Ashes - D Day In The Ashes Part 23

"You can hang that s.h.i.t up," Abdul told him after Mahmud suggested it a short time later. "Ben Raines don't play that game."

"Then how come all them pqople told us it was true years back?" i Abdul was stumped for an answer to that question. 'Cause he felt the same way Mahmud did about it. "Must be that Ben Raines was born in Mississippi or Louisiana or some other d.a.m.n redneck n.i.g.g.e.r-hatin'

southern state."

"That's it! Has to be," Mahmud agreed.

Actually, Ben was born in the Midwest and did not hate anyone for the color of their skin. If Ben had used the term "n.i.g.g.e.r" while living at home, his mother would have slapped him out of the chair, and then his father would have taken a belt to his behind and used it so thoroughly that Ben would have been able to heat his own bathwater simply by sitting in it.

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But Ben's mother and father had no patience with people who would not work and who wanted something for nothing. They had both lived through the terrible years of the Great Depression and knew firsthand, and for a fact, that people could survive on a lot less if they would just put their minds to it.

Ben learned without being told (at a very early age) that each individual controlled their own destiny . . . and no one else. And Ben didn't give a d.a.m.n what liberal sob sisters and hanky-stompers preached.

It was all up to the individual. You could fritter your life away and be nothing. And if you did, that was your own fault and to h.e.l.l with you.

But Ben knew that one had to become somebody before they could become anybody. Work, study, learn, and continue doing that all your life.

Ration your spare time. Read. Ben had little patience with people who did not read. That was why for years he had forbidden television in any Rebel-controlled area.

And Ben knew that he who stands alone is the strongest.

Mahmud stood up and walked away from the fireplace to stand by a window and look out at the cold winter's day, windy and gray and unfriendly.

Death lay all around him. And death was called the Rebels.

Mahmud had never seen anything like the people in Ben Raines's army.

Mahmud had always thought himself to be the meanest motherf.u.c.ker in the world until he came head to head with the Rebels. These men and women put a new meaning to the word mean. He turned and looked back at Abdul, who was staring into the flames.

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"You wanna give it up, Abdul?""They gonna hang us if we do."

"Yeah. I know. Prob'ly. And they gonna shoot us or blow us up if we don't."

"We ain't done nothing here in France. So that means we gonna be shipped back to Canada for trial. We busted outta jail 'fore."

"Yeah. That a truth." Mahmud turned to once more stare out of the window.

"I'm hungry. I'm cold. I'm tired. My head hurts and my feets hurt. I ain't had me a good night's sleep in so long I can't 'member when. Even my eyes hurts. I want a hot cup of coffee so bad I can taste it." He sighed dejectedly. "We was lied to somethin' fierce back in the States, Mahmud. All them years we was flat out lied to."

"How you mean?"

"Don't n.o.body owe us nothin'. It don't make no difference what happened to our granddaddys or such. That ain't got a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing to do with me and you. Not here and now, not back before the Great War. It was all up to us, and we was too G.o.dd.a.m.n stupid to understand it. But, brother, I see it now."

"But it be too late, don't it?"

"Yeah. I guess so." He shook his head. "Maybe not."

"What you got in mind?"

"Talkin' to Ben Raines."

"You think that'll do any good?"

"I don't figure we got anything to lose by tryin'."

271 "Show them in," Ben said.

He was sitting in a comfortable chair, behind an antique desk. A fire was crackling in the huge fireplace. A pot of fresh coffee and sandwiches were on another table. Mahmud and Abdul were shown into the warmth of the room, and Ben had to hide a smile. They were two of the most woebegotten-looking people he had ever seen.

The Lion of the Desert wore an expression like he'd been thrown from his camel, had his tent set on fire, and his harem had turned frigid . . .

and Abdul looked even worse.

Ben pointed to the coffee pot and the sandwiches. "Help yourselves."

The pair quickly consumed about a dozen sandwiches and slurped two mugs of coffee before they sat down in front of Ben's desk. Jersey watched every move they made, and that unsettled them both.

"That's a mean-lookin' woman over there, General," Mahmud remarked.

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William W. Johnstone Ben ignored that and asked, "All the gangs in the city ready to pack it in?""Most of 'em, yeah . . . ah, yes, sir," Abdul said.

"You understand that you all will be placed under arrest and processed?

If you have committed crimes in France, you will be tried here."

"We understand," Mahmud said, defeat in his voice.

"How many gangs are represented here?"

" 'Bout eight. Tony Green, Tuba, LaBamba, and Richardo done pulled out on they own," Abdul confessed. "There ain't but about four hundred of us left. The rest is dead."

Mahmud looked slyly around the large room. Back in the old days, he had always been able to elicit a great deal of sympathy for himself from other people . . . especially from dumb-a.s.sed honky liberals. He couldn't find the first trace of sympathy from anybody in this room. Ben Raines's eyes were hard as flint. That foxy, sorta Indian-lookin' b.i.t.c.h had a mean light in her eyes. There were two more fine-lookin' honky c.u.n.ts in the room, but fine stopped at their eyes. Mean and hard. The other man in the room was about the same age as the women, and he had the same look in his eyes as the others. Mahmud sighed and shook his head. No help here.

Then Ben Raines shook him down to his boots when he said, "It won't work here, will it, Mahmud?"

"Whut you mean?" Mahumd managed to ask through his fright. Could the man really read minds like some said he could?

"You know d.a.m.n well what I mean, so don't play dumb with me. All your poor childhood c.r.a.p. All that 273.

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bulls.h.i.t about society holding you down because of your color and forcing you into a life of crime. It won't wash with us, Mahmud. We've proven it to be what it is: pure c.r.a.p invented by liberals."

"You a mean honky son of a b.i.t.c.h, Ben Raines!" Mahmud blurted, glaring hate at him.

Ben smiled. Sort of. "I'm a realist, Mahmud. And I can spot c.r.a.p from the mouth faster than s.h.i.t through a goose. Now get on that radio over there in the corner and tell your people to surrender."

"And if I don't?"

Ben picked up a .45 autoloader from the desk and pointed the muzzle at Mahmud's head. "I'll blow your G.o.dd.a.m.n worthless brains out!"

Abdul started shaking in his chair. Fear sweat popped out on his face; his eyes were wide. "He mean it, Mahmud. Do it, man. He'll kill you."

Ben c.o.c.ked the .45, the c.o.c.king very loud in the suddenly quiet room.

Mahmud cut his eyes to Jersey. She was smiling at him. Smiling! b.i.t.c.hmus' be crazy! Whole d.a.m.n bunch was crazy! Mahmud had never run into nothin' like this in his whole entire life. "I be gettin' up now, General," Mahmud said very cordially. "An' goin' to the radio. I'll tell my people to give it up."

"You do that."

Ben had known all his adult life that the way to win the war on crime was to be twice as mean and nasty as the criminals. Thugs and punks and street slime did not respond to compa.s.sion, because they possessed none.

It was an unknown emotion for them. They respected and responded only to brute force and strength.

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William W. Johnstone Haifa minute after Ben de-c.o.c.ked the .45, the battle for Montpelh'er was over.

Ben halted the advance at a small town just about halfway between Montpellier and Nimes. He was beginning to range too far ahead of the north to south line of Rebels. Located deep in Germany, Bruno Bottger's spies were reporting all this to Bruno, and he was reviewing it through cautious and knowing eyes. He now realized that he had made a terrible blunder by not attacking the Rebels when they went into Geneva. But he made no mention of it and neither did any of his people. To question any decision of the new fuhrer was not terribly wise.

Bruno leaned back in his chair and was thoughtful for a time. It just might work. Ben Raines was alone between Montpellier and Nimes with just one battalion of ground troops and some armor. And Bruno had the planes and French-speaking troops to pull this off. Yes. He smiled. It would work.

Ben figured his battalion was a full week ahead of the other battalions, so he told his people to take it easy until the other batts grew even on a north/south line.

There were still several thousand gang members roaming around France-at least that many-but the thugs had been so reduced in numbers that now they were only a minor thorn in the side of the Rebels.

The Night People were quite a different matter.

The creeps, Ben knew, unlike the gangs of punks, 275.

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were highly organized and would fight to the death. Ben was expecting some sort of attack from the creeps at any moment. And while to civilian eyes his people seemed relaxed and unconcerned, the Rebels were ready for any attack. They just seemed to be 100 percent at ease.

Even Emil Hite had stopped joking around and had put his little group of followers on high alert. Ben didn't worry about Emil when push came to shove. The little man and his group could be as ferocious as badgers when cornered.But it was Bruno Bottger that worried Ben.

Mike Richards's people inside Germany had confirmed that Bruno's army was ma.s.sive . . . probably at least 125,000 to 150,000 strong with another 100,000 or so civilians armed and ready to fight on the side of their new leader. The majority of Germans were appalled and disgusted by Bruno Bottger and his followers, but due to many countries blindly, and as it turned out, stupidly following the socialistic leanings of the United States under the misguided mumblings of the liberals in the ruling Democratic party they had been totally disarmed long before the Great War rocked the world and were helpless to do anything except watch in horror as Bruno purged the country of "undesirables."

"And here I sit with one battalion and some armor," Ben muttered softly.

"Wide open for attack."

Sitting at his desk in a lovely old home, Ben suddenly felt that old familiar warning grabbing at his guts. Warriors cannot describe how they know danger is imminent-they just know. Perhaps it was some cul- 276.

tivated sixth sense, nurtured over the years. But they were usually correct.

The mood jumped from Ben to his team in a matter of seconds. Ben lifted his eyes. All members of his team had stopped what they were doing and were looking at him.

"Tonight, boss?" Cooper asked.

"Yeah," Ben replied. "Tonight."

Thousands of miles away President Homer Blanton tossed his pencil to the desk and leaned back in his chair. He supposed things could conceivably get worse in what was left of the United States, but d.a.m.ned if he could figure out how.

The liberals had finally gotten what they wanted: a society totally free of any type of guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, social programs that promised to be all things to all people all the time, political correctness down to the reth degree, and all the other foolish babblings of the liberal wing of the Democratic party . . . and the G.o.dd.a.m.n nation was in shambles.

Factories were abandoning those states still under Blanton's rule as fast as they could... heading for those states that had aligned themselves with Ben Raines's form of government. Blanton could, and would for the remainder of his life, remember the words of Ben Raines spoken in this very office.

"I feel sorry for you, Mr. Blanton. We've handed you the dregs of society. We've left you with the whiners, complainers, the slackers and the dullards 277.

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and the underachievers. That's one type we've left you. The other is the high-idealed and out-of-touch-with-reality person. They're the smartones-to a degree. They have lots of book sense but no common sense.

They're the ones who, for the most part, will form your staff and make up your House and Senate. They will write your speeches and pa.s.s the legislation and implement all the glorious and high-minded and totally unworkable and pie-in-the-sky social programs and foolish laws and regulations that will lead your government right back to the way it was when you first took office, more than a decade ago. The nation that I helped create is going to fly, Mr. President. We're going to soar. Just sit back and watch us. While you flounder."

Homer sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers. He had a terrible headache. Thinking of Ben Raines always brought on a headache. He hated it when Ben Raines was right. Problem was, the son of a b.i.t.c.h was nearly always right.

Homer was well aware that a great many of his good people were leaving him. Not all were going to the SUSA, but those that weren't, and were going into the private sector, were leaving his administration rather than see it slowly sink into a mora.s.s of unworkable rules and regulations and total government control of citizens' lives.

And Ben Raines had predicted that, sooner or later, most of the fair-minded and reasonable people on Blanton's staff would leave him.

Homer had scoffed at the time. He wasn't laughing any longer.

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Blanton rose from his desk to look out the window. Those d.a.m.n demonstrators were still out there. He picked up his binoculars and scanned the lines.

HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS.

JOBS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL.

"c.r.a.p!" Homer said, and closed the drapes. "You want a job, move to the SUSA. Plenty of jobs down there. I'll even pay your way down there. One way. Problem is, Ben Raines wouldn't have any of you."

"I can't believe you said that," his wife chided him. She had been standing just inside the door to the new Oval Office.

"Why not? It's the truth." He pointed toward the window. "Those out there don't want jobs, they want positions. Most of them aren't willing to start at the bottom and work up, they want to start in the middle or at the G.o.dd.a.m.n top! And they're not qualified to shovel s.h.i.t in a manure factory!"

His wife was shocked into silence. It would not last long. It never did.