Ambush in the Ashes (15 page)

“Okay, Ben. Take it easy.”

“What’s up, Jersey?”

“Intel says something’s in the wind. There is some unusual movement among the locals in the city and we’ve got several hundred people all moving toward the airport in small groups.”

“Any sign of weapons?”

“All of them carrying bundles about three feet long.”

“My, my,” Ben said with a grin. “You don’t suppose they’re going camping this late in the evening, do you?”

“I kinda doubt it, boss.”

Ben glanced at Corrie. She nodded. “Everybody’s on alert.”

Ben picked up his CAR and looked around the large room. Cooper had set up his squad automatic weapon and had placed extra two hundred round magazines close by. Anna and Beth had taken up positions at the rear of the room, facing away from the runways. Corrie picked up her CAR and smiled at Ben.

“Rock and roll,” she said.

“Indeed we shall,” Ben replied, just as the first sounds of gunfire reached their ears. “Cut the lights.”

The room was suddenly plunged into darkness.

134

William W. Johnstone

“Groups of people swarming all over the airport,” Corrie spoke calmly. “One large group attempting to cross the runways.”

“They won’t make it,” Ben said softly, just as Rebel .50 caliber machine guns opened up.

Portable lights set up all around the area clicked on and the harsh beams showed dozens of men either lying very still in darkening pools of blood or flopping around in twisted pain on the runways.

“Fools,” Ben muttered.

A face filled with hate suddenly appeared in a window and Ben leveled his CAR and squeezed the trigger. The face dissolved in a spurt of blood and shattered bone. Another face took its place and Ben’s CAR bucked in his big hands. The top of the man’s head splintered apart and gray matter splattered.

Cooper’s bi-podded SAW began yammering and a line of figures went down in boneless sprawls as the 5.56 rounds stitched them from left to right in the center of the body.

“It’s heavier than anticipated,” Corrie shouted over the rattle of battle. “A large contingent of reinforcements coming in from the north.”

A man suddenly shoved a weapon through the smashed window near Corrie and without changing expression she one-handed lifted her CAR and pulled the trigger. The 5.56mm rounds took the man first in the throat and then left a hole-pocked, bone-splintered, and bloody trail from his chin to the top of his head as the CAR rose on full auto.

“Asshole,” Corrie was heard to mutter.

A grenade sailed through a smashed window and without hesitation Anna scooped it up and hurled it back outside. “Hit the floor!” she shouted.

Ben and team hit the brass-littered floor just as the grenade exploded outside the CP, waist-high about

135

135

three feet in front of a group of charging infiltrators. The shrapnel shredded living flesh and the torn bodies were flung around like puppets with a madman manipulating the strings.

Witfi their ears still ringing from the concussion, Ben and team rose to their boots and once more took their positions. But the attackers had shifted their attack away from the small cluster of buildings-which included Ben’s GP-and seemingly were concentrating on attempting to overrun Rebel positions around the airport.

Bad mistake on the part of whoever was in charge of the enemy operation.

Ben and his team could hear the battle raging all around them, but for now, their part of the airport complex was quiet except for the moaning of the wounded outside.

“My God!” came the call from outside. “Is it all right to come in there?”

Ben recognized the voice as belonging to Stan Travis. “Come on. Stay low and get on the floor as soon as you enter the building.”

Jersey jerked open the door and Ben could almost see her smile in the darkness as Marilyn Dickson came crawling in on all fours. He braced himself for what he was sure was going to be a very caustic comment from Jersey.

She didn’t disappoint him.

“Damn,” the diminutive bodyguard said sarcastically. “Looks like a big-assed crab crawling in.”

Stan Travis came crawling in right behind Marilyn, then Ford McLachlan, and finally came Paula Preston, bringing up the rear.

“Four big-assed crabs,” Jersey said.

“Your people told us this area was secure!” Marilyn squalled indignantly.

“Funny thing about war,” Ben said calmly. “Things

136

can and often do change very quickly. Get over against that wall to your left, people. And stay down. You’ll be reasonably safe.”

“You mean it isn’t over?” Marilyn asked.

“I doubt it, lady,” Ben told her. “It’ll probably break loose again in a few minutes.”

Ben cut his eyes, which were accustomed to the dim light, to Paula. The woman did not appear to be frightened or upset. Ben had him a hunch that Paula would stand up to a spitting cobra and face it down. She was one hell of an actress, probably trained by the CIA at The Farm down in Virginia … years back.

Paula felt his eyes on her and met his gaze with a level gaze of her own.

She knows I’m onto her game, Ben thought. Hell, it was only a matter of time before she figured it out. It just might get real interesting after this.

“Here they come!” Corrie called. “They’ve split their forces. I just got a flash from Lieutenant Scott. They took a prisoner and the prisoner blabbed. They’re after you.”

“My, my,” Ben quipped, seating a fresh magazine into the belly of the CAR. “All this great big fuss over little ol’ me. I’m flattered.”

Ben could hear Marilyn’s snort of derision at that. Marilyn shrieked as a burst of automatic gunfire shattered what was left of some of the windows and splintered the wall behind her, sending bits of plaster and wood raining down on her head.

“I believe they’re really going to get serious about it now,” Anna said.

“I think you’re right, baby,” Ben told her, and that got him a sharp look from Marilyn. “She’s my daughter, Ms. Dickson,” Ben explained the familiarity.

“Your daughter!” Marilyn blurted.

“Yeah, lady,” Anna told her. “But right now, we don’t have time to explain our family tree.”

137

137

“Daughter?” Ford muttered. “I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t either,” Stan said.

“But she’s just a child!” Marilyn exclaimed. “She couldn’t be over eighteen years old!”

“Yeah; something like that,” Ben agreed.

“Something like that?” Paula got into the conversation. “You mean you don’t know how old your own daughter is?”

“Not really,” Ben admitted.

“That’s disgusting!” Ford said.

“Well, I can come within a year or so,” Ben replied, keeping one eye on the outside for any sign of movement while he had a good time putting on the reporters.

“Where is the child’s mother?” Marilyn asked.

“Damned if I know.”

“You mean you deserted her?” Paula asked.

“Well, not exactly.”

“You … you beast!” Marilyn said.

Anna started laughing softly and the civilians cut their eyes to her dim shape. “We had them going there for a while, didn’t we, General Ben?”

“We sure did, baby.”

“Heads up!” Jersey put an abrupt end to the game. “Here they come.”

“Stay out of the way, you people, and get belly down on the floor,” Ben ordered the reporters. “And stay there.”

Bullets ripped through the shattered windows and tore into the walls. The reporters hugged the floor as Ben and team returned their attention to the attackers, coming in human waves out of the darkness.

“I think they’re serious this time,” Ben muttered, raising the stock of his CAR to his shoulder.

Then conversation was impossible as gunfire roared.

A piece of torn-off wood or plaster slammed into the side of Ben’s helmet and the force of it knocked him a half step to the side. He shook his head to clear it and looked up just in time to see a man trying to climb through the remains of the window. Ben gave him a quick burst of 5.56 rounds at very nearly point-blank range, the lead taking him in the upper chest and shoulders. The attacker screamed in pain and fell back, his weapon, an AK-47, Ben observed, dropped inside the room.

Another man climbed partway into the room and Anna shot him in the face, knocking him back outside into the gunfire-sparked darkness.

Jersey was staying busy with her CAR, spraying the movement-filled night with pain and death.

Beth cussed and stuck the muzzle of her CAR into a man’s face just as he leveled his weapon, preparing to give the room a burst. The 5.56 rounds dissolved the attacker’s face into a mass of blood and he was dead and cooling before he hit the outside ground.

Cooper was rapidly clearing his perimeter of all living things with his SAW.

Corrie was firing her CAR from the hip and talking into her headset at the same time, steadily receiving reports from all over the airport.

139

The attack broke off as suddenly as it began, the darkness-shrouded enemy running away, disappearing into the night.

“Hold positions,” Ben ordered. “No pursuit.”

Corrie instantly relayed the orders.

After a few seconds, Ben said, “Give me some prelims on casualties.”

“Checking now,” Corrie said. “Be another minute or so.”

“Is it all right to get up now?” Ford asked from his position on the floor.

“Not yet,” Ben told him. “A couple more minutes.”

“But you’re standing up,” Marilyn protested.

“I never got down there.”

Marilyn muttered something under her breath, too low for Ben to hear, but he had a pretty good idea of the content. He smiled in the darkness.

“Half a dozen wounded, no dead,” Corrie reported. “We have a number of prisoners.”

“And we won’t get a damn thing out of any of them. Okay, people. You can get up. But don’t go outside and stay ready to hit the floor again.”

“Why won’t you get anything out of them?” Marilyn asked, brushing herself off.

“Because they don’t know who they’re working for,” Ben replied.

“What do you mean?” Stan asked.

“Just that. They’re mercenaries. Only the people at the top know who’s paying them.”

Vehicles were being pulled around to Ben’s CP, headlights on bright, illuminating the area all around. The bright beams picked up dozens sprawled in death and several trying to crawl away, too seriously wounded to stand up. Rebels were already moving among the dead, gathering up weapons and ammo. The weapons would be given to the newly formed police of the city. The bodies of the dead would be tossed into the beds of

140

trucks, trucked away and stacked up in a field away from the city, and buried in a mass grave at first light. The wounded would be taken to the MASH tents and treated. Then they would be turned over to the civilian police. What happened to them after that was of absolutely no concern to Ben.

But it was to the press. “What will happen to the prisoners?” Ford asked.

“After we’ve treated them, they’ll be turned over to the local police.”

“And then?” Marilyn asked.

“I don’t know. This isn’t my country. It’s theirs. Ask them.”

“I shall.”

“You do that. And while you’re doing that, ask who is paying these mercenaries to attack us. And find out why they’re so interested in killing me.” Ben turned away from her and met the eyes of Paula Preston. He held his steady gaze on the woman until she dropped her eyes. “I’d like to know. Wouldn’t you, Paula?”

The question seemed to startle her. “Ah … of course. Yes. Certainly.”

“I thought you would.” Smiling, Ben walked outside. He had planted the seed. Now he would wait to see how his garden grew.

There were no more attacks against the Rebels while they were in Conakry. The prisoners the Rebels captured that night knew nothing about who was in charge beyond their immediate officers. The Rebel doctors tended to their wounds and then turned them over to local authorities. If the press ever found out what might happen to the prisoners, they did not inform Ben as to their findings. Ben suspected the locals told the press to go suck an egg … or words something along that line.

141

Ben prepared to pull his 1 Batt out and continue south.

Next stop, the country of Sierra Leone.

Nick’s 18 Batt was only a day’s drive away from the west coast of Africa, his doctors seeing to the needs of the people in Mamou and Dabola, and Paul Harrison’s 17 Batt a day’s drive from Nick east at Kouroussa and Kankan. Ike was a continent away in Somalia, in what he described as the shithole of the world. There weren’t that many people left in Ike’s sector, for a decades-long civil war, drought, famine, and disease had just about wiped out the entire population of the country. Ike reported that the wild animals were once more reclaiming the land.

“You sure you people wouldn’t like to travel with Ike for a time?” Ben asked the press, a hopeful note in his words.

“Thank you, no,” Marilyn replied, speaking for the entire group.

“It was just a thought.”

Ben and his 1 Batt moved out just as the rainy season struck the land with full fury.

“Shhittt!” Jersey summed up the feelings of everyone as she stared out the window of the big wagon at the silver torrent hammering at the countryside.

“How long is this mess supposed to last?” Cooper questioned.

“Months,” Beth informed them.

“Double shit,” Jersey said.

“Well, we can take some consolation in the knowledge that it isn’t that far to Freetown,” Ben said.

“The country is a mess,” Corrie said. “Civil war still raging all over the place. Same with Liberia, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana.”

“It’s going to be heads up time for all of us from now on,” Ben warned the team. “We’ll be under threat of attack every hour of every day for our food, our sup-

142

William W. Johnstone

plies, our equipment and our weapons. We’re not going to be able to let down for an instant, for any reason.”