Ashes - Wind In The Ashes Part 4

The Russian turned away from the maps andreturned to his desk, picking up the latest photos of the babies born to human mothers, mutant fathers.

"Ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Striganov muttered, gazing at the enlarged photos. It would be at least a year, probably longer, before their intelligence could be truly tested and the Russian could know for sure if he had succeeded in producing a worker race; a select breed to serve as servants and houseboys and field hands.

But his scientists were sure they had done it.

"We'll see," Striganov said. He pressed a b.u.t.ton on a panel on his desk. An aide stuck her head inside.

"Sir?"

"I need a bath. Send a girl in to a.s.sist me."

"Yes, sir."

Striganov waited patiently until there came a timid knock on his office door. "Come!" he called.

A girl, no more than fourteen, at the most, entered the lushly appointed office of the supreme commander of the International Peace Force.

"Sir?" she said, keeping her eyes downcast.

"You're new," Striganov said. "When did you arrive in camp?"

"About two weeks ago, sir. I have been tested by the doctors."

Which meant the young girl was free of any disease and ready, if not willing, to be on call to General Striganov. The general had developed some rather curious s.e.xual habits over the past few months.

He attributed that to his a.s.sociation with Sam Hartline.

"What is your name, girl?"

"Jane."

"Jane, sir."

"Yes, sir. I won't forget again."

"Fine. Remove your robe."

Jane unbelted her robe and let it fall to the thick carpet. Striganov licked suddenly dry lips at the sight of her nakedness. The girl was a rare blooming flower, he thought. No doubt about it.

Her pubic hair was thick and lush. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s forming up nicely, centered with brown-cherry circles. Her little nipples looked delicious.

Striganov had long ago given up on finding a virgin. Any girl over six who still had her virginity would be a rare find, indeed.

But his men were still looking.

"Come to me," he said, his voice thick with growing pa.s.sion. His trousers bulged with his erection.

He pulled her onto his lap and began stroking her flesh. Georgi Striganov felt this was going to be a good year. He had a full complement of willing young girls to satisfy his s.e.xual needs, and very soon he would see Ben Raines die. Yes, a good year indeed.

Chapter Five.

The morning broke to a gray sky and a hard-falling rain. It was just as well. For Ben had made up his mind to cancel the jump anyway. By doing that, he would give his first battalion more time to get in position, and the Rebels coming from the east more time to arrive.

Leaving Sylvia to sleep amid the warmth of their blankets, Ben dressed and pulled a poncho on and stepped from his command post. He walked over to Ike's quarters and knocked on the door.

"Come on in, Ben."

Ben shucked his poncho and hung it up. He moved to the coffeepot at Ike's wave of his hand and poured a cup.

It really wasn't coffee, but a mixture of coffee and chicory and other things that Ben would just as soon not know.

"You and Sylvia decided to just shack up and to h.e.l.l with what the others think?" Ike asked, a grin on his face.

"Might as well. Her idea. But fine with me.

Ike, we both can't buy it on this run.

Have you given that any thought?"

"Sure have. And I think you ought to stay back here and-was Ben waved him silent. "You can take that thought and shove it, pal. Ike, after Sylvia went to sleep last night, I couldn't sleep ..."

Ike paid him back for cutting him off. "I'm sure you couldn't. Probably laid there and wondered if you was goin' to have a heart attack."

Then the ex-Seal roared with laughter at the expression on Ben's face.

Ben unsuccessfully fought to hide his grin and took a sip of the awful-tasting brew. At least it was hot. "I've got to be thinking of a successor, Ike."

"When you finally buy it, Ben," Ike said, "the movement goes with you." There was a flatness, a finality, in his voice that Ben did not like.

"Ben, I'm an ol' curly wolf; not an administrator. Cecil is one of the finest men I have ever known in my life, but he'll be first to tell you: he won't be able to hold it together. No, Ben, it's your show all the way. h.e.l.l, partner, it always has been. I knew that when you showed up down in Florida ... Christ, how many years ago was that?"

"More than I care to recall," Ben said with a sigh. "Okay. We'll talk about that later.

Let's get down to business. You're sure you want to take your people in from the south?"

"You bet."

"You're going to have some hot area behind you, buddy. No backing up for your bunch."

Radioactive areas. "I don't intend to back up, Ben. Just go forward and sideways and every other which way."

It was to be the type of war that Ben and Gray and Ike were trained to fight: a cut-and-slash, hit-and-run, guerrilla-type action.

Ben nodded. What deep recon intel they had been able to receive showed that Hartline had few planes.

He could not escape by air. And since the nuclear blasts, the tides had been affected; the oceans that hammered the coasts on both ends of the United States had become a raging torrent of fury.

Scouts reported gigantic waves cras.h.i.+ng against the sh.o.r.eline; the seas bubbled and roared, creating a non-survivable maelstrom.

No one was coming in by the sea along the California coast.

And Ben was not sure he wanted to see the once-peaceful Pacific in such a rage.

Dan Gray entered Ike's quarters and poured a cup of what now pa.s.sed for coffee. He sipped and grimaced. "So so, is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so," Dan said.

"Shakespeare on a rainy morning, Dan?"

Ben asked.

"It's the best I could come up with in describing this dreadful brew," the Englishman replied.

"Why don't you say it just tastes like s.h.i.+t and be done with it?" Ike needled him, knowing Dan would have a quick retort.

"I shall leave crude remarks to people of your ilk,"

Dan said.

Ike feigned great personal affront. "The man has cut me to the quick."

Dan set the coffee mug aside. "Doubtful."

He looked at Ben. "To insult someone of his boorish nature would require a much more eloquent person than I."

"Don't he talk pretty, though?" Ike said, grinning.

The men joked and insulted each other for several minutes. They'd been friends, good friends, close friends, for years, and they were the type of men who did not, or would not, allow their feelings to show in any type of overt manner. This was their way of showing affection for the other.

The rain continued falling, harder now than before.

Ben c.o.c.ked his head and listened to the drumming of the raindrops. "Dan. Double the guards. Tell them "heads up." If we've got unfriendlies out there, this would be an ideal time for them to hit us."

"Right, sir." Dan left the small hut.

"Expecting trouble?" Ike asked.

"No. But I do wonder if all those eyes out there are friendly ones."

"Good point."

Dan returned in a few minutes. He had a small tin of tea with him. "Now we shall enjoy a gentleman's drink," he announced.

"Does that include me?" Ike questioned.

"Heavens no!" The water boiled, the tea steeping, Ben said, "Ike and his bunch will be going in from the south, Dan, as we agreed. You and your Scouts still want to play it the way we planned?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way, General," Dan cheerfully replied. "We shall have a gay ol'

time doing our b.l.o.o.d.y bit."

"Always knowed there was something funny about you," Ike said.

"Imbecile!" Dan told him.

"Flea brain!" Ike returned the cheerfully given insult.

Ben shook his head and took his mug of steaming tea, sweetening it with a bit of honey from a jug.

Sugar was very nearly a priceless commodity.

The men sat and sipped, enjoying the tea, as the rain drummed on the roof.

"Something puzzles me, General," Dan said.

Ike picked up on the serious note in the question and did not stick the needle to Dan. Yet.

Ben waited.

"In less than fifteen years," the Englishman said, "how could intelligent men and women revert from civilization back to the caves, as these so-called underground people have done?"

"You're asking me a question I don't have a ready answer for, Dan. Maybe they thought underground would be safer. With the roaming gangs of thugs and punks and a.s.sorted creeps prowling the land, these people returned to the caves, perhaps driven by some primal urgings. I just don't know. Maybe on this run we'll find out, since they've indicated they'll fight with us."

"And maybe they just gave up on the promise of civilization," Ike interjected. "A lot of folks have.

You both know that; we've all seen it."

"I shall surely never understand that kind of thinking,"

Dan said. "I do not understand people who just give up without a fight."

"And speaking of that," Ike said, after draining his mug of tea. "I'm gonna ask one more time, and then I'll shut up about it. Ben ... stay back on this one."

"No. I'm taking my team in, dead center.

We'll be jumping in as planned. And have you heard from your Pathfinders, Ike?"

"Only that they all made it. They're probably busy laying out the DZ'S."

Ben nodded his head. "Now comes the hardest part, boys."

And they knew what that was: the waiting.

The Rebels waited all that day, that night, and the following day. Still the rains continued. Ike's Pathfinders called in from their positions. The drop zones were laid out, the coordinates given.