Death in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “If you’re thinking of going for a hideout gun or a knife, partner, I’d think again.”

  The man opened his eyes. Hate shone like burning coals at Ben. “Raines ! We pulled the wrong cards this time, didn’t we?”

  “I would certainly say so.” Ben glanced at the man’s bullet-shattered belly. “If you have anything to say, you’d better say it quick.”

  “You a hard bastard, ain’t you, Raines?”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Fortunately, no.”

  “I was with Hartline back when you was named President. Right before them rats come with the disease.”

  “Hartline is dead.”

  “Yeah, I heard you kilt him. I’m a-gettin’ cold.”

  “You want me to set you on fire?”

  The man cursed Ben. “I never met a human being as hard as you, Raines,” he gasped. “I seen you with that stupid-lookin’ dog over yonder. You act like you cared what happened to him, but it don’t bother you none to squat there and watch me die.” He moaned in pain, hands clutching at his bloody belly.

  “The dog can’t help being what he is, mister. That’s the difference.”

  “What’s the difference.”

  “You had a choice.”

  The man died cursing Ben.

  Ben stood up and walked around, finding no more wounded. He paused and watched as Tina and Dan returned. They walked over to him. “Who are they, General?” Dan asked.

  “Trash. Probably trash before the Great War.”

  “We got the fleas off Chester,” Cooper’s voice drifted to them. “Now who’s gonna get the fleas off me?”

  Ben scratched his arm.

  “You have a rash, General?” Dan asked, his eyes following the scratching.

  “I have fleas.”

  Dan immediately started scratching.

  “Let’s roll on,” Ben said. “We’ll stop at the next town we come to and decide what we’re going to do about Dallas.”

  “What about the bodies?” Corrie asked.

  “Leave them for the carrion birds and the coyotes and the other animals. They have to eat too.”

  Hard words from a hard man. But nations aren’t rebuilt by any other type of person.

  “My people have worked in close enough to the city to see lots of torchlights,” Dan told Ben.

  “Estimates, Dan?”

  “Hundred, at least. Perhaps as many as several thousand. My Scouts have only approached from the east side.”

  “Tell them to back off, Dan. No point in risking their lives needlessly. We need to know if those in the city are holding hostages . . . and they probably are. We’re just going to have to play it by ear in the morning.”

  Ben stood on an overpass and looked at the sprawling city. For a time, he had believed the Twin Cities to be destroyed; that was the rumor. And like so many rumors, it had been disproven.

  Ben shifted his M14 into a more comfortable position. He had stopped carrying his Thompson because a great many people—including some in his own command—were beginning to think the old Chicago Piano had some magical power, and that Ben was some sort of God.

  Ben had done his best to dispell those rumors.

  Meg Callahan walked up with Jersey and Cooper to stand by Ben’s side in the middle of the westbound lanes.

  “I certainly remember the TV program,” she said.

  “Old J.R.,” Ben said with a smile. “He wouldn’t like Dallas much now.”

  “Are we going in?” Meg asked.

  Ben nodded. “We’ll approach the city—or what is left of it,” he added, looking at the smoke that hung low over Dallas. The city appeared ravaged, and probably a lot of it had been. With no way, or will, to fight fires, he was certain a lot of buildings had been destroyed, mainly because of neglect and carelessness.

  “Dan?” Ben called, and the Englishman walked over to him. “Take your Scouts to here.” He pointed to the map. “I’m sending a tank in with you. Check the area out carefully but don’t advance unless you receive orders from me.”

  “Right, sir.” Dan walked off, yelling for his Scouts. They began pulling out almost immediately, the main battle tank leading the way, its 105mm lowered and ready for a fight. In addition to the 105, the tank had one .50 caliber machine gun and had been modified for two 7.62 machine guns. The big V-12 engine could move it along at 40 mph.

  The tank clanked to a halt a block east of Buckner Blvd. Dan and his people, in APCs, waited behind it. Rifle fire came from a building north of the tank, the bullets whining off the heavily armored tank. The commander shifted the 105 and the early morning was shattered as a HEP—high-explosive plastic round—knocked a huge smoking hole in the building.

  Men could be seen running from the smoking structure. The .50 caliber started yammering. The men were hurled spinning and sprawling as the heavy slugs impacted with flesh.

  The area became very quiet except for the moaning of the wounded men to the north of the tank and Dan’s Scouts.

  The tank commander swung the big 105 and gave the closest building to the south a round of HEP. The impacting round knocked a man screaming from the top floor. He hit the ground and lay still, his rifle beside him. The TC put a round of Willie Peter into the building.

  Lifting 7x50 binoculars, Ben could see men running out the back of the smoking structure. Ben turned to Corrie. “Tell Dan to check it out.”

  The orders were relayed.

  It did not take Dan long to determine that the immediate area around his position had been deserted.

  “Another tank up,” Ben ordered. “Tell Dan to split his people when the support tank arrives. Clear north and south for two blocks.”

  Another main battle tank rumbled past Ben and moved into position. Scouts scrambled from APCs to walk along the safe side of the tank as the tanks moved north and south.

  Ben looked at Meg. “Meg, find Dr. Ling and ask him if he has any rabies innoculations with him.”

  “Sir?” she appeared startled.

  “For Chester,” Ben explained with a smile.

  “Right.” She walked away, thinking that the man’s mind sure worked in curious angles.

  “You want to interrogate any of the wounded, General?” Corrie asked. “Colonel Gray is on the horn.”

  “Yes. Bring them to me.”

  Ben hand-rolled a cigarette while he waited. He looked up as Meg approached.

  “Dr. Ling says he wasn’t aware that he was running a school of veterinary medicine, General Raines. But he would certainly radio back to base and have some vaccine dropped by air.”

  “We’re going to be here all day, Meg. Tell Ling to have that done. It’s just a short hop from base to here. Let’s get Chester all fixed up. No need to take any chances.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Several of the less severely wounded men were brought to Ben. They smelled as though they had forgotten that water was used for things other than drinking. They appeared defiant, but fear was clear in their eyes.

  “You know who I am?” Ben asked.

  They knew.

  “We can do this easy or hard,” Ben told them. “It’s up to you. You can answer my questions now, or I can turn you over to an interrogation team. They’ll pump you full of drugs and learn the truth that way. You have about a sixty-forty chance of surviving it. It’s up to you.”

  “And if we tell you what you want to know right now?” a burly lout asked. “What then?”

  “You walk free. But not back to the city; at least not so I can see you do it.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How many men in the city?”

  “I ain’t got no way of tellin’ that, General Raines. The city’s all cut up into zones. They’s probably fifty or sixty different warlords controllin’ different parts of Dallas and Fort Worth. You go a half a dozen blocks in any direction, they’s someone else in charge.”

  “And it’s always changin’,” anot
her added. “MacNally’s got this area today. Lopez and his bunch might have it next week. Next month, Pete Jones might control it.”

  “What’s left in the city?”

  The man shrugged. “To be honest, nothin’. It’s been looted so many times . . . it’s just a shell.”

  Ben could believe that. He’d seen it many times before, in other cities and towns. “How many prisoners—slaves, if you will—are being held inside the city?”

  “Bunches,” the first man said. “There agin, I ain’t got no way of knowin’.”

  “How many are you holding and where are they?”

  “I ain’t holdin’ none personal. But MacNally’s got about . . . thirty, I reckon. He lives over yonder about four blocks from Buckner.” He pointed the way. “It’s a warehouse.”

  “Heavily guarded?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Plenty of men around it all the time.”

  “This Lopez and Jones . . . what can you tell me about them?”

  “They bad. But I don’t now where they’re livin’. Everything changes all the time. One gang will move out to go on a raid, another gang will move into their territory and then they’ll be a big fight when the first gang comes back. That’s the way it’s been for years.”

  The other prisoners agreed.

  Ben told the Rebels who’d brought the men to him to take them to Ling’s aid station. He looked at the men. “If I ever see any of you again, and you’re armed, I’ll kill you where you stand. Get out of here.”

  They got out quickly, prodded by the muzzle of an M16. Dan returned, to tell him it was clear for Ben to enter.

  “We going to clear the city, General?”

  Ben was thoughtful for a moment, then turned to face the hazy city. “We’ll spend a few days here,” he finally said with a sigh, putting his back to the haze of the Twin Cities. “But God knows I don’t want to.” He lifted a map. “We’re close enough to Base Camp One to be reinforced within a few hours’ time—by air. Dan, have Captain Tony’s company swing wide around the city. I wouldn’t even suggest using 635. I’d backtrack, to avoid unnecessary confrontations, up through Garland, Richardson, Carrollton, and Coppell, then drop down into the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Start clearing it. Tell him to take two tanks with him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How have these crud managed to keep the creepies out? I should have asked those scumbags.”

  “There hasn’t been a sign or smell of them, General. Not as far in as we pushed.”

  “Well, the creepies do seem to like airports. Advise Tony to be very careful. Tell him to push off as soon as possible. And have your people past Buckner hold what they’ve got.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “Corrie, advise Base Camp One that I am preparing to clean out Dallas-Fort Worth—or at least sections of it—and to be ready to airlift supplies to me starting yesterday.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a smile.

  He turned to Meg. “You ready for a little taste of combat, Meg? The Rebel way?”

  “I’m with you, General Raines.”

  She had been armed with the weapon of her preference, and that happened to be an AR15; said she’d owned a Colt AR15 for years, had used it against outlaws and trash several times, and certainly knew the nomenclature of the weapon.

  The Rebel philosophy was: whatever you’re comfortable with. It kept the armorers and the reloading factory busy, and the Rebels happy.

  “All right, Meg. You’ll stay with the support people for the time being. Don’t worry. Before this is over, you’ll get to see more combat than you ever dreamt of seeing. And that’s just in this area.”

  Ben waved his people to the Blazer. “Let’s go, Cooper. ”

  “To Buckner, General?”

  “Right up to the lines, Coop. I want to personally see what these yahoos are made of.”

  “Here we go again,” Jersey said.

  “General, you reckon these people are in cahoots with the creepies?” Cooper asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Coop. And that puzzles me. One thought I have is that the outlaws were strong enough to drive them back, or out. The next batch of prisoners we take, we might get some answers.”

  A tank pulled across the intersection, preventing the Blazer from going any farther. “Nothing clear from this point on, General,” the voice came out of the speaker.

  Ben opened the door and got out. “Let’s go, gang. Looks like we hoof it for a time.”

  4

  The tank commander was frantically radioing Dan Gray, telling him of Ben’s going into bogie country with only a small team.

  Ben had crossed over into no-man’s land and approached a warehouse, waving his people down and spread apart. He had caught motion from behind a very dirty window. The window suddenly shattered and a gun barrel was shoved out, spitting lead in the Rebels’ general direction.

  Ben lobbed a grenade toward the window, and luck was with him: it sailed through the broken glass. A few seconds later, it blew, and all was silent.

  “Good toss,” Beth said.

  “Pure luck,” Ben replied as the sounds of running boots from behind them reached Ben’s ears.

  “Goddamnit, General!” Dan was shouting and swearing as he ran toward the warehouse.

  With a laugh, Ben ran the short distance to the warehouse, hit the door with his shoulder, and rolled in. Lead started zinging and whining all around him as he rolled toward the dubious protection of packing crates; he hoped they were full of something that might stop a slug.

  Ben tossed another Fire-Frag toward the direction of the unfriendly fire and hit the door as it blew.

  Screaming filled the close air of the warehouse. “We yield, we yield!” a man yelled, just as windows were knocked out with Rebel gun butts and muzzles of weapons set on full auto were poked through the holes.

  Ben stood up and looked at a red-faced and very angry Dan Gray. Ben beat him to conversation before the Englishman could rebuke him for taking unnecessary risks ... which Ben knew Dan was just about to do.

  “Get the prisoners outside, Dan. And secure this area. I want to talk to these so-called outlaws and warlords.” Ben reached up and plucked a grenade off Dan’s battle harness. “I only brought two with me,” he said with a smile. “I used them.”

  The newest batch of prisoners were just as scummy-looking as the last bunch Ben had spoken with. Sullen and shifty-eyed as they stood before Ben in the lobby of an office building just cleared moments before.

  “One of you MacNally?” Ben asked.

  “Haw!” a man snorted. “You come up agin MacNally and he’ll skin you alive and hang your hide up to dry.”

  Ben’s smile was not pleasant. “Lots of people have tried that over the years, trash. I’m still here and they’re rotting in the grave. If I took the time to bury them,” he added.

  “You say!” the man sneered.

  “Yeah, he says,” another outlaw spoke up. “And he done it, too. Don’t get too damn lippy, Hal.”

  “I’ll get as lippy as I want to with this tin soldier boy,” Hal replied. “He ain’t nothin’ to me.”

  “Dan!” Ben called. “Take Hal outside and shoot him.”

  Dan stepped forward and Hal paled under the dirt on his face. “Now, wait a minute! Lookie here . . .”

  “Shut up!” Ben yelled. “I’m losing patience with the lot of you. Just answer my questions and I’ll cut you loose. Get smart-assed with me just one more time and I’ll have the lot of you shot! Is that understood?”

  It was amply understood. One outlaw almost broke his neck shaking his head in the affirmative, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with fear-swallows.

  “Fine. I am so pleased that we now understand each other. Where is this MacNally person?”

  Hal was very eager to talk and please the General. “He’s done gone into hidin’, I reckon, Ben Raines. He tooken his army and is hidin’ out.”

  “You’ll show me where his home was after we ta
lk.” It was not a question.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Be right proud to do that, Ben Raines.”

  “Dallas seems to be free of what we call Night People. Why is that?”

  “They tried to come in here, General,” another man spoke. “They tried bunches of times. The warlords finally struck a deal with them. We give them women and kids after we’s done havin’ our way with them. That way everybody is happy.”

  “Good God in Heaven!” Dan exclaimed.

  The man shrugged. “I figure we’re all gonna be shot anyways. Might as well level with you people.”

  “You don’t seem afraid of dying,” Ben remarked.

  “I got the cancer.”

  “All right.” Ben stood up. “Let’s go see where this MacNally lived.”

  Squalor was the single word that sprang into Ben’s mind as he stood in the building where the warlord, MacNally, lived. The place was a filthy, rat-infested, cavelike dwelling. A dozen men, women, and children were chained like wild animals to a wall. They were naked and cowering at Ben’s approach.

  “I reckon MacNally was done with them folks,” Hal told Ben in a matter-of-fact tone. “Probably going to give them to the Night People next time they showed up.”

  “And when was that going to be?” Ben asked, watching as his Rebels, using bolt cutters, freed the frightened people from their chains. They were led outside, to be transported to Rebel aid stations.

  “Sometime this week was all I know,” Hal said.

  “Where does the exchange take place?”

  “South of the city. On the old county line ’tween Dallas and Ellis County. I can show you, Ben Raines.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take you up on that offer.” Ben looked at the outlaws. “You men will be our . . . guests for a time. You will not be mistreated, but you will be confined.” He motioned for the men to be taken away. When they had gone, he turned to Dan.

  “Order all advancing parties to hunt a hiding spot and keep their heads down. Pull all vehicles and tanks into cover. I want the creepies—if they have scouts out—to find the city they are accustomed to seeing. We make no contact with the warlords, and fire only if fired upon. Let’s see if we can pull this thing off.”