From The Ashes: America Reborn (4 page)

What is left of America has now become a police state. Back in Richmond, Virginia, the weak government of the liberal figurehead, President Aston Addison, is actually under the control of the sinister vice president, Weston Lowry, and the corrupt Federal Agency headed by Al Cody. The government is bent on a fanatic mission to finish Ben and his Rebels once and for all. Ben soon realizes that they will have to fight the government again if they are ever going to have a chance to rebuild Tri-States. Overcoming incredible odds the Rebels gradually take over territories in the Southeast (Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina) arming citizens as they go. Raines and the Rebels plan their offensive attack on the government for midsummer.

As the time for the confrontation approaches, Ben heads east for the Great Smokies National Park, leaving his longtime girlfriend Jerre behind in Wyoming. Her affections for him have cooled, she seems distant. He decides that maybe she needs someone her own age. He doesn’t yet know that she is pregnant with his twins.

In the Southeast, suspected Rebel sympathizers are singled out and tortured by Sam Hartline, a mercenary hired by Lowry to terrorize the Rebels in order to extract information. This plan fails, as it is revealed that the tortured Rebels either are too strong or have no real information to give. Lowry is further frustrated by the military’s reluctance to engage in any action against its own American citizens. The federal agents themselves aren’t above inflicting this kind of harassment, and popular support for the Rebels increases among victims of their oppressive presence. In a desperate attempt to control negative publicity, Lowry sends Hartline to NBC headquarters to censor the press.

Ben gives brilliant and moving speeches and rallies the people in Virginia to the Rebel cause. While there he meets Dawn Believer, a photojournalist from Virginia and former
Penthouse
Pet, who had shot a federal cop during a riot and was forced to flee. She joins a local cell of Rebels and soon becomes Ben Raines’s lover.

Ben’s officers and their troops, including General Hector Ramos from the west; General Hazen’s men, spread from Maryville to Newport; General Krigel from Greenville, Tennessee, with Colonel Dan Gray and his elite Scouts set up their assault on the federal agents. While Ben is busy preparing to fight the federal agents, Hartline sends his people to northern California, where Jerre has been living with her boyfriend, Matt, to kidnap her. They succeed.

Intelligence reveals to Ben and his Rebels not only the atrocities that are being committed by Hartline and his people but also sightings of extremely large rats and monstrously mutated human beings—more evidence of the horrible effects of postwar nuclear radiation.

The attack begins. After the fourth day of heavy combat, the federal agents surrender to the Rebels. Ben arranges a private meeting with President Addison in an abandoned motel. One of Addison’s own secret service men fires at the president, triggering a shoot-out that leaves everyone but Raines dead and Raines wounded. Just as total anarchy seem inevitable, the military swiftly seizes the government and makes Ben Raines the new president of what’s left of the United States!

Back in Virginia, while Lowry and Hartline are planning their escape, Al Cody comes in wielding a pistol. He and Lowry shoot each other and Hartline takes off for Illinois, where some of his men have been holding Jerre. Days later, Ike, Dan, and Matt locate Jerre and burst in to rescue her from Hartline’s house. The mercenary himself narrowly escapes.

President Raines is relieved to hear that Jerre is safely home with Matt and the twins. His tranquility is disrupted by a report from his surgeon general, Dr. Harrison Lane, that the giant rats are infested with fleas carrying the black plague. Those not inoculated will die within three days of exposure. Rosita Murphy, an undercover member of Gray’s Scouts, reveals to Ben a plot to overthrow him by members of the old regime. All this seems surprisingly irrelevant in the face of the impending threat of the plague.

Widespread panic engulfs the public at large. The Joint Chiefs meet and dissolve the government. The few survivors of the plague gather together in small bands and seek comfort, surviving any way they can. Primitive cult leaders, like Emil Hite in Arkansas, rise up to capitalize on the situation.

Raines is returning west with his Rebels. Dawn and Ben have split amicably, and Rosita Murphy has become Ben’s latest lover and traveling companion. (North out of Richmond, Virginia, to Indiana Highway 35 to Marion, Illinois.) They ride together home to Tri-States. (Through Missouri and west on Highway 196. Go south at Bethany to enter Kansas between Saint Joseph and Kansas City into Colorado, across Wyoming until Highway 30, into Idaho . . . and home) Weather patterns have been gradually changing since the nuclear holocaust, and it is decided ultimately to settle in an area where people can be sure to plant double crops in order to ensure survival.

Finally, Ben and the Rebels settle in to start their new Tri-States society in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Jerre and Matt get married, and Rosita announces that she’s pregnant with Ben’s child. The Rebels enjoy their time of peace. Ben knows in his heart that he will have to face Hartline again one day, but the mercenary will have to be the one to make the first move. . . .

THREE

General Raines turned out to be a surprisingly good cook. Before my arrival that morning, he had prepared a stew from garden fresh vegetables he’d purchased from a roadside stand and fresh beef raised not far from Base Camp One.

WWJ: The SUSA is self-sufficient, isn’t it?

Ben Raines: We can grow or manufacture just about everything we need. We control every major port on the Gulf and the Atlantic, and while our navy is relatively small, they man very fast and extremely well armed patrol boats.

WWJ: Built here in the SUSA?

Ben Raines: About half of them. The rest we stole from U.S. Navy bases shortly after the war and refitted to our own specifications.

WWJ: You’re planning on having your own fleet of ships and your own merchant marine, aren’t you?

Ben Raines: Absolutely. And we’re well on the way to achieving that. This nation will not allow a pack of cowardly give-everything-away and kiss-the-ass-of-every-two-bit-nation-in-the-world politicians to destroy our merchant marine fleet.

WWJ: You’re referring to what happened in the United States of America before the war?

Ben Raines: Damn right I am. That was disgraceful. One of the most disgraceful moves the United States of America ever allowed to happen.

WWJ: From what I have been able to research, the government claims we couldn’t compete with the foreign shippers.

Ben Raines: We gave away the seas. We could have thrown embargoes against foreign shippers and forced them to meet our terms. But no, no way. The good ol’ U S of A just couldn’t do anything like that. Our politicians would rather give the whole fucking country away than hurt somebody’s feelings. Well, let me tell you something about the SUSA. We look out for number one, and that’s us. And we will always look out for number one. And if that means spilling one drop or ten thousand barrels of somebody else’s blood to maintain that position, we’re ready. No foreign power will ever dictate terms to the SUSA. Ever.

WWJ: You have nuclear weapons capabilities, don’t you, General Raines?

Ben Raines: We’ve never denied it.

WWJ: And germ warfare capabilities?

Ben Raines: We’ve never denied that either.

WWJ: Would you use those weapons against Americans if attacked?

Ben Raines: Yes, we would. But only as a last resort.

WWJ: You spoke without hesitation, General.

Ben Raines: I would use those weapons without hesitation. We’ve gotten off the subject, haven’t we? I thought we were going to discuss our judicial system?

WWJ: Forgive me. I got my notes mixed up. There are so many issues and areas to touch on.

Ben Raines: Relax. We have plenty of time. No one is going to bother us. I assure you, you are safer here than in any other spot in the world.

WWJ: And that fact annoys a great many people, General. Even those who are opposed to your form of government.

Ben Raines: Of course it does. But any governor out there is welcome to have his state become a fully protected satellite part of the SUSA if he chooses. All he has to do is give us a call.

A small smile was playing around General Raines’s lips as he said that. I read it as almost smug. But, if he was smug, he certainly had the right to be. The SUSA had done what no other state, nation, or province in the world has ever done: in a matter of a few short years, it had pulled itself out of the ashes of destruction and war to become a world power; perhaps
the
world power. Yes, General Raines had a right to be proud.

WWJ: But you know the remaining governors won’t do that, General.

Ben Raines: That’s their problem.

WWJ: You will allow the states who do not align with yours to flounder and fall, General? Knowing that their citizenry is suffering?

Ben Raines: If decent, law-abiding people are suffering outside the SUSA, mister, it’s their own fault. It’s their own stiff-necked pride standing in the way. We roamed all over this country, offering to help. Many communities turned us down cold. I have no sympathy for those types of people. As far as allowing them to flounder and fall, I am neither allowing nor preventing them from doing anything.

I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so I decided to change the subject.

WWJ: Let’s get back to the SUSA’s system of justice. Or the lack of it, as many reporters outside these borders are fond of writing. . . .

Ben Raines: Many, if not most of the reporters outside our borders are liberal, crybaby assholes and have been for several decades.

WWJ: And they don’t like you either, General.

Ben Raines (after a hearty laugh): Hell, they didn’t like me before the revolution. What else is new? You want to talk about reporters?

WWJ: We’ll come back to that topic, I’m sure. Why did you dislike the judicial system before the Great War and the revolution?

Ben Raines: Because there was no justice. The courtroom was merely a playground for lawyers. Whatever lawyer or team of lawyers was the best at twisting the truth won the case. If it ever even came to trial. And many cases didn’t. They just continued the damn things until they were off the court docket. And picking a jury got to be more comical than a Three Stooges movie. The entire system got to be nothing more than a farce.

WWJ: You have trials here in the SUSA? The rumor is that you don’t.

Ben Raines: Sure, we have trials here. The rumor that we are nothing more than a Wild West gunpowder society was started by a bunch of left-wing liberals outside our borders. Now to be honest, there weren’t many formal trials at first; we were too busy rebuilding, or rather building a nation to stand on many formalities. But there are probably trials, civil or criminal, going on in every district in the SUSA as we speak. But they don’t drag on for weeks or months or years. The judges won’t permit it. Trials here move along very quickly. You should attend one while you’re here. I think you’ll leave very favorably impressed. Our trials are conducted fairly. We think much more so than those outside our borders.

WWJ: I would very much like to sit in on both a civil and a criminal trial.

Ben Raines: I’ll arrange it.

WWJ: Have any outside civil liberties groups given you any trouble about your system of justice?

Ben Raines: They tried. Some representatives from, I don’t know, some group, maybe it was the Civil Liberties Union, I don’t remember, came in and squawked around about this and that. They blathered and dithered and flapped their arms about one thing or another. Then they left.

WWJ: What happened?

Ben Raines: Nothing. They filed some sort of a lawsuit, and we ignored it.

WWJ: You
ignored
it?

Ben Raines: Sure. It’s none of their goddamn business how we operate our judicial system.

WWJ: How do you go about ignoring a federal lawsuit?

Ben Raines: Lawsuits filed outside our borders are not valid here. There is no way it could be enforced.

WWJ: Do any of the civil-liberty types have offices here?

Ben Raines: No. But they could if they wanted to open one. The rub is they can’t quite understand how we do things here in the SUSA. Any type of honor system seems to be beyond their realm of comprehension.

WWJ: Did you mean that in a sarcastic way?

Ben Raines: Oh, no. Not at all. It’s just that for decades there was so much lying and deceit and dishonesty and under-the-table dealings going on in the USA, its citizens grew wary and suspicious of everything and everybody. Honor seemed to be a word that few paid any attention to. Politics wasn’t dirty in the USA, it was filthy; it reeked. Shady business deals became the norm instead of the exception. Lying and cheating in business were everyday practices. Double bookkeeping was something that almost everybody of age knew about; it was accepted with a wink and a nod and a smile and called “creative accounting.” It finally reached the point in the USA where nobody trusted anybody. Things aren’t done that way here in the SUSA. Honor is very important to us. Here in the SUSA we’ve put pride and honor and integrity back into business. Practically everything we sell is made right here in the SUSA. Quality control is not simply a phrase here; it’s a way of life.