Ambush in the Ashes (19 page)

Ben smiled. “We’ll take all the help we can get, Mr. President.”

It was only about a hundred kilometers from Abidjan to the Ghana border; the roads were in good shape and the column made good time. When they reached the border, Ghanaian border guards were waiting to escort them to the capital of Accra. Doctors were waiting with the border guards and after a brief conference with Dr. Chase, the convoy rolled on. To save time, the medical supplies would be offloaded in Accra and the Ghanaian military and civilian doctors would then spread out across the country, seeing to the sick and the needy.

The column stayed on the coast road and the towns

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and villages they rolled through were in good shape and the people appeared to be in pretty good physical shape.

“We won’t tarry long here,” Ben told his team. “Cote d’lvoire and Ghana are working closely together to reach some sort of normalcy. The supply ships have docked and are being offloaded as we speak. Everything is orderly and without trouble. Togo is where the fighting starts.”

“Why don’t we just avoid the damned country?” Anna asked.

“Personally, I wish we could, but we can’t,” Ben told her. “We’re going to help the civilians where we can, and fight the various guerrilla factions when it can’t be avoided. Luckily, Togo and Benin are small countries. We’ll stay along the coast, avoiding the interior. But Nigeria …” He shook his head and sighed. “… That’s where we’re going to get bogged down and have to start slugging it out.”

“When will we be able to resupply by ship?” Cooper asked.

“Good question, Coop. I don’t know the answer. Maybe in Cameroon. Certainly not before then. But the other battalions are making do with air drops and landings when the airports are useable. So shall we. Hell, we’ve had it easy compared with some of our people.”

“So quit your bitchin’,” Jersey told Cooper.

“Who’s bitchin?’ ” Cooper cut his eyes to Jersey. “I’m asking a question, that’s all. Go back to daydreaming about men and close your mouth, will you?”

Cooper was safe to pop off to Jersey as long as he was driving, and he knew it. However, Jersey had a long memory …

“Save your fighting for when it’s needed,” Ben cooled the situation. “And believe me, it’s going to be needed.”

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The pair ignored him, as he knew they would, because their quarreling was all in fun. They’d been picking at each other for as long as the team had been together.

“You got a fat mouth, Cooper,” Jersey said.

Cooper pursed his lips and made loud kissing sounds.

Jersey feigned gagging.

Ben smiled and the convoy rolled on.

“Where’s all the lions and elephants and apes and stuff?” Cooper asked.

“Mostly in the interior, Cooper,” Beth answered. “We might get to see some animals in Nigeria. Right, boss?”

“It’s a good possibility,” Ben replied.

“Cooper thinks he’s going to see Tarzan come swinging out of the trees,” Jersey said.

“I can be Tarzan, my precious desert blossom,” Cooper replied. “You can be my Jane.”

“What a disgusting thought,” she popped right back.

“Can any of you visualize Cooper in a loincloth, swinging through the trees with chimpanzees?” Corrie said with a laugh.

“Now you’re hurting my feelings,” Cooper said, doing his best to maintain a wounded expression.

“Cooper,” Jersey said, “I don’t believe your feelings could be hurt with an axe.”

Ben tuned the kibitzing pair down to a low murmur in his mind and stared out the window. He knew the closer the convoys drew to Bruno Bottger’s territory, the fiercer the fighting would become. The easy run for the Rebels was about to come to a halt.

Abruptly.

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Ben and his 18 Batt spent exactly one day in Ghana’s capital, Accra, before pulling out and moving on, heading for the war-torn country of Togo. Ben had been advised in Ghana that when the column reached the border, the good roads would vanish. The Rebels would find bridges blown, highways reduced to rubble, and civil war raging all around diem.

“Togo and Benin have been at each other’s throats since the Great War,” Ben said aloud, as die column neared the border. “Their forces have killed each other off in record numbers. When Lome was sacked and burned the capital was moved to Togoville. The Ghanaians retaliated by destroying Porto Novo so the capital was moved up-country to some place, which we will, hopefully, avoid.”

“Abomey,” Beth said.

“That’s it.”

“It’s about seventy-five or so kilometers from the coast,” Beth added.

“Thank you,” Ben said.

“Scouts report a welcoming committee of sorts waiting for us at the border,” Corrie said. “About fifty or so strong. No tanks. No mortars or machine guns that the Scouts can see. Just light arms.”

“Slow the column. Tanks up and spearhead,” Ben

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ordered. “We’ll give those at the border something to think about.”

The main battle tanks soon rumbled past, the commanders talking with the advance party of Scouts on another frequency. At a hand signal from Ben, Cooper gunned the engine and pulled in behind the last MBT.

“This is not going to make our security people happy,” Beth said, twisting in the seat and looking behind her.

“They’ll get over it,” Ben replied.

“The border guards ran away,” Corrie said. “Scouts are taking down the barricades now.”

“I thought the sight of the MBTs might have a sobering effect on them,” Ben told her.

The column rolled on across the border and entered the country of Togo. The roads immediately became cracked and bumpy, in many instances the hard surface missing altogether.

“Lome just a few miles up the road,” Corrie said. “What’s left of it, that is.”

“Says here,” Beth said, reading from a very tattered tourist brochure, “that Lome is a city of half a million. And it was West Africa’s financial capital. The way to say good-day in Mina-which is spoken by about a third of the population-is Sobaydo. “

Drizzle from the gray skies abruptly changed to a torrential downpour, sheets of slashing silver slowing the column down to a crawl as the roads worsened.

The team rode in silence for a few minutes. On the roof of the big wagon the hammering rain was making normal conversation all but impossible. Then, as abruptly as it began, the rain tapered off to a quiet steady fall.

“Scouts nearing the city,” Corrie reported. “Seeing signs of some habitation. The few people they’re seeing

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look like walking dead … near starvation. Scouts want to know if they should locate a CP for you?”

“Yes,” Ben said softly. “We came here to help the people. So let’s try. And have the Scouts check out the airport and port facilities, if any. Corrie, we’ll pull the column over now and wait for a report.”

Ben unassed himself from the wagon and walked back to where Chase’s vehicle was pulled over, motioning for the chief of medicine to get out and join him. The men walked over to what remained of some sort of small business and stood under a sagging awning.

“I’ve ordered a halt here, Lamar. Do what you can for the people.”

Lamar stared at Ben for a moment. “Band-Aids on a sucking chest wound, Ben.”

“I know. But at least we’ll leave remembered as helping when and where we could instead of as some conquering army.”

“We’re going to need a hell of a lot more food than we’re carrying.”

Ben sighed. “I know. Two cargo ships are paralleling us a few miles off shore. They’re filled to capacity with supplies. If at all possible, they’ll dock.”

“All right, Ben. Find my people a secure location.”

“Will do.”

The city of Lome had been looted and savaged and shelled and fought over numerous times and finally burned. There wasn’t a hell of a lot left.

Engineers started working on the airport and promised to have one runway opened ASAP. The port had been wrecked, with dozens of small craft having been sunk in the harbor. Emergency supplies would have to be offloaded at sea and brought in by small boat. A very slow process.

The people who remained in the ruins of the city were a pathetic lot, sick and starving and existing with-

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out hope. They had been eating rats and snakes and just about anything else that walked, crawled, or flew … including, in some cases the Rebels found, each other.

As soon as word spread about the Rebels being there to help, not to make war, the refugees began pouring in from the countryside. And it took less than twenty-four hours for that news to spread.

Lamar Chase’s makeshift hospitals were soon very nearly overwhelmed, many of those brought in were near death, and far beyond any medical help. They were given shots to ease their suffering and placed under whatever shelter could be found to get them out of the rain and to die in peace and some sort of comfort … young and old alike.

Surprisingly, there was very little trouble from the gangs that roamed the countryside. They stayed far away from the ruins of the city.

“They know better than to start trouble with us,” Ben told Cecil one afternoon. “They know they’re directly responsible for all this human misery and know I’ve ordered them shot on sight. And I will do so, cheerfully. How is the press outside the SUSA reporting all this?”

“They’re not saying much, Ben. We’re intercepting the reports from the press traveling with you and they’re filing human interest stories. I think many of them are seeing a side of the Rebels they didn’t know existed.”

Ben chuckled, but it was without mirth. “Yeah. When they first showed up, they looked at us, and treated us, as if we were a bunch of bloodthirsty pirates, second only to Attila the Hun.”

“One screw-up and they’ll be right back looking at us in that manner.”

“Would that bother you?”

“Not one little bit.” Ben signed off just as Dr. Chase walked in.

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“Scouts report the gangs are gathering about halfway between here and Notse, waiting for us,” Corrie said. “At the junction.”

“What strength?”

“About five hundred so far, but several thousand are in position to move in very quickly.”

“What junction?” Chase asked.

“The bridges over Lake Togo have been destroyed. We’re going to have to head north, then take a secondary route into Benin. What kind of arms, Corrie?”

“Light arms, mostly. A few heavy machine guns. But Scouts report they do have some mortars.”

“Ammunition is going to be critical for them,” Ben said. “Unless Bruno is supplying them, and that is something we must always take into consideration. Personally, I think he is supplying them, using them for cannon fodder in the hopes they’ll get lucky with some ambush. All the other batt corns are reporting the same thing: small bands of guerrillas constantly harassing them. There is too much of a pattern developing here for it to be coincidence.”

“Then we’ve going to have to contend with the threat of ambush from here on in,” Chase said.

“Every day, Lamar. I told you it would get worse the further south we went.”

“So you did, Ben. So you did.”

“And there is something else: we’re going to have to be constantly alert for guerrillas to be mixed in with the civilians we stop to help. And …” he sighed, “… no matter how careful we are, some civilians are going to get caught up in the cross fire, and get hurt or killed.”

Lamar’s sigh matched that of Ben’s. He opened his mouth to speak, then obviously thought better of it and closed it. He shook his head in frustration and walked out of Ben’s CP. He paused in the door and looked

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back. “We’ll have done all we can do with what we have in another day and a half, Ben. I’m shutting down a couple of outlying clinics now. We’ll be ready when you give us the signal.”

“How many people? …”

Lamar cut him off abruptly. “They’re dying, Ben. There is nothing we can do for about forty percent of them except make them comfortable and ease the transition into death. Babies are dying because their mothers are dry and can’t nurse them. Why in God’s name do people continue to have babies in the middle of a fucking famine when hundreds of others are starving to death all around them?”

Ben did not offer any reply, knowing that in all probability, Lamar was not finished.

“You give the orders you have to give, Ben,” Lamar said. “And you don’t feel guilty about it. You are not obligated to carry the ills and the woes and the goddamn stupidity of the people who inhabit this world on your shoulders, and by God, neither am I. Good night.”

“Anybody got anything to add to that?” Ben questioned his team.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” Anna said, laying aside an oily cleaning rag. She closed the bolt on her CAR and walked out the door, hurrying to catch up with Dr. Chase.

Ben smiled, very thinly. “Corrie, advise the company commanders we’ll be pulling out in about thirty-six hours. We’ll have done all we can do here.”

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“Every battalion meeting resistance,” Corrie said, as the column put Lome behind them and were advancing north toward the junction at Notse.

“It’s begun,” Ben replied. “Cooper, pull over so Corrie can establish an uplink. When that’s done, Corrie, ask what type of uniforms the enemy is wearing and if there are any whites leading the groups.”

The column waited until the portable dish could be set up and Corrie could check with each battalion. “No standard uniforms, boss,” she finally reported. “Some are wearing ragged remnants of uniforms but most are in civilian clothes. There are a few whites who seem to be in command.”

“Bruno’s advisors,” Ben said. “He’s either sent some of his own officers up to train and take command, or he’s hired mercenaries. Probably the latter. All right, Corrie. Thanks. Let’s get this show back on the road.”

The column rolling once more, slowly on the nearly nonexistent highway, Ben said, “Bump the Scouts and assess the situation at the junction.”