From The Ashes: America Reborn (9 page)

WWJ: So they are just on their own?

Ben Raines: Totally.

WWJ: Are they forced to pay taxes?

Ben Raines: No. But since they are not permanent residents, they don’t have an I.D. card. So they can’t ride the trains or planes or busses, or buy any type of weapon or ammunition. They can’t get a driver’s license or buy a vehicle or get insurance. We won’t hook them up to electrical services or sewage or water. Their kids can’t go to school . . . unless it’s a church school. Yes, some are still hanging on back in the swamps and hills and mountains. But each year their numbers decrease.

WWJ: You people don’t play around, do you, General?

Ben Raines: No. We’re building a nation here.

I reached over and turned off the tape recorder. I wanted to take the rest of the day off and get my notes in order.

Ben Raines: You want to knock off for a time?

WWJ: If you don’t mind.

Ben Raines: I’m ready for a break myself. Tell you what—I have to meet with President Jefferys later on this afternoon. Would you like to meet him?

WWJ: I would very much like to meet him. Also, some of the others who have been with you from the start.

Ben Raines: That can be easily arranged. We’ll drive over to the capital complex and you can meet Cecil. Then we’ll track down Ike McGowan, and then I’ll introduce you to our chief of medicine.

WWJ: And your son and daughter, Buddy and Tina?

Ben Raines: We’ll make all the rounds. How about just taking a day or two off and we’ll drive around. You can visit some of our schools.

WWJ: Sounds good.

Ben Raines: Let’s go. I was getting tired of sitting around anyway.

BOOK #7

SMOKE FROM THE ASHES

I leave this rule for others when I’m dead,

Be always sure you’re right—then go ahead.

- David Crockett

In the area outside Kansas City, about thirty-five hundred people are living under the protection of Big Louie and Lance Ashley Lantier. Their society is loosely based on the organization of Tri-States, but morally perverse. People of other races are used as slaves, and anyone who disagrees with Louie is burned alive.

Dan Gray’s Scouts led by Ben’s daughter, Tina Raines, are in the area checking it out. Horrified by the behavior they encounter, they intervene and, in the process, rescue, Denise Vista, a beautiful Native American, who will join with the Rebels, as Ben’s personal assistant and then lover, to fight against Big Louie’s army.

In Missouri, now a young man in his twenties, Buddy Raines, Ben’s illegitimate son, has escaped his mother (Sister Voleta) in search of his real father. While traveling toward the Rebels, he also has some conflicts with some of Big Louie’s people, and it is in Big Louie’s territory that he runs into his sister, Tina Raines, who is stunned by the family resemblance. Buddy is brought back to camp and reunited with his father.

While most of the Rebels are fighting against Big Louie’s people in Kansas, General Cecil Jefferys is south of South Carolina holding back Colonel Khamsin (“the Hot Wind”) and the IPA, who are preparing to invade Rebel positions in Georgia. Jefferys recruits the local people of Athens, Georgia, originally led by Jake, who is not pleased to be shoved aside. These amateurs soldiers, under the leadership of Lieutenant Mackey, become affectionately known as Mackey’s Misfits.

As the IPA becomes a burgeoning threat, Ben surprises Big Louie’s (now Ashley’s) troops by proposing that they team up in order to fight against the more powerful IPA. Colonel West, a career soldier who worked for Louie and Ashley, becomes a valuable ally.

From West they learn that Kansas City is not “hot,” as was assumed before. The information is surprising, but also makes the Rebels wonder about the habitability of other cities that were presumed to be dangerously irradiated.

Fighting Khamsin in Georgia, Raines and the allies find themselves surrounded on the north and south by Khamsin and the IPA. The only escape is through Atlanta, which is not hot with radiation, but inhabited by the Night People, a terrifying group of cannibalistic mutants, who are afraid of being outside in the daytime. At dusk, the Rebels retreat swiftly into Atlanta, and Khamsin’s troops follow to their grisly deaths.

Having won the battle against Khamsin, Ben, Buddy, and the Rebels decide to return to Louisiana, where they will implement their plan for setting up outposts there.

EIGHT

We drove over to the capital in Ben’s HumVee, and I sat for a moment, speechless. It was the most unassuming and unpretentious grouping of buildings I had ever seen.

Ben Raines laughed at the expression on my face, then said; “We don’t go in much for pomp and pretense in the SUSA. We keep the cost of government as low as possible.”

WWJ: It resembles what I would expect to find on a military base.

Ben Raines: That’s understandable. It was built by our combat engineers. Come on.

WWJ: Do you have security people following you around all the time?

Ben Raines: Yes. But it isn’t my idea. They take their orders directly from President Jefferys. I could order them all to go straight to hell and leave me alone. They would just stand there and smile at me.

WWJ: You and President Jefferys have been together long?

Ben Raines: Almost from the very beginning. He’s my best friend.

WWJ: And he is the first black man ever elected to such a high office in America.

Ben Raines: That is correct. It wasn’t much of a contest. Cecil won by something like ninety percent of the vote.

WWJ: And you have no desire to hold the office of president of the SUSA?

Ben Raines: None whatsoever. When I am no longer able to be a field officer, I will retire and drop out of sight.

WWJ: You have a retirement place all picked out?

Ben Raines: If things work out, Montana.

We entered the largest building in the complex and everybody present jumped to attention. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that General Raines was held in awe by not just the military—universally known as the Rebels—but by everybody who was a permanent resident of the SUSA. There were pictures and paintings of past leaders on the walls: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman, and many other presidents and statesmen. But no pictures or paintings of Ben Raines. I asked about that.

Ben Raines: I’m a soldier, not a politician. I did sit for a painting a few years back. I don’t know where the damn thing is, and don’t care.

WWJ: Were you in class-A uniform when it was done?

Ben Raines: I don’t own a class-A uniform. I’ve got about thirty sets of lizard BDUs, and that’s it.

WWJ: The old French camo battle dress?

Ben Raines: Yes. My personal team wears them, too.

I came up short at a lighted showcase and stood for a moment. Inside the case, set on a blue background of what looked to be velvet, was a beat-up and scarred old Thompson submachine gun: the legendary Chicago Piano. I knew instantly who had once carried the old weapon.

WWJ: Is that the original Thompson you carried for so many years?

Ben Raines: Yes. I gave it to the capital curator last year. He told me he wanted it for the new museum we’ve opened here. I had no idea the damn thing would be displayed in the capital building.

WWJ: Then you no longer us a Thompson?

Ben Raines: I have a completely reworked Thompson I carry with me in my mobile CP, but I pretty much stick with the CAR now. Occasionally I will use an M-14. I don’t remember the last time I used a Thompson in combat.

WWJ: There is no plaque on the case; no information about the weapon.

“You knew what it was right off, didn’t you, sir?” The question came from a child, standing with his mother off to my left.

I turned to look at the boy, about ten years old. “Yes, I guess I did,” I said.

“Good afternoon, General Raines,” the woman said.

Ben Raines smiled at her and nodded in greeting. The woman and small boy walked away, to continue their tour of the building.

WWJ: A friend of yours, General?

Ben Raines: I never saw the woman before.

“There is a small brass plaque being readied to mount on the cabinet.” The voice came from a doorway off to our right.

“Hello, Cec,” Ben said.

“Ben. This the writer fellow who’s interviewing you?”

I was introduced to President Cecil Jefferys and shook hands—he had a very firm grip. I was immediately impressed with the man. He was tall, strongly built, with almost snow-white hair. Cecil Jefferys had an aura of strength and calmness about him. He waved us into his office and seated us.

Cecil Jefferys: Ben treating you all right?

WWJ: Just fine. He’s very cooperative.

Cecil Jefferys (after a laugh): Dr. Lamar Chase would be astonished to hear that.

WWJ: That’s the chief of medicine?

Cecil Jefferys: Yes. Another person who has been with the movement since the beginning.

WWJ: Are there many of you living in this area? Those who helped start the movement, that is?

Cecil Jefferys: Not too many. Most were killed during the government’s assault against the original Tri-States up in the Northwest. There are only half a dozen or so who are still active in the field. Most have retired and are living very quietly; spread out all over the SUSA.

WWJ: You commanded a battalion for years, right?

Cecil Jefferys: That’s correct. My days as a field commander ended, for the most part, after a heart attack several years ago. I still command a battalion of Rebels, at least on paper. A bunch of old farts like me who make up part of the home guard.

WWJ: The president of the largest and most advanced and productive nation on the face of the earth still is active in field exercises?

Cecil Jefferys: Oh, sure. You’ll find me out on the rifle or pistol range several times a month, banging away at targets. I have to keep my hand in it to some degree.

WWJ: That’s incredible!

Ben Raines: Where is Ike, Cec?

Cecil Jefferys: Damned if I know, Ben. Roaring around somewhere, I’m sure. Making life as miserable as possible for those in his command.

WWJ: That would be General Ike McGowan, right? The ex-Navy SEAL?

Ben Raines: Right. We met down in Florida shortly after the Great War. He had built a radio station, of sorts, and was broadcasting under the call letters of KUNT.

WWJ: KUNT?

Cecil Jefferys laughed out loud and slapped a big hand down on the desk. “You have to know Ike to fully appreciate the man. He’s an old Mississippi boy with a wild sense of humor. Besides, he’s an ex-SEAL, and those people aren’t normal to begin with.”

WWJ: I don’t think I’ll print that last part, Mister President.

Ben Raines (after a laugh): Where is the secretary of state?

Cecil Jefferys: Out of the country. He should be back in a few days. He’s meeting with the president of Mexico, working on something.

WWJ: Is Mexico going to become part of the SUSA? That is the rumor that’s been floating around?

Ben Raines shrugged his shoulders and President Jefferys assumed a noncommittal expression. I did not push the issue any further. I knew that several provinces up in Canada had aligned with the SUSA, and that was causing quite a rift not only in the newly formed Canadian Parliament, but it was being condemned in the American Congress as well. However, nearly everything the SUSA did was condemned by the newly formed American Congress. But as Ben Raines had so bluntly put it: Let those pantywaist liberals bitch, they can’t do a goddamn thing about it and won’t do anything except run their mouths, raise taxes, and pass hundreds of totally unnecessary laws.

WWJ: Mister President, did General Raines have anything to do with your decision to run for president of the SUSA?

Cecil Jefferys: Let’s just say he’s a most difficult man to refuse.

WWJ: I can believe that.

Ben Raines: You two go right ahead and talk about me. Just pretend I’m not here.

Cecil Jefferys: Oh, we will, Ben. Now then, young man, what questions can I answer for you?

BOOK #8