Ashes - D Day In The Ashes Part 33

"Shut up, Paul," Nils told the man. "You don't know what you're talking about. Shut your mouth."

The reporter ignored the advice. "Charles Breedon was a good moral man."

"You want to join him?" Ben asked, as the first trucks began pa.s.sing Ben's position.

Paul felt the coldness of a silenced pistol press against the back of his head. He had not seen or heard one of Buddy's special ops people slip up behind him.

"Shut your G.o.dd.a.m.n mouth," the special ops trooper whispered in Paul's ear. "And keep it shut."

"Buddy says it's now or never," Corrie called.

"Fire," Ben said.

383 It was a slaughter-and a d.a.m.n quick one. Rebels on rooftops rose up and raked the beds of heavy trucks with automatic weapons fire, while those at ground level on both sides of the street opened up. At the edge of town Buddy and his people were finis.h.i.+ng up the front of the convoy.

Rebels then swarmed over the vehicles, collecting arms and ammo and grenades and anything else they might be able to use.

"Hundreds of artillery rounds and cases of ammo for heavy machines guns and plenty of 80-mm mortar rounds," Corrie called to Ben.

"Good, good!" Ben said. He turned to President Blanton. "You up to a stand, Homer?""No retreat?"

"No."

Blanton did not hesitate. "Let's give them h.e.l.l, Ben!" Then he grinned as hundreds of Rebels began cheering the president. Blanton was not accustomed to the military cheering him.

"What the h.e.l.l's come over him?" Paul questioned.

384.

None of the other reporters chose to reply to such a stupid question.

Many of them were too busy having Rebels explain the use of the weapons to them.

Ben left West's 4 Batt at Thun and took his 1 Batt, Dan's 3 Batt, and Buddy's special ops batt and drove up to Bern. Homer Blanton went with him. Ben had put the president into body armor and surrounded him with Rebels, but Homer insisted upon being armed and not left out of any fight.

"The Secret Service is not going to be happy with me about this," Ben said.

"The Secret Service isn't here," Blanton replied. "Besides I'm having more fun than I've had in years."

Ben shook his head at the new Homer Blanton. "I've created a monster,"

he muttered. "Just be careful, Homer. Anything happens to you and I'll get the blame."

But Ben's warning was not necessary. Bruno Bott-ger's MEF people had pulled out of Bern. They had set up a line roughly fifty miles east of Bern, running north to south from the Federation border in the north, well into Italy to the south.

"d.a.m.n!" Blanton said, when the Secret Service swooped down on Bern and took away his M-16, his 9-mm pistol, and his knife.

"You're the president of the United States," they told him. "Not Rambo."

"I can't have any fun at all anymore," Homer b.i.t.c.hed.

But pictures of him in full combat gear, smiling with 385.

385.

antic.i.p.ation as he rode with the Rebels into what everybody a.s.sumed would be a full-blown firefight forever shattered his ultraliberal image.

And reporter Paul, who had watched Beth cut his friend's throat, was going to see to that.

After the rescue of Homer Blanton, even those reporters who hated Ben Raines were forced to write something positive about the man and his army ... but Ben knew that would soon pa.s.s and many of the press would be right back taking verbal potshots at him and the SUSA.

"s.h.i.+t!" Harriet Hooter said, upon hearing the news that Homer Blantonwas still alive. She'd begun making plans to remodel the Oval lOffice.

She thought the south wall would be a very nice place to mount the heads of Republicans.

Even the military leaders breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the news about Blanton being alive and rescued . . . especially the bit about being rescued by Ben Raines and the Rebels. As long as Blanton stayed in office, there would be no more talk coming from the White House about invading the SUSA.

But the military did know for a certainty that world war was imminent, and the United States, what was left of it, would be drawn into that war.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff flew to Switzerland to meet with his commander in chief and Ben Raines.

General Bodinson and his aides and staff members sat in stunned silence in the conference room of the 386.

hurriedly remodeled and refurbished hotel in Geneva and listened to the full briefing from Ben Raines, Mike Richards, and finally, President Blanton.

"Monstrous," General Bodinson said, his voice no more than a whisper.

Ben sat on the edge of a table and looked at General Bodinson. "How many troops can you let us have?" he said, asking the question that the generals and the colonels in the room had been dreading to hear.

"A regiment," Bodinson said softly.

"Four full battalions?" Ben asked.

"Four short battalions," Bodinson replied.

About 2500 men under the United States Army's current system of 180 men to a company. Four companies to a battalion, four battalions to a regiment.

Ike's sigh was audible in the hushed room.

"Get them moving," Blanton ordered.

"It's going to be a mixed bag," Bodinson said. "Army and marines. We just don't have the men to spare since the G.o.dd.a.m.n liberals in Congress slashed us down to nearly nothing."

Homer suddenly got real busy studying his fingernails. He'd been warned by older heads not to cut the military so drastically. Something always came up where the military was needed. Now that "something" had reared its ugly head . . . and he didn't have the personnel to fight it.

"General Raines," a colonel said. "Back home we're having to act as policemen, firemen, guards, social workers; everything that we aren't trained to be."

"I know," Ben said. "It isn't your fault." He looked 387387.

at Homer. "And I won't lay all the blame on you, Homer."

"You might as well," the president said. "I signed the legislation allowing it to happen."

"Under pressure from dozens of liberals in your party and a lot of the newly emerging press types," Ben replied. "Now is not the time to drape yourself in sackcloth and ashes. We've all got to pull together."

"There is something else we'd better talk about right now," a Marine Corps colonel growled. "And you all know what it is. But I'll be the one to bring it up. What happens when a certain percentage of our fighting men say, and they will say it: 'f.u.c.k the d.a.m.n n.i.g.g.e.rs!' "

Homer Blanton shook his head. He was still liberal enough to be unable to comprehend anyone saying something that cruel and unfeeling.

But not Ben. "I'm faced with that, too, Colonel," Ben replied. "I told them that this might start out with the blacks of the world, but Bruno will eventually use it to control every human being on the face of the earth. Most of them agreed with me. A few did not."

"I'd be interested in knowing what you did with those few?" another colonel asked.

"Nothing. They're good fighting men. And that's what war is all about."

The room was filled with silence for a moment. Son Moon broke that silence. "North Korea is the joker in this deck of playing cards. For years we thought they were finished. We were wrong. They don't have the army they once had, before the Great War, but what they do have is formidable still. And they still cling to communism. Even though they are definitely not the 388.

type of people Bottger cares to embrace, he just might in return for their support. We'd better think about that."

"If North Korea throws in with Bottger, we're finished," General Bodinson said. "We'd be facing a combined army of three quarters of a million. And North Korea still has nuclear capability, albeit limited."

"How about China?" a staff general asked. "Does anybody here know what's really happening there?"

"Torn apart by civil war," Mike Richards spoke up. "They've broken up into a dozen or more separate nations, with each nation fighting the other. For the time being, China is no threat to us."

"How the h.e.l.l do you know all this?" Mike was asked by the DCI of the newly organized Central Intelligence Agency.

"My people are better than yours," Mike told him.

"The h.e.l.l you say!"Mike smiled in reply. Truth was, he'd gathered together many of the spooks that he'd worked with during the years before the Great War, and they had recruited others of like mind and capabilities. Ben's own version of the CIA was the best in the world. And it certainly should be, for many of the old hands who believed strongly that Congress should stay the h.e.l.l out of CIA business and felt their continuous meddling would destroy the Company's effectiveness-which it had, back before the Great War-were now working for Mike.

The DCI glared at Mike, who was smiling sweetly at 389.

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him-about as sweetly as a mongoose smiles at a cobra.

"I say we strike a deal with this Bottger person," a man dressed in civilian clothes said.

"What kind of a deal?" Blanton asked, his eyes narrowed and real steel in his voice.

"You know what kind of deal, Mr. President."

"Say it!"

But the as yet unidentified man would only smile.

Blanton was steamed and made no attempt to hide it. "G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Nichols. You're talking about the eventual extermination of an entire race of people."

"Who have been nothing but a thorn in the side of the white man for centuries . . ."

Ben now knew who Nichols was. He was a newly elected representative who had managed to get himself placed high on several important committees.

Junior senators and representatives now held many of the top positions in the House and Senate, for most of the older hands were either dead, never returned after the Great War, or had retired. If Ben's memory served him correctly, Nichols was from Ohio. From a very conservative district.

"Now, you listen to me, Nichols," Blanton fumed.

"No, you listen to me, Mr. President," Nichols cut him off. "I serve the people who elected me. Truly serve them. And you know I was elected by ninety-one percent of the vote. I am their voice, and I will be heard.

I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned if I'll stand by and see what's left of the United States torn apart by your incessant kowtowing to every d.a.m.n minority group that comes around whining and p.i.s.sing and b.i.t.c.hing about some 390.

problem they wouldn't even have if they would only, by G.o.d, conform to standards that are tried and true and helped to build America into the finest nation in all the world."

"Are you quite through, Representative Nichols?" Homer asked, his facepale with anger.

"No. I am not. Face facts, sir. We can't stop Bottger. We're not strong enough. Not after liberals like you destroyed our military capabilities.

General Raines has admitted that even he doesn't know if his army can stop Bottger. Africa and Africans is simply not our problem."

"No, but Bottger d.a.m.n sure is," Ben spoke up.

"Here and now, yes," Nichols said. "You think we should go into Africa, General?"

"Not until we deal with Bottger. And then only after certain conditions have been met with the leaders or warlords of each nation on that continent. When I take my people in to stabilize a nation, I will stabilize it."

General Bodinson and many of the other military men were smiling. They wished they could have the same authority as Ben Raines in dealing with thugs and punks and other human slime. It would make their job of trying to stabilize the United States-what was left of it-so much easier.

"Let's all take a break and cool off," Ben said. "I could use a cup of coffee and a smoke."

Blanton and Nichols left the room, the Secret Service doing their best to keep the two apart.

Outside, Ben turned to Mike Richards. "I think Bottger is bluffing, Mike. I don't think he has this serum. I think his people made some breakthrough; I 391.

391.

think they're probably very close. But they haven't quite got it yet."

"We have no proof of that, Ben."

"We have no hard proof that he does have it, either. When will you have people in place in Africa?"

Mike looked uncomfortable for a few seconds, then he shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't found anyone who wants to volunteer to go, and I'm not going to order anyone, Ben. But I am working on it just as hard as I can. I may have found a few people. I'll know in a couple of days."

Ben sighed. "The hate runs that deep, Mike?"

"You know it does, Ben."

Ben shook his head. "I honestly did not know it was that bad."