AMBUSH!

Ben Raines’s eyes caught the glint of sunlight off metal or glass in the tall grass by the side of the overpass. Might be a sniper up there, he thought. He turned back to Big Louie.

“What about it?” Ben asked.

Louie’s lips grew pouty. “Ultimatums, general? That’s not a very nice way to begin a relationship.”

The man standing beside Louie suddenly turned, stepping to one side, a movement that put him directly in front of Ben.

A moment later the sound of a rifle booming reached them.

The slug hit the man’s battle harness, and an explosion momentarily deafened Ben just as the man in front of him seemed to disintegrate before Ben’s eyes.

Then the rifle cracked again and something smacked Ben on the back of his head, dropping him into darkness

…

 

SMOKE FROM THE ASHES BY WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

PINNACLE BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. httpccwww.williamjohnstone.com To: Jon Paul and Jane This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. PINNACLE BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright [*copygg‘1987 by William W. Johnstone All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.” Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.s. Pat. and TM Off. First Zebra Printing: October,

First Pinnacle Printing: March, 1998 10 9

8 7 6 5 4

Printed in the United States of America I leave this rule for others when I’m dead. Be always sure you’re right-then go ahead. David Crockett If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs? John Clare BOOK ONE Chapter 1

The young man listened to his mother’s screaming harangue, but paid scant attention to her shrieking. It was always the same. Everything bad that had happened was the fault of Ben Raines. Ben Raines was the Great Satan. Ben Raines this and Ben Raines that and Ben Raines must die.

The young man had known for some time that his mother was very nearly a basket case. But she was still his mother, and-What was that old saying? Blood is thicker than water, or something like that.

The young man stepped further back, in order to better inspect the crowd who listened with rapt attention to the woman’s words. The expression on their faces was one of love and devotion and fanaticism.

Hell, they’re just as crazy as she is! the young man thought.

Poor, misguided, foolish people.

The young man looked at the new additions to his mother’s army. Those scabby, savage motorcyclists who had come roaring in from the west, after being soundly defeated by General Raines. He had listened to his mother speak to them when they first arrived.

Same old shit.

The young man backed further away from the mob

and shook his head sadly. He thought: You made a mistake, Mother, when you insisted I be educated. When you insisted I learn languages and study the writings of the ancient intellectuals. Patrick Henry said it, Mother: I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging the future but by the past.

And if I stay with you, Mother, I’ll soon be as crazy as you are. And you, Mother, your babblings, are not the answer. Your hate has consumed you.

He saw movement to his right and just to his rear. He cut his eyes. An old man motioned to him. He walked to the old man.

“I see your motorcycle is ready for the road,” the old man said. “You’ve made up your mind then?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It’s past time for you to get away from your mother, before she poisons you, like she has done so many.”

“I fear I shall never see you again, old man.”

“You won’t. The cancer is growing. Sometimes the pain is almost too much to bear. I think I only lived this long to see you gone and free from your mother.”

“Is he really my father, old man?”

“Yes. Of that I am certain. You have his eyes, his intelligence, his bullheadedness, and his drive to organize; to pull something better for all out of the ashes of this horror we’ve been living in for years.”

“Should I, when we meet, tell him the entire truth, old man?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t try to lie to him. He’d see through that instantly.”

“Is he really a god?”

The old man hesitated. “I… don’t know. I rather doubt it; but I can’t be sure.” He gripped the young man’s thick, strong arm. “Go now, boy. Turn away

and never look back. And may the true and only God ride with you.”

The old man limped painfully into the timber.

The young man walked swiftly to his motorcycle and cranked it into life. He toed it into gear and rolled out. He did not look back.

“How would you have changed history, General Raines?” a young Rebel asked Ben.

The Rebels were bivouacked by the shores of a small lake in Central Kansas. They had pulled over early in the day to make some much needed repairs to some trucks.

“That’s a very interesting question, son,” Ben said with a laugh. “What time frame in history are you speaking of?”

“Ten years before the Great War,” another young Rebel said.

Ben started to ask, “Which Great War?” But he knew which one the Rebel meant. The world war that brought the entire world, free and otherwise, to its knees. The war from which the world had never recovered.

How would I have changed history? Ben silently mused. He hid a smile, thinking: I would have shot every goddamned liberal.

But he knew he would not have done that, for while Ben Raines sometimes leaned so far to the conservative right some wondered how he managed to walk upright, figuratively speaking, Ben shared many of the liberal views. The difference was, Ben backed up his views with gunpowder.

“What do you know about that time before the Great War?” Ben asked, looking at the young Rebel who had asked the question. The young man could

not have been much more than ten years old, if that old, when the world collapsed.

Several hundred Rebels, including Ike McGowan, had gathered around. Ike had been with Ben from the outset; had been with him, working beside him, when Ben’s dream, the Tri-States, had become reality. The ex-navy Seal was just about Ben’s age; both men’s hair peppered with gray.

Ike winked at Ben.

The young Rebel said, “I know that it was a time of great confusion. Of a lot of people being rich and a lot of people being poor, with not much in between.”

Ben also knew the young man had no real knowledge of what being rich or poor meant. The dollar had not been in use for some time. And within Rebel-held territory, no one went hungry, or went in rags, or lacked proper housing or fuel to keep warm. But outside of Rebel-controlled territory in this, what was left of America, roaming gangs of thugs and punks and killers ruled. Men and women and children lived in daily fear for their lives.

Again, Ben had to hide a smile. Hell, he thought, maybe that much hasn’t changed in this, the second decade after the Great War, and the government smashing of the Tri-States.

“It was a confusing time,” Ben said. And the gathering of Rebels, young, middle-aged, and old, fell silent in order to better hear the words from General Raines. “It was also a time of great greed. The philosophy of many was: Give me more money for less work. I want everything my neighbor has. Many companies literally priced themselves out of existence while the quality of their merchandise went to hell in a bucket. Not all people felt that way, but enough did to tip the balance.

“It was a time when the criminal had more rights than the law-abiding citizen.” Don’t they ever get tired of hearing this? Ben thought. How many times over the years have I made this same speech? A hundred? More? Probably.

“The United States was surrounded by nations who called themselves our friends, but not so secretly hated us. Britain, and in some respects, Canada, stayed with us to the end. If the germ-carrying bombs had not come, we would have probably had to fight a war with Mexico. Communism had already crept up to that nation’s southern borders. Our United Nations was nothing more than a cancerous wart sitting in New York City. All anyone would have had to do was count the votes against us every time a vote was taken, and they could have seen what was happening. Many of the so-called Third World nations wanted our money, our aid, and then turned around and farted in our faces every chance they got.”

Ben took that time to roll one of the few cigarettes he allowed himself daily. Piss-poor cigarettes they were, too. Good tobacco, if there ever was such a thing, was no more. Like coffee, a free ride, welfare, Legal Aid, the ACLU, unions, the stock market, General Motors, apple pie, and the girl next door-all gone. When the government crumbled, it was the end.

“What would I have done?” Ben asked the question. “It was so complex, and yet so simple. I — his

“General?” an aide interrupted. “Sorry, sir. But we’ve got company.”

Ben ground out his hand-rolled smoke and stood up. “Where and how many?”

“Comin’ from the east, sir. Half a dozen cars and trucks. Scouts say four people to each car, the trucks are full of people.”

“How far away?”

“Couple of miles out, sir.”

Ben picked up his old Thompson SMG, knowing all eyes were on him as he did so. “Let’s go see what we’ve got, people.”

“Pitiful,” Ike said. “No matter how many times I see it, it’s still pitiful.”

The men were beaten down; the eyes of the women frightened; the kids dirty and probably hungry.

“I know,” Ben said.

“We don’t mean y’all no harm,” a man spoke from out of the ragged group. “But we’d be much obliged if y’all had some food for the kids.”

“Alabama?” Ben asked the man.

“South Carolina,” the man replied. “We don’t look like much now, sir, but we was doin’ all right until Khamsin and his people blowed in. We had us a coop farm, nice gardens, ever’thing. We’d fought outlaws, motorsickel gangs, white trash, and black trash and you name it, and we’d pulled through all right. But Lord have mercy! That Khamsin and his bunch of heathens was just too much.”

All the Rebels gathered around had noticed the black family among the whites. One good thing had come out of the horror of germ and nuclear war: Blind prejudice, among most, was a forgotten thing.

From the intelligence Ben had received about Khamsin and his troops, the residents of South Carolina were indeed having a bad time of it. Ike had just returned from Khamsin’s HQ, where the ex-Seal had led a small team in to rescue his ladylove, Nina. During the raid, the so-called invincible Khamsin, The Hot Wind, had been wounded in his Libyan ass.

Ben said, “You people get something to eat. We’ll talk later.” He motioned Col. Dan Gray to one side. “Find out as much as you can from these people, Dan. They seem like fairly decent folks to me.”

“My first impression agrees with that, general,” the Englishman said. “This would be a fine place to start another outpost, right, sir?”

“You’re reading my mind again, Dan,” Ben replied with a grin.

Gen. Ben Raines’s latest dream was to build a series of outposts across the land, stretching from east to west, and eventually, from north to south, each outpost about a hundred miles apart. The outposts would be staffed by civilians, with a small contingent of Rebels to beef them up. Maybe then, yes, only then, could the nation begin the slow, painful process of pulling itself out of the ashes of ruin and war and desperation.

It damn sure was worth a try. The people certainly had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Since the Great World War, no country had been able to pull itself out of the rubble and form even a semblance of workable government.

No one except Ben Raines and his Rebels.

Tri-States had worked. It had not worked to the satisfaction of all, but it had worked to the satisfaction of all those who lived within its borders. But then the struggling government of the United States, with all the fury and intolerance of a government toward any type of change, had smashed the Rebels’ dreams.

Shortly after that, Ben Raines and his Rebels had taken over the government of the United States, and Ben had been installed as president. It was to be a

short tenure, for after the horror of germ and nuclear warfare, there followed the plague that threatened to completely wipe out humankind worldwide.

But the human spirit is difficult, if not impossible to crush, and many more people than Ben and his Rebels first thought survived through the disease-carrying rats and fleas.

But there was not a stable government anywhere in the entire world. The world, the countries of the world, the government of those countries, large to tiny, from Russian to Monaco, were no more.

Ben had not traveled outside the boundaries of the United States since the Great War, but he had no reason to doubt the stories that had drifted to him. The stories were appalling. Many people around the world had reverted back, in such an amazingly short time, to barbarism. Even in what remained of the United States, warlords had risen out of the rubble and ruin, to claim all sorts of territory, to enslave the people, to rob and rape and loot. There were people within the borders of the United States who had reverted back to the caves, calling themselves the Underground People, rarely venturing out during the daylight hours. All sorts of cults and so-called religions had sprung out of the ashes, preaching all sorts of semi-religious bullshit. Most of it hate filled. And a lot of the hate was directed toward Ben Raines and his Rebels.

The far Northeast was out of bounds for anyone, human or otherwise coms far as Ben knew. That area of the country had taken several nuclear hits, along with a few other cities. Most had died from the germ warfare.

And there were mutants that roamed the land, products of the germ and chemical and nuclear bombs. Part human, part animal, and God alone

knew what else. Great hairy beasts, the adults as large as the biggest polar bear, and twice as dangerous because the mutants had some capacity for thought and reason.

There was danger anywhere one ventured. No one dared to go unarmed. To do so, to be unprepared, to drop one’s guard for even a moment, in this now savage land, was to court death-or worse.

And in South Carolina, waiting to spread like a wildfire, was the Libyan, Khamsin, The Hot Wind, and his thousands of troops. For now, Khamsin and his people were contained; Ben’s Rebels and the civilian fighters along the borders of South Carolina were holding The Hot Wind, allowing it to blow within that state, but preventing it from spreading.

But while some of his people may have been kidding themselves, Ben Raines knew that Khamsin and his troops could break out wherever and whenever they chose to do so. Why they had not done so was something that still puzzled Ben.

But he knew that before he could really, effectively start his outposts across the land, Khamsin had to be dealt with. And dealt with in extreme prejudice.

In other words, kill the son of a bitch!

“Now I think I’m a good Christian man, General Raines,” the spokesman with the group from South Carolina told Ben. “But I worship the God I choose. That damned bunch of heathens that’s took over South Carolina is forcin’ people to forsake Jesus Christ and God Almighty to worship Allah. Now, I ain’t knockin’ anybody’s religion, but I’ll worship my God, not somebody else’s God. And I’ll fight for that right, sir.”

The man was ragged, but there was steel in his

words, and the weapons they all carried were old, but well cared for.

Ben held out his right hand and the man shook it. “You’re my kind of man, sir,” Ben told him. “Are there any more following behind you?”

“Not many more, General Raines.” The man had gotten over his shock upon learning that he was in the company of the legendary and famed Gen. Ben Raines.

Ben looked at his map. The column was just north of Great Bend, Kansas, a small city that had, before the Great War, a population of about sixteen thousand. Ben had briefed the newcomers of his plans of forming outposts across the country. The people from South Carolina were all immediately interested and eager to be a part of it.

“It won’t be easy,” Ben told them all. “And it will be lonely and dangerous.”

“You lead, sir,” the spokesman said. “And we’ll follow.”

Ben smiled. “Let’s go!” Chapter 2

Nothing.

A strange, almost eerie silence greeted the column as they rolled up to and stopped at the outskirts of Great Bend, Kansas.

Ben got out of his truck and stood alone in the center of Highway 56. He listened intently, but could hear only the lonely sighing of the hot, late summer wind as it whispered dark and bloody secrets from times past.

Ike joined Ben, and Ben was glad that the man had flown back from Base Camp One after Nina’s rescue to rejoin him.

“Eerie,” Ike said.

“More and more we’re seeing this,” Ben said, his voice soft in the heat that reflected up off the roadway. “People forsaking the towns to head for the deep country. Splintering off into groups of two and three families. But they don’t realize, even now, they’re committing suicide by doing that. Seems like

they’d know by now that the only strength is in loyal numbers.”

“They’ll probably realize it,” Ike said sourly. “Right before they die.”

“Hell of a way to find out,” Ben said. “Sergeant!” he called. “Get a flag from the truck. Dan! Send your teams in to recon the town.”

“Right away, sir!”

The long column waited under the sun. A hour passed before the recon team leader radioed back. “Nothing and nobody, sir. The town, as far as we’re able to determine, is deserted.”

“Cordon it off,” Dan,” Ben ordered. “Then begin a house-to-house, building-to-building search. Let’s be sure of what we’ve got.” He motioned for an aide to come over. “At Dan’s orders, start the other teams in to label and store anything that’s useful. G.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben turned to the man from South Carolina. “Are you in contact with any of the people coming up behind you?”

“No, sir. But they know the route. That was preplanned.”

“Any malcontents among them? Bigots, laggards, anyone like that?”

“No, sir. We copied our form of existence from you, general. From the old Tri-States philosophy. Everybody works. If they don’t work, they don’t stay. We take care of the old and sick. But able-bodied people work.”

“We’ll stay here with you for a couple of days,” Ben told him. “If you’ve survived this long, you know something about defense. We’ll upgrade your weapons, leave you plenty of ammo and the wherewithal to produce more. Then we’ll push on. For this first

winter, food might present a problem for you. You might be eating a lot of game, but I suspect you’re used to that.”

The man grinned. “Growed up on it, general. We’ll start farmin’ and putting in gardens come spring.”

Ben sighed. “Well, it’s a start. We might be able to pull it off. God knows, we’ve got to try.”

“It’s never gonna be the way it was, is it, general?”

“Not in our lifetime,” Ben said, thinking, probably never again.

Ben was awakened by the guard commander just after midnight. “We got company, general.”

Ben pulled on his boots and slipped into his ammo harness. He picked up his Thompson and said, “Who are they and how many of them?”

“Identity unknown, sir. At least a couple of hundred of them out there.”

“Have they made their intentions known?”

“They’re either awfully arrogant or extremely stupid, Ben.” Ike’s voice came through the darkness. “They think they’re slipping up on us. Our forward posts reported them moving into our area about forty-five minutes ago. I decided to let you sleep until we were sure what they were up to.”

Ike had moved closer, and Ben could see the smile on the man’s lips. “And exactly what are they up to?”

“We captured one of them. Dude looks like something out of one of those old punk-rock movies. Of all the things I have to remember from back in the ‘80’s, it would have to be that shit.”

“They are rather unforgettable,” Ben said drily. “Warlords type?”

“Right. Are you ready for this, Ben?”

“Give it to me.”

“They follow some guy calls himself Zorro.”

“Does he wear a mask and a cape?” Ben asked with a smile.

The young guard did not have the foggiest idea what General Raines and General McGown were talking about. Zorro was a new one on him.

Ike laughed. “Let’s hope not. I’d be laughing too hard to shoot him.”

“You’re in our territory,” the young man told Ben. “And for that, you all will die.”

Ben sat and stared at the odd-looking young man. His head was shaved, all except for a strip of hair down the center of his head. And that was colored orange and green. He wore high-topped boots, leather britches, and a sleeveless T-shirt.

“You’re the goddamnedest thing I’ve ever seen since the days of Alice Cooper, boy,” Ben told him. “Do you know who we are?”

“I am not a female!”

“Neither was he. Answer my question.”

“You are invaders in our territory. You will all die.”

The young man’s body odor was getting a bit much. Ben wondered if the young man had ever been introduced to soap and water. “My name is Ben Raines.”

“You lie!” the young man shouted. “Ben Raines does not exist. He is a myth. No man can do what he is said to have done. You’re an imposter!”

“Sorry to disappoint you, boy,” Ike said. “But you’re lookin’ at the real article.”

Obviously, the stories about Ben being a god either

had not reached Zorro and his group, or else they simply chose not to believe them.

The young man spat in Ben’s face.

Ben backhanded the strange-looking young man clear out of his chair.

With the young man staring up at him, blood leaking from a cut lip, Ben said, “You’ve been treated pretty good in this camp, boy. If you’d been wounded, we’d have patched you up; if you’re hungry, we’ll feed you. But if you ever spit in my face again, I’ll kill you!”

The sounds of gunfire split the still night air. The yammering of M-60’s and .50 caliber machine guns hammered and chugged.

The young man had jerked on the floor as the guns erupted. Ben had neither blinked nor moved, but just continued staring at him.

“Cease fire.” Dan’s voice roared over the noise. “Cease fire. Someone’s out there with a white flag.”

Ben turned to the young Rebel who had captured the-whatever the hell he was, and Ben wasn’t all sure. “If he moves, shoot him, son.”

“Yes, sir!”

Ben stepped out of the building with Ike just as a runner came panting up. “One of those funny-lookin’ people has come up with a white flag, general. Says he wants to talk with our leader.”

“Well…” Ben had to fight back a chuckle. “Take me to him.”

“Ben,” Ike said. “This is getting ridiculous! What’s with these people? Have they been freaking out on old movies?”

“I don’t know, Ike. But their guns are sure real.”

“For a fact.”

Both men came to a sudden halt at the sighting of

the truce-flag bearer. Ike had to choke back a laugh. But his stifled humor was infectious: Ben had to cover his mouth with a hand to keep from laughing.

Old Doc Chase appeared in the night and stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at Ben and Ike. “It’s not funny! It’s tragic. And you both ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

The young man with the white flag was dressed almost identical to the young man guarded by the Rebel. With a couple of exceptions:

He wore a black mask over his eyes and had on a long black cape.

Perhaps it was because of the long and brutal fight that Ben and his Rebels had just endured, defeating the Russian, Striganov, and Ben finally killing his old adversary, Sam Hartline. Pent-up emotions and wire-tight nerves, perhaps. Whatever the reasons, Ben and Ike sat down on the curb by the littered street and laughed until tears were rolling down their cheeks. The two men were so weak from laughing at the sight they had to lean on each other for strength as their laughter wound down.

Other Rebels had gathered around, most of them young, too young to know anything about Zorro. They thought the flag-bearing person was dressed a bit oddly; but from the way General Ike and General Ben were laughing, you’d have thought they’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.

“You’re laughing at me!” the orange-haired, caped young man screamed.

Ben waved at him. “No, son. Not you. I would explain, but I think it would take too long.” Chuckling, Ben got to his feet, helping Ike up. “Anybody hurt in all that gunfire?” he called.

“None of our lads and lassies!” Dan Gray called.

“But we dropped a dozen or so of … whatever in the world these misbegotten folks might be.”

“Zorroettes!” Ike burst out, and both he and Ben started laughing again.

Now Dan started chuckling. Soon his chuckling had grown into full-throated laughter.

The younger Rebels stood smiling at the antics of their senior officers, but they didn’t really know what was going on.

CSM James Riverson walked onto the scene and stood for a moment, smiling and shaking his head. He looked at the caped young man, anger on his unshaven face. “You foolish young man,” James told him. “Do you know who your people attacked this night?”

“No. And I don’t give a shit, neither.”

“Gen. Ben Raines and the Rebels.”

That shook the young man down to his high-topped boots. His face paled in the dim moonlight. “General Raines does not exist,” he said, his voice very shaky.

James pointed toward Ben. “General Raines, meet … Zorro.” Then James started laughing.

“Stop laughing at me!” the young man screamed. “I command you to stop it!”

Ben walked to the young man, stopping a few feet from him. “What is it you want … Zorro?” He managed to keep a straight face.

“I want my brother’s body. You have it.”

“No, I don’t have your brother’s body. But I do have your brother. He’s very much alive. But what do we get out of this exchange?”

“I’ll … allow you to live.”

“That’s big of you, son. Now I’ll tell you something. You can have your brother, and welcome to

him. I hope to God you both go somewhere and take a bath. Preferably with soap. A group of Rebels will be resettling this town, this area. And I am giving the orders that if they see anyone with hostile intentions, they are to shoot them on the spot. Do you understand that?”

“You have no right to come in here giving orders to me!”

“Now you listen to me, you … Hollywood reject.” Ben felt certain the young man had absolutely no idea what Hollywood meant. He pointed a finger at the caped and masked young man. “Do you have farms, gardens, windmills to pull water up?”

Zorro shook his head.

“Do you have schools, hospitals, newspapers, libraries?”

He shook his head again.

“I figure you for about twentysttwenty-two years old. That means you had time for some schooling before the bombs came. And you had ten years after that for education. Right?”

Zorro glared at him.

“Can you read, you bastard!” Ben lost his temper, as he so often did with people who seemed hell-bent on wasting their lives, and more importantly, the lives of others; who seemed content to just exist. In Ben’s mind, and in the minds of all who followed him, in this age of no-free-ride, no one had the right to just exist. If there ever was to be another America, everyone had to work toward that goal.

“I can read,” the young man replied sullenly.

“How many of your followers can read?”

“Some.”

“Are you making any effort to teach them?”

The silence answered Ben’s question.

“You stupid young fool!” Ben’s voice lashed out at him. “Even the Underground People are teaching their young to read and write and figure. Without education, you’re doomed. And you’re damning those who follow you.”

“We get by.”

It’s worse than trying to teach social codes and manners to a redneck, Ben thought. “Bring Zorro’s brother out here,” Ben said.

The young man was led out.

“What’s his name?” Ben asked Zorro.

“Lash.”

Ike started laughing. Ben struggled to keep a straight face. “I don’t even want to know how he got his name. Now listen to me. If you and your followers want to live in peace with us, that’s fine. If you want war, that’s fine. But if it is the latter, I’ll wipe you and all that follow you from the face of the earth, then I will stack your stinking, ignorant bodies out in the prairie for the buzzards to eat. Is that understood?”

“Understood, Ben Raines.”

“Get out!”

When the two young men were gone, escorted by Rebels, Dr. Chase walked to Ben’s side. “You’re getting harder, Ben.”

“Yes, I am, Lamar. And I’ll tell you why. If we-you, me, Ike, Cecil, all the Rebels-we don’t get a grip on the handle of this thing and start twisting it around, we will have nothing to leave our children. Nothing except savagery, barbarism, and years of ignorance. Education is the only way we’re going to pull out of this mess. And don’t you think for an instant that Zorro what’s-his-name doesn’t know that. He knows it. But he’s smart enough to know

that with education, his followers would leave him.

“Lamar, I have hated ignorance all my life. In every one of the books I wrote, under whatever name, somewhere in those books, I made my comment about education being important. Now, more than ever, we’ve got to stress education.”

Chase waved him silent. “Don’t lecture me, Raines. Hell, I agree with you. But what leadership have people like this … Zorro had to follow? None! And you know that.”

“That’s their problem, Lamar. All that shows me is that they’re ignorant to the core, and worse, proud of it.”

The doctor, another Rebel who had been with Ben from the outset, having met him outside the ruins of Denver a few months after the Great War, stared and glared at Ben in the dim natural light of night. “What would you do with people like that, Ben?” he asked softly.

Ben returned the stare, letting his eyes speak silent, cold words.

“I see,” Chase said.

“I’m glad you do,” Ben replied. He turned around and walked up the silent, Uttered street, to his billet for the night.

Dan Gray stepped out of the night to stand by Dr. Chase. “If Ben’s dream could come true, Lamar, we could all lay down our guns and live in peace.”

“Laying them down on the ground that covers the bodies of those who chose not to read Themistocles, Aeschylus, and Pindar, Dan?”

“You’ve read them, yet you’re here,” the Englishman said softly.

“Yes,” the doctor said quietly. “I suppose you’re right. But I am so weary of war.”

“And you think Ben Raines is not?”

“Dan, I’m sure he is. But I’m wondering if he knows that on this night, he made a mortal enemy of that Zorro-type?”

“He knows.”

“I have this uneasy feeling that he did so with careful deliberation.”

“Your feeling would be correct, I should imagine.”

“For God’s sake, Dan!”

“It isn’t so awful, Lamar. So one or ten or twenty dies in order to salvage two or three hundred. You’ve seen Ben do it before. Why should his actions on this night offend you so?”

“In other words, Dan-you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs?”

“Something like that, doctor.”

“Perhaps it’s time for me to stay behind, Dan. To run my hospital and care for the sick at Base Camp One.” The words were not phrased in question form.

“That is a question only you can answer, doctor.”

“You think it’s going to get worse before it gets better, don’t you, Dan?”

“Most assuredly, doctor.”

“Well, to hell with it!” Lamar Chase said. “Someone has to tag along to look after that damned long lean drink of water. Might as well be me.”

“I thought that would be your answer.”

“You’re all going to die!” The angry words sprang out of the night. “If you stay here, you’re all going to die. Die! Die! I am Zorro, supreme leader of this area.”

“Hold your fire!” Dan called. “Pass the word,” he ordered. “Let the fool sign his own death warrant.”

“What price peace, Dan?” Lamar asked.

“One look at the graveyards of the world should

answer that, Lamar.”

The doctor and the warrior parted. The night once more grew silent.

Not quite as silent as a graveyard-but close. Chapter 3

The outline of Great Bend gradually faded in the rearview mirror of the last vehicle in the long column. Everyone in the Rebel column felt a small sense of loss; they had all left friends behind in the prairie outpost, and all wondered if they would ever seen them again.

The Scouts were ranging miles in front of the column, and as was his custom, Ben drove at the head of the column, in his pickup truck, alone.

“We have company, general,” a Scout radioed back. “On both sides of the column. Motorcycles and dune buggies. I think it’s the caped-terror and his bunch.” Ben pulled over, halting the column.

Ben’s smile contained no humor as he looked at the battered, rusted, and bent road sign: Chase 6 miles. He lifted his mike to his lips. “Is there anything in Chase?”

“Nothing, sir. It’s a ghost town. That’s where we’ve pulled over.”

“How many people you need to pull this off?”

“One platoon, sir.”

“You listening to this transmission, Ike?”

“Ten-four, Ben. I’ve got a platoon leader moving out now.”

“Keep me informed.”

“Ten-four, Ben.”

Ben sat in his pickup, listening to the silence build around him. Most of the vehicles in the long column had shut down their engines. Ben was not particularly proud of what he was doing. But he’d done it too many times in the past to expect to lose much sleep over it.

To kill the snake, one had to cut off the head.

In his side mirror, Ben could see Ike walking slowly up to him. Ben got out of his truck and waited on the cracked highway for his friend.

“You and Dr. Chase have a few words last night, Ben?”

“Nothing serious. Chase has always been a good balance point for me, Ike. I really expect this run to be his last. I’d like to see him slow down. Maybe stay back at Base Camp One and run his hospital. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll suggest it comin a very tactful way. He’d be much more valuable to us as a teacher.”

Nodding his head, Ike said, “Oughta pop anytime now.”

“Yeah. Chase thinks I enjoy this, Ike.”

“No, he doesn’t, Ben. He’s just tired of this endless war. I think he’d like to try another way of settling things-like with this bunch of kids-but he knows, down deep, that what you’re - we’re-doing, is the only way.”

“I wish somebody would show me another way, Ike. If it had just a chance of succeeding, I’d damn sure try it.”

Two quick rifle shots split the late summer air. They came from the rear of the convoy. Ike lifted his

walkie-talkie to his lips. “Ike. What’s that shooting about?”

While Ike was listening, Ben’s ears could just pick up the very faint sounds of heavy gunfire; his eyes seeing black plumes of smoke rising from out on the seemingly endless prairie.

Ike lowered the walkie-talkie and looked at Ben. “Zorro and his brother, Ben. Rear guard caught them trying to plant charges under one of the fuel trucks. They’re both hard hit.”

“Come on.”

Ike got in the passenger side, and Ben pulled off the road and onto the once wheat and corn-filled land, now long grown over with weeds and wild runners. As they drove, Ben’s radio crackled. Ben lifted the mike to his lips and said, “G.”

“We broke the back of Zorro’s boys and girls,” one of Dan Gray’s Scouts reported. “We followed your orders and took a lot of prisoners, general.”

Ben had broken one of his rules this day and allowed the taking of prisoners. Solely for the sake of Dr. Chase. Ben wanted to prove a point, but he hoped to hell his point was never made. He also feared it would be made-the hard way-in this deadly crap shoot.

“Hold them there,” Ben radioed.

The two young men lay in the center of the old highway, Dr. Chase and his medics working on them. Chase looked up as Ben walked over to the blood-splattered spot on the highway.

“Both these boys are gut-shot,” Chase said. It was not spoken reproachfully; just stating a fact.

The Rebel cradling the 7mm Magnum looked at Ben.

“Nice shooting,” Ben told him.

The sniper smiled.

Chase muttered something under his breath.

“Are they going to live?” Ben asked.

“You know better,” Chase replied without looking up. “One has a shattered spinal cord and the other’s guts are torn apart. There is nothing I can do for them except try to ease the pain.”

“Put them in the back of my truck and we’ll take them up to the next town. By the way, doctor-the name of the town is Chase. Do you suppose that’s prophetic?”

“Why take them there?” Chase asked, ignoring Ben’s question.

“I want the prisoners to see that the caped-avenger and his sidekick are mortals.” “You ordered prisoners taken?” Chase asked. “Getting soft, Raines?”

“No, Lamar. You seem to think there is hope for people such as these.” Ben pointed to the dying young men. “You can have your chance.”

“You mean that, Ben?”

“I said it, didn’t I?”

Chase looked long at him. Finally, the doctor sighed. “Put them in the truck,” he ordered.

The Rebels had killed or wounded about a third of the attackers. They had the others sitting in a vacant lot of the tiny deserted town, their hands behind their heads, fingers laced.

“See to the wounded,” Chase ordered his medics.

“Personally,” Ben said, “I’d drag Zorro and Lash out of the truck and dump their bodies in the street, doctor. But this is your show; you handle it the way you like.”

“Thank you so much, Ben.” The sarcasm was rather thick in his voice. “But how do you know the boys are dead?”

“I just looked.”

A medic confirmed it.

“Put them on the sidewalk,” Chase ordered.

“Charlie Company,” Ben ordered. “First and second platoons. Stack arms here.” He pointed to the sidewalk.

Chase paid no attention to the orders. Ben looked at Ike.

“Everything set, Ike?” he whispered.

“Right. And I hope to hell this doesn’t backfire, Ben.”

“You and me. Since we’re going to be right in the middle of it.”

“You people!” Lamar shouted at the prisoners, young men and young women. “Look at your leaders and tell me what they died for?”

The eyes of the prisoners looked at the bloody pair on the sidewalk. “They died fighting for our right to claim territory,” a young woman said.

“I’ll give you that much,” Chase conceded. “But what have you been doing with this claimed territory?”

“We don’t have to do anything with it,” a young man said. “It’s just ours.”

“I’ve seen no signs of farms or gardens or anything like that,” the doctor said. “Where do you get your food?”

“People pay us tribute to live here.”

Ben smiled, and his smile annoyed Chase.

Doing his best to ignore Ben’s smile, Chase asked, “Suppose you were given the chance to better yourselves, would any of you take it?”

Ben and Ike picked up very quietly on the furtive glances that passed between the prisoners.

“How do you mean, “better ourselves”?” a young man asked.

“Have an education. Live in … relative peace. Work and build and plan for the future. That’s what I mean.”

Several of the prisoners exchanged soft whispers. One of them who squatted near a stack of weapons cut his eyes to the weapons, very quickly, and then looked back at Chase. “Can I stand up?” he asked. “I hurt my leg and it’s crampin’.”

“Of course,” Chase told him.

Ike very quickly clicked his CAR-15 off safety. James Riverson shifted positions, a seemingly harmless movement. But the muzzle of his M-16 was now pointed toward the large group of prisoners.

Dan Gray and Ben very briefly locked eyes as the Englishman turned. Now the muzzle of his automatic weapon was pointed directly at the front row of prisoners.

The young man stood up, rubbed his leg, and took a step toward a stack of weapons. Just one step, but it put him very close.

“Work?” the young man said. “What kind of work you talkin’ about?”

“You have to work to live,” Chase said patiently. “It’s wrong to force people to give you tribute if they don’t want to give it.”

“Who says it’s wrong?” a young woman asked, rising to her feet.

She scratched her head, and Ben could practically see the fleas hopping about on her head.

The smell of unwashed bodies was rank in the still, breezeless summer morning.

“God says it’s wrong,” Chase told her.

“Not our god,” the young woman said.

“What God do you worship?”

“That one,” she said, pointing to the bloody body of Zorro.

“But he’s dead!” Chase said. “That should tell you something about your choice of whom to worship. Doesn’t it?”

“Naw.” She shook her head. “We’ll just find another one.”

“Is it that easy?” Chase asked.

“Sure. We have a dance-thing. The one who dances the longest is the chosen one.”

“A … dance-thing?” Chase said slowly. “Can you read?” he asked her.

“What for?”

“So you can teach your children!” Chase’s voice held a definite note of annoyance.

“Why do that? Readin’ don’t put food in our bellies. It don’t protect us from the rain and the cold. It don’t do nothin’.”

Many of the prisoners were now standing, and several had moved much closer to the stacks of weapons.

The Rebels did not order them to get back on the ground. Many of the Rebels had turned their backs to the prisoners, seemingly uninterested in the proceedings.

“Suppose we turned you all loose?” Chase asked. “What would you do?”

“What do you want us to do?” a young man asked.

“If I didn’t know better,” Ike muttered, “I’d swear he had some experience talking with a social worker.”

“I want you to make something of yourselves,” Chase told him. “To help us in rebuilding the United States.”

“You mean, laws and rules and all that shit?” the young woman asked.

Chase looked at Ben, a helpless and annoyed look in his eyes. Ben shrugged.

“To have any kind of workable, productive society,” Chase said, “one must have rules and laws. Without them, you have anarchy.”

Ben had clicked his Thompson off safety.

Ike and Dan had seen the movements of the prisoners toward their high-topped boots and suspected they had knives tucked in there.

“Have what?” the young woman asked, taking yet another step toward the stacks of weapons. She was within reaching distance now.

Ben cut his eyes upward. Several Rebels were on top of a nearby building with M-60 machine guns. Ben carefully eased his finger onto the trigger.

“Anarchy,” Chase persisted. “Lawlessness.”

“Oh, yeah,” the young woman said. “We sure don’t want none of that. That’d be terrible.”

Chase looked at the young woman. “Everything I’ve said. It’s just a big joke to you, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. She would have been a pretty woman had she cleaned up and got the fleas off of her.

But now she wasn’t going to have time to do anything. Except die.

“You got your way of life, we got ours,” she said. “You’re not going to change, and we’re not going to change.”

“That’s a pity,” Chase said. “But I had to try.”

“Big Louie is waitin’ for you folks bout a hundred miles further,” she said. “Some of you might make it to his turf. I hope so. He likes to burn people alive.”

“Sounds like a perfectly delightful fellow,” Chase said. “But why would you think that just some of us would make it?”

Screaming, the young woman leaped toward the stack of weapons. The slugs from Dan’s M-16 stopped her in mid-air, flinging her backward, dead before she hit the concrete.

The prisoners charged Dr. Chase and Ben and Ike and Dan, knives in their hands.

It was carnage. And it was over in less than a minute.

Twenty-odd of the prisoners had not moved from their spots on the vacant lot. When the gunfire started, they simply hit the ground and stayed there.

When the gunfire had echoed away and the gunsmoke had cleared, Ben looked at those who had elected not to fight, and thus stay alive.

“If I decide to turn you loose, what are you going to do?” Ben asked.

“Git away from this spot just as fast as I can,” a young man said. “I might join up with another gang. I might not. I ain’t sure. But one thing I am sure of. I ain’t gonna fuck around with you people no more.”

“Clear out,” Ben said. “And I don’t ever want to see you again.”

The last glimpse any one had of the young man, he was loping across the plains. He did not look back.

“How about the rest of you?” Ben asked the group of young men and women.

“Just let us get away from here and you,” a young woman said. “I know me a fellow down in New Mexico wants me to come live with him and raise sheep. I figure now is a damn good time to do just that.”

“Your religion must not be too strong.” Chase

couldn’t resist one more shot at it.

She looked at him. “What religion, you old fart? Stealin’s just easier than workin’, that’s all.”

Chase shook his head and walked back to his vehicle.

“Aren’t you going to patch up the wounded, Le-mar?” Ben called after him.

“Fuck “em!” Chase said. Chapter 4

The column pulled over early that day and made camp, while recon patrols were sent out to check on Big Louie’s whereabouts.

“He’s pretty close,” Ike said. “What’s left of Kansas City is gonna be hot for another threestfour thousand years.”

It was late afternoon, and Dr. Chase, Ben, Ike, Dan, and a few other Rebels were sitting in the shade of a tree, drinking a concoction called Rebel Rouser-homemade whiskey, actually.

And Lamar Chase was hitting the sauce harder than anyone else.

“What a blind, stupid, idealistic old fool I’ve become,” he said.

“That’s bullshit, Lamar,” Ben told him. “You just got tired of it all. All the killing … the whole nine yards. We all do at one time or the other.”

“Yeah,” Ike said. “You got the that’s it, I quit, I’m movin” on’ syndrome.”

“Sam Cooke,” the doctor said, refilling his cup with booze.

“What?” Ike said.

“Who?” Dan asked.

“Goddamn, Lamar!” Ben said. “You are gettin’ old. Or drunk. Or both. I don’t even remember that one.”

“Sam Cooke recorded that,” Lamar said. He hummed a few bars.

Dan grimaced. “I hope it sounded better than that.”

Lamar, quite uncharacteristically, gave the Englishman the finger.

After the laughter died down, Ike said, “I wonder what this Big Louie is going to turn out to be?”

“Oh, another loser, I should imagine. Don’t you agree, general?”

“Sure. Just like Zorro and Lash and all the others we’ve encountered over the long and bloody years we’ve been together. It really wouldn’t have made any difference. War or peace; prosperity or depression; full working government or anarchy-they’d have been losers of one type or another, no matter what.”

“Raines, do you really believe that?” Chase challenged.

“Certainly. How many people did you know back when the world was whole, more or less, who fucked up everything they tried to do? When they lost a job, it wasn’t their fault; it was somebody else’s fault. If they lost at cards, somebody cheated. If they got a ticket, the cops were picking on them. When they got caught cheating on their income tax, they’d lie to the examiner; and they could lie so well, they actually believed it themselves. If they made a hundred thousand dollars a year, they’d live on a hundred and ten thousand. And when they went bankrupt, it was never their fault. Losers. This situation we’re all in now is just perfect for them. It was made to order. They were losers in a land of plenty, and they’ll be

losers until the day they finally do the world a favor and die.”

“You really are a jaundiced bastard, Raines!” La-mar said. “What a perfectly horrible opinion of humankind you have.” He tossed back another belt of Rebel Rouser.

“You’re a minority of one, Lamar,” Ben told him.

“Oh, of course I am!” the doctor cheerfully admitted. “I just like to hear you rant and rave, that’s all. I’m sure as hell not going to tell you that you’re right. You’re such an insufferable martyour as it is.”

Ben laughed. This small group he had around him now-the only one person missing being Cecil Jefferys-could always be counted on to tell him the way it was. Without pulling any punches.

“I didn’t ask for this job,” Ben said with great indignation.

“Oh, God!” Lamar said. “Here he goes again.”

Dan excused himself, leaving to go check on the guards and to see if any intel had been received on Big Louie.

The column had left Highway 56 just east of Marion, Kansas, angling south on Highway 77 for a few miles, then once more heading east on Highway 50, picking that up at Florence. They were camped along the banks of the Cottonwood River. Chase’s medical people had tested the waters of the little river and found no contamination from radiation. Kansas City was hot, but like so many of the cities around the world, the bombs were of the “clean” variety: killing the people, but leaving the buildings standing.

The convoy was going east on their present route only as far as the junction with Highway 75, about fifteen miles past Emporia. If they didn’t encounter Big Louie by then, to hell with it. They would cut south down to Highway 54 and continue on east,

avoiding Kansas City.

Dr. Chase poured another cup of Rebel Rouser and said, “What about the next outpost, Ben?”

“Iola, I’m hoping. Scouts report about two hundred and fifty or so people in and around that area. They seem to have some organization. But they’ve been having some trouble with roving gangs. Probably this Big Louie character. We’ll meet with the people in Iola and see if we can’t punch Big Louie’s ticket. See about setting up an outpost there.”

A Rebel said, “Seems like whenever we put one gang out of business, three more pop up.”

“It’s going to be that way for a long time to come, I’m thinking,” Ike said, eyeballing Lamar as he knocked back the booze. “Andwiththe exception of Zorro and his bunch of nitwits, the gangs seem to be getting smarter. You agree, Ben?”

“Many of them, yes. The really smart warlords know we’re after them; and they’re doing their best to avoid us. We can’t let up, either. We’re going to have to keep the pressure on.”

Lamar looked at his cup. “It’s never going to end, is it, Ben?”

“No, Lamar. It isn’t. I thought for awhile it would. I thought for awhile it would take us two, maybe three years to clean up the country. Then we could all settle down and live out our lives in relative peace. I was wrong.”

“You’re not the only one who was wrong, Ben,” Ike said.

Ben looked at his friend.

Ike poured a short two-fingers into his cup. His smile was both knowing and sarcastic. “You remember all the talk shows and books and magazines back in the late ‘70’s and ‘80’s-all that crap about how the military sucked and how peace advocates were always

blabbering about they would be the ones who would build a better society if any major tragedy ever occurred. And their way was the only way. Just a more articulate extension of the peace and love bullshit of the ‘60’s.” He knocked back a belt of booze.

“Well, guess what, folks? Where are they now? Guess who is out here trying to put this nation back together again? Old soldiers. Surprise, surprise! And where are the peace and love and lay down your weapons advocates? In the grave, I guess. I sure haven’t seen any lately. But more than likely, any who survived are high up in the mountains or in the deep woods, in little-bitty communes, keeping a very low profile. And not doing one goddamn thing toward rebuilding this country. But what galls my balls is this, and you all know I’m speaking the truth: When we get this outpost system complete, coast to coast, and some semblance of law and order, you just wait and see-here they’ll come, whole bunches of the little mouthy bastards and bitches, all of them saying, “Oh, we’re so happy to see you big, brave people. Is it safe now? Can we come out and join you folks?”’ You wait and see if it doesn’t happen that way.”

“Wait a minute, Chase,” Ike said. “I’m not done yet. And if we let those assholes in, they won’t be in fifteen minutes before they’ll start sneaking around behind our backs, making all sorts of snide little comments. Like, “Well, we have law and order, now, so why don’t we put some controls on those terrible guns? And isn’t the death penalty terribly harsh? Why don’t we do away with it?”’ And that sort of bullshit. Fuck “em. Fuck ‘em all!”

Chase looked at Ike. “Jesus Christ, McGowan! Who pulled your string? What brought on all this crap?”

was ‘Cause I can see the light at the end of the

tunnel, Lamar. That’s why. And I want to make my views known, up front, and right now. The light’s still a long way off. We’ve got a lot of bloody years ahead of us; but we’re gonna make it. We’ll stretch this outpost system from coast to coast, and then we’ll start workin” it north to south. Us! Not those other assholes-us! We’re the ones going to make it work, with our blood, and our sweat, and our pain. We got graveyards stretchin’ from Georgia to California, Michigan to Texas. And those Rebels didn’t die so a bunch of goody-two-shoes types can come in and spew their verbal poison.

“That’s it, I’m done. Me and Dan talked this over the other afternoon. That’s why Dan left a while ago; so I could say it. And … I ain’t throwin’ stones at anyone here. Don’t think that at all. I just wanted to clear the air.”

Ike rose and left.

Ben carefully rolled a cigarette and lit it. He took a slow drag and exhaled, his eyes on Dr. Chase. “First time Ike’s made a speech that long in years.”

“But he’s right, you know.”

“I know.”

“And some of those people he described will certainly surface.”

“I hope they don’t get near Ike. He’d probably shoot them.”

“And you, Ben? What about you?”

“I’d probably help him do it. Or at least want to help.”

Chase shook his head. “Going to become very interesting around here very soon.” He poured another cup of Rebel Rouser and downed it.

“Lamar, are you going to sit here and get drunk?”

“That is my intention.”

“You’re going to have a hell of a headache in the morning, old friend.”

“Nonsense! I never have hangovers.”

“How long has it been since you were last drunk?”

“Oh … twenty years or so.” Ben smiled. “Good luck.”

“What’s the matter with Lamar this morning?” Dan asked Ben.

“He isn’t feeling well,” Ben said.

Lamar was sitting in front of his tent, a cup of coffee on a small camp table in front of him. Using both hands, he managed to get the cup to his mouth and take a sip without spilling too much of it.

“Worse crap I ever tried to drink,” Lamar bitched. “Almost pure chicory.”

“Would you like to have a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you?” Dan called cheerfully.

Lamar glared balefully at him. “How would you like to be circumcised without benefit of anesthesia?” the doctor growled.

Laughing, the two men walked toward the communications truck.

“Anything on Big Louie yet?” Ben asked the young woman Rebel manning the truck jammed full of electronic gear.

“I’ve been putting together bits and pieces as they come in, general. I got the last transmission about twenty minutes ago. Want me to read what I’ve got so far?”

“Please.” Ben accepted a cup of tea from Dan’s batman, Carl, and sat down. Some of the Rebels liked the strong chicory-thick crap that now passed for coffee. Ben did not. Oh, he’d drink it if there was nothing else, but he preferred tea. And the Rebels had warehouses full of tea. It seems that in their

haste to loot coffee, thousands and thousands of tins of tea were passed over, as well as warehouses full of it.

“Big Louie,” the woman Rebel read. “Age forty-eight, approximately. Real name unknown. Until recently controlled territory from Nebraska line to Topeka, south. West to Manhattan. Now has included everything east of the old Kansas Turnpike to the Missouri line …”

“Very enterprising chap,” Dan said, nibbling on a cracker.

“Yes,” Ben agreed. He looked up as Ike entered the truck.

“What’s wrong with Lamar this morning? I said hello and he told me to go screw myself.”

“He has a slight hangover,” Dan said.

“Shall I continue, general?” the woman asked.

“Please. Sorry for the interruption.”

She gave Ike a dirty look. He grinned at her.

She brought Ike up to date and said, “Big Louie had approximately three thousand men and women under his command.”

“Three thousand!” Ben blurted.

“My word!” Dan said.

“Where in the hell did he come up with three thousand people and where in the hell has he been hiding them so we didn’t pick it up?” Ike asked.

“Here we go again,” James Riverson spoke from the open door.

“I’m afraid so, James,” Ben said. “Go on, young lady,” he told the radio operator.

“The Scouts have picked up information that indicates Big Louie is a college graduate with a degree in economics from the University of Kansas. Knows this area as well as, or better, than anyone. Served in the Marine Corps. Officer. Captain. Runs his organi zation with military precision. His people are extremely well armed. Has enslaved the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Sac, and Fox Indians. Uses them as forced labor on his farms. Extremely successful with farming and ranching. Has reopened schools and many area hospitals. Restored electricity and many social services.” She looked at Ben. “The last part says that his idol is Gen. Ben Raines.” Chapter 5

“He’s a warlord! Has enslaved entire tribes of Indians and uses them for forced labor. And I am his idol?” Ben kicked a camp chair over. “Where does this son of a bitch think he’s coming from?”

The entire Rebel contingent had made themselves busy in other parts of the camp when Ben started yelling. All except Ike, Dan, Lamar, and James. They sat and watched and waited while Ben vented his spleen.

Lamar grimaced as Ben yelled. He took two more aspirin.

“Where is this bastard’s HQ?” Ben yelled.

“Topeka,” Ike told him.

“Well, the guy must be crazy! What was it that girl with the orange and green hair told us? That he liked to burn people alive!” He pointed a finger at Dan. “I want as much intel as your Scouts can get me. Troop placement, location of farms and ranches, condition of the people inside his territorial claims, the whole ball of wax.”

“Right away, sir.”

“I’m glad the kids aren’t here,” Ben said, calming down a bit. “They’d want to go in there as my eyes and ears.”

He thought of Lora and wondered how she was getting along. He had grown very fond of the little girl.

“Ike? Tell the people to eat and sleep and check and clean their weapons carefully. I want a full report on our ammo situation. Anything that we might need flown in from Base Camp One, order it done so, immediately.”

Ike nodded his head. “Damn sure can’t have a two-hundred-mile gap in our outpost system, can we, Ben? Especially one running right smack through a warlord’s territory.”

“We sure can’t, Ike.”

Ike walked off, shouting for his aides.

“Kick-ass time again, huh, Ben?” James asked.

“Looks that way, James. How’s morale?”

“High. Of course, they thought they were going home. But they’ll follow you anywhere you lead, Ben.”

“Explain the situation to them, James.”

The command sergeant major nodded and walked off, a huge man, so big his M-16 looked like a toy in his hands.

“Want a drink, Lamar?” Ben said, his good humor returning-slowly.

“Hell with you, Raines! You gonna start barking orders at me, too?”

“If I have to tell you what to do, you old goat, I’m in real trouble.”

“I’m too short of everything for a full scale battle, Ben. I’ll get on the horn to Base Camp One and tell

Cecil to start shipping me supplies. Where’s the LZ going to be?”

“I don’t know, yet.” He looked at a map of Kansas. “We’re sitting right on the edge of Big Louie’s territory. I don’t want to go as far south as El Dorado; that’d put us too far off center. Well, shit on it! We’ll knock down the telephone poles and land them in the road. On Fifty-six, somewhere between Herington and Council Grove. Tell Cec I’ll call in the LZ in the morning; soon as I have Scouts check it out.”

“And away we go,” Lamar said, rising from his chair and groaning from his hangover.

“Jackie Gleason,” Ben said with a grin.

After Lamar had gone, alternately bitching and moaning, a young Rebel touched Ben on the arm.

“Sir?”

“Yes, son?”

“Who’s Jackie Gleason?”

The young man had crossed into Indiana, met up with a group of pretty nice people and stayed with them for a day, listening to them talk.

Gen. Ben Raines, they had heard, was returning East, victorious after his defeat of the Russian and the mercenary, Sam Hartline. They were on their way to Ben Raines Base Camp, in North Georgia. Would the young man like to come along?

No. He thought he’d head west. Any idea where Ben Raines might be about now?

Colorado. Maybe as far as Central Kansas.

The young man pulled out before dawn. Heading west. He carried a .45 autoloader on each hip. A knife on his side and another one in a sheath on his right boot.

He was square jawed and tanned, very heavily muscled. His hair was dark and curly. His eyes could be warm or friendly, or deadly cold. Usually they were expressionless. The young man was quite handsome; but not in the pretty-boy manner. His was a rugged handsomeness.

He wore no riding helmet; only a red bandana tied around his head. A bandoleer of clips for his weapons was slung over one shoulder. Clips for the weapon he carried in a leather boot on the motorcycle.

The weapon was an old Thompson submachine gun.

Khamsin sat in his headquarters in South Carolina and listened to his field commanders as they reported. The Libyan terrorist-turned-general sat on a pillow. The wound in his ass, compliments of Ike McGowan, still bothered the man.

“We could break out at any time we wish,” a man said. “The Rebels’ positions along our borders are thinly manned.”

“So they would have you believe,” Khamsin said. “But behind them they have heavy artillery, missiles, and rockets. Oh, they’d let us break through. Then as soon as we were inside their territory, they’d put us in a box and destroy us. You all are far too confident. The black person commanding these troops while Ben Raines is out West is Cecil Jefferys. And Raines did not put him in charge thanks to some renewed program of racial equality. General Jefferys is in command because he is an excellent soldier. No,

brothers, no. The Rebels are accustomed to facing and fighting and winning against superior numbers.” He looked at an open folder on his desk. “Each Rebel is trained and mentally conditioned to neutralize five of the enemy. Kindly bear in mind that the people who initially set up the Rebels’ training program were Special Forces, Rangers, Marine Force Recon, Seals, SAS, and French Foreign Legion personnel. And kindly bear in mind that six, six Rebels wreaked havoc upon this very HQ, killed several hundred of our best troops, and stole a prisoner from under our noses. Six!”

And wounded me in the ass! Khamsin thought bitterly.

How humiliating!

“General Khamsin,” a commander said. “Allah has blessed The Hot Wind.”

Allah is not down here getting His butt kicked, Khamsin thought. Then he silently said a short prayer, asking for forgiveness for his thoughts.

“It is useless to send coded messages to our scouts in the field,” another commander said. “The Rebels break the codes routinely.”

“Do we have any intel on who is in charge of that section?” Khamsin asked.

“A person by the name of Lansky,” he was informed.

“Naturally,” Khamsin said. “Will we forever be cursed with those wretched people?”

No one offered a reply to that. Another six thousand years certainly seemed feasible.

Sister Voleta sat alone in her house. She had

gradually gotten over the shock of her only son’s leaving. Now, looking back, she realized that she should have seen the signs.

He was just too much like his father: too opinionated, bullheaded. He never wanted the power she could have given him; too concerned about the needs of others-and he had consistently rejected her teachings. This was not the first time he’d left her.

Even when the world was whole the boy had been too curious about what lay beyond the next hill. He possessed a brilliant mind, but she could never channel it exactly to her liking. Stubborn little bastard! she thought.

But in her own crazed sort of way, she did love him.

But she didn’t wish him well at all.

For she had a pretty good idea where he might be heading. And if the two of them ever got together-she didn’t like to think about that at all. The possibilities were just too staggering in scope.

She answered the knock on her door.

“The old man is ready,” she was informed.

“Gather everybody,” she ordered. “I want them all to see what happens to traitors.”

“The old man is singing some Christian song. He has no fear.”

“He’ll have plenty of fear when the flames sear his flesh, and his singing will take on a different note. I assure you of that.”

“We had best curtail any further burning,” Big Louie said. “We have been discovered by Ben Raines and his Rebels. I suspect them to come charging in

here at any time. Pity. I do so like to hear the screaming.”

“Yes, sir, Your Majesty,” the aide said, bowing. He left backing up.

Most of the intel received on Big Louie was correct-as far as it went.

Big Louie did earn a degree in economics. However, he never received it. When he learned that he had failed to maintain a four-point grade average, he tried to burn down the administration building.

He was not convicted of that. The only witness to the crime died in a dorm fire.

Big Louie was in the Marine Corps. But he was not an officer. He was a buck-assed private. He was dishonorably discharged after he burned down a barracks. He did some stockade time for that, too.

He changed his name and went to work on Wall Street for a brokerage firm. He was charged with insider trading and almost came to trial. But all the evidence against him was destroyed by fire. Including the man who caught him.

Then the Great War erupted worldwide.

Big Louie soon learned that a great gift of gab was not enough to keep him alive. One had to be tough and hard as nails. For the very first time he was grateful for his Marine Corps training. His only regret was that he hadn’t paid more attention.

And he soon learned that many people were willing to do anything, anything, to stay alive.

And if you threatened to set them on fire, everybody was willing to do anything to stay alive.

When the Tri-States had finally opened their borders to the outside, Big Louie was among the first to go in and look around-being very careful to stay out

of trouble while inside those borders. Ben Raines and his Rebels weren’t like the law outside of Tri-States. Fuck up inside Tri-States and the law there would either shoot you right off the bat-or wait and hang you later.

And they didn’t have any crime within those borders, and that fascinated the crazy mind of Big Louie. The whole world was staggering around trying to create some semblance of order out of the ashes, and Ben Raines and his people were just as content and orderly and happy as that bug in the rug.

It was, to Big Louie’s mind, and to the minds of most everybody else, flat, flippin’ impossible to do what Raines and his people had done.

But by God! They had done it.

Big Louie soon began to recognize and appreciate what Ben Raines had done. And he began to realize that if one didn’t go quite as far as Raines had gone, and sort of reversed some of it, that would work, too.

If one took a certain type of person-not the type that Ben Raines had selected to live in Tri-States, but the less desirable types-and promised them free medical care, schools for the kids, enough to eat, and other social amenities, why the silly shits would do almost anything for you in return. Including turning their heads to certain, shall we say, extremes or excesses on the part of those in command.

After the second and seemingly final collapse of the government of the United States, Big Louie put his plan in operation. And it just tickled him to no end to discover that it really would work.

And what was so simple and amusing was that anyone who didn’t like what Big Louie did-why, just

set them on fire and listen to them holler.

And Big Louie had one very large and very dark ace in the hole that only he and a very few others close to him knew about. And if Ben Raines fucked around with him too much, why he’d just push the button and let them birds fly!

Big Louie sat on his throne and laughed and laughed at that.

Yep, ol’ Ben Raines was the bull of the woods, all right-and he could go on being bull of the woods; as long as the woods he was bull of wasn’t anywhere near Big Louie’s territory.

“What we’ve got, general,” Dan Gray said, “is a collection of some of the most despicable people in the world gathered around this Big Louie character.”

It was not yet dawn, yet Ben and his commanders had been up for several hours, going over gathered material on Big Louie.

And no one had found a thing to like about the man or many of the people who resided within his territory.

“Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt,” Ben said, adding, “for the moment, that is. This Big Louie character has, or so it seems, set up a workable form of government, complete with shops, stores, trading areas, farms and ranches, and his own currency backed by a gold reserve. Fashioned, in a way, after our Tri-States. Okay, we all see that on the surface. Let’s dig for some dirt.”

“The first spadeful contains the fact that he has enslaved four different Indian tribes,” Dan said.

“Playing devil’s advocate,” Ben said, “I see the next

shovel containing the fact that he has set up schools and hospitals and some sort of a food-for-all program.”

“He kidnaps women to keep his army happy,” Chase said.

Ben couldn’t think of anything else good to say about the man, so he kept his mouth shut.

“He burns folks alive for amusement,” Ike said. He looked up as the sounds of rain hitting the canvas overhead intensified. “Shit! Cec said his weather people say this storm is gonna last two or three days. And the pilots ain’t real thrilled about flyin’ some of our old birds in bad weather; gonna be a lot of lightning with this storm.”

“Let’s get back to Big Louie,” Ben suggested. “Anybody got anything else good to say about the man?”

No one did.

“Dan,” Ben said. “We’re not going to be able to do much until this storm blows out of here and we get resupplied. So tell your people to get me some prisoners. See if they can’t penetrate just inside the borders and jerk some fat cats out of the nicer homes. Caution them not to kill anybody-unless they absolutely have to. We still don’t have any really solid evidence to go on about this Big Louie character. And I’m not going to commit our people on hearsay.”

“Right now, general,” Dan said, and left the tent.

A runner entered the big tent just as Dan was leaving. “General, a message just came over the horn from Base Camp One.”

“Give me the high points, son.”

“One of General Jefferys’s roaming patrols met up

with some folks from Indiana. They said there has been a major shake-up at this Sister Voleta’s camp. A defector. Really shook the woman up bad. The defector is supposedly heading west, to find you.”

“Is that it?” Ben asked.

The runner hesitated. “No, sir.”

“Well, who is this person?”

“Your son, sir.” Chapter 6

The heavy storms and rains were still south of the young man’s position as he barreled on westward. He crossed the top of Missouri and made it into Kansas before the rains hit him, forcing him to seek shelter. He pulled under a carport, dried off, then checked his motorcycle. He carefully inspected the interior of the house and found it Uttered with rat shit.

He closed the door behind him and set about making his camp on the carport. After carefully inspecting the skies, the man decided that this storm would not blow away in a few hours; it had settled over the area. He made up his mind he would stick around until the storm had blown past.

Ben Raines Blackman built a small fire and cooked a rabbit he had shot while looking for a place to hole up from the weather. He carefully buried his trash, unrolled his sleeping bag, and spread it out on the floor of the carport. He then field-stripped, cleaned and oiled his weapons. Taking a bar of soap from his kit, the young man stripped and stepped out into the warm rain and bathed. He dressed in clean clothing

and lay down on his sleeping bag.

He was close to Ben Raines now. He could sense it. And he could sense something else, too: Trouble. There was something in the air besides wind and rain. Buddy, as his mother had nicknamed him when a baby, was by no means clairvoyant; just a very intelligent and observant young man. His mother and her friends were, he knew, a bit around the bend, mentally speaking, but they had schooled Buddy well in the art of survival. He had been schooled in all forms of martial arts; he was an expert with nearly any weapon he could get his hands on; he knew what plants to eat in the woods and which to leave alone; he could build a shelter from practically nothing.

He was very nearly self-sufficient.

Listening and watching the rains fall, Buddy let his thoughts drift back to his mother and her whacked-out beliefs. He should have pulled out a long time back; he knew that. Much of what his mother did was totally repulsive to him.

However, she had never involved him in anything he felt was wrong. She had shielded him from her baser actions.

Of course, he knew what she was doing, and just the knowledge of it made him an accessory-but perhaps he would be forgiven for that.

On sudden impulse, Buddy rose from the sleeping bag and rolled his motorcycle into the utility room at the back of the carport, hiding it from-from whom? He wasn’t sure. It just seemed like a good move to make at the time.

He rearranged his sleeping bag, placing it behind some piled-up old boxes on the carport. He decided against making some tea and put out his small fire.

There was just something about this area that was making Buddy very wary.

The storm blew in that afternoon, raging in full force, pushing every living thing into shelter. There could be no flights from Base Camp One until the storm blew itself out.

But the storm was a wet blessing to Dan Gray’s Scouts, who had slipped into the territory claimed by Big Louie. The storm hid any slight noise the skilled guerrilla fighters might make.

One Scout team, led by Ben’s daughter, Tina, came upon a fine, well-kept home just outside of Manhattan, Kansas. Tina peeked through a window and smiled at the sight. A fat man, his equally fat wife, and two fat teenagers were watching a movie from a VCR.

“Those at the slickest-lookin’ folks I’ve seen in a long time,” a Rebel whispered to Tina.

“Well fed for a fact,” Tina whispered back. “I don’t think they’re going to like being marched through this weather.” She smiled.

“You’re breaking my heart, Tina.”

“Yeah, poor babies,” another Rebel said.

The Rebels stood in the pouring rain and driving winds and watched as a young woman walked into the den. The woman was carrying a tray of snacks and drinks.

“Get over here, you bitch!” the fat teenager shouted at her. The woman cringed at his voice. “Hurry up. I’m hungry.”

The young woman obviously did not move fast enough to suit the fat boy. When she had placed the tray on a table, the fat boy rose from his chair with a grunt and slapped her.

“Nice kid,” Tina muttered.

“That woman is wearing some sort of a dog

collar,” said one of the Rebels.

“I think they used to call them choke chains,” another Rebel said. “But that one appears to be welded together.”

The extremely fat girl waddled to her feet and kicked the young woman in the butt. The mother and father thought it all very amusing.

“I want her now!” Fat boy said.

“I wanna watch!” Fat girl said.

The father waved his hand and the boy hooked a leash onto the choke chain, forcing the woman to crawl along on her hands and knees. She was silently weeping. Fat girl followed Fat boy out of the room.

“What a delightful family,” a Rebel said, disgust in his voice.

“You ready to bust up their party?” Tina asked the group.

“Yeah. Let’s do it before I puke!”

Tina assigned members of her squad to their places. Somewhere in the house, they could hear the sounds of screaming.

“Now!” Tina spoke into a handy-talkie. A Rebel kicked in the back door at the same instant Rebels were pouring in through the front door.

Tina placed the muzzle of her M-16 against the neck of the man. “You wiggle and I’ll blow your head off.”

“How dare you burst into my house!” the man blustered. “I’ll see you burned alive for this!”

Fat boy and Fat girl were herded out into the den, a Rebel poking the boy on his bare ass with the muzzle. Fat girl was bawling. The young woman wearing the choke chain was struggling into her clothing.

“How do you get that chain off of her?” Tina asked the man.

“You don’t. They’re welded on at the prison. Who are you crazy people?”

“Get up,” Tina told him.

“I must certainly will not!”

Tina popped him on the mouth with the butt of her rifle. Blood flew and teeth popped under the impact. “Get up, goddamn you!”

Moaning and holding his busted and bleeding mouth, the man got to his feet, swaying slightly.

“Get Fat boy some clothes,” Tina said. “She looked at the man’s wife. “Get up!”

The older woman jumped to her feet. “They’re Ben Raines’s Rebels,” she told her husband.

“Right,” Tina told her. “Now shut up.” She looked at the young woman. “Are you a slave in this house?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m a half-breed Indian. My mother was white, my father was Fox.”

“Pack a few clothes,” Tina told her. “We’re getting you out of this place. We’ll cut that chain off back at camp.”

“You can’t do this to us!” Fat boy wailed. “His Majesty said we was all safe here.”

“His Majesty?” a Rebel blurted.

“King Big Louie,” Fat girl said, still blubbering. She wiped her snotty nose with the back of her hand.

“Well, guess what?” Tina said. “His Majesty lied!”

“Incredible,” Ben muttered. “He’s been getting away with it for more than three years, and we didn’t even know about it.”

“Forcing minority women into prostitution,” Dan said. “Or for that matter, any woman who tries to resist Big Louie’s orders.”

“My God, Ben,” Lamar said, looking at the captured man and his wife and fat kids. “This Louie has

gathered the scum of the earth inside his borders.”

“I resent that!” the man said. He was tired and haggard looking, but was recovering some of his bluster. “We only enslaved the Indians and niggers and other inferiors.” The words were slightly slurred due to his swollen mouth.

“If you open your mouth again,” Ben told him, “without my telling you to do so, you’re going to lose some more teeth.”

The man closed his mouth.

“Get them out of my sight,” Ben ordered. “All except for the wife. How are they coming on the lady’s chain?”

“It’s off,” Ike said, entering the tent. “The medics are checking her out now.”

The man and his fat-assed kids were herded out of the tent. Fat girl was still blubbering. It was not a very appetizing sight.

Ben sat down, facing the woman. “You have probably guessed by now who I am, correct?”

“General Ben Raines.”

“Right. Now, how much of what your husband said was truth, and how much of it was bullshit?”

“He told you the truth … as far as he took it.”

“Well, lady, you pick it up where he left it off.”

“And what do I get if I do? And he isn’t my husband.”

“The kids?”

“His. What do I get out of telling you what I know?”

“You can walk out of this camp alive. We’ll take you down to the Oklahoma border and turn you loose.”

“That isn’t much, general.”

Ben smiled at her. “Considering that you have taken part in enslaving people against their

will; taken part in burning people alive, and God only knows what else, do you want to hear the alternative?”

“I can probably guess it.”

“Start talking.”

“The man I was living with is not representative of most of the people living under Big Louie’s rule. And neither are those lard-butted kids representative of the young people. Big Louie patterned his kingdom after your old Tri-States. Sam, that’s the man I was living with, was the exception. Most others are very fit and well trained. Everyone is armed, armed well, and knows his or her assignment in case of trouble. There is about thirty-five hundred people within Louie’s boundaries. And they will fight. They have a way of life that suits them, and they will defend it. And if you think I’m kidding, general, you’d damn well better think again.”

“That jibes with the latest Intel, Ben,” Ike said. “It’s not going to be a piece of cake.”

“Regular army or police force?” Ben asked.

“Oh … probably three hundred and fifty,” she said. “That’s not counting the guards at the prison farm where the slaves are processed.”

“How long have you been with Louie?”

“Three years. My real husband was killed fighting warlords.”

“And you don’t think it’s wrong what you’re doing?”

“No,” she replied without hesitation. “It’s just the way things are. The strong dominate the weak.”

Ben stared at her. “You’re in … your early forties, I’d guess.”

“Pretty good guess.”

“That would make you about thirty when the Great War came.”

“Another good guess.”

Ben had to give the woman this much: There was no fear visible in her eyes, her voice, or her mannerisms. “So I don’t have to lecture you on decency or laws or moral codes.”

“I hope not. You’re dreaming, Ben Raines. You and your army will never bring conditions back to what they were. The whole world is a jungle, Ben Raines. Dog eat dog. For God’s sake, man-if there really is a God, which I doubt-Big Louie is just one of probably two hundred or more warlords and self-styled kings. And that’s just the ones that I know of. Probably twice that many scattered around the country. I work in communications, general. We know almost everything you people are planning to do. If you stamp out Big Louie, the next day you’ll be fighting another warlord, and then another and another. It’ll never end. Why don’t you and your people just go on back to Georgia, do your little thing with Khamsin and his rag-heads, and then settle down in your own little spot? Let the world take care of itself. Who do you think you are-Don Quixote or Sancho Panza?”

“You’re an educated woman.”

“I have, had, a Masters, yes. And I was a very good teacher. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs, now?”

“You don’t teach in Big Louie’s schools?”

She laughed at that. “Not hardly. I never let him know I was a teacher.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t planning on staying around that long. Then Sam offered me security.” She smiled. “You see, Ben Raines, not that much has changed about living.”

“What’s this Big Louie like?”

“Quite mad. He enjoys inflicting pain on people; likes to hear them scream. But he isn’t a raving lunatic. He is usually quite lucid. And he is a genius. Hell, he built something out of nothing, didn’t he?”

“By enslaving others.”

“Minorities, General Raines. Indians, greasers, Jews, niggers. The strong will survive, General Raines. It’s the way of the world, and it always has been. I don’t have to tell you that. Or I shouldn’t have to tell you. People put up with Big Louie’s excesses, general. Every time he starts going off the deep end, so to speak, the doctors jack him down with Thorazine and let him float for a few days. He’s a joke, general. The man who really runs things is named Ashley. I don’t know whether that’s his first name or his last name.”

“Why do people put up with Louie?” Ben asked.

“Because they’re comfortable, general. They live in nice homes. They have plenty to eat. They’re safe. We have electricity, running water … all the things we had before. Currency, shops to spend it in. Just like before. And no taxes.”

“And slaves.”

“That’s right, general. Slaves. And down near Ponca City, Oklahoma, there is another place very similar to Big Louie’s. And they have slaves. And over near Fayetteville, Arkansas, there is yet warlord’s headquarters … with slaves and whores and all the so-called abuses you’ve got your ass up over your back about. You’re fighting a losing battle, general.”

Ben turned to a Rebel sergeant. “Arrange for this … lady and her family to be transported down to the Oklahoma line. Turn them loose down there. No weapons.”

“You don’t give us weapons, general,” she said.

“You’re condemning us to death.”

Ben’s smile was not pleasant to view. “You want me to just shoot you here?”

She stood up and walked to the flap of the big tent. “I guess we’ll take our chances out there. You’re a hard mother-fucker, Ben Raines.”

“So I’ve been told, lady. So I’ve been told.” Chapter 7

Ben interviewed the other prisoners taken by Dan Gray’s Scouts. Their stories were much the same. And under prompting, the name Ashley surfaced in each interview. And not much about the man proved to be in the least admirable.

When the last prisoners had been interviewed, then transported many miles away, Dr. Chase said, “This Ashley appears to be the real power behind the throne, Ben.”

“Yes. But who in the hell is he? Where does he live? No one seems to know.”

“They might be lyin’, Ben,” Ike said.

“I don’t get that impression. But I do get the feeling that everyone, including Big Louie, is very much afraid of this Ashley. But why?”

“And I get the impression that he knows you, Ben,” Ike said.

“Yeah. I picked up on that, too. But I don’t recall ever knowing anyone named Ashley. Wait a minute! Wait just a minute.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “No. Hell, no. It couldn’t be.”

“Something, Ben?” Lamar asked.

“Just for an instant, that name rang a little bell in my head. But it slipped away as quickly as it came. I

just don’t know anybody named Ashley. Of course, it might not be his real name.”

Outside, the rain picked up, slashing against the squad tent. “It’s supposed to clear out of here in a couple of days,” Ike said.

Ben nodded his head. “Was that woman right, Ike? Am I, are we, dreaming? Do we have any kind of a chance of restoring some normalcy to this nation?”

Ike, Lamar, Dan Gray, and James Riverson all stood silently for a moment. The rain and wind lashed at the tent. Ben looked at each man.

“Yes,” Ike finally said. “Not like it used to be. Never that; not in our lifetime. But, yes, Ben, we can do it. But we’re all going to be fighting for the rest of our lives to do it.”

Ben sighed. “Sometimes I get so discouraged.”

The flap of the tent was opened. A Rebel stepped in, the woman Tina and her team had rescued right behind him.

Ben stood up and smiled at the woman. “Miss. You look a lot better without that collar around your neck.”

“First time it’s been off in months,” she told him. “Are you planning on making war against Big Louie and his people?”

“Yes.”

“I wish to join your army, Ben Raines.”

“All right. But I’d like to know your name.”

“Denise. Denise Vista.”

That brought a smile to the lips of all the Rebels.

“Something amusing about my name?” Denise asked.

“Not at all, ma’am,” Ike said. “Vista was the name of the capital of the old Tri-States. Brought back a lot of memories, that’s all.”

“I see,” the woman said softly.

Denise was perhaps five-five, very nicely proportioned, and had dark brown hair, dark eyes, and an olive complexion.

A survivor, Ben thought. She’s tough. “Denise, what do you know about a man called Ashley?”

“Very little. I’ve seen him, two, no, three times. He’s tall, perhaps forty years old. Speaks with a heavy southern accent. He’s the real power behind Big Louie.”

“Where does he live?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know. It is whispered among the slaves that he has several homes, not all of them within the boundaries claimed by Big Louie. He is always armed, and always has many bodyguards with him.”

Ben shook his head. He felt like he should know this Ashley person, but could not put a face to the name. Perhaps it would come to him in time.

He was conscious of the woman’s eyes on him. Ben met her gaze. “A question, Miss Vista?”

“You don’t look like a god, general.”

Ben laughed. “I’m no god, Miss Vista. I’m just a very mortal man, with more than my share of the normal human weaknesses.”

“Not all gods take the same form, General Raines,” she said.

“I know little about gods, Miss Vista. So I almost never argue the subject.”

“I see,” she spoke softly, her voice just audible over the storm. “Well. Do you have any other questions for me, general?”

“Not at this time.”

“Where do I sleep?”

“The corporal there will show you to quarters, miss. Someone will check you out with weapons and outfit you with uniforms tomorrow. Good night, Miss Vista.”

“Good night, general.” She turned, stepping out into the rainy night, and was gone.

“Very attractive woman, Ben,” Dr. Chase said, a twinkle in his eyes and a slight smile on his lips. Chase knew Ben well and could see the stirring signs of interest within the man.

Ben turned, facing him. “Oh? Yes. I suppose so. I hadn’t really noticed.”

Ike laughed, winking at Dan. “Ben, I sure am glad you fight a whole lot better than you lie.”

The sounds of a slow-moving vehicle woke Buddy from a sound sleep. He slipped from his sleeping bag, pulled on his boots and laced them, then picked up his Thompson, easing it off safety. He crouched in the darkness of the carport, waiting.

The headlights of the car appeared, dimly at first, cutting through the heavy rain. The car slowed, then pulled into the drive. Buddy waited behind the wooden boxes, silent and unseen. And deadly.

Buddy watched through a small opening between the crates as two men got out of the car, both of them armed with M-16’s. They stood for a moment, outlined against the glare of headlights.

Not very professional of them, Buddy thought. How easy they would be to take.

But he waited, sensing that these men were not a part of the Rebels. From all he had heard, the Rebels were the most professional and well-trained army operating anywhere in the world.

“Long ways out,” one of the men said. “You reckon some of them goddamned Indians kidnapped them folks?”

“I can’t see that, Jack. We got them Injuns beat down to nothing. They so whipped out they near-abs ask permission to shit.”

“Some of them squaws got some fine pussy, though,” his partner said.

“Like a nigger; that’s all they good for.”

Racists, Buddy thought. But who are they and what do they represent? Or who do they represent?

“You got your flashlight?”

“Yeah.”

“You take the left side, I’ll take the right. Be careful; can’t see crap in all this rain.”

Buddy laid his SMG aside and silently pulled out his long-bladed hunting knife. The knife was a full fourteen inches long; a battle knife. The blade was honed to deadly sharpness. He carefully slipped out the rear of the carport, between the house and the utility room. He waited by the corner of the house.

The man who had taken the right side of the house appeared, ghostlike in the night storm, moving carefully, his weapon at combat ready.

Buddy gripped the handle of his knife, holding the blade against his leg to prevent any glint of light off the heavy blade.

The man stepped closer. Now he was muttering to himself, his words drifting out of the stormy air. “Fuckin’ Ben Raines and his Rebels. I hope they do try to pull some shit in here. I’ll cut that bastard’s head off and stick it up on a pole so’s people can see Raines ain’t so damn tough.”

Buddy stepped out and swung the heavy blade. The man’s head plopped wetly to the soaked ground. Blood arched from the severed neck, mingling with the torrents. The eyes were still open on the head, staring at nothing, seeing only darkness.

Buddy grabbed the body before it could hit the ground and possibly alert the other man. Quickly, Buddy laid the M-16 to one side and slipped next to

the house. He raised the bloody knife, waiting.

“Jack?” The voice came just a few feet from where Buddy was pressed against the house. “Jack? Can you hear me?”

Jack could not answer, and the questioner would never utter another word.

Buddy’s knife flashed in the rainy night. The blade struck the man on the back of his neck and came out just under the man’s chin. The head spun in the wet night and slopped to the ground, as blood squirted.

Buddy quickly took the men’s weapons and all their ammunition. He cut off the motor and headlights of the car and searched the vehicle. He found several days’ rations of food and took that to add to his own supply. He stood for a moment in the rain, oblivious to it, and listened, all his senses working hard.

He could not see, hear, nor sense anything that might alarm him.

Buddy searched the yard and found two long poles, almost identical in length. He went back to the bodies and recovered the heads, sticking one on each pole, then sinking the poles deep into the wet earth, about five feet apart. The bug-eyes open, the faces grimacing in that last hot moment of pain, the heads stared sightlessly from their height.

Returning to the car, Buddy found a pad and pen and wrote: Compliments of B.r.b. Now you have two of us to deal with. Have a nice day.

Buddy had wrapped the weapons up in his piece of canvas and secured them to his motorcycle with rope. He rode through the night before braking at an old rusted and warped road sign. Hiawatha 9.

Using the headlamp of his motorcycle, Buddy checked his maps. He was undecided as to which direction to take. He was very wary of this country he

was in; something was very wrong around here. But he wasn’t sure about it. Was this an area controlled by some warlord or self-styled king? Possibly, he thought. That would explain the hate he had heard in that man’s voice; the hate directed toward Ben Raines. For all knew Ben Raines could not and would not tolerate warlords and their oppressive measures.

Buddy smiled as the rain slicked his handsome face. He was sure that when those heads were found, probably around daylight, someone was going to want to do some headhunting of their own.

Buddy decided that the next house he came to, one that looked occupied, he’d just find out what was going on.

It was a man and a woman, both of them about Buddy’s age, he guessed. He squatted in the darkness of their bedroom and looked at the sleeping couple. He had silently, moving like a slight soundless breeze, inspected the house. It was empty except for the couple.

The man looked rough and mean, the woman looked-cheap, the word came to him. He really was not sure what that meant, but he’d read it in one of Ben Raines’s books. What always bothered him about it was, what does a cheap woman do to get that way?

Baffling. Perhaps he could ask Ben Raines about that someday.

He placed the muzzle of a .45 against the man’s cheek. The man opened his eyes as Buddy jacked back the hammer.

“Do you want your brains splattered all over your woman’s face?” Buddy asked, his voice low.

“I don’t want my brains splattered nowheres,” the

man whispered. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Your locks are silly. Awaken your woman and advise her if she wants to live, she will open her mouth only when I tell her to do so.”

“I’m awake,” the woman whispered. “My God, Gene! What’s goin’ on?”

“I reckon this fellow will tell us when he’s a mind to.”

“This part of the country,” Buddy said. “Is it controlled by a warlord? And tell me the truth if you want to live.”

“Big Louie runs it,” Gene said, his voice soft in the darkness of the bedroom. “I don’t know how in the hell you made it this far alive.”

“Big Louie. Ah!” He had heard his mother speak of Big Louie. They shared a common interest: They both like to burn people alive. “My father is close by. When he hears of Big Louie, I should imagine he will take the appropriate action. It would not be wise for either of you to remain. Unless, of course, you have a death wish.”

“Your father?” Gene said. “There ain’t nobody strong enough to come in here and push us out, boy.”

Buddy grinned. “Wanna bet?”

“Yore daddy mus’ think he’s a real war-hoss,” the woman whispered. “Who might he be?”

“Ben Raines.”

“Oh, Jesus God!” the woman gasped. “That can’t be. He’s “way to hell and gone out West.”

“Not anymore. He killed the mercenary, Sam Hartline, and defeated the Russian, Striganov. Do either of you know a man named Jack, who was on patrol tonight, a few miles east of here?”

“Yeah. We both know him. He lives a few miles on up this road. How do you know him?”

“I just killed him and his partner. I cut their heads

off and stuck them up on poles.”

The woman started squalling, jerking around on the bed. Gene grabbed her and shook her until she shut up.

“Ben Raines is your … father?” Gene asked.

“Yes. Now, the problem facing me is this: What to do with you two?”

“Mister,” Gene said. “You come into this house, movin” like a damn ghost. Afore that, you killed two of the best manhunters I ever knowed …”

Buddy kept his expression bland. He had seen Gene carelessly drop his right hand off the bed and onto the floor. The man must think I am a fool! Buddy thought.

“… and stuck their heads up on poles. You just give me and baby a chance, and we’ll clear this area faster than you can blink.”

The muscles in Gene’s right arm bunched slightly. Probably, Buddy thought, as his hand closed around the butt of a weapon. Buddy had removed the muzzle of the .45 from the man’s cheek when the woman had begun hollering and jerking around. The muzzle was now only a few inches from Gene’s side. Buddy waited.

“Yeah,” the woman said. “We be gone faster than you can kiss a duck.”

“I have absolutely no intention of ever kissing a duck,” Buddy informed her.

“Well, then, partner,” Gene said. “Kiss this!”

Before Gene could lift the pistol off the carpet, Buddy’s .45 had barked three times, the booming loud in the quiet, night-filled house. The force of the heavy slugs turned the man slightly to one side, blowing a large hole in his side. Gene flopped on the bed as one bloody arm was flung across the woman’s bare stomach.

With a scream of fear and rage, the woman lunged at Buddy. Buddy whapped her on the side of the head with the heavy .45. The woman dropped like a stone, not unconscious, but addled.

Moving swiftly, Buddy rolled the woman up in a blanket and tied it cocoon-like around her, using strips of torn sheet.

She was fully conscious now, looking at the young man. “Now what?” she asked.

“Be silent. I am thinking.”

“This is awful uncomfortable. You tied it too tight.”

“We all have our little difficulties to bear throughout life.”

The woman called him a number of very uncomplimentary names.

Buddy waited until she paused for breath and said, “However, if you feel your present dilemma is too great a burden, I can fix it.”

“How, you asshole!”

Buddy lifted the .45 and smiled.

She shut her mouth and silently stared at him.

“Did your man hold a position in the warlord’s army?”

She nodded her head.

“What rank?”

“Company commander.”

“He was close to Big Louie?”

“Nobody is close to Big Louie. Nobody exceptin’ Ashley.”

“Where is this Ashley person?”

“Your guess is as good as mine about that, handsome.”

Buddy ignored the “handsome” bit. He knew what was on the woman’s mind: Survival. He made a quick but thorough search of the house, finding

detailed plans on what unit was to go where in case of attack from the outside. He discovered a map showing all heavy gun positions.

A slight noise turned him around.

The woman had struggled out of her bonds and was standing in a doorway, pointing a pistol at him.

“Ben Raines’s son, huh?” she said, a smirk on her lips. “I think Big Louie will look favorably on me for this.”

“Providing you can get me to him.”

“Oh, I’ll get you to him. Even if I have to shoot both legs out from under you.”

Buddy hurled himself to one side just as the pistol in her hand started cracking. Chapter 8

Ben came awake with a start, his heart pounding, sweat bathing him. He looked around the big squad tent. It was empty.

What had awakened him?

He didn’t know.

Ben lay on his camp bed, listening. He could hear nothing alien in the night. The rain had lessened somewhat. Where it had been pouring down in torrents, now it was only a quiet pattering on the canvas.

Silently, he slipped from his bed and dressed, pulling on his boots and lacing them. He picked up his Thompson and moved to the flap opening, pushing it aside and stepping out.

He stood for a moment, smelling the clean, fresh-washed earth as the light drizzle bathed his face, waking him fully.

He felt better, but that feeling of alarm was still with him.

Movement to his right turned his head. He watched as his daughter, Tina, walked toward him.

“Couldn’t sleep, Dad?” she asked.

“Something woke me. Something strange. I don’t know what it was, or is. You?”

“Something woke me,” she admitted. “Like you, I don’t know what.”

“Let’s walk to the communications truck,” Ben suggested. He looked at his watch. Four o’clock. Time to get up anyway. A natural dawning, at least. If anything good ever came out of a worldwide disaster such as the survivors had experienced, it was the return of God’s time; void of man’s fiddling with it, called daylight savings.

The Rebel on duty looked up as Ben and Tina entered. “Just talked with Base Camp One, general. Storm’s gone and the stars are out. The birds will be flying today. They’ll bring all the equipment we asked for.”

“Good! Have you found Big Louie’s radio frequency yet?”

“Yes, sir. Just the usual radio chatter. Nothing much happening in there.”

“Stay with it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Outside, Ben waited while Tina got them cups of hot tea, and then father and daughter sipped and talked in the pre-dawn darkness.

“I never placed much credence in the supernatural, Dad. If supernatural is the right choice of words. But I awakened with the oddest feeling.”

“What kind of feeling, Tina?”

“Like, well, a part of me is … How do I say this? It was a feeling of danger, Dad. But the danger was not for me. Does that make any sense to you at all?”

“Yes. Yes, that was the sensation I experienced at waking. What do you think it means?”

“The report that your son is on his way out here,

Dad. Is he your son, Dad?”

Ben sighed. “Tina, I just don’t know. It’s certainly possible. I remember the woman. I remember the party and what happened afterward. It’s certainly feasible that the young man is my son. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

She grinned up at him. “God, but I bet you were a randy bastard!”

“Watch your mouth, girl,” Ben said with a smile. “You’re not too big to spank.”

Laughing, Tina tossed him a mock salute and walked away into the darkness.

Ben stood for a time, alone in the mist and the ink of that time just prior to the first silver fingers of dawning.

Are you my son? Ben projected his thoughts through the dark. Are you out there? And are you in trouble?

The woman screamed and pulled the trigger again. Buddy felt a lance of pain rip his leg, followed by a warm rush of blood. Buddy rolled, banged against a wall, and came up with a .45 in his hand.

The woman yelled at him and pulled the trigger. The slug struck the wall close to Buddy’s head. He leveled the .45 and triggered off two quick rounds. The woman grunted and dropped her pistol. Cocked, it discharged when it hit the floor, the slug striking the woman just under the chin, traveling upward, through her head, and exiting out the top of her skull.

She fell to the floor, trembled for a few seconds, then was still.

Buddy limped to a window and looked out. The rain had stopped, only a very light mist now falling.

He waited for a full sixty count. No headlights appeared; no shouts of alarm cut the night. Turning away from the window, leaving the house dark, Buddy found the bathroom, closed the door, and switched on the lights. The explosion of light startled him. He was not accustomed to electric lights. They were so bright.

He fumbled in the medicine cabinet and found iodine and bandages. Removing his trousers, Buddy inspected the wound. Not too bad. The slug had taken a chunk of flesh from his upper thigh, then traveled on. Buddy bathed the wound in water, then gritted his strong, even teeth as he poured iodine onto the wound. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and carefully bandaged the wound. He pulled his trousers back on and took the bottle of iodine and fresh bandages. He turned off the lights in the bathroom, stood for a moment in the darkness, allowing his eyes to adjust, then stepped out into the hall.

The house reeked of blood and death.

Buddy made another search of the house, looking for anything that might shed more light on Big Louie and his forces. He could find nothing to add to what he’d already found.

He did find several hundred rounds of .45 caliber ammunition, in clear plastic bags. He took those. He had spotted a Jeep parked by the side of the house, and even though he hated to part with his motorcycle, the Jeep would afford him a bit more protection and, with its four-wheel capabilities, could take him through places where the bike might bog down.

He looked at the woman, sitting on the hall floor, her legs spread obscenely wide, her nightgown hiked up to her waist, two bullet holes in her chest. Her eyes were open, staring wide in death.

Buddy walked into the bedroom, to stand over the

blood-soaked bed. He turned away and walked out of the house to the Jeep. There, he transferred all his gear from the motorcycle and covered it with a cammo tarp he had found folded in a utility room.

The Jeep started at the first try, the engine running smoothly. The gas tank was full, and there were two five-gallon gas cans secured on the rear of the Jeep. Letting the motor warm up, Buddy checked the spare gas cans. Full. Walking back to the drivers’ side, Buddy glanced into the back seat; one final check before pulling out. There was a knapsack on the floorboards. He checked it. Heavy with spare clips and ammo for an M-16 and eight or ten grenades.

“Well, now,” Buddy said, smiling in the misty night. “The odds are improving in my favor.”

He loaded the M-16’s he’d taken from the headless men and laid them within easy reach. He backed out of the drive and looked up at the sky. It would be breaking dawn very soon. Best to hunt a hole right now.

Buddy clicked on the radio mounted under the dash of the Jeep and began searching the bands. He heard chatter that was almost military, except that they used nicknames. He knew that was not any of Raines’s Rebels. He carefully searched the frequencies.

He smiled as he heard, “Recon four to Eagle base.”

He knew that General Ben Raines was often referred to as the Eagle.

“Go, Recon four.”

“We’re between Delaven and Wilsey. Have secured a portion of Fifty-six for an LZ. Please advise the general.”

“Ten-four, Recon. Will do. Eagle base clear.”

Buddy checked his old and well-creased road map. He was well north and some east of that area. And

from the communications just overheard, General Raines was some distance from the just secured landing zone. But where? North, south, or west of it? Not east of it, for that would put the general inside of Big Louie’s claimed territory.

Buddy reached around behind him and took out two grenades from the knapsack, laying them on the seat beside him. He had made up his mind. There was a lake just west and south of his present position. He could make it before dawn. He’d go there and rest and hide; listen to the radio. When General Raines arrived at the LZ, Buddy would know.

The young man had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his mouth was dry just thinking about meeting General Raines. He would not deny the truth: He was afraid of Ben Raines. Most people he had ever talked with about Ben Raines admitted that they, too, were afraid of him.

Buddy had fought outlaws, warlords, crazed people, and mutants. He had killed many times in defense of his life. He had, of course, known fear many times.

But not this kind of fear. This kind of fear was different.

Buddy put the Jeep in gear and pulled out, glancing once more up at the sky. It looked like the dawn was going to bring a beautiful day.

The feelings that both Ben and Tina had awakened with had vanished, both of them experiencing the lifting of tensions just about dawn. Although they were not together at the time, each knew.

The old prop-job planes from Base Camp One had left at five o’clock, their time. They should be landing, barring any unforeseen difficulties, late that afternoon.

Ben gathered all his commanders in his big tent, around a table, a map of the area spread out.

“As usual,” Ben said, “we’re going to be spread thin. If we had more people, it would be a very simple matter to destroy this Big Louie. We’d just put him in a box and squeeze it tight. But we can’t do that. But what we can do is terrorize those living in his territory; those who willingly accept and take part in the slavery and torture. And from all the intel we’ve received, that is just about everybody. We’re going to hit and burn and run, freeing all slaves as we do so.

“This Big Louie has very thin control of the area south of Highway Fifty-four. The people we talked with say Louie’s people are struggling to get a toehold in that part of the state. Dan has teams in that area now, quietly talking to the people and raising a little hell with Big Louie’s people. The survivors are joining our ranks. I’m giving command of that area to Tina; she’ll be leaving as soon as the planes arrive and she and her people can resupply.”

Dan nodded his head in agreement. “She’s earned her command, general.”

The others gathered around nodded their heads in accord.

“Dan,” Ben said. “You and your group will work north from Highway Fifty-four. In a curve. Run your teams from Iola east to the Missouri line, then curve your eastern groups north and work them westerly.”

Dan studied his map for a moment, marking in his perimeters.

“We’re going to have to cache supplies inside enemy territory. Where you put them is your business. We obviously can’t carry enough on our backs for a sustained operation. Ike, as soon as you and your

people get resupplied, take off north, to the Nebraska line. When you get my word to jump off, strike south. Everybody stay well clear of Kansas City.

“I’m spreading my people along the old Kansas Turnpike and pushing eastward. We’re leaving them lots of holes to escape; that’s fine. I don’t give a damn if they all run. Chances are they’ll never regroup. But one thing for certain: We have to kill Big Louie and this Ashley person. That’s it, gang. Now all we have to do is wait for the planes.”

“General Khamsin. Many planes have taken off from the Rebels’ Base Camp.”

“Heading in which direction?”

“West, sir.”

“Heavily laden?”

“They appear so, sir.”

“Resupplying General Raines out West. He’s found him another windmill to tilt. Did General Jefferys leave with the planes?”

“No, sir. No troops left.” “Damn!” Khamsin hit the desktop with a balled fist. He was thoughtful for a moment. Then he sighed and shook his head. He swiveled his chair and gazed out the window for a moment. Without turning around, he asked, “What is our latest estimate on the Rebels in North Georgia?”

“An estimate is all it would be, general. There are new arrivals daily. And General Jefferys keeps shifting his troops around, making it impossible for us to tally them.”

“Your best estimate, then.”

“Between two thousand and forty-five hundred.”

“And here I sit with my divisions,” Khamsin said,

a bitterness in his voice.

“The men will follow The Hot Wind, sir.”

The wind blows hot from hell, too, Khamsin thought. He rose from his chair and walked to a large map. He leaned closer and peered intently at several spots along the Savannah River. “Gather your best, your very best assault troops. Start them infiltrating into Georgia. Very small teams, carrying as much high explosives as they can. Have them spread out, east to west, all across the top third of the state, staying south of this highway.” He tapped the long line indicating Interstate 20. “Move the teams out one hour apart and start them immediately. In seventy-two hours, and if they’re careful, it will take that long for the plan to be discovered by Rebel intelligence, I can have a thousand troops in Georgia. Tell them to seize transportation from civilians. Kill the civilian men, of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “And the woman and children, too, if they present much of a problem. Every twenty hours, double the size of the teams.” He began pacing the room, growing excited with his plan. “Yes. Yes. Not one thousand men in seventy-two hours, but five thousand men.” He looked at his XO. An intense, fanatical light was shining in Khamsin’s eyes.

The XO waited.

“Perhaps,” Khamsin said, “if Allah smiles upon us, when Ben Raines returns from his adventures in the West, he will find his precious Base Camp One nothing more than smoking ruins and his so-called undefeatable army in headlong retreat, panic and fear in their eyes, and their women here!” He thumped his desk. “Toys for our loyal troops to play with at their leisure.”

Khamsin rang for coffee.

The dark bitter coffee poured, Khamsin lifted his

cup. “To victory!”

The general and his XO toasted.

A bit prematurely, some might say, for they were forgetting a number of very important things.

Like about three thousand Rebel troops, under the command of one Cecil Jefferys. Chapter 9

“What’s wrong?” Cecil asked the radio operator.

“Sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” the Rebel communications officer said, “but I wanted you to hear this.”

Cecil listened. “I don’t hear a thing.”

“That’s right, sir. Nothing. I just scanned all the frequencies The Hot Fart uses …”

“I believe that’s The Hot Wind, lieutenant,” Cecil said with a smile.

“Yes, sir. Hot Wind, hot shit, whatever. He’s still a lump of camel turd. But the silence is what bothers me, general. All of a sudden, about two hours ago, all the chatter stopped. I mean, there is nothing being said.”

“And you’ve been searching the bands ever since?”

“Yes, sir. Total dead silence.”

“Is the equipment working properly?”

“Yes, sir. I called the engineer in and had her check it. Then we contacted several of our long range recon patrols; one of them up in Ohio. Everything is five by five, general.”

“I think The Hot Wind just blew out whatever surprise he might have had in store for us, lieutenant.”

He turned to a runner. “Get the XO over here, right now!”

“Yes, sir!”

“What do you think it is, sir?”

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it isn’t good news for us. I’m very glad you picked up on this, lieutenant. Go to Code C and tell any patrols close to home base to get back in here, pronto.”

His XO at his side, Cecil said, “Everybody up, Joe. Red alert. But keep the hustle and bustle down to a minimum and no talking about it. Mark and his brother, Alvaro?”

“They’ve got their people down near the Interstate, general. Just east of the Oconee National Forest.”

“I don’t want any unnecessary chatter on the air, Joe. Send a light plane down to their camp. Advise them that Khamsin is up to something. What, we don’t know. Yet. Tell them to go to full alert. But do it quietly.”

“Yes, sir.”

Many of the Rebel company commanders had gathered around the two men, standing quietly, listening.

Cecil looked at them, then briefed them. “Get your people together, but do it easy. Quickly, but calmly. Full battle gear, five days’ rations. Get your people ready.”

The CO’S saluted and left.

Back in his command post, with his senior commanders around him, Cecil stood and stared at a large wall map.

“If I were the Libyan,” he said, “I would hit us full force. He’s got thousands of combat-ready troops; he could overwhelm us with numbers. It’s amazing to me that he hasn’t already done it. For some reason, he’s very hesitant. But then I have to consider that

Khamsin was schooled as a terrorist; Abu’s student and his best. And because he is basically a terrorist, that makes him several things. A fanatic in his mind, totally ruthless, and a coward at heart. The troops he has is all he’s got … right now. So Khamsin is not going to personally die for Allah. Not if he can help it. But he will send a couple of thousand to their deaths, in order to gain … what? A toehold? Yes. Certainly. But where? And using what methods?”

Cecil stepped back from the map and sat down at his desk. “A few thousand men, slipped into our area in very small teams, to be used as … sappers!”

Colonel Williams looked at Cecil. “Like “Nam, general?”

“Yeah,” Cecil said. “But more than sappers, Joe. Men schooled in the art of sabotage. There are no communications lines to cut-not anymore. So their mission would be multiple. Terror, sure. But more than that. They’d be good troops. Some of, if not, his best. If they could get inside our territory, we’d have a full-scale guerrilla war on our hands.”

“And if Khamsin’s troops could establish a front,” Joe said, “it would be only a matter of time before his main forces would roll right over us. Like the Tri-States,” he added softly. Joe had been a company commander back in those days, gradually climbing the rank ladder to become second in command of the eastern-based Rebels. Joe was a good solid soldier, one hundred percent loyal to Ben Raines, Ike McGowan, and Cecil Jefferys.

“Yeah,” Cecil said. “Like the Tri-States, Joe.”

The planes were, at first, only tiny dots in the blue sky. Then they took shape, did a fly-by of the LZ, and began setting down on the old highway.

Ben shook hands with the pilot of the first plane down. “How are things back at Base One?” he asked.

“Well, general, they were fine when we left. But the last communication we received was, well, odd.”

“Odd, how?”

“General Jefferys came on the horn. Said a front was moving in, probably from the south. Advised us to stay out here. Said the old birds were too valuable to risk getting caught up in a hailstorm. General Raines, I checked the weather shack just before leaving. There are no systems anywhere back East. And there sure as hell isn’t any hail.”

“Khamsin is making a move, Ben,” Ike said. “Cec isn’t sure where or how; that’s why he said ‘probably from the south.” his

“And the hail is lead,” Ben said. “What else did he say?” he asked the pilot.

“Well, odd again, sir. He said due to wind disturbances, communications would be difficult. Hell, sir. There was no wind when we took off. It was dead calm.”

“The Hot Wind,” Ben said. “Get unloaded,” he told the gathering knot of pilots. “Come on, Ike.”

They walked to a communications van. The engineer had just finished rigging an antenna. “Can you get through to Base Camp One?” Ben asked.

“Yes, sir. No sweat.” In half a minute, he had contacted the Rebels in Georgia. “Stand by for traffic from the Eagle.”

Seventy miles away, straight north, Buddy laid by his Jeep, tucked away in a clump of trees, and listened.

Ben took the mike. “This is the Eagle. Get me the Hawk.”

The Hawk must be General Jefferys, Buddy thought.

Cecil came on the horn. “Afternoon, Ben,” he said cheerfully. “How’s the weather out there?”

“Very nice, Cec. I hear you have a slight problem with the wind out there. That right?”

“Definitely picking up, Ben. The temperature, too.”

The Hot Wind.

“Well, Cec, I guess all you can do is plug up any holes in the buildings.”

“That’s about it, Ben. Oh, I think we’ll ride out the storm. I believe a surprise party was initially planned for me, but I got wind of it. I guess that blew the surprise.”

Ben and Ike smiled. “Yeah, I hate to hear that, Cec. I forgot about your birthday.”

“Yeah, me, too. Ben. But they’re giving me my present anyway. Someone found an unopened carton of Camels.”

Ike laughed aloud.

“They could be bad for your health, Cec.”

“That’s what I keep hearing. But I’ve got a carton of Luckies in reserve, just in case.”

This time, it was Ben who laughed. “I heard that, Cec.”

“What in the hell are they talking about?” Buddy said aloud.

“Don’t hurt yourself blowing out all those candles, Cec,” Ben said.

“I shall do my best not to, Ben.”

“If you don’t need the birds back, Cec, I’d like to keep them out here.”

“I think that would be best, Ben. You might need them. You take care, Ben.”

“Same to you, Cec.”

“He doesn’t sound too worried,” Ike said. “Of course, I never knew him when he sounded worried about anything!”

“If he needs help, he’ll holler. That’s why he told the pilots to stay here. With these planes, we can jump in a battalion back home, if it comes to that.” Ben was silent for a few seconds, his brow wrinkled in thought. He turned to James Riverson. “James, break out all those chutes we used back in California. Have the riggers unfold, stretch, and dry them. Then repack.” He looked at Ike. “If Cec calls, Ike, you and your people will fly back and jump in. Understood?”

“Right, Ben. But that’s going to leave the north wide open.”

“Can’t be helped. For the time being, if we can push Big Louie and his assholes north of Interstate Seventy, it’ll have to do. And we may lose Base Camp One. I won’t risk destroying everything we’ve managed to accomplish for a piece of ground. Not when the entire nation is open to us.”

“I wasn’t going to bring that up. I hoped you would.”

“Cecil feels the same way, Ike. Besides, he has sealed orders he’ll open if conditions warrant that. We’ll move into Louisiana. I’ve had a small team in that area for over a year.”