Ashes - Fury In The Ashes Part 30

It's been raining, as if you didn't know. These county roads are impa.s.sable. We'd have to stick to hard surfaces. And they're blocked. This means the city of Los Angeles has fallen, and probably San Diego as well comor it will soon be obliterated from the face of the earth."

"Will you G.o.dd.a.m.nit speak Englis.h.!.+" Junkyard yelled at him. "What the h.e.l.l does all that mean?"

Brute looked at him. "It means, you ignorant oaf, that we are dead!"

"They ain't attackin, queer-boy!" Junkyard shouted at him. "So how come you figure we dead?"

Brute had seen the dots in the sky long before anyone could hear the drone of engines. Ben had ordered up anything that could fly. Brute drew himself up to attention and snapped a salute to the south. "I salute you, Ben Raines, we who are about to die!

You won, you ... son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

"Planes!" a punk shouted.

The old fighters came in first, machine guns yammering as they strafed the valley. The bombers dropped their payloads of napalm, the fiery liquid spreading for hundreds of yards when the bombs blew. Ike had found several old Forest Service planes, tankers that were once used for water drops. He had ordered the tanks filled with kerosene. The misery spread as the kerosene ignited. The flames seared the valley and cooked the punks as plane after plane roared in and dropped their loads of napalm.

The old fighter planes were circling as the bombers did their work, then they returned, making pa.s.s after pa.s.s, machine guns howling and spitting.

The vehicles of the punks exploded as the flames reached them. The ammunition belted around the waists and shoulders of the punks began popping as the fire touched them.Cash of the Surfers stood on a boulder and screamed curses at the fighters, firing a pistol at the planes. The .50-caliber guns of a fighter st.i.tched him, knocking him off the huge rock and separating his head from his shoulders.

Ishmal of the Boogies ran screaming from the inferno, his eyes wide with fear. A napalm bomb exploded directly in from of him and the flames dissolved the gang leader.

Chico of the Swords had been thrown to the ground by an explosion, and had just staggered to his feet when a fighter plane came roaring in on a low pa.s.s. The .50-caliber machine guns tore him apart.

Junkyard made it out of the inferno and got to his car coman old Cadillac painted pink comand was trying to get the aged engine to turn over. Rich appeared at the window, a pistol in each hand.

"I never did like you, so I'd rather do this myself," Rich said. He shot Junkyard in the head just as a fighter roared in, machine guns howling. The slugs sent Rich on a wild dance into death.

Bobby lay on the ground, both legs gone, and watched as his blood poured out. He died calling for his mother.

The long narrow valley had been turned into a blazing, screaming crematorium. Charred bodies lay in every grotesque shape imaginable. Punks staggered through the carnage, blind from the intense heat, and called out for help. They begged for mercy just as their many victims over the years had begged for mercy. And just like their victims, the punks received only pain and the dark laughter of the grim reaper.

Bull and part of his gang made it clear, as did Sally, Fang, and Brute and a few of their followers.

"Dear G.o.d in Heaven!" Sally panted, as she lay on the ground a mile from the smoking valley.

"I'll change my ways if You'll just give a chance. Please, G.o.d, I don't want to die!"

Bull laughed at her. "How many times have you heard that last bit from the people you ordered tortured to death, you stupid c.u.n.t?"

"Screw you!" Sally spat at him.

"Not now, b.i.t.c.h. We ain't got time. We got to hunt us a hole and stay put."

"We have no food, no water, and we can't build a fire to get warm," Brute said with finality. "We've had it."

"I can't believe we're the only ones who made it out," Fang said, looking at the small band of survivors. "There's less than a hundred of us."

"A bunch made it out," Bull said. "Several thousand, I'd guess. But we don't want to hook up with them. We're better off in small groups.

We hole up during the day and move only at night. They's a river to the northwest of us. We can go a couple of days without water. If we can make the river, we're home free. Let's get in that little bit of timber over yonder and keep out ofsight."

For the first time in years, Sally put her head to the ground and began weeping at the sheer hopelessness of it all.

Ben watched the destruction of the city through binoculars.

He watched until the smoke became so thick he could no longer see what was taking place. But then he didn't have to see comhe knew.

The few planes he had kept for himself were making pa.s.s after pa.s.s, first dropping napalm into the heart of the city, and then working out in three directions. Those attempting to flee the flames were cut down by the troops positioned outside the buffer zone.

General Payon had moved his men forward, sealing off the south end and swinging some troops around to help the Rebels more effectively cover the southeast corner of the territory. General Payon and Ben Raines met for the first time.

The men shook hands and sat down for a cup of coffee.

"It's a terrible, terrible thing we are forced to do, General Raines," Payon said. "But when is war ever nice? But this business" comhe nodded toward the burning city com8is especially repugnant."

"Yes. I investigated every other avenue. My medical people said it had to be this way. But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"I put thugs up against the wall in my country,"

Payon said, his words soft. "They were killers, thieves, rapists, every kind of lowlife. They begged me not to shoot them, promised to G.o.d they would chance their ways. At first, when my army was small and the good people were still very disorganized, I listened to them beg and my heart was so heavy. I turned them loose, took them at their word. The next day they were back stealing and raping and killing." He shook his head.

"I had to become hard comz you did. I had to think of the ... larger picture, of the future. The leopard does not change its spots, as the saying goes."

"Were you always a soldier?" Ben asked.

Payon smiled. "Oh, no. I was a TV broadcaster. A reporter of news. I served my time in the armed forces years ago, as a paratrooper.

I was with my family on a vacation when the Great War came.

Thugs killed my small son, and then raped and killed my wife and daughter, while they were torturing me. They left me for dead. They made a very bad mistake in not killing me."

"Have you found them all?"

"All but two. I will find them. Eventually. were you always a soldier, Ben Raines?"

"No. I was a writer. I ... sort of got elected, unwillingly, to this job."

Payon chuckled softly. "Ah ... as did I.

The people came to me, said they needed a leader. I told them to go find one. Leave me alone. Go find a general or a colonel or something. A sergeant even. I went into the jungles for a year, to getaway. The people found me. Hounded me. I started out with a hundred people. Then a thousand, then ten thousand. I was suddenly, and without my permission, named El Presidente. For life. I told them I did not want the job. The people said I had it anyway. You're smiling comour lives parallel?"

"Very much so. General, what do you hear from Europe?"

"Very little. Scattered radio broadcasts from ham operators. It is very bad over there. Very, very bad.

All social order has broken down. I hear talk that you are going overseas. Is it true?"

"Yes."

"It will be dangerous."

"V.".

"I wish I could go with you. But my country is still very shaky."

"It's enough that you would even want to go, General. I know that you have committed a large portion of your army up here a.s.sisting me. It's very much appreciated."

"It's the least I could do. In my country, schools and proper medical facilities are a large concern. I have people working on proper irrigation for any land suitable for farming." He sighed. "There is so much to do. So much to do, and so little time. And I am but one man."

"The people respect you, General. That counts for a great deal. You and I, we'll get people back working, in time. Those who want to work."

"And those that don't?"

"Will inherit the earth."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Six feet of it."

"You can forget about busting out of here," Brute said, after a day-long patrol to the west of their hiding place. "Rebels are everywhere. Rolling patrols every time one looks up. Rebel lookouts are on the high ground with binoculars."

"Where's Bo?" Sally asked.

"Sniper got him. The Rebels are using those big-caliber rifles that can shoot a mile. One nailed Bo right in the center of his chest. We never did figure out where the sniper was hiding."

"I'm cold!" a punk b.i.t.c.hed.

"I'm hungry!" another complained.

"I'm wet!" yet another whined.

"Oh, shut up!" Bull told them.

"What are we gonna do?" Sally asked.

"I don't know," Bull admitted. "We can't go much longer without water." He let his eyes drift back over the miles, to the valley where they had previously camped. Yesterday they had all seen the buzzards circling, and they knew the carrion birds were now feasting, many of them so bloated with human flesh they could not take off. They just waddled heavily along on the ground, flapping their wings and stuffing their beaks.

"Here come the planes again," a punk called. He started crying in fear."How in the h.e.l.l do they know where we are?" another yelled, his voice breaking from his fear.

"Heat-seekers," Brute said. "We may as well say good-bye now. Because in five minutes a lot of us won't be alive."

Fang of the Hill Street Avengers began trembling as he watched the bombs start falling off the wings and out of the bellies of the planes.

After five days, Ben ordered the gunners to stand down. A strange silence settled over the land.

South of his position, the city of San Diego was burning unchecked. From Imperial Beach north to the Soledad Freeway, from the blue waters of the Pacific east to the Sweet.w.a.ter River, nothing could be seen but leaping flames and spiraling smoke.

The Rebels had pumped more than five thousand rounds commost of them incendiary rounds -- into the city.

Even though the men and women of the Rebels bathed daily, sometimes two or three times, in cold water, they all still felt grimy from the smoke that poured out of the huge area of fire.

"Corrie, what is the latest report from the units in Nevada?"

"Ike says there couldn't be more than a couple of hundred left alive, and they've got to be a pretty miserable bunch. No food and not much water, and it's turning cold up there."

"Keep after them."

"Yes, sir."

Chase entered the CP and poured a gla.s.s of water.

He drank it and grimaced. Ben knew what he was thinking. Even the water tasted like smoke.

"Do you want us to enter the city, Lamar?" Ben asked.

The doctor shook his head. "Not unless you think it's necessary. Any left alive in that inferno won't live long enough to do much damage. The trucks just rolled in from Base Camp One with the rat pellets. I've never seen so many rat pellets in my life. Must be a hundred million of the d.a.m.ned things."

"That's what you wanted, Lamar. I'll have the planes start dropping them tomorrow. But there is no way we're going to kill all the rats."

"We'll kill enough of them. I talked with research down at Base. They think they've got a handle on it. It was pure blind luck, an accident. That's very often the way it is. It looks good. If it proves out, we'll have enough vaccine for all of us in about a month. I bet the former bureaucrats in the FDA are twisting in their graves at this hurry-up job. See you, Ben."

Ben didn't like to use the rat-killing pellets because of the other wildlife they would directly and indirectly affect. But in this case he felt it was justified.

Cecil was mopping up in Los Angeles, andfinding pockets of fairly stiff resistance. As soon as the pellets were dropped, Ben planned to pull out and take his time working up the coast to L.a. Once there, he would start mopping up from the south, with him and Cecil linking up in the center of the city.

"Tell the boys and girls to start packing up, Corrie," Ben said. "We'll be pulling out of this stink-hole by mid-morning tomorrow."

"n.o.body will be unhappy about that," she said.

"Especially me," Ben said, smiling at her.

Therm and his forces went north on I-15, carefully checking out every town along the way, while Ben and his people took I-5 north to Los Angeles. They were all glad to leave the stink of the dead city behind them.

General Payon had visited Ben once more, and then pulled his troops back across the border. They did not lift a gla.s.s in a victory toast, for this battle had left an unpleasant taste in the mouths of all.

In Central Nevada, the Rebels continued their waiting game against those punks who had busted out of L.a. Everyone concerned -- especially the punks comknew the standoff could not last much longer. In the high country, early fall had turned into early winter, and the nights were bitter with cold.

One gray morning, with a light dusting of snow on the ground, Brute crawled stiffly out of his ragged blankets and walked away from the camp without saying a word to anyone. No one was surprised when a single pistol shot cut the stillness of morning.

Bull walked over to a small gathering of brush and scrub timber and looked at Brute. He had stuck the barrel of his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Bull left him where he lay and walked back to the cold camp.

He looked around him. Someone else was missing.

"Lennie," a punk told him. "Died in his sleep. Pneumonia, I guess. He's been awful sick. What about Brute?"

"Shot himself in the head." He picked up his AK-47 and jacked in a round.

"What are you gonna do, Bull?" Sally asked.