177 ASHES

zens are seeing only the immediate relief. It’s their state, they have the right to choose the type of government they wish to live under. We’re doing the humanitarian thing this trip.”

“But someday we’ll have to come back and kick ass, boss,” Jersey said.

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so, Jersey. Once we’ve put this trip to the Northeast behind us, I have no plans of ever returning. If the people in these areas want to bankrupt themselves with the same old legal and social systems they had before, that’s their business. In a few months, I’m convinced we’re going to have our hands full dealing with Simon Border. After that… ?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t envision us ever coming back up here. Not in this role anyway.”

The team exchanged glances and smiles. They knew what Ben meant. If they had to come back, it would not be in the role of humanitarian.

Three weeks after Ben and his 1 Batt pulled out of the ruins of Manhattan, Mike Richards caught up with the column.

“The Northeast is clean,” he informed Ben. “The damn gangs are gone. I’m convinced they’ve broken up into very small groups and are laying low until we leave.”

“Something I plan to do before the summer is over.” Ben’s words were offered very drily.

Mike smiled. “What’s the matter, Ben? Aren’tyou receiving a warm friendly reception?”

“On the contrary, the people have been very nice. But somebody has duped them into believing the worst is over. I personally think they’re in for a very rude surprise.”

“So do I. Once you pull all your people out. But when you get up into Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine?” Mike

 

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shook his head. “Those are tough people, Ben. Pioneer stock. Oh, there are some cry-baby liberals among them, but not too many.”

“What do you hear from those states, Mike?”

“Not much. The cities are a mess, but out in the rural areas the folks are doing all right. Not great, but making it. Very self-sufficient folks in those areas.”

“And you and your people saw to it they know we’re on the way?”

“You bet.”

“Their response?”

“Welcome with open arms. They don’t necessarily want to join us politically, but they’re not our enemies.” Mike smiled. “Besides, it’s awful pretty country. And it damn sure beats getting shot at.”

“First we have to get through Massachusetts,” Ben reminded him.

“Or what’s left of it.”

“True.”

“What are your plans for the ruins of Boston?”

“I have no plans for that city or any other city. I’m through with the cities, Mike. We’ll do our best to stabilize the countryside. If the people in the rural areas want to deal with the crud and the crap in the ruins of the cities, that’s up to them. I’m not going to waste another Rebel life in the damn rubble of the cities. Not the major cities, anyway.”

“Was it that bad for you trapped in the ruins, Ben?”

“No. Not really. But I did have a chance to do some thinking. It isn’t our fight, Mike. If these people here in the northeast were aligning with us, then that would be a different story. But for the most part, they’re choosing to stay with the old system, even though they should know by now it didn’t work. By their choosing the old way, that makes it their fight, not ours. I think, medically speaking,

 

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we do have an obligation to treat the sick wherever we can. If they’ll let us. That is for our good as well as theirs. But as far as I’m concerned, it ends there.”

Mike stood up. “That’s the way I see it, too. What about Simon Border, Ben?”

“I need to know everything there is to know about the man and his army.”

“I’ 11 get right on it. Well, enjoy your stay in the Northeast, Ben. I’ll catch up with you.”

Ben nodded and Mike was gone out the door.

Jersey appeared in the open doorway. “We going to kick Simon Border’s ass, boss?”

‘ ‘Probably, Jersey.”

“A religious war, boss?”

“Simon will surely call it that.”

“I wonder what history will call it?”

Ben smiled. “Historians will surely paint us as the bad guys, Jersey. I think we’ve already seen to that.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke!”

Ben was still laughing when the rest of his team stuck their heads into the room to see what in the world was going on.

 

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Ben and his people stayed well away from the ruins of Boston, heading toward New Hampshire on Interstate 495. Buddy sent some of his special ops people in to look over the city and they reported back about what Ben thought they would.

“About 5,000 or so people in the ruins, Father,” Buddy said. “That’s just an estimate, of course.”

“Close enough for government work, boy.”

“What?”

“Nothing, son. Just an old expression you wouldn’t be familiar with. Any punks in the city?”

“No, sir.”

“Any creepies?”

The handsome young man shook his head.

“No punks, no creeps,” Ben muttered. “Where the hell did they go?”

‘ ‘They certainly didn’t head south. They didn’t go north, for the Canadian militia is guarding all possible crossing

 

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sites. Scouts report that they didn’t go east. So that leaves only one direction open.”

“Simon Border double-crossed them once. They’re not stupid enough to fall for his line again.”

“I wouldn’t think so. But he’s a very convincing man, right?”

“Yes. He is. He conned thousands into following him west.”

“Then perhaps he did convince them to return.”

“The West is a vast country,” Anna said. “According to what I have read. Much of it unpopulated. Correct?”

“You’re right, Anna,” Buddy said. “Even more so now.”

Ben groaned. “Don’t tell me you think the punks might have gone to the ruins of Los Angeles and Southern California.”

“It’s certainly a possibility.”

“Hell, we left that in worse shape than we did New York!”

“I’d opt for the deserts and the mountains.” Jersey spoke up. “Lots of little towns dotted all over die place.”

“You mean you think the punks turned over a new leaf and went straight?” Ben asked.

“Not necessarily,” his son answered. “In this, the aftermath of the greatest disaster ever to strike the earth, what would a certain type of weak-willed, even lower-charactered person be looking for, odier tiian food?”

Ben thought for a moment, then grimaced. “Oh, no, boy! Don’t tell me that!”

“What?” Anna asked.

“Drugs,” Beth said. “I think Buddy’s got it, boss.”

Corrie walked into the room holding half a dozen blown-up photos. There was a very puzzled look on her face. “Boss, we just got this transmission from Base Camp One. It’s from several satellite passovers taken over the past few days.”

 

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“What is it?”

“Motorcycles and dune buggies. Hundreds of them. All heading west. But not all together. They reached a certain point, then split up.”

Ben looked at each of the photos for a moment, then flung them on the table in disgust. “Ray Brown is smarter than I thought. He had a secondary plan to fall back on. They hid motorcycles, dune buggies, alternate transportation, all over the place as they moved east. But why? Why even go east in the first place if they felt they were going to lose?”

No one had an immediate answer to that and neither did Ben.

“Diversion?” Jersey finally tossed the word out.

“From what? For what?” Ben asked.

“Maybe just to get us out of the center of the country, Father,” Buddy said.

“All right, let’s play that one out. Why would they want us out of the center of the country?”

No one replied and Ben finally shook his head and stood up, glancing down at the photos. “Oh, to hell with it. The punks slipped out of the net and are heading west. We know that much for fact. Maybe Simon Border’s people will deal with them and that will mean one less problem for us.”

“So we continue on with our humanitarian efforts?” Buddy asked.

“That’s why we’re here, son.”

The Rebels moved on. They cleaned up airports and the big transports from the SUSA came roaring in, bringing medical supplies. In the SUSA, factories and research labs were running around the clock, producing medicines for the Rebels to distribute in the North and East.

 

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Ben ordered leaflets dropped all over the Northeast, telling the citizens the Rebels were on the way and giving the locations and the approximate times they would be there.

Ben told his political officers to stand down and ceased all talk of anyone becoming a part of the SUSA. He wanted only to finish the job they’d started. The majority of the people they met and treated were friendly and open and glad to see the Rebels. Reporters from various small newspapers that had been springing up all over the eastern United States caught up with the columns and in general stayed out of the way, letting the Rebels work. After a couple of minor confrontations, those few reporters with a penchant for being obnoxious stayed clear of the Rebels. They learned very quickly that when they were told to get the hell out of the way, the Rebels weren’t kidding, and they backed up their warnings rather violently.

West of the Mississippi River, Simon Border’s people had either purged the “undesirables” from their territory or had demoralized them to the point where any dissidents were no longer a problem.

Only a few SUSA supporters were still active in the areas under solid control of Simon Border forces, with the exception of the Mormons. For a time it looked as if Simon would leave any Mormon-controlled area alone, but that soon proved to be false. The state of Utah was now completely surrounded by Border’s troops and nothing got in or out… so far.

“The man is a bigger fool than I first thought,” Ben said. “Corrie, get some people in there and see what we can do to assist the Mormons. Let me rephrase that-see if the Mormons want our help. No strings attached.”

“What’s that lunatic got against the Mormons?” Jersey asked.

“Simon Border is against anyone who does not com-

 

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pletely subscribe to his wacky ideas of religion and worship.”

“I thought he was going to try to work with us?” Cooper asked.

“Simon lies,” Ben told him. “He lies when the truth would serve him better.”

Ben took a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “We got diis early this morning. Our people in Simon’s territory think something is up … involving us.”

“But Simon has signed a non-aggression pact with us!” Buddy protested.

Ben smiled. “That document isn’t worth die paper it’s printed on, son. We knew that all along. I told you that someday we’d have to fight Simon and his people.”

A runner from communications came into the room and handed Ben a communique. Ben quickly read it, then grunted. “Simon’s been quietly recruiting people outside his territory. He’s managed to convince thousands of ultra-religious people-of the very fanatical, offrthe-wall types-to come over and join him.”

“And tihat means… ?” Buddy asked.

“We wrap it up here as quickly as possible and start backtracking, taking the shortest routes.”

“And run head-on into a religious war, Father?”

“I don’t want one, son, that’s for sure. But I’ve warned Simon to keep his nutty people west of the Mississippi. He agreed and also agreed to leave Utah alone. He’s broken every promise he ever made to me.” Ben shrugged. “Which I expected him to do.”

“President Altaian has managed to put together something of an army,” Beth said. “The people we left behind as advisors say they’re looking pretty good. It’s a small force, but growing.”

“It isn’t growing fast enough,” Ben replied. “The NUSA will never have much of an army because the goddamn

 

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liberals will never permit it to grow to any size. And whatever kind of police they finally do put in place will have their hands tied from the git-go.” He grimaced. “Probably won’t even allow them to carry guns.”

Ben’s team, including the usually straight-faced Buddy, all had to struggle to hide their grins. To say that Ben Raines had absolutely no use for cry-baby liberals was the same as saying a mule was stubborn.

“So we’ll have to go back and clean out the punks and crud again,” Jersey remarked. “So what else is new?”

“Simon Border and his people, Jersey,” Ben replied. “I don’t want us to get bogged down in a religious war. That is the absolute last thing I want. But I don’t see any way to avoid it.”

“Talk about history giving us a black mark,” Cooper said. “That will sure do it.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, Coop,” Ben agreed. “Well… let’s get our humanitarian work done, and then we’ll deal with the Most Reverend Simon Border.”

“The word I get is that he’ll screw anything that will stand still or lie down long enough,” Jersey said. “How the hell can people fall for anything that comes out of the mouth of someone like that?”

Ben laughed. “Oh, Jersey, back before the Great War, there were any number of TV preachers just as bad as Simon Border. The airwaves were filled with them. There was one in particular I used to enjoy watching occasionally.”

Buddy’s mouth dropped open. “You enjoyed watching him, Father?”

“Oh, sure. Hell, he’d get the spirit and start speaking in strange tongues and doing the heebie-jeebie and the mashed potato and the twist and the slop-bop, jumping all over the stage. He was quite a sight to see.”

“Whatever happened to him?” Beth asked.

 

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“Some husband caught him in bed with both his wife and his 13-year-old daughter and shot him five times in the ass. He survived the shooting, but I don’t know what happened to him after that.” Ben waited until the laughter had died down. “I did hear that it messed up his dancing somewhat.”

Ben didn’t believe for a minute that all the criminal element had pulled out of the Northeast. What he did believe was that they were in hiding, lying low until the Rebels passed through. Then they would resurface.

It’s not our problem, Ben thought. The citizens can deed with it. And if they don’t want to deal with it, then that’s their problem.

The Rebels stopped and offered medical treatment to every community who wanted it. If the people were reluctant to accept it, the Rebels moved on without another word. Ben had ordered his people not to discuss politics unless the townspeople brought it up … and most didn’t.

It was so boring and so uneventful that most of the reporters who had been following the various Rebel battalions went back home. While waiting at what was left of an airport for supplies in northern Massachusetts, Mike Richards once more rejoined the column. He had been gone for a month.

“You were right, Ben,” the spook said. “Simon Border is preparing for war against us.”

Ben sighed. “Why, Mike?”

“Because you and the Rebels are godless, that’s why. According to Simon, the SUSA is nothing more than a huge den of sin. If the United States is ever to be whole and moral and God-fearing, the SUSA must be destroyed.”

“I’m sure he’s telling his followers and faithful that God told him all that.”

 

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“Right. The man has visions where he actually talks with God.”

“I seem to remember that another fellow, Jethro Jim Bob Musseldine, had similar visions.”

“Jethro didn’t have 20 million or so followers, Ben, all ready to do battle with the Great Satan.”

“The great satan being me?”

“Exacdy.”

“And he’s found 20 million Americans who actually believe that crap?”

“At least in part, Ben. Simon has provided diem with hope. He’s done some good things; we have to admit that. He’s got some very smart people with him. They’ve rebuilt towns and communities and churches, got die sewer and water and lights working, raised crops, and gave the people a sense of worth.”

“I’ll grant you that, and did a good job of it. But add that we didn’t interfere with him doing diat.”

“But we did aid die men and women in die hills and mountains who are fighting him, and Simon knows we did, and knows diat we still are.”

“He’s guessing.”

Mike shook his head. “No, Ben. The man has a pretty good intelligence network. Not yet as good as ours, and never will have because of his lack of satellites, but they’re pretty damn good. I won’t sell diem short.”

Corrie came running into die room, waving a piece of paper.’ ‘Boss! This just in from Cecil. Dozens of kids, maybe hundreds, diey don’t have an accurate count yet, were taken to area hospitals all over die SUSA. But mosdy confined to Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Someone laced die schools’ water supply widi some sort of mind-altering drug. Similar to LSD, but widi much more horrible results. A dozen or more teachers are down as well.”

 

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Ben’s face turned as hard as stone and his eyes became as flint. “Go on,” he muttered darkly.

“Our people killed one man early this morning close to a school when he refused to stop at their command,” Corrie read from the communique. “They’re running both prints and DNA now.”

Mike stood up. “I’m outta here. I’ll bump you from Base Camp One.”

Ben nodded, not trusting his voice to speak.

“Cecil says he’ll contact you as soon as they know more,” Corrie finished it.

Ben cleared his throat. Stood up and walked around the room for a moment. His team had gathered near the door, standing silently. “Down through the years people have done just about everything in the book in an attempt to stop us,” Ben spoke, his words low and holding menace. “But to attack children is just about as vile as an enemy can get”

“Simon Border, boss?” Cooper asked.

“I don’t know, Coop. But you can bet I’m going to find out.”

“Might be Ray Brown, boss,” Jersey said. “We know he got out of the ruins of Manhattan. And we damn sure know he hates you.”

“That was my first thought, Jersey. I believe I read in his dossier that Ray was in trouble for manufacturing drugs just before the Great War, right?”

“Yes, sir. Among other things. I think he was still in the army when the drug thing came up.”

“Pull in 7 and 10 Batts to relieve us here. Order all the rest of our people to stand by to pull out-“

“This might interest you, Father,” Buddy said, walking into the room holding a newspaper.

“Is that Simon Border’s publication?” Ben asked.

“Yes, sir. A front page article. It claims we are brain-

 

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washing children in the SUSA and by the time they are six or seven years old, they are beyond rehabilitation. It further states that since nits grow into lice, people of all ages living within the borders of the SUSA should be considered the enemy. There is more, but you get the general idea.”

“I sure do, son. I think we are going to find that Simon has elected to shake hands with the devil in order to try to defeat us-the devil being the punks that escaped from the East. Corrie, as soon as my suspicions are confirmed, order full-scale preparations for all-out war against Simon Border. Simon doesn’t realize it, but he just opened Pandora’s Box.”

 

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Ben stayed with his 1 Batt and waited for further word about the events taking place in the SUSA. It was not long in coming.

“Two of the teachers died, Ben,” Cecil told him. “Looks like the kids are going to make it, but the psychiatrists can only guess what’s going to happen further on down the road.”

“Anything on the man killed by the school?”

“He’s been positively ID’d as being part of Ray Brown’s gang. And everything is pointing toward Simon Border allowing the gangs to come in and operate in his claimed territory, just as long as they leave his people alone.”

“That sorry son-of-a-bitch!”

Cecil said nothing. He waited for Ben to finish venting his spleen. And that took awhile, for Ben cussed Simon Border loud and long.

“Close the borders,” Ben finally calmed down enough to say. “Seal them tight. Double the patrols. Place your

 

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battalions on middle alert. I’m on my way. I’ll probably cut west through Arkansas and enter Simon’s territory that way.”

“You’re sure this is what you want to do, Ben?”

“I’m sure it’s the only thing that Simon will understand, Cec. Anybody who deliberately makes war on children is too low to live.”

“Well, you’ll get no argument from me on that. All right, Ben. Give me a progress report from time to time.”

“You know I will, Cec. Eagle out.” He turned to Corrie. “Mount ‘em up, Corrie. We’re out of here.”

When the initial battalions that were to cross over into Simon Border’s territory linked up a few days later, it was an awesome sight. There were five over-strength battalions: Ben’s 1 Batt, Dan’s 3 Batt, Buddy’s 8 Batt, Jackie Malone’s 12 Batt, and Jim Peters’s 14 Batt. The column seemed to stretch out endlessly. People heard the rumbling long before the trucks and Hummers and tanks and self-propelled and towed artillery came into view. They gathered alongside the old highways to watch them pass, waving at the Rebels.

Ben kept to the old interstate system as much as possible, but even with that, the going was slow, for the highways were in terrible shape.

The Rebels experienced no trouble on the way southwest. “This has to be the longest stretch of inaction in our history,” Ben said.

“Boring,” Jersey replied.

“It won’t be once we cross over into Simon’s territory,” Ben warned.

“Suits me, boss.”

Ben was under no illusions about the consequences of crossing over into Simon Border’s claimed territory. The

 

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man had built a powerful army that not only was well-equipped but highly motivated. And Ben had spent more than a few sleepless hours weighing his decision to invade Simon’s territory.

Simon would deny any connection with the deaths of the teachers and the mind-crippling of the kids, and he would be very convincing about it. He would paint the Rebels as the aggressors and any American citizen who disliked the Tri-States philosophy would be more than ready and willing to believe him. Cecil didn’t have to bring that to Ben’s attention; Ben was already well aware of it.

“Any word from Mike?” Ben asked Corrie, as the long column moved through the countryside.

“Not a peep, boss. Not from Mike, nor from any of his people in the field.”

“Nothing from any of the resistance fighters in the mountains?”

“Nothing.”

There were dozens of small groups scattered throughout Simon’s territory who were violently opposed to Simon’s off-the-wall ultra-religious rule. The Rebels supplied them as best they could, but since the guerrilla fighters were constantly on the move, it was hard to know exactly where they were from week to week. They managed to keep some of Simon’s forces busy, but it was more like a man swatting at a pesky mosquito.

If the column made 200 miles a day, they considered that excellent time, for most of the time the roads were so bad, they were lucky to average 20 miles an hour. Equipment breakdowns occurred frequently.

Mike Richards radioed in on the Rebels’ seventh day on the road. “The punks are in the Southwest, Ben. Running west from the Texas-New Mexico border over to the ruins of L.A., and then north up to the Utah-Colorado line. They’re pretty well all over Nevada and in the California

 

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deserts. Mainly located in the ruins of small deserted towns where there is water.”

“They have drug factories going?”

“Affirmative, Ben. All sorts of drugs. I captured one gang member. After a few minutes, he was more than willing to spill his guts …”

Ben didn’t ask how Mike had accomplished that; he really didn’t want to know.

“They’ve worked out some sort of deal with gangs from Mexico, Central America, and South America. They trade women for materials-among other items. Blondes seem to be the favorite this month.”

“Slavers.” Ben spat the word. “Goddamn dopers dealing with goddamn slavers!”

Mike said nothing. He knew how Ben despised both.

“We can’t cover the whole border with troops,” Ben said, after catching his breath. “That’s several thousand miles.”

“Wouldn’t do any good, Ben. They’re flying the junk in and flying the women out.”

“But we can damn sure put our fighter pilots to work, though, can’t we?”

“As long as they get them coming in and not going out,” Mike warned.

“I’ll make sure they understand that. What else can you tell me, Mike?”

“Simon is behind it all. I’ve got that nailed down tight and for a fact. He’s going to deny it until hell freezes over, but everything Ray Brown and the others are doing is with Simon’s approval. The women Ray and the others are swapping for the raw materials to make the drugs are not, according to Simon, ‘Christian women.’ They are, again inhiswords, ‘the devil’s harlots,’ and beyond redemption.”

“That’s very Christian of the sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch,” Ben said, his words leaking acid.

 

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Mike burst out laughing at both Ben’s words and tone. “Sorry, Ben. But I needed that.”

Ben smiled, some of his rage simmering down. “It looks like we’ll be wintering in the desert, Mike.”

“Beats wintering in Maine, Ben. See ya.” Mike broke the connection.

Ben spoke with Cecil, bringing him up to date. He then bumped Thermopolis down at Base Camp One and told him to get his 19 Batt up and equipped for the field … again. Therm, the aging hippie-turned-warrior, and his wife, Rosebud, ran the headquarters battalion, seeing to the resupplying of the entire Rebel Army, logistics, food, everything from panties to ammunition, and the thousand and one other details involved in keeping thousands of troops on the go and ready.

“Emil Hite has attached himself to me, Ben,” Therm warned. “What do you want me to do about him?”

“What does Rosebud have to say about it?” Ben asked, doing his best to keep from chuckling.

“Well, let’s put it this way-the little con artist has promised to behave himself and Rosebud has agreed to give him one more chance.”

“He is amusing to have around, Therm.”

“You want him?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ben was quick to add. “No … I think he’ll probably be an asset to your battalion. You keep him.”

“That’s very big of you.”

‘ ‘I always try to look after the needs of my people, Therm. See you in a couple of weeks.”

Therm mumbled something and broke the connection.

Emil Hite had joined Ben’s Rebels a few years back, promising to renounce his days as a con artist-something no one believed. The little man was a great big pain in the ass, but when the chips were down, he and his band

 

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of followers had proved themselves in combat time after time.

“Let’s head for the New Mexico state line, gang,” Ben told his team.

When Simon Border heard that Ben had turned his army around and was heading west, he immediately went to his sanctuary, fell to his knees, and began fervently praying. He asked God to strike Ben dead with lightning bolts, drown him in a flood, just do something to stop the paganistic godless heathen from reaching Simon’s territory.

When no angels appeared to tell him that Ben had been destroyed, Simon reckoned that he’d just have to do it himself. He put every able-bodied man in his territory on full alert.

“The Great Satan is coming,” he warned his thousands of followers. “Prepare to defend our homeland.”

“We’re going to stay out of Simon’s heavily populated northern areas,” Ben told four batt corns he was taking into Simon’s territory. “Intel has solid evidence that the drug factories are located along the border with Mexico, so that’s where we’ll hit. If Simon doesn’t interfere, and allows us to destroy the drug factories and wipe out the gangs, we’ll leave him alone and get out of his territory once it’s done. If he wants a war-” Ben shrugged his shoulders “-then we’ll give him a war.”

“What about the other battalions?” Jim Peters asked.

“They’ll be stationed along the edge of our territory, ready to come in if needed. Really, I want Simon to see what he’s up against. That may be all it takes to open his eyes.”

“Do you believe it will, Father?” Buddy asked.

 

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“No, son, I don’t. But I want to give the man a chance to back off.”

Dan Gray stood up. “Ben, this is not a holy war. The man is nothing but a two-bit dictator. He’s about as holy as a rattlesnake.”

“In the minds of millions of people, Dan, he’s the next thing to Jesus. And many of those people live outside of Simon’s claimed territory. His movement is nationwide, and it isn’t getting any smaller.”

“How did he happen, general?” Jackie Malone asked. “I mean, what’s wrong with people to fall for a line like his?”

“People became desperate, Jackie. The nation was hammered to its knees twice in only a few years. Many thought perhaps God was signaling them the end was near. Many people lost all hope until they found Simon and his snake-oil message. They needed something to lean on, to prop them up, and Simon provided it.”

“But we were the most stable force in all the world,” Jackie insisted. “We had a working government, schools, hospitals, everything. Yet these people turned their backs on us, and went with a nut like Simon Border.” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand it.”

Ben smiled. “My dad used to say-‘Everyone to their own taste, said the woman who kissed a cow.’ “

Buddy waited until the laugher died down and said, “What is the fascination with drugs, Father? I can appreciate an occasional drink to relax, but to destroy one’s mind with chemicals is beyond my realm of understanding. It’s … stupid.”

“It really started back in the 1960s, son, when I was just a little boy. The peace and love generation. Tune in and drop out, I believe one of the slogans went. A lot of recording artists glorified drug use. As did many of the movies. It was a sad time in our culture. None of you

 

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people, with the exception of Dan and me, were even born then, and we were just little boys. Hell, most of the Rebels weren’t born until years and years later. The government had very ineffective drug prevention programs …”

“Why didn’t the authorities just shoot the dealers?” Ben’s son persisted.

Ben chuckled. “Oh, that, ah, would have suited many Americans just fine, son. And there were countries who did just that. But if we wouldn’t execute murderers, rapists, child molesters, and the like… ?” Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it’s all moot now. Any further questions?”

There were none.

“Well, let’s go to war, people.”

 

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Ben carefully studied the terrain through binoculars. He could see nothing out of the ordinary, which he knew meant absolutely nothing. There might be hundreds of enemy troops waiting in ambush.

“Scouts report nothing, boss,” Corrie said. “No signs of life whatsoever.”

The Rebel convoy was stopped just inside the Oklahoma line, on old Highway 70. Arkansas lay a few miles behind them. The Red River flowed silently on just to the south of them.

“How far in are they?”

“What is left of Broken Bow. No signs of life in the town.”

“About 4,500 people lived there before the Great War,” Beth said. “Next town of any size is Idabel.”

“We may be too close to the Texas line for Simon’s people to give us any trouble. I’m thinking he settled his

 

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people some miles north of the line. We’ll soon know. Let’s push on. Mount up, people.”

Idabel was a silent and deserted ruin, utterly devoid of human life. The town had been looted and picked over so many times that nothing remained. The column pushed on.

The Rebels bivouacked that night in the ruins of Hugo, another once bustling and prosperous town. Now it was home to only the sighing of the wind and whatever ghosts might have chosen to remain among its looted buildings.

“Place is spooky,” Cooper said.

“Cooper,” Jersey replied. “You’ve seen hundreds of deserted towns here and halfway around the world. What’s so special about this one?”

“I don’t know. It’s just gives me the creeps, that’s all.”

Ben lifted his head and stared at Cooper for a moment. “What’d you say, Coop?”

“Huh, boss?”

“What did you just say, Coop?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“No, after that?”

“I said … this place gives me the creeps, that’s all.” Coop’s eyes narrowed. “You think… ?”

“Maybe. I’ve been jumpy myself ever since we stopped here. Creeps just might explain why we haven’t seen any people.”

“Oh, crap!” Corrie muttered, reaching for her CAR.

The Rebel battalions were strung out for about 20 miles, with several miles between each battalion, a long and very formidable line.

“Put everybody on alert, Corrie,” Ben ordered. “The shit just may be getting ready to hit the fan. Let’s get over behind those ruins, over there.”

There had been no breeze all afternoon, and it had been hot and dry as summer began waning. Now the air

 

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was beginning to stir with a slight breeze and the moving air brought with it the very faint smell of creepie.

Ben wrinkled his nose. “Smell it, gang?”

They smelled it. Anna said, “Wet sheep shit smells like perfume compared to that.”

Ben smiled. “My, but you do have a way with words, dear.”

‘ ‘Wet sheep shit?” Cooper grimaced, bipodding his SAW and making sure he had another container of ammo ready.

“Thank you,” Anna replied, and checked her CAR, laying out half a dozen 30-round magazines within easy reach.

“All battalions on alert,” Corrie said. “Several sentries have reported what they were sure were sightings, but too far out to be sure.”

“They can be sure,” Ben told her. “Mortar crews ready with IMs?”

“Ready with illumination flares.”

“Batt corns are on their own as to when to drop them in.”

“Affirmative.”

Lightning licked at the sky and thunder rumbled in the distance as a late summer storm built up steam in the West.

“This is liable to get interesting,” Jersey muttered, her words tossed around as the wind picked up.

“At least the bastards will get a bath,” Beth replied.

Jim Peters’s 14 Batt was the easternmost bivouac, miles away from Ben’s 1 Batt. “Batt 14 under attack,” Corrie called.

‘ ‘There must be a lot of the bastards to attack us at this strength,” Cooper said.

“Now we know where the punks and the creeps went,” Ben replied.

“Surely Simon Border didn’t invite tihese cannibals?” Anna questioned.

“No. I doubt that even he would do that,” Ben said.

 

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“Heads up!” Corrie called. “Here they come.”

“IMsup!” Ben said.

The cloudy night was abruptly filled with artificial illumination as the flares soared high and popped.

“They never learn,” Ben muttered, his words too low for anyone else to hear. “Every time they try a frontal assault, we always kick their asses.”

Then there was no time left for conversation as the night became filled with gunfire, screaming and cursing. The dark shapes of the creeps, appearing on the land as giant, hooded roaches, rushed toward the Rebel positions.

The Rebels opened up with everything they had at their disposal, which was awesome. The creepies went down in bits and pieces and bloody chunks of what once was more or less human flesh.

“Keep your eyes open for the bastards to pop out of the ruins,” Ben yelled.

The words had no sooner left his lips when creeps began pouring out of holes they’d dug and then camouflaged in the ruins of the town, waiting patiently for a new food supply to come unsuspectingly along.

Those who were hidden in the ruins died just as surely as their brothers and sisters in perversion who were attacking the town from the weed-grown fields.

The firelight did not last long, although in combat seconds very often seem like minutes and minutes often seem like hours to those caught up in the noisy hell.

The IMs still filling the air with harsh light showed those creeps left alive and able to crawl, stagger or run doing so, away from the ruins of the deserted town, leaving behind them dozens of dead and dying.

Ben popped an empty magazine and slipped home a full one. “Start putting those wounded creeps out of their misery,” he called in a cold voice.

 

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Single, well-placed shots began ringing out in the bloody night.

“Report,” Ben said.

“Except for those few hidden in the ruins, none of the creeps even got close,” Corrie said. “We have no dead, two with non-life-threatening wounds.”

“Not much of a fight,” Anna groused. “I think the creeps are losing their punch.”

“They’re losing their numbers, dear,” Ben corrected. “Over the years we’ve killed thousands of them. And I wouldn’t think their recruitment numbers are all that high.”

“Yeah, I would think they’d have trouble convincing any normal person to join them voluntarily,” Beth added.

“I can just hear the recruitment ads now,” Jersey said. “Come enjoy the pleasures of never taking a bath and dining on raw human flesh. Yuck!” She spat on the ground.

“I don’t think they’ll return,” Ben said. “But double the guards just in case.”

“Reports coming in from other battalions,” Corrie announced. “One dead and a dozen wounded, most of the wounds not serious. Scouts report that while the creeps retreated north and south, they soon cut west.

“Durant’s the next town of any size,” Beth called. “About 15,000 before the Great War.”

“Have fly-bys shown any signs of human life there?” Ben asked.

“Negative, boss. Nothing.”

“So we have the creeps to look forward to from here on in. Wonderful.”

“At least they don’t profess to be something they’re not,” Corrie said. “Unlike Simon Border.”

“For a fact, Corrie,” Ben agreed. “For a fact.”

 

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The Rebels began massive daily daylight airdrops into Utah: medical supplies, food, and weapons, from M-16s to .50-caliber heavy machine guns, artillery pieces and mortars. Ben halted the airdrops only when the commanders of the various Mormon units in Utah radioed that with the new supplies, they could now hold their own against just about anything that Simon might throw at them.

The long Rebel columns moved on the morning after the firefight. They did not take the time to bury the creepie dead.

“Carrion birds have to eat, too,” Ben said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“I hope they don’t get sick and croak afterward,” Jersey replied.

The column made the 50-mile run to Durant and found a dead town.

“It wasn’t until recently,” Ben said, looking over a cemetery filled with relatively recent graves. “I’d say these graves are no more dian a year old.” And in the town’s business district: “Some of these stores have been repainted and fixed up. This was a thriving community until Simon Border and the creeps moved in.”

“Scouts report that the bridge over the lake just west of here is gone,” Corrie said. “At least part of it. We’ll have to detour around it.”

“Did we blow that bridge?” Ben asked. “I don’t remember.”

His team shrugged their shoulders. “Beats me, boss,” Cooper said. “We’ve blown so many.”

Beth had lost many of her valuable journals over the years in ambushes and attacks and could not help either.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ben said. “It’s gone and that’s that.” He laid a map out on the hood of the big wagon. “We’ll

 

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cut north up to this little town at the tip of the lake and bivouac there for the night. Advise the scouts.”

“They’re already heading that way,” Corrie said. “Reporting no trouble and no signs of life.”

“Where the hell did the people go?” Ben muttered. “What happened to them?”

The wind sighed its unreadable reply and Ben knew that was about as much answer as he was ever likely to get. He didn’t like to think the creeps got them, but realized that was an option he had to consider.

“You better come see this, general,” a Rebel said, running up to Ben’s side. The young man pointed. “Down that way, about a block.”

Ben and team and about 50 other Rebels walked the distance to an old church.

“It’s inside, sir,” the Rebel told Ben in a very quiet voice.

Ben looked at the young man, then nodded. “Lead the way.”

The young Rebel hesitated.

“What is it, son?”

“Better get the chaplain, sir.”

“All right.” Ben looked at Corrie and she spoke into her headset.

“On the way.”

“We’ll wait until he arrives.”

There were several chaplains assigned to each battalion, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and all three drove up in a Hummer.

“What is it, general?” Rabbi Wassermann asked.

“I don’t know, Gary. We’ll see in a minute. Whatever it is, it’s in that church.”

“What denomination was this?” another asked.

“Don’t know,” the third replied.

“Let’s go,” Ben said. To the young Rebel: “Lead the way, son.”

 

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The scene that greeted them brought everyone up short. On the wall behind where the pulpit once stood, between a wooden cross bolted to the wall, were the bones of four people, rotting flesh hanging from the bones. They had all been crucified, spikes driven into their feet, knees, sides, and hands.

Ben heard all three chaplains mutter short and very fervent prayers.

Painted on the wall, in bright red, were the words: RAY BROWN RULES.

“Over here, sir.” The young Rebel who had led the way touched Ben’s arm.

Scrawled on another wall, in pencil, were die words: God help us all. First it was the cannibals, now it’s the hordes of criminals, acting under the direct auspices of Simon Border. They ‘ve taken the women and the young children. The screaming as they are being raped is terrible. The leader, Ray Brown, has told us what he has planned for us. He is a spawn of the devil. The personification of every thing evil. Oh my God, give me strength to endure the pain.

“Get the remains down from the wall,” Ben said softly. “And do it as gendy as possible. We’ll bury them in the yard beside the church.”

“This Ray Brown,” one of the chaplains spoke, his words hard with anger. “This creature …” He shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.

“I know,” Ben said. “We’ll deal with him this run. I promise you that.”

“We’ve found a pit, or a ditch, that is filled with the bones of people, general,” a scout said. “Looks like tihey’ve been dead several months. All lined up and shot.”

“Let’s see it.”

Ben stood over the long ditch and looked down at the remains of perhaps 75 people while a Rebel doctor quickly

 

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examined the rag-covered bones. Ben noticed he was paying particular attention to the teeth.

“Mostly men,” the doctor said, looking up. “And I would say they were mostly old men.”

“Old men?”

“Yes, sir. No young men here.”

“What do you make of that, general?” an intelligence officer asked.

Ben was thoughtful for a moment. “My guess would be they’ve taken the younger men to use as slaves, or to trade them as such.”

“Trade them, General Ben?” Anna asked. “To whom and for what?”

“I’ll reserve comment on both those questions, Anna. But I can’t believe Simon Border is involved in any type of slave-trading or the use of slaves.”

“I can,” Beth said, considerable heat in her voice. “If these people refused to go along with Simon’s wacky views on religion, I wouldn’t put anything past that bastard, or his goofy-assed followers.”

Ben smiled at her words, for Beth was usually the quiet one of his team, then he sobered at the truth in her statement. Ben was convinced that Simon Border was insane. Functionally mad, but insane nonetheless.

Ben again looked down at the ditch of death. “Cover them,” he ordered. “We can’t do much more than that for them now.” He sighed. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

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The column spent the night stretched out along the eastern side of the lake, with 1 Batt at the northern tip. The next day they rolled into Ardmore, and found it deserted.

“Somebody put up a hell of a battle here,” Buddy observed, as he stood with his father on the main street of town.

“That they did, son. For all the good it did them,” he added.

“We’ve found another mass grave, general,” a scout said, walking up. “The doc is looking over the bones now.”

Ben and Buddy followed the scout over to the mass grave located on the edge of town.

“Just like the other one,” the doctor said, climbing out of the ditch. “All old people. What about the churches, general?”

“I have people inspecting them now. But I am expecting the worse.”

The bad news wasn’t long in coming.

 

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“Two men and a woman, general,” one of Ben’s company commanders reported. “Nailed up just like the others. Same message on the wall. Ray Brown left his mark here, too.”

“Get them down and bury them with the others.”

“Simon Border on the horn, boss,” Corrie said. “And he appears to be angry about something.”

“I wonder what in the world could have made him angry,” Ben replied with a smile. He walked over to the communications truck and took the mic. “This is Ben Raines, Simon. Go ahead.”

Simon started preaching, running his words together and gulping air. Ben listened until the man ran out of air. “I didn’t understand a damn word of that, Simon. You want to back up and start all over?”

‘ ‘You have invaded my territory, Raines. You have broken your word, as I knew you would. You cannot be trusted. You are evil. You are a pig, Ben Raines. You are a spawn of the devil, straight from hell.”

“And you’re an asshole, Border,” Ben said calmly.

There was a long silence from the other end. Then Border screamed, “What did you call me?”

“An asshole,” Ben repeated. “A hypocritical, lying, self-serving, mean-spirited dickhead. I wouldn’t trust you if you swore on a stack of Bibles. You don’t know what the word Christian means, Border.”

“How dare you speak to me in such a manner, you, you … heathen!”

Simon then, very unChristianlike, began cussing him, and he knew all the words and got them in the right places. Ben waited until the man had wound down. “Simon, you really fucked up with me when you let Ray Brown and that bunch of scum into your territory and gave them the green light to do any damn thing they wanted to do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raines!”

 

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“You’re a damn liar as well, Simon.”

Simon sputtered for a moment and then fell silent.

“You made a bad mistake when you declared war on kids, Simon.”

“I didn’t do anything of the sort!”

“Don’t lie, Simon. When you gave Ray Brown and the rest of that scummy bunch sanctuary, you shook hands with die devil. You stay out my way, Simon. You keep clear of me and my Rebels. You understand?”

“You don’t give me orders, Raines.”

“I just did, Simon. Now you listen to me. I am going to rid this land of Ray Brown and his ilk once and for all. And if you interfere, I’ll step on you like the big ugly nasty roach you are. Is that clear?”

“You’re dead, Raines!” Simon screamed. “You’re a walking-around dead man. Nobody, nobody, talks to me like that. Now then, do you understand all that?”

“I can answer that with two words, Simon.”

“They had better be ‘I’m sorry.’ “

“No. Fuck you!”

The Rebel column resumed its march across the soudiern part of the state. Ben knew, just as Caesar had known when he crossed the Rubicon, that the die was cast. There no doubt had been many people listening when Ben last spoke widi Simon, and the man had no choice now but to fight … especially after what Ben had said to him.

Altus was a deserted and looted town. Where once more than 20,000 souls had lived and worked and played and loved and hoped and planned, only silent ghosts now remained. And here, too, just as in the other towns of any size the Rebels had passed through in Oklahoma, they found where Ray Brown and his thugs had struck.

“Same thing, general,” die doctors told him, after die

 

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mass grave, which had never been covered, was found. “The bones are those of old people, and, ah, the bones of their pets were found, too.”

“Killed the dogs and cats along with their owners?” Ben asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, the people and their pets are in a better place now. I guess that’s the way we’re going to have to look at it. The pets won’t have to wait at the Rainbow Bridge for their human companions.”

“The Rainbow Bridge, sir?”

“Never heard of that, doctor?”

“No, sir.”

“Some people believe that is a place where animals, after death, wait for their human friends to join them. It’s called the Rainbow Bridge.”

“Do you believe that, General Ben?” Anna asked.

Ben shrugged. “Why not? It’s a nice thought.”

“You believe animals go to heaven, general?” one of the chaplains asked.

“Yes, I do. It would certainly be a sadder place without them.”

Anna smiled. “Some of the people in the old country used to kill dogs and cats to eat. I would never let those few in my bunch who wanted to do that. Most of us agreed that it would be a sin. We would rather go hungry.”

Ben touched her face with surprisingly gentle fingers, for Ben was not an emotional man and seldom allowed his feelings to surface. Then the moment was past and Ben turned and walked away.

“General Ben’s bark is much worse than his bite, I’m thinking,” Anna said, then smiled. “In most cases,” she added, to the agreement of Ben’s team.

 

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Ben turned the column north until they reached old Interstate 40, then cut west. On the way north they passed through a dozen small towns, stopping briefly at each town. Ben had stopped searching for mass graves. The Rebels just didn’t have the time. The towns were deserted, utterly devoid of human life. They bivouacked just across the Oklahoma state line in Texas.

In a small town in the panhandle of Texas, the Rebels found their first signs of life in weeks. The people were packing up and preparing to move south.

“Itjust isn’t safe up here anymore, general,” the spokesman told Ben. “We hid when the punks came through. Must have been five or six hundred of them all told. You seen what they did in Oklahoma?”

Ben nodded.

“We alerted the folks who were tryin’ to make a new start of it all along the old interstate, and I believe most of them made it clear ‘fore the punks reached their location. We’ve been out of radio contact and can’t be sure about that. Problem is, general, we’re so damn few and spread out high and wide.”

“We’re on our way to deal with the gangs,” Ben told the man. “But until that is taken care of, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“We understand.” The local sighed. “Is diis damn country ever going to setde down, general?”

“Someday,” Ben assured the man. “That much I can promise you. But I can’t give you any fixed date. I wish I could.”

“Just kill the damn punks, general. If you can cut them down to size, we can manage the rest.”

“Especially that damn Ray Brown,” a woman added.

 

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“That man is a monster. I’ve seen what he and his main bunch have left behind. That man is evil through and through.”

Ben looked at the small group of about 50 or so men and women and a few small children. These were tough, hardy people, with no back-up in them. Given any kind of a fighting chance at all, they would willingly risk their lives to rebuild the country. But they had to have a fighting chance.

“I’ve seen it too, ma’am,” Ben told the woman. “Ray Brown and his gangs came through our part of the SUSA, too.”

“When you find him, general,” another woman said, “kill him slow-make it last. Then burn the body and seal the ashes in concrete. I swear that man is a spawn of the devil.”

Ben nodded, although he really didn’t think Ray had any connection with the devil. Ray Brown was just a perfect example of a punk; walking proof that the bad seed theory was no unproven assumption. “We’ll find him, ma’am. Rest assured of diat And when we find him, we’ll kill him. That I can promise you. Someday this land will be free of thugs and punks, I’ll promise you that, too.”

“God bless you, Ben Raines,” the woman said.

“Fuck Ben Raines,” Ray Brown said. “He’s been after me for years and hasn’t been able to catch me. What makes him think this time will be any different?”

“Maybe the law of averages, Ray,” Robbie ‘Big Tits’ Ford said. “I got to say we just got out of the ruins of New York by a hair.”

“A cunt hair,” her brother Hal said with a laugh.

“Shut up, Hal,” his sister said.

 

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Hal shut his mouth. His expression was that of a very petulant child.

“It was stupid killin’ all them people,” Tootsie Aleman said.

“You callin’ me stupid, you dyke bitch?” Ray snarled at the gang leader.

“I’m callin’ what you done stupid.” The gang leader didn’t back up. “What you done was toss gasoline on an open fire. You deliberately pissed off Ben Raines.”

“Fuck him!” Ray repeated.

“Well, I’m game for that,” Robbie said. “Then I’d have to kill him, I guess.”

“You are a disgusting bitch,” her brother said, whose own sexual tastes ran toward young boys.

“Shut up, Hal,” his sister’s reply was automatic.

Abdullah Carnal, better known as the Camel, sighed and shook his head. “I agree with Tootsie. Me and Lumumba are pulling out and getting the hell away from you, Ray.”

“So carry your black asses.” Ray waved that off. “Who the hell cares what you and that equally ignorant Lumumba do? Personally, I’m tired of listening to the both of you run off at the mouth. Good riddance, I say.”

The Camel’s eyes narrowed with anger. He very much wanted to do or say something in rebuttal, but he knew too well that if he did, he would be dead within a heartbeat, for Ray had guards around him all the time. Abdullah stood up and stalked out the door. He was not gentle in closing it behind him.

“Stupid nigger,” Ray said.

“Well, my God! I finally agree with you on something,” Tootsie said.

“I’m thrilled beyond words,” Ray replied. He turned his head and yelled, “Pete! What is Raines’s latest position?”

“Our people just radioed in, Ray. Raines is in the panhandle of Texas.”

 

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“And Raines thinks he’s so goddamn smart,” Ray snorted. “He doesn’t realize he’s being tracked all the way. Big dumb bastard!”

“They’re fairly intelligent, boss,” Corrie told Ben. “But not nearly as smart as they think they are. We’ve had a good fix on them for several days now. We broke their code almost immediately.”

“How many teams are tracking us?” Ben asked.

“Four, at least”

“Ray still in the mountains of Arizona?”

“Affirmative.”

Ben smiled. “We’ll cut south just west of Tucumcari. Have one platoon from each battalion except ours prepare to leave the convoy, starting tonight. Head them north. We’ll do that for four nights. They’re to link up just north of Flagstaff and sit tight until they get orders from me. Have the convoy stretch out and put more distance between battalions to compensate for the missing trucks. When we get closer, we’ll shift more troops around, so when we’re ready, we’ll hit Mister Brown from all sides. I’m counting on the punks not having enough savvy to count the vehicles in the convoy.”

“Someday we’re gonna get a chance to kick some more punk ass,” Jersey griped, adding, “I hope.”

Ben cut his eyes and smiled. Jersey kidded a lot about kicking ass, but few knew the reasons behind that kidding. When Jersey had been but a child, while wandering helplessly and afraid just after the Great War, she had been seized by a gang and repeatedly raped … among other things. Jersey had absolutely no compassion in her for punks.

“We’re going to get our chance to do just that, Jersey,” Ben said. “I promise you.”

 

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“The sooner we can do that,” Jersey responded, no humor in her eyes, “the better this world will be for decent people.”

“Let’s roll,” Ben said. “Jersey’s getting impatient.”

“Damn right, boss. Kick-ass time!”

 

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Those who had settled in and around Amarillo had been strong enough in numbers to beat back several attacks by Ray Brown and his gangs, but not without suffering some losses and almost depleting their supplies. Ben and his Rebels stayed around Amarillo long enough to see the settlers resupplied and then moved on, crossing into New Mexico without incident.

“The land of open sky,” Beth said, reading from a dogeared old tourist guide.

“What is?” Cooper asked.

“New Mexico, Cooper,” Beth replied, exasperation in her voice. “Where do you think we are?”

“Looks deserted to me,” Cooper came right back. “Hey, Jersey?”

“What, Coop?”

“Weren’t you raised somewhere around here?”

Jersey was silent for a moment. “I spent some time with relatives down south of here, Coop. I don’t remember a

 

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whole lot about it. I spent time between the Mescalero, Fort Apache, and San Carlos reservations.”

“I didn’t think you were full Apache,” Coop said softly.

“I’m not. I think I’m half Apache, half white. An apple.”

“An apple?”

“Red on the outside, white on the inside,” Jersey said with a laugh.

“Want to take a side trip and visit any of those places, Little Bit?” Ben asked.

“No,” Jersey said softly. “I really don’t. I don’t even remember my Christian last name, and I’m not sure about my Apache name, for that matter.”

“You think you still have family in any of those places?” Anna asked.

“Oh … I’m sure I do. But I wouldn’t know them and they wouldn’t know me. And they’re probably having a hard enough time of it witihout some distant relation popping up.”

“Tucumcari in a few miles, boss,” Corrie said. “Scouts report some survivors there.”

“The town was about 7,500 before the Great War,” Beth informed them.

“How many live there now?” Ben asked.

“About 400, and they’re all staunch supporters of Simon Border.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Nope. Simon Border’s Temple of God and Faith.”

“Puke!” Jersey said.

“Shit!” Cooper said.

Beth made a horrible face at the thought of anyone worshipping anything Simon Border had to do with.

Anna lowered the window and spat outside.

“Ah, dear,” Ben said. “That is not a very ladylike thing to do.”

“Who said I was a lady?”

 

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Ben sighed and didn’t pursue the subject. Being a father was something he was not all that good at.

“How are we going to handle the people up ahead, boss?” Cooper asked.

“They don’t shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them.”

“Look there,” Cooper said. “By the side of the road.”

A crowd of people had gathered at the edge of town, many of them holding hand-painted signs-BEN RAINES IS THE GREAT SATAN.

“I don’t think they like you very much,” Corrie said with a smile.

“I sort of get that feeling,” Ben admitted.

THE REBEL ARMY IS FILLED WITH FORNICATORS AND HARLOTS.

“I fornicate occasionally,” Jersey said. “Helps take the edge off.”

Cooper opened his mouth to say sometfiing.

“Shut up, Cooper,” Jersey warned him. “Just don’t say a word.”

SIMON BORDER IS THE ONLY TRUE WAY.

“Only true way to what?” Anna asked.

Ben halted the column and stepped out of the wagon. He was instantly surrounded by Rebels in a diamond formation. He walked up to the group of people and they hissed and drew back as if Ben had some horrible contagious disease. The women were all dressed in drab shapeless dresses that covered them from neck to ankles and the men were dressed equally drably.

“You people need any help?” Ben asked in a friendly voice.

“Not from you,” a woman replied.

“We have doctors with us.” Ben kept his voice even. “Are your children all up to date with their shots?”

“With the help of His Holiness here on earth, Simon Border, the Lord will provide,” a man told Ben.

 

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“I see. Does everyone here in town feel the way you do?”

“Yes!” the crowd shouted in one voice.

“What a pack of screwballs,” Jersey muttered.

“Well,” Ben said, “if that’s the case, we’ll just move on and let you folks alone.”

“Good riddance,” a man said.

Ben waved his people back into their vehicles and they moved on without another word, but with plenty of very hard looks from the supporters of Simon Border.

“Good God!” Beth was the first to speak once the column was moving.

“I don’t think God has anything to do with it,” Ben said. “Those people have been had.”

“But they were had willingly, General Ben,” Anna said. “No one forced them.”

As usual, the young Anna cut right through the fat and got to the meat of the problem.

“I feel nothing but contempt for the adults,” Corrie said. “But what about the children?”

“The battle cry of the liberals back before the Great War,” Ben told the group. “Whenever a social program was in danger of being cut, the liberals would start pissing and moaning about the children. They twisted facts, manipulated numbers, and sometimes just outright lied when it suited them. And Simon always professed to be a supporter of the liberal movement. I feel sorry for the kids back there, sure. But as it stands now, there is nothing we can do about it. Unless we want to start using force against the adults.”

“Scouts report making contact with a guerrilla group about 25 miles ahead,” Corrie said. “Little town at the junction of 129. They’re on our side.”

“Be nice to see a friendly face for a change.”

The group they met a few miles down the road were

 

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heavily armed and determined to live free, not under Simon Border’s dictatorial regime.

“Simon’s bit off a hell of a lot more than he’s capable of chewing, general,” one of the local resistance members who had been introduced as Tom said. “He’s spread thin … way too thin for what he hopes to accomplish.”

“But my intelligence people say he has a very strong army.”

“Oh, he does. And it’s an army filled with fanatics. Don’t sell them short, for are all prepared to die for their beliefs. Come on, general. Let’s get inside out of this damn wind and have something to drink. We’ll talk better there.”

In the man’s very comfortable home, coffee was served by Tom’s smiling wife. “It’s Columbian,” she explained. “Simon apparently worked out some sort of deal with the gangs of punks before they invaded our land, and some warlords down in Central and South America. Simon and the gang leaders trade them women to sell into whoring and men to use as slaves, and they sell or barter, or however they do it with the punks, the raw materials to manufacture dope up here. We hijacked a couple of loads of coffee on the way through here.” She grinned. “And shot the shit out of their convoy.”

“Now they fly it in,” Tom said.

“My intelligence people sure dropped the ball on this one,” Ben said. “We had no idea there were entire communities who were resisting Simon and his nutty ideas.”

“Not their fault, general. We just couldn’t be sure if they were the real article or if they were lying when they said they worked for you. We stay in touch by short wave, so we all agreed to hedge our bets to be on the safe side. I don’t know whether you know this or not, but Simon has a secret police that would put the Gestapo to shame. They not only look like Hitler’s Gestapo, they act like that bunch of thugs. They wear black uniforms with red armbands.

 

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And a lot of people they pick up for questioning are never seen again.”

Ben toyed with his coffee cup for a moment. He shook his head. “Conditions are a hell of a lot worse over here than I realized. But I’ve got a man in here; one of the best spooks in the world. I don’t understand why he hasn’t notified me of all this.”

“He’s probably linked up with a resistance group and running for his life, general.”

“I have a very difficult time visualizing Mike doing that, Tom.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, general,” Tom said, very hesitandy. “But it’s something you’d better give a lot of thought to.”

“What?”

“There is a very good chance you have some Simon Border people with you. He probably put people in your army a long time ago. He sometimes behaves as though he’s about half nuts, and he may well be insane, but he’s still a very smart man.”

“We went through a purge of the ranks months back,” Ben told him. “And we did turn up a few Simon Border supporters. But I thought we had them all. Damn!”

Tom was silent for a few heartbeats. “I’d better warn you of this, general-everything north of 1-40 and everything west of 1-25 is Simon Border territory. You’re going to have a fight on your hands when you get in those areas.”

Ben smiled, thinking of Jersey’s comments about how boring it had been for so long.

“You looking forward to a fight, general?” Tom asked, a puzzled note in his words.

“I’ve never shied away from one,” Ben replied, as his grin faded and the thoughts of Simon Border having spies witfiin his army took center stage in his mind. “But no,

 

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Tom. I’m not looking forward to a battle. But if Simon Border wants a fight, he can damn sure have one.”

“What about the possibility of your having turncoats in your army?”

“Oh … I’ll deal with them. You can rest assured of that.” Ben hadn’t worked out just how he would deal with them, but he definitely would purge his ranks of Simon Border supporters.

Ben didn’t have to ponder how he was going to do that for very long. That night the traitors within his ranks solved that problem for him.

 

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As soon as Ben left the friendly home, he told Corrie to get his battalion commanders up for a meeting. One look at Ben’s grim face and Corrie knew something was rotten.

“We’ve got Simon Border sympathizers all through our ranks,” Ben told his commanders. “I should have guessed it”

“What are they waiting for?” Jackie asked. “Why don’t they strike?”

“I think they’ve been waiting until we were inside Border’s territory. So we can expect some sort of coup at any time.”

“No idea who they are?” Dan asked.

“No. None at all. And I’ve got a hunch we’re not going to have time to pull in polygraph and PSE operators to check everyone.”

“You think it’s coming down that soon?” Buddy asked.

“Yes, I do. I would say to pull in your most trusted people, but hell, who can we trust?”

 

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“I think we can trust the old-timers,” Jim Peters said. “I think we have to trust them.”

“All right. Get back to your commands and quietly alert the old-timers. Captain Evans is in overall charge of the platoons that are leaving the column and linking up north of Flagstaff. He’s a good man. I trust him. I’ll personally give him a bump and alert him. I alerted President Jefferys first thing, so he’s ready for whatever happens back home.” Ben’s face hardened and his eyes glinted. “I don’t like people who shake hands with you with one hand and strike you with the other. So, when this coup attempt begins, I really don’t want to have to deal with a lot of prisoners. Any questions?”

There were none. All present got Ben’s drift, loud and clear. Treason carried the death sentence in the SUSA.

Ben watched the batt corns quietly leave the room. He sat alone for a time in the quiet room, his expression grim and his eyes holding a very dangerous light Then he picked up his CAR and walked outside. “Heads up,” he told his team. “The turncoats are sure to have noticed the batt corns coming and going and they might put it all together. I don’t have any idea how many of our people are involved in this treachery. But it won’t take many of them to cause a lot of damage. We’re going to take some hits when it goes down. Let’s see if we can’t keep it at a minimum.”

The night was closing in fast as Ben spoke and every one of his senses was working overtime. It might have been nerves responsible for his feeling jumpy, but he didn’t think so. The column was inside Simon Border’s territory, and the coup attempt could just as easily come this night as any other. Ben paced back and forth and up and down for over an hour, his thoughts dark and savage.

‘ ‘Batt corns all back with their commands,” Corrie broke into Ben’s thoughts, and he was grateful for the intrusion.

 

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“Everything quiet with their commands?”

“No problems. Yet,” she added.

“How could any Rebel, who has lived free under the laws of the SUSA and the Tri-States philosophy, ever fall for Simon Border’s bullshit?” Jersey asked.

“I think you just hit the nail on the head, Jersey,” Ben said. “New people.” He looked at Beth. “How many new people in our bunch, Beth?”

“Since returning from Europe … about 50. The same for the other battalions, since we enlarged battalion size.”

“That’s it. Corrie, bump the batt corns, advise them to-“

Shots shattered the quiet night before Ben could finish his sentence and Ben and team jumped for cover just as bullets pocked the side of his motor home.

Jersey leveled her CAR and gave the muzzle flashes a full magazine of .223 rounds. Screams of pain and shock ripped the night as Ben’s outer circle of protection quickly formed up around him. They left one small perimeter open, for Ben and team to lay down a field of fire. His protection platoon knew if they didn’t let the boss at least mix it up some, he would raise holy hell.

A tremendous flash and roar lit up the night sky as one of the turncoats tossed a grenade under the gas tanks of a truck and it went up with a bang.

“I’m intercepting their transmissions,” Corrie said in a calm voice. “Their objective is to kill you, boss.”

“What else is new?” Ben said.

Jersey grinned and Anna frowned.

More explosions and flashes of fiery light colored the sky as the turncoats blew up several more vehicles.

“All battalions reporting fighting,” Corrie called over the din of approaching battle.

“We finish it tonight,” Ben said.

M-16 fire cut the night all around Ben and his team.

 

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None of them turned a head. They kept all eyes on their perimeter.

“Here they come,” Cooper called. ” ‘Looks like about two dozen of them.”

‘ ‘Praise God and Brother Border!” came the shout from within the ranks of those turncoat Rebels rushing toward Ben and his team.

“Put them down,” Ben ordered, lifting his CAR.

The team opened up, splitting the night with .223 rounds, all weapons set on full auto.

The line of rushing traitors went down in a sprawling heap as several hundred rounds impacted with flesh, followed by screams and howls of pain.

“They’re not wearing body armor!” Beth called. “What the hell’s the matter with those people?”

“That’s how they can identify themselves from us,” Ben called during a few seconds’ lull in the fighting. He ejected the empty magazine and slipped home a full one. “But I think I would have picked a better method.”

Several of Ben’s protection platoon suddenly turned and leveled their M-16s at Ben. Ben caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes and hit the ground just as the men fired. Within seconds, the turncoats were riddled with bullet holes. But a large hole had been opened and the traitors poured through, breaching the inter circle.

One jumped inside the ruins where Ben and team had taken cover and slammed into Ben, knocking the CAR from Ben’s hands and dropping his own as well. Ben recovered his balance and slugged the man on the jaw, addling him long enough for Ben to get set and pop him again.

“Death to all Satanists!” the turncoat screamed, charging at Ben.

Ben didn’t waste the wind replying. What was the point? He kicked the traitor on the knee and when the man involuntarily reached down to grab his shattered knee,

 

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Ben brought his fist down on the back of the man’s neck, driving the man face-down on the ground.

Before he could put the finishing touches on the attacker, another jumped on Ben’s back, riding him to the ground, screaming oaths and praising Simon Border.

Ben rolled and the man loosened his hold. Both men came up, knives flashing in the night. Ben had no time to see what his team might be doing, other than being locked in hand-to-hand combat with other turncoats.

The turncoat slashed at Ben and Ben sidestepped what would have been a lethal cut to his belly. He parried another thrust and brought the edge of his heavy knife down on the man’s arm, nearly severing the arm from the elbow down. The traitor screamed and lost his blade. He staggered back, the blood gushing.

Ben stepped in close and swung the heavy blade, the razor-sharp edge striking the man on the side of his neck and almost decapitating the attacker. Ben whirled around in a crouch before the dying man hit the group.

A dark shape came out of the night and Ben just had time to duck before the M-16 the attacker was using like a club whistled over his head. The turncoat lost his balance and fell into Ben. Ben’s knife went clattering off.

Ben kneed the man in the groin and heard the air whoosh out of him as the pain ripped through his body. Ben hammered at the man with a big right fist, striking the attacker several times in die face. Still the man hung on, flailing away at Ben with hard fists. The two of them rolled around on die ground, and ended up out of the ruins of the old house and about 50 feet away from Ben’s team, both of them losing dieir helmets.

Ben recognized the man; he’d been with die Rebels for years. So much for trusting all die old-timers, he thought.

The men lunged to dieir boots and die turncoat clawed at his flap holster for his 9mm. Ben slugged him on the

 

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jaw with a right fist and followed that with a left, addling the man, but not knocking him down. Ben kicked out with a boot and the toe of his boot caught the man on the knee. That put him down.

Ben stepped back and delivered another kick to the man’s face, his boot catching the man on the mouth. Teeth and blood flew. Ben recovered his balance, took aim, and kicked the man on the side of his head just as hard as he could. He heard the man’s skull pop under the impact. The attacker lay still on the ground.

Ben turned, his eyes searching for his knife and his CAR. He saw the knife blade glinting in the faint light and scooped it up.

“Boss!” Cooper called.

“Here, Coop.”

“We beat them back. You all right?”

“Only my dignity bruised. Where’s my rifle?”

“Here!” Anna called, rushing up and looking up into his face. “Are you hurt, General Ben?”

“No, baby. I’m all right. You’ve got blood on your face.”

“Not my blood, General Ben.”

The camp was quickly settling down. The brief but brutal fight appeared to be over.

“Report!” Ben called.

“Radio took a round,” Corrie said. “It’s busted. I’ll have to get another from the communications truck.”

“Four down here, sir,” the officer commanding the protection platoon called. “One dead and three wounded.”

“Your radio still working?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get me a report.”

“Right away, sir. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, son.”

 

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Rebels began rushing up to check on Ben. Ben assured them all he was unhurt.

Corrie was handed another radio and quickly got on the horn. The portable satellite had not been damaged during the fight. “They had a brief fight back home,” Corrie called. “President Jefferys and Secretary Blanton are all right. The home guard and the reserves put the coup attempt down hard. They’re mopping up now.”

“The battalions with us reporting only a few casualties, sir,” the second radio operator said. “They have taken a number of turncoats prisoners.”

“I’ll want them questioned extensively,” Ben said. “And then shoot diem.”

The bodies of the turncoat Rebels were buried the next morning without fanfare. Their attempted coup had accomplished nothing for them except death, and for Simon Border and his followers, it had served only to intensify the hatred the loyal Rebels felt toward anyone who would try to interfere with their way of life.

As the long column began pulling out the next morning, heading west, there was none of the usual banter among the Rebels. They wore grim expressions and, to a person, their thoughts were of Simon Border and his followers, and those reflections were not at all pleasant.

“We’re going to deal with the punks first, and tfien go after this nitwit Border person, right, General Ben?” Anna asked.

“We’re certainly going to deal with the punks,” Ben replied.

“Then Simon Border?” Anna persisted.

“Maybe,” Ben hedged that. “We have to consider what might happen to the entire country if I were to declare open war against Border and his followers.”

 

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“And also what might happen if we don’t,” Anna added.

Ben smiled. Anna spoke her mind, always. “That too, dear.”

“We either deal with the problem now, or it will grow and grow. Never stop. Like a cancer.”

“You might be right,” Ben conceded.

“The man has shown himself to be untrustworthy,” the young woman pressed on. “Right?”

“Right, dear.”

“He wants to destroy our way of life, right?”

“Right, dear.”

“Even though we agreed to live in peace with him, right?”

“Absolutely right, dear.”

The other team members were all smiling, letting Anna run with the verbal ball.

“So what is the problem? Let’s go kick his butt and then we can get on with our lives, right? In the old country, if another gang tried to move in on our territory, we fought. If they wanted to live in peace with us, we gave that a try. If it didn’t work out, then we did away with them. It’s just that simple in my mind. Nothing complicated about it.”

Ben chuckled. How to explain to Anna that he didn’t want the entire northern hemisphere to blow up in their faces? How to explain that Simon Border had millions of followers, all ready to die for their leader?

“I think we’re already committed, boss,” Cooper said.

Ben cut his eyes to the driver. “Could be, Coop. But this time let’s walk on the side of caution.”

“You mean, deal with the punks and then back off?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll bet Simon Border will never let us do that,” Anna again stepped in.

“You never give up, do you, Anna?” Ben said with a laugh.

 

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“Have you ever given up, General Ben?” she responded.

“Well, no, I guess not.”

Anna tossed her head. “And I don’t think you will give up with Simon Border, either.”

“Oh, you don’t?”

“No.”

“I guess that settles that, then?”

“Sure does. So now we go kick Simon Border’s ass, right?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“We will,” she said confidently. “He’ll force us to do it.”

“You’re probably right, Anna.”

She nodded her head. “A holy war. It won’ t be pleasant.”

“Sure as hell won’t,” Ben muttered. “Judgement day.”

 

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The column rolled on across the state, encountering no further trouble from either punks nor Simon Border supporters … until they hit the outskirts of what was left of Albuquerque.

“Scouts reporting Border’s troops are waiting for us just east of the city,” Corrie reported.

“Tell the scouts to find us a route south,” Ben replied. “We’ll avoid trouble with Border’s people whenever possible.” i

Ben felt all the eyes of his team on him. He ignored the curious gazes. The last thing hie wanted in the battered country that was once America was a religious war. So for all his big talk now, his troops knew he had been running a bluff against Simon all along-let them think what they would. Ben’s primary objective was to deal with the punks. If Simon Border would let him in to do that, and then let him out, Simon could damn well have his wacko nation.

But Ben knew he was hoping against hope. Putting off

 

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the inevitable. But be that as it may, he would, by God, put off any head-to-head confrontation with Simon as long as he could. Maybe in time, when Simon saw that the Rebels would keep their word …

“Taking any route south is going to throw us miles out of the way,” Corrie broke into his thoughts.

“Take the southern route,” Ben ordered.

“Won’t work,” Anna muttered, just loud enough for her adopted father to hear. “Nutso Border wants a fight. We might as well give it to him.”

Ben pretended not to hear her comments, knowing that none of his team really knew what a religious war would do to the already torn-apart nation. North America could well turn into another Northern Ireland, with various factions fighting each other for centuries.

Ben shook his head. He couldn’t allow that. He just couldn’t.

He sighed. But damned if he could figure out how to prevent it.

He certainly couldn’t allow Ray Brown and his dope-producing crowd to continue making their poison and spreading it all over the nation. Ben was firm about that. Back in the ‘80s he was one of many citizens who openly and often supported the death penalty for drug dealers. For all the good it did, he remembered sourly.

Miles later, Corrie said, “Scouts have found an ideal place to bivouac.”

“Go a few miles further,” Ben ordered. “Let’s put as much distance as we can between us and Border’s people.”

“And if they follow?” Anna asked the question Ben had suspected was surely coming.

“We’ll deal with that should it happen. I can’t believe Simon’s commanders would be that stupid.”

A few miles further: “Scouts report that Border’s troops

 

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have left the outskirts of the city and are following us,” Corrie told him.

Ben twisted in the front seat and looked at Anna. She was smiling at him. The rest of his team managed to keep straight faces.

“You find diis amusing, I suppose?” Ben asked.

Anna shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

“Yeah, right,” Ben grumbled. To Corrie: “I thought Tom told us everything south of 1-40 was out of Border’s territory?”

“That’s the way I understood it. But he also said that the resistance forces scattered throughout the area weren’t strong enough to tangle with Border’s people head-on, remember?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Any word from Mike Richards?”

“Nothing.”

“All right,” Ben said with a sigh. “Have the scouts find us a defensive position and prepare to make a stand.”

Anna laughed. Ben ignored her.

“Do you people have a death wish?” Ben radioed the long column of Border’s people.

“We are the Reverend Simon Border’s Guards of God,” came the reply.

“Oh, my word!” Beth sighed.

“Guards of God?” Ben blurted over the air.

“That is correct.”

“Why are you following us?”

“To engage you and destroy you.”

“Confident son-of-a-bitch, isn’t he?” Ben muttered. He keyed the mic. “On whose orders?”

“We are acting under the orders of our Supreme Com-

 

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mander here on earth, the Reverend Simon Border. You have unlawfully invaded our territory.”

“Supreme Commander Reverend Simon Border,” Cooper muttered. “I guess we’ll have to salute the nut before we shoot him.”

Ben broke up with laughter at the serious expression on Cooper’s face. “Let’s try not to go that far, Coop.”

“I will give it all my attention,” Anna said.

“I’ll sure you will, dear,” Ben said, very drily. He lifted the mic. “We are not here to make trouble for you people. We are after dope manufacturers. Once we deal with them, we’ll leave your territory.”

“You will never leave our territory, Ben Raines. You will be buried here.”

“Enemy convoy steadily closing,” Corrie said. “Range, ten miles.”

“Get the tanks in position.” He keyed the mic. “Don’t be a fool, mister. Don’t tangle with us. There is no need for it.”

“Prepare to meet God, Ben Raines, and answer for your sins.”

“He’s broken off, boss,” Corrie said.

“They are really, by God, going to meet us head-to-head,” Ben said, astonishment in his voice.

“Range, nine miles.”

“Let them get close,” Ben ordered. “Tank commander take over now.”

Corrie looked at him. “You want our tanks to mix it up with theirs?”

“If that is what the tank commanders choose to do.”

“Their tanks are pieces of shit, boss,” Corrie pointed out “Nothing but death traps.”

“I am fully aware of that.”

Simon’s tanks looked to be restored Korean War vintage, probably taken from various military museums … al-

 

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though Ben found it hard to believe that any commander would put such dilapidated equipment out in the field for men to die in. He also wondered where in the world Simon found so many of the old-and Ben meant really old-Patton tanks. The approaching tanks appeared to be gasoline powered, and that made them nothing more than rolling bombs up against Ben’s ultra-modern tanks.

“Fools,” Ben muttered moments later, when the first of the enemy tanks came into view through binoculars.

The Rebels waited.

“This is going to be a shooting gallery,” Coop said.

“They picked the midway, Coop,” Ben replied.

“That they did, boss,” Coop agreed. “I hope they enjoy the show, ‘cause it’s gonna be die last one most of them will ever see.”

“Range, three miles,” Corrie said.

Ben’s tanks waited, diesel engines softly grumbling.

“Range, two miles.”

Ben’s tank commanders opened up with their main 120mm guns, using armor-piercing ammunition. The terrain below where Ben and his team waited and watched blossomed in puffs of fire. The infantry coming up behind the tanks were left wide open to Ben’s mortar crews, who were busy dropping the lethal surprises down the tubes.

It was bloody carnage before the Rebel eyes and Ben did not call a halt to it until diere was nothing moving on the bloody battleground before him.

“Let’s see what we have left,” Ben said.

“Damn little,” Beth muttered under her breath.

“Enemy soldiers are retreating,” Corrie said. “Those few that can still walk, that is,” she added.

“Let them go,” Ben told her. “Simon’s army is not as well-trained and certainly not as well-equipped as we were led to believe. This defeat just might convince him to leave us alone. But I doubt it.”

 

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The wind shifted, bringing with it the odor of charred human flesh.

“Do we bury the enemy dead?” Corrie asked.

“No,” Ben said softly. “We do not. But let’s go see what kind of equipment they have.”

When Simon Border received the news of the defeat of his Guards of God, he sat for a moment, too stunned to speak. Border was not a military man. He knew very little about tactics or equipment. He had millions of followers, and they were well-armed with modern rifles and machine guns and mortars, but nothing to even remotely compare with Raines’s Rebels. Contrary to what had deliberately been put out Border’s people had few tanks (a hell of a lot fewer now).

Border’s police had subdued and whipped into submission those who at first resisted and refused to follow his wacky doctrine by sheer force of numbers, not because of superior equipment and armament.

Simon never dreamed that Ben Raines would actually fight him. He always felt that Ben would back off when push came to shove.

Simon really didn’t want to fight Ben Raines and the Rebels. He was fully aware that no one had ever waged a successful war against the Rebels, and that was something Simon just could not understand.

What did the Rebels have that made them so seemingly invincible? Simon knew they were a godless bunch; their society was very nearly wide-open, and so permissive he was surprised God had not destroyed it just as He had done with Sodom and Gomorrah. Simon had prayed fervently for God to destroy Ben Raines and all his followers, but then he realized that God was leaving that task up to him. He and his followers must destroy Ben Raines.

 

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Simon sighed heavily. Oh, how he wished he could speak to his idols: Harry Falcreek and Raldo Reeves and Clute Gingsing and Flush Bambaugh. They would know what to do. But they were long gone, probably gone during die first few days of the Great War.

Simon rose from his desk chair to pace die huge study of his mountain home. He didn’t care how he got rid of Ben Raines and the Rebels, just as long as it got done. In his mind, die end certainly justified the means.

If he had to use punks to accomplish diat, so be it. He’d use die criminal element and dien dispose of them when die job was finished.

“Oh, me!” he sighed. Doing God’s work sure was tiring.

“Stupid,” Ben said, looking over die slaughter. “Most of diese tanks were pulled out of service years before the Great War. Deadi traps. Look at diese rounds diat were blown clear from diat hulk. Poorly made. Hell, diey might have blown up in die barrel when diey tried to fire them.”

Cooper was inspecting a cache of rifles taken from die dead. “Their M-16s are in good shape, though,” he said. “Plus a mixture of AKs.”

“I wonder if die Guards of God are die elite of Border’s Army of the Democratic Front?” Jersey asked.

Ben shrugged. “If diey are, and diis is die way he’s equipped his army, they’re in deep trouble.”

“Cecil on die horn,” Corrie said, walking up. There was a faint smile on her lips. “He has some bad news for you.”

“In addition to die attempted coup?”

“You might say diat.”

Ben took die mic. “Go, Cec.”

“Emil Hite should be approaching your position shordy, Ben.”

 

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Ben sighed. “I thought I assigned him to … where did I assign him?”

“He’s been bouncing around from battalion to battalion, Ben. The proverbial bad penny, so to speak. Everybody likes him, but no one wants him.”

“What happened?”

“He asked Thermopolis for permission to take his, ah, company of followers and visit friends up in Arkansas. Therm didn’t think anything was amiss, so he gave permission. That was two weeks ago. Emil just reported in. He’s approximately a hundred miles east of you as we speak.”

Ben shook his head and tried to hide his smile. Whatever else Emil Hite might be, he was a resourceful little bastard…that was probably why he’d been a reasonably successful con artist before the war. “All right, Cec. Thanks for the info. We’ll wait for him.”

“Everything else is calm here, Ben. We’ve ferreted out the traitors and dealt with them.”

Nice way of saying Cec had ordered the turncoats either shot or hanged. “Have you had any word from Mike Richards?”

“Not a peep, Ben.”

“Ok, Cec. We’ll be on the lookout for Emil and his people. Thanks for the warning.”

“Oh, there is one more little item, Ben …”

A tiny warning bell went off in Ben’s head. “What might that be, ol’ buddy?”

“Emil has a group of reporters with him. Just thought you should be warned. Take care, Ben. Ol’ Black Joe out.”

Cecil was chuckling as he broke the transmission.

“Ol’ Black Joe,” Ben muttered. “And people say I have a strange sense of humor.”

“One thing about it,” Beth remarked. “With Emil along, we can be entertained.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ben replied. “But who

 

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are these damn reporters with him? The only ones I’ve given permission to travel with any battalion are with Tina’s 9 Batt.”

“Emil obviously monitored the last transmission,” Cor-rie said. “He’s on the horn.”

With a very audible sigh, Ben took the mic. “Go, Emil.”

“My general!” Emil shouted and Ben winced. “Commander of the army whose mission it is to save the world and bring peace and prosperity to every law-abiding citizen … plus a chicken in every pot.”

“Emil, cut the shit.”

“Oh. Very well. I found a group of press types stranded along the way, general. I couldn’t leave them to the hostile elements, so I brought them along.”

“Who are they?”

“A group of very fine and highly principled men and women from the NUSA, my general.”

“A bunch of goddamn liberals, you mean.”

“Well, I suppose that is one way of putting it.”

Ben shook his head. “All right, Emil. We’ll wait for you. Corrie will give you our coordinates.”

Ben handed her the mic. “You might tell him we’re in the Okefenokee Swamp.”

“You think he’d believe it?”

“No. But it was a nice thought.”

Corrie spoke with Emil for a moment, then broke it off. “He’ll be here about noon tomorrow.”

“Now it really gets interesting,” Ben said.

 

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“My God, General Raines!” Clyde Mayfield blurted. “Aren’t you going to give them a chance to surrender?”

Ben lowered his binoculars and gave the reporter a disgusted look. “No.”

“But they’re human beings, with guaranteed rights!” Ms. Cynthia Braithwaithe-Honnicker squalled.

“They’re murdering, raping, torturing, dope-dealing, child-killing, mind-destroying scum,” Ben bluntly informed the reporter. “Do not speak to me of the rights of criminals. I heard enough of that shit back before the Great War. When people such as yourself were trying your damnedest to destroy the nation. Now shut up, Ms. Bra-Burner-Homewrecker, or whatever the hell your name is.”

“Well!” Cynthia stamped her foother left one. “I will not permit you to speak to me in such a manner.”

“I believe I just did,” Ben replied. He turned to Corrie. “Fire!”

Rebel 155mm self-propelled Howitzers, M-60A3 tank

 

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William W. Johnstone

main guns, and 105mm Howitzers, all of them positioned several miles to the rear, opened up on the little town in the valley. The Howitzers were firing a mixed bag of rounds: HE-MI, M413 (which contained 18 M35 grenades) , and WP. The town in the valley, which scouts had slipped in and out of two nights in a row, held the gangs of Craig “Frankie” Franklin, Foster “Fos” Payne, and Thad “Killer” Keel.

The old buildings in the town below the hill where Ben stood with his team and the knot of reporters that had accompanied Emil Hite westward, exploded in a shower of brick and wood and shingles and pieces of commodes and sinks and various body parts.

The scouts had reported that one of the buildings contained a large lab that was capable of producing huge quantities of methamphetamines and other illicit drugs. Ben knew that some of the materials used in the manufacture of those drugs were highly flammable. They sure were. The large building located in the center of the town went up like a billion Roman candles all mixed in with dynamite.

Body parts went soaring high into the sky along with several flaming motorcycles. About 50 feet off the ground, the tanks on the motorcycles exploded.

“My, my,” Ben said. “This is quite a show. Are you reporters getting good pictures of this event?”

“Barbaric!” Clyde Mayfield said.

“Grotesque!” Ms. Braithewaithe-Honniker said.

“Inhuman!” Lance Nightengale sniffed.

“Right,” Ben said. “Corrie, tell the gunners to keep pouring it on until I give the order to stop.”

“But those left alive may want to surrender!” another reporter protested.

Ben had been introduced to her and he thought her name was Noel Honeypucker, or something like that. He ignored them all.

 

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Rebel snipers were laying back outside the town, waiting. They did not have long to wait. Several dozen gang members lived through the artillery barrage and tried to make a run for it. The Rebel snipers cut them down.

Noel Honeybun, or whatever her name was, and Cynthia Double-last-name, were openly weeping at the sight of those poor, poor rapists, murderers and child molesters and so forth going down under the snipers’ rifles. The men were being manly, keeping a stiff upper lip and all that. But Ben could tell they were outraged at this travesty of justice.

“Cease firing,” Ben finally gave the orders.

At first the quiet was unnerving to those not accustomed to it ;

“We’ll go in and take a look around when the fires die down,” Ben said. “For now, everybody take five.”

“I’m hungry,” Anna said.

Honeyjugs and Braithewaithe-Honniker looked at the young woman, undisguised horror in their eyes.

The men with them both wore an expression of astonishment at her announcement.

“Me, too, Anna,” Ben said. “Let’s break out the rations.” He glanced at the reporters. “Care to join us for a mid-morning repast?”

“You … you … monster!” Honeybutt raged at him.

“There will be a full report of this outrage submitted to President Altman,” reporter Lance Nightengale blathered.

“Give him my best when you see him,” Ben said.

“You are the most arrogant, unfeeling man I have ever encountered!” Clyde Mayfield opined.

“My mother didn’t think so.” Ben did his best to look hurt He couldn’t quite manage to bring it off.

“Why don’t you ladies and gentlemen come with me?” Emil Hite stuck his mouth into it “I’ve found some shade and you can rest for a time.”

 

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“Thank you, General Hite,” Honeybags said. “I’m glad to see there is at least one civilized human being with this unit.”

“General Hite?” Ben questioned.

Emil drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much over five feet. “President Jefferys himself bestowed that rank upon me,” he announced. “For all the good work I’ve done with the Rebels.”

Ben nodded. “Wonderful, Emil. Now take the reporters and go away.”

As Emil, his gaggle of followers, and the reporters ambled off, Beth whispered, “Do you suppose Cecil really gave Emil the rank of general?”

“You can bet I’m going to find out,” Ben told her. “Although I don’t know what I’m going to do about it if it’s true.” He paused, and then smiled. “Oh, yes, I do. Yes, indeed. I hope it is official. If that’s the case, Emil is now directly under my command.” Ben laughed.

“You have a very wicked look in your eyes, General Ben,” Anna said.

“Yeah, I’ve seen that look before,” Cooper said.

“I’m thinking how Emil would like to be attached to the kitchen for the duration.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Beth warned.

“Why?”

“Then we’d all run the risk of being poisoned.”

“I never thought of that,” Ben admitted.

“Besides,” Corrie said, “you can’t put a general on KP.”

“It was a good thought, though, boss,” Jersey told him. “We’ll all think about what to do with Emil.”

Ben looked at her. “Jersey, I know what you’d like to do.”

The diminutive bodyguard smiled. “Naw, I wouldn’t really shoot him. But Emil sure as hell thinks I would.”

 

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Emil stayed out of Ben’s way and did his best not to draw Ben’s attention as the convoy traveled west. None of the reporters traveling with the Rebels would speak to Ben after the carnage (their words) at the little town, and that was fine with Ben. Emil, his entourage and the reporters were at the rear of the column, and Ben hoped they all stayed there.

Ben spent a day and a night at Socorro before turning west on old Route 60. The town, which once boasted a population of about 15,000 was now reduced to less than 500 people. But they were solid Tri-Staters and determined to remain that way.

Ben had supplies flown in and made sure the residents had everything they needed to continue growing. Then the column moved on.

The spokesperson for the group in Socorro warned Ben that the punks were going to be in force from that point on, if the Rebels stayed on their present route.

“I plan to stay on it all the way,” Ben said, not giving the man the slightest clue where “all the way” might end. “You wouldn’t happen to know what gangs we might run into next down the line, would you?”

“I sure do, general. My people have scouted them out pretty well. Some punk by the name of Les Justice, and two more gangs run by a punk calls himself Jack Brittain, and the other gang is headed up by a road whore named Karen Carr. And that slut is one mean person. She is bad to the bone, believe it.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Ben replied. “I’ve seen some of her work.” He smiled. “But Ms. Carr is about to run up against the baddest dog on the block.”

“And that’s you, general?”

“That’s me.”

 

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It wasn’t much of a fight. The baddest dog on the block didn’t even have to growl all that much. The Rebels hit the punk-occupied town at dawn with artillery and blew it apart. Ben ordered the reporters kept in the rear, so, as he put it, “The sight of vicious career criminals being killed wouldn’t traumatize them for the rest of their lives and probably render them incapable of earning an honest living.”

The reporters did not see the humor in Ben’s remarks.

Ben and his team walked through the ruins of the still-smoking town. This time, despite Ben’s request that they stay in the rear, the reporters came along.

“Be sure and bring along a box of tissues,” Ben told Beth. “So diese left-wing assholes can have something to wipe their weepy eyes with.”

“Or have a snit on,” Jersey added.

“That, too,” Ben said with a smile.

The press was grim-faced as they toured the shattered town, doing their best to avoid looking at the torn-apart bodies. To their credit, none of them lost their breakfast, but Ben could tell that was accomplished only with a great effort on their part. None of them were about to give Ben the satisfaction of seeing them barf.

Dozens of punks had escaped the barrage, but they didn’t get far. There were snipers placed in a wide circle around the town. A few punks did manage to get clear of the killing field, scattering in all directions. Those few might return to a life of crime, but more importantly, the backs of the gangs involved had been broken and the heads cut off.

When Ben ordered his people to mount up and move out, leaving the bodies unburied, the reporters went into a towering snit.

 

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“That is inhuman!” Ms. Braithwaithe-Honnicker howled. “They deserve a decent burial.”

“Why?” Ben asked, as he rolled a cigarette. “They weren’t decent people.”

“Besides,” Anna said, “the carrion birds have a right to eat”

“You are a very callous young lady,” Ms. Honeysuckle said.

“Big deal,” Anna replied, and walked away.

“Is that attitude typical of the Rebels, general?” Mayfield asked.

Ben knew a loaded question when it was fired at him. He smiled and said, “We all have different personalities and outlooks on life.”

The shattered body of Karen Carr was pointed out to Ben. He compared the ripped and explosives-mutilated body with a picture his intelligence people had found and grunted.

“That’s her,” he said. “Or what’s left of her. We can close another chapter in the book.”

“The poor girl,” Ms. Honeyducker moaned. “I’m sure her life was filled with abuse and;poverty.”

Ben gave the woman a very dntty look. “Lady, half the people in the Rebel army grew up in abject poverty in the aftermath of the Great War.” His voice was harsher than he intended it to be. “Many of the other half grew up in families that were staggering and struggling for years under an unfair tax burden brought on by liberal Democrats. Don’t talk to me about the poor, poor criminal. We all control, to a very large degree, our own destinies. So just knock off the whiny liberal bullshit when you’re around me. It’s making me nauseous.”

The reporter matched the general look for look, but she kept her mouth closed, which was what Ben wanted.

 

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“Have the bodies of Britn’an and Justice been found?” Ben asked.

“No,” Corrie replied. “But when we talked with a few of those left alive they said they were together in the lab when it blew. Nobody got out of that place in one piece.”

“Dreadful!” Ms. Braithwaithe-Honnicker said, holding a handkerchief to her dainty nose, then marched off with the other reporters. To have a snit, Ben figured. Having snits was such a private thing.

Ben spread a map on the hood of a HumVee and traced a line with a fingertip. “We’ll cut south, staying with this road. There is a useable airport here-or at least there used to be. Have the scouts check it out and if possible, we’ll resupply there. Then we’ll cut north and come up behind Ray Brown. Have those designated troops begin a slow drift off from die convoy. Any word at all from Mike Richards?”

“Not a peep, boss.”

“Let’s roll.”

At a small town some miles south, the Rebels cleaned up the old regional airport and waited for the cargo planes to come in. Mike Richards picked that day to show up. He was haggard and dirty, and had lost weight, but he was alive. He came wandering in with a group of resistance fighters who looked to be in just as bad shape as Mike.

“It’s been hell, I can tell you that,” the chief of Rebel intelligence told Ben, after wolfing down two sandwiches and a couple cups of coffee.

“What happened, Mike?” Ben asked.

“I hooked up with a guerrilla unit and we got cut off deep in Border’s territory. Radio took a hit and was useless. We’ve been running and dodging and hiding ever since. Simon’s gone on a rip-roaring rampage against any who don’t fully support him and his movement. He’s blocked all roads-and I mean all roads leading into his territory.

 

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Too many people were trying to get out and get clear of that so-called religious leader. He’s a fanatic, Ben. There is no other word to describe him.”

“He’s killing those opposed to him?”

Mike nodded his head. “Yes. Some of them. Imprisoning others. Making slaves out of some. Simon has really gone off the deep end.”

“His army?”

“Not much in the way of tanks or artillery, old stuff mostly, but he’s got several million men and women under arms.” Mike took a deep pull from his refilled coffee mug. “It sure as hell won’t be an easy nut to crack, I can tell you that.”

Ben frowned. It was not what he wanted to hear, but it really came as no surprise. “So you figure we’ll be tied up fighting Simon for some time?”

“A long time, Ben. Surely months, maybe years.”

“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

“It’s the truth. As hard as it is to have to say, it’s the truth.”

Ben sighed and leaned back in his chair. “We’ll deal with the punks, then turn our attention toward Simon Border. I damn sure can’t have the punks behind me and Simon in front of me.”

“I can tell you that you’ve got about eight more gangs to go through before you get to Ray Brown.”

“You know his exact location?”

“I do. I can pinpoint it for you on a map.”

“Later. Right now, get some rest. We’ll be moving out as soon as we’re resupplied.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather head back out with the group I came in with.”

“No problem. They look tough enough.”

“There are about 10,000 just like them scattered all over Simon’s territory. They been fighting Simon ever since

 

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he arrived out here. They might not share our political philosophy, but they share one thing in common.”

“And that is?”

‘ “They despise Simon Border with an intensity that would be difficult to put into words.”

“That’s good enough for me. I’ll tell supply to give you anything you want. Including,” Ben said with a smile, “a spare radio.”

“Make it a small one. Traversing those mountain trails are hard on an old man.”

“I hope I don’t have to find out just how hard they are.”

“Ben?”

“Yes?”

“Gear yourself up mentally for a long campaign against Simon and his followers. It’s going to be one of the most difficult wars we’ve ever fought.”

“What are the odds of any mass surrender?”

“Slim to none.”

“You’re just filled with good cheer, aren’t you?”

Mike grinned. “Simon says he has God on his side.”

“I doubt that, Mike. I really doubt that.”

“Do we, Ben?”

“I think God is neutral in this, Mike. I think He’s been waiting for thousands of years for humankind to strike a happy balance.”

“Think we’ll ever make it?”

“I know this much-Simon Border won’t. His time is running out.”

 

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“We didn’t get the sister of the jbrother-and-sister team,” Ben was informed. “She’s out of town. Her brother told us that just before he died.” i

“Did he say where out of town?”

“No, sir. But we did find the body of Dale Jones. Or rather, what was left of it. A few gang members got away, but not many. No more than a dozen, tops.”

Ben glanced at Beth and she said, “That leaves eight major gang leaders still out there. And intel reports that Ray Brown has three of them-Sandy Allen, Dave Holton, and one more whose name is unknown to us.”

“How many surrendered?”

“Eighteen. Nine men and nine women.”

“And never any kids,” Ben mused.

“We haven’t seen any yet on this push. Not that belong to the punks, anyway.”

“Odd.”

 

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“I have some good news and some bad news, boss,” Corrie said, walking up.

“Give me the good news first, please.”

“Cecil just got word that the governments south of the border are cracking down on drug traffickers, coming down hard on them. The heads of those governments are asking for our patience and understanding. They’re working as hard as they can to stem the flow of raw materials.”

“I recall that same line before the Great War,” Ben replied. He waggled a big hand from side to side. “But that’s President Jefferys’s and Secretary Blanton’s area of expertise. We’ll let them worry about that and wish them good luck. Now give me the bad news.”

“When we finish with Simon Border, the Secretary General of the UN wants us to go to Africa.”

Ben took that bit of news calmly, for it came as no surprise. Although he had voiced his objections about going to Africa many times, to many people, he’d been expecting the request to go. He shook his head and sighed. “Well, we certainly have the time to think about that. And we will give it a lot of thought. Mount up, people. Let’s finish the job at hand and then see if I can talk some sense into Simon Border.”

“It’ll never happen,” Anna said.

“What?” Ben asked. “Going to Africa?”

“No. Talking some sense into Simon Border.”

“Stranger things have happened, Anna.”

“Name one.”

“I was afraid you were going to ask that. Come on. Let’s roll.”

The column was significantly smaller now, and there was nothing Ben could do about that. Three battalions that had been held in reserve had joined the battalions that had split away from the main column. One had linked up

 

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with Buddy’s column, one had joined Jackie Malone, and the third with Jim Peters. Ben’s 1 Batt and Dan’s 3 Batt were moving up from the south. Ray Brown and those gangs with him were now in a box.

The Rebels had passed through several towns where the punks were reported to be holding out. They found only the signs of a very hasty retreat, and all indications showed that the punks moved north, to link up with Ray Brown.

“Got you,” Ben said with a smile, just moments before he turned his own short column north for the final assault against the punks.

In his stronghold in the mountains and forests of Arizona, Ray Brown took the news philosophically, for this time the career criminal knew he was boxed in tight with no place to run.

“I thought Simon Border was supposed to help us when Raines started his push against us?” Sandy Allen asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” Ray responded. “Border was using us, man, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“To get Raines deep inside his claimed territory, that’s why.”

“Raines will kick his ass, Ray.”

“He might,” Ray said with a smile. “But it won’t be easy. Simon’s got a couple of million men and women under arms. They’ll kill a lot of Rebels before it’s all said and done.”

“Ray, aren’t you scared a bit?”

The gang leader thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “Naw. Me and Raines had to meet sometime. This is as good a time as any. Just like I said before, Raines has got to be 50 years old at least. Hell, he’s past his prime. I’ll take him out with one hand.”

“But all our plans … ?”

 

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William W. Johnstone

“It’s over, Sandy,” Ray said. “Done. We had a good thing going for six months or so, now it’s done.”

“So now we start over, right?”

Ray smiled and again shook his head. “Maybe a few of us will, Sandy. But for most of us, it’s over. We’re in a box. By the time those dumbasses tracking Raines figured it out, it was too late. Raines has moved in about three of his beefed-up battalions in addition to what swung off from the column along the way. We’re trapped.”

“How about slippin’ out a few at a time?” another gang leader suggested.

“You can try it. Fine with me. Some of you might make it. But I’m stayin’ here and facin’ hot-shot Raines. We’re gonna settle this thing once and for all.”

“OK, Ray,” the gang leader said. He stood in front of Ray for a moment, shuffling his feet. “Ah …”

“Oh, hell, Buzz!” Ray told him, no anger in his words. “You can cut out anytime you like. I’m not gonna feel hard toward you. But I will tell you that the odds of you making it clear are real poor. Look here, man.” Ray stood up and moved to a map of the state. “We’re here, Buzz.” He put a finger on the map. “Right here in this little town. There’s a main road goin’ east and west and a main road goin’ north and south. Raines has all them blocked. There’s all kinds of dirt and gravel roads runnin’ in all directions. Raines has them blocked, too. Raines has put an entire battalion of special operation troops all around this town. They’re layin’ ‘bout ten miles out in a huge circle, just waitin’ for someone to try to make a break for it. He’s got snipers out there with long-range .50-caliber rifles just waitin’ to kill somebody. You ever seen a .50-caliber rifle, Buzz? No? You’ll never hear the round that drills you, man. You’re dead before the sound reaches you. You’ve heard the sounds of helicopters and planes for the last two, three days, haven’t you, Buzz? Sure you have.

 

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Those are part of Raines’ army. Those are helicopter gun-ships and those damn souped-up and reworked P-51Es. They’re in the air during the day, weather permitting, looking for somebody to kill … and that’s us, Buzz. At night, Raines doubles up the patrols.” Ray smiled. “He’s a thorough bastard, give him that”

“You… knew all along that Raines was gonna do this?”

“Sure. It’s Raines’s style. I been studyin’ the bastard for years. But,” Ray sighed, “I was figurin’ on a little more time to get clear. The son-ofŤ-bitch outfoxed me. That’s life, Buzz. Take the good with the bad, man. But there just might be a way out. One way. Now listen, you people-when the artillery bombardment starts, we cut out, on foot I mean, we get clear of this town just as fast as shank’s mare can carry us. We go in all directions. We take two, three days’ supply of food and water, a blanket, a poncho, and a weapon. That’s all. We g^>t to travel light Some of us will make it. Not many, ‘cause the goin’ is gonna be tough as hell. But a few of us will make it. If we can get four or five miles clear of this town, we hole up. We find us a spot to hide and we make like gophers and we don’t move. The Rebels will look over what’s left of the town, and then pull out. It’s the way they been doing it ever since he began this push, weeks ago. We can’t try to run before the artillery barrage begins. Raines is anticipating us doin’ that. We got to time this just right. Now get on back and talk to your people. Get some supplies together. Keep two canteens filled up to the brim. Be ready to go. Go on, get out of here.”

When the room had cleared of all but a few of Ray’s most trusted people, one asked, “You really think we can make it out of here, Ray?”

“Some of us. If we don’t panic. That’s the trick. We’ve got to keep our wits about us. Once in the timber, we

 

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move very cautiously-alert all the tune. Raines won’t be expecting us to be ready for him. So we’ve got to be ready.” When Ray was finally alone, he sat very still for a time. Everybody else could run, but not him. He’d pretend like he was running toward the timber, then double back. This time, he silently swore, he’d kill Ben Raines. If he could think of some sort of edge, that is. If not, he’d run like a rabbit and forget all about the rest of these damn losers.

Ben got the artillery in place, but it was only with a supreme effort on the part of his people, for the terrain was rugged and the county roads in very bad shape.

Ben, however, had no intention of using artillery to finish off the last of the punks. He just couldn’t be sure they’d gotten all of Simon Border’s infiltrators and he couldn’t take a chance on divulging his real plans until the very last minute.

The country was totally unsuitable for tanks, and they would be confined to the four main roads, when Ben decided to call them up.

He had briefed his batt corns on his plans, and what Ben had in mind came as no surprise to any of them. They knew how much Ben hated Ray Brown.

Ben pulled in another battalion and added them to those ringing the town and patrolling the mountains and forests. Ben was determined to put an end to the punks, once and for all.

Mike Richards showed up with his band of guerrillas and they looked much better than the last time Ben had seen his intelligence chief.

“You eating regular now, Mike?” Ben asked with a smile.

“You bet. Ben, I wanted to come back to see you close the book on the punks.”

“Oh, they’ll always be punks, Mike. But probably never

 

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in as large a concentration as those we’ve been hammering for the past months. Now tell me the real reason you returned so quickly.”

Mike chuckled. He rose and refilled his coffee mug, then turned and faced Ben, a serious expression on his face. “Simon is preaching a holy war, Ben. He’s telling his faithful that this war will be the war to bring God back to the nation. I remind you again, the man has millions of followers, and not just confined to his territory.”

Ben spread his hands. “I know, Mike. I know only too well. I’ve told the man repeatedly that once we deal with the punks, we’re out of his territory. But if he wants a war, there is not a damn thing I can do to prevent that from happening. I spoke with the fool not an hour ago. Told him that I’d forget all about his Guards of God attacking us back up the road. Told him again that once Ray Brown is dealt with, if he’ll let us, we’re out of his territory. He said he would bury us all here and then broke the transmission. I’ve back-pedaled all I’m going to. I just can’t do anymore.”

“What’s happening back home to meet this challenge, Ben?”

“Factories working around the clock. All planes and helicopters and tanks ready to roll. All battalions on the move toward the eastern edge of Simon’s territory.”

“Nineteen battalions against twenty million of the faithful, all of them religious fanatics, ready to die for God and Simon Border?”

“I don’t see that I have any choice, Mike.”

“Oh, I understand that, Ben. I wasn’t criticizing you. Just, well, appalled at the odds, that’s all.”

“Join the club.”

“Well, when you decide to move, I’ve got teams of people scattered all over Border’s little kingdom, sitting on ready to launch a guerrilla action. We’ll be able to help some.”

 

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“We?”

“Oh, I’m going back into Border’s territory. I, ah, well, I feel I can be more use in there, that’s all.”

“Found you a woman, huh, Mike?”

The chief of intelligence at first looked disgusted, then the man actually blushed. “Damn, Ben. How do you do that? I’m going to have to put some credence in the longstanding rumor that you possess a third eye.”

Ben laughed at the man. “I’m just a good guesser, Mike. That’s all.”

“Well, yeah, I did sort of take up with a lady. And she is a real lady, Ben. She got taken in by Simon’s line years ago and moved west with a group of people. Didn’t take her long to see through the bastard, though. She’s been part of a guerrilla unit for several years.”

“You want to pull her out and move her to Base Camp One?”

Mike shook his head. “I’ve already suggested that. She won’t hear of it”

“Then I’ll tell you what to do, Mike-you head on back and stay with her. Give us a good fix on your location, and I’ll arrange to have to you resupplied by airdrop. Hell, there is nothing for you to do here. Go on back up north and get set up for the push.”

“That’s firm then, Ben? We’re really looking at a religious war?”

“I don’t see any way out of it.” Ben didn’t say anything about the request that when the Rebels finished in North America, they make plans to head for Africa. Ben knew how opposed Mike was to that.

Mike was of the opinion that if the Rebels went to Africa, they could be bogged down there forever.

And Ben wasn’t too sure the man was that for off base in his thinking.

After Mike had left, Ben sat for a time alone in his motor

 

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home. His people were almost ready to strike at, as Mike put it, “the last bastion of punks.”

And then … the fight that Ben knew would possibly, no, probably tear the country apart. But he didn’t see any way out of a fight with Simon Border. Border was the type of so-called Christian that drove Ben away from organized religion when he was just out of his teens, and Ben had never gone back.

Ben had been baptized as a youth, had read the Bible all his life for inspiration and comfort, and still did, often, believing strongly in God and in some type of life after death. But he worshipped God in his own way and was a strong Old Testament man. Ben was a strong law and order man, but one’s personal life was their own business. Ben believed in maximum freedom with a minimum of laws, and no interference in one’s personal life as long as that person obeyed the laws of the SUSA. Ben didn’t give a damn if a person sat nude in their bathtub worshipping a bucket filled with kumquats … just as long as that person did not try to convince a person under the age of consent that their way was the best way and the only way.

That’s where Ben drew the line.

Ben walked outside to stand for a moment, breathing deeply of the cold late fall air. He looked around him. Beautiful country. He cut his eyes as Corrie walked up to stand beside him.

“Those goofy reporters are in the rear with Emil,” she said.

“Good. Everything set?”

“Sitting on ready.”

“No unusual activity in the town?”

“No, sir.”

“Ray’s got something up his sleeve, because he sure knows we’re here.”

 

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“No way he could have found out what we have planned.”

Ben nodded his agreement with that. “Well, we’ll see in the morning. We hit him at first light.”

 

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The Rebels, Ben and his team with them, had moved into position during the early morning hours. This was their type of assault and to a person they excelled at it. The first assault team had moved to within a few yards of the old town limits and waited for Ben’s signal. Not one of the first to go in had made a sound during their advance. They waited like silent death for the first gray shards of lights to lighten the eastern skies.

“Now!” Ben whispered to Corrie; she radioed the command, and the Rebels surged forward.

All around the town’s outer limits, the Rebels started chucking grenades into buildings, giving those inside a very rude, if brief, awakening.

Ray Brown had been awake for several hours, tension making him unable to sleep. When the first muffled explosion reached him, the gang leader knew Ben Raines had outfoxed him-again. He grabbed his rucksack and rifle and headed for the back door.

 

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“That miserable bastard!” Ray muttered, running for the timber. There were screams of fright and shock and pain ripping the cold air, drifting to him.

Suddenly, all the air whooshed out of him and he went to the ground hard, losing his rifle as he hit the earth. He looked up and cussed as he fought for breath.

Ben was standing over him, smiling.

“You asshole!” Ray gasped, holding his stomach where Ben had popped him with the butt of his CAR.

“My scouts pinpointed your location days ago, punk,” Ben said. “I’ve been waiting for you to make a run for it.”

“Then go ahead and shoot me, you bastard!”

Ben shook his head. “Oh, no, punk. That would be too easy. Get up.”

Ray had caught his breath, now breathing easier. He laughed at Ben. “Are you nuts, old man? You really want to tangle with me, one-on-one?”

“That’s right, Brown. Mano-a-mano. Are you intelligent enough to know what that means?”

Ray crawled to his knees. “I know what it means, Raines.”

“Unbuckle that pistol belt,” Ben ordered. “And do it very carefully.”

“With pleasure, Raines.” Ray tossed the belt, with its holstered pistol and knife, to one side. “Do I get up now?”

“By all means, punk.” Ben had laid his CAR aside and removed his battle harness, tossing it on the ground.

Ray looked around as he rose to his feet. Ben’s team was standing off to one side. A dozen other Rebels were standing silently, watching. “What happens when I win, Raines?”

“No chance of that happening, punk.”

“This is no-holds-barred, Raines? Anything goes?”

“Just the way I like it, shithead.”

Ray cursed and charged Ben. Ben sidestepped and

 

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tripped the gang leader, sending him sprawling on the ground. Nothing hurt except his pride.

“Get up, hot-shot,” Ben taunted the gang leader. “Damn, there isn’t much to you.”

Ray jumped to his boots, cussing Ben. He swung at Ben, missed, then connected widi a glancing left to the face.

Ben stepped back, shook his head, and popped Ray twice, a left and right combination, belly and jaw.

The twin blows drove die younger man back. Raines might be middle-aged, die diought jumped into Ray’s brain, but die bastard could still punch. Ray stepped back and spat out blood, then stepped in close and bodi men stood toe-to-toe for half a minute, exchanging blows, most of the blows falling on arms and shoulders, doing litde damage to either combatant.

Ray was 20 years younger, but he was badly out of shape. Ben, on the odier hand, had been living in die field for years, and maintained a daily schedule of calisthenics, which he followed religiously.

Bodi men stepped back to catch dieir breath.

Ray noticed then diat die gunfire had all but stopped. Raines’s sneak dawn attack had destroyed what was left of the gangs. The son-of-a-bitch had sworn he would do it, and he did it.

Rage filled Ray and he stepped in close and took a swing. Ben ducked the punch and hit him hard on the moudi, pulping his lips. Ray just dien noticed Raines had slipped on a pair of thin leather gloves seconds before die fight. Ray knew diat die gloves would not only help protect die hands, but enable die man to hit harder.

Just to prove die point, Ben popped him again, diis time on die nose, and die blood flew. Ben followed diat punch widi a right cross. Ray backed up, involuntary tears flooding his eyes.

Ben took diat time to bore in and really hammer at Ray

 

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with hard hitting and hurting lefts and rights, forcing the younger man back.

Ray lucked out with a wild swing that connected against Ben’s jaw and forced Ben to stop his advance and clear his head. Ray wiped the blood away and stepped in close. Bad mistake on his part. Ben lashed out with a boot that caught the gang leader on the knee and brought a howl of pain. Ray dropped his guard and Ben hit him four times in the face, swelling one eye and further pulping Ray’s lips.

Both men stood facing each other, and as if on cue, dropped their hands to their sides to rest for a moment.

“Pretty good for an old man, Raines,” Ray gasped.

“Oh, you haven’tseen anything yet, punk,” Ben panted.

Ray got it then. Raines was going to beat him to death. “You’re crazy, man!”

“Just a man who likes dogs, you piece of shit!”

“Dogs,” Ray whispered. “You’re doing this because of dogs?”

“Among other reasons.”

“I hate dogs. I got bitten by a dog when I was a boy.”

“That’s wonderful, Ray. Makes a lot of sense. I’ve been shot several times, but I don’t hate guns. I’ve been divorced a couple of times, but I don’t hate women. Assholes like you who lack character can always find some excuse for your cruelty.” Ben lifted his hands and balled them into big fists. “Come on, Ray. Have you turned chickenshit on me?”

Ray stepped forward and ran right into a left and right to the face that staggered him and further bloodied his face. Ben smiled at him.

Ray got scared. For the first time in a very long time, the gang leader realized he was going to lose a fight-to a man 20 years his senior. Ray turned and tried to break

 

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through the circle of Rebels. He was very rudely shoved back.

“Fight, you punk bastard!” a burly Rebel taunted him.

“I’ve had it, Raines!” Ray yelled. “I surrender! I give up!”

“When you’re dead I’ll consider your request,” Ben told him, then knocked Ray down.

Through a blur of pain, the gang leader scrambled to his feet. His nose was leaking blood, his lips were bloody, there were several cuts on his face, one eye was rapidly swelling shut. He turned in all directions, seeking a way out of the circle of uniformed men and women. He was trapped. Screaming his fear and rage, Ray charged Ben. Ben buried one big fist in Ray’s stomach, the blow doubling him over and putting him to his knees, coughing and puking and gasping for air. Ray held up a hand.’ ‘Enough,” he gasped.

“How many of your victims said the same thing, you punk bastard?” Ben snarled at him.

“My God!” Ben heard Ms. Braithewaithe-Honniker cry. “Give the man a chance. He wants to be rehabilitated.”

“Oh, he’s going to be completely rehabilitated,” Ben told die reporter, not taking his eyes from Ray Brown. “You can believe that.”

Ray scurried toward Ben, on his hands and knees, looking like a very large and very ugly bug. Ben kicked him in the face, the boot knocking Ray back and landing him on his back. Ben stepped back, his hands at his side.

“Get up, punk. You eitiier get up and fight me, or by God, I swear I’ll kick you to deadi.”

“You brute!” Ms. Honeyducker yelled. “You savage monster!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ben muttered.

Ray slowly got to his feet. A Rebel wetted a towel from

 

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his canteen and tossed it to Ray. Ray caught it with his face.

“Don’t say we’re not fair, punk,” the Rebel called, then laughed.

Ray wiped his face with the wet towel and hurled it back toward the Rebels. Then he stepped forward, raising his fists. “All right, Raines,” he panted. “I got my second wind now. Now I’m gonna stomp you.”

“Very doubtful,” Ben said, then leaped at Ray, both boots slamming into the gang leader. One boot striking the man in the chest, the other boot catching him full in the face, Ray hit the ground.

“Oh, good move, boss!” Beth called.

Ray slowly rose to his hands and knees, blood pouring from his smashed face. He painfully turned his head at the sounds of gunfire. “What’s that?” he managed to mumble the question.

“Firing squads,” Ben told him.

Ray suddenly lunged at Ben, trying to grab him by the knees. Ben stepped out of the way and all Ray managed to grab was air. He landed on his belly, stretched out on the ground.

“That’s kind of pitiful, Ray,” Ben’s words reached him through a mist of pain. “I thought you were a big tough boy. You sure had a lot of people fooled.”

“Finish it, you son-of-a-bitch!” Ray gasped.

“All right,” Ben told him. “If you insist.” He stepped forward and grabbed Ray’s head with his big hands. One sudden twist and all present heard Ray’s neck break. Ben stepped back and looked at the knot of utterly horrified reporters. “Now he’s rehabilitated,” Ben said.

Ms. Honeymucker fainted.

 

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The backbone of the gangs had been broken, the head cut off the snake. Ben knew that several hundred gang members had escaped the assaults that had stretched from very nearly coast to coast, but those few hundred were disorganized, demoralized, and leaderless. Ben had no intention of pursuing them.

Now Ben knew he had to deal, in some manner, with Simon Border. He would make one final attempt at talking some sense into the man. If that failed, then there would be war.

Ben now had eight battalions with him, the remainder of his battalions set to roll, being held at the ready on the edge of Border’s territory.

Ben moved his people out of the mountains south to a larger town that had an airport. Once there, he ordered the reporters to board planes and get the hell out of his sight and keep it that way.

 

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William W. Johnstone

“You are a very rude person, General Raines,” Ms. Braithewaithe-Honniker told him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ben muttered. Once the planes were airborne, Ben turned his attentions toward Emil Hite.

“I’m not going to send you back, Emil.”

“Thank you, my general,” Emil said humbly. “You won’t regret it.”

“That remains to be seen, Emil. But I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You stay with the column, and stay out of trouble. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Fine. Now gather up your followers and get ready to pull out.”

“Yes, sir!” Emil saluted, French-style, palm out, and spun around, almost falling down before recovering his balance and hustling off.

Ben smiled. Emil was now and had been for years a colossal pain in the ass, but a likeable one. His smile faded as a darker thought entered his brain. Ben and his Rebels were hundreds of miles from home base, deep in the territory of a man who, in Ben’s opinion, was mentally unstable and who had sworn to destroy them all.

Ben decided to try Simon one more time, even though he knew it was a useless gesture. But Ben wanted it clear at least in his mind that he had done everything within his power to avert a war with Simon Border.

After several unsuccessful tries to contact Simon, Corrie shook her head. “No go, boss. They’re not responding. I’m sure they hear us. They’re just not going to answer.”

“See if you can contact Mike.”

She had the man on the horn within seconds and handed Ben the mic. “What’s going on up in the holy land, Mike?”

“Preparing for war, Ben. Against the ‘Great Satan.’ That’s you, in case you’ve forgotten.”

 

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“How could I forget being equated with the devil? Does Simon have a timetable for this war?”

“As soon as you try to leave. I was going to contact you later on and advise you of this, Ben. I’m getting ready to pull out with my people. It’s about to get real scary here in Colorado.”

”I won’ t ask you where you’re going. Just keep in touch.”

“Ben, we don’t know where we’re going. Simon’s put everyone on high alert. It’s dangerous for a non-believer just to glance out the window.”

“Can we get out, Mike? Back to our own borders?”

“Not without a hell of a fight, Ben. Simon’s had his factories working around the clock for months, cranking out war materials. Billions of rounds of ammo. And he has advised his people that this will be a fight to the death.”

“Shit!”

“That’s what it’s turning into.”

“They believe him, Mike? Simon’s followers, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, Ben. Simon is the father, if you get what I mean.”

“I get it, all right. Anything else, Mike?”

“That’s about it.”

“I guess all I can say is good luck.”

“Same to you, Ben. I’ll be in touch.”

Corrie had switched to another radio and when Ben turned around, he noticed she was listening intently. He waited and when she signed off, she wore a very worried expression. “What’s up, Corrie?”

“Simon’s people are on the move, heading this way by convoy. They’re about 75 miles to the north of us. Scouts are staying a few miles ahead of them.”

“How many?”

“Thousands,” she said softly.

“Thousands?”

 

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I “Yes, sir. Loudspeakers on the trucks blaring religious I music. To use one of the scout’s words, it’s awesome.” I “Tanks?”

“Only a few. But plenty of towed artillery. And they’ve got a lot of 81mm mortars.”

“Those old 81s have a good range on them,” Ben mused. “About 5,200 yards. They could deal us some misery. All right, Corrie. Give the orders to pack up and mount up. We’re heading south.”

“We don’t stand and give them a fight, boss?” Jersey asked, disappointment clear behind her words.

Ben sighed. “I don’t want to kill these people, Little Bit. I thought after we kicked ass with Simon’s Guards of God he’d get the message. But he didn’t. He wants a fight. Well, I’m not going to be the one who starts it. If his army catches up with us and forces a fight, we’ll fight. But they’re going to be the aggressors, not us. Let’s go.”

By the afternoon of the second day of their roll south, it became clear that Simon’s people were closing the gap. Ben had thousands of tons of heavy artillery and tanks to move, and they could not travel at any rate of speed which would enable them to get clear of Simon’s people, who were traveling mostly in trucks and able to roll faster.

“Forty miles and closing,” Corrie reported.

“Shit!” Ben swore. He kicked a rusted can across the highway and cussed and stomped some more. Then he settled down and opened his map case, spreading the map out on the hood of a HumVee. “Okay, people. Goddammit!” He thumped the map. “Tell the scouts to find us a place between Casa Grande and Tucson. I want as much high ground as possible. Bump Buddy and tell him to take his special ops people and roll on ahead, link up with scouts. Find him a good ambush spot and get set.

 

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We’ll be a few hours behind him. Now, then. I’m going to make one more attempt to talk some sense into Simon Border. And Corrie, after you’ve bumped Buddy, see if you can raise that… so-called man of God.”

“For all the good it will do,” she added.

“Right-Buddy’s battalion on the move, both Ben and Corrie were surprised when Simon came on the horn. “What do you want, Raines?”

“To try to convince you that I just want to clear your territory without a fight, Simon.”

“You made your bed, Raines. Now lie in it.”

“Not too original,” Ben muttered. He keyed the mic. “We don’t have to fight each other, Simon. It isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

“I shall be rid of you, Raines. One less plague upon God’s earth.”

“Simon, your stubbornness is going to get a lot of people killed.”

“My people do not fear death, Raines. They know a better life awaits them beyond the veil.”

“I believe that, too, Simon.”

There was a few seconds pause before Simon again spoke. “You believe in life after death, Raines?”

“Certainly I do. I’ve been washed in die blood.”

“I find that hard to believe. Why did you turn your back on God and embrace the devil?”

“I didn’t, Simon. There are churches all over the SUSA.”

“Which one do you attend?”

“I don’t, Simon,” Ben answered truthfully. “I worship God in my own way.”

“I knew you were a heathen, Raines.”

“Oh, me,” Ben sighed. He opened the mic. “Simon, call off your troops before it’s too late. Once they engage us, we’ll have no choice but to fight.”

 

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William W. Johnstme

“A state of war now exists between us, Raines, If you want to avoid bloodshed, I will, of course, accept your unconditional surrender.”

“The man is a fool,” Cooper said.

“His yoyo definitely has a short string,” Ben agreed, and his team laughed at his expression. “Simon, surrender is out of the question. Why not just let us leave your, ah, country?”

“You started this, Raines. Now I shall finish it.”

“I’d have more luck talking to a fence post,” Ben muttered. “You won’t even discuss our leaving peacefully, Simon?”

There was no response. Ben tried again. Nothing. Simon had broken off.

“All right,” Ben said, resignation in his voice. “Simon wants a fight, we’ll give him one. Let’s roll, people. We’ve got to get set up.”

Several hours later, Corrie called, “Twenty miles and closing.”

Ben glanced at his watch. “It’ll be about two o’clock when Simon’s troops come into range.”

“They’re within range now, sir!” Jackie Malone said.

“Our range, Jackie,” Ben corrected. “I want them in close and for them to open this dance. I will not be the aggressor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben looked around. “Where is Emil?”

“With Jim Peters’s 14 Batt,” Corrie answered. “Jim told Emil if he tried to slip off or pull anything stupid, he’d shoot him on the spot.”

“That should keep Emil quiet for awhile. He’s about half scared of Jim. Corrie, give the orders-body armor on. I want everybody in full protective gear. Absolutely no exceptions.”

 

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“You think this is going to end up eyeball-to-eyeball?” Jersey asked.

“It’s possible. If Simon’s people are as fanatical as we’ve been led to believe, they might try a human wave attack.”

“If they do,” Beth said softly, “this is going to be a damn slaughter.”

“Yes, it will, Beth. They’ve got to come across several miles of flats out there.” He shook his head. “It’s all so stupid and poindess.”

“Are diose people about to attack us really Christians, boss?” Cooper asked.

‘ ‘Well, I guess so, Coop,” Ben replied after a few seconds’ pause. “What am I saying? Sure they’re Christians. But they’ve taken their faith to the extreme. They’ve been suckered by a charlatan named Simon Border. And now they’re going to die for Simon Border,” he added softly.

“Fifteen miles and closing,” Corrie reported.

“Is Buddy’s battalion in position?”

“Ready to close the pinchers.”

“Can you contact the commander of the…” he sighed. “Enemy column?”

“Negative. I’ve been trying. They refuse to respond.”

“Scouts say they have 105s?”

“Affirmative. Both 155s and 105s, towed.”

“The 155s have a range of approximately 20,000 yards,” Beth said. “The 105s have a maximum range of 16,000 yards. That is using conventional rounds.”

“I would be very surprised if Simon’s people have rocket-assisted artillery rounds,” Ben said.

“We have no intel indicating they do,” Beth replied.

Ben rolled a cigarette and waited. Someone handed him a mug of coffee and he was so deep in thought he dianked them widiout even looking around to see who it was.

“Range ten miles,” Corrie said.

“Five more miles and they’ll start throwing the big boys

 

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at us,” Ben said. “When the first enemy rounds land, we open up with everything we can throw at them. Give that order, Corrie.”

“Yes, sir.”

The minutes and the miles rolled by, the column drew closer.

“Five miles and closing,” Corrie said.

“No sign of their artillery breaking off and setting up?”

“No, sir.”

“What the hell’s wrong with that commander? We’re going to be looking down each other’s throats in a few minutes.”

Several more minutes ticked by before Corrie announced, “Range, approximately three miles. The column is stopping and setting up.”

“They wanted close enough in to use their mortars,” Ben said. “They’re going to throw everything they have at us. Tell the scouts to pull back out of incoming and act as forward observers.”

“They’re using 155s and 105s and they’re worried about mortars?” Cooper asked. “Doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I don’t believe Simon has many combat-experienced people, Coop. I think he’s depending on sheer numbers to defeat us.”

“Crazy,” Cooper said. “This is a crazy, stupid war. It’s so … unnecessary.”

“It’s necessary for Simon, Coop,” Ben replied. “He has to show his people his way is the only way, and the best way to do that is to defeat us.”

“But he can’t defeat us, boss.”

“Not in die long run, Coop. But we’re going to take some heavy losses before we begin to turn the tide. This is not going to be some easy win for us. As accustomed as we are to that.”

 

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The first incoming round exploded far short of the first line of Rebels.

“Fire!” Ben said. “And may God be looking the other way during the course of this war.”

 

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At first the battle appeared to be another wholesale slaughter. Ben’s gunners were dropping in rounds with almost pinpoint accuracy and Buddy’s people had opened up with machine gun fire from the ridges on either side of the enemy column, raking Simon’s troops with deadly fire.

Finally the commanders of Simon’s troops got the message and ordered a retreat from that pretty little deadly valley. Ben let them go.

“All units cease firing,” he ordered. “Let’s get out of here while we can.”

But if it took an hour and a half to set up, it took an hour and a half to break down and get back on the move.

“Scouts report that Simon’s troops are circling around and preparing for a counterattack,” Corrie said.

“You have got to be kidding!”

“No, sir.”

“Can Buddy’s people hold them back?”

“No, sir.”

 

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“No?”

“The enemy appears to be preparing a human wave charge.”

“They’re crazy, boss!” Cooper said.

“Are we ready to go?” Ben asked.

“Ready to mount up.”

“Tell Buddy to get the hell out of there. Everybody mount up and roll.”

“We’re bugging out?” Beth asked.

“You’re damn right we are.”

“Batt corns are requesting orders,” Corrie pressed him.

“Bug out, Corrie. Head south for 1-10.”

“Too late, sir. Here they come. It’s a human wave charge.”

“What the hell is that sound?” Cooper asked. “Sounds like music.”

Ben listened for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ That used to be my very favorite song. They’re pushing it through loudspeakers.”

‘ ‘Fifteen hundred yards and closing,” Corrie said.’ ‘Hundreds and hundreds of them, boss.”

“Stand and fight,” Ben ordered. “Open up with everything. Cut them down.”

This time it was a slaughter. The Rebels threw up a defensive line and opened up with every weapon at their disposal. The plain below them became a killing field as Simon’s troops went down in bloody mangled heaps. After what seemed an eternity, but was only a few minutes, someone in command on the other side got smart and began calling for a retreat. Simon’s troops began slowly pulling back, leaving hundreds of dead and wounded behind them.

Overhead, the carrion birds had already begun their slow circling.

“Now let’s get out of here,” Ben ordered.

 

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“There are uprisings by Simon Border’s followers all over the nation, Ben,” Cecil said. “It looks as though it’s a fullblown religious war.”

“And we, , caused it by invading Border’s territory.” It was not put as a question.p>

“No. I don’t believe that at all. Put that out of your mind. I think Simon was looking for any excuse to kick up trouble. I think those so-called Guards of God were sent in as cannon fodder.”

“I never thought of that, Gee. But you may well be right about it.”

“Don’t try to make it back to Base Camp One, Ben. You’ll probably just have to turn right around and head back. I would suggest you try for Texas, set up a base, and wait and see what happens.”

“Providing we can get out this state, you mean.”

“It’s that bad?”

“It’s very bleak, Cec. Besides, I don’t want to fight a damn religious war on our territory.”

“You have a plan?”

“A piece of one. I’m going to try for Tucson and the old air force base there. Either there at Davis-Monthan or at the old international airport We can clean up the runways and be resupplied there. I hatje to go on the defensive, but I just don’t think I have much! choice left We’ll check it out and let you know.”

“I’ve never heard you sound so down, Ben.”

“Well, hell, Cec. Things start looking up for the nation, then it falls apart. We prop everything up, then it all comes tumbling down once more. It’s like a yoyo. It gets damned depressing as the years go by.”

“What alternative do we have, Ben?”

“That’s what’s got me in such a funk, Cec. We don’t

 

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have any alternative. We’ve talked about bunkering in-we both know that won’t work, not in the long run. But a religious war, Cec?”

“We didn’t start it, Ben.”

“But can we finish it? I mean, really finish it?”

“I can’t answer that, Ben. Only time will tell.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve put the entire SUSA under high alert. Our borders are sealed. I’ve opened our chemical warfare bunkers and readied the delivery systems. I’ve told Simon in as blunt of terms as possible I will use the most lethal gas in our arsenal against his people if they try anything.”

“Getting tough in your old age, aren’t you, Cec?” Ben said with a smile.

There was no humor in Cecil’s reply. “I like our way of life, Ben. I think it’s a fine and noble experiment that worked, and I mean to see that it continues. So Simon Border and his religious freaks can go fuck themselves.”

That brought a chuckle from Ben. “I’m happy to know I won’t have to worry about the future of the SUSA, Cec. What does Secretary Blanton have to say about your decision?”

“He supports it, Ben. And so does his wife … well, let’s just say more so than not.”

“That is interesting. Okay, Cec, anything else?”

“I guess that’s it, Ben.”

“Okay. We’re on the move.”

“Good luck to you.”

“Good luck to us all, Cec. And give my best to President Altman when you talk to him.”

“Will do. Take care.”

Ben hooked the mic and stood silent for a moment. Then he smiled at Corrie. “Let’s get this circus on the road, Corrie. Looks like we’re going to be in Arizona for awhile.”

 

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“Everything is coming unglued, isn’t it, boss?”

“It sure seems that way.”

“I hate to bring this up,” Jersey said. “But I will-has anybody considered a K-Team going in and killing Simon Border?”

“Yes,” Ben replied. “He’s virtually untouchable. He has a dozen homes deep in die Rockies. Most of his own people don’t even know where he is at any given time. Yes, Jersey, we’ve considered it several times.”

“So …?”

Ben sighed, almost painfully. “We watch the country tear itself apart in a religious war, I suppose.”

“And then?”

“Those of us who survive start all over.”

288 WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE THE BLOOD BOND SERIES

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