William W Johnstone - Ashes 31 - Warriors From the Ashes (txt)

INFECTED

As Jersey stepped into the darkened laboratory, she felt the hair on the

back of her neck stir. Something was definitely wrong here.

She flicked on her flashlight and looked around. In the corner was a

large commercial-type refrigerator with a lock on it.

She knelt before the door and picked the lock, opening the door to find

it filled to capacity with bottles of murky liquid, the tops sealed with

paraffin. She reached into the back of the refrigerator and plucked a

bottle from the rearmost row, hoping it wouldn't be missed, then

relocked the door.

"Anna, come on, let's get out of here," Jersey said, "I've got the goods."

They went out the front door, and were in the process of locking it

behind them when a guard appeared out of the darkness. He dove against

Jersey, slamming her against the door she was locking. As he raised his

hand with a knife in it, Anna chopped across the back of his neck,

breaking one of his vertebrae and killing him instantly.

As he slumped to the ground, Jersey turned around with a look of horror

on her face.

"Don't worry, Jerse," Anna reassured her. "I took him out."

Jersey's face blanched white as she looked at a wet stain on the front

of her shirt. "That's not what I'm worried about," she said in a hoarse

voice.

"What is it?" Anna asked, spooked by the fear she saw in Jersey's eyes.

Jersey bent and placed the dog tags with Mingo Higgins's name on them in

the dead guard's hand, then looked up at Anna.

"I think we've just loosed the hounds of hell! Stay as far away from me

as you can, Anna," she said, pointing to the stain on the front of her

fatigues.

"Is that . . . ?" Anna asked, a look of horror on her face as she stared

at the dark spot.

Jersey nodded. "Yeah. The good news is, whatever the nasty stuff is

those bastards are working on in that lab, we now have a sample of it."

"But that means . . ."

Jersey nodded, and began to move at speed through the jungle toward a

stream that ran along the edge of the training fields. "It means I'm

probably going to get it."

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4 WARRIORS

FROM THE ASHES

William W. Johnstone

PINNACLE BOOKS Kensington Publishing Corp.

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6 "Let there be light!" said God, and there was light! "Let there be

blood!" says man, and there's a sea!

George Gordon, Lord Byron (in Don Juan)

7 Prologue

If a war had not engulfed the entire world, plunging every nation into

bloody chaos, the theory was that the government of the United States

would have collapsed anyway. Personal income taxes had been going up for

years and the hardworking, law-abiding citizens were paying well over

half their income to the government. The left wing of the Democratic

Party had taken over and passed massive gun-grab legislation,

effectively disarming American citizens; except for the criminals, of

course, and about three-quarters of a million tough-minded Americans who

didn't give a big rat's ass what liberals said, thought, or did. Those

Americans carefully sealed up their guns and buried them, along with

cases of ammunition. When the collapse came, those Americans were able

to defend themselves against the hundreds of roaming gangs of punks and

thugs that popped up all over what had once been called the United

States of America. The great nation would never again be accurately

referred to as the United States of America.

Slowly, an ever-growing group of people began calling for a man named

Ben Raines to lead them. But Ben didn't want any part of leadership. For

months he disregarded the ever-increasing calls from people all over the

nation, until finally he could no longer ignore the pleas.

Months later, thousands of people made the journey to the northwest part

of the nation and formed their own nation out of three states. It was

called the Tri-States, and those who

8

William W. Johnstone

chose to live there based many of their laws on the Constitution of the

United States: The original interpretation of that most revered document

was a commonsense approach to government. Something that had been sadly

lacking for years with liberals in control. But after only a few months

in their new nation, Ben knew that only about two out of every ten

Americans could (would was more to the point) live under a commonsense

form of government-a form of government where everyone, to a very large

degree, controlled his own destiny. The Rebels, as residents of the

Tri-States were named by the press, took wonderful care of the very old,

the young, and those unable to care for themselves. But if a person was

able to work, he worked . . . whether he liked it or not. There were no

free handouts for able-bodied people. If they didn't want to work, they

got the hell out of the Tri-States. Very quickly.

The first attempt at building a nation within a nation failed when the

federal government grew powerful enough to launch a major campaign

against the Tri-States. The original Tri-States was destroyed and the

Rebel Army was decimated and scattered.

But the federal government made one major mistake: They didn't kill Ben

Raines.

Ben and the few Rebels left alive began rebuilding their Army, and then

launched a very nasty guerrilla war against the federal government that

lasted for months: hit hard, destroy, and run. It worked.

But before any type of settlement could be reached, a deadly plague

struck the earth: a rat-borne outbreak, the Black Death revisited.

When the deadly disease finally ran its course, anarchy reigned over

what had once been America. Gangs of punks and warlords ruled from

border to border, coast to coast. Ben and his Rebels began the long,

slow job of clearing the nation of punks and human slime and setting up

a new Tri-States. This time they settled in the South, first in

Louisiana, in an area they called Base Camp One. Then they began spreading

9

out in all directions as more and more people wanted to become citizens

of the new nation called the Southern United States of America: the SUSA.

Ben and the Rebels fought for several years, clearing the cities of the

vicious gangs and growing larger and stronger while the SUSA spread out.

In only a few years, the Rebel Army became the largest and most powerful

army on the face of the earth . . . with the possible exception of

China's. No one knew what was going on in China, for that nation had

sealed its borders and cut off nearly all communication with the outside

world.

A few more years drifted by while the Rebels roamed the world at the

request of the newly formed United Nations, kicking ass and stabilizing

nations as best they could in the time allotted them.

But back home, the situation was worsening: Outside the SUSA, the nation

was turning socialistic with sickening speed. The old FBI was gone, in

its place the FPPS: Federal Prevention and Protective Service. It was a

fancy title that fooled no one. The FPPS was the nation's secret police,

and they were everywhere, bullyboys and thugs. Day-to-day activities of

those living in the USA were highly restricted. The new

Liberal/Socialist government of President-for-life Claire Osterman and

her second in command, Harlan Millard, was now firmly in control.

There were border guards stationed all along major crossings in every

state. Now, many of the guards had been moved south, to patrol along the

several-thousand-mile border of the SUSA.

A bloody civil war was shaping up between the USA and the SUSA. Rewards

had been placed on the head of Ben Raines: a million dollars for his

capture, dead or alive. But Ben was accustomed to that: He'd had

rewards-of one kind or another, from one group or another-on his head

for years.

Anna, Ben's adopted daughter, had been kidnapped by the

10

William W. Johnstone

FPPS. She was to be tried as a traitor against the Liberal/Socialist

government and executed. A very highly irritated Ben knew the taking of

Anna was to draw him out, for the FPPS was certain Ben would come after

her... which he did, with blood in his eyes. That abortive move cost the

FPPS several dozen agents and accomplished nothing for Osterman and her

henchmen. But it further heightened the already monumental legend of Ben

Raines . . . and made Claire Osterman and her government look like a

pack of incompetent screwups ... which they were.

After Claire completely lost her temper and what little rational

judgment she had, she started a civil war with the SUSA, using hired

mercenaries when half of her own USA troops refused to fight their

neighbors. All along a battle line that stretched for thousands of

miles, from Texas to Georgia in the Old South, federal troops faced

Rebel forces across no-man's-lands.*

Once again the SUSA, led by Ben Raines and his team, kicked Osterman's

federal troops' butt in battle after battle, driving her into a fury

that knew no bounds.

When Sugar Babe Osterman got word from her field commanders that Raines

had killed Commanding General Walter Ber-man, head of her entire Army,

in a hand-to-hand combat, she almost had a stroke, hi a fit of pique,

she notified Cecil Jeffreys, President of the SUSA, that if he and his

leaders-especially that bastard Ben Raines-didn't surrender, she was

going to launch an all-out missile attack against the SUSA at 0600

hours. The missiles were to contain a highly effective strain of anthrax

bacteria developed by a USA scientist named Yiro Ishi. The vaccinations

the SUSA had given their troops against anthrax would be useless due to

the nature of this new strain.

However, Ishi double-crossed Claire Osterman, and gave the formula for

an effective vaccine to Ben Raines and a fake form-

*Standoff in the Ashes.

11

ula to Osterman's government. As the plague began to decimate the USA,

Otis Warner, one of Claire Osterman's cabinet officers, conspired with

General Joseph Winter to have Claire Osterman killed in a plane crash.

When the plane went down, Warner and Winter, sure Osterman was dead,

took over the government of the USA, contacted SUSA President Cecil

Jeffreys, and began to discuss a peace accord.*

However, Claire Osterman survived the plane crash and was taken in by a

family in the Ozark Mountains of Tennessee, whose kindness she repaid by

killing the husband and wife. She contacted her old bodyguard, Herb

Knoff, and used him to help her establish her own "rebel" government

within the boundaries of the USA.

From there, she orchestrated a new war against the SUSA, enticing a

rebel leader from Belize named Perro Loco to attack Mexico and head

northward toward the SUSA's southern borders, while she hired

disgruntled FPPS and Blackshirt brigades to fight the leaders of the USA

and try to take back the country she considered her own.

Finally, in a decisive battle, Perro Loco's troops were defeated on the

very outskirts of Mexico City and driven back to southern Mexico, just

as Claire Osterman succeeded in driving the successors to her

presidency, Otis Warner and General Joe Winter, to seek asylum in the

SUSA.**

Claire, never one to give up her dream of defeating and killing Ben

Raines, hatched another plan for yet another war against the SUSA. . . .

*Crisis in the Ashes. **Tyranny in the Ashes.

13 One

Perro Loco's army is defeated in its attempt to take Mexico City, and

his forces have been pushed back to their stronghold at the old Mexican

naval base at Pariso near Villahermosa on Mexico's east coast.*

General Jaime Pena jumped to attention when Perro Loco, followed by Jim

Strunk and Paco Valdez, entered the commanding officer's office at the

Mexican Army base at Villahermosa. Pena had pulled his troops back to

this location after the disaster on the Pan American highway.

"Buenos dias," Pena said, saluting smartly.

Loco gave him a look, his eyes flat as he sat behind the desk in the office.

"General Pena, would you ask your second in command to come in, please."

"Certainly, comandante."

Pena stepped to the adjoining door, which led to the officers' wardroom,

and called, "Colonel Gonzalez, would you come in here?"

A tall, swarthy man, with a handlebar mustache and a knife scar on his

right cheek that coursed down his face to the corner of his mouth,

entered. He nodded at Loco and stood at attention, his back to the wall.

"Tyranny in the Ashes.

14

William W. Johnstone

"Now, General Pena, please be so kind as to explain to me why you failed

in your mission to take Mexico City," Loco said calmly.

Pena looked from Strunk to Valdez, who were standing behind Loco on

either side.

"But, comandante, there is only one serviceable road northward through

this miserable country, and it was heavily mined and defended." He

spread his arms wide. "I needed more air support, but the Mexicans had

ground-to-air missiles and shot the few helicopters I had at my disposal

out of the air."

Loco nodded, then glanced at Strunk. "Jaime, how much does a helicopter

cost?"

"Several millions of dollars, comandante."

"And an APC or a HumVee?"

"Many thousands of dollars, comandante."

"And a portable mine detector?"

Strunk smiled, shaking his head sadly. "Only a few hundred dollars,

comandante."

"Why did you not think that the road might be mined, General, and take

appropriate precautions? Surely, losing a few men with mine detectors

would have been preferable to losing"-he bent his head and studied a

sheaf of papers on the desk-"two helicopters, four APCs, three HumVees,

and four hundred and fifty-six soldiers, not to mention General Juan

Dominguez."

Pena, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and run down his cheeks to

drip off his chin, lowered his head. "We moved so fast, comandante, I

did not think the Mexicans would have had time to mine the road."

Loco sighed heavily. "That is the truest thing you've said today,

General," he said. "You did not think!"

"I am sorry, comandante," Pena said, his eyes on the floor in front of him.

Loco slipped a .45-caliber automatic out of his pocket and aimed across

the desk.

Pena glanced up, his eyes widening and his mouth opening

15

to protest as Loco fired. The pistol exploded and the bullet entered

Pena's forehead, snapping his head back and blowing the back of his

skull out, showering the wall behind him with blood and brains. Pena's

body collapsed in a heap in front of Loco's desk.

Loco cut his eyes to Colonel Gonzalez. "What is your first name, Colonel?"

Gonzalez swallowed, the scar on his cheek pulling the corner of his

mouth up in a caricature of a grin. "Enrique, comandante."

"Enrique Gonzalez, you are now promoted to general and will be in charge

of our forces in Mexico. Is that satisfactory?"

Gonzalez glanced at Pena's body on the floor, trails of smoke still

rising from his empty skull. He nodded rapidly. "Si, comandante."

"And you are aware of the penalties for failure?"

Gonzalez continued to nod, unable to take his eyes off Pena's corpse and

its right foot, which was still twitching. "Si, comandante."

Loco stood up and holstered his weapon. "Good. Then let us go to the

communications room and contact President Os-terman of the United

States. I fear we are going to need some of her more modern equipment to

take Mexico City."

President Claire Osterman hung up the phone after over an hour

discussing with Perro Loco how his forces had been stymied on their

journey toward Mexico City due to lack of air support and strong

resistance from the Mexican forces.

"Jesus," she said, "God save me from Central American desperadoes who

think they're generals."

She looked at her team of advisors arrayed before her. General Stevens,

Harlan Millard, and Herb Knoff were sitting in chairs in the commanding

officer's quarters of Fort Benjamin Harris in Indianapolis.

16

William W. Johnstone

She winced as rumbling sounds and vibrations shook the ceiling. "Herb,

can't we quiet that infernal noise?"

He shook his head. "Madame President, ypu ordered the removal of the

wreckage of the building overhead yourself. The bulldozers cannot do

that without making some noise."

"All right, all right," she said testily. She was still pissed off that

Otis Warner and General Joe Winter had been allowed to escape the attack

on the fort the day before.

"How is everything going with my resuming command of the country?" she

asked Stevens.

General Bradley Stevens, Jr., nodded. "Very well, Madame President. The

Armed Services have all acknowledged your right to continue as head of

the government, and the rank and file of the Army is behind you one

hundred percent. A few of the officers whose loyalty was questionable

have been replaced with men I can trust, but overall, it's going just fine."

"And the country?"

"A massive propaganda campaign has been undertaken," Millard said. "All

of the media are cooperating, as usual. We are informing the people that

the coup attempt to overthrow you was orchestrated by Otis Warner with

the complicity of Ben Raines and the SUSA. In the absence of any voices

telling them otherwise, I think they'll buy it."

"Good," she said. "Now we have two things to do in addition to

restarting the war against the SUSA. One, we have to transport some

equipment to Perro Loco down in Mexico. He has control of the Navy base

at Pariso near his command at Villahermosa. General Stevens, we need to

send a transport ship down there with some helicopters, tanks, APCs, and

whatever else he needs. I'll leave the coordination of that to you and

your men."

"Yes, Madame President."

"The second thing I've got to do is get him some help with his soldiers

and command structure. He's just too damned stupid to run a war."

"How do you propose to do that, Claire?" Millard asked.

17

She glanced at a folder on her desk that read TOP SECRET, INTEL on the

cover. "I have here an intel report on Bruno Bottger."

"Bruno Bottger?" Stevens asked. "I thought Raines killed him in Africa a

few years back."

She shook her head. "No, as it turns out, Bottger escaped to the island

of Madagascar. He stayed there for a year or so, recovering from wounds

he'd received in his escape. Then he made his way to South America.

Intel has found out he's used his vast fortune to hire an army of

mercenaries with the idea of reattacking Ben Raines at some point in the

future."

Stevens shook his head. "I don't know, Claire. Getting involved with

Bottger will be risky. The man is a zealot and a Nazi. He will be very

tough to control."

"That's the beauty of it, Brad. We won't have to control him. He hates

Ben Raines so much he'll jump at any chance to get revenge on him. I

plan to get him and his mercenary army to join Perro Loco by promising

him unlimited access to our weapons and technology. I'll also promise

him he may have Mexico as a prize for his new Nazi state if he manages

to conquer it."

"But, Claire," Millard protested, "you've also promised Mexico to Perro

Loco."

"Yes, I have, haven't I?" she said, a smile curling her lips. "Well, in

the event they are successful, they'll just have to fight it out to see

who ends up on top down there."

Stevens nodded, seeing where she was headed. "Yeah, and after they've

weakened each other fighting it out, we'll step in and take over from

whoever's left."

Claire grinned. "Brad, you're a man after my own heart."

18 Two

Bruno Bottger sat on the terrace of his villa on the Ilha de Sao

Sebastiao, a small island off the coast of South America, and watched

the sun set over the ocean.

He had a glass of German white wine in his right hand, and used his left

to gently massage the massive scar tissue around his eyes and cheeks,

while his mind was filled with thoughts of a certain General Dorfinann

and the day he was forced to run for his life. . . .

"Tell General Field Marshal Bottger that General Dorfmann is here from

Berlin. I must speak to him at once."

Bruno Bottger heard the voice through a crack in his office door, which

led to a secured waiting area in his underground bunker where his

private office was protected from air attack.

Why is Dorfmann here? he wondered, cringing inwardly.

Dorfmann commanded the Gestapo in New Germany. The New Nazi Party

governed most of what had once been Europe, now held in an iron grip by

Nazi forces.

Dorfmann only answered to Kaiser Wilhelm II, political leader of New

Germany. Bruno feared only one thing from Dorfmann . . . that he might

discover his racial impurity, his Jewish mother, even though Bruno had

made certain all her birth and death records had been destroyed. But

Dorfmann was tenacious, always digging to expose enemies of the New

World Order.

19

While Bruno held a higher military rank, and commanded the New World

Order Army, he continued to worry that somehow Dorfmann would discover

his dark secret, even though Bruno's New World Army was more or less

politically independent of New Nazi Germany.

No one told Bruno Bottger what to do, quite simply because he held the

power, the military might to crush anyone who stood in his way ... or

had, until this upstart Rebel Army led by General Ben Raines came to Africa.

Raines was proving to be a more difficult adversary than Bruno thought

in the beginning. Among the worst bits of news, Raines's forces, headed

by that bitch Jackie Malone, had wiped out one of Bruno's elite Special

Forces squads in Zimbabwe.

The devil woman's troops had killed them down to the last man, including

the squad's commander, Major Cheli, a feat Bruno had thought was

impossible. Cheli had been among his best recon specialists in difficult

terrain. To take him and his Bantu scouts by surprise implied an

expertise in jungle warfare Bottger could only envy, and fear.

Bruno's trusted bodyguard, Rudolf Hessner, stuck his head through the

doorway. "General Dorfmann is here from Berlin to see you."

"Show him in."

General Dorfmann entered the expansive office where an old Nazi flag

adorned Bruno's back wall. Dorfmann saluted, his stocky, muscular body

still fit even though he was well past the age of fifty. He wore a copy

of the old Nazi uniform, as did all New Nazi soldiers, right down to the

knee-high black leather boots and bill cap.

Bruno merely nodded, not returning Dorfmann's salute as a show of

superiority. Neither did he stand up behind his desk, giving Dorfmann an

indifferent stare.

"What brings to you Pretoria, Herr Dorfmann?" he asked, feigning

indifference, as if whatever it was could hold no significance for him.

Without being asked, Dorfmann took a seat across the desk

20

and removed his cap, pushing a hand through his naturally blond hair,

pale blue eyes riveted on Bruno.

"A matter of great urgency," he said in his heavy German accent. "Word

of several military defeats for the New World Army has reached Berlin.

This Tri-States Army has the kaiser worried, wondering if they will turn

toward New Germany sometime in the future."

"I do not intend to let that happen, Herr Dorfmann."

William W Johnstone - Ashes 31 - Warriors From the Ashes (txt)

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