Anarchy in the Ashes

“Goddamn you!” Peggy yelled her rage at the men on the ridges. She tried to anger them into firing. “Can’t you niggers do anything right? You have to leave everything up to whitey?”

Hartline’s mercs thought that hysterically amusing.

The APC’S and Jeeps were roaring up the small inclines, the ring-mounted .50’s on the Jeeps and APC’S spitting and hammering out death.

Al Maiden lifted his M-16 and shot one machine

gunner in the face. A second later a hard burst from an M-60 spun him around and tore his chest open. He danced grotesquely and then fell to the cool earth, his blood soaking into the ground.

The mercenaries and the IPF troops crested the ridges and were over the top as the troops who had pulled the flanking maneuver sealed off much of the rear escape route. The black troops fought well and bravely, but the better-fed, better-trained and better-equipped IPF and mercs soon overwhelmed the small force on the ridges.

Mark Terry shot the driver of one APC in the head and dropped a grenade into the carrier. The grenade exploded, sending bits of human flesh and brains flying out of the APC. He slashed at Peggy’s ropes, freeing her. He jerked her toward a Jeep, bodily picking her up and throwing her into the back seat. A bullet slammed into the fleshy part of his shoulder, spinning him around and dropping him to the ground. He pulled himself into the driver’s seat with his good arm and jerked the Jeep into gear, racing back to the main encampment, to his command post. But Hartline’s flankers were well ahead of him, and he could see the battle was almost over. Hartline’s men were shooting the wounded in the head.

Cursing, Mark floorboarded the Jeep and headed for the timber. Driving deep into a forest, away from the battleground, he pulled over, off the old dirt road, and switched off the engine.

Mark removed his field jacket and gave it to Peggy. He could see that the woman had been beaten and tortured. Despite that, she was still beautiful.

Mark poured raw alcohol onto his shoulder wound

and bandaged it hurriedly. Peggy crawled into the front seat beside him.

“We’re beaten,” she said flatly.

“Not yet,” Mark said grimly. He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “Goddamnit!” he cursed. “I just didn’t count on Hartline doing anything like that.”

Her bitter laugh lifted his eyes toward her. “You can count on Hartline doing almost anything,” she told him. “He is brilliantly insane and perversely twisted; and so are a great number of his men.”

“You sound like you know him well.”

The sounds of battle were coming to a close, with only an occasional shot being fired far in the distance. Mark felt like a traitor for running out on his men. But there was still a chance he could regroup some of his people. But it was a slim one and Mark knew it. And he didn’t know if he wanted to see those who refused to fire. He thought he might try to kill them.

The taste of defeat was brass-bitter on his tongue. The word coward kept coming to him.

But Mark knew he was no coward; he had faced too much adversity in his life to be a coward. He just wished he could have done more.

As if reading his thoughts, Peggy said, “That battle was lost before it began back there, and Sam Hartline knew it. Said as much. There was nothing you could have done to change any of it. What is your name?”

“Mark. Mark Terry.”

“I’m Peggy Jones. Yeah, I know Sam Hartline.” The words rolled harshly from her tongue. “I was his … house nigger for a time, reporting back to Lois Peters, and she to the resistance. But he knew what I was doing

all along and the information he gave me was deliberately false. I … got away from him-don’t ask me how-but he finally tortured Lois until she gave away where I was hiding. I can’t blame her for that. He tortured her to death. It was … terrible what he did to her. I will never get that picture of her out of my mind.

“Then,” she sighed, “he had a high old time with me. I… really don’t want to say what he did to me. It was sexual, most of the time. I will never be able to bear children. The IPF people… fixed me.” She lifted her arm and pulled back the sleeve of the field jacket, showing Mark the tattoo on her arm. “Hartline and a lot of his men and the IPF people as well are perverted. They enjoy inflicting pain, and Hartline likes to do it in a sexual manner. And that is all I’m going to say about that.”

Mark touched her hand. “You don’t have to say anything, Peggy. Some of the refugees that came into our area told us a lot about Hartline. What the women said was … sickening.”

Her eyes, filled with the horror of what had been done to her, touched his eyes. “We need to get to a safer place, Mark, and I need to fix up that shoulder of yours.”

Something deep within Mark, something very soft and gentle, moved slightly, touching him in a manner he had never known before. He was unsure of the origin or the meaning. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Right. And … Peggy?”

He looked at him. “Yes?”

“People do adopt kids, you know.”

He put his good arm around her and she put her

ace against his chest and wept.

“Holy Mother of God!” Juan whispered. “That isn’t warfare-that’s evil. his

He stood gazing in disbelief and shocked horror at the line of APC’S coming at them, naked women and naked young boys and girls roped to the front of the carriers.

“Take a look at what is coming up behind them,” a soldier said, his voice hushed with shock in the early morning.

Juan lifted his binoculars to his eyes. After a moment, he lowered them and began cursing, long and passionately, in his mother tongue.

“What do we do, Juan?” The question came out of the knot of company commanders standing behind him. It was a question Juan did not want to hear, but one he knew had to be answered.

After a moment that seemed like an eternity to Juan, he said, “We stop them; we have no choice in the matter.” There was a deathlike quality to his reply.

“Juan, we can’t-was

“Yes, we can!” Juan whirled around, his face tight with anger as he recalled Ben’s words: “If they can’t cut it, Juan, let me have it all up front.” And Juan’s reply now returned to haunt him: “They will do what I tell them to do. They might not like it, but they will do it.”

God, Juan silently implored the Almighty, let my people have the courage to do this awful thing.

“We have to stop them!” Juan shouted the words.

A company commander lowered his binoculars,

tears streaming from his eyes, rolling in rivers down his cheeks. “The little ones are all crying,” he said, his voice breaking under the strain. “The-was

“Stop it!” Juan shouted.

“… Old people are naked and barefooted. Must be two-was

“Goddamn it, fire!” Juan screamed. He looked up and down the line of the first defense. “Fire on them, goddamn you!”

“…Or three hundred of the old people.” The man appeared to be in shock.

Juan slapped the man, the force of his open-handed blow rocking the man’s head back, bringing blood to his lips.

Juan jerked up a rifle, firing at the mercenaries, the IPF, the young and the old. A few more defenders joined him. But most did not. They could not.

The forces, under the command of Colonel Fechnor, drew closer.

Juan’s men began backing off the small ridge, bucking under the awfulness of what lay before them, growing nearer with the screams and cries of the young and the old.

“You have no place to back up to!” Juan shouted at his men.

Over the rumble of the APC’S and Jeeps, the sounds of the children’s weeping drifted to the men on the hill. About a third of Juan’s first line of defense stayed by his side, fighting at his orders. The others drifted back, not out of cowardice, but because they loved life so much they could not bear to fire on the very young and the very old. “Cobardes!” Juan screamed at the backs of his men. “Chacals!” But he knew those men were not cowards or jackals. They simply could not bring themselves to fire on helpless old people and babies.

“Fall back to the river!” Juan yelled to those men who elected to remain by his side. Far in the distance he could see trucks rolling toward the bridge at Blair. He turned to his radio operator. “Order them to stop,” he told the woman.

She shook her head. “I have them now, sir. They say they are not defeated or running away. They say they will defend our homelands, but they will not kill women and babies and old people.”

Alvaro, Juan’s brother, hurried to his side. “Juan, we have about one minute before we meet eternity.”

The screaming and the crying of the children lashed to the front of the APC’S was now very clear. The old people were stumbling, almost down from exhaustion. They were being prodded forward by rifle barrels.

The taste of the defeat was ugly on Juan’s tongue. He gave the order he knew must he must give to save at least some of his forces. “Fall back!” he shouted.

As Juan rode in the Jeep, crossing the bridge over the Missouri River, he muttered, “God help Ben Raines.”

CHAPTER THREE

Ben listened grimly to the reports from the Rebel’s LETTERRP’S. He stood in his command bunker and cursed. When he ran out of obscenities, he looked at the woman manning the radio.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized.

She grinned. “I haven’t heard such cussing since the time my daddy caught me in a hayloft with a kid from down the road.”

Ben felt some of the anger leave him and he grinned at her. “I bet that was quite a moment.”

Her grin widened. “It was worth it.”

Ben laughed. “OK. Get on the horn and tell Colonel McGowen to cut and run. Head south. Instruct Colonel Ramos to break through his south lines and do the same. Order all forward units to hunt holes and get in them and keep their heads down until they receive orders from me to resume guerrilla activities. No last-ditch stands for any unit. No heroics out of anybody. Pull back. We’ll regroup along Highway 60 in southern Missouri, from Springfield to Poplar Bluff. Pull back with all speed.”

“We’re retreating, sir?”

“No,” Ben told her. “We are executing what the marines used to call a strategic withdrawal. Get to it, Sergeant.”

“This isn’t as much fun as the hayloft,” she said.

Chase walked into the battle-scarred bunker. “I’ve got badly wounded people, Ben. To move them at this time would be endangering their lives.”

“Move them,” Ben said. “It can’t be avoided, La-mar. We don’t have a choice.”

The doctor looked at the man for a long moment. Then he nodded his head. “All right, Ben. I’ll start pulling them out now.” He turned to leave.

“Lamar?”

The doctor turned around.

“I’m sorry, Lamar.”

“I know, Ben. I’m sorry, too.”

Gen. Georgi Striganov was furious. The deaths of the old people, the young women and the children did not bother him as much as what it had done to his self-image. The Russian perceived himself as a fair and just person. History might well paint him as an evil person for condoning something like this. That bothered him more than anything.

“I gave no orders to do anything this monstrous!” Striganov raged at Sam Hartline and Colonel Fechnor. “Killing old people and little children.”

“Only a few old niggers died,” Hartline said. “One nigger woman took a round in the guts and one got her brain cooked when her hair caught fire. There were a

few greasers killed over in Iowa. No big deal. Anyway, if you have to yell at somebody, yell at me,” Hartline told him. The deaths of the young and old bothered him about as much as swatting a fly. “Colonel Fechnor was assigned to my command and he was only obeying orders like any good soldier.”

Col. Valeska Fechnor breathed a silent sigh of relief. He would have to think of some way to repay Hartline for getting him off tenterhooks. This could have turned into a very ugly scene.

General Striganov calmed himself slowly by taking deep breaths and clenching and unclenching his fists. He turned away and gazed out the front of the open tent. He would have to tell his historians that it was the mercenary who ordered the old and the young used in such a horrible manner; let future generations know that he, personally, had nothing to do with anything so monstrous.

“Anyway,” Hartline said with a smile, “we won, didn’t we? Raines is pulling his people back, turning tail and running. So the victory is ours.”

“Ben Raines is most definitely

turning tail and running,” the Russian told the mercenary. “He is merely executing a perfectly logical military option. I would do the same if the situation was reversed. One battle does not win the war. And do not attempt to do with Ben Raines what you succeeded in doing with the inferior minorities. General Raines would not hesitate to shoot. He would not like it, he might weep while giving the order, but he would shoot. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Hartline agreed. “You’re right about that, I guess.”

Striganov withered him silent with a cold look. “I am almost always correct, Sam. And never again do anything of today’s magnitude without first consulting me. Is that clear?”

“Clear as rain,” the mercenary said, the scolding bouncing off him. Hartline had a hide of iron.

“Yes, sir,” Fechnor said crisply.

“Very well,” Striganov said. “The matter is closed. We shall count our dead, give them a proper soldiers” burial, then map out strategy for the upcoming campaign against General Raines. And it will not be an easy one. Do not-either of you-delude yourselves into believing otherwise. Unless we are lucky enough to kill Ben Raines-in combat-his people will fight forever, constantly a thorn in our sides.”

“Have some of your people down in Tri-States ambush him,” Hartline suggested.

“No,” Striganov said. “I will not stoop to Raines’s level of fighting. Not yet, at least. Besides, you can bet Raines will ferret those people out when he gets back. If he gets back. I was arrogantly wrong when I admitted to him I was aware of his Jewess bed-partner. My mistake. I shall be big enough to admit it. All right, now then, how great were the losses of the black people?”

“Fifty to sixty percent,” Hartline told him. “Maybe seven to eight hundred got away. Certainly no more than that.”

“Their leaders?”

“Al Maiden is dead. Mark Terry got away. Took Peggy with him and cut out.”

“Peggy?” Striganov questioned. “Who is Peggy?”

“No one of any importance.” Hartline waved the question aside.

“The Mexicans?” The Russian glanced at Colonel Fechnor.

“They fared a bit better. My men have counted some five hundred dead. We took less than two hundred prisoners. The rest ran away like cowards.”

“Pursuit?”

“None. My men stopped at the Missouri River. As you ordered.”

“Good. Very good, Colonel. I commend you.” He walked to the tent opening. “Now, gentlemen, let us honor our gallant dead.”

Ike was furious when he met with Ben. Ben let the ex-Seal blow his tanks until he wound down. Ben then waved his friend to a seat.

“I was plenty pissed too, Ike. But then I got the whole picture from a survivor out of Maiden’s command.” He told Ike what the IPF and Hartline’s mercs had done.

Ike sat in horrified silence for a few seconds. “Ben … that’s the worst goddamned thing I ever heard of. Jesus Christ! Kids and old people.” He shuddered his revulsion. “I will admit my guys pulled some pretty raunchy shit in “Nam, but nothing like that.”

“It’s low, buddy, I’ll sure go along with that. Well, it’s done, and nothing we can do about it. Let’s get down to hard facts, buddy: How many people did you lose?”

“Too goddamn many. I lost just about twenty-five percent. Another ten percent wounded so badly they’re out of action for weeks-maybe months.

Equipment fared a lot better. We got ninety-five percent of our howitzers and armor out.”

“Thirty-five percent of your command, then?” Ben questioned, a deep and very personal sense of loss touching him. He knew every man and woman in every unit.

“At least.”

“Don’t feel too badly, Ike. My figures are just about the same as yours. Cecil’s bunch took one hell of a pounding, too. He lost almost forty percent. And I hate to see Hector’s losses when he comes in.”

“I know he took a beating. When Hec’s left flank caved in-wrong choice of words-was overrun-he lost an entire company right there. Last radio contact I had with him, he told me he took some heavy losses. Striganov really threw some people at him. Hec told me he was outnumbered four, five to one.”

“I’ve sent out scrambled messages for any survivor to the east to come across at Cairo. That’s why I asked you to leave people there. I got a hunch they’ll be in pretty bad shape. Chase is sending medical teams over there to assist.”

“You heard Maiden’s dead?”

“No. I hate that. We were beginning to be friends. Mark Terry?”

“I just heard he was wounded, but managed to get out. He rescued one young woman from the front of an APC.”

“They’ll be drifting in pretty soon, I imagine. I hope so. We’re going to need all the warm, breathing bodies we can muster.”

“Plans?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going

to do, Ike. I want a fully attended meeting of the minds as soon as everybody gets in.”

“I wonder if the Russian knows how really weak we are?”

“I doubt it. And he must not find out. If he threw everything he had at us right now, he’d hammer us into the ground.”

It was a downhearted and beaten group of men and women that straggled southward toward Cairo, Illinois. Although they did not speak of the horror, the picture of the naked women lashed to the front of the APC’S and the old people stumbling along, frightened and humiliated, was a mental scene none could erase from their minds.

And for many, the thought nagged at them: Was I acting cowardly by refusing to shoot?

It was a question that many would never resolve to any degree of satisfaction.

Mark and Peggy encountered the first group of troops from New Africa at Du Quion, Illinois. Mark, his resentment toward them still a hot fire within him, at first would not acknowledge their presence. He drove past them without speaking, waving or even looking directly at them. Outside of the deserted town, he pulled over, conscious of Peggy’s unwavering stare on his face.

He parked on the shoulder, sighed and then cut off the engine. He turned to face her. “What is it you want me to do, Peggy?”

“I want you to go back and rally your people. The fight isn’t over, Mark. The fight can’t ever be over until

the Russian and Hartline are both dead and the dream of… of the master race is dead with them.”

“Those people back there are cowards,” Mark said, jerking his thumb in the direction from which they had just come.

“Oh, Mark, they aren’t any more a coward than you are. And in your heart you know that’s true. They’re confused and troubled and I’m sure they feel they let you down.”

“Let me down? Hell, they did let me down! And not just me. They let Ben Raines down. And there is something else, Peggy. I keep replaying that awful scene in my mind, over and over. And I keep asking myself this: If those people lashed to the front of those APC’S, those people being herded in front of the troops, if those people had been white instead of black, would my troops have stood their ground and fired?”

“Oh, Mark! How could you even think such a thing? That’s-was

“No, Peggy, let me finish. This is something-what I’m about to say-I argued and debated with Al many times. And I think, I believe, the events of the day before yesterday prove me right. There is still a lot of hate among the races in this country; and it is not one-sided as Al used to preach. I’m sorry he was killed; he was coming around, getting his head on straight. The nation, if there is to be a nation, cannot exist the way we were going. I mean, Hispanics in one part of the country, blacks in another, whites in yet another. Damn it, Peggy, that isn’t democracy. Our young people aren’t-weren’t-getting an accurate picture of life. I’m not African-I’m an American. I don’t speak Swahili-I speak English. Al could never understand,

I could never make him see, that I didn’t give two hoots in hell about the internal politics of Uganda. I was too concerned about what was happening in this nation. I don’t want to wear tribal robes and stick a bone in my nose. Jesus Christ. That was part of the problem with many whites refusing to accept blacks.

“Look at Cecil Jefferys; he’s never had any problem in his entire life being accepted-anywhere. And do you know why? I’ll tell you why: He dressed well; he spoke proper English and insisted his kids do the same. He didn’t try to excuse bad grammar by saying it was part of the black culture. He knew, just as I know, that is pure bullshit. Bad grammar is bad grammar. Period. I cannot for the life of me conjure up any image of Vice President Jefferys doing any shuckin” and jivin’.”

Peggy laughed aloud at the expression on Mark’s face.

“You mean Mr. Jefferys calls a spade a spade?” she said with a grin.

“I’ll have to remember that one,” Mark said, returning her smile. “Cecil will get a kick out of that. Yes, that’s true, Peggy. He calls a spade a spade. Cecil, as does Ben Raines, knows there are classes of people: just as there are bigoted, ignorant rednecks in the white race, there are ignorant, bigoted niggers in the black race.” He smiled at her. “Sorry, Peggy-I didn’t mean to preach at you.”

“No, it’s all right. I like what you’ve said. Go on.”

“All right, I’ll lay it all out for you. I’m linking up with Ben Raines. I think that’s what we have to do if any of us are going to make out of this situation. Those people back there-was he jerked his thumb-“if

they want to live under those rules, those conditions, those ideas that Ben and Ike and Cecil put forward-then fine, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll put what happened on the ridges out of my mind, forgive, if not forget, and we’ll join Ben Raines and try to beat this IPF thing. Those that want to go on back to New Africa and stick a goddamn bone in their noses … well, to hell with them.”

Her dark, serious eyes never left his face. “You must think Ben Raines hung the moon and the stars in the heavens, Mark.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think that at all, Peggy. Ben Raines is just a man, with faults like all the rest of us. And I don’t agree with all he says. As a matter of fact, I hated him at first. Until I began to wise up to what he was saying: no free rides. And then he began to make sense to me. His Tri-States worked, Peggy. It really worked. All races lived there, honey. All races. And Ben Raines did it. He made it work.”

“I’ve never met the man. But I have seen his picture.”

“He’s …” Mark paused, searching for the correct words. “Ben Raines is impressive. He … exudes power and confidence. And something else, you may as well hear it from me: A lot of people believe Ben Raines sits awfully close to a higher power.”

Disbelief sprang into her eyes. “And what do you believe, Mark?”

Mark sighed, many different emotions surging through his mind. “I… don’t know. I don’t want to believe that. But I’ve heard so many stories about him. And I know that many of them are fact. Peggy, the man’s been shot two dozen times; he’s been stabbed,

blown up, shot off mountains and fallen God knows how far. Name it, and it’s happened to Ben Raines. But he won’t die.” A frightened look replaced the doubtful look in her eyes. She again searched his face. “Mark, are you sure of what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” His reply came quickly and quietly and surely. “I am positive.”

“Then I think we should join your Mr. Raines.”

And the legend of Ben Raines surged forward.

Mark and Peggy stood by the side of the road and waited for the troops to reach them. When they drew close, Mark stepped into the center of the weed-filled, cracked old road. He held up his hand.

The convoy stopped and the troops got out to face Mark.

Some four hundred men and women stood facing him; many would not meet his hard eyes.

“Here it is,” Mark spoke firmly. “As far as I am concerned, New Africa is no more.” He noticed only a few stirring at his words. “Those pf you who wish to follow me, you’re welcome. Personally, I am linking up with Ben Raines and his people. If he will have me, I will live where he lives, and live under his rules. Do not think that Ben Raines would have behaved as I did a few days ago. If Ben Raines had ordered you to shoot, and you refused, you would not be standing on this highway this day, for Ben Raines would have personally shot you for disobeying an order. I’m not that hard; I should have done that, but I couldn’t. Ben Raines would have done it without blinking, and so will I if it ever occurs again. You will never disgrace my command again-and live to speak of it. Ben Raines is

hard; that’s why he is a survivor and you people are slinking along the road with your tails tucked between your legs like whipped dogs. And if you’re not afraid to fight, if you think you can obey orders, and if you love freedom and liberty, follow me. I’ll take you to Ben Raines.”

Juan Solis, his brother, Alvaro, and several hundred followers pulled into Ben’s new command post and base camp six days after their defeat. Juan walked up to Ben and the two men shook hands.

“These are all I could convince to join me, Ben,” Juan said. “When my troops witnessed that … awfulness, it seemed to take the fight out of many of my men. I told them they were making a mistake.”

“Don’t they know that eventually General Striganov will move against them?”

Alvaro shook his head and said, “We tried to tell them, General Raines. Both of us. But they were too numbed by what happened for it to sink in. I am afraid that for many of them, when if finally does sink in, it will be too late.”

“Mark Terry pulled in yesterday with about five hundred troops,” Ben said. “He told me if I’d have them, they want to join us, not temporarily, but on a full-time basis. New Africa is, according to Mark, no more. He gave quite a speech to his people, so I hear. Said we were wrong-all of us-in living the way we were. You and I have spoken of that, Juan.”

The Mexican shook his head. “Yes, and to a point I agree with Mark. I am very disappointed in my people, Ben. I can understand what they did-their refusal

to fire-but I cannot forgive it. I simply cannot. So, Ben Raines, we are here. I will not return to lead a people whose men have lost their cojones. I, and these hundred who follow me, now wish to pledge our loyalties to you, General. You lead; we shall follow and obey.”

And again, Ben asked the silent question to which he had yet to receive a reply: Why me?

CHAPTER FOUR

The IPF had not come out of the battle with Raines’s Rebels smelling like the proverbial rose. They had lost more men than all three brigades fighting against them combined. But Striganov could better afford the heavy loss of personnel and equipment, for he had fresh troops coming in from Iceland, and still more behind those in reserve. If he chose to go in that direction.

But the Russian general who dreamed of a master race did not choose to go that route. He knew, now, the fierceness of President-General Ben Raines. He knew, now, that those who followed Ben Raines would follow him and fight to the death. And he knew, from scouts’ reports, contingents from the Mexican and black brigades had once more linked up with Raines, and those racially inferior people had also pledged to fight to the death alongside Raines’s Rebels.

Well, Striganov mused, let them fight and let them die. Their struggles would be in vain. The Russian had

no doubts about that; nothing clouded his mind; nothing within the Russian suggested that his dream of a master race would be unsuccessful. He felt, from studying history, that if Hitler had not committed so many troops to the Russian front, the little paper hanger would have won the war and chased the Allies right back into the English Channel.

But Striganov was no Hitler. The Russian knew he was not insane, and would make no such costly errors in judgment.

He gave his orders. “Prepare to move out. We move in two days. Leave only a token force behind to guard our perfect people and the other breeding stock. This time we throw it all at General Raines.”

They met in Ben’s suite of rooms at a motel in Poplar Bluff. Cecil, Ike, Hector, Juan and Mark.

“All right, boys,” Ben got the ball rolling. “I’m open for suggestions as to our next move. Let’s toss it around and see what we come up with.”

“Looks like to me,” Ike said, “we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Any move we make is going to cost us in blood.”

“Yes,” Mark said. “I agree. If we elect to cut and run, try to set up a stable government anywhere, Striganov will just find us and we’ll still have to fight.”

“Root hog or die,” Juan mused aloud. “I believe we are in this to the death. I cannot see any other way.” He looked at Cecil.

Cecil sighed and then nodded his head in agreement. “Even if we could make some sort of peace arrangement with the Russian, none of us would be able

to live with our conscience, not knowing what was taking place with so many people. I think it would drive me insane knowing Striganov was putting his master race plan into operation, with all the horrors therewith, and we were sitting back safe, allowing it to happen.”

“I felt physically ill when I first saw that tattoo on Peggy’s arm,” Mark spoke softly. “I believe that hit me harder than seeing the young women and the old people that day on the ridge. It… it drove it all home to me.”

Ike drummed his finger tips on the meeting table. “What bugs me is that we can’t get an accurate picture of just how many troops Striganov has. If we knew that, then we could make some firm plans.”

“No way yet of really knowing that,” Ben said. “But I’ll wager he’s got two divisions to back him up-at least.”

“Felt like he was throwing that at me,” Hector said with a very slight smile. “But I know he wasn’t.”

Hector had been wounded in the side and in the arm, but his wounds were more painful than serious.

What was more agonizing to Colonel Ramos was the fact he had taken such awful casualties: Almost seventy-five percent of his troops were either dead or wounded, with many of the wounded not expected to live.

“They were tryin’ to flank you, Hec,” Ike said. “Come up under us. Their intelligence was bad; they thought you had the smallest force, when in reality, Ben had the smallest troop contingent.” He looked at Ben. “Two divisions, Ben?”

“Yes. But I don’t believe they are all stateside; I

think they’re still coming in from Iceland. And there is this to consider: Russian divisions have always been smaller than American divisions. But even with that knowledge, I’d make a guess Striganov has between eighteen and twenty thousand troops. After all, people, Striganov’s had better than a decade to work this out.”

He expelled his breath and rubbed a hand across his face, as if trying to erase the worry he felt. “I think we’re back to plan one, boys. We just don’t have the people to stand up and slug it out with the Russians.”

Colonel Gray stepped into the room. “Sorry I am late, gentlemen,” the Englishman said. “But I wanted to debrief the last group of LETTERRP’S that came in. General, they report the Russian is gearing up to throw it all at us the next go-round. And the rumors they heard, plus some actual radio transmissions our intelligence people decoded, clearly state the massive push coming at us very soon.”

Ben nodded. The news did not surprise him. It was what he would do if he stood in the Russian’s boots.

Colonel Gray poured himself a cup of coffee, tasted it, grimaced and said, “My word.”

The men laughed and Cecil said, “Ben, you said back to plan one. What did you mean?”

“I believe we’re too small a force to stand up and do anymore nose-to-nose slugging it out with the IPF. Add the fact that we’ve taken substantial losses in troops-it wouldn’t take Striganov long to overrun and destroy us. That’s my belief. So … I think we’ve got to go to a guerrilla-type operation: hit and run, and I mean hit hard. Cut and slash and demoralize. If it can be mined, mine it; if it can be blown, blow it up.

We’ve got snipers who can knock the eye out of a squirrel at three hundred meters-use them as long-distance shooters. Give me your thoughts on those ideas.”

“I don’t see that we have a choice,” Ike said.

The rest of the men agreed.

Ben spoke to Cecil. “Order the heavy howitzers into hiding with the main battle tanks. Send the PU!‘S into hiding. We can’t risk losing any of them and with this type of operation, we’ll have to depend on speed to survive. I want them to come to us this time. This is perfect country for ambushes and throat-cuttings: rolling hills and lots of brush.

“Gentlemen, start breaking your commands into small, highly movable teams. I want destruction and terror and confusion. Ike, get word back to Tri-States that I want all the Claymores, C-4, mines and dynamite we have in storage sent up here ASAP. Go over the use of high explosives with all your people. Hec, get your people to cleaning up the airport here at Poplar Bluff-we’ll use that strip.

“Colonel Gray, send fresh teams of scouts and LETTERRP’S back north with all the equipment they can carry. Tell them to start cutting throats. Have them determine which route the IPF will be taking and mine those bridges. We’ve got some good electronics people with us; they can rig those explosives so our LETTERRP’S can lay back two, three miles and blow the bridges, with maximum killing effects and less danger to themselves.

“I want fresh teams on the way to replace weary teams at all times. I don’t have to tell you men what a strain guerrilla warfare is; you all know a man tires

mentally and physically very quickly. And I don’t want any heroics.” He looked each man square in the eyes. “I mean that. For a number of reasons. Just being a part of any guerrilla action is heroic enough. And you all know that for an iron-clad fact.

“We’ve got the edge over the IPF in this type of action, even though we’re heavily outnumbered. Most of our people have been fighting, in one way or another, for years. This is our type of war. But tell your people if they think they can’t cut it-no pun intended,” Ben said with a smile, and the men all laughed in rough soldier humor, “to step forward now. Don’t endanger their buddies’ lives.

“We will neutralize our zones of operation. If the people are IPF supporters-kill them. We went over this before, but I feel it best to hash it out again. The people will either be one hundred percent for what we are attempting to do, or one hundred percent against us. There will be no middle ground. We don’t have the time or the personnel for a political debate. Anyone could turn our teams in. If you’re Red, you’re dead. That’s the way it has to be, and that’s the way it is going to be from this moment on. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, General,” Colonel Gray said. He smiled. “Put quite forcefully, I should say.”

Ben looked around the table. There were no questions from any man.

“All right, boys,” Ben said. “I want the first teams equipped and moving north by late this afternoon. That’s it, people, let’s move it and shake it.”

Cecil held up a hand, signaling that the meeting was not yet over. “Ben, I have to ask the question that is on all our minds.”

Ben looked at him.

“Your part in all this guerrilla action will be to oversee the project and direct from this base-is that correct?”

“Not necessarily.” Ben braced himself, for he knew what was coming. And he was going to have no part of it.

“Whoa, now, partner.” Ike swung his eyes to Ben. “Like it or not, someone has to run things from this side of the battle line. You know that and you know who that person is.”

Colonel Gray sat without entering the conversation. He knew very well no one would be able to keep General Raines out of the field. The man had entirely too much old war-horse in him for that. Middle-aged or not.

Juan looked horrified. “General Raines, you can’t be serious. I mean, you can’t be thinking of leading a team into the field.”

Even Mark was upset, his face registering that discomposure. “General, your place is here. That you would even consider-was

Ben silenced them with a look and wave of his hand. “My place, gentlemen, shall be wherever I’m needed and can do the most good. If I feel the need to go into the field, I shall do just that.” He stood up. “And that settles the matter. Do we have any further questions concerning this operation?”

There were questions by the score on each man’s tongue, but they checked any vocal arguments. They all knew better than to cross Ben when his mind was made up.

“Tina is well-trained in this business of guerrilla warfare,” Colonel Gray asked the question without it being put as such. “I know, I helped train her.”

“Then by all means, use her,” Ben said, no expression on his face. “No one among us is indispensable.”

Only one man, the thought jumped into the brain of the men who sat looking up at Ben Raines.

But no one spoke the name aloud.

“Move out, gentlemen,” Ben said softly. “And good luck to you all.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I have passed the Rubicon; swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country-that is my unalterable determination.

-John Adams

“It ain’t our fight,” the burly man told the young captain from Raines’s Rebels.

“Mister-was the captain stood his ground, the ground in this case being just below the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in north Georgia-“if you think it isn’t your fight, if you think the IPF won’t be in here after you and your family, you’d better think again.”

The man spat tobacco juice on the ground. “When or if this Russian and his troops get here, we’ll fight. But not before.”

“By then it may well be too late,” he was told.

“Mayhaps you be right in that,” the man replied in the peculiar mountain dialect that many families still used after centuries. “But me and mine been gettin’ by

in these mountains for more years than there was a nation, sonny boy. The Russians come in here and they’ll find us to be not so hospitable as we is to you and your soldiers … sonny boy.”

The young captain met the mountain man’s stony gaze with a look just as unflinching and unyielding. “Mister, you call me sonny boy one more time, and you’re going to be eating on the butt of this AK-47. And after I butt-stroke you, I am going to stomp your fucking guts clear out.”

“He looks and acts like he might just be able to do it, Abe,” a man called from the porch.

Good-humored laughter broke from the knot of men gathered around the troops.

Humor touched the burly mountain man’s eyes. “I do believe you’d try your best to whup me, wouldn’t you…Captain?”

A grin touched the corners of Capt. Roger Rayle’s mouth. “Yes, sir, I sure would.”

The mountain man laughed and shook his shaggy head. “All right, Captain. Come on up to the porch. Folks been a-bringin’ in food all morning. We eat and talk about this thing. We don’t get much outside news “round here. Be nice to find out what’s happenin” in the world and with these Russians!”

Abe stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned around when Captain Rayle said, “A resurgence of Nazism, sir.”

Abe stared at him for a long moment. He blinked. “Resurgence. Good word. I believe that means-and you tell me if I’m wrong-these Russian people, the IPF, they doing the same thing that Hitler feller done back in the thirties and forties to the Jews.

Am I right?”

“Yes, sir. You are exactly right. And they must be stopped.”

By now the crowd around the stone and wood house had grown to more than a hundred men and women. They stood silently.

Abe said, “My daddy was a paratrooper in that war. He helped liberate a concentration camp. Don’t rightly recall just where it was. He told me he had seen some ugly sights in his life, during the war. Hadn’t never seen nothing to compare with that. Said them people was the poorest lookin’ bunch he’d ever seen. Made him sick, so he said. Couldn’t keep nothing on his stomach for a week or better.

“Now, as for me, I don’t know many Jew folks. Them I have known, I didn’t much care for. Too pushy for my tastes. But my personal opinions don’t matter much when it comes to another man doing a deliberate hurt to a human being “cause of race or religion. I just don’t hold with that. What is this IPF bunch doin” to folks?”

“They are taking everyone not of a pure white race-blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Indians-and operating on them so they cannot reproduce offspring. They are tattooing I.d. numbers on them. They are torturing them and conducting medical experiments on them. If a person does not have a high enough I.q., regardless of race, he is being disposed of.”

“Killed, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man spat another stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “All this is fact?”

“Yes, sir.”

A long, lean, lanky man set his coffee cup on the porch railing and stood up. “Abe,” he said, “don’t you be startin’ no meetin’ “til I get back here, now, you hear?”

“Where you be goin”?”

“To get my kin and my gun.”

Raines’s Rebels got in the first bloody, savage lick of the newly declared guerrilla war. The column of IPF troops and equipment was on a bridge in south central Iowa, crossing the Des Moines River when hundreds of pounds of carefully hidden high explosives were electronically detonated. One full company of troops was killed when their trucks plunged nose-first into the cold, dark waters of the river. Fifty were killed when the bridge exploded, hurling men and equipment and assorted arms and legs high into the air, to plunge and sink into the river.

The LETTERRP teams had allowed several IPF trucks to cross the bridge before activating the charges, cutting them off from the main convoy. The IPF troops were chopped to bloody rags of flesh and splintered shards of bone by mortar and heavy machine gunfire from the Rebels hidden in the thick brush that now grew alongside the roads and interstates of the once-most-powerful nation in the world.

By the time the IPF could backtrack and cross the river, coming up to the point of ambush, the Rebels were long gone, fading silently and quickly into the countryside, their gruesome jobs efficiently and effectively done.

Colonel Fechnor, who was commanding the troops spearheading the assault south, smiled a humorless grimace of grudging respect for the men and women of the scouts and LETTERRP’S, and for Gen. Ben Raines.

This one action-even if there were no more, and Fechnor knew there would be many more-had succeeded in its initial objective: slowing down the advance of the IPF. Now every bridge, no matter how small, would have to be inspected and inspected very carefully. Fechnor knew the Rebels would have ambush teams at every bridge and overpass along the way. If just one out of every five teams Fechnor sent out returned, he would consider that good odds.

No, Fechnor mused, this President-General Ben Raines was not going to roll over like a whipped puppy and give up. If Raines went down at all, it would be with a snarling, biting, savage action.

For the first time-the very first time-Colonel Fechnor felt that just maybe the International Peace Force had bitten off more than they could chew or swallow safely.

But, Colonel Fechnor thought, mentally shaking off the thought of defeat, he could not think that-that was treason. He was a soldier, and as a soldier he obeyed orders. He did not question whether they were right or wrong. He simply obeyed. Fechnor was the epitome of the universal soldier.

A type found in all armies. The type without which no army could exist or function. Without them, there could be no wars.

Fechnor ordered his dead buried. He stood with an impassive soldier’s face as this was done.

Then the colonel made his second mistake of that day.

“What do our scouts report on the conditions in Ottumwa?” he asked an aide.

“The city is deserted, sir. They say it is a ghost town. They don’t know where the people went. First reports of several weeks ago stated the city had several hundred residents.”

They probably left to join Ben Raines, the colonel said to himself, and he was right in that assumption. “Very well. No need to change course. Drive right on through the city.”

Ottumwa was anything but a ghost town.

Colonel Gray’s people had sealed the bypass around the city with old semi-rigs, carefully placed so it looked as though there had been a terrible accident months before and the wreckage never cleared.

There was about to be just that. But what was about to occur to Col. Valeska Fechnor’s IPF troops was to be anything but an accident.

The old highway ran through the center of the once-thriving little city, and on both sides of the main drag of town, waiting behind dusty and broken windows, crouched on rooftops and hidden in ground-level old stores, were the trained troops of Gray’s Scouts. They waited, hands gripping weapons, their only movement the shifting and blinking of eyes.

“Convoy approaching the city limits, sir,” a forward-placed LETTERRP radioed back to Dan Gray.

“Received,” Colonel Gray’s aide radioed back. She turned to Dan. “Convoy coming in, sir. And it’s a big one.

“Good, good.” Dan smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Excellent, dear. Now we shall teach the bloody arrogant bastards a hard lesson about life. Or,” he laughed, “the loss of it.”

She returned the soft yet hard laughter of the professional fighter.

The lead scout APC cautiously turned the corner and swung onto the main street.

“Hold your fire,” Dan whispered into a walkie-talkie. “Let them get clear; our lads south of the main area will bloody their knives on the scouts.”

Colonel Fechnor felt it first. An experienced soldier, he felt that anticipatory tingle on the short hairs of his neck. He looked around him. His entire convoy stretched out behind him on the main street of town.

Where were the dogs? he thought. There should be mangy dogs slinking about. Birds, too. But the street was void of all life.

Suddenly, Fechnor knew he had been suckered.

Sitting ducks! he thought. “Floorboard it!” he yelled, startling his young driver. “Get the hell off this street and out of town.” He grabbed up his mic. “Ambush!” he shouted. “Ambush!”

The driver jammed the pedal to the floorboards and the car shot forward just as a building exploded to Fechnor’s right. A second later the building on the opposite side of the street blew, just as two buildings far down the street erupted in rubble-filled fury, effectively blocking both ends of the street and sealing the IPF column.

Fechnor’s armored car just barely escaped the carnage only heartbeats away.

“Cut to the right!” Colonel Fechnor screamed.

“Head to the west.”

The frightened young man obeyed instantly as the sound of automatic weapon fire and grenades reached their ears.

The taste in Colonel Fechnor’s mouth was sour and ugly as his frightened young driver found Highway 34 and roared toward the west. Toward safety, the young man feverishly hoped.

On the main street of Ottumwa, the troops of the IPF were being brutally slaughtered, many of them taken by such surprise they were unable to fire their weapons before slugs chopped them to death.

Using M-16’s, M-16A2’s, .50-caliber and M-60 machine guns, AK-47’S, anti-tank rockets and grenades, the Rebels cut and slashed at the IPF personnel. Screams from the frightened and the wounded and the dying echoed off the buildings, mingling with the yammer of rapid fire and the booming of grenades and rockets. The air was filled with gun smoke and concrete dust from the shattered buildings. Small fires had broken out, the smoke adding to the confusion of the ambushed IPF troops.

The fire-fight was over in five minutes. Those men and women from the IPF who had managed to jump from the trucks and run inside the buildings, seeking safety there, were riddled with bullets from the Rebels waiting for just such an action.

Col. Dan Gray’s Scouts and LETTERRP’S took no prisoners. Teams went to each fallen IPF member to deliver the coup de grace: a bullet to the back of the head.

“Gather up all the weapons and equipment,” Colonel Gray instructed his people. “Every piece of equipment

that is workable, every vehicle that will run, anything we can possibly find some use for, take it. We’ll head south and cache it.”

The smell of blood and urine and relaxed bowels from the dead that littered the shattered streets was foul in the air.

And the dogs had returned, warily, sniffing at the dead.

“What about the bodies, Colonel?”

Colonel Gray looked at the dogs, then carefully smoothed his trimmed moustache with a finger tip. “Leave them. The dogs appear hungry.”

The sounds of the long, blacksnake whip cutting into flesh was followed by the cries and screams of the man being beaten and the sobs of the naked woman who was being forced to watch. The woman was held by two men: occasionally one or the other of the men would carelessly reach out to fondle some part of her nakedness. She had resigned herself to this humiliation and no longer struggled when one of them touched her. In the background, a huge wooden cross had been erected, its butt jammed into a hole in the ground and secured. It was blazing, sending shimmering waves of heat into the coolness of the autumn air.

Tears streaked the woman’s face. “Please stop,” she implored the men. “You’re killing him. For the love of God-stop it.”

“Naw, we ain’t neither,” a white-robed man casually informed her, not taking his eyes from the naked man being beaten. “We jist mar kin’ him up some; teach him a lesson furst, then we’ll get to you, seein’ as how you

lak’ niggers so much.” He laughed. “Yeah, we got a right nice treat in store for you, missy.”

The long, leather whip whistled and sang its painful tune as it hummed on its way to impacting with bare flesh. The impact was a cracking slap, blood leaping from the cut. The young man screamed as the pain tore through his body. He sagged against the post where he was bound. His crotch rubbed against the rough wood of the post.

“Lookee there!” another white-robed man called as he laughed. “Nigger-lover looks lak’ he a-tryin’ to fuck that there post. Hunch agin’ it, boy!”

The woman averted her eyes from the sight of her husband.

“OF Henry there is an expert with the blacksnake,” one of the men holding her said. He reached across and pinched a nipple. The woman bit her lip to keep from crying out. The man grinned at this. “For a nigger-fucker, missy, you got nice titties. Yep, I seen ol’ Henry make a whuppin’ las’ for near’bouts three hours once. I believe that were back in ninety-six. “Course hit were a nigger buck we was whuppin” then-bigger and some tougher than your little man. Built up better, too. I can see why you like nigger meat so much; your man ain’t got no cock on him at all. Never could make that nigger beg. So after we whupped him rawer “an a skinned pig, we strung him up.” He pointed to a tree. “Rat over there. We choked him to death. Took ‘bout a hour. That was fun, watchin” that nigger dance. We lowered him a dozen times, let him suck air. Man was lak’ an animal.” He grinned lewdly. “Had him a cock lak’ a horse. Way you lak’ nigger meat, missy, you’d have cummed jist a-lookin’ at that nigger’s whork.”

The woman shook her head and sobbed out her reply. “I have never had sex with a black man. Only with my husband.”

“You a lie!” another man told her, walking up to the nude woman. His robes were satin, much more ornate than any of the others. “You nothin’ but white trash, woman. We caught you travelin’ with niggers.”

“We were only helping them escape!” the woman screamed. “I’ve told you people that. Why don’t you believe us?”

was “Cause you a lie, ‘at’s why.” The man turned away from her. He looked for a moment at the beating, then called,” ‘At’s enuff, Henry. Don’t want to kill the boy. Cut him down. You, Richie, you go get that nigger buck, drag his monkey ass out to the circle.”

A slender black man was dragged into the circle of robed men and women. He was naked. His eyes were blazing with fury and shame. “You people had no right to do this,” he told the Klansmen. “This man and woman were merely helping me and my wife to escape from the IPF.”

That got him a crack across the mouth from the Klan spokesman. “Shut your nigger mouth, boy. “You stay in your place, you hear? “Round here, boy, niggers talk when spoken to.”

The horsewhipped man was cut from the whipping post and dragged into the center of the circle. “Dump some water on his ass,” the spokesman said. “We want him to watch this.”

A bucket of creek water was poured on the sobbing, bleeding man. He struggled to sit up on ground and at the same time cover his nakedness.

“You wastin” your time a-tryin’ to cover that little

thing of yourn,” a man leered at him. “You must have to stick it up your wife’s asshole afore she even knows you got anything in her.”

That brought hoots of laughter from the circle of men and women. More than one Klan woman had her eyes on the genital area of the naked black man.

was “At there’s not a bad idea,” the spokesman said. “Luther, you go get Big Jim and brang him over here. We’ll have us a show ‘fore we let the nigger buck and the white bitch have at it.”

Within moments a huge white man entered into the circle of the white-robes. That the man was mentally deficient was obvious at first glance. His eyes were dull and his face wore the slackness of the near-insane.

“Big Jim,” the spokesman said. “I want you to shuck outta your pants. Now, you go on and do ‘er now, boy, show us all your equipment.”

Big Jim dropped his ragged jeans to the dirt. He wore no underwear. Many of the Klan women licked their lips at the sight of his enormous penis.

“Go git the nigger’s wife,” a man was ordered.

A well-shaped and pretty light-skinned woman was dragged naked and weeping into the circle.

“That ‘un got more’n her share of white blood in her,” Henry said. “Big Jim gonna have him a high ol” time with her, awright.”

“Missy,” the spokesman told the white woman. “You crawl over there and jack off Big Jim; git him up good and hard.”

She refused at first. Several hard slaps across her face changed her mind. Reluctantly and with revulsion on her face, she complied.

Big Jim soon became more than enormous. He was

deformed. The woman released him and was dragged back to the hard hands that held her.

“Tear that nigger gal’s pussy up, Big Jim,” the spokesman said with a laugh.

The young black woman’s screaming soon echoed around the circle gathered around the burning cross. When Big Jim left the woman, she was huddled in a ball of hurt on the dirt. The grinning man was pointed out of the circle. He left carrying his pants.

“Position the nigger-lover,” the spokesman ordered the men holding the woman.

She was forced to her hands and knees. The black man was told, “Git it up, shine. We gonna watch and see what you got that this nigger-lover laks so much.”

“I will not!” the black man said.

The Klansman grinned. “How’d you lak’ for me to call Big Jim back in here and have him fuck your wife unnormally?”

The man hissed his revulsion at the thought.

“Will you let us go after we… do that?” the naked white woman asked. “If we … have sex, will you promise to let us go?”

“Well let you go alive. Shore we will.”

“Do it, Jimmy,” she told him, all resistance gone from her. She sagged in defeat. The cries of the black woman were still very much in sound and fury. The woman was bleeding. “Do it, Jimmy,” she repeated. “If you don’t, they’ll torture and kill us all.”

“You beside’ listen to the woman, nigger.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Jimmy asked, anguish in his voice. “We havent done a thing to you people. Why?”

“You be a nigger, boy, and that there is reason enuff.

This area is pure “round herefor miles and miles. Pure white. No nigger, no greasers, no spies, no wops, no Jews, or nobody else lak” “at ‘round here-and they ain’t never gonna be neither. Now don’t none of us know nothin” “bout this Russian ya’ll keep flappin” your gums about, and I don’t really care. But it sounds lak’-if they is such a feller-he’s on the right track with his thinkin’. Now you get that cock of yourn up hard and dog-fuck this white bitch. Then ya’ll can leave here. When you do git gone, pass the word: No niggers allowed in here.”

“I … can’t get an erection under these circumstances,” Jimmy said.

The Klansman kicked the white man in the side. He fell to his back and screamed in pain.

“White boy, you lak’ niggers so much, you crawl over here and suck this black bastard hard. And you either do it, or I’ll have your balls cut off.”

His wife’s tears dropped to the dusty ground.

Jimmy stood trembling in rage and humiliation and helplessness.

His wife sobbed on the ground.

The bloody young man crawled toward the black man.

The circle of robed men and women began laughing.

CHAPTER SIX

“We’re going to have trouble in central Illinois, Ben,” Cecil said. “We’re getting more reports stating a strong Klan resurgence in that area. And they are getting nasty with it.”

Main Command Post, Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Ben sighed and looked up from a map.

“How many and how strong?”

“Field reports show the IPF is sending in teams to talk about an alliance with the Klan, and the Klan is buying their garbage.”

“Shit!” Ben spat the word. “God, that’s all we need at this time.”

“Lots of hate, Ben. I think even more so than back in eighty-eight.

Ben rubbed his face with his hands. He blew out a long, sighing breath. “It’s time for some good news, Cec. What’s the word out of north Georgia?”

“Hostile at first. But Captain Rayle said in his last report the people are getting stirred up about the IPF. Most are willing to see us come in. Captain Rayle says

they’ll work with us.”

“Good. I want those mountain people on our side. I just can’t help remembering the reception I got in the Smokies back in eighty-nine.”

“Oh?”

The first of May, 1989 found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold, canned meal.

These mountain people, he concluded, were weird. He couldn’t get close enough to any of them to say a word. At a little town just south of Bryson City, a man made the mistake of taking a shot at Ben. Ben had reacted instinctively and spent the next few, long hours watching the man die from a stomach wound.

“Why did you shoot at me?” Ben asked. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”

“Outsider,” the man had gasped. “Got no business being here. We’ll get you.”

“Why? Why do you want to “get me”?”

But the man had lost consciousness and Ben never learned the answer to his question-at least not from the man he’d shot.

Sitting in the motel room, Ben was filled with doubts and questions. Where had all the people gone? The people of Atlanta? What was the use of spending years writing something … his

His head jerked up as Juno growled softly, rising to his feet, muzzle toward the door.

“We don’t mean you any harm, mister,” a boy’s voice said. “But if that big dog jumps at me, I’m gonna shoot it.”

Ben put a hand on Juno’s big head and told him to relax. He clicked on the recorder. “So come on in and sit,” he invited.

A boy and girl, in their mid-teens, appeared in the door. They looked to be brother and sister. Ben pointed to a couple of chairs.

The boy shook his head. “Well stand, thank you, though.”

“What can I do for you?” Ben asked.

“It ain’t what you can do for us,” the girl said. “It’s what we can do for you.”

“All right.”

“Git your kit together and git on outta here,” the boy said. “They’s comin’ to git you tonight.”

“Who is coming to get me-and why?”

“Our people,” the girl told him. She was a very pretty girl, but already the signs of ignorance and poverty were taking their toll, affecting her speech and features.

The poverty and ignorance of her parents, Ben thought.

Root cause-in the home, passed from generation to generation, parent to child.

When will we ever learn? But… is it too late now? He thought not.

“I’ve done nothing to your people,” Ben said.

“You kilt our uncle,” the boy said. “Ain’t that doin’ somethang?”

“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was trying to do was catch some fish for my supper.”

“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.

“I see,” Ben’s reply was soft. “And you don’t want any outsiders here?”

“That’s it, mister.”

“If you feel that strongly, why are you warning me?”

The question seemed to confuse the pair. The boy shook his head.” ‘Cause we don’t want no more killin” around here. And if you’ll leave, there won’t be no more.”

“Do you agree with your people’s way of life?”

“It ain’t up to us to agree or disagree,” the boy said. “The word’s done been passed down from Corning. And if you stay here, mister, you gonna die.”

“Who or what is a Corning?”

“The leader.”

“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their manner of speaking or thinking. “Let me guess: This Corning is the biggest and the strongest among you all. He is a religious man-or so he says-and he has a great, powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am I right?”

“Mister”-the girl’s voice was soft with awe-“how’d you know all that?”

Ben looked at her. She was pretty and shapely and ripe for picking. “And I’ll bet this Corning-I’ll bet he likes you a lot, right?”

She nodded her head. “He’s taken a shine to me, yeah.”

“No doubt.” Ben’s reply was dry. How quickly some of us revert, he thought. Tribal chieftain. He stood up and the kids quickly backed away, toward the open door. “Take it easy. I won’t hurt you. Are you going to get into trouble for coming here, warning me?”

The girl shook her head. “We come the back trails. We know where the lookouts is. “You leavin’?”

“Yes, I’ll be gone in half an hour.”

She stood gazing at him. “We’re not bad people, mister. We jist don’t want no more of your world, that’s all. Why cain’t ever’body just live the way they want to live, and then ever’body would git along?”

Why indeed? Ben thought, and once again, the Rebels entered his mind. He felt compelled to say something profound. Instead he said, “Because, dear, then we wouldn’t have a nation, would we?”

She blinked. “But we ain’t got one now, have we?”

Then they were gone.

“Wonder what happened to that cult?” Cecil asked.

“Died out, hopefully. Maybe someone bigger and stronger than Corning came along and killed him. That’s the way it usually happens, I guess.” He stood up and stretched. “Any word from Dan?”

Cecil grinned a warrior’ smile of satisfaction over hearing of an enemy’s defeat. “Not since yesterday. That is one randy Englishman. His bunch completely destroyed a full column of IPF troops. Wiped them out to a person.”

“For a fact, Cec, Dan does not like to be bothered with prisoners. Those SAS boys were randy as hell.” Ben grinned. “Besides wiping out an entire column, they demoralized the hell out of a bunch of other IPF troops.” Ben’s grin grew wider. “I can’t help but wonder what happened to that colonel who was commanding the unit.”

“Dan said he turned tail and ran.”

“Well, he got his tit in the wringer for that, I’m betting.”

Cecil gave Ben a mock grimace. “God, Ben! I’m

glad Gale isn’t here to hear that crack.” Ben laughed. “Me, too.”

General Striganov at first could not believe his ears. He stared at Colonel Fechnor for a full moment. “The entire battalion!” the general finally roared. He rose from his chair to face a still-badly-shaken Fechnor. “I can’t believe this. You lost an entire battalion?”

Colonel Fechnor’s driver stood by the colonel’s side. The young man was trembling from fear and exhaustion: fear at General Striganov’s rage, and exhaustion from the long and sometimes-harrowing drive north, all the while imagining all sorts of dire repercussions from the general. Much to his regret, what he envisioned was coming true.

Fechnor stood at full attention, no give in him at his general’s rage. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “First a bridge blew, then we were forced to wait and regroup. Then we were ambushed in Ottumwa. I-was

“I am not interested in excuses!” Striganov roared. His face was red with fury. “Excuses are a weak man’s forte. You are not a weak man, Fechnor. Fechnor-was he visibly calmed himself-“you are a trained, experienced combat veteran. You were decorated for your work in Afghanistan, for bravery as well as for common sense. We’ve been together since you were a mere lieutenant. What in the name of everything we hold sacred has happened to your courage?”

“There is nothing the matter with my courage, General,” Fechnor flared, forgetting to hold his tongue. “My scouts reported the town deserted. I am forced to accept their findings-as any field commander must.

We approached the city with all due caution. My people fought well. But in vain. As for me-was

“You ran.” Striganov stated the damning fact flatly, considerable heat in his voice. “You should have remained there, fighting and dying with your people.”

The colonel met the general’s stare, refusing to back down. “What you say may be true, General. If so, I am ready to accept and face whatever punishment you deem necessary, including, of course, the firing squad. I-was

Striganov waved him silent. He ordered the driver to leave the room. The young man almost fell over his feet in his haste to obey. Both men were forced to smile at the young man’s antics. They both remembered their own youth, and their fear and awe of superior officers. The eyes of the two senior officers of the IPF met and held, and understanding passed between them in silent messages.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Valeska,” Striganov said. “I have absolutely no intention of putting you against a wall. I spoke in haste; you should not have stayed and died. You are my most experienced and valuable field officer. I cannot afford to lose you; you know that. I apologize for losing my temper. Your scouts are to blame for not thoroughly checking the city. They should have-as you did-sensed an ambush.” Striganov returned to his chair and sat down heavily, sighing deeply. He remained thus for a time, brooding silently. Finally he looked up, catching Colonel Fechnor staring at him. The colonel was still standing at attention.

“Stand at ease, Colonel,” Striganov said. “No,” he amended that order. “Relax, make

yourself comfortable. Have some tea. I insist.”

Colonel Fechnor relaxed and walked to the tea service, pouring a cup of tea. He sugared and creamed the beverage and returned to sit in a chair facing General Striganov’s desk, carefully placing cup and saucer on the desk.

“Valeska,” the general said softly, “do you believe in any sort of supreme being?”

The question caught Fechnor off-guard. He thought for a few seconds, then said, “Why I…” He paused, not sure how to reply,

“Truthfully, now, old friend,” Striganov said with a very slight smile, as if sharing some secret with the man, a confidence only the two of them knew. “We have no one listening to report our conversation back to the Central Party Headquarters.”

Fechnor returned the slight smile. “Yes,” he said. “One does tend to forget the old ways no longer apply, da?”

“Old habits are difficult to break,” Striganov agreed.

“Yes,” Fechnor spoke after a time. “Yes… I do believe there is something … something-I don’t know what-after death. Good or bad,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Yes-I simply cannot believe that all the world, with its trees and flowers and animals and … beings just evolved. I have felt that way for a long time. Since maturity.” Colonel Fechnor felt better for having said that.

“I see.” Georgi spoke the words so softly Valeska had to lean forward and strain to hear them. The colonel waited for his commander to drop the other shoe-if he had another shoe to drop. He did.

“Yes,” Striganov said. “I find that interesting, Valeska. For I, too, have felt for some time there just might be some truth to the belief in a higher power. Although I do not profess to know what type of higher power-I don’t believe anyone does. I …” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “But I do believe … I have this thought, this theory, that President-General Ben Raines stands-quite unknowingly, I think-very close to this… this higher being, there really is some sort of… supreme being.”

Col. Valeska Fechnor could but stare at his commander. He could not believe the words his ears had heard.

Striganov’s smile held more than a touch of amusement. “Oh yes, Valeska. Your ears have not deceived you. But I repeat: I do not believe Ben Raines knows of his … closeness. If my theory is correct, that is. However, I do not think Ben Raines is always viewed in a favorable light by-was he grimaced-“by whatever it is that we believe might exist as some higher power or order.”

Colonel Fechnor sat stunned in his chair, the excellent tea in front of him forgotten, cooling its fragrance. “Are … are you saying, Georgi, that we are locked in combat with-God?”

Georgi lifted his eyes to meet Fechnor’s amazed look. “In a manner of speaking, yes. If one believes in God. But if there exists such a person or thing or being-whatever-He is not known for direct interference or intervention. Lately I have studied the babblings of the Bible. I have studied them quite closely, over a period of months. Of course, it goes without saying I reject most of the writing as a figment

of someone’s imagination, but… parts of that book disturb me. The New Testament is quite bland and uninteresting-it’s the Old Testament that intrigues me, fascinates me. Since you used the word, let us maintain the usage: Why would God interfere so directly and openly in the Old Testament and not in the New? I find that contradictory. Very much so.” Suddenly his features hardened. “And the goddamned Jews just persist in surviving. No matter what happens to them, no matter five thousand years of attempting to wipe them out, the bastards manage to survive. Through thousands of years of persecution-they survive. And now Ben Raines shares his bed and blankets with a Jew bitch.” He shook his head. “I do not believe it was an accident.”

Fechnor waited for a moment, then said, “What is at the base of all this, General? I gather it centers around the Jewess. What about her?”

Striganov drummed his finger tips on his desk. “Kill her,” he said.

“The advance of the IPF has halted in southwestern Iowa,” Cecil reported to Ben, a puzzled look on his face. “And I don’t know why and neither do any of our intelligence people.”

“Striganov is up to something,” Ben replied without hesitation.

“That is our consensus,” Cecil said, sitting down. “Without solid proof, of course. Dan Gray’s LETTERRP’S report the eastern column stopped at Muscatine and Dan says his people have reported the center column halted at Oskaloosa. Everything has stopped dead in

its tracks.”

Ben looked around him at the roomful of men. “Anybody care to venture an opinion as to why?” he asked.

No one would venture an opinion. The Russian’s action was confusing to all of them.

Gale took that opportunity to stick her head into the motel room Ben was using as an office.

“Give your Jewess a great big kiss for me, da?” The words of the Russian popped into Ben’s consciousness. Maybe, he thought.

But what would Striganov hope to gain by harming her? Ben silently asked.

He could find no answer.

“Come on in, Gale,” Ben told her.

Gale smiled. “Am I intruding on this all-male gathering?”

“Honey.” Ike returned the smile. “As pretty as you are, your presence could never be considered any sort of intrusion.”

“Ike,” she said, looking at him, “you are so full of shit as to be unreal.”

“I do so love a plain-spoken woman,” Ike replied, taking no umbrage at her remark. Ike could take it as well as dish it out.

“Ben,” Gale said, turning to him, “I just spoke with some stragglers that wandered into town. They came from California. They told me about seeing and talking with some old fellow who called himself the Prophet.”

Ben nodded his head; he had not thought about the strange-appearing old man in some time. “A lot of people have seen that old guy, Gale. I’ve seen him—

Ike, a number of others. Why? What about him?”

“Who is he, Ben?”

As Ben began to talk, telling her what he knew of the old man, memories flooded him, taking him back to Little Rock, more than a year before.

Little Rock was a dead city. Twelve years of neglect and looting had reduced the once-thriving city into blackened girders, stark against the backdrop of blue skies and burned-out buildings. Dead rats lay in heaps, stinking under the sun, fouling the air of the dusty streets.

Ben drove by a high school that somehow looked familiar. Then he recalled that troops had been sent to this high school in the 1950’s to integrate it.

He told Rosita as much, but she did not seem impressed.

“Doesn’t history interest you, Rosita?” he asked.

She shrugged her indifference. “It don’t put pork chops on the table, Ben,” she replied with her usual air. She was one of the few who dared to speak to Ben in such a manner.

“What?”

Her smile was sad. “Ben-I can’t read much.”

“Dear God,” Ben muttered. He glanced at her. “You must have been about eight when the bombs came, right?”

“Pretty good guess, Ben. I was nine.”

“How much schooling since then?”

“Lots of lessons in the school of hard knocks,” she replied, going on the defensive.

“Don’t be a smart-ass, short stuff,” Ben said with a grin to soften his words.

“OK, Ben. I’ll play it straight. Not much schooling. I read very slowly and skip over all the big words.”

“You don’t understand them.”

“That’s right.”

“You know anything about nouns, pronouns, adverbs, sentence construction?”

“No.” Her reply was softly given.

“Then I will see to it that you learn how to read, Rosita. It’s imperative that everyone know how to read.”

“I got by without it.” She pouted.

“What about your children? Damn it, short stuff, this is what I’ve been trying to hammer into people’s heads. You people are make or break for civilization. I don’t understand why so many of you can’t-or won’t-see that.”

He stopped the truck in a part of the city that appeared to be relatively free of dead rats. They got out and walked.

“So I and my ninos can learn to make atomic bombs and again blow up the world, Ben? So we can read the formulas for making germs that kill? I-was

“Heads up, General!” a Rebel called.

Ben and Rosita turned. Ben heard her sharp intake of breath. “Dios mio!” she hissed.

A man was approaching them, angling across the street, stepping around the litter. It was the man in the dreams Rosita had been having. Bearded and robed and carrying a long staff.

The man stopped in the street and Ben looked into the wildest eyes he had ever seen.

And the oldest, the thought came to him.

“My God,” someone said. “It’s Moses.”

A small patrol started toward the man. He held up a warning hand. “Stay away, ye soldiers of a false god.”

“It is Moses,” a woman muttered, only half in jest.

Ben continued to stare at the man. And be stared at in return.

“I hope not,” Ben said, and his reply was given only half in jest. Something about the man was disturbing. “Are you all right?” Ben called to him. “We have food we’ll share with you.”

The robed man said, “I want nothing from you.” He stabbed his long staff against the broken concrete of the street. He swung his dark, piercing eyes to the Rebels gathering around Ben, weapons at the ready. “Your worshipping of a false god is offensive.” He turned and walked away.

Rosita stood in mild shock, her heart hammering and racing wildly.

Gunfire spun them around. Then the radio crackled with the news a patrol had found a family unit of mutants and the mutants had attacked them. The Rebels had killed them all. Ben and his patrol went to the building that had housed the mutants and were wondering what to do with the only survivor, a small mutant child.

“Here comes nutsy,” a Rebel called into the basement.

“Who?” Ben looked up, then realized the Rebel was referring to the old man in robes.

The old man appeared at the shattered basement door. “I am called the Prophet,” he spoke.

He pointed his staff at Ben. “Your life will be long and strife-filled. You will sire many children, and in

the end none of your dreams will become reality. I have spoken with God, and He has sent me to tell you these things. You are as He to your people, and soon-in your measurement of time-many more will come to believe it. But recall His words: No false gods before me.” The old man’s eyes seemed to burn into Ben’s head. “It will not be your fault, but it will lie on your head.”

He turned away, walking back into the street.

The Rebels stood in silence for a few moments, until a Rebel from the outside stuck his head into the doorway.

“Sure is quiet in here,” he said.

“What did you make of nutsy?” he was asked.

“Who?”

“The old guy with the beard and the sandals and the robe and staff.”

The Rebel had seen no one answering to that description.

“Well, where the hell have you been?”

“I been sittin’ outside in the Jeep!” the guard replied indignantly. “And there ain’t been nobody wearing robes or sandals and carryin’ a stick come out of this building. What the hell have you people been doing-smokin’ some old left-handed cigarettes?”

Later, Ben spoke with Buck Osgood, who had just pulled in from Arizona. He told Ben he had seen some old man who called himself the Prophet.

“When did you see him, Buck?”

“Ah, last week.”

“In Arizona?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What date, Buck?”

“Ah, the ninth, sir.”

“Time, approximately?”

was “Bout noon, I reckon.”

“That’s the same date and time I saw him,” Ben told the young sergeant.

Buck looked at the general strangely. “I didn’t know you were in Arizona on the ninth, sir.”

“I wasn’t,” Ben said. He met the man’s eyes. “I was in Little Rock.”

Gale paled at the telling of the story, one hand going to her throat. “Ben-I saw him and spoke with him the night before the IPF shelled the camp alongside Interstate 70.”

Ben leaned back in his chair and studied her. He sighed. The mystery man was beginning to disturb him. Who was he? What did he want? What did he represent? And why did he keep popping up?

“What did you two discuss, Gale?”

She repeated the conversation almost word for word.

Lamar Chase leaned forward, listening intently.

Ike and Cecil sat open-mouthed.

Hector crossed himself.

When she had finished, Ben said, “I don’t want you to leave this camp, Gale. Not for any reason-not on your own. I’m going to have guards with you at all times.”

“Ben, why are you scaring me like this?”

“I’m not doing it deliberately, Gale, believe me. I just have this feeling Striganov might try to grab you or harm you; he might think he could get to me that

way. I want you to be very careful from now on, Gale. Very careful.”

She sat down, a worried look on her face. “All right, Ben. From what I’ve heard about Sam Hartline, I don’t want to fall into his hands.”

“You won’t,” Ben assured her. “Just do as I say and don’t argue about it.”

“That’ll be the day,” Lamar said dryly.

Gale stuck her tongue out at him.

“The beast is impregnated from the sperm of a human male,” the IPF doctor informed General Striganov. “And the Mexicans, the blacks, and the Jew bitches are pregnant from the sperm of the male mutant. I believe gestation time is going to be very short.”

Striganov smiled his pleasure and approval. “Give me an educated guess as to gestation time,” he pushed the doctor.

The doctor shrugged and lifted one eyebrow. While in Iceland he had discovered old George Sanders movies and had begun emulating the late actor’s mannerisms. “X-rays show the fetus developing very rapidly. I would say no more than sixty days, at the outset.” He held the X-ray up to the light and clipped the print in place.

General Striganov studied the picture. The shape of the baby was very clear, depicting a form more human than animal, but still clearly showing animal characteristics. The Russian leader again nodded his pleasure. “Very good, doctor. Now-cease, at once, all sterilization projects on the women remaining in our camps. I want them fertile for the mutant experimentation.

I will issue orders for teams to fan out, to gather more women, as many as possible. I believe-if all works out, and I see no reason for failure-we just might have stumbled upon a new race of workers, doctor. I think, doctor, we are going to go down in history as great men.” He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Yes indeed, doctor. A pure master race with subhuman workers at our command. I like that concept, don’t you?”

“Very much so, General,” the doctor replied, his smile as large as that creasing the general’s face. “Perhaps the Jews and other inferior minorities have finally found their true niche in life, da? Copulating with mutants!” He laughed.

Both men found that hysterically amusing. They were laughing as they walked out of the office and into the hall.

But to the women who were desperately attempting to devise a method of aborting the half-human fetuses they carried in their bodies, and to the men who had been forced to copulate with the female mutants, it was anything but amusing. The women could not put into words their feelings at being strapped onto specially built tables and experiencing the horror and pain of the male mutants jamming their sex organs deep into their bodies. The hideousness of the sex act was so disgusting, that if given a choice, all would have chosen death over the mating. Several women had gone into such deep shock they had died. Several more had tried to kill themselves. Another was mauled so badly when the male mutant became excited during the act, she would carry the physical scars forever.

But the women could think of no way to abort

themselves of the monsters that were forming inside their bodies-growing, taking shape, at almost unbelievable speed. The women were under constant supervision; a member of the IPF medical teams was at their sides at all times. The women were never left alone, not even when going to the bathroom. The chosen women would birth the half-mutant children, and if the IPF doctors had their way, there would be many of the half-mutant offspring.

In selected and carefully padded rooms in what had become known as the warehouse, the wailing and screaming of the women being sexually introduced to male mutants could be heard throughout the day and night. To keep the big male mutants happy and content, many of the sterilized women were “given” to the mutants-always under careful supervision so the big males would not kill the women when they became excited while copulating.

The screaming seemed to never stop.

And the human men chosen for the experiment were experiencing nightmares of such hideous magnitude many of them had to be sedated before sleep. And to make matters worse for the men, many of the female mutants had grown fond of their human sex partners; so much so the beasts were not content unless they could be with the men at least part of the day and night, touching and stroking and caressing them.

The men and women of the IPF found that most amusing.

“You do know what fightin” is all about,” Abe Lancer said. He spoke from the ground, where Captain

Rayle had tossed him during a hand-to-hand combat session. “I’ll be gittin’ up now,” Abe said. “Take me a rest. You “bout wore me plumb out, Captain.”

Captain Rayle extended his hand and grinned. The mountain man accepted the hand warily, then returned the smile as he was helped to his feet.

“All of President Raines’s people trained like you?” the man asked Roger.

“Quite a number of us. The general insists on his people being able to take care of themselves.”

Abe rubbed his aching and bruised shoulder and grinned ruefully. “I would have to say, Captain, you folks do know that, all right.”

The crowd of mountain people and flat-landers from down in Georgia had watched in silence and some disbelief-at first-as the smaller, lighter and much less powerful Rebel captain had tossed the big mountain man around like a rag doll, bouncing him off the ground time after time. Abe had been unable to land even one blow.

Captain Rayle and his small contingent of Rebels had been surprised at the number of survivors they had discovered in the area, and delighted at the number who accepted them. Almost a thousand men and women had volunteered to be trained by the small detachment of Rebels.

But the civilians needed no training in marksmanship, however. There was not a man among them who could not punch out the center of a Prince Albert can at three hundred yards with a rifle.

All the Rebels had been touched by the naivet@eof the country people and amused and mildly shocked by the open frankness of the people. And all had been

genuinely welcomed into the homes of the people.

Ben had deliberately mixed the detachment, including blacks and Jews and Hispanics and Orientals; he wanted the people to see exactly what his philosophy was all about.

“We ain’t got nothing agin” black folks-or anybody else, for that matter,” one man had told Captain Rayle. “We live side by side with black folks and work ever’ day with “em. Long as a man pulls his weight and don’t want something for nothing and don’t try to mess over another person, anyone is welcome to come here and live. The one thing we ain’t gonna put up with is no goddamn welfare state. If a man or woman is able to work, by God they gonna work; they ain’t gonna lay up on their backsides and do nothing ‘cept eat and git fat at somebody else’s labor.” That much was the Rebel’s philosophy. “I ‘member how it was-how it got-‘fore the big war of eighty-eight: lazy-assed trashy women of all colors layin” around and fuckin’ and havin’ babies that the taxpayers had to support; goddamned sorry, trashy men too lazy to work, sayin’ a certain kind of job was beneath “em. Piss on those people. We ain’t gonna have none of them in here. No way. Now they ain’t nobody who is sick gonna go hungry or cold in this area; we’ll look after ‘em folk-see to it that nobody lacks for comfort. But them that can work is gonna work.

“It’s a small community as communities go. We all know who is tippy-toein” around, liftin’ what skirt and when. Woman gets in a family way, the man responsible is gonna support the child. And we don’t give a good goddamn how much more work the man’s gotta do. He’s gonna do “er.

“I ain’t sayin” I hold much with mixed marriages, but me and mine kinda figure that really ain’t none of our truck. Man or woman wants to wake up in the morning time and look at ugly-that’s their business.”

“Had many cases arose where a man refused to support a child he fathered?”

“One, to date. Feller admitted he got his jollies with the lady-said she should have tooken some measures to don’t have no kid. Refused to help with the child.”

“What happened to him?”

“He come up shot one night,” the man replied noncommittally. “Dead.”

The Rebel smiled at this very final type of justice. “Klan strong in this area?”

The man fixed him with a baleful look. “I ain’t got no use a-tal for that bunch of white trash. Never did have. Don’t know nobody that do. Wouldn’t have “em around me if I did. Don’t know no one that would. That answer your question?”

The Rebel laughed. “Sure does.”

Captain Rayle radioed back to Ben, requesting that medical supplies and medics be sent into the area. Soon trucks began rolling in, some of them diverted from the battle area. The trucks brought in not only badly needed medicines, but also a few doctors and teams of highly trained medics to beef up the few medical people that had survived the plague of the previous year. They were welcomed.

Ben had given Captain Rayle his orders personally, in a private meeting back in Tri-States. Roger had the mapped-out coordinates for what Ben had called the last chance for his dream, and it was in that area that Captain Rayle and his people were working,

fanning out, attempting to make contact with all those who survived. They began finalizing the boundaries. The Alabama line would be the western boundary, from Burke up in Tennessee down to Bowdon in Georgia, on the Alabama line. The line would run straight east to Orangeburg in South Carolina, then take a ninety-degree turn to Columbia, angling gently northwest, following Interstate 26 as the guiding line up to Ashville. From there, the north boundary would be a line straight east, connecting with Burke to close the area.

“Get your defensive positions quietly laid out,” Ben had instructed. “Study what we did in the old Tri-States back in eighty-nine and ninety. Use that as a guidebook. When we get as many of the people out of the areas controlled by the IPF as possible, we’ll be coming in. To stay,” he added, with more than a touch of grimness to his comment. “I hope.”

There were tears in her eyes, spilling down to roll in silver rivers over her cheeks as she read the message, then reread it. Ben sat quietly and watched her. Gale looked at him through a blurry mist. She wiped her eyes and threw the message in a wad onto his desk.

“That is the most monstrous thing I have ever heard of, Ben,” she said, considerable heat to her comment. Her dark eyes flashed fire through the mist that tinted them multicolored.

She had just read about the IPF’S experimentation programs with minority men and women. The report had been sent to Ben by LETTERRP’S and verified by people who had managed to escape the area controlled by the IPF.

“Yes,” Ben said.

“The man is a reincarnation of Hitler!” she spat out the damning accusation.

“I concur, Gale.”

“And his doctors and IPF people are no better than the fucking Gestapo!” she shouted at him.

“Yes, I agree with that.”

“He has to be stopped, Ben.”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Ben knew what was coming at him and he dreaded it. “Stop them, Ben!”

Ben rose from his chair and took her into his arms, holding her, touching her, smoothing her hair. “Gale, I don’t have the manpower to do that.” For once she didn’t attack the statement as being sexist. “Striganov has me outgunned and out-manned, and in many instances, the American people are supporting his actions. I-was

She pulled away from him and glared up at him, about a hundred pounds of mad. “Don’t tell me that, Ben. Just don’t you attempt to hand me that crap! You’re Ben Raines. You pulled-single-handedly-this nation back together in eighty-nine. You formed your own government within a government and made it work. You can do anything, Ben. Everyone who follows you says you can do anything. And I believe it. Yes, now I believe it. You’re forgetting, I spoke with the Prophet, and I’ve talked with people who were in that mutant basement when he singled you out, spoke directly to you. You’ve been chosen, Ben. You-was

Ben looked down at her and laughed, a harsh, sarcastic bark of dark humor. “You, too, Gale? Come on! Of all the people I thought would reject the notion that I am something more than a mortal, I thought you would be that person. Gale, I’m flesh and blood-nothing more than that. I cut myself shaving, I stub my toe sometimes, and cuss when I do. I bang my shin on coffee tables. I don’t sit on the right side of God Almighty; and I don’t receive any special instructions from him. I-was

“I’m pregnant,” she announced.

Ben stood for a moment, looking at her. He blinked a couple of times.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked.

“Well… ah…”

“For a writer, Ben, you sure have a way with the English language.”

“I can do without your smart-ass remarks, Gale.”

“Big deal.”

“Ah, are you certain about this?” he asked.

“I’m certain. I was certain the night it happened. And it happened the same night I spoke with the Prophet. It will be twins.”

“Gale… you can’t be certain about that.”

“I know.”

Ben shook his head. “You mean you know you can’t be certain?”

“No. I know I’m certain.”

“Well …” He hesitated for a moment. “I’m … glad.”

“I can see you leaping up and down from joy,” she commented dryly. “Are you going to move against the IPF?”

“I am moving against them, Gale. In the best way I know how.”

She put her hands on her hips and stood her ground. “It isn’t enough.”

Ben fought to keep his patience, but knew whatever he said was going to be wrong to her ears. And he didn’t want to speak the words. For what was happening in the IPF’-CONTROLLED territory was sickening to him, although, he knew, not to the extent it was to Gale.

“It’s the best I can do, Gale, without launching a full-scale invasion into IPF territory.”

She hung on with the tenacity of a pit bulldog. “Then it appears to me that would be what you would have to do. Now.”

“No, Gale.”

“Why not, Ben?”

Ben took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t work. “Because it would be too costly in terms of human life. My people’s lives.”

A funny-odd look slipped into her dark eyes. She smiled. Ben took a step backward. He had seen that look before. “What are you thinking, Gale?”

“Why don’t you put it before your people, General Raines,” she challenged him. “Or are you afraid they’ll say go in and fight and stop this horror?”

“Gale, that is what I want to do. Believe me. But I have a responsibility to all those who follow me.”

She glared up at him. “You talk about human life, Ben. Human life?” She softened her tone, coming to him, touching his arm. “Oh, Ben, you don’t understand what is happening up there.” She waved toward the west. Ben pointed in the right direction: north. She

made a face at him. “I don’t believe you really understand. Not at all. Not all the terror and horror and suffering. Human beings are being used as lab rats and guinea pigs. They are being tortured. Horrible, terrible, perverted, disgusting acts are being perpetrated upon them. Human life, Ben? How about human suffering? Rape and degradation and God only knows what else. I can’t believe you can just sit back and allow this to continue.”

“Gale, honey, listen to me. I don’t want you to misinterpret this, but my group is, I believe, the last shot civilization has if any type of democratic social order is to prevail. Civilization-was

She spun away from him, her eyes flashing fire and fury. She balled her hands into small fists and hit him on the shoulder. “Fuck civilization!” she screamed the words at him. “Civilization! Goddamn it, Ben. Do you think General Striganov is civilized? Do you think what that monster is doing to men and women and children can be called-by any stretch of the imagination-civilized? You’re living in a dream world. You’re talking about law and order and speaking in terms of productivity and education. But I’m talking about survival! The God-given right of any race of people to exist in peace. That’s what I’m talking about, Mr. President-General Raines.” She jabbed a finger against his chest. “And you, sir, and your people, are the only ones left on the face of this earth-that I know of-who have the might to uphold and maintain and guarantee that right. And that is, I believe, your duty!”

She stood before him, chest heaving from her fast speech. The room was still and silent after her outburst.

Ben looked at her for a moment. Then he looked toward the closed motel room door. “All right, people,” he called. “You can all come in. I know you’re out there listening.”

The door swung open slowly and Ike and Cecil and Doctor Chase stood there, grinning sheepishly.

“Cec,” Ben said. “Get in touch with the tank commanders. Tell them to roll the tanks back up here and get in position to move north. Then get in touch with the heavy artillery, same orders. Contact Tri-States. I want every man and woman and teenager that can handle a weapon up here-pronto! Those that are too old for actual combat can start stripping the area clean, loading it up on trucks, and moving it over to Captain Rayle’s area in Georgia.

“Ike, move one full combat company over to Georgia, just in case the Russian figures out what we’re doing and sends people in there. Roll the convoys day and night, push them hard-I want all the combat troops up here in thirty-six hours.

“I don’t want any of you people to get your hopes up too high about this operation. We’re not going to beat Striganov. We are too few against overwhelming odds. But I think we can hurt him badly enough to make him stop what he’s doing. Or at the very least give us the time to rescue as many people as possible. And I want to hurt him badly enough to give us the time to rebuild over in Georgia, give us the time to fortify our positions so he’ll think a long time before launching any attack against us. I won’t say we’ll never have to move again. We probably will. History proves that for every group of people who attempt to start

some form of orderly society, there is always some other group or groups that want to destroy it. But we have to try and try and keep trying. We must never give up. Never.

“We are going to take heavy losses in this campaign; prepare your people for that. That’s it, gang-move out.”

He looked at Gale. “All right, Gale. We’ll give it our best shot.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you will, darling. I knew that all along.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jimmy Linfort and his wife, Helen, along with John Demoss and his wife, Lisa, staggered down the weed-filled, old two-lane highway. They were naked, but it was difficult to tell that because all four of them had been tarred and feathered before the Klansmen had dragged them to the town limits and kicked them out, warning them never to come back. And to spread the word: No niggers or nigger-lovers allowed. Before they had tarred and feathered the four of them, half a dozen Klansmen had raped the white woman and assaulted the black woman anally, forcing their husbands to watch the humiliation. They had then forced the white man to rape the black man while the robed circle of men and women laughed.

“You sucked his black cock, boy,” a Klansman yelled. “Only fair you git some brown on that little thing of yourn.”

Then they tarred and feathered the four of them.

As they staggered away from the city limits sign, one man said, “They look lak” big, ugly ducks, don’t they, boys?”

The four of them were heading for the Missouri line on Highway 54, planning to cross the Mississippi at Louisiana, Missouri. When they felt they were far enough away from the Klan-controlled territory, the four of them stopped at a deserted old farmhouse, found some gasoline, and began the job of cleaning up. And that was painful, for a lot of hide and hair came off with the tar and feathers.

They primed an old pump until clean water came gushing out, and bathed. For the first time in days, the four of them felt some degree of safety as they dressed in old but clean clothes.

A slight noise from the back yard spun them around, fear leaping into their eyes, hearts hammering. But fear changed to compassion when the saw the source of the noise: several children, ranging in age from eleven to fourteen. A black girl, a Spanish girl, and a Jewish boy and girl.

All four children, the adults would soon learn, had been beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted many times.

“We won’t hurt you,” Helen said, kneeling down, opening her arms to the kids.

But the young people were hesitant to come forward, distrust evident in their eyes.

“Where are you from?” Jimmy asked.

The oldest boy looked at the adults for a moment, then pointed to the north. “We escaped from IPF country.”

“We found some canned food,” Lisa said. “We’ll share it with you. Are you hungry?”

They all nodded that they were.

And food broke the barrier of fear and distrust.

It was only after dinner that evening, in the lamp and candlelit old farmhouse by the side of the road, that the young people melted enough to talk. The oldest, Leon, told the adults of their ordeal.

“People from the IPF came and got our-was he indicated his younger sister, “parents. Our mother and father. Later on that day, a man slipped through the alley by our house and called out to me to get my sister and get out-run. I grabbed up some clothes and food and got Amy and ran, slipped out the back door just at dark. I later heard that our parents had been killed when they escaped from the IPF and tried to organize a resistance force. The same thing happened to the other kids’ parents. We hid out in old houses and in the woods and stuff like that. We only traveled after dark. One afternoon I fell asleep and Amy went walking, looking at flowers growing wild. Some men grabbed her and raped her. Did other stuff to her. She was bleeding when I found her.”

Helen looked at the small child. She seemed so frail and helpless, clinging to her brother. “How old are you, Amy?”

“Twelve,” the child whispered, keeping her eyes downcast.

“Jesus,” Jimmy said.

“They hurt me,” Amy said simply.

Her brother swung his gaze to his sister, then looked back at the adults. “That’s the first time she’s spoken of it since it happened. The first words she’s said in months.”

Amy crawled over to Lisa and let the woman hold her. There were no tears on the child’s face, no emotion

evident in her eyes. Just a childlike, stoic acceptance that what had happened could not in any way be changed.

“We met a lot of kids on the run,” Leon said. He appeared to be the spokesman for the young group. “They all had pretty much the same story. We’ve been on the run for-was he was thoughtful for a moment-“I think about five months. We have all had things done to us that…” For a moment it looked as though he might weep, then his slender features hardened as he toughened. “Things that we would all rather forget … but I know that none of us ever will. Ever.” He dropped his eyes and was silent.

“Stay with us,” John told them all, going to the young group, putting his arms around a young girl. “We’re going to arm ourselves. We’ll take care of you. We promise.”

Leon looked gravely at the four adults. His sudden and small smile was grim. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a large revolver. It seemed too big for his small hand, but he looked as though he knew how to use it. “Yesterday,” he said, “a man tried to take one of the girls. He opened his pants and exposed himself to me. Wanted me to suck him. Said he had some buddies just down the road he wanted us all to meet. I knew what kind of men his buddies would be. He put his hand between Amy’s legs and felt her … there. Then he tried to fondle me. I shot him in the face. Right between the eyes. Killed him. So maybe we’ll go with you people-maybe not. It all depends.”

The adults could not understand the reluctance. “Depends on what?” Jimmy asked.

“Which direction you’re going. We’re going over to

Missouri to find Mr. Ben Raines. If that’s the direction you people are heading, OK, we’ll tag along. But you people better find yourselves some guns, because it looks like you’ve all had a bad time of it. And you’d better not be cowards-none of you. Because if you are, you won’t make it. Somebody will rape you all-men and women-and then they’ll kill you, after they use you and torture you. You all better remember that.”

The four adults looked at this frail-appearing but obviously tough young boy, scarcely into his teens and already having killed a grown man in defense of his charges. And ready to kill as many times as need be. The knapsack was open, and all could see the haft of a hunting knife. They had no doubts that Leon would use that knife as well as the pistol.

“You are a very tough and capable young man,” Helen observed. She was just a little bit in awe of the boy.

“I’m a survivor,” Leon cleared it up. “And so is Mr. Ben Raines-among other things, that is.” He did not attempt to explain that last bit. “The IPF or anyone else will never take me or my sister alive-not ever. Some big men grabbed me … about four months ago. I heard them coming and hid Amy. They took me, stripped me, and used me like a girl. I couldn’t walk for three days. No one will ever do that to me again.”

“We’ll start looking for Mr. Ben Raines first thing in the morning,” Jimmy said.

“All right,” Leon said. “We’ll look together. But first we’ll find you all some guns. There’s lots of guns around. You just have to know where to look for them.”

“None of us has ever fired a gun before,” Jimmy said.

Leon leveled oldstyoungstwise eyes on the group of adults. The words that came from his mouth, rolling from his tongue, were harsh, and older than his young years. “Then you’d all damn well better learn how.”

They had gathered in southern South Dakota, some three hundred young people, ranging in age from eight to eighteen. They came from the west side of the Mississippi River. The youngest to be armed was twelve. They had all seen horrors through young eyes; all had experienced some form of sexual abuse from the perverts that now roamed the land with impunity, with only slightly more immunity than when law and order prevailed-or so the myth went before the great war wiped out all forms of social order, liberal and conservative.

All the young people had endured and survived physical abuse. Many had been on their own for years. All had toughened during this period of violent upheaval. All were wise to the ways of survival, these young people, and they had fought off the cruel advance of perverted men and women many times during the years of young youth past. Play was something they knew nothing about. A good time was a full belly and a warm place to sleep. Happy was being safe for a few hours. Most did not know the meaning of love.

On the other side of the river, the east side, in Indiana, yet another group of youths had gathered, almost identical to the grouping on the west side of the Mississippi.

The two groups had maintained radio contact for months now, in preparation for war. Now they waited for word that Ben Raines was moving against the IPF. They would join Ben Raines in that upcoming fight.

Both groups were armed with a mishmash of weapons: from .22-caliber rifles and pistols to AK-47’S and M-16’s and shotguns. Some carried Molotov cocktails: bottles of gas with a rag stuffed down the neck-homemade bombs. Others carried grenades hooked onto web belts. All carried at least one knife, and they had used the sharpened blades more than once.

The thugs and perverts and two-legged slime that are always lurking in the gutters and who seem to survive any tragedy had learned to give these bands of young people a very wide berth. They had learned that very painfully over the years, leaving dead along the way, stiffening reminders of the harsh lessons one must learn in life’s classroom.

The young people were of all races, all creeds. None of them paid any attention to whether the boy or girl next to them was white or black or tan or yellow or purple with antennae for ears. They were of like mind: to fight the IPF to the death, for many had lost brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to the cruelty of the IPF. But first they would wait until Ben Raines started his push north. They all thought he would, for Ben Raines, so the legend went, was a Godlike man-and all the young people felt him more God than man. And they knew Mr. Ben Raines would win this fight, for gods do not know defeat. The young wanted to help Ben Raines, and then join his free society. Wherever Mr. Ben Raines wanted to settle would be just fine with them.

For they all worshipped Ben Raines.

They had first seen and then helped erect shrines to Ben Raines, wherever they happened to wander throughout the ravaged land.

Like their counterparts to the west, the eastern-based young people also worshipped the legend called Ben Raines. None had ever seen the man in person, but most carried small pictures of him, carefully sealed and protected in plastic.

And like their counterparts to the west, each young person had his own personal horror story of sexual abuse and perversion and torture and hunger and shame and loneliness.

A young girl who at age eight had been raped repeatedly then tossed aside, left to die in a ditch by the side of the road, but had been found by other young people and cared for.

A young boy of ten who had been used as a girl by older men.

A young black who had been tortured and then left for dead … simply because of the color of his skin.

An Indian boy who had been stripped naked and sexually abused, then beaten and left for dead.

An Oriental who was found hanging naked by his ankles from a tree limb, almost dead from being whipped, nursed back to health by the caring young.

The stories were almost the same in their horror.

But now the young people-a modern-day Orphans’ Brigade, east and west-were organized, armed, and ready and willing and able to fight. They had all been bloodied, now they were ready to spill

someone else’s blood … for the right to live free.

They waited. Waited for the man-god they worshipped.

Ben Raines.

In the extreme northern regions of Michigan, in the deep timber, more than eight hundred men and women had gathered. They had done so quietly, attracting no attention to their congregation. The men and women were all over fifty, many of them in their seventies, some in their eighties.

They had gathered together for protection, coming to this area when word spread through the grapevine of the coming together of the elderly.

The men were all armed, and well-armed. Almost all were veterans of the early days of Vietnam. Some from the Korean War, a few from the Second World War. They were ex-marines, ex-Green Berets, ex-navy, ex-air force and ex-AF Commandoes. They were ex-Seal’s, ex-Rangers, ex-Letterrp, ex-grunt. All had killed, many with wire and knife and bare hands.

“Has President Raines got a chance?” a man asked.

“Slim to none,” was the reply. It came as no surprise to any of the men.

“I don’t feel right sitting up here in safety while Raines and his people take it on the chin for us,” came another opinion.

“Who said we were going to do anything like that?” Gen. Art Tanner (ret.) spoke from the fringe of the gathering. “Let’s gather at the lodge and talk this out.”

The men gathered in the huge meeting room of the

once-famous ski lodge. They waited in silence as Tanner mounted the stage and spoke through a bull-horn.

“All right, boys,” Tanner said with a grin, the thought of once more seeing action making his blood race hotly through his veins. “You all know why we came here. Let’s get down to it and map out some hard reality and plan our strategy. Let’s take it from the top. We’re getting old, boys. Hell, we are old. We’re not young bucks anymore, all full of piss and vinegar and a constant hard-on. We’ve all got to face up to the fact that our legs and lungs aren’t what they used to be. Anyone here want to take off on a twenty-mile forced march with full pack and combat gear to prove me wrong?”

No one did, but it galled the men to have to admit they weren’t the men they used to be. No one had to say a word; it was very evident on every face in the room.

was “K,” General Tanner said. “Now we know where we stand physically. But on the plus side, we know things the young bucks don’t know. We know planning and we know patience. We know the weapons we carry and we are all well aware of our personal capabilities in the field-what we can and can’t do. That is something that comes only with age.

was ‘K. There are four hundred and fifty of us old coots. Well divide up into three short companies of one hundred and twenty-five each. Support and HQ will number fifty. The other twenty-five will act as LETTERRP’S, scouts and forward observers. Those will be the youngest of us.” He laughed and the meeting room shook with male laughter. “The youngest here being fifty-three, I believe. Mere child.”

Again the room rocked with laughter.

General Tanner waited for the laughter to subside and finally held up his hand. was ‘K. Now then, how many here have pacemakers?”

A dozen hands went up, some of them reluctantly.

was ‘Knowledge,” Tanner said. “You people will be part of HQ’S company. Now then, how many here have bad backs, arthritis severe enough to limit walking or running, or any other debilitating illness that would keep you out of the field?”

Another dozen hands went up, some of them gnarled and twisted from arthritis.

“You’ll join HQ’S company,” Tanner told them as his eyes swept the room. He found a man sitting quietly and unobtrusively, as if attempting to avoid notice. “Now, goddamn it, Larry!” Tanner shouted. General Tanner was stone deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. His normal tone while speaking was that of a top sergeant addressing troops. In a hurricane. “You only have one leg. You got the other one shot off in Laos back in sixty-two. What the hell good do you think you’d be in the field?”

“I’ll be as good as any other man,” the veteran said. “I can still do the bop.” He stepped out into the aisle and did just that, ending the dance with a little soft-shoe routine.

The men in the room applauded.

“All that is very commendable, Larry,” Tanner said. “But what if you break that wooden leg?”

“I’ll use my dick!” Larry retorted. “It’s long enough.”

The men exploded with laughter.

“Yes, Larry,” General Tanner said dryly. “That

would be one solution to the problem, providing a man your age could still get it up!”

It was a full two minutes before the laughter died away.

“You got me there, General,” Larry shouted, a grin on his red face. “I’ll join your HQ’S company and shut my mouth.”

“Fine. Step over there with the others.” His eyes found another man. “Jesus Christ, General Walker!” he roared. “You were with Merrill’s Marauders in Burma during World War II. You’re eighty-five if you’re a day.”

“You give me a Springfield, by God,” the old man stood up erect, white-maned head held proudly, “and I’ll show you kids I can still cut the mustard.”

“Fine, General. That’s good. I’m sure you can, too. But I just don’t know where I could locate a Springfield.”

“Well, why the hell not!” the old general roared. He was as hard of hearing as General Tanner.

“Because the army quit using the goddamned things about sixty fucking years ago!” Tanner returned the verbal sound and fury.

“Why the hell did they do that!” Walker roared. “Oh-yeah. I remember. No matter. That was still the best weapon the army ever had.”

“General Walker,” General Tanner said patiently. “I would be proud and honored to have you join my HQ’S company. Your knowledge of tactics is unsurpassed, and your-was

“Boy,” Walker cut off the sixty-five-year-old retired general. “If you get any sweeter, you’re going to give the whole bunch of us diabetes.”

Again the laughter.

“Speaking of that,” Tanner said when the laughter had faded away.

A half dozen men stood up and joined the group that was making up headquarters company.

was ‘Knowledge,” Tanner said. “All right, boys. We’ve been scrounging and stealing and gathering up equipment all summer. Get on back to your billets and pack up your gear. Kiss your wives and girlfriends goodbye. We move out day after tomorrow. Scouts out at 0600 in the morning. Dismissed-and good luck.”

“Ah, sir,” Emil Hite walked up to the wounded Rebel who seemed to be in charge of the loading of equipment. The Rebel had his left arm in a sling and the right side of his face was heavily bandaged. “May I be so presumptuous as to inquire why you have all these people racing willy-nilly about, creating all this confusion?”

The Rebel officer looked at the cult leader. The contempt he felt for the man was ill-concealed in his eyes. “What business is it of yours, weirdo?”

Emil ignored that slur upon his appearance. “Because if you people are leaving this area, I would like permission to move my poor band of followers in here.”

The Rebel laughed at him. “Why, sure,” he said. “I don’t see why not. Maybe some of what we did here will rub off on you. Just as soon as we’re gone, just slide on in.”

Emil looked around him. He took in the neat fields and gardens, the homes that had been repaired and

painted and restored, the neatly trimmed lawns and carefully maintained sidewalks.

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart, sir,” Emil said. “And on behalf of my people, they thank you for your consideration.” Emil’s mind was racing. He thought: Why, with an idyllic setting such as this, he could attract hundreds, perhaps even thousands more followers into his fold. Just think of all that new pussy! Emil hid his smile and resisted an impulse to rub his hands together in glee. Instead, with his left hand in one pocket of his robe, he scratched his crotch.

“Ughum, bugum, bisco,” Emil said.

The Rebel looked at him. “Flaky son of a bitch!” he muttered.

The Rebel began yelling out orders, his grating voice causing Emil to flinch. The man reminded him in a very painful manner of his old drill sergeant. A most disagreeable fellow. Emil hoped one of the bombs that fell back in eighty-eight landed right on that bastard’s head.

“Once again,” Emil. “I wish to thank you on behalf of my simple flock of worshippers.” Somehow, Emil thought, that never came out just right.

The Rebel looked at him and laughed.

“Juggy, muggy, be bop a lula,” Emil said.

“Joe Cocker to you, too,” the Rebel said, then turned his back and walked away.

“Fuck you,” Emil muttered. “And fuck the horse you rode in on, too.” But he was very careful not to say that too loudly. The Rebel was huge. And very mean-looking.

Emil shuffled away, his robes dragging along the

ground. He caught the toe of one sandal in the hem and almost tripped himself. He ignored the laughter coming from the wounded Rebels.

“Bless you, my children,” Emil said to them.

One of them gave him the finger.

No matter, Emil thought, shuffling away, being more careful where he put his feet. After this, he would be even more revered by his people.

For a very short time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“The route has been cleared of all mines?” Ben asked Colonel Gray.

“All clear, sir,” the Englishman replied.

Ben turned to Ike. “How about the troops, Ike-they ready?”

“Eager to go, Ben.”

Ben looked at Cecil. “How about your people and the supplies, Cec?”

“Ready to go, Ben. We have supplies for a three-month campaign.”

“We’d better get it done a hell of a lot sooner than that,” Ben said grimly. He glanced at Doctor Chase. “Medical teams ready?”

“Yes,” the doctor replied softly, for once not retorting with a smart crack.

To Hector: “I wish you would reconsider, Hec. You were hit pretty hard and not that long ago.”

“My command, Ben. Where they go, I go,” the Mexican replied. “Besides, you’re forgetting, I have a personal stake in all this.”

Ben nodded. He glanced around him in the predawn darkness. A heady feeling of deja vu swept over him. He had done this before. God, how many times? The massive convoy was silent in the darkness. All motors off. Dew glistened wetly off the camouflaged metal of Jeeps, tanks, half-tracks, APC’S, rolling artillery, mortar carriers, deuce-and-a-halves, tanker trucks and off the helmets of troops and the metal of their weapons.

A messenger walked up to him, a flashlight in his hand. “Dispatches, sir. I found them to be … well, rather unusual.”

“Read them to me, son,” Ben said.

“Yes, sir. This one is from the north, up in Michigan. It’s from General Tanner and General Walker.”

“Iron-Legs Walker? Captain March or Die, from Merrill’s Marauders?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My God. The man must be pushing ninety!”

“Yes, sir, that’s the one. And General Tanner used to command the Eighty-second down at Bragg.”

“Go on,” Ben whispered. He shook his head. “Jesus God.”

“Mr. President,” the Rebel read the first dispatch under the narrow beam of a flashlight. “Have four hundred and fifty of us old soldiers moving out this a.m. in simultaneous advance with your troops. Do not fear for us. We have lived our lives and lived them well. We have seen the rise of America, and have witnessed her downfall, as well as predicted that downfall. Now it is up to you to put this nation together once more. We believe you are the only man capable of doing that monumental feat. But first we must rid ourselves of General Striganov and his IPF people. We

will dig in at various spots along the Iowa line, just as soon as our scouts report the IPF crossing into Missouri. You will have young people on both your flanks. If we have any sort of luck, we will have the IPF in a closed box. I call the young people the Orphans” Brigade, if you remember that from the Civil War. It fits them well. They’re all tough little monkeys and they’ll more than hold their own. Don’t spend too much time worrying about them. We will be shoving off at first light. Good luck and Godspeed, Mr. President.”

“Dear God,” Ben said, with more than a touch of awe in his tone. “Most of those old boys must be in their sixties and seventies.”

Ike had a large lump in his throat and was afraid to speak.

Cecil looked as though he was fighting back tears.

Chase cleared his throat several times.

Hector was openly weeping.

The messenger’s hands were shaking as he unfolded the second dispatch. “The next two messages are almost identical, sir,” he said. He read: “There are three hundred and twenty five of us to the west, Mr. Raines, and some four hundred to the east. We will be moving out at 0600. We will try to link up with your people on the lower west and east borders of the battleground, putting the IPF in a box when we do. We have no parents, no homes to return to. We are now part of your society, Mr. Ben Raines, and we will follow wherever you choose to lead us. Good luck, sir.”

Ben fought back tears. His voice shook when he spoke. “Children, all children. What are their ages, Sergeant?”

The sergeant cleared his throat. Had one hell of a lump building there. “I believe, sir, their ages range from eight to sixteen or so.” “Eight!” Ben’s reply was almost a shout. “Those are babies.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.

Ben shook his head in disbelief and walked away from the small group just as Juan and Mark walked up. They had stood in silence as the sergeant read the messages. They had heard it all. “Ninos,” Juan said. “Little children with guns. Brave little boys and girls.”

“What kind of war is this to be?” Mark pondered aloud. “Little children facing grown men. It’s shameful.”

Just before Chase walked away to join his medical teams, he said, “I used to hope I’d make it to the year 2000. Now I’m not so certain I’m entirely happy about it.”

Ben found Gale in the lightening darkness and put his arms around her. “This time, lady, you don’t argue with me. You’re assigned to the field hospitals in the rear.”

“I know, Ben,” she said softly. “I won’t argue about it.”

“We might not see each other for days, Gale,” he reminded her.

“I know that, too,” she said, pressing against him, taking comfort from the bulk of the man.

“If conditions start going from bad to worse,” Ben said, “I’m sending you to Georgia, to Captain Rayle’s command. And I don’t want any static out of you about it.”

“There won’t be, Ben.” She looked up into his face. “Ben, I want you to know I think you are a fine, good man. You could have walked away from all this, but you didn’t.”

“Yeah.” He smiled down at her. “But then I would have had to listen to you bitch about it for the next fifty years.”

“You got that right, buster.”

He kissed her mouth and then, grinning, patted her on the butt. She slapped his hand away. “OK, babe-take off. I’ll see you whenever and wherever I can.”

She returned the kiss and, grinning, patted him on the butt. She broke free of his arms and walked away into the dim light of early morning, the faint silver from the east picking up pockets of lights in her shortcut, dark hair. The mist hung about her in the Missouri morning.

She looked so small and vulnerable.

Ben walked back to the main column and gave the orders. “Crank them up,” he said.

The morning was filled with the coughing of powerful engines fired into sudden life from the cold metal.

“Colonel Gray?”

“Sir?”

“Scouts out?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hector?”

“Sir?”

Ben held out his hand and the man shook it. “Luck to you, Hec.”

Hector’s teeth flashed white against the olive of his face. “See you after we kick ass, Ben.”

Ben nodded. Both men knew the odds of them kicking

the ass of the IPF were hard against. He looked at Cecil, held out his hand.

“Luck to you, Ben,” the black man said, gripping the hand.

“Take care, old soldier.”

Cecil walked away to join his command.

Juan and Mark shook hands with Ben and the two of them left to link up with their respective commands.

Ben looked at Ike. The ex-navy SEAL grinned boyishly. He said, “Here we go again, El Presidente. Seems like we just got through doing this.”

“I know the feeling,” Ben replied. “Ike, we’ve got to make the first punch hard enough to knock them down. Then we’ve got to stomp them while they’re down. We’ve got to make this as dirty and vicious as we know how. And we’re going to take a lot of casualties doing it.”

“It’s worth it, Ben-you know that. None of us could have lived with ourselves if we’d turned our backs to this.”

“I know. I was only delaying the inevitable.” He held out his hand and the two friends shook hands.

“Luck to you, old warrior,” Ike said.

“Luck to you, old friend,” Ben replied.

The men walked away in opposite directions.

Ben stood in the center of Highway 67 just as dawn hit the horizon, casting his shadow long down the highway. He looked toward the north and lifted his hand, pointing a finger straight north.

“Let’s go!” he yelled. “Go, go, go!” PART THREE Be ashamed to die unless you have won some victory for humanity.

-Horace Mann

CHAPTER ONE

Thousands of tons of men and machines and instruments of war and destruction lunged forward from southeast Missouri. At the same time, young boys and girls moved forward from South Dakota and Indiana. To the north, old soldiers were telling their wives and sweethearts goodbye.

“You’re entirely too old for this nonsense, Sonny,” a woman said, kissing her husband of forty years goods-bye. “But I am so proud of you for doing it.”

The veteran of the early days of Vietnam kissed his wife and grinned at her. She patted the top of his bald head as he said, “Honey, I think civilization will either begin or end within the next few weeks. That is my firm belief. I can’t sit back and watch it all go down the tube.”

She smiled at him. “I want you to come back to me, Sonny. But I can’t help but remember what the Spartan mother told her son as he was leaving for the wars.”

“Either come back behind your shield, or on it,” the husband said.

“I love you, you crazy old soldier.” “Love you, baby.”

The aging warrior picked up his rifle and walked away before his wife could begin weeping.

“Tanner, you old goat,” the retired general was told by his wife, “how many damn times do I have to tell you goodbye?”

“Hopefully, this is the last time, camp-follower,” he said with a grin.

“Yes.”

“You know the drill, lady, should I not return from this campaign.”

“Up into Canada to the cabins. There the rest of us old gals will live out our lives in peace,” she repeated in rote, a dry tone to her voice.

“The cabins are well-stocked. You’re no slouch with a garden. You’ll have adequate medical supplies to last you for years. You all should get by quite nicely.”

“But I want to get by with you at my side. So come back to me, Art.”

“I shall certainly try, Becky.”

He kissed her and was gone.

“Take care of yourself, honey,” the man said. “I shall. And you come back to me.” “Do the best I can.”

“Look, old girl, this is something that must be done, you know that.”

“Of course I do, Lewis. And don’t get amorous, old man,” she said with a smile, removing his hand from her rump. “We don’t have the time for that. You just do your duty and come back to me.”

“You got your high blood pressure pills, Bob?”

“Right here in my pocket, honey.”

“You come back to be me, lover.”

“I’ll be back.”

But he would never be back.

“After thirty-five years in the military,” a wife told her husband, trying her best to maintain a brave face, “you’d think I’d be used to this.”

“Last time, honey.”

It would be the last time she would ever see him.

The men moved out.

“Ben Raines is on the move,” Hartline informed the Russian commander.

Striganov lifted his head from a report he’d been studying. Disbelief was evident in his eyes. “What did you say, Sam?”

“I said Ben Raines is on the move. Scouts report columns advancing at full speed, heading straight at us from the south.”

“His logic escapes me,” General Striganov said, a puzzled look on his face. “His people took a terrible

battering at the hands of our troops. What does he hope to gain by this action?”

Hartline shrugged his big shoulders. “I haven’t the vaguest idea. But that’s moot, isn’t it? The fact is, he’s moving.”

“Yes, you are correct. Moot. Mobilize the forces for a push south. Meet General Raines head-on. Have those troops I left in southern Iowa begin marching toward Raines. Engage the Rebels and hold them until we get there with reinforcements. This time I intend to finish the matter.”

Hartline started to speak, then hesitated, a curious look on his face.

Striganov caught the hesitation. “Is something the matter, Sam?”

““Yes … I think so. Our intelligence shows a group-or groups-of armed people moving toward us not just from the south-that’s Raines’s bunch of Rebels, we know who that is-but also from the west, the east and from the north.”

“Who could it possibly be?”

When Hartline explained who it was, the Russian began laughing. “Children and old men!” he howled out his mirth, pounding his hands on his desk. “Little babies and senile old men. I love it. Hartline, you have made my day. I find this hysterically amusing. Hysterically!” He sobered as abruptly as he fell into laughter. “Very well, our … enemies,” he giggled, “have been identified. So send two companies to spank the children, one east and one west, and one company to point the old men back to their rocking chairs. I don’t want to spare any more men than that.”

“Ah …” Hartline looked at the Russian, a strange

look in his eyes. “I don’t know, Georgi. Don’t sell these groups too short; they’re all well-armed and very dedicated.”

“Bah!” Striganov verbally brushed aside the warning. “Do not concern yourself with trivialities, Sam. Old men and children are no match for my people. You have your orders; carry them out and then take your men south to meet Raines. I’m counting on you to crush Ben Raines. That will be all, Sam. Good luck.”

The Russian returned to his paper work.

Outside the office, Hartline stood for a moment, his handsome features a study in concentration. He muttered, “I think you’re making a bad, big mistake, Georgi, but it’s your show.”

The members of the forward IPF forces were in a joking mood as they moved west, north and east to confront the “children” and the “old men.” This would be no more than a lark for them-a pleasant outing in the fall of the year. And it would be far easier than fighting Gen. Ben Raines and his Rebels. Those people fought like madmen.

One man stepped away from the parked column in northern Iowa, close to the North Dakota line, to relieve himself in the woods. When he did not return in a few moments, another man was sent in to find him. The troops of the IPF waited for the second man to return. He did not return. The woods remained still. Silence greeted the troops.

The IPF section leader, using his hands, ordered his people to fan out and to search the timber. “Nockopee!” the section leader whispered hoarsely, motioning his people to move quickly.

A shout reached the small group of forward scouts. In a rush, they ran into the woods. They stopped abruptly at the sight that lay before them on the ground.

Both men who had entered the timber now lay on their backs, their arms flung wide. Blood soaked the cool ground under and around them. Both men had an arrow embedded deeply in their chest. Weapons and all ammunition and equipment had been removed from the men. Their boots were gone. One of the men had a hole in his left sock, the big toe sticking through.

The section leader ordered his people back, making no noise, speaking with motions of his hands. He turned. An arrow hissed through the air and drove through the man’s skull, the point coming out just above one ear. He fell silently to the ground without uttering a sound.

The still and calm woods began to clatter and roar from the sounds of gunfire. The IPF found themselves surrounded, with no place to run, death facing them from all directions. The men and women of the IPF had little chance to use their weapons, because there appeared to be no visible targets.

The deadly and bloody ambush was completed in less than one minute. Young people began drifting out of the deep brush and timber into the blood-soaked clearing. The young people stripped the bodies of uniforms and weapons and ammunition. They took all the equipment they could find.

The leader of the young people was dressed in buckskins and jeans, moccasins on his feet. He was tall and

rangy and well-built, his dark hair hanging to his shoulders. His name was Wade. He did not remember what his last name had been. His parents and his brothers and sister had died in a house fire back in ninety. He had been alone, on the road, since he was eight years old. And he had survived. His weapon for this day-he was quite proficient with any type of weapon-was a huge bow, and he was an expert with the longbow. Wade could not read or write well, but he could survive.

“Strip the people of their uniforms,” he ordered his young charges. “Wash them free of blood at the creek. Dry them well.” To another group of young: “Hide their vehicles. They will be useful when we ambush the others.” He smiled and his smile was savage. “I think they misjudged our strength and our dedication to Mr. Ben Raines. I think the IPF people made a mistake.” He laughed. “I know they made a mistake.”

He walked to a small clearing and stood in a narrow beam of sunlight pouring through the thick stand of timber. Nature had managed to renew what man had destroyed. Huge stands of timber now flourished throughout the nation, in lovely contrast to mindless and short-sighted land developers, greedy farmers and stupid loggers; for between the factions, they had managed, in only seventy years, to rape the land, paying scant attention to the warnings of environmentalists and, in many cases, common sense.

Wade laboriously and with much silent lip movement, studied and read a map taken from the section leader of the advance party of the IPF. Finally he looked up, a smile on his lips.

“We will ambush the main column here,” he said,

thumping the map. With a finger he traced a red line drawn on the plastic map cover. “They are sending one company of men. That is approximately two hundred people. Twenty-five trucks carrying the men and equipment and several Jeeps for the officers and senior sergeants.” He again consulted the map. “Yes,” he said, “this will be the perfect spot to catch them in a cross-fire. They are one day behind their scouts. Let’s get ready for them.”

The forward troops of the IPF made camp in Indiana on their first night toward destroying the force of the eastern-based “children.”

Most of the fed and sleeping IPF members would never wake up from their slumber. Those that did would know only a few seconds of intense pain before the bullets of the “children” mangled them into that dark and endless sleep.

Just before the first changing of the guards, moonlight flashed silver on sharpened blades. A very slight grunt as cold steel slid between ribs on the way to the heart; a gurgle as a throat was cut, blood leaping free and thick and steaming in the darkness; a short gasp as black wire looped around a soft throat, shutting off the air. Eyes bugged and tongues turned black and swollen in death.

Then the camp was once more silent.

The men who waited to replace the guards slept on, sleeping through the tap on the shoulder that never came.

The “children” positioned themselves.

“Now!” a young voice called out from the darkness.

For a full sixty seconds the air reverberated with the sounds and fury of gunfire. Most IPF personnel never got a chance to crawl from sleeping bags and blankets. They were shot to death, jerking and bleeding rags of flesh and bone, blood-splattered.

The young people watched and waited in silence. Occasionally, a shot would split the air as someone in the IPF camp moaned and stirred in pain. The shot would still the moaning.

The leader of the eastern-based young people, a young man of eighteen, named Ro, gave the quiet orders to move into the bloody encampment. Like his counterpart to the west, whom he had never met but had spoken with by radio, Ro was dressed in buckskins and jeans, moccasins on his feet. He was quite good with a bow, but on this night he used a twelve-gauge shotgun, loaded with slugs.

Ro did not know his last name, or even if the name Ro had been given him by his parents, whom he did not remember. He was called Ro-that was all the name he knew. He was a survivor.

“Take their uniforms,” Ro ordered. “And gather up the weapons and ammunition. Wash the clothing in the river and dry it. Hide their vehicles and bring me any maps you find.”

A ragged young boy of ten scampered down the embankment and began picking through the gore with others of approximately his age-although none of the young people really knew how old they were. The blood and the gore and stink of relaxed bowels and bladders seemed not to bother the young boys and girls as they conducted their grisly search.

The bodies were stripped down to their underwear

and left where they had fallen and died. Birds and animals would eat them.

“Food here,” a young girl called to Ro.

“We’ll eat now,” Ro told them.

The young people had learned what the Indians of America had known for centuries: Eat when you can, sleep when you can, drink when you can.

With the blood of the dead IPF members still soaking into the cool, grassy earth, the young people sat and squatted and began to eat among the men sprawled in grotesque death. All present had been born into the horror of war and its aftermath, and had lived through a police state by depending on their guile. Social amenities were few; the young people gnawed at their meat and hard biscuits, eating with their fingers. Their eyes constantly flicked from left to right, much like an animal when he eats, aware that someone or something was always waiting to steal the food should guard be relaxed. When the young boys and girls finished eating, they wiped their hands on their clothing and one by one melted back into the deep timber and brush to seek a place to sleep: a deserted house, a culvert, a thicket. In the morning they would plan another ambush.

The combat company of IPF personnel that rolled northward to “point the old men back to their rocking chairs” drove straight into hell. The American veterans allowed the scouts to pass through the ambush site, after blocking all other roads in the area, then wiped out to a person the entire company of the IPF. They then captured the scouts and hanged them by the side of the road.

Just before they hanged the scouts, one of the Russians muttered under his breath.

“What’d that Russian bastard say?” General Tanner asked.

“I said,” the IPF scout replied in perfect English, “that the old bee can still sting.”

“Damn right,” General Tanner told him. “Hang them,” he ordered.

Tanner flexed the fingers of his left hand and then rubbed his aching shoulder. Damned arthritis was acting up again.

When the first reports reached the desk of General Striganov, the Russian could not believe it. Three full companies destroyed-wiped out to a person. Not one man had escaped. It was incredible that children and old men could have done it. Striganov just did not believe it. It had to be a trick of some sort. Little children and senile elderly men do not destroy three companies of highly trained troops.

The thought came to him: Perhaps Sam Hartline lied to him?

No, he immediately rejected that notion. Hartline would have no reason to do that; that would be detrimental to the mercenary’s own goals.

President-General Ben Raines must have planted the false information about the children and old men and then had his own Rebels beef up the children and old men. “Vfes, that was certainly it. Striganov felt better now that he had worked it out in his mind. He leaned back in his chair and smiled.

Well, Striganov pondered the small problem, no point in mentally berating oneself about it; no point in flailing one’s mind with whips of defeat. It was done and over and that was that. But the mild irritation that for the first time his people were in a box nagged at him. Not a box with a very substantial lid on it, to be sure, but a box nonetheless.

And that irritated the general. Striganov liked for everything to be done neatly and orderly; he did not like irritation. It was … well, unsettling.

But, he thought, putting his hands behind his head, everything else seemed to be going quite well. No-not seemed to be going well-it was going well. The inferior minority women who had been forced to breed with the male mutants were swelling with new life. The mutant females who had copulated with the inferior minority men were likewise swelling with pregnancy. The areas controlled by the IPF were coming along quite well, and the people, while not content-many of them-were beginning to adjust to the rule of Hartline and the IPF. True, there were still pockets of resistance scattered about, but nothing that Hartline had not been able to contain, and contain it quite brutally. Fear was the great ruler, and Sam Hartline was very good at instilling fear.

Crops had been harvested and winter wheat planted in those areas suited for farming. Factories were now open-not too many, but there would be more as time passed.

Put people to work. That was the great pacifier. Idle minds and idle hands always meant trouble.

But for now, Striganov must deal with the problem of Ben Raines and his Rebels. And the old men. And the young people.

“Shit!” General Striganov spat out the American profanity. All was not progressing as smoothly as he would have liked.

But he had no doubts as to his success. Failure never entered his mind. Never. True, he would have to shelve his plan to kill the Jew bitch; and that had been a good plan, Striganov reckoned, one that would have sucked Ben Raines out into the open, seeking revenge. Or so Striganov thought. But the Russian did not know Ben Raines as well as he thought.

“Hello, baby.” Hartline smiled at Jerre. “My, you are a fine-looking cunt.”

Jerre remained silent for a moment. She knew why Hartline had kidnapped her, but she also knew the mercenary had grossly underestimated Ben Raines if he thought Ben would drop whatever he was doing and come to her rescue. She knew Ben was somewhere in Virginia, moving his Rebels toward Richmond, to seize the government from President Addison and Al Cody. Ben had told her several times: “No one in my command is unexpendable, Jerre. Person gets taken prisoner, we’ll come after him if at all possible. But I won’t risk losing a hundred people just to save one.”

And she knew Ben meant it.

“Where am I?” she asked Hartline.

He had laughed. “About a hundred miles from Ben Raines. You’re in Virginia, baby. Didn’t you have a nice flight out here?”

“Not particularly. Some of your men kept feeling me up. Where are my children?”

“They got away, so I’m told. Big, blond fellow took them. Friend of yours, maybe?”

“Yes. Matt. Good. Then I know that my babies are safe.”

She seemed satisfied with that.

Hartline sat looking at her. He seemed puzzled. He didn’t understand these followers of Raines. Even though he had broken half a hundred of them with physical torture, and raped and sodomized a half a hundred more, they always seemed to look at him as if he were the loser, not them.

Her smug expression angered the man. He reached out and slapped her hard across the face. She slowly brushed back her blond hair and continued staring at him.

“What’s with you people, anyway?” he demanded. “You sluts and losers seem to think Raines is some sort of God. What kind of fucking special society did you people have, anyway, to make you think you’re so much better than the rest of us?” He was shouting at her. “Answer me!”

Jerre realized she was dealing with a psychopath-at least that. And she had best walk softly in his presence.

“We don’t think we’re better,” she replied. “But we do believe we had a good society.”

“Perfect one?”

“No. I don’t think that’s possible with humans being the carpenters of that society.”

“Isn’t that profound?” Hartline said, his voice ugly with sarcasm. “Did you make that up in your pretty little head?”

“No. Ben Raines did.”

“I’m sick of his name!” Hartline yelled at her. “You hear me? I don’t want you to say it around me, you understand that?”

“Yes.”

He changed as quickly as the flit of a fly. He was now calm, smiling at her. He reached out and cupped a breast. “That’s nice, Jerre baby. I bet you could give a guy a ride, couldn’t you?”

“I … don’t know how you want me to answer that.”

“You like to fuck?”

“I like to make love.”

“Tell me about love, baby.”

“Are you serious?” she blurted. Then realized that was a mistake.

He slapped her.

Through her tear-blurred eyes she watched as the mercenary unzipped his pants and took out his heavy penis. She was pushed from her chair to the floor, on her knees.

“Kiss it, baby,” Hartline ordered. “Just pretend it’s a pork chop and lick it. Unless, of course, you’re a Jew. Then you can pretend it’s a bagel.”

He thought that funny and laughed.

Jerre bent her head.

With the death of President Addison, and the wounding of Ben and his appointment to the office of the president, Ike, Captain Gray, and Matt led teams into the Midwest to rescue Jerre. Hartline got out just in time, but his mercenary army had been routed.

Jerre and Matt returned to the West Coast, and Ben

began the awesome job of rebuilding America from the ground up.

Then the rats came, bringing with them the plague.

A year later came Striganov and the IPR

General Striganov punched a button set into his desk top. Seconds later, an aide stuck her head into the room.

“Sir?”

“Have my equipment laid out and my car made ready. Tell my guards to prepare for a move south. This time I shall personally see to it that President-General Ben Raines is destroyed.”

“Yes, sir,” the young woman replied.

But she was not so certain about the mission of the IPF as she once had been. So much of what she had heard about Ben Raines was disturbing. So many of the Americans believed the man to be a god-and that disturbed her. She had been taught from birth that the Christian God did not exist. Now the Russian woman was beginning to have doubts about the validity of that philosophy. President-General Ben Raines had been shot so many times, had been stabbed and blown up-still he would not die. Or, the thought chilled her, could not die. He had single-handedly fought and killed a massive mutant, and had come out of that fight without a scratch on him. And there was that story circulating about him having spoken to some sort of God’s messenger. That filled the young woman with dread. It caused her-and many more of the IPF-TO suffer bad dreams during her sleep.

No, the young woman did not look forward to traveling

south with General Striganov. She wished the IPF could have just stayed in Iceland and lived in peace. But she was more than just an aide to the general. She was his sex partner upon command. And she was a soldier, and she had her orders, and she would obey. Like a good soldier.

CHAPTER TWO

To the north, to the west and to the east, the IPF was running into more trouble than even the most cynical among them had anticipated. To the north, even though Striganov had sent four companies of IPF to fight the “grandfathers,” as the Russian had referred to the old soldiers, the IPF found they could not punch through the lines of the old men. The “grandfathers” were holding firm.

The old soldiers knew warfare and knew it well. Thousands of hours of actual combat lay among the men: They were experts in the art of ambush; experts in tactics; experts in producing and deploying explosives; experts in long-range sniping and experts in guerrilla tactics; experts in building and camouflaging hidden bunkers.

As one IPF commander put it, “The old bastards are there one minute, then they are gone the next. They just vanish. You never know where they might pop up: behind you, in front of you, at your flanks, snapping and biting like a small dog. Then they cut a

throat or two and disappear. I hate these old men. I hate this country.”

And the IPF troops, for the very first time, met the horror of true guerrilla warfare. The men and women of the IPF became fearful of entering the dark timber, for they had found the areas mined with Claymores. And the deep timber and brush contained deadly swing traps and punji pits.

On the fourth day of fighting in the north, what was left of the four companies of the IPF found themselves in the unenviable position of having themselves surrounded, with no place to run, no place to hide, facing either surrender or death.

To the west and the east, the young people fought just as cunningly, but with much more savagery. For most of the young had been on their own for years, and they had learned the hard facts of postwar: If one is to survive after a holocaust, one had best learn how to kill-silently, stealthily, and without mercy or pity. Most could just barely read and write, but all-boys and girls-were experts in the art of survival. Those that did not learn the art of survival while very young … usually died.

The boys and girls were small-due to years of bad diet-but they were quick, for they had lived their lives on the fringes of civilization, learning the savage lessons on how best to avoid the mutants and the sudden explosion in the population of bears and wolves and bobcats and mountain lions. Just as Ben Raines had learned back in

1988….

I’ve got to search the town for survivors! the

thought came to him just before he went to bed. Surely there will be somebody left alive.

The next morning, after shaving and showering and eating a light breakfast, he took his coffee outside and stood for a moment by his small house in the country. He viewed the silent scene that lay before him. Birds still sang and dogs still barked in the distance, and that puzzled him. A nuclear war that would kill humans and leave the animals alive? Not likely. So it had to have been some type of germ warfare. He had to find out what happened.

He went to several stores in search of a worldwide radio. But the stores had all been looted. He finally found one at the Radio Shack. He sat on the curb outside the store and studied the instructions on the operation of the radio. He turned it on. No batteries.

“Wonderful, Ben,” he muttered. “Marvelous presence of mind.”

With fresh batteries in the radio, Ben worked the dial slowly, going from band to band. Sweat broke out on his face as he heard a voice from the speakers.

The voice spoke in French for a time, then went to German, then to English. Ben listened intently, a feeling of dread washing over him. “We pieced together the story,” the voice spoke slowly. “The whole story of what happened. Russian pilot told us this is what happened-from his side of the pond, that is. They-the Russians-had developed some sort of virus that would kill humans, but not harm animals or plant life. Did this about three years ago. were going to use it against us this fall. Easy to figure out why. Then they learned of the double cross; the Stealth-equipped sub. That shot their plans all to hell. Everything became all

confused. If we had tried to talk to them, or they with us, or the Chinese, maybe all this could have been prevented. Maybe not. Too late now. Some survivors worldwide. Have talked with some of them. Millions dead. Don’t know how many. Over a billion, probably. Maybe more. Ham operators working. It’s bad. God in heaven-it’s bad.”

This message was repeated, over and over, in four languages.

“A goddamned tape recording,” Ben said.

A snarling brought him to his feet, the .45 pistol in his hand. A pack of dogs stood a few yards away, and they were not at all friendly.

Ben leaped for the hood of his truck just as a large German shepherd lunged for him, fangs bared. Ben scrambled for the roof of the cab as the dog leaped onto the hood. Ben shot the animal in the head, the force of the heavy slug knocking the animal backward to die in the street.

The dogs remembered gunfire. They ran down the street, stopping on the corner, turning around, snarling and growling at the man on the cab of the truck. Ben emptied his .45 into the pack, knocking several of the dogs spinning. Ben slapped a fresh clip in the pistol and climbed down. He got his .45-caliber Thompson SMG from the cab.

“From now on, Ben,” he said. “That Thompson becomes a part of you. Always.”

And now the young of the new century found themselves facing an animal explosion, with many of the animals mutant in size and nature. Flesh-eaters. And

the young, without benefit of parental guidance and formal education, without adults helping to shape their minds and lives and actions, and teachers to help shape the mush of their minds into facts, became even more savage than the usual child, for without education, training, discipline and love, we would all be savages.

This then was the shaping of the future generations of the world. The less than auspicious start of the long, slow drift downhill into ignorance and barbarism.

Unless one man could stem the tide, plug the dam, rejuvenate the fountain of knowledge. And do it all in time.

Ben Raines.

But this tragedy-that was all foreseen and forewarned, from Orwell to Meade-was not confined to the land that was once known as America. And to place the brunt of the blame solely on the young would be grossly unfair. For the same was occurring worldwide. In the once-civilized land called England, home of the Magna Carta and the birthplace of law, the Druids were once more flourishing, with the survivors of that once-beautiful and civilized land now robed and hooded, gathering at Stonehenge to ponder the mystery of centuries. And to worship there, all praising and calling to an unknown god. And to sit in caves, painting themselves blue with dye from the berries of wild plants, tracing dark and mysterious lines on their bodies in some ritual of a religion that until only a few years ago had been an evil and unknown memory in the dim reaches of their brains, only now springing forth to sit and snarl and pick at themselves

in the real but confused light of consciousness.

In France-or what was left of that germ and nuclear-torn country-the people had gathered and again broken off into formations of Burgundy, and Orleans, and Bourbon and Brittany; and, God save King Louis, into groups of Celts and Normans and Chouans and Gaul and Huguenots.

In Germany, there was not much left, for that country had taken the brunt of much of the nuclear warheads. But a few survived, and they raised their heads out of the rubble and ashes and roaming mutants and thought: There is no God, not the God we were taught to believe in and worship and praise. For if God did exist, He surely would not have permitted this. And there, as in so many other once-prosperous and reasonably civilized nations, statues and man-made Baal-like places and objects of worship began to spring up throughout the countryside, in basements and caves and underground burrows now inhabited by human beings; they would be called the Children of the Darkness. And they would worship the Prince of Flies, the King of Beasts, Lord of Filth-Satan.

Around the world, in Peru, India, Italy, Holland, Hawaii, all around the war-torn globe, many of the survivors began worshipping a false god, in the mistaken belief that they had displeased him or her in some manner, and it was now time for them to make amends … in some way.

In many cases, the amends were of the sacrificial nature-human beings.

Civilization was crumbling. Not yet dissolved-many years would pass before that would happen, many more battles involving Ben Raines and his

descendants. Civilization was not finished, but well on its way if something or someone did not step forward to take the reins of responsibility in a firm hand, provide direction and leadership and replace myth with truth, ignorance with knowledge, hate with love and compassion and justice. But that man had his hands full at the moment.

It was the third full day of fighting. Why the phrase came to Ben, he could not understand, for he had no idea yet that the enemy was beaten. But Perry’s message to General Harrison leaped into his mind: We have met the enemy, and they are ours.

I hope, Ben silently thought.

At that moment, a mortar shell burst very close to Ben’s bunker. The ground shook with a fury, sending bits of dirt and dust floating down into the hastily dug and sandbagged bunker. Ben did not flinch. He continued gazing at the battleground through field glasses.

Lt. Mary Macklin and Sgt. Buck Osgood could but look at each other and shake their heads. Ben Raines’s courage was unshakeable and unbelievable.

A sniper from the IPF lines began shooting, several slugs whining through the small opening in the reinforced sandbags.

Ben calmly turned and spoke to Mary. “Mary, have someone neutralize that long-distance shooter, will you?”

Mary’s hands were shaking as she rang up the mortar teams and called in the coordinates Buck gave her.

Mortar rounds began fluttering overhead as several

teams walked the rounds in, both from the north and the south.

The sniper was neutralized.

Ben was certainly no coward, though he did know the taste of fear on his tongue. But also knew that to show any cowardice in the face of fire would be highly demoralizing to his people. Therefore, he did not.

“Get me heavy artillery on the horn, Mary,” Ben ordered.

The colonel on the line, Ben spoke into his headset. “Let’s do it again, Bert. And this time let’s give them everything we’ve got. 105’s, 155’s, 90mm, 152’s, 81mm, and Shillilaghs. Keep pounding them until the metal gets so hot rounds are in danger. Keep pounding them until I give the order to stop. We’ve pounded their brains out for two-and-a-half days, let’s give them some more. Commence firing in one minute.”

It was as if the battered troops of the IPF knew something hot and heavy and lethal was in the wind, for the battleground fell strangely silent as Ben’s troops dug in deeper for the barrage.

The booming began from the rear of Ben’s Rebel lines. Within seconds, the landscape in front of them was transformed from a peaceful country scene to one out of the mind of a raging psychopath in the final grips of destructive madness.

Huge trees were flung into the air, as if ripped from the ground and hurled about by a giant child in a fit of temper. Vehicles and human beings were ripped apart and thrown high into the air amid an assortment of arms and tires and legs and fenders and severed heads and axles.

“Order all troops to prepare for chemicals,” Ben spoke into his headset.

The countryside became quiet, with only the moaning of the wounded and the smoke to remind anyone of the battle just past.

The battle just seconds away would be much quieter, but much hideous in the pain and suffering it would wreak.

“Now,” Ben said.

Moments later, the air was once again filled with the sounds of incoming death, as chemical warfare began from the side of the Rebels. The faint screaming and shrieking of the IPF troops could be heard as the acid and mustard and modified nerve gas touched living tissue and burned and ravaged and destroyed the flesh and the eyes and the organs of the IPF troops across the ripped and smoking and wasted no-man’s-land.

“High explosives,” Ben ordered. “Every third round white phosphorous.”

Then the screams of the IPF personnel began in bone-chilling earnest as the WP rounds began dropping, the burning shards of phosphorous searing the flesh and burning to the bone and beyond.

Then the Shillelaghs began seeking targets, the missiles destroying anything they were locked onto during their fiery journey.

As the bearded, robed old man called the Prophet had told Gale, “It was not a war of great magnitude.”

But it was enough for the IPF. With a bitter taste in his mouth, and an oath on his lips, General Striganov ordered his people to retreat.

Just seconds after Ben saw what was happening through his binoculars, he jerked off his headset and ran out of the bunker, startling Mary and Buck.

Ben yelled, “Spearheaders go-go-Go!”

With Colonel Gray’s Scouts and the LETTERRP’S leading the way, the Rebels charged across the no-man’s-land, screaming their rage and fury at the retreating forces of the IPF.

“Keep the rounds in front of the IPF!” Ben yelled back to the bunker. “Call it in. Drive the bastards back to meet us.”

The heavy artillery and mortar crews lifted their cannon and tubes and adjusted klicks. A barrage of explosives landed in front of the retreating IPF troops, forcing them to turn around and face the advancing Rebels charging toward them.

Six thousand troops of Striganov’s IPF had initially faced the men and women of the Rebels on the four sides of the battleground. Just over three thousand IPF troops had been killed in the first few days of fighting. As the IPF were slowly pushed and forced into a small valley just north of Highway 136 in northern Missouri where they took the heaviest casualties to date. The Rebels closed the pinchers and began the final slaughter of the master race.

It was not quite Gen. Georgi Striganov’s Armageddon, but it was to be the last battle for more than ninety-five percent of the troops facing Ben Raines’s Rebels.

Many of the surviving IPF troops were already leery about fighting the Rebels, for they had heard all the stories about Ben Raines’s supposedly supernatural powers, about him being something of a god, about his abilities to face death down.

Of course, outwardly they scoffed and made jokes about that. But for many, inwardly, they weren’t so certain.

When the troops of the IPF turned to face the advancing Rebels, fear sprang into their hearts. For the “pure master race” of supermen and superwomen found themselves facing blacks, whites, Indians, Jews, Hispanics, Orientals and practically every other race of people known to exist on the face of the earth.

And they saw pure hate in the eyes of the Rebels. They saw the silvery glint of cold steel affixed to the weapons, the long bayonets gleaming in the cool fall sunlight. For most of the IPF troops, that would be the last thing they would ever see.

The IPF was forced to fight rage against what they stood for, love of country and a fierce dedication to justice and personal liberty, and an almost fanatical loyalty toward Ben Raines. And the IPF knew, to a person, they were beaten.

Miles away, heading back north to safety, Gen. Georgi Striganov sat slumped in the cushioned comfortable security of his armored car. He had tried to direct the operation from the rear, knowing that it was a mistake, but one he felt he had to make, one his advisors had practically insisted upon. He was safe, yes, but his best troops had been wiped out.

His thoughts were as ugly as the bitter taste lying sour on his tongue.

Using the radio in his armored car, Striganov called in to his HQ. “Evacuate west,” he said tersely. “Until I arrive, Colonel Fechnor is in charge. I want plan B put into effect at once. Move all personnel and equipment west into the Oregon, Washington and Northern California areas. Order all troops from Iceland to commence their sea journey to America-utilize the long

route for safety. Transport the experimental minorities with care, for the females are not far from birthing. Put the evacuation plan into effect immediately.”

The Russian sank back into his seat. “Goddamn Ben Raines,” he cursed. “Goddamn his soul to the pits of hell!”

To hell! he thought. To hell? He shook away the thought of any punishment after death. He didn’t believe in that myth.

Or… did he?

“What do you want done with the prisoners, General?” Colonel Gray asked Ben. It was a useless question, for the Englishman knew perfectly well what Ben’s reply would be.

Ben looked at him. His smile was grim: a slight upturning of one corner of his mouth. His eyes were bleak. “Shoot them,” he said.

The Englishman nodded and turned away.

“Gather and inventory all weapons and equipment,” Ben ordered. “We’re going to need it.”

A thin cover of smoke lay over the little valley of death. Bodies were piled on top of bodies as the Rebels moved into the carnage, stripping the dead of anything they might find useful.

“Tell our engineers to bring earth scrapers in here,” Ben told Lieutenant Macklin. “And scoop out mass graves for the IPF.”

She walked away, happy to be leaving the immediate area, for the stink of the dead and mangled bodies was ugly to her nostrils.

Ike appeared at Ben’s side. Ben glanced at him. The

stocky ex-navy SEAL had come through the fight unscathed. Ike wore a long face.

“What’s up, Ike?”

“Hector’s dead, Ben. He took a round right through the head.”

Ben sighed heavily. Another friend lost. Hector Ramos now joined all the others who had died to defend liberty. “I’m sorry, Ike. Hec was a friend of mine, too. Have him buried apart from those bastards.” Ben jerked his thumb toward the piles of dead IPF troops. Something told him that Ike was not through with his report. “All right, ol’ buddy. Drop the other shoe.”

“OK, Ben, but it ain’t good. Prelims show we took a thirty percent loss. Another four hundred too badly hurt to fight. We lost twenty tanks to suicide teams from the IPF, six mortar carriers. One long torn completely out of it, another that will have to have major repairs. One PUFF was shot down, all aboard dead. Two spotter planes down-crews still missing, presumed dead.

“In other words, we’ve got about eighteen hundred troops still able to fight?”

“That’s stretching it, Ben. Make it fifteen hundred. Be more like it. And some of them are more badly wounded than they want us to know.”

“Very well,” Ben said, mentally tallying up the troops still able to fight. “So what it boils down to is this: Pursuit is out of the question.”

“Nil,” Cecil said, walking up. He had commanded the west flank. “The last intelligence report we received stated that Striganov had at least another six to eight thousand troops in reserve-but not all of them on American soil. We may have the spirit and the

cause, but Striganov simply and flatly has us outgunned and out-manned the way we are.”

“Stopped dead in the water,” Ben mused. “At least for a time.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “I’m betting Striganov and his people won’t stay in the North. I’m betting he’s already given orders to pull out and relocate. But where?”

“To the west,” Juan said. He and his people had just pulled in from their positions on the west side of the Mississippi River, just above that area defended by Ike’s Rebels. “Or to the south. I think those are the only two logical moves left him. You said some time back, Ben, the Russian would probably have eyes and ears out and know we are planning a move to the east. He couldn’t move into the once-heavily-industrialized Northeast, for those areas-many of them-will be hot for another thousand years. He certainly would know the work you people did in the new Tri-States, the building and the cultivation of crop-lands. He might go there, but I’m hunch-betting he’s pulling out to the west.”

“California, Oregon, Washington areas, maybe,” Ben said, more to himself than to the others. “Putting as much distance between us as possible, knowing we would be very much overextended by attacking his people with that much of a supply gap between us.”

“Yeah,” Ike said, spitting a stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “And with three thousand miles separating our base camp from the Russian, we’ll be in a hell of a bind as far as supplies went. You’re right, Ben.”

Ben thought of Gale, and how she would take this news. “Mary?”

Lieutenant Macklin stepped forward. “Sir?” She had delivered Ben’s orders to the engineers and returned.

“Mary, have Colonel Gray send out teams of LETTERRP’S. Stay well south of the IPF column but give us daily radio communiqu`es as to their progress. Juan, radio your people in New Mexico and Arizona, warn them the IPF is heading west. Maybe that news will help them find their courage and get them to fight.”

“Don’t count on it, Ben,” Juan warned.

“I’m not. Mary, have Colonel Gray ask for volunteers for a hit and rescue mission on Striganov’s HQ up north. I want it mounted quickly, while the IPF is in a mild state of panic and confusion, getting ready for a massive pull-out west. I want them to rescue as many of the captives as possible.

“All right, people, here it is. We are going to stay put for a time. Let Striganov think we’re here to stay in this area. It just might confuse him. I doubt it, but there is always a chance. Let’s get to the job of burying our dead.”

Ike stood by Ben’s side as the others left. The two men stood side by side, gazing out at the smoke drifting up from the torn landscape.

“Kinda reminds you of things past, doesn’t it, Ben?”

“Yes,” Ben replied quietly, his thoughts flying back over the years. “Yes, it does.”

The battle for Tri-States took thirty-five days. Just over a month of savage fighting. Ben’s people quickly resorted to guerrilla tactics and scattered. Ben’s Rebels hit hard and ran, and they booby-trapped everything.

The government troops who stormed Tri-States soon learned what hell must be like. Everything they touched either blew up, shot at them, bit them or poisoned them.

Earlier, the medical people in Tri-States had discovered packs of rabid animals and captured them, keeping them alive as long as possible, transferring the infected cultures into the bloodstreams of every warm-blooded animal they could find. The day the invasion began, the rabid animals were turned loose on the government troops. It was cruel. But isn’t war always?

The government troops began their search and destroy missions. They entered hospitals and nursing homes but the patients had been armed. The very old and the very sick and dying fought just as savagely as the young and strong and healthy. For those people who chose to live in Ben Raines’s Tri-States wanted only to be left alone, to live their lives as they saw fit. And they would fight to the death for that right. And did.

Old people, with tubes hanging from their bodies, some barely able to crawl, hurled grenades and shot at the government troops who had invaded them. And the young men in their jump boots and berets wept as they killed the old people. Tough marines cried at the carnage.

Many of the young government troops threw down their weapons and walked away, refusing to take part in any more killing. Not cowardice on their part-these young men would have fought to the death against any threat to liberty, but the people of Ben Raines’s Tri-States had threatened no one’s liberty. All

they wanted was the right to live and work and play in peace and personal freedom-and to govern themselves as they saw fit, infringing on no law-abiding citizen’s rights.

Many of the young government troops deserted to join the Rebels; many were shot by their own officers for refusing to fight against a group of Americans whom they believed had done no wrong.

The universal soldier syndrome came home to many of the government troops: without us, you can’t have a war.

And the children of the Rebels, they fought as well and as bravely as the older, more experienced Rebels. Some as young as ten and twelve stood with weapons and fought it out with the government troops … wondering why, because they thought they were Americans. The children hid with sniper rifles and had to be hunted down and killed. A battered and bleeding little girl might just hand a medic a live grenade and die with him.

Rightly or wrongly, Ben Raines’s decision to school the young of Tri-States in the tactics of war had been driven home. They had been taught for as long as Tri-States stood-nine years-to defend their country, their beliefs, and that is what they did.

The hospital finally had to be blown up with artillery rounds; it was unsafe to enter because the patients were armed and ready to die for Ben Raines and his form of government. Everywhere the U.s. troops turned, something blew up in their faces. With thousands of tons of explosives to work with, the Rebels had wired everything possible to explode.

Tri-States began to stink like an open cesspool. The

U.s. troops were forced to kill every warm-blooded animal they saw. There was no way of knowing what animals had been infected, not in the early stages. The government troops became very wary about entering buildings, not only because of the risk of a door being wired to blow, but because the Rebels had begun placing rabid animals in houses, locking them in. A dog or a cat is a terrible thing to witness leaping at a person, snarling and hissing and foaming from the jaws.

U.s. troops could not drink the water in Tri-States. Doctor Chase had infected it with everything from cholera to forms of anthrax.

There were no finely drawn battle lines in this war, no safe sectors for the U.s. troops. The Rebels did not retreat in any given direction, leaving that section clean. They would pull back, then go left or right and circle around, flanking the government troops, harassing and confusing them, slitting a throat along the way. For the Rebels knew this territory. For nine years they had been training for this, and they were experts at their jobs.

The bloody climax came when the government troops could not even remotely consider taking prisoners; they could not risk a Rebel, of any age or sex, getting that close to them.

Then the directive came down the chain of command, beginning at the White House, from the mouth of President Hilton Logan: total extermination.

For many, this was the first time for actual combat. The first time to taste the highs and lows of war. And there are highs in combat. The first taking of a human life-all the training in the world will not prepare a person for that moment.

Sometimes in combat, the mind will turn off, and a soldier will do things to survive without realizing he is doing them or remembering afterward. Rote training takes over.

Fire until you hear the ping or plop of the firing pin striking nothing. Fresh clip in. Resume firing, aiming at the thickest part of the enemy’s body. Your weapon is jammed. Clear it, cuss it, grab one from your dead buddy. Fire through the tears and the sweat and the dirt.

Sometimes a soldier will fire his weapon until it’s empty and never reload, so caught up is he in the heat and horror. He is killing the enemy with imaginary bullets.

You can’t think. Too much noise. Don’t even try to think. Kill the enemy. An hour becomes a minute; a minute is forever. God, will it never end. No! don’t let it end. The high is terrific. Kind of like a woman moaning beneath you, approaching climax.

One soon learns the truth: You didn’t cum-you shit your pants.

And when did it start raining red? Thick red.

You imagine yourself indestructible. They can’t kill you. Laugh in the face of death. Howl at the Reaper. A man running for cover is decapitated by a mortar round. The headless, nonhuman-appearing thing runs on for twenty more yards, flapping its arms in a hideous silent ballet, the music provided by machine guns, the applause the sound of screaming. In your head. It’s you, but you don’t know that. Look at the headless man. Fascinated. It falls down. St.

Someone else is trying to stuff yards of guts back into his belly. He falls down, screams, dies. Good. At

least it shut the son of a bitch up. His guts are steaming in the cool air.

God, you shot a woman. It’s a good hit. The cunt falls funny, kind of limp and boneless.

Then the thought comes to you: How long has it been since you’ve had any pussy?

What a time to be thinking of that.

Turn to speak to your buddy, just a few feet away, in a ditch. That red rain you felt? That was his blood. He’s still alive, but just barely. The blood is really gushing out. No time to worry about the dying. You’ve got to concentrate on staying alive.

Eyes smart and sting from the smoke and dust of battle. Get it all together, pal, “cause here come the enemy. Close.

There is that dude from Bravo Company, the one who used to brag about all the pussy he got. He won’t be getting any more. Took a slug right between the eyes. All that yuk leaking out of his head.

Suddenly, too quickly, you’re mixing it up hand to hand. This is stupid; the enemy looks just like you. His mouth is open, his eyes are wide with a combination of fear and excitement, and he is dirty and smells bad. Your eyes meet. Brains send the message. Kill.

You’re off your knees. (how did I get on my knees? What the fuck was I doing, praying?) Legs support you. You’re going to be all right.

Squeeze the trigger. The enemy is dead. No, he isn’t! The goddamn rifle is empty! Slam the butt of the M-16 into his balls. He doubles over, puking. Bring the butt down on his neck and pray the goddamn plastic stock doesn’t break. If it’s from Mattel, it’s swell. Hear the neck pop. He’s dead. A fresh clip in the weapon.

Shoot him just to be sure.

Turn in a crouch, trying to suck air into your lungs, can’t get enough air. Another Rebel has just killed that guy … what’s his name? Third platoon. You notice the strangest things. The guy needs a shave. Force your bayonet into the Rebel’s back. (when did you fix the bayonet on the lug?) Damn-it’s not as easy as in the movies; the guy is screaming and jerking around and pissing on himself. Oh, shit! The bayonet is stuck in the guy’s back. Blow it free. There it is.

Suddenly, you’re on the ground, flat on your back. How’d that happen? Am I hit? Oh, God! Don’t let my balls be gone!

“Get up, you yellow son of a bitch!” a sergeant is yelling.

Is he yelling at me? Hell, I’m not yellow. I just killed a couple of Rebs. Damn, Sarge, I didn’t get down here deliberately, you know. The sergeant takes a slug in the back. Must have gone right through the spine. He falls funny. You can’t remember his name.

Get to your feet to face the enemy. What is this, a replay? You just did this.

Some troops have captured a Rebel woman, pulling the pants off her. Aw, come on, guys! She’s screaming as they mount her. They’re hurting her. That’s not right, guys; we’re not animals.

“Want some pussy, Jake?”

They’re talking to you, stupid. “No.” Turn away. Don’t have to look at this.

The woman is really screaming in pain.

A man is on the ground. A Rebel. Some government troops are sticking him with bayonets.

“Beg, you mother-fucker!” they yell at him.

“Go to hell!” the Rebel shouts his defiance.

The Old Man said no prisoners. So the Reb is shot. But they didn’t have to shoot him there. He’s screaming in pain.

It’s quiet. You look around you. Is it over? Yeah-almost. Holy-Mother-of-God-Jesus-Fucking -Christ-Almighty! Look at the bodies. All the blood and stuff. Oh, Lord-the sergeant is walking around, shooting the wounded Rebels in the head. Someone tells you that you’re now a sergeant. Battlefield promotion. Somehow it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. You want to scream: “But I don’t want the promotion!” Then suddenly there is a .45 in your hand an you’re stepping through the gore and the pain and the moaning and the pistol is jumping in your hand, ending the moaning and the screaming ands the pain.

No prisoners.

That was the rule on both sides of the conflict.

That woman Reb was still screaming. They were sodomizing her. And calling out crudely as they did so.

You walk away from the sights and sounds of the rape. You could tell them to stop and they would have to. You’re a sergeant. But you don’t want to lose the respect of your men this early in the game. What the hell? She’s only a Rebel. The enemy.

All around you the enemy is lying dead on the ground. And that woman is still screaming. Wish she would shut up.

A Rebel is still alive, shot hard in the chest. He’s looking up at you, defiance in his eyes. You shoot him in the head and try not to look at the wedding band on his left hand, third finger. Maybe that was his wife the guys are screwing up the ass.

Don’t think about that.

Rationalize the situation. Look, you say silently to the dead man, don’t blame me. I’m just following orders, man.

The enemy is defeated, most dead, and it’s just too quiet around here. Somebody say something. But everybody you look at averts their eyes. Guys are breathing too hard; somebody tosses his breakfast, puking on the ground. Someone else is praying. The Lord’s Prayer. You feel like laughing. Man … you think God is listening to this shit? “It’s too goddamned quiet!”

You spin around. “Who said that?” you demand in a harsh voice.

Nobody will answer.

Our Father which art in Heaven …

A Rebel is moaning in pain.

Hallowed be Thy name…

You point to the Rebel. “Shoot him!” you order.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done… Bam!

The gunshot is so goddamned loud.

In earth, as it is in Heaven …

There is a guy from your platoon, kneeling, holding a tiny, blue-colored bird in his dirty hand.

Give us this day our daily bread …

The bird is dead.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…

Everybody gathered around to look at the bird. No one speaks. It’s quiet.

And lead us not into temptation …

There isn’t a mark on the bird. No blood. Seems

funny to see something with no blood on it. Wonder what killed the bird?

But deliver us from evil…

“Hey, Sarge?”

“Yeah?” Your voice sounds funny. Odd.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power …

“You know what, Sarge?”

And the glory…

“What?”

Forever…

“We won.”

Amen.

CHAPTER THREE

Gale was silent for a time that evening of the IPF’S first major defeat on American soil. Then, after an hour had passed, with Ben leaving her alone to work it all out in her mind, she came to him.

She stood looking at him for a moment before speaking. “We did the best we could, didn’t we, Ben? I mean, the fighting?”

“Better than I thought we’d do, Gale. Better than I could ever imagine, in fact.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No.”

“Your people-our people, the Rebels-they knew they would suffer losses, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“But still they laid their lives on the line for people they had never met?”

“That is correct.”

There were tears in her eyes as she said, “Then I won’t nag you about it again, about doing anything else.”

“It isn’t over, Gale. We haven’t given up. I have teams moving to the north right this minute, to rescue as many people as possible. But what we have to do is recoup and rest, plan our next move carefully. We’ll eventually beat Striganov-I’m sure of that-but we just can’t do it now.”

“We’ll always be fighting, won’t we, Ben? I mean, fighting somebody or something?”

“It looks that way, Gale.”