Free From The Ashes: America Reborn by William W. Johnstone Page B

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
    DANGER IN THE ASHES
     

 
    We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power . . . The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
    –Patrick Henry
     

 
     
     
     
    Ben Raines is back to visit his old home in north Louisiana, where he encounters a group of rednecks led by Hiram Rockingham, a man whom Ben had known many years before. The two men dislike each other intensely. Ben hates ignorance of all kinds, and Rockingham revels in it, proud of his lack of education and ignorance.
    Ben has returned to set up an outpost in spite of the ignorance and resistance of many of the current inhabitants. He is sure that the only way to restore order to the country is either to educate those who refuse to see reason or to kill them before they spread their poison farther. Another threat that the Rebels must deal with is the feared Night People, cannibals who have infested much of the country. Ben has become convinced that the Night People are headquartered in New York City and that eventually the battle will take them there. He sends Ike and Tina north with two hundred soldiers and twenty-five scouts to check it out.
    At a meeting in the town center, Ben lays it on the line. Hiram will see to it that all the children will begin attending a rebel school for reeducation. If Hiram doesn’t agree, Ben will send troops and gather the children without his permission. Hiram caves in but in secret begins to plot his revenge.
    Tina and the scouts are outside of Memphis; returning eastward they begin daytime recon and reclaim of city areas. Near the airport off I-240 they run into trouble. The place is crawling with Night People. Tina and the scouts hole up in a hangar and prepare to spend a long and dangerous night. At dawn Tina hooks up with Ike and his troops. It’s clear that cleaning the Night People out of the cities will be a difficult job. Tina and Ike head for Nashville and on to New York.
    Back in Monroe, Ben confronts Hiram, who has burned a cross as part of a growing resurgence of the KKK. Ben and Hiram fight. Ben humiliates him, and it’s now clear that only the death of one of them will resolve the hatred between them. Later that evening one of Hiram’s sons is killed as he attempts to assassinate Ben. Hiram holds Ben personally