensive equipment available here locally to repair tissue damage this severe.”

  Bruno tried to move his hand to grab the doctor’s arm, but almost screamed at the pain the movement caused.

  “Who are you?” he managed to croak through a throat that felt as if he had gargled ground glass.

  “My name is Mati Ghanna. I was educated in India, and our medical training was sorely lacking in many areas. There are but a few doctors in Madagascar, and I doubt any of them has the knowledge to do more for you. I hope you understand. Madagascar is still a primitive country in many respects, and we are lacking in much of what modern medicine can provide. I can only do the best I can for you.”

  “Who else survived?” Bruno asked, trying to speak while moving his charred lips as little as possible.

  “A man named Jules. The other is Rudolf.”

  “I must speak . . . to Rudolf immediately. Or to Sergei.”

  “I’m afraid Rudolf is still unconscious, as is Jules. Sergei is here, standing outside the door.”

  “Send . . . him in.”

  “As you wish, Mr. Bottger.”

  A door opening, then closing. Sergei’s face appeared above Bruno’s bed, a wrinkled face below a mane of curly blond hair.

  “The gold,” Bruno whispered. “What . . . happened to the gold in the chopper?”

  “It is safe, General Field Marshal. Some of the bars melted down. We stored it in the basement room with the other gold and silver.”

  “And only Jules and Rudolf survived?”

  “Yes, and they are as b
adly burned as you are. Jules may not live, the doctor said. The chances are fifty-fifty for Rudolf. The burns are quite bad for all three of you.”

  “How badly . . . am I disfigured? Tell me the truth.”

  Sergei’s face showed concern. “You will require extensive reconstructive surgery. Your face is covered with burns . . . the skin was melted almost down to the bone. The doctor says there will be extensive scar tissue.”

  “Give me . . . a mirror.”

  “I would advise against it, General Field Marshal. It is not something you would care to look at now. It would be best to wait until time has healed some of the worst wounds.”

  “Get me a mirror!”

  Moments later, he gasped, then screamed in horror at what he saw peering back at him from the mirror.

  He lay in bed in the darkened room. Three weeks had passed since the crash. A small mirror rested on a night table beside the bed. His brain awash in the glow of morphine, he tried to think logically despite the constant throbbing of pain from head to toe. And to remember bits and pieces of things Sergei told him over the past few days, when he was conscious enough to listen to and understand what was said.

  Ben Raines and his Rebels had taken Pretoria, killing or capturing all New World soldiers. All of Africa was under the Rebels’ control, with new governments being established in most African countries, according to short wave radio broadcasts.

  Once again, Bruno’s attempt at world domination had been smashed by Raines.

  Jules was dead. Rudolf Hessner was recovering. The site of the helicopter crash had been covered with jungle plants, and as far as Sergei knew no one was looking for them here.

  Sergei, on Bruno’s orders, had executed the doctor and taken his supply of morphine and other painkillers. Bruno’s recovery would be slow, and it could be months before his pain lessened to any extent.

  Since there were no rehabilitative facilities in this country, he would be forced to do it on his own—the constant exercises to prevent contractures of his joints and skin, the debriding of dead and injured skin inch by inch, with only the most minute amounts of morphine to dull the terrible agony having his skin pulled off little by little caused.