Ambush in the Ashes (25 page)

Ben was afraid to even guess.

Bruno had carefully suckered Ben and his Rebels on, lulling them into a sense of false security. He had used the rainy season to finish moving massive numbers of troops north and had probably had the tunnels dug and supplied long before Ben and his battalions had sailed from the States.

Ben had always said he could never afford the luxury of selling Bruno short, and damned if he hadn’t done just that.

And Ben’s people had paid the ultimate price for his own short-sightedness.

The Rebels’ years-long unbroken stretch of luck had run out.

Ben’s face had tightened with rage with those thoughts, his big hands gripping the wheel turning white-knuckled.

He willed himself to calm down. Take it easy. Anger wouldn’t solve anything now. He had to keep a cool head. He forced himself to find something positive to think about and concentrate on that.

Miles went past in a torrent of warm rain and worsening highway. Ben had to slow his speed. He did not want to break down now. He drove on a few more miles. Where in the hell were the people? Where had they gone? Had Bruno’s horrible plans of massive genocide reached this far north? Could any human being actually be that callous?

Ben was a long-time student of history. He knew the answer to that question the instant it formed in his brain.

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Hitler was Bruno’s idol; Bruno considered Hitler to be the greatest man who ever lived.

Yes. Bruno was perfectly capable of killing millions of people, and that’s what he had done. He had used old tribal hatred among the African people to practice massive genocide. And those who carried out Bruno’s orders had aligned themselves with the Nazi bastard. So the Rebels weren’t just up against several hundred thousand of Bruno’s troops. They had walked right in and placed themselves against about a million troops-more or less.

Well, there was only one thing Ben could do about that: survive. Rebuild. Plan. Be smarter than Bruno. Be meaner than Bruno.

And the latter was something Ben could damn sure do.

Fifteen miles up the highway, Ben came to half a dozen burned out Hummers and deuce-and-halves and several Rebel tanks. His worse fears were being confirmed: Nick’s battalion had fought one hell of a fight, but had finally been overrun by sheer numbers.

Ben didn’t stop. There was no point. The scene before him told it all in silent volumes.

Ben steeled himself and drove on.

He had not faced the thought that his team might be among the dead, and he refused to do so now. His team was as slippery as quicksilver. If there was just one chance in a million that they survived, they did. That was something that Ben had to keep believing. He had to.

He drove on through the monsoonal rains. Came to another battle site. More wrecked and burned out Rebel tanks and trucks. Rotting bodies, bloated and eaten on by wild animals and carrion birds.

Ben kept his eyes on the road and drove on.

The bodies had been stripped of everything, right down to their underwear. It was obscene.

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Ben began looking for a place to hide for the night. It would be dark in about an hour. He came to what was left of a village and slowed, giving it a visual. He finally stopped and backed up, pulling in behind some falling down huts and houses. The rain had actually picked up in volume, limiting vision to only about a hundred or so yards. The fat raindrops were hammering out and flattening the tire tracks of the Hummer.

Ben took a chance and walked out onto the highway, looking at the village from the road. The huts he had parked behind completely shielded his vehicle. There was no danger of being spotted from the sky. Ben had not seen an enemy plane or helicopter since the fight at the border.

He found a dry spot in the hut directly in front of his Hummer and settled in for the evening. His thoughts were dark and ugly as he fixed his supper.

All right! Ben finally calmed himself down enough to think rationally. All right. Enough of this. Now think, Raines, damnit, think.

Not everybody was killed. Perhaps no more than forty percent of the two battalions had been hit.

So where did the survivors go?

Did they run off into the brush and jungle to form small hit-and-run guerrilla groups?

Maybe.

Were they captured?

That was a possibility that certainly had to be considered.

If they were captured, where were they being held?

Ben smiled, a cruel curving of the lips.

He damn sure knew how to learn the answer to that. But the person he questioned was not going to be very happy about it.

He ate his supper, heated his coffee, took his daily

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medication, and smoked a cigarette. Then he went to bed.

Tomorrow he would take a prisoner and learn the truth. One way or the other.

The soldier looked up at Ben through very frightened eyes. He had never seen such a savage look in all his life. One instant he had been standing guard at an intersection, the next instant something had struck him on the head and now he was trussed up like a pig awaiting slaughter.

And who was this savage-looking man squatting beside him, holding that razor-sharp knife?

“You speak English?” Ben asked.

Ben had dumped the sentry into the back of the Hummer and driven twenty miles up the road before pulling off into the brush and hauling the soldier out for questioning.

“Yes, sir.”

The sentry had been careless. Over-confident. Too sure of himself. The few victories had filled him with a false sense that all was well.

All was not well.

Ben Raines was alive and on the warpath.

“How many prisoners did you people take? And you’d better give me a straight answer when you open your mouth.” Ben held up the knife. “The thumb on your right hand gets cut off first.”

The soldier believed him. There was not a doubt in his mind kept this barbaric-looking man meant every word. So great was his fright, the soldier peed in his underwear.

“We took some prisoners. But not very many. They were transported south to a prisoner of war camp.”

“How far south?”

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“Several hundred miles.”

“Will they be tortured?”

“Certainly not, sir! Those are orders from the General Field Marshal himself. All Rebel prisoners will be treated fairly and humanely. I have seen those orders with my own eyes. I swear it.”

Ben believed him. Bruno had sense enough to know that if Ben learned any of his people had been tortured, Hell would be a luxury vacation spa compared to what Ben Raines would do … and Bruno knew even if Ben was dead, that crazy ex-SEAL, Ike McGowan would do the same, and if those two were dead, Dan Gray, that nutty Englishman, the former SAS officer, would take up the slack, and so on down the line.

What Bruno did not really understand was: scratch one Rebel, and they all bleed.

“Give the exact location where they’re being held.”

“I don’t know the exact location, sir. I swear before God and my mother’s grave, I don’t know.”

Ben believed him. The soldier was too young and too frightened and there was a ring of sincerity in his words.

“How many battalions were hit?”

“About half of them, I think, sir. But I don’t know for sure. I do know that many of the attacks failed and we lost a lot of native soldiers. The main thrust of the attacks were concentrated in the west. We were ordered, at all costs, to either kill or capture General Ben Raines. He …” The solider’s mouth dropped open and he paled under his tan. He had suddenly realized just who was questioning him. “Oh, my God,” he gasped. “You’re General Ben Raines.”

“That’s right, boy. I’m the devil in person.”

The soldier’s eyes were suddenly filled with fright. He, too, had heard Ben referred to as the devil. And he obviously believed the rumor.

“And whether I send you right straight to hell with

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this knife,” Ben held up the big-bladed knife, “or let you live, depends on you.”

“How do you mean, General?” The soldier’s voice was filled with panic.

“On whether on not you tell me the truth.”

“I swear to God, General. Every word I have spoken was the truth. I would not lie to you. I am not that big a fool.”

“Perhaps not. But you would lie to save your life, wouldn’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t, sir?” the soldier replied honestly.

Ben chuckled. “Good reply. Now tell me everything you know about the number of prisoners taken, where they are held, and anything else you know that I need to know.” Ben held up the knife. “And don’t lie.”

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The soldier could tell Ben little else, and he did not believe the young man was lying to him.

“You’ll be able to free yourself from these ropes in a few hours, if you work at it,” Ben told him.

“Yes, sir.”

Ben left the young man trussed up on the dirt floor of the hut and drove off toward the south, deliberately allowing the soldier to see what direction he was taking by circling around and driving past the door of the hut. Ten miles down the highway, he cut off onto an ill-defined old logging road and circled around, almost getting stuck half a dozen times. He returned to the highway an hour later and fifteen miles north of the hut and headed north toward Natitingou, Nick’s last known reporting site. But as he approached the town, Ben could not go a mile without seeing signs of a terrible batde.

There weren’t so many Rebel bodies, but dozens of vehicles and several tanks and APCs.

The soldier Ben had questioned had told him that standing orders were to carry off and bury their own dead, leaving the Rebels behind as a form of intimidation to any locals who might get it into their heads to come out of the brush and fight Bruno’s forces. Ben guessed that made sense, in a weird sort of way, since

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Bruno’s people had killed millions already, and those few natives left were slowly starving to death or dying of disease and most were too sick or weak to fight off a gnat.

About twenty miles south of the town, Ben cut off the main highway onto another highway that angled toward the northeast, but not before stopping at a wrecked deuce-and-a-half and finding one full five-gallon can of fuel somebody had overlooked. He topped off his fuel tank and drove on. The bed of the transport had been filled with dead Rebels, stripped down to their underwear. They were so bloated it was impossible to make out their features.

But where in the hell were the hundreds of Rebels who had escaped the battles?

In the brush and jungle, living off the land, hiding out until they could regroup, probably. They would stay well away from any highways.

But would the survivors head back west, or head east? Neither, he finally concluded: they would make their way north. Some among them would have managed to establish and maintain communications with other battalions during the fight, and would know that not all battalions had been hit. They would try to connect with those battalions.

Ben came to a sliding halt at a tiny village about forty miles north-northeast of the highway he had exited. His eyes had found a graveyard filled with makeshift crosses. He parked the Hummer behind a falling-down hut and walked through the drizzle to the graveyard. He could see dog tags hanging from the rickety crosses, the markers held together with rope and twine and strips of cloth.

The first dog tags he looked at belonged to Nick Stafford. The commander of 18 Batt had died fighting beside his people.

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Ben walked through the graveyard, looking at the dogtags; he knew many of the people who were buried there. Several doctors. Nick’s XO.

Ben shook his head and walked back to the Hummer, wondering who had buried the fallen Rebels.

He didn’t know and probably never would.

“Shit!” Ben said, filled with rage. He pulled back onto the highway.

The town of Kerou was nearly deserted, except for a few old men and women who were barely clinging to life. But Ben found an old fuel dump on die outskirts of town and topped off his tank, after he had searched for nearly an hour among the hundreds of barrels to find one tihat was half full.

It was dark when Ben finished at the dump and he drove about five miles outside of town and made camp in the burned-out ruins of what had once been a nice home.

He had seen no signs of Bruno’s forces and the fuel depot appeared to have been used up and deserted. That could possibly mean that Bruno’s people, when they pulled out, had no intention of returning.

But which direction had they gone?

Ben had him a hunch they headed back toward home.

He didn’t know why he felt tihat way, but the hunch was strong.

But not so strong that he could afford to let down his guard and become careless.

“Shit!” Ben said, as he poured a cup of coffee and dumped in the contents of a sugar pack from his accessory pack. His thoughts were of Nick. A damn good battalion commander, well liked and respected by his troops.

Cold in the ground.

“Valhalla just got another good soldier,” Ben muttered.

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Sleep was elusive for Ben that night. He managed a couple of hours and was on the road just before dawn. He was flagged down about halfway between Kerou and Banikoara by a priest and two nuns, all three wearing the rags of their faith.

“You might kill me for asking this,” the priest said, before Ben could say a word. “But I am not afraid of death. I know you do not shoot wounded men … or so I have been told. We have a badly wounded soldier in that hut over there.” He pointed. “Can you spare just a little medicine?”

“I’m an American,” Ben told the priest. “My name is Ben Raines.”

The jaws of all three religious people dropped open. They crossed themselves. The priest said, “Yes. You fit the description. Are you aware there is a great reward out for your capture?”

“No. But that doesn’t surprise me any. Take me to him. Sorry I can’t give you a lift. The vehicle is packed with supplies.”