William W Johnstone - Ashes 16 - Vengance in the Ashes (txt)

DEATH TRAP!

The tiny hamlet was made up of three buildings- an old service station

and bait shop, a small grocery store, and a bar-and about a dozen homes.

It was not on any map Ben Raines had looked at.

"What do you think, Father?" Buddy asked.

"They'll attack us tonight," Ben said. "Bet the farm on it."

Dark, savage-looking clouds were gathering in the south and west. The

Rebels were tense as the storm approached. Just before dark, the rains

began, the sheets of water so intense they limited vision to only a few

yards.

"Here they come!" The shout was faint above the roaring storm.

The attack was well-planned, and it was fast.

We're not going to hold them, Ben thought, lifting his M-16. We finally

ran out of luck.

"General!" Jersey screamed.

Ben turned and took the butt of a rifle on the chin. The last thing he

remembered was falling into a black pit.

2 THE ASHES SERIES by William W. Johnstone

NUMBER TITLE

1. OUT OF THE ASHES

2. FIRE IN THE ASHES

3. ANARCHY IN THE ASHES

4. BLOOD IN THE ASHES

5. ALONE IN THE ASHES

6. WIND IN THE ASHES

7. SMOKE FROM THE ASHES

8. DANGER IN THE ASHES

9. VALOR IN THE ASHES

10. TRAPPED IN THE ASHES

11. DEATH IN THE ASHES

12. SURVIVAL IN THE ASHES

13. FURY IN THE ASHES

14. COURAGE IN THE ASHES

15. TERROR IN THE ASHES

16. VENGEANCE IN THE ASHES

17. BATTLE IN THE ASHES

18. FLAMES FROM THE ASHES

19. TREASON IN THE ASHES

20. D-DAY IN THE ASHES

21. BETRAYAL IN THE ASHES

22. CHAOS IN THE ASHES

23. SLAUGHTER IN THE ASHES

24. JUDGMENT IN THE ASHES

25. AMBUSH IN THE ASHES

26. TRIUMPH IN THE ASHES

27. HATRED IN THE ASHES No

28. STANDOFF IN THE ASHES (10/99)

29. CRISIS IN THE ASHES (2/00)

NOTE TO READERS:

FROM THE ASHES: AMERICA REBORN-including maps and synopses of all books

in the ASHES series and th Tri-States Manifesto-is available at your

bookstore now.

A must-have companion for all fans of The ASHES series

3 VENGEANCE IN THE ASHES

William W. Johnstone

Pinnacle Books Kensington Publishing Corp.

http://www.pinnaclebooks.com

4 PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022

or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher,

excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this

book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed'' to

the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any

payment for this "stripped book."

Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

First Printing: February, 1993 10 9876543

Printed in the United States of America

5 This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used

fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

6 One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled

with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of

paltry decorum.

Sir Walter Scott

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of

men live content.

Niccold Machiavelli

7 The Beginning

After years of government waste, government lies, and the almost-total

control of its citizens, the United States of America was teetering on

the brink of collapse. But it was not alone. All the great nations of

the world-the superpowers, as they were called back then-were in

trouble. The reasons were many and varied.

War, it seemed, was the only way out. Thin the population. Once the war

talk started, it could not be stopped. When the war came, and it erupted

simultaneously all over the world, Russia blamed the United States, the

United States blamed Russia. China blamed Europe. Israel blamed the Arab

nations, England put the blame on Northern Ireland, Germany blamed

Japan, and the French blamed everybody.

It didn't make any difference who started the war, a limited nuclear and

germ attack, for when it was over, there was not a functioning

government left in the entire world.

In the United States, one man was picked to pull the nation out of the

ashes of defeat and set it right again. Only problem was ... he didn't

want the job.

8 Ben Raines was an unlikely candidate from the outset. He was a

reclusive man, a loner. He had been both soldier and spy. He was a

visionary, a philosopher, and a writer of books and articles. He was so

controversial in his views that one group or the other had tried a dozen

times over the years to kill him. But Ben Raines was a hard man to kill.

Ben Raines was a hard-liner on some issues and liberal to the core on

others. Back when such things existed, he was a maverick when it came to

voting in any type of election, for he never voted strict party lines.

It took months for a small group of survivors to convince Ben to lead

their movement. But when he took the reins of controls, things began to

happen. He immediately moved thousands of followers to the northwest and

formed a country within a country, calling it the Tri-States. And life

was good there. In the Tri-States, there was free medical care for all.

There was no crime, for Ben Raines would not tolerate it. The life

expectancy of a criminal was very short. Ben built schools and stressed

education above all else. All students who were able had at least ten

hours of hard physical exercise a week, including paramilitary training,

for Ben knew that once the central government of the United States was

once more functioning, the politicians would ask the military to move

against the Tri-States. Already the struggling central government of the

United States was calling those who followed Ben scum and malcontents

and traitors. Others called them Rebels. The name stuck. Ben Raines's

Rebels.

While the central government of the United States, now located in

Richmond, was ruling with typical inefficiency, the Rebels in the

Tri-States were living happy and contented lives. The politicians couldn't

9 stand it. It infuriated the bureaucrats to see such a large group of

people living with so few rules and regulations, and for heaven's sake,

they were actually shooting criminals out there! Everybody who was a

permanent citizen of the Tri-States could carry a gun. Criminals had

practically no rights at all. And the constitution and the laws of the

Tri-States were written so simply that even a child could understand them.

The politicians and lawyers and professional bureaucrats shook their

heads at that. That just wouldn't do at all; they couldn't have that.

The lawyers especially were unhappy about it. If laws were spelled out

so simply and plainly that anyone could understand them, there would not

be much need for attorneys. Why, that was practically un-American!

It was pointed out to Ben that only about one in five could live under

the laws of the Tri-States. Ben said, "Fine. The other four can keep

their asses out or get them shot off."

Actually, it wasn't true that only one in five could live under the laws

of the Rebels. The truth was, the other four wouldn't live under those laws.

It was a common-sense sort of society. A spokesman for the old

Tri-States explained it to a member of the press in this way: "A person

who is respectful of another's rights will rake his or her lawn and bag

the leaves for proper disposal or turn them into mulch. A person who has

no regard for a neighbor's rights will burn the leaves and let the smoke

drift into the neighbor's house. Do you understand a common-sense society?"

The press didn't.

But as Ben knew it would, the Tri-States fell under a massive government

assault. Only a handful of

10 Rebels escaped the killing fields. But a handful was enough,

especially since Ben Raines was one of them. The Rebels re-grouped and

re-formed and began their march against the central government of the

United States. Then the rat-borne sickness struck the land and quickly

spread worldwide. The Rebels kept their heads down and their wits about

them and survived.

The world was plunged backward into medieval thinking. Chaos ruled.

Outlaws and warlords took control. Slowly the ranks of the Rebels grew,

and ever so slowly they began the job of clearing the United States of

crap and crud. It would take them years to accomplish it, but accomplish

it they did. The Rebels became the strongest, best-equipped, most highly

motivated, disciplined, and most-feared army in all the world. They took

back the land from thugs and gangs and returned it to law-abiding citizens.

Then came the day that the nation once known as America was declared a

clean zone. It had taken the Rebels, under the leadership of Ben Raines,

years to do it, but they did it. The Rebels had established outposts all

around the nation. Each state had anywhere from a dozen to several dozen

of them. These outposts were towns that had running water that was safe

to drink, they had sewerage systems that worked, streetlights and

schools and hospitals and churches and libraries. These towns were also

places where crime did not exist. Contrary to what lawyers and liberals

and sobbing hanky-stompers had maintained over decades of lawlessness,

it was very easy to accomplish. Crime was not tolerated. When everyone

was of a like mind concerning the criminal-justice system, crime was

very easy to control and eliminate. When a citizen could safely shoot a

burglar without fear of jail or lawsuits, those so disposed toward

11 crime quickly learned that it was not only unprofitable, it was

downright deadly. When every law-abiding citizen had access to a gun,

and shooting a criminal was not only legal, it was encouraged,

criminals, like rats and other creatures of the night, soon sought a

safer clime.

In the Rebel system, everybody that was able worked. There were no free

rides in the Rebel system. No police officer had to read anyone his

rights, for an individual's rights were taught in school, from

kindergarten on up. Public schools taught young people to respect the

rights of others and to respect the land and the animals who lived in

the woods and forests. Kids were taught both at home and in the schools

to respect warnings. They were taught that if they encountered a Keep

Out or No Trespassing sign, they stopped and either turned around or

found another way to get to where they were going. What few written laws

the Rebels had on the books were not there to be broken; they were there

to be obeyed.

What the Rebels had done, under the direction of Ben Raines, was to

uncomplicate living. Their way of life in the outposts was, by the very

nature of the times, harsh, but it didn't have to be complicated. Any

Rebel society was based on order and justice. Not law and order. Order

and justice. A criminal convicted of any major felony was given a

choice, however: a hangman's noose or a firing squad.

As it had been in the old Tri-States, in any Rebel society medical care

was free. So was education from kindergarten through college.

Kindergarten through high school was mandatory. In the Rebel societies,

the teachers were left alone to teach, and the students learned.

The Rebel army was made up of everybody-male and female-who lived in a

Rebel society. Everybody

12 became a member automatically at age sixteen. By that time, a person

had already completed hundreds of hours of paramilitary training. One

either joined the Rebel army or was kicked out from under the umbrella

of Rebel protection and put on his own, his ID card destroyed. Without

an ID card, no one could receive medical aid or buy supplies from any

Rebel outpost.

There were many thousands of people who lived outside the safety zones

of Rebel-held territory, many thousands more than who lived in the towns

controlled by Rebels. No one was forced to join the Rebels. But anyone

with any common sense at all did.

The members of the ten battalions of the regular Rebel army were, to a

person, trained to the cutting edge, honed down to hard muscle and

gristle and bone. And they liked a good fight. They went out of their

way to find one.

Ben Raines commanded One Battalion. General Ike McGowan, an ex-Navy SEAL

commanded Two Battalion. Colonel Dan Gray, a former member of Her

Majesty's Special Air Service commanded Three Battalion. Colonel West

and his mercenaries made up Four Battalion. General Georgi Striganov, a

former Russian Spetsnaz commander was in charge of Five Battalion.

Colonels Rebet and Danjou commanded Six and Seven Battalions, made up of

Russian, French-Canadian, and Canadian troops. Thermopolis, the hippie

turned warrior, commanded Eight Battalion. Ben's daughter, Tina,

commanded Nine Battalion. And the wild Irishman, Pat O'Shea, commanded

Ten Battalion. There was Ben's son, Buddy, and his group of young men

and women called the Rat Pack. And there were the ex-outlaw bikers

called the Wolf Pack. People of all

13 nationalities and all walks of life and all religious beliefs made up

the fighting battalions of Raines's Rebels. And there were the support

troops and the doctors. The chief of medicine was a crusty old bastard

named Lamar Chase. He was the only person alive who could order Ben

Raines out of the field and into a hospital bed, and Ben had to obey.

There were the cooks and the truck drivers and the mechanics and the

supply people and the pilots and hundreds of others. Raines's Rebels, so

far as they knew, made up the largest standing army on the face of the

earth. They were also the most feared fighters in all the world. They

gave an enemy one chance to surrender. Only one. After that, they rarely

took prisoners.

Ben and his Rebels had sailed to Ireland and then England, cleaning it

out and handing a reasonably stable government back to the citizens of

those nations. Then they set sail for Hawaii, going around the Horn,

inspecting each inhabited island along the thousands of miles.

The islands that made up the Hawaiian chain were under the ruthless rule

of thousands of pirates and various other assorted thugs.

All that was about to change.

16 Book One

17

After suffering defeats from the Rebels that came very swift and very

hard, the pirates and outlaws and thugs on the islands began beefing up

their positions and smartening up. They were, to a person, stunned when

they realized that the Rebels now controlled much of the island of

Molokai, including the main port and the airport. None of them could

understand exactly how the Rebels had managed to land so many troops and

go undetected.

"Because we got lax," Jerry James said. Jerry was the leader of one of

the largest gangs in the island chain. Jerry James was not his real

name, but then, most of the outlaws had long since dropped their real

names. "Me and Books here has been talking."

Books Houseman, so called because of his love of reading, stood up. Like

Jerry, he ramrodded a large gang and was looked upon for guidance

because of his extremely high intelligence. Books was also one of the

most vicious gang leaders operating anywhere in the islands. His

ruthlessness more than made up for his small size. "What it comes down

to is this," Books said. "And you all better realize it. We are in a

fight for survival. Unlike our counterparts

18 on the mainland, we have no place to run. We either win, or we die.

There is no middle ground. So, we've got to be smarter than Ben Raines.

There is no way we can stand and slug it out with the Rebels. While we

have many more personnel, they've got us outgunned. They're organized,

well-trained, and very highly motivated. We, sadly enough, are no more

than rabble. But rabble helped defeat Burgundy in France, and we can do

the same here. But we've got to plan carefully, and we've got to have

one overall commander of all forces. You leaders think about that for a

few minutes; talk it over. Then we'll continue this meeting."

Rabble was an apt choice of words. But it wasn't quite strong enough.

Slick Bowers looked across the large room at Susie Loo, who was sitting

next to Vic Keeler. Susie ran a gang that was very nearly as large as

his own and about twice as vicious. Vic was a pirate who enjoyed

torturing his captives. He was very inventive. Mac Mackenzie sat alone,

his back to a wall. Mac was stone crazy and just about as predictable as

a Tasmanian devil. But his gang was large and he ran it with an iron

fist. Leo Jones sat quietly smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Leo was

just about as smart as Books, but with a lot more common sense. Larry

Perkins stood, leaning against a wall. He had a strange expression on

his face, and Slick thought he knew what it was all about. Larry was

facing reality. They all knew that the Rebels had never been whipped.

The gangs had the finest of radio equipment and had spent years

monitoring the movement of the Rebels.

John Dodge said, "So let's talk. Hell, we're wasting time." John ran a

cattle ranch on Kauai and had about two hundred men working for him, not

counting the slaves. Every gang leader and most of

19 those in the various gangs had slaves. They were worked until they

could no longer work, then they were given to the Believers, the

cannibalistic Night People, those whom the Rebels called Creepies.

Kip Burdette said, "I'm with Books. I think he's our man. Me and my boys

will take orders from Books." Kip was a slaver whose ships roamed all

over the Pacific, buying and selling human beings.

Rye Billings nodded his shaggy head. A huge bear of a man, the former

mainland outlaw biker was known for his brutality. "I'll take orders

from Books. I don't much like the bastard, but he's smart, I got to give

him that. We're up against the wall, boys and girls. He's right when he

says we got no place to run. This is it."

"The plane we sent out never come back," Dean Sherman said glumly. "The

last transmission we had was that it was hit and goin' down."

"And that the pilot was looking' at the biggest damn armada he'd ever

seen," Polly Polyanna said. No one knew what her real name might have

been. Nobody really cared. "My people will back Books. No problem there."

"Same here," a gang leader who called himself Wee Willie said. "We got

too good of a thing goin' here. I ain't givin' none of it up just 'cause

some overage Boy Scout says to do it."

"Ben Raines ain't no Boy Scout," Tucker said. "Don't none of you ever

think that. I fought that bastard from New York City to California. Or

rather, I run from him all that way. Now I got no place left to run. If

any of you people come out of this alive, and you find my body when

Raines's Rebels is done kickin' our asses, bury me up in the mountains

if you can. Mighty pretty country up there."

"Aw, man!" a thug called Spit shouted. "Hell, you

20 act like he's done won this fight. We can whip the Rebels."

"Maybe, just maybe," Tucker said. "But we're gonna have to be awful

lucky. You folks don't know Ben Raines. He hates punks and thieves and

the likes of us. And in his own way, he's just as mean as we are. Look

at who the Rebels has whipped: Hartline, Khamsin, Sister Voleta, the

Believers, all the L.A. street gangs, ever army that's ever had the

nerve to take them on ... has lost. Been wiped clean off the map. And I

don't know how to fight Ben Raines and his Rebels."

"I do," Books said from the open doorway. "Oh, my, yes. I certainly do."

"Get the general up here," a Rebel sergeant radioed back to Ben's CP.

"Fast!"

"What's the problem?" Ben asked, as he was stepping out of the vehicle

Cooper had procured for him.

"The enemy is gone, sir. They started disappearing about five minutes

ago. There isn't a sign of them down the road."

"Well, it's about time," Ben said, lifting his binoculars.

"I beg your pardon, sir?" the sergeant asked.

"I spoke at length with a local name of Jim Peters. He told me that

probably the man who would be chosen to lead the thugs and crud would be

a man called Books. Last name of Houseman. Highly intelligent fellow. He

was an officer in the American service, a graduate of some military

academy; Jim didn't know which branch. Books was court-martialed after

he was caught selling secrets to some East European country. Before he

could be sentenced, the

21 world blew up. He surfaced over here about five years ago. He's

respected if not liked by the other gang leaders. I think that this

Books fellow has done something no other group we've ever faced had

managed to do." He smiled, noting the puzzled look on the sergeant's

face. "He's figured out the only way they might stand a chance of

beating us. Bet on it."

A group of Rebels had gathered around, listening.

"If I'm right," Ben said, "and I think I am, we're in for some

down-and-dirty guerrilla fighting. This campaign is going to be messy,

people. Corrie, bump all batt corams. I want a meeting five minutes

ago." He looked at the Rebels gathered around him. "Heads up, people.

We're about to engage in a lot of hit-and-run fighting."

"I think you're right, Ben," Georgi Striganov said. "This failure to

attack, now that they have hundreds of new troops on this island, is ...

baffling. Or was."

Ben looked at his son. The young man was so ruggedly handsome, half the

women in the Rebel army were in love with the muscular young man . .. or

thought they were. "I think the crud is breaking up into small teams,

son. Take your Rat teams and start head-hunting. Each team take a local

with them. Get moving."

His son tossed him a sloppy salute and left the CP, hollering for his team.

Ben looked at the map of the island. "I can't break up the battalions on

a hunch. But on the other hand, I can't wait for them to infiltrate us."

Ben turned to stare out the window. "I can't order attack helicopters in

to rocket and strafe suspected punk positions on the islands because of

the civilian population. I can't order the ships closer in to shell for

the same reason. We've got to take the chain island by island. But by

doing it that way, it gives the

22 enemy time to beef up and make plans and get set." He turned and

thumped the table a couple of good whacks with his fist. "All right,

folks. Each of you will pick one full company to be broken up into small

groups and start them head-hunting. We've got plenty of local volunteers

to act as guides. It's going to be slow and bloody, with the terrain as

it is. And if this island is going to be bad, the big island of Hawaii

is going to be a bloody son of a bitch!"

Books Houseman, the newly elected supreme commander of all the slime,

crap, crud, and those with unhappy childhoods that drove them to a life

of crime, read the report and tossed it on the desk. "It didn't take him

long to figure it out," he said, with grudging admiration in his tone.

"About five minutes. But it's going to take him precious days to clean

out Molokai. By that time, we'll be set up all over the place."

"But the citizens will be free," one of his men mentioned.

"It can't be helped. There is no other way to fight Ben and his Rebels.

Believe me when I say that all others have been tried. They failed."

"You really think we have a chance, Books?"

"Yes, I do. Albeit a very slim one. This type of warfare is slow and

bloody. Both sides are going to take tremendous losses. And that's where

we have the advantage. We have thousands more men than the Rebels."

"Books?"

"Yes?"

"Are you a general now?"

Books threw back his head and laughed. "That's a good one, Pete. Me, a

general. No, I think not. But for

23 a time I did make a lot of money as a lieutenant ... by selling

secrets to the Russians."

"Did you ever get any of that Russian pussy, Books?"

"Oh, yes. That was part of the arrangement. I slept with several very

lovely young Russian ladies. My last contact killed herself rather than

be taken alive. Some agents of the CIA wanted her rather badly. They

were working in the United States quite illegally, of course. The bastards."

"Ben Raines used to work for the CIA."

"Yes," Books said softly. "I know. That's why I want to take him alive.

It would be very interesting to see just how much pain he can tolerate."

Buddy held up a hand and motioned his Rat team to the ground. He smiled

and pointed straight ahead of him toward a tangled rise of land. The

local who lay beside him grinned and whispered, "There is a ravine that

runs to the east of that knoll. It curves and comes in right behind that

rise."

Buddy nodded and said, "Lead the way, Pilipo."

The team silently made their way into the rocky ravine and worked around

until they were behind the outlaws' position.

"Do we ask for their surrender?" Pilipo asked in a whisper.

Buddy smiled. "We did, last night. We only ask once." Buddy took a

fire-frag from his harness and held it up for the others to see. Within

seconds, all the team held fire-frags in their hands. "Now," Buddy said,

releasing the spoon and chunking the grenade in a deadly arc.

"Grenades!" the shout sprang from the thickness of green.

24 The vegetation-thick knoll erupted in fire and shrapnel as the

mini-Claymores blew. Wild screaming and howls of pain followed. One

outlaw, apparently unhurt, ran from the carnage and was cut down,

stopped in his tracks and flung backward from the many rounds that tore

into him. The Rat team lay silent, waiting to see if the combat would

draw others.

No one came to investigate. "Check it out," Buddy said.

The woman slipped to the blood-splattered rise and seconds later called,

"Come on."

"Six-man teams," Buddy said, squatting down beside the torn body of an

outlaw. A walkie-talkie lay beside the body. It was on, the volume

turned down low. Buddy motioned his team to rest and he wiped the blood

off the handy-talkie and wrapped a bandanna around the cupped mouthpiece

to muffle his voice and waited.

"Jocko," the voice sprang out of the speaker. "What's happenin' over there?"

"Pinned down," Buddy replied, opening and closing the talk switch,

deliberately breaking up the transmission. "Come help us."

"You're breakin' up bad. How many?"

"Looks like about ten."

"On the way. Stay loose. We'll come in from the north."

"Drag that dead man up here with the others," Buddy ordered. "Then get set."

Pilipo looked at Buddy and smiled. "You are a tricky one, Buddy."

William W Johnstone - Ashes 16 - Vengance in the Ashes (txt)

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