Valor in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’m not as tough and hard as you are, Ben!” She screamed the words at him.

  Ben laughed in her face. “Baby, you’re harder and tougher than I’ll ever be. So just get that little-girl-lost look off your face. It isn’t working anymore. Not with me.”

  She threw his words back into his face. “Running away from people who . . . what, Ben? Say it, Ben.”

  “Why? So you can brag about carving another notch on another poor bastard’s heart? No way, kid. See you around.”

  He walked out of the office without looking back.

  “You want me to be here when you get back, Ben?” she shouted at him.

  He stopped. “Where else would you go, Jerre? You can’t go back on the line — not for a while. Just stay here and keep your head down.” He looked at Cooper. “You stay here with her. You’ve both got cold rations. Enjoy your dinner. I’ll be back before dark.”

  “Do I have to go with you, General?” Beth asked, unexpected ice in her tone.

  “No, Beth. You don’t.” He walked out of the office and slammed the door before either Buddy or Dan could stop him.

  SIXTEEN

  Jersey caught him before he had walked down the flight of stairs to the street. “General?”

  Ben kept walking.

  “General Raines!” she shouted.

  Ben stopped and turned around.

  “Don’t go out there with your emotions all screwed up, sir. When you get mad, you take chances. Why not just cool down for a minute?”

  Footsteps on the landing cut off his reply.

  “Listen to her, Father.” Buddy spoke from the landing. “Or I will bring you down and sit on you.”

  A very faint smile touched Ben’s lips. “Oh, will you, now?”

  “If I have to. Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go get something to eat, then.” Ben turned and caught just a glimpse of dark movement at the base of the stairs. The stink of creepies offended his nostrils. He brought his Thompson up just as he heard the very faint snick of a pin being pulled from a grenade. He fired through the wood partition, giving the spookies hidden there a burst from his SMG, and at the same time calling out, “Grenade, watch it!”

  The words had just left his mouth when the grenade blew. The concussion splintered the wooden partition and blew two bloody night crawlers out into the foyer of the building.

  “Full alert!” Ben called. “Buddy, tell Beth to order full alert. The creepies aren’t waiting until dark. Go, boy!”

  “Coming in, General!” a Rebel called from the outside.

  “Come on.” The hall filled with Rebels. Ben pointed to the dead spookies. “Drag that crap out of here and toss it in the street. Then dig in. They’re hitting us now.”

  Ben ran back to his offices. “Douse the lights, Jerre. And get ready for a very messy office.”

  Just as she turned off the battery-powered lights in the room, a burst of automatic fire shattered the windows and knocked chunks of paneling from the walls, sending everybody diving to the floor.

  Ben scrambled for the M-14 he kept in the office and smashed out what remained of a bullet-shattered window. The unfriendly fire was coming from the building directly across the street. And there was a lot of it — so much that Ben and those with him in the office were forced to keep their heads down until one of Dan’s Scouts had raced up to the floor above them and fired a rocket into the pack of creepies.

  The room across the street exploded in flames, the blast tossing one burning body out into the street.

  “Now!” Ben shouted, rising to his knees and leveling the M-14 as the others in the office followed suit.

  The room reverberated with the sounds of automatic weapons set on full rock and roll.

  Thermopolis and his people beat back one screaming attack, the bodies of dead and dying and badly wounded night crawlers piled in the street in front of their position offering stinking, bloody testimony that the band of twenty-first-century hippies came to the Big Apple to make war, not peace.

  In the block behind them, Emil crouched behind an M-60 and let the spookies invent new dances as they jerked and tumbled into death. “I didn’t think anything could be worse than Hiram Rockingham and his damn rednecks,” Emil muttered. “I guess anybody can make a mistake.”

  A night crawler came charging into the room, fell over an ammo box, and went crashing into Emil.

  The M-60 hung up and lead started flying in all directions — fortunately for Emil, all of it going outside the room and into the street.

  “Ye gods!” Emil hollered, taking a deep breath and instantly regretting it. He kicked the spook in the face with a boot, setting him up for Sister Lynn. She cleaved the black-hooded head with a camp axe.

  Emil tore the belt from the M-60 and managed to right the weapon back on its bipod and re-feed the weapon. The street filled with creepies, and Emil went back to work, wondering if anything would ever be the same after this war was won?

  Tina and her team had been caught at the bus terminal facing 179th Street and had been forced up to the roof, fighting as they went. It was going to be a very long and very cold few hours for Tina and her team.

  One Duster was knocked dead in the street by a satchel charge thrown under a tread. The tank couldn’t move, but its 40mm cannon could still hammer out a lot of misery until a second Duster arrived at the scene, giving the crippled tank’s crew time to dismount and scramble for cover, fighting as they went.

  Creepies were popping out of manholes and racing up and out of subway entrances; they surfaced out of hidey-holes carved through basement walls and hidden stairwells.

  A rifle grenade slammed into the room next to Ben’s office, the concussion knocking Jerre, who was crouched next to the wall, into Ben.

  “About the only way I can get close to you” Ben muttered, hauling her to her boots.

  Jerre’s reply was short, somewhat profane, and very much to the point.

  The room that took the rifle grenade burst into flames.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Ben yelled, turning to duck-walk toward the door.

  Jerre remained by the window, firing across the bloody street.

  Ben grabbed her by the seat of her tiger-stripe britches and pulled her toward the door.

  “Turn loose of me!” she screamed at him.

  “All right,” Ben said, then slung her spinning and sliding toward the door.

  If her previous comments had been somewhat profane, these were decidedly vulgar.

  Ben laughed at her and shoved her out the door.

  In the hallway, Buddy and Beth and Cooper and Jersey were mixing it up with a corridor filled with creepies. Dan pulled the pin on a grenade, popped the spoon and lobbed the Fire-Frag into the direction of the spooks.

  When the deadly grenade blew, Ben tossed a smoke grenade into the moaning mass and shoved Jerre down the hall.

  They crouched in a bunch in the foyer, waiting for a break in the action to run for the building next door.

  “Now!” Dan called, and charged out the smashed front door, running to the sidewalk and ducking to his right.

  With all of them safely out of the burning building and on the floor of what had once been a clothing store, Ben said, “Hold your fire. Let’s see what’s happening. Beth, get on the horn.”

  “Translator, sir?”

  “What’s the point?”

  But the radio was out of it. It had taken several hits and was useless. Beth shoved it away from her. A naked mannequin fell on top of her, and she yelped and kicked it into Jersey, almost scaring Jersey half to death until she realized what she was fighting.

  Through the gloom, Ben watched the antics of the two and chuckled. “That reminds me of a joke.”

  “I think you told it to me about ten years ago,” Jerre said. “It wasn’t funny then.”

  “Did I ever tell you what the all-female flight crew renamed the cockpit?”

  Jersey sat up. “What?”

  Jerre groaned and shook her h
ead. “You just had to ask.”

  Ben told her.

  Before Jersey could come back at him, a large burst of gunfire tore through the already splintered windows, showering those inside with broken glass.

  “Behind us!” Jerre yelled, lifting her M-16 and holding the trigger back. She knocked several black robes spinning. Ben’s M-16 lay on the floor beside him. He lifted the old Thompson and let it chug and cough.

  While .223’s and .45’s cleared the rear of the store, the others directed their fire toward the street and the alley facing it.

  It was that time of day where sight can be tricky: that time between daylight and dark where there appears to be a dirty translucency preventing full vision from penetrating.

  Ben looked at Buddy and cut his eyes to the rear of the store. “Finish them.”

  Buddy pulled a long-bladed knife from a sheath and slipped through the gloom, adding the finishing touches to some of the sourness of the Big Apple.

  Jerre rolled to one side and tried her walkie-talkie. She handed the radio to Ben. “B Company, sir.”

  “How’s it looking where you are, Brad?”

  “Quiet at the moment, sir. They hit us hard there for several minutes, though.”

  “I do know the feeling. Any word from the others in this sector?”

  “Ramos reported taking some casualties. Andersen is one hundred percent. Tony is still pinned down on Overlook.”

  “Have you heard from Tina?”

  “Negative, sir. Sorry.”

  “OK. Hold what you’ve got. Eagle out.”

  “You want me to get a radio, Father?” Buddy asked, returning from the rear of the store, wiping the blood from his knife on his field trousers.

  “No. Dan, you have any idea where the rest of your people might be, or the squad from Ike’s group?”

  “No, sir. They were waiting just across the street when you opened fire on the creepies. I suspect they’re in that building right there.” He pointed.

  “Give them a bump on your radio, Jerre.”

  “Eagle One to Bodyguard.”

  “Bodyguard.”

  “What is your twenty, Bodyguard?”

  “Half block south of your position, Eagle One, second floor. The Scouts are covering the rear of the building.”

  She relayed that to Ben. He nodded. “Tell them we’re going up top. We ought to be able to reach Tina from up there.”

  “I’ll take it,” Buddy said, and headed for the stairs in the rear of the store.

  “Dan, Cooper — go. Beth and Jersey — go. Jerre, follow them. I’ll take the drag.”

  The ammunition they had left in the offices blew as the fire reached it, and that touched off more unfriendly fire from across the street, but it was all directed toward the blazing floor of the offices.

  They encountered no unfriendlies on the way to the roof.

  Up top, Ben whispered, “Buddy, see if you can find a way over to the next building — north.”

  His son grinned at him in the cold night air. “I didn’t think you wanted to return to your offices to warm up, Father.”

  “Move, boy!” But it was said with a smile.

  He was back in a moment. “Easy hop over to the next building.”

  Ben gave him a jaundiced look. “What is an easy hop to you, son, bearing in mind that we’re eight stories up and I never have bounced worth a damn?”

  “Oh, about six feet.”

  “Find some boards,” Ben told him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tina, sir,” Jerre said.

  “I’m getting tired of this ‘sir’ and ‘general’ crap, Jerre.”

  Jerre held out the radio. “Tina, sir.”

  Mumbling under his breath, Ben took the radio. “How’s it looking, Tina?”

  “We’re trapped on the roof of the old bus terminal, Dad. But we’re holding our own. It appears to have slacked up some.”

  “Same here. OK, baby — hang in. Eagle out.” He looked around for Buddy. The young man had hopped over to the other building and was securing cable wire he had found. Cooper was standing by to lay a door across the wires.

  “I suppose,” Beth said dryly, “you are expecting us to crawl across that thing?”

  “The fire is spreading to this building, Beth. Unless you have some marshmallows you’d like to toast, I suggest you make ready to vacate the rooftop.”

  “I thought it was getting warm.”

  “You thought right. Now move, before the creepies see us up here.”

  Cooper went across, followed by Beth, Jerre, and Jersey. Jersey was muttering prayers under her breath. Dan waved Ben forward. “After you, General.”

  “You’re so considerate.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jus as Dan stepped onto the door, the alley filled with night crawlers.

  Ben leaned over and held the trigger back on his Thompson, fighting to keep the powerful weapon from rising as he filled the alley with .45-caliber death. The heavy slugs bounced and whined and howled around the closely spaced buildings, the ricochets doubly dangerous because they had flattened out and were jagged, ripping and tearing great holes in the dirty flesh of the night crawlers.

  Dan scampered across, and Buddy pulled the door over just as the roof of the burning office building collapsed and fire leaped out into the night, sending flames and sparks surging upward, licking at the dark and misty sky.

  “One more rooftop, gang” Ben said. “Let’s get clear of those flames.”

  The cracking and popping of dry wood igniting and the spit and hiss of flames filled the night as the small group of Rebels cleared another rooftop and suddenly came face-to-face with a band of uglies, charging upward out of the top floor of the building.

  Ben smashed the stock of the Thompson into the snarling face of a creepy. Buddy grabbed the bloody-faced spook by his dark robe and spun him, hurling him over the side. His screaming was cut off abruptly as he splattered on the street below.

  Dan stuck the muzzle of his M-16 into the belly of an ugly and gave him a lasting case of indigestion. Cooper dropped to one knee and leveled his M-16, holding the trigger back, the slugs clearing his immediate perimeter.

  Jerre and Beth and Jersey were directing their fire toward the open door leading to the rooftop. Black-robed bodies were rapidly piling up, blocking the entranceway.

  Ben lobbed a grenade over the growing pile of bodies; all could hear it bounce down the stairs, the sound coupled with the yelling of those uglies still remaining on the stairs.

  The mini-Claymore blew, crimson slashing the walls of the entrance.

  Ben and Buddy, Dan and Cooper began tossing the bodies of the night crawlers off the roof, to the street below. They did not check to see if any were still alive. They were not the Red Cross.

  The Night People began slipping back into their holes and tunnels, slithering deep under the city, to gather in stinking groups. Many had doubt in their eyes, although they did not vocalize that uncertainty. They did not have to. They had never before encountered such a ruthless adversary; they had relied on the time-proven fact that those who lived above-ground were by nature a compassionate, caring people, given to indecision and always showing tolerance and leniency toward the enemy.

  Then along came Ben Raines and his Rebels and blew that theory right out of the water.

  Nobody had explained to them that the philosophy of the Rebels was very simple, very basic: The Rebels went in to win. They had zero tolerance for lawlessness. They were clearing a land to once more make it a law-abiding, productive society, and they would roll right over anyone or anything that stood in their way.

  Upper Manhattan fell silent, void of gunfire; the hostility had scurried like rats to their hovels below the city.

  Ben looked over the lip of the roof. “It’s over for this night. Let’s go get some coffee.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The previous night’s reports came in, and they looked good to Ben. The Rebels had five dead, a dozen wounded
, with only two of the wounded serious.

  The holding action of the Rebels was confusing to the Night People. It seemed to the creepies that the Rebels were not trying to gain more ground, just hold on to what they had, and the uglies were taking terrible casualties fighting in this manner. They did not know how to bring defeat to Ben Raines and his Rebels.

  The stench of the underground world had finally forced Ashley and Monte and their people to the surface. After their pounding in New Jersey, the outlaws had crossed over into Manhattan using a railroad tunnel. They were now bivouacked around the Central Park area.

  “If I could find Raines,” Monte said, “I’d make a deal with him.”

  Ashley looked at the warlord, disgust in his eyes. “I told you, Monte: you don’t make deals with Ben Raines. If he ever gets his hands on any of us, he’ll either shoot us or hang us.”

  “Well, that’s stupid!”

  “You don’t know how he ran the old Tri-States. Ben Raines’s philosophy reads like this: if you don’t have criminals, you won’t have any crime; so he gives you one chance. If you blow that, hang it up, or he’s going to hang you up. I went into the Tri-States as a tourist. One time. I can truthfully say it was the damndest experience I ever had. Everybody respected everybody else’s rights, or the offending party got the hell out. Scared me half to death. The outside press couldn’t deal with it either. Two or three of them got the crap kicked out of them until they learned that in the Tri-States, if you print something about somebody, you damn well better be able to prove that it’s the truth, or somebody’s going to come looking for you with a gun.

  “Nobody locked their doors or took the keys out of the cars or trucks. One reporter got it in his head to climb over a fenced-in area; the gates were locked. Man stepped out of his house, walked up to the reporter, and hit him right in the mouth with the butt of a rifle. Knocked that reporter’s teeth out.”