Emil had gradually slipped out of his role as part-time snake oil salesman and con artist and had become a pretty good Rebel. But he was still full of shit.
Emil knew one thing for a fact: He was not going to sit around on his ass here in Arkansas with Thermopolis and his hippies listening to that godawful music. He had to get to France and join up with Ben and his people.
Thermopolis and his bunch ran the northernmost listening post for Cecil, the listening post located high up in the mountains of Arkansas. It was a very important job, but not for Emil. He wanted back in the action.
Somehow he had to get to France. He’d find a way. He always did.
“About ten of those punks from Toronto escaped from the holding facility,” Corrie informed Ben. “Half of them are on their way over here to join up with the French warlords.”
“Wonderful,” Ben said. “That’s all we need. How are they getting over here?”
“Ship,” Mike Richards, head of Rebel intelligence, said, walking in. “And it’s not ‘getting over here.’ They’re here.” He consulted a clipboard. “Barney Holland, Tony Green, a.k.a. Big Stomper, Mahmud the Terrible, some punk with him called Abdul, and Ahmed Popov, and another called Tuba Salami.”
“Oh, no,” Ben said, struggling to maintain a straight face. “Not him!”
“’Fraid so,” Mike said. “They commandeered a freighter and forced the captain to bring them to France. Then they shot the captain and all the crew. Dutch resistance fighters found the ship yesterday smashed up on the coast. Two of the crew members were still alive.”
“Were?”
“They died.”
“How many of their bunch did they bring with them?”
“From what our people could gather from the Dutch, about five hundred. Real bad ones. It was a large freighter,” Mike added.
“Too bad it didn’t sink,” Jersey said.
“I thought that Barney Holland hated blacks and Mahmud hated whites,” Ben said.
“They kissed and made up. A dubious marriage of convenience, you might say.”
“Who kissed and made up?” Julie Petti asked, entering the room. She and the other Red Cross reps had been out and about for several days, doing their Red Cross business.
“A bunch of damn punks,” Ben told her. Julie looked very tired. Julie, as both a registered and surgical nurse, had been working closely with Lamar Chase, and the strain of seeing the terrible results of years of medical neglect on the French people was telling on her.
“What about the Dutch Resistance?” Ben said, turning his attentions to Mike.
“They’re small in number but good fighters. But like all the countries in Europe, Holland is being run by the gangsters and creepies. They desperately need our help.”
“Name a country that doesn’t,” Ben replied, sitting back down behind his desk. “Mike, our agreement with the United Nations wasn’t all take on our part—we had to give some, too. We’re under mandate; a fixed schedule. I have some leeway as to what countries to assist in what order, but not much.” Ben was conscious of all ears and eyes in the room on him. “We’ve got to establish a firm and solid hold in Europe. We’ve got to penetrate deep enough so that we can’t be pushed back to the sea.” Ben thanked Jersey for the mug of coffee she placed on his desk and took a swig. He carefully set the mug down on some paperwork he’d been putting off. He rubbed his temples, sighed, and said, “Ask for volunteers, Mike. Up to twenty-five people from each battalion. We’ll send them into Holland by boat. Their orders will be to link up with the Dutch Resistance fighters and start working inland. That’s the best I can do, Mike. Now get out of here.”
Smiling, Mike Richards left the room.
Ben looked at a small map of Europe on his desk. “It’s not a bad idea, really,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “We’ve got contingents of the Spanish army guarding the passes down along the border, but up north is vulnerable. We’re going to be fighting on enough fronts without having to worry about hostiles coming out of Holland.”
Ben took another swig of coffee and asked, “Where in the hell are those companies of troops from Ireland and England? Can somebody tell me what the damn holdup is?”
“Food riots, Ben,” Julie said. “That’s what I came in to tell you.”
Ben looked at her. “Food riots? But they have ample food. President Blanton and I met and personally saw to that. We sent them hundreds of tons of surplus food we had in storage.”
Julie shook her head. “Saboteurs, Ben. Black market. Greed. Desperation. The food is not getting to many of the people. And—” Julie bit back the rest of it.
“And . . . what, Julie?” Ben pressed. “Come on.”
Julie took a deep breath and said, “Many people are complaining the food is not ethically and religiously prepared.”
Ben held his temper in check . . . barely. When he felt he could speak without blowing his top, he carefully said, “Ethically and religiously prepared?”
Cooper quietly exited the room, as did several other Rebels. Corrie clamped her headphones tighter and began studying the various dials and VU meters on her set, and Beth busied herself with her journal. Jersey braced herself for the blow.
“That is correct, General Raines,” one of the human rights representatives who was tagging along said. “Many of these people are of religious persuasions that specifically forbid them from consuming certain foods. They—”
“Shut up!” Ben roared. “I don’t give a flying fuck for their so-called religious persuasions. Starving people should be grateful if they get a can of dog food. And it’s not that bad. I’ve eaten it before and was damn glad to get it. Now I don’t blame a starving person for fighting to get food. But I have no patience for anyone who rejects food when it’s offered to them.” Ben pointed a finger at the human rights spokesperson, who was decidedly ill at ease standing in front of the man who many said was a cross between the devil and a saint. “You pass the word, mister. And here it is: I will personally shoot the first son of a bitch in this country who starts a riot over the quality of food that we are passing out—free with no strings attached. We’re over here busting our asses to help these people. And we will do everything that is humanly possible for them. But my threshold of patience for certain types is very low. Now close your mouth and take your bleeding heart and get the hell out of this office before I really lose my temper.”
Julie had taken a seat and was studying her fingernails while Ben blew his top. When the office had cleared, she looked up and said, “Some people take their religion very seriously, Ben.”
“Yeah, right,” Ben said sarcastically. “You bet they do. You tell me this, Julie: What were they eating during the long years before we got here with hundreds of tons of freebies? I’ll tell you. Anything they could get their hands on, that’s what. No one in their right mind is going to starve to death over words that may or may not have been handed down from a higher deity. Oh, but now that Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben are here, with ships filled with food, oh, now they can fall back on their religious beliefs and get all righteous about it. Screw ’em! And that’s my last word on the subject.”
Julie rose from her chair and left the room in a huff.
Corrie turned to Ben. “You through, boss?”
“Yes. What it is?”
“All battalions in position and ready to jump off.”
“Good.” Ben stood up. “Pack it up, gang. We push off at first light in the morning.” Ben walked out of the room muttering, “Ethically prepared—shit!”
Nine battalions of Rebels, backed by armor and artillery, rolled out at dawn the next day. Some of the other nine battalions would stay in reserve, others would trail along behind those spearheading in the hotter spots, to act as a buffer in case Duffy tried an attack from the rear—which was unlikely; but in war anything is possible.
Caen was very nearly a ghost town, with only a few thousand painfully thin and malnourished people living in the once-thriving city of
over 125,000. Ben ordered the columns halted and ordered the medical people up. Chase was traveling with Ben’s 1 Batt and immediately set up shop and went to work.
Ben wandered the small city, which now was a shambles, having been picked over and looted many times during the past decade. The churches had been trashed and desecrated.
“They made it through World War Two, but not the reign of punks,” Ben said.
“My God,” Beth said, reading from a tattered old tourist book. “This is the Church of La Trinite. It was built in 1062 by William the Conqueror’s wife, Matilda.”
“Let’s go inside. This is the cathedral part, I think.”
The others noticed that Ben removed his helmet upon entering the old church. Inside, they stood in shock for a moment. The interior had been torn apart, everything of value taken. Obscene words had been painted on the walls. A better than average artist had painted various pornographic scenes of Jesus screwing different women . . . among other sexual acts.
“Why?” Cooper asked, after looking all around him.
“Because they’re punks,” Ben said. “Worthless punks.” Then he jumped toward Beth and rode her down to the floor just as several people with automatic weapons opened up from the rear of the building.
The team scrambled for cover and Ben said, “Corrie, get some people to the rear of the church. We’ll take care of the inside.”
While Corrie radioed for help, Ben belly-crawled to a better position and got behind some overturned pews just as a punk opened up out of the gloom of the far interior.
Ben gave him returning fire and the punk’s weapon clattered to the floor, followed by the punk. Ben had stitched him from left to right, hip to shoulder. He was dead when he hit the floor.
“All of us on my signal,” Ben whispered. “Now!”
Four M-16’s and one Thompson opened up on full auto, scattering lead all over the rear of the cathedral. There was one howl of pain—just one—and the wounded punk crawled out of the gloom to flop on the floor, both hands holding his bullet-perforated belly.
He lay there amid the litter and cussed Ben and the Rebels in French, until he was out of breath. Then he switched to English and let them have it again.
“Coming in!” a Rebel yelled from the back of the building and then kicked in a door. The place filled up with Rebels.
One Rebel stepped up two steps and fired one shot, and that ended the resistance in the old abbey. The Rebels were not known for taking many prisoners.
A very old priest, his clothing tattered and impossibly patched, walked out of the rear of the building, leaning heavily on a cane.
The wounded punk saw him and cried out for him to come give him some blessed comfort.
Ben and the others stood up in silence and watched as the priest limped over to the punk.
“I have sinned, Father!” the punk said. “Many times.”
The old priest nodded his head. “You damn sure have,” he said, and then extended the middle finger of his left hand to the punk and walked away.
The punk died on the church floor, absolute disbelief on his face.
Ben looked at the shocked expressions on the faces of his team. “Priests are human first and men of God second,” he said, then walked out into the sunlight.
THIRTEEN
While the Rebels were hauling out and disposing of the bodies in the old abbey, Ben walked around and found the old priest sitting on a bench.
When he saw Ben, and recognized him for what he was (it never failed to astonish Ben that the whole world knew who he was), the old priest said, “I lost my faith, General. At first I blamed it on God. But it wasn’t God’s fault. I simply lost my faith.”
“Bullshit,” Ben said, startling the man. Ben sat down beside the old man. “Did God speak to you and tell you of this loss?”
The priest looked at him. “Hardly. Are you a religious man, General?”
“No. I believe in God. I believe in some form of heaven and hell. But I don’t believe that a person can live a life of crime, engaging in the most unspeakable and perverse acts all their life, then, on their deathbed, a human being can say a few words and absolve them of all their sins.”
For the first time since Ben had seen the priest, the old man smiled. “Spoken like a true Protestant.”
“Or a realist who was brought up in a Christian home and a man who has been reading the Bible for forty years. You didn’t lose your faith. If you had lost your faith, you wouldn’t be hanging around here. Maybe, Father, you just finally realized that it’s the good people of this world who need you, not the punks and crud. The good people need to be reminded of their duty every now and then. The punks and crud and crap don’t have what it takes to be a good person . . . much less a Christian. Never have had and never will. Stop worrying about them and concentrate on the people who are struggling to bring order to a world filled with chaos.”
The priest looked at Ben, amusement in his eyes. “End of sermon, General?”
“Yep. Now let’s have you checked over by the medics and get some hot food in you. I know a priest who’ll be glad to see you.”
The people began returning to the city. They crawled out of caves and dugouts and little hidden places and returned to the city they once called home. And they were a pitiful-looking lot, with very few young among them; most of them were middle-aged and up.
“The thugs and degenerates took the young people,” Ben was told. “Some were made slaves, some forced into prostitution, others traded to the Night People.”
Ben pulled in Paul Harrison’s 17 Batt to see to the stabilizing of Caen and moved his 1 Batt on. Ike had barreled through the countryside and had pulled up and was waiting at the intersection of Highway 174 and 175 for Ben to pull even. Rebet had secured his sector down to within a few miles of Chateaulin. West was waiting at Corlay. Dan was within a few miles of Highway 164 and holding. Georgi was holding outside of Orbec. Danjou had taken Rouen and was bivouacked a few miles south of the city. Tina was waiting near the town of Gournay-en-Bray, and Pat O’Shea was just outside of Beauvais.
South of the clearly defined battle lines that stretched from Chateaulin over to Paris, Duffy Williams’s people waited.
Ben rolled up to the outskirts of the town of Falaise and sent his scouts in to check it out.
“Well, sir, at first glance, we’re being welcomed with open arms,” the scouts reported back. “Looks like the whole town turned out. Food, wine, banners, and music. They plan on tossing us quite a party.”
Ben stared at the young man for a moment. “Now tell me what you really think about it.”
“I think it’s a trap,” the scout said, his combat-hardened eyes cold.
“Duffy’s people?”
“No, sir. I think it’s those goddamn creepies.”
“Why?”
“Too well fed, General. They’re fat and sassy.”
Ben was silent for a moment. “They pulled this a couple of times back in the States. Our intelligence showed that there are different sects of the creepies. This is one that shuns the robes and the underground. Well, to hell with them. We won’t play their game. We’ll split the column and throw a loose circle around the town, staying well back, off the road. Let’s lay back and see what they do.”
When Corrie radioed Ben’s orders, the column buttoned up and split up, engines roaring. The town was soon circled. The Rebels settled down to play a wait-and-see game.
Inside the town the creepies were furious. A young Judge smiled ruefully and said, “They made us. I don’t know how they did it, but that is no matter now. Take the children and the young men and fertile women to the tunnels and get them clear.”
“And you, Judge?” he was asked.
“I will die here. When those fleeing are clear, take up positions.”
The escape tunnels had been dug over a period of many years; long before the Great War tore the world apart. Years before the existence of the Night People was widely known. And now they had been
greatly enlarged. The escape mouth exited out more than a mile from the town.
“Too easy,” Ben muttered, standing by the side of his Hummer. “Corrie, how far back is Buck’s 15 Batt?”
“Holding three miles behind us.”
“Tell him to pour on the coals and get up here. Throw a loose circle around us, a mile between our two batts. Something fishy is going on.” That done and Buck on the way, Ben said, “Tell our people not to open fire until they are fired upon. Then get Lieutenant Bonelli up here. We’re all going for a walk in the countryside.”
“We are?” Jersey asked.
“We are.”
“What are we looking for?” Cooper asked.
“Rabbit holes,” Ben said.
Cooper and Beth exchanged glances, and both shrugged their shoulders just as Bonelli ran up.
“Break your people up into squads,” Ben told him, opening a map. “First and second platoons do a half-circle on this side of the highway. The rest start working the other side. Work about fifteen hundred to two thousand meters out. There may be escape tunnels leading from the town. Go.”
“Buck on the horn,” Corrie said.
Ben took the mic. “Buck? Eagle. The town is full of creepies. But something is all wrong with this situation. They know we’ve smelled them out, yet they’re holding fire. I think they may be buying time, sending people out through tunnels. Watch yourselves.”
“Prisoners, sir?” Buck asked what Ben knew was coming.
Ben sighed. He did not relish the idea of shooting kids anymore than the next person. “You can try,” he finally said. “We all can. For all the good it will do.” He didn’t have to explain that. Every Rebel knew that the Night People could not be rehabilitated—from the oldest to the youngest. The why of that was something that still eluded the Rebel doctors and shrinks, even after all these years. They all had seen Rebels try to befriend the children of creepies, only to have the young kids suddenly turn on them savagely with any weapon at hand . . . and then dine on the raw and still-cooling human flesh. It was disconcerting, to say the least. “Bring some explosives,” he added.
D-Day in the Ashes Page 10