Ashes - Battle In The Ashes Part 23

"Hey, you!" Flapper said to Ben's back.

Ben continued talking to Beth while Corrie set up a communications patch to Ike.

"I'm a-talkin' to you, boy!" Flapper raised his voice.

Dozens of Rebels watched the three men carefully as Ben continued to speak to Beth, ignoring the trashy trio.

That Jersey had taken a few steps away from Ben and had her M-16 leveled at the three men did not escape the notice of Jigger and Billy Joe. Both of them got a little nervous. Jersey's dark eyes held a menace that they both picked up on. Billy Joe and Jigger looked very carefully all around them. There were something like a hundred guns pointed at them. A little nervous turned into a whole lot nervous.

"Ah, Flapper?" Jigger said, suddenly breaking out in a very cold sweat.

"Hush up, boy. I'm a-talkin' to the general here."

"You bes' look around you, Flapper," Billy Joe said. " 'Fore you git any more hoss-tile."

The ignorant lout who had started this conversation, and who had not opened his mouth since being ordered by Ben to close it, suddenly had a nearly overwhelming urge to pee. But he was afraid to move for fear of getting shot.The kids had been quickly taken away by their mothers. The women were showing a great deal more sense than the men.

259.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, boy!" Flapper hollered. "Is you deef?" Then Flapper made a terrible mistake. He shoved Ben. Hard.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t!" Billy Joe whispered.

260.

Chapter Nine.Ben recovered his balance and threw a short hard right fist that landed dead center on Flapper's big red nose. Flapper's big red nose suddenly got bigger and redder as he stumbled backward and fell hard to the asphalt, landing on his b.u.t.t.

Billy Joe and Jigger raised their hands high into the air as a hundred rifles took steady aim at them.

"We's out of this!" Jigger squealed. "Lord G.o.d, folks. Don't shoot us!"

"I'm with him!" Billy Joe hollered. "What he just said, I mean."

Flapper crawled to his feet, his nose streaming blood and his eyes killing mean. "You gawdd.a.m.n uppity son of a b.i.t.c.h!" he said. "I'm a-gonna stomp your guts out."

"Come on, then," Ben told him.

Flapper rushed Ben, swinging both fists, and Ben tripped him, once more sending the man hollering and flapping his arms for balance, and finally sprawling on the blacktop. This time Flapper landed on his face, skinned it up something fierce, and the man 261.

commenced bellowing like a mad bull as he fought to once more climb to his feet.

"I really wish you'd stop all this nonsense," Ben told him, pulling on a pair of leather gloves that Cooper tossed him. "Before I lose my temper and hurt you."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Flapper yelled, blood from half a dozen cuts and sc.r.a.pes running down his face. "Stand still and fight lak a man, d.a.m.n you!"

"How is a man supposed to fight?" Ben questioned.

"Wif his fists!" Flapper hollered. He shook his head and the blood flew.

"Oh!" Ben said, stepping closer. "I guess I can perhaps manage to do that. Do you mean something like this?" He suddenly hit the surprised Flapper with a haymaker right that crossed Flapper's eyes and buckled his knees. "Or like this?" Ben asked, driving in a left that pulped Flapper's lips and knocked him up against the front of a truck. "Perhaps this?" Ben questioned, and hit Flapper in the belly so hard his fist was momentarily lost in the flab.Flapper's face turned chalk white and he seemed to sigh as he slowly sank to his knees. He remained that way for a moment, and then toppled over, once more landing on his face in the center of the cracked old highway.

Ben looked down at the semiconscious Flapper. "Not bad for a middle-aged man," he muttered. He turned to Billy Joe and Jigger. "Either of you two have anything else you'd care to discuss with me?"

"No, sir!" they hollered, their hands still in the air.

"Are you both certain of that?"

"Yes, sir!"

262.

"Will you please carry your friend away from here and leave us alone for the remainder of our stay?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Ike says Jahn's with him and they've started sending planes down to get their wives. General Jahn says to bring the-kids on," Corrie called.

"Good, Corrie, thank you. I thought that would be Jahn's reaction. But before we do that, let's inspect the town and see if there is any hope for these people."

"Any hope?" Jigger hollered. "What do that mean? What is y'all gonna do-shoot us?"

"That's not a bad idea," Ben told him.

Jigger peed his pants.

"Oh, Lard!" Billy Joe yelled.

Ben sent teams in to inspect the living quarters of the tiny town's inhabitants. He had seen more than his share over the long years of how trash chose to live. Why they did so was something that had eluded him all his life.

Ben soaked his right hand in salted water while the teams were in town.

He concluded that he was getting just too d.a.m.ned old for fist-fighting.

He had just dried off his slightly swollen hand when the teams reported back in.

"Report," Ben told them, already reading the news in their eyes.

"Kids are filthy, suffering from malnourishment, and of course have never been vaccinated for anything," a doctor said. "p.i.s.ses me off," he added.

"Take those young enough to be rehabed," Ben ordered. "Corrie, have Cecil start sending planes in at noon tomorrow to transport them back.

We'll have that old air strip cleaned up by then."263 No one had to ask what to do if the parents objected. In truth, d.a.m.n few of them would object. Most would be happy to get rid of the brats. The Rebels had seen that very thing happen, time and time again, coast to coast, border to border. And it never failed to astonish and disgust them.

No groups of people came out to the Rebel encampment from the shacks and hovels to protest the taking of their kids, although some did stand well back from the gra.s.s landing strip when the planes came in the next morning and watch the kids being loaded into the cargo planes for the flight back to Base Camp One. There, the children would be given medical attention, vaccinations, and first of all, treated for head lice. They would be housed-properly, for the first time in their lives-with Rebel families until Jahn and his people were settled and ready to take them.

Ben sat and stared at the rabble, open contempt in his eyes.

A courier handed Ben a pouch and Ben sat on the ground, beneath the shady branches of a huge old tree, and read the dispatches.

Intelligence felt that most of what was left of Hoffman's army-with the exception of the SS troops-was nearing total collapse. Their supply lines severed, they were running out of ammo and food, and those who surrendered told tales of eating rats to survive.

Hoffman had vanished. Intelligence believed he had slipped through the lines and headed north. They also believed Brodermann was with him, as were many of Hoffman's staff officers. Their defenders were hard-core SS troops. What was happening in most places west of the Mississippi River now was tedious and dangerous digging out and mopping up.

264.

Ben and battalion watched the last plane leave and then mounted up and headed out, following I-20 northeast. In their command posts in North Alabama, Moi Sambura and Wink Payne braced for what they knew was going to be the fight of their lives.

Wink Payne felt Ben Raines to be a n.i.g.g.e.r-loving, no good son of a b.i.t.c.h. Moi Sambura felt Ben Raines to be a black-hating, racist son of a b.i.t.c.h.

"But he's got African Americans in his army," a few of the more moderate members of Moi's movement pointed out.

"Uncle Toms," Moi would always reply. "Chocolate covered vanilla ice creams. Black on the surface, white in the middle. They're just as bad, or worse, than Raines."

What neither side could see was that all Rebels were, first, last, and always, Americans. People from every state in what used to be called the Union were represented in the Rebel army. Every creed, every color, every nationality and religion.

"Fight to the death!" Wink told his people.

"Fight to the death!" Moi told his people.

"I wish to h.e.l.l I could figure out some way to get those two to turn on each other," Ben mused aloud over the evening meal. "That sure wouldsave us a lot of time and bother."

Under the light from a gas lantern, Ben studied maps of the state. "From Birmingham north to the state line, everything east of I-65 to the Georgia line is claimed by Wink. Everything west of I-65 over to Mississippi Highway 45 is claimed by Moi." Ben put aside the maps and smiled, and with that, his team knew he'd come up with some plan; probably a very perverse one.

265.

"We attack tomorrow?" Corrie asked.

"No," Ben replied. "We'll stay on I-20 over into Georgia. When we reach Georgia Highway 27, we'll split up into company sized units, with each company having armor and artillery. Then we'll start shoving Wink and his nuts and fruitcakes west." He laughed. "Right into Moi's territory.

The results should be quite interesting. Wink's people might decide to run north or south, and if they do, that's all right. We'll be ready for that, too. Corrie, b.u.mp Base Camp One and have gun-s.h.i.+ps standing by ready to fly. I want guns.h.i.+ps flying search and destroy along the northern, southern and eastern perimeters of our TO. Get the PUFFs ready to go as well. Might as well do this right."

"It's a hundred and sixty six miles to Georgia Highway 27," Beth told him.

"We'll figure two days total to reach it and spread out south to north,"

Ben said.

"Soften it up with artillery first?" one of the company commanders in attendance asked.

Ben shook his head. "Not until we give the noncombatants time to get out of the area. I don't like the idea of a lot of collateral damage if it can be avoided."

"And if they refuse to come out?" he was asked.

"A lot of people are going to get hurt," was Ben's reply.

It was a confusing and sometimes chaotic time in Texas. The Rebels and the multinational forces were very nearly overwhelmed by surrendering and very hungry Blacks.h.i.+rts. General Payon helped the situation immensely by clearing a way south through Mexico for the 266.

prisoners. The Blacks.h.i.+rts were disarmed and using their own captured vehicles, with the prisoners driving, were sent south, back to their own countries and to a very uncertain fate once they arrived. If they arrived. For the citizens of the Blacks.h.i.+rts' home countries, once the bulk of Hoffman's people had left for the north, had risen up and overwhelmed the dictatorial government in place.

Cecil appointed Ned Hawkins and his force of New Texas Rangers to be the law in Texas and to clean it up. Hoffman, Brodermann, their staff officers, and at least several thousand of their SS followers, had disappeared without a trace.

"We've won some battles but not the war," Ben said, upon hearing thatnews. "They'll stay down and quietly rebuild. For there are still thousands of people across this country who subscribe to Hoffman's ideas. We haven't heard the last of Hoffman. Not by a long shot. You've got to cut the head off before the poisonous snake is dead. And be d.a.m.n careful when you handle the dead part, it can still kill you. Corrie, have Ike a.s.sign as many people as he thinks necessary to start scouring the land, looking for Hoffman. How about the plans of the multinationals?"

"They agreed unanimously that they'll stay until things are secure."

"Good enough. What about those that we learned were coming over?"

"Cecil told them many thanks and to head on back home. And that anytime they might need help, to give us a shout. They said they would and wished us good luck."

"Any word from Moi or Wink?"

267.

"Yes." She hesitated. "Moi says for you to take your offer and stick it up your honky racist a.s.s. Wink says to take your offer and stick it up your n.i.g.g.e.r-lovin' a.s.s."

"Being misunderstood," Ben said with a smile. "That's the story of my life."

His team all groaned at that.

"And no respect either," Ben added. That got him another series of groans.

"Guns.h.i.+ps up?" Ben asked, when the groaning had died down.

"Up," Corrie said. "No signs of anyone trying to bug out."

"Fools," Ben muttered. "The arrogant fools. Well, you can bet one thing, when the sh.e.l.ls start dropping in on them, there will be some quick rethinking on our offer."

"But it'll be too late then, won't it, General," the GO of Dog Company asked.

"Yes," Ben said slowly. "It will."

Jesus Hoffman had split up his remaining forces, disseminating them among the population and countryside. Hoffman could wait. He would choose his new people very carefully and proceed ever so slowly. And he now knew just the type of person who would jump at the chance to join his forces. The rabble of Paris had helped defeat Burgundy-so he had been taught in school-so too could the rabble of America help bring down Ben Raines. They all despised him with a burning pa.s.sion that bordered on fanaticism. Hoffman knew that. So why not use them? The more he thought about it, the 268.

better he liked it. He had broached the plan to Brodermann, who had agreed to the genius of it.

"Yes," Hoffman said, leaning back in his chair and smiling. "It will work."They had all carefully packed away and hidden their uniforms, and were now dressed in civilian clothing. They spoke only English. Any other language was forbidden. The men had all grown moustaches and many had grown full beards. They hunted and fished and scratched out gardens. All had plans to take American women as wives; those with children preferable.

"One year, Ben Raines," Hoffman spoke to the silent room. "Give me one year, and I will smash you into the ground. I learned from you, Raines.

I learned much from you. I learned that you are not a gentleman. I learned that you are no more than a cut above a very cunning savage.

Yes, I learned much. And for that, I will thank you just before I kill you."

Moi Sambura could not understand what was happening. He had sent scouts out north and south of his seized territory, but they could find no sign of the Rebels. But lots and lots of attack helicopters. And some strange-looking old slow prop planes, that fairly bristled with guns.

Moi was the furthest thing from a fool. He knew from the description what his scouts had seen. PUFFs. One PUFF could effectively clear an area about the size of two or three football fields ... of all living things. And do it very quickly.

What the h.e.l.l was that d.a.m.nable Ben Raines up to?