William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“It’s too goddamned quiet!”

You spin around. “Who said that?”

Nobody will answer.

A Rebel is moaning. You point to him, then look at one of your men. You hear your voice say: “Shoot him.”

“Right, Sarge.”

Bam!

The sound is so goddamned loud.

There is a guy from your platoon, kneeling, holding a tiny blue-colored bird in his dirty hand. The bird is dead. Everybody gathers around to look at it. There isn’t a mark on the bird. No blood. Seems funny to see something without any blood or dirt on it. Wonder what killed the bird?

“Hey, Sarge?” someone whispers. “You know what?”

“What?” Your voice sounds funny. Old.

That woman is still screaming, faintly, hoarsely.

“We won.”

By dusk of the thirty-fifth day, the heaviest fighting was behind the government troops. The pincers had closed, and most of the Tri-states was secure. But the price paid for victory had been cruelly high.

Juno was dead, shot a dozen times, but only after the aging animal had killed a major, tearing out his throat.

And now the government troops had to be content with mopping up; combat troops can testify that mopping up can be awful. It is a sniper’s bullet; a booby-trap; a mine; a swing-trap with sharpened stakes set chest high; a souvenir that can cost you a hand, or a leg, or a life.

Major General Como was dead, shot through the head by a thirteen-year-old girl wielding a pistol she had taken from the body of a paratroop captain. The girl was taken alive, raped repeatedly, then shot.

It has been written that there is nothing in the world more savage than the American fighting man.

Como’s replacement, Major General Goren, lasted only two weeks. He opened the center drawer of a desk in what was to have been his HQ, a cleared secure building, and five pounds of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose blew him open and spread him all over the room, along with a colonel and his sergeant major. The charge was timed with a delay fuse: open the drawer ten times and the charge was still dormant; on the eleventh, it would blow.

Mopping up.

In a mountainous, heavily wooded area, west and north of Vista, HQ’s company of Tri-states’ Rebels prepared to fight their last fight. Most of them had been together for years: Steven and Linda, James and Belle, Cecil and Lila, Al and Anne, Bridge and Abby, Pal and Valerie, Ike and Megan, Voltan and Nora, Sam and Pam, Jerre and Jimmy Deluce; and Jane Dolbeau, Tatter and June-Bug and their husbands… Ben and Salina. And a hundred others that made up the company. The kids with them should have been gone and safe by now, but they’d been cut off and had to return. It was now back to alpha, and omega was just around the corner, waiting for most of them.

There was a way out, but it was a long shot.

Ben sat talking with the twins, Jack and Tina.

“Jack, you’ve got to look after Salina, now. I’m going to split the company and lead a diversion team. I think it’s our only way out.” He patted Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll be all right, son; don’t worry about me. I’ll make it. I’m still an old curly wolf with some tricks up my sleeve.”

“Then you’ll join us later?” Tina asked, tears running down her cheeks.

“Sure. Count on it,” Ben said. He shook Jack’s hand and kissed Tina. “Go on, now, join up with Colonel Elliot. I want to talk with your mother for a moment.”

Salina came to his side, slipping her hand into his. They were both grimy from gunsmoke and dirt and sweat. Ben thought she had never looked more beautiful than during her pregnancy; she had stood like a dusty Valkyrie by his side, firing an M-16 during the heaviest of fighting.

She said, “We didn’t have much time together, did we, Ben?”

“We have a lot of time left us, babe,” he replied gently.

She smiled; a sad smile. Knowing. “Con the kids, General. Don’t try to bullshit me.”

“Yeah,” Ben said ruefully. “Yeah, I wish we’d had more time.” He kissed her, very gently, very tenderly, without passion or lust. A man kissing a woman good-by.

Salina grasped at the moment. “Is there any chance at all?”

“Not much of one, I’m afraid.” He leveled with her.

She tried to smile; then suddenly began to weep, softly, almost silently. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I do love you, Ben Raines.” She smiled through the tears. “Even if you are a honky.”

“And I love you, Salina.” He fought back the tears to return her smile. “Now you step ‘n’ fetch yore ass on outta here, baby.”

And together they laughed.

Ben helped her to her feet, gazed at her for a moment, then walked from her to join the group he was taking on diversion. Abruptly, without warning, the silent forest floor erupted into blood and violence. A platoon of paratroopers, quiet and deadly, came at the Rebels; the peaceful wood turned into hand-to-hand combat.

Ben flipped his old Thompson onto full auto and burned a clip into the paratroopers, bringing down half a dozen. Salina screamed behind him. Ben spun in time to see her impaled on a bayonet. Her mouth opened and closed in silent agony; her hands slowly crawled snakelike down her stomach to clutch at the rifle barrel, to try to pull the hot pain from her stomach. She screamed as she began miscarrying the dead child, for the bayonet had driven through the unborn baby.

“Jesus Christ!” the trooper yelled, as he saw what he had done. He tried to pull the blade from her belly. But the blade was stuck. He pulled the trigger—reflex from hard training—and blew the blade free, sending a half-dozen slugs into Salina, throwing her backward from the force.

Ben jerked his .45 from leather and blew half the trooper’s head off, just as Salina collapsed to the ground, her hands working at the bloody mess that was once her stomach.

Ben was at her side as his Rebels, offering no mercy, took the fight to the troopers. The troopers were outnumbered and fighting against white-hot rage. They died very quickly; the Rebels took no prisoners.

Ben gathered her into his arms, knowing there was no chance for her to live. She was fading quickly. “I love you, Salina.”

She looked up at him and smiled for the last time. “Sorry ‘bout the baby, honey. But with our luck it would probably have been a koala bear.”

She closed her eyes and died.

Ben tried to rip away the heavy load of grief that saddled his shoulders and clutched at his heart with cold fingers. He shook away dozens of emotions as he knelt beside the only woman he had ever truly loved. He touched her face, closed her eyes, smoothed her hair, kissed her still-warm lips. He fought his way back to reality.

Dr. Chase pulled him away from Salina’s body and knelt down for a moment, cutting at her maternity slacks with a knife. He covered her with a shelter half and rose to face Ben. “Boy,” he said. “Perfectly normal. All his fingers and toes. Her complexion, your eyes. Bayonet went right through him.”

Ben nodded. “Let’s go!” he shouted. “There is no more we can do here. Help the wounded and let’s move it.”

Ike touched his arm. “Ben…”

“We don’t have time to grieve, buddy. Later.”

The Rebels drifted silently into the forest, taking their wounded, leaving their dead; Salina and the boy lay among the still and the quiet and the dead. Ants had already begun their march across her face. She lay in a puddle of thickening blood, one hand on the arm of her dead child.

The Rebels split up, the first two squads not making it past the edge of the northern border of the strip. A forward observer spotted them and called in artillery. None escaped the deadly hail. Another group walked into an ambush; only a few escaped. The kids lay like pebbles on a beach, their broken and smashed bodies a grim reminder of the vindictiveness and power of government. A half a dozen Cobra gunships spotted another group and came chopping out of the sky, strafing them with rocket and machine-gun fire.