Anarchy in the Ashes (25 page)

The men and women of the IPF found that most amusing.

 

 

“You do know what fightin' is all about,” Abe Lancer said. He spoke from the ground, where Captain Rayle had tossed him during a hand-to-hand combat session. “I'll be gittin' up now,” Abe said. “Take me a rest. You 'bout wore me plumb out, Captain.”

Captain Rayle extended his hand and grinned. The mountain man accepted the hand warily, then returned the smile as he was helped to his feet.

“All of President Raines's people trained like you?” the man asked Roger.

“Quite a number of us. The general insists on his people being able to take care of themselves.”

Abe rubbed his aching and bruised shoulder and grinned ruefully. “I would have to say, Captain, you folks do know that, all right.”

The crowd of mountain people and flat-landers from down in Georgia had watched in silence and some disbelief – at first – as the smaller, lighter and much less powerful Rebel captain had tossed the big mountain man around like a rag doll, bouncing him off the ground time after time. Abe had been unable to land even one blow.

Captain Rayle and his small contingent of Rebels had been surprised at the number of survivors they had discovered in the area, and delighted at the number who accepted them. Almost a thousand men and women had volunteered to be trained by the small detachment of Rebels.

But the civilians needed no training in marksmanship, however. There was not a man among them who could not punch out the center of a Prince Albert can at three hundred yards with a rifle.

All the Rebels had been touched by the naivete of the country people and amused and mildly shocked by the open frankness of the people. And all had been genuinely welcomed into the homes of the people.

Ben had deliberately mixed the detachment, including blacks and Jews and Hispanics and Orientals; he wanted the people to see exactly what his philosophy was all about.

“We ain't got nothing agin' black folks – or anybody else, for that matter,” one man had told Captain Rayle. “We live side by side with black folks and work ever' day with'em. Long as a man pulls his weight and don't want something for nothing and don't try to mess over another person, anyone is welcome to come here and live. The one thing we ain't gonna put up with is no goddamn welfare state. If a man or woman is able to work, by God they gonna work; they ain't gonna lay up on their backsides and do nothing 'cept eat and git fat at somebody else's labor.” That much was the Rebel's philosophy. “I ‘member how it was – how it got – 'fore the big war of eighty-eight: lazy-assed trashy women of all colors layin' around and fuckin' and havin' babies that the taxpayers had to support; goddamned sorry, trashy men too lazy to work, sayin' a certain kind of job was beneath ‘em. Piss on those people. We ain't gonna have none of them in here. No way. Now they ain't nobody who is sick gonna go hungry or cold in this area; we'll look after 'em folk – see to it that nobody lacks for comfort. But them that can work is gonna work.

“It's a small community as communities go. We all know who is tippy-toein' around, liftin' what skirt and when. Woman gets in a family way, the man responsible is gonna support the child. And we don't give a good goddamn how much more work the man's gotta do. He's gonna do 'er.

“I ain't sayin' I hold much with mixed marriages, but me and mine kinda figure that really ain't none of our truck. Man or woman wants to wake up in the morning time and look at ugly – that's their business.”

“Had many cases arose where a man refused to support a child he fathered?”

“One, to date. Feller admitted he got his jollies with the lady – said she should have tooken some measures to don't have no kid. Refused to help with the child.”

“What happened to him?”

“He come up shot one night,” the man replied noncommittally. “Dead.”

The Rebel smiled at this very final type of justice. “Klan strong in this area?”

The man fixed him with a baleful look. “I ain't got no use a-tal for that bunch of white trash. Never did have. Don't know nobody that do. Wouldn't have 'em around me if I did. Don't know no one that would. That answer your question?”

The Rebel laughed. “Sure does.”

Captain Rayle radioed back to Ben, requesting that medical supplies and medics be sent into the area. Soon trucks began rolling in, some of them diverted from the battle area. The trucks brought in not only badly needed medicines, but also a few doctors and teams of highly trained medics to beef up the few medical people that had survived the plague of the previous year. They were welcomed.

Ben had given Captain Rayle his orders personally, in a private meeting back in Tri-States. Roger had the mapped-out coordinates for what Ben had called the last chance for his dream, and it was in that area that Captain Rayle and his people were working, fanning out, attempting to make contact with all those who survived. They began finalizing the boundaries. The Alabama line would be the western boundary, from Burke up in Tennessee down to Bowdon in Georgia, on the Alabama line. The line would run straight east to Orangeburg in South Carolina, then take a ninety-degree turn to Columbia, angling gently northwest, following Interstate 26 as the guiding line up to Ashville. From there, the north boundary would be a line straight east, connecting with Burke to close the area.

“Get your defensive positions quietly laid out,” Ben had instructed. “Study what we did in the old Tri-States back in eighty-nine and ninety. Use that as a guidebook. When we get as many of the people out of the areas controlled by the IPF as possible, we'll be coming in. To stay,” he added, with more than a touch of grimness to his comment. “I hope.”

 

 

There were tears in her eyes, spilling down to roll in silver rivers over her cheeks as she read the message, then reread it. Ben sat quietly and watched her. Gale looked at him through a blurry mist. She wiped her eyes and threw the message in a wad onto his desk.

“That is the most monstrous thing I have ever heard of, Ben,” she said, considerable heat to her comment. Her dark eyes flashed fire through the mist that tinted them multicolored.

She had just read about the IPF's experimentation programs with minority men and women. The report had been sent to Ben by LRRPs and verified by people who had managed to escape the area controlled by the IPF.

“Yes,” Ben said.

“The man is a reincarnation of Hitler!” she spat out the damning accusation.

“I concur, Gale.”

“And his doctors and IPF people are no better than the fucking Gestapo!” she shouted at him.

“Yes, I agree with that.”

“He has to be stopped, Ben.”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Ben knew what was coming at him and he dreaded it.

Ben rose from his chair and took her into his arms, holding her, touching her, smoothing her hair. “Gale, I don't have the manpower to do that.” For once she didn't attack the statement as being sexist. “Striganov has me outgunned and outmanned, and in many instances, the American people are supporting his actions. I – ”

She pulled away from him and glared up at him, about a hundred pounds of mad. “Don't tell me that, Ben. Just don't you attempt to hand me that crap! You're Ben Raines. You pulled – single-handedly – this nation back together in eighty-nine. You formed your own government within a government and made it work. You can do anything, Ben. Everyone who follows you says you can do anything. And I believe it. Yes, now I believe it. You're forgetting, I spoke with the Prophet, and I've talked with people who were in that mutant basement when he singled you out, spoke directly to you. You've been chosen, Ben. You – ”

Ben looked down at her and laughed, a harsh, sarcastic bark of dark humor. “You, too, Gale? Come on! Of all the people I thought would reject the notion that I am something more than a mortal, I thought you would be that person. Gale, I'm flesh and blood – nothing more than that. I cut myself shaving, I stub my toe sometimes, and cuss when I do. I bang my shin on coffee tables. I don't sit on the right side of God Almighty; and I don't receive any special instructions from him. I – ”

“I'm pregnant,” she announced.

Ben stood for a moment, looking at her. He blinked a couple of times.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” she asked.

“Well . . . ah . . .”

“For a writer, Ben, you sure have a way with the English language.”

“I can do without your smart-ass remarks, Gale.”

“Big deal.”

“Ah, are you certain about this?” he asked.

“I'm certain. I was certain the night it happened. And it happened the same night I spoke with the Prophet. It will be twins.”

“Gale . . . you
can't
be certain about that.”

“I know.”

Ben shook his head. “You mean you know you can't be certain?”

“No. I know I'm certain.”

“Well . . .” He hesitated for a moment. “I'm ... glad.”

“I can see you leaping up and down from joy,” she commented dryly. “Are you going to move against the IPF?”

“I am moving against them, Gale. In the best way I know how.”

She put her hands on her hips and stood her ground. “It isn't enough.”

Ben fought to keep his patience, but knew whatever he said was going to be wrong to her ears. And he didn't want to speak the words. For what was happening in the IPF-controlled territory was sickening to him, although, he knew, not to the extent it was to Gale.

“It's the best I can do, Gale, without launching a full-scale invasion into IPF territory.”

She hung on with the tenacity of a pit bulldog. “Then it appears to me that would be what you would have to do. Now.”

“No, Gale.”

“Why not, Ben?”

Ben took a deep, calming breath. It didn't work. “Because it would be too costly in terms of human life. My people's lives.”

A funny-odd look slipped into her dark eyes. She smiled. Ben took a step backward. He had seen that look before. “What are you thinking, Gale?”

“Why don't you put it before your people, General Raines,” she challenged him. “Or are you afraid they'll say go in and fight and stop this horror?”

“Gale, that is what I want to do. Believe me. But I have a responsibility to
all
those who follow me.”

She glared up at him. “You talk about human life, Ben. Human life?” She softened her tone, coming to him, touching his arm. “Oh, Ben, you don't understand what is happening up there.” She waved toward the west. Ben pointed in the right direction: north. She made a face at him. “I don't believe you really understand. Not at all. Not all the terror and horror and suffering. Human beings are being used as lab rats and guinea pigs. They are being tortured. Horrible, terrible, perverted, disgusting acts are being perpetrated upon them. Human life, Ben? How about human suffering? Rape and degradation and God only knows what else. I can't believe you can just sit back and allow this to continue.”

“Gale, honey, listen to me. I don't want you to misinterpret this, but my group is, I believe, the last shot civilization has if any type of democratic social order is to prevail. Civilization – ”

She spun away from him, her eyes flashing fire and fury. She balled her hands into small fists and hit him on the shoulder. “Fuck civilization!” she screamed the words at him.
“Civilization!
Goddamn it, Ben. Do you think General Striganov is
civilized?
Do you think what that monster is doing to men and women and children can be called – by any stretch of the imagination – civilized? You're living in a dream world. You'are talking about law and order and speaking in terms of productivity and education. But I'm talking about
survival!
The God-given right of any race of people to exist in peace. That's what I'm talking about, Mr. President-General Raines.” She jabbed a finger against his chest. “And you, sir, and your people, are the only ones left on the face of this earth – that I know of – who have the might to uphold and maintain and guarantee that right. And that is, I believe, your
duty!”

She stood before him, chest heaving from her fast speech. The room was still and silent after her outburst.

Ben looked at her for a moment. Then he looked toward the closed motel room door. “All right, people,” he called. “You can all come in. I know you're out there listening.”

The door swung open slowly and Ike and Cecil and Doctor Chase stood there, grinning sheepishly.

“Cec,” Ben said. “Get in touch with the tank commanders. Tell them to roll the tanks back up here and get in position to move north. Then get in touch with the heavy artillery, same orders. Contact Tri-States. I want every man and woman and teen-ager that can handle a weapon up here –
pronto!
Those that are too old for actual combat can start stripping the area clean, loading it up on trucks, and moving it over to Captain Rayle's area in Georgia.

“Ike, move one full combat company over to Georgia, just in case the Russian figures out what we're doing and sends people in there. Roll the convoys day and night, push them hard – I want all the combat troops up here in thirty-six hours.

“I don't want any of you people to get your hopes up too high about this operation. We're not going to beat Striganov. We are too few against overwhelming odds. But I think we can hurt him badly enough to make him stop what he's doing. Or at the very least give us the time to rescue as many people as possible. And I want to hurt him badly enough to give us the time to rebuild over in Georgia, give us the time to fortify our positions so he'll think a long time before launching any attack against us. I won't say we'll never have to move again. We probably will. History proves that for every group of people who attempt to start some form of orderly society, there is always some other group or groups that want to destroy it. But we have to try and try and keep trying. We must never give up. Never.