William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

Como pulled himself erect. When he spoke, his voice was hard. “You’re a soldier, General Krigel, and you’ll obey orders, or by God, I’ll—”

“You’ll do what?” Krigel snapped, losing his temper. “Goddamn it, Paul, we’re creating another civil war. And you know it. Yes, I’m a soldier, and a damned good one. But by God, I’m an American first. This is a nation of free people, Paul? The hell it is! Those people in the Tri-states may have different ideas, but—”

“Goddamn you!” Como shouted. “Don’t you dare argue with me. You get your troopers up and dropped—now, or they won’t be your troopers. General Krigel, I am making that a direct order.”

“No, sir,” Krigel said, a calmness and finality in his voice. “I will not obey that order.” He removed his pistol from leather and handed it to General Como. “I’m through, Paul—that’s it.”

General Como, red-faced and trembling, looked at the .45 in his hand, then backhanded his friend with his other hand. Blood trickled from Krigel’s mouth. Krigel did not move.

Como turned to a sergeant major, who had stood impassively by throughout the exchange between the generals. “Sergeant Major, I want this man placed under arrest. If he attempts to resist, use whatever force is necessary to subdue him. Understood?” He gave the sergeant major Krigel’s .45.

The sergeant major gripped General Krigel’s arm and nodded. He didn’t like the order just given him. He’d been a member of an LRRP team in Vietnam—back when he was a young buck—and the idea of special troops fighting special troops didn’t set well with him. American fighting American was wrong, no matter how you cut it up.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant major said, but he was thinking: just let me get General Krigel out of this area and by God, we’ll both link up with Raines’s Rebels. Us, and a bunch of other men.

General Como turned to his aide, Captain Shaw. “Tell General Hazen he is now in charge of the Eighty-second. Get his troopers dropped. Those that won’t go, have them placed under arrest. If they resist, shoot them. Tell General Cruger to get his marines across those borders and take their objectives. Start it. Right now! Those troopers should have already been on the ground.”

Shaw nodded his understanding, if not his agreement. The young captain was career military, and he had his orders, just as he was sure Raines’s people had theirs.

“Yes, sir.” He walked away. “Right away, sir.”

General Como blinked rapidly several times. He was very close to tears, and then he was crying, the tears running down his tanned cheeks. “Goddamn it,” he whispered. “What a fucking lash-up.”

The first few companies of marines and their spearheaders, the force recon, hit the edge of the strip and died there. The area had been softened up with artillery and heavy-mortar fire, but Ben’s people were in tunneled bunkers, and when the shelling stopped, up they popped.

The marines established a beachhead, or, in this case, a secure perimeter, taking the first three thousand yards. They always take their objective—that’s why they are marines—but the price was hideous. Neither side gave the other any mercy or quarter. For every meter gained that morning and early afternoon, the price was paid in human suffering.

The Rebels of the Tri-states waited until the paratroopers were on the ground and free of their ‘chutes before opening fire. Those were Ben’s orders, and the only act of mercy shown on either side. The first troopers to hit the DZs were killed almost instantly, raked with heavy .50-caliber machine-gun fire… or blown to bits with mortar fire.

By evening of the second day, the government troops were well inside the Tri-states’ borders, coming in from north to south, east and west, hoping to trap the Rebels in a pocket. But Ben’s people had reverted to guerrilla tactics and scattered; they had no group larger than battalion size, and most were platoon or company size. They hit hard, then they ran, and they booby-trapped everything.

The government troops who stormed the Tri-states soon learned what hell must be like. Everything they came into contact with either blew up, shot at them, bit them, or poisoned them. The older men thought they’d seen war at its worst in ‘Nam, but this surpassed anything they’d ever experienced.

Earlier, the medical people in the Tri-states had discovered packs of rabid animals and captured them, keeping them alive as long as possible, transferring the infected cultures into the bloodstreams of every warm-blooded animal they could find. The day the invasion began, the animals were turned loose all over the area. It was cruel. Isn’t war always?

The government troops began their search-and-destroy missions. They entered hospitals and nursing homes and found the patients had been armed. The very old and sick and dying fought just as savagely as the young and strong and healthy. Old people, with tubes hanging from their bodies, some barely able to crawl, hurled grenades and shot at the special troops. And the young men in their jump boots and berets and silver wings wept as they killed the old people. Tough marines cried at the carnage.

Many of the young soldiers threw down their weapons and walked away, refusing to take part in more killing. It was not cowardice on their part—not at all. These young men would have fought to the death against a threat to liberty; but the people of the Tri-states were no threat to their liberty. And the young troops finally learned the lesson their forefathers died for at Valley Forge: people have a right to be free, to live and work and play in peace and personal freedom—and to govern themselves.

Many of the young troops deserted to join the Rebels; officers publicly shot enlisted people who refused to fight against a group of citizens whom they believed had done no wrong.

The universal soldier syndrome came home to many of the troops: without us, you can’t have a war.

And the children of the Tri-states, they fought as well. Some as young as twelve stood and fought it out with the American military… wondering why, because they thought they were Americans. They hid with sniper rifles and had to be hunted down and killed. No compassion could be shown. A battered and bleeding little girl might just hand a medic a live grenade and die with him.

Rightly or wrongly, Ben’s orders to school the young of the Tri-states in the tactics of war had been driven home. They had been taught for nine years to defend their country, and that is what they were doing.

The hospitals finally had to be blown up with artillery; they were unsafe to enter because the patients were armed and ready to die. Everywhere the U.S. fighting men turned, something blew up in their faces. With thousands of tons of explosives to work with, the Rebels had wired everything possible to explode.

Tri-states began to stink like an open cesspool. The troops had to kill every warm-blooded animal they found. There was no way of knowing what animals had been infected—not in the early stages. The government troops became very wary of entering buildings, not only because of the risk of a door being wired to blow, but because the Rebels had begun placing rabid animals in houses, locking them in. A dog or a cat is a terrible thing to see come leaping at a person, snarling and foaming at the jaws.

The troops could not drink any of the water found in the Tri-states. Dr. Chase had infected it with everything from cholera to forms of anthrax.

There were no finely drawn battle lines in this war; no safe sectors. The Rebels didn’t retreat in any given direction, leaving that area clean. They would pull back, then go left or right and circle around, coming up behind government troops to harass and confuse them, or to slit a throat or two. For the Rebels knew the territory, and they had, for nine years, been training for this. And they were experts at their jobs.