Blood in the Ashes (3 page)

“Not a soul, Charles. But if it involves the general, I think we all have a right to know.”

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “I guess that's right. OK. I'll just do this, and if you pick up on it, fine with me.” He tapped the side of his head, temple area, and made a circling gesture. He walked away.

After several moments of arguing among themselves, the Rebels came to this conclusion: Ben needs a long rest. He deserves it.

All agreed with that. More Rebels joined the group. They agreed that Ben was probably more tired than anything else, that he was mentally exhausted. But how to get him to take that much-deserved rest?

“Let's ask Captain Willette. He's pretty sharp. He'll know what to do.”

 

 

Ben stopped the small convoy in Monroe, Georgia. After some searching, a windshield was located, popped out, and the bullet-shattered glass in Ben's pickup was replaced.

“No safety inspection,” Ben joked. “I'm likely to get a ticket.”

“Beg pardon, sir?” a young Rebel looked at him, not understanding what Ben said.

“Never mind, son,” Ben said. “All that was before your time.”

A lot of things were before your time, Ben thought. He looked at the young Rebel and shook his head. They will never be the same. From now on, it's pure survival.

“Let's head for Monticello and the Oconee National Forest,” Ben said, after looking at an old map of Georgia. “We'll hole up there for a few days. Keep our heads down and out of sight. Cec is supposed to contact me tomorrow, at noon.”

James Riverson, the huge ex-truck driver from Missouri, spoke his mind. “I don't know about this move, General. Personally, I'd like to go back to the convoy and kick the ass off Willette and his bunch. This move could backfire on us.”

“He's right, General,” Buck Osgood expressed his opinion.

Some Rebels agreed with Buck, others weren't sure. While Ben demanded rigid discipline from his people, anyone could express an opinion. When Ben was in the active U.S. military, he had detested chickenshit units. In his outfit, officers pulled their weight just like everyone else.

Surprising James and Buck, Ben agreed with them. “I know that, boys. But I've got to know how many of our people are with Willette and his crew. Let's face it: None of the three, Carter, Bennett or Willette, or anyone aligned with them, has said anything treasonous about me. If I confronted them now, what would I confront them with? This is the best way, I'm thinking. There is an old adage about giving a person enough rope to hang himself. That's what I'm doing.”

All the Rebels knew that when Ben made up his mind, that was it. End of discussion.

They would lay low for a couple of weeks, see what developed.

 

 

Monticello contained a half dozen survivors. They had survived, but though they were survivors—in one sense of the word—they were pitiful in Ben's eyes. No one appeared to be in charge. No organization. No one had planted a garden or done anything else constructive. The people just seemed to be existing. Their children were dirty and ragged. There was no type of school. The adults had worked out no plan of defense against the many gangs of thugs and outlaws and paramilitary groups that now roamed throughout the land.

Ben dismissed the families in Monticello from his mind. They might have survived thus far, but not for much longer. They would be easy prey. God alone knew what would happen to the children when that occurred—and Ben knew it would happen. For the scum—who for some reason seem to survive any holocaust—were surfacing, to rape and ravage and kill.

“Wind it up,” Ben ordered. “We're moving on. Losers don't impress me.”

The convoy moved a few miles down the road, to what was left of a small village. The Rebels had what was left of the hamlet to themselves. Only a few scattered bones lay in white, silent testimony to that which once was.

The Rebels began setting up camp, first cleaning out a few stores and homes. Ben waited by the communications truck for Cecil's call.

When the radio crackled, Ben answered the first signal.

“How's it going, Cec?”

“We're in place and setting up,” Ben's second in command replied, his voice popping from the speaker. “Now the rumor is you are suffering from a mental disorder; you need a long rest. Even gods get tired. So on and so forth.”

“So the power play is firming up?”

“It's beginning to have some consistency, yes. But nothing of any real substance. Willette is very smooth and very intelligent, Ben. He's shifted many of his people around. Has them in every unit except HQ's Company and Dan's LRRPs and Scouts. Dan and I have seen to that exclusion. Speaking of Dan, he's plenty miffed at you. I settled him down by telling him why you did what you did, and that you tried to find him to tell him yourself.”

“That's fine, Cec. How are our people being received by the mountain people?”

“Very well. Captain Rayle says the incidents of terrorism and brutality by the gangs of thugs and slime along the borders—all borders surrounding us—have picked up dramatically during the past month. The country is really going to hell in a bucket, Ben. I don't have to tell you to be careful out there in the boonies.”

“I heard that, Cec. When do you want the next voice contact?”

“Day after tomorrow. Noon. We'll use the same frequency. Ben? You people keep your heads down out there.”

“Ten-four and out.”

Ben turned to Gale. “You heard him. So don't take it in your head to go out picking wildflowers. It's dangerous out there.” He looked at the group of men and women gathered around the communications truck. “That goes for all of you. Travel in pairs and go armed at all times.”

“You trying to give me orders, Raines?” Gale stuck out her chin.

“Let me put it another way; maybe I can get through to you that way. How would you like to get gang-shagged by a dozen men?”

“You just have to be the most tactful, literate person I have ever met, Raines.”

“Thank you. I'm cute, too,” Ben said with a grin.

Gale choked back a reply.

He had been christened Anthony Silvaro in New York City. That was in 1970. When he was fourteen years old, he left his parents' very comfortable apartment and became a street punk. Sociologists and psychologists had nothing tangible to blame for Tony's behavior. In this case they could not fall back on their universal catch-all and blame Tony's behavior on society. Tony's parents were both college educated, both professional, successful people who made a good living, loved their kids, and would not dream of anything even remotely close to child abuse. Their combined incomes placed them in the upper, upper middle class. Tony's two brothers and one sister were nice, normal, well-behaved young people. They made good grades in school, usually obeyed their parents, and all had plans to attend college. Tony—as he had been a good-looking boy—turned into a strikingly handsome man. He had never suffered the “embarrassment” of pimples, had no physical infirmities, had never been “picked on” by his teachers or by anyone else, and was very athletic.

Any streetwise cop knew Tony's problem.

Perhaps there is some chemical imbalance in the brain?
the shrinks said, clutching at what few straws remained them.

The streetwise cop's reply was predictable. “Horseshit.”

“You have to be joking.”

The shrinks swelled up like a puff adder. They knew what was coming.

“He's a punk. Period. He was born a punk. He will be a punk all his life. He will die a punk. He's just no good.”

Tony was eighteen when the balloon went up in '88. He had been busy running his string of teenage whores and mugging old ladies and terrorizing old men over in Brooklyn when the rumors of war began. Tony didn't know from jackshit about survival outside the concrete canyons of the Big Apple, but he figured he'd damn well better learn. He also figured he'd better head for the wilderness.

He went to Paterson, New Jersey. I mean, Christ! How far out in the boonies do you have to go to be safe from The Bomb?
Paterson,
for Christ's sake.

It wasn't far enough, and Tony got out with only minutes to spare, driving a stolen car. He left the owner of the car dead in a puddle of blood. Just an old fart. Who gives a shit about old people, anyways? He got lost down in southern New Jersey, in the fucking swamps. He managed to cross over into Wilmington, Delaware, just before the bridge became hopelessly jammed up with stalled cars and trucks.

He got on the JFK Memorial Highway and almost blew it with that move, only at the last possible exit veering off to the north before touching Baltimore. He was in southern Pennsylvania when the lid blew off the pot.

Tony sought refuge in a barn, coming face to face with a black angus bull. The first bull he'd ever seen up close. Tony had visions of a rib-eye, rare. He shot the bull four times in the head with his .38.

After making a large mess with a butcher knife, Tony gave up his dreams of a rare steak. He couldn't figure out how to get the hide off the ugly goddamn stinking brute. He found some chickens, only to have them peck his hands when he tried to grab some eggs.

“Motherfuckers!” Tony yelled in frustration. He blasted the hens with his .38. Maybe he'd have to settle for fried chicken. But how in the hell do you get the feathers off them?

Tony pilfered the farmhouse, looking for guns and food. He found both. Plus a very frightened twelve-year-old girl. Tony raped her several times. He'd always preferred young pussy. Liked to hear them squall when he stuck it in. But this one wouldn't quit hollering. Tony cut her throat. Stupid cunt. If she had cooperated, Tony reasoned and rationalized the issue in his punk mind, she could have made both of them some money. Guys like to make it with young chicks. A hundred bucks is nothing to a guy with a hard-on for young gash. Stupid cunt.

Tony couldn't believe the next few months. The whole fucking world went nuts. People running around like scared rabbits. And the broads. Christ! They'd do
anything
for protection from the gangs that began cropping up all over the place.

Tony had never had so much pussy in his life. Black pussy, brown pussy, yellow pussy, white pussy. It was all the same when the lights went out and a guy got it hung in there good.

Soon Tony had teamed up with a dozen other thugs, all about his age. In six months time, they had more than a hundred women of all ages. And a dozen boys for those who leaned in that direction.

President Hilton Logan almost screwed all that up for Tony, with Logan's police state and secret agents snooping around and relocating the citizens all over the goddamn place. But crime will out if it's worked right, and Tony was far from being stupid. He knew how to keep his head down and to roll with the flow. And who to pay off. And he knew to keep far away from Ben Raines' Tri-States out west. Ben Raines was fucking
nuts
on the subject of law and order. Screw up in Ben Raines' Tri-States and a guy's chances of getting much older dropped to damn near zero.

Tony kept his people far, far away from Tri-States. And he hoped Ben Raines' conception of crime and punishment wouldn't catch on nationwide. There wasn't just a little crime in the Tri-States. There wasn't
any
crime. Period.

By the time Tony Silver hit his twenty-fifth birthday, he was on his way to being an empire-builder. An empire built on pain and the suffering of others, to be sure, but still an empire. And Tony had learned his hard lessons about the true wilderness. He wasn't in Ben Raines' league yet, but he was learning. His gang was more than five hundred strong. He ran all kinds of scams, from whores to gambling to extortion to dope.

When Tony was thirty, the bottom dropped out. First came the mutants—ugly bastards—then the bugs and the rats and all that other gross shit. Tony had figured that if he could live through Ben Raines as president, with his high-handed tactics and methods of law and order, Tony could live through anything!

That bastard Raines was a law and order freak. Hadn't the dude ever heard of loopholes and technicalities and all that other good liberal shit?

Guess not.

Christ, Raines was putting people against the wall and shooting them just for rape. How unconstitutional. Hell, Tony knew all cunts liked it once a guy got it in. Everybody knew that.

Tony and his gang of thugs and slime and punks lived through Ben's short term as president of the United States by being very careful and keeping an extremely low profile.

But the fleas and the rats and the disease almost finished Tony's career in crime.

But not quite.

Tony Silver bounced back, bigger and stronger than before. He now ramrodded a gang of more than a thousand men. Over a thousand of the most undesirable and socially unredeemable assholes ever assembled.

And Tony controlled all of north Florida and south Georgia.

 

 

“When are we going to return to the group, Ben?” Gale asked.

Truth was, Ben really didn't want to go back. By nature, Ben was a loner, and the pull of the highway was getting strong. What he really wanted to do was put Gale in the pickup and pull out, just the two of them. He wanted to be free of duties and responsibilities and overseeing rules and laws and regulations and moral conduct.

Ben sighed. He knew he could not turn his back on a group of men and women who depended on him. Even though he wanted to do just that. Wanted that so badly it was almost a tangible sensation at times. But maybe when his people were settled in and this power play concluded . . . maybe then.

“We head back when Cec gets word to me that the coup attempt is something firm. Gives me something I can sink my teeth into. That's all I can tell you at this time, babe.”

“And when Cecil does that?”

“We go back and I take out Mr. Bennett, Mr. Willette and Mr. Carter.”

“Take out?”

“Dispose of them.”

“You're a hard man, Mr. Raines.”

“Hard times, Ms. Roth,” he said with a smile.

Ben knew his plans could backfire, knew he was taking a chance going at it by this route. But he had known for some time many of the younger Rebels in his command were unhappy at the way Ben was running things. Ben was, for the most part, a steady type of man, a man who tried to think matters through, very carefully, before implementing them. Many of the younger Rebels were not too happy about Ben's demands that they all receive some formal education. They reasoned that there were no more rocket ships to be built, no more searching for the stars. If they were going to start rebuilding from scratch, it was more important to know how to build a house than to understand higher math.

Ben had told them he understood their feelings. He. also added, “But you will have to know how to read a blueprint in order to build more permanent structures.”

He got through to a lot of them. Some of them he did not reach.

But Willette had.

Most Rebels, of all ages, were really afraid of Ben. Afraid not to obey him. Rumor was the man was close to being a god. It not only confused them, it angered them, because if the man was a god, and everybody knew he was, kind of, then goddamn it, why didn't Ben Raines
behave
like a god? Why didn't he get himself a big ol' house, with people to wait on him, and just sit there with that old Thompson submachine gun by his side, and let those with troubles come to him so he could solve them?

And that old Thompson was something to be feared, too. Only a few would even touch the thing. That Thompson was synonymous with Ben Raines. A part of the man.

And then General Raines really pissed many of the Rebels off by saying when they received some education, they would then see he was no god, just a mortal being, just like the rest of them.

Well, that was a crock of crap and they all knew it. The young man from the east, Ro, said Ben was a god. The young man from the west, Wade, said Ben was a god. Travelers who came in to seek refuge said monuments and tributes and places of worship were built all over the nation—all erected toward Ben Raines.

That had to prove something. And nothing Ben could say would make them believe otherwise. The man was a god. Sort of. But . . . maybe a
human
god. That way Ben could have human emotions and stuff like that. But he couldn't die. Everybody knew that. That was accepted as fact.

No, Captain Willette and Lieutenant Carter and Sergeant Bennett were right. Ben needed to be in some . . . special place. By himself. A place where he could just sit and hand down judgments and make decisions. But it would have to be a place befitting Ben Raines' stature.

And none of the Rebels involved with Willette were too thrilled about Gale, either. She wasn't right for Ben Raines. She just wasn't the right woman. Goddesses were tall and blonde and . . . what was the word?
Magnificent.
Yes. Grand in appearance.

It wasn't the fact that Gale was . . . well, not one of them. That wasn't it at all. Didn't have anything to do with it. That's what Willette told them. Very convincingly, too.

And nobody thought to mention that of all Captain Willette's followers, there were no blacks, no Jews, no Hispanics, no Orientals.

That came as no surprise to Cecil.

“This camp is being divided, Ike,” Cecil told the ex-SEAL. “Invisible battle lines are being drawn. And I don't like it.”

“If we could just get settled in one spot,” Ike said. “If we could just have a couple of years to work it out, set up schools and get people working. I'm gonna tell you something, friend: Ben isn't going to put up with much more of this,” Ike prophesied. “And I wouldn't blame him if he just walked out and said to hell with it all. I've been reading the signs, and they're strong. If Ben can work this out here, I got a feeling he's gonna split for a year or two. After Gale has the baby.”

“I hope you're wrong,” Cecil said, a frown on his face. “Ben is the glue that is holding us together.”

“I'm not wrong.” Ike was firm in that. “Like Doc Chase said, Ben's tired. And if we don't bring this . . . present matter to a head pretty damn quick, Ben is gonna walk. Belive it.”

“I know,” the black man said glumly. “I see the signs, too. Ben never wanted the responsibility. We pushed it on him. Goddamn it!”

“That goes twice for me, buddy.”

 

 

Ben and his small contingent of Rebels sat it out in the small town. Cecil contacted Ben every other day, but there was really no news to report that would prompt Ben to return, to personally take a hand in stopping the rumor mill. More and more, Ben entertained the notion of just taking off, of gathering up those he knew he could trust and just getting the hell out. He was fed up. Tired of paperwork and being chained to a desk, overseeing the several thousand lives in his command.

Gale picked up on his mood. “You really want to cut out, don't you, Ben?”

“Yes, I do, Gale. And I can't say it's a selfish move on my part. The Rebels have to be made to see they can survive without me. Will you come with me, Gale?”

She sighed. She loved him, but she was a realist. She had accepted the fact that no woman was going to hold Ben Raines for any length of time. Ben was a gypsy at heart. He was loving and gentle and kind to whatever woman shared his bed; but that woman had best be prepared for Ben's leaving, for that was inevitable. Take the good times while they were being offered, and accept the fact they would not be permanent.

“I don't know, Ben,” she said. “I'm not a wanderer like you. We'll see.”

Ben told her of his original plans, back in '88. Of just wanting to travel the country, writing of his experiences along the way, putting down on paper what had happened to the nation. And of how he had gotten sidetracked. He told her of Tri-States, of Salina, Jerre, the other women.